PHILOSOPHY

2010-09-09T13:28:00.001-07:00

Verse One

Rising even above knowledge, what
within the form
Of the one who knows, as equally
without, radiant shines,
To that Core, with eyes five restrained
within,
Again and again prostrating in adoration,
one should chant.

The inquiry begins with the "I" consciousness, which seems to be the core of the consciousness within one's physical being and also the point of reference with which everything outside is related for one's awareness of the external world.  The same core is also to be seen as the all-pervading stuff of pure consciousness which is indivisible and yet is the only content of all this is objectively and subjectively visualized.

The core of consciousness is like a light which illuminates both the inside and outside.  Everything that is experienced in the objective world has a correspondence with what is experienced in the subjective world, even though the converse of it is not true.

There is a vertical ascent from all relative forms of knowledge to arrive finally at a state of realization.  The external world is related to the sense organs, and they have their subjective counterparts in the sense impressions.  The subjective counterpart, however, has other aspects other than the mere production of copies of replicas of the external world.  This is to be dealt with later.

This verse summarizes the attitude of a Guru who teaches by his Word.  A person who wants to teach with words has to retain his personal ego as a point of reference.  At the same time, what he has to teach is that which goes beyond all knowledge.  So he also has to surrender his ego to the Self that is shining within him as the Guru.  He has to continuously surrender and with an attitude of eternal reverence pay homage to the Supreme.  Here the Guru does not claim that he is teaching.  His word is representing the revelation of the Supreme.

The supreme truth is not the product of ratiocination.  It is perennial and it's validity is independent of the man through whom it is revealed.  That is why the Guru here us the term "chant."

Verse Two

The inner organ, the senses, and counting
from the body
The many worlds we know are all,
on thought, the sacred form
Of the Supreme Sun risen in the void
beyond;
By relentless cogitation, one should
attain to this.

Western physiology and psychology think of knowledge as something that registers on the mind from the external world.  According to this verse, knowledge begins with a selective and subjective structuring.  The last in the series is the external world.

All knowledge begins with the four-fold inner organ.  The four aspects of the inner organ are:
1. Manas, which is the interrogating or inquiring aspect of consciousness.
2. Citta, which is that aspect of consciousness that memorizes and recalls.
3. Buddhi, which is the aspect of consciousness that judges and arrives at certitude.
4. Ahamkara, which is the ego factor that is affected positively or negatively or neutrally.  The sense organs do not operate unless they are commissioned by the inner organ.  Then alone comes the world of external objects and the various universes of interest.

The human mind traverses from one universe of interest to another.  Guru takes the analogy of the light that becomes identical with the forms of things it illuminates as analogous with the one Supreme Consciousness, which is seen as apparently transforming itself into the several forms of itself.  At night we see only a dark world o outside with no light to illuminate it.  When sunlight comes we see clearly the hills and maybe a lake, and boats and trees.  That does not mean that the sun produced the hills or water or boat.  They do not have any light to shine by themselves - the sun illuminates them.

In other words, what we see as the sky and hills and lake is nothing but light, identified with the colors and shapes of all these particular things.  It is the one light that shines on all these.  The external light that falls on a tree enables an eye to see the tree.  Though we think that we are seeing the tree, we actually see only a visual image falling on our eye that is none other than the sunlight that is reflected by the tree.  This is a case of the light transforming into an object.  What is the sun in the physical sky is the Self shining by its own light in the void of consciousness.

Verse Three

These phenomenal aspects five, such
as the sky,
When as emergent from outside is here
seen to be,
By contemplation one should bring to
non-difference,
As the sea is to the waves that rise
in rows thereon.

What is hinted at in the previous verse is made more explicit in this verse in which everything seen as external is pointed out ad a projection in psychological time and space.  Physical space and time and the objectivity of things are assumptions, and the only fact of which we are sure is our subjective impressions, which are at best only mental images and abstracted language symbols.

2010-07-20T04:16:00.000-07:00

Verse Six (Draft)

dhanuh pauspam mauve madhukaramayi panca visikha
vasantah samanto malaya marud ayodhanarathah
tathapya ekah sarvam himagiri sute kam api krpam
apangat te labdhva jagat idam anango vijayate

O Daughter of the Snowy Peak, just deriving from your
glance askance whatsoever grace he could,
With flowery bow and bumblebee string,
and five-flowered dart and springtide for minister,
All these as one withal, mounting the chariot
of the mountain breeze, he victorious reigns, the god of love.

Beauty is experienced in the mind. The object may be situated in space-time, but the value, "ananda" is experienced within a person. The mind is, therefore, the focus of contemplation. The mind has been studied for many thousands of years, and yet its mysteries are not fully understood. One type of study focuses on the healthy state of mind and the yogis and wise individuals are sought as exemplars of high mindedness. Another kind of study looks at people who are suffering from disease and their minds are studied and the cause of their illness is diagnosed.

In the Saundarya Lahari, we are introduced to a very highly developed aesthetic of an elevated state of profound beauty. The mind is like a mirror, reflecting both the world experienced outside and the thoughts and feelings within. The inward value that is experienced is the same for all individuals, but the external causes can be different. This can cause confusion and conflict as people wrongly thing that they are appreciating different things. Yes and No. There is variety in the object of appreciation, but unity in the inward appreciation of value.

Keats famously declared that a thing of beauty is a joy forever. Eternity is inexhaustible beauty - a wonder that never ceases. Where is beauty to be found? In the eye of the beholder, say the poets.

Unlike a physical mirror which remains unchanged while reflecting the surroundings, the mind, with its basis in consciousness, is a medium, a thinking substance, that transforms into its reflection. Vrittis, or modulations of the mind, assume the form of the subject and the object. A common analogy is that of amorphous clay becoming a pot or a cup. Once the form is assumed, the features of form so impresses the mind that it looses its ability to discern the universal "stuff" which has no specificity. So the flexible mind can change into any word formation or emotion without loosing it's intrinsic nature. The rigid mind is forced to keep itself from changing, and this inflexibility becomes it's own prison.

When a form has a certain sensibility, it looks beautiful. In this verse Daughter of the Snowy Peak refers to Parvati. She is the daughter of "parvata", the mountain. We find references in Indian mythology to the feminine connection with the earth. Sita of the Ramayana is born in a furrow and eventually returns to the earth. Here the Universal Goddess is identified with Parvati. The second reference is to Kama, the god of love. Kamadeva needs the side glance of the Goddess in order to be able to function.

The god of love mentioned here is an elemental spirit, closer to nature, the forces of which he needs to accomplish his influence. But the powers of nature are not enough by themselves, he needs the grace of the Universal Mother in order to be able to function. She grants him this grace by a side glance, which is enough, even though it is much inferior to a full glance.

Here is love portrayed in its healthy and divine expression. The energy of the spring season brings great delight to the human heart. The sweet call of birds, the cool refreshing breezes, the fragrance of flowers have a slightly intoxicating effect. This is just the occasion thay the god of love is looking for to shoot his flowery arrows. Thus the factor of occasionalism is very important for the success of Kamadeva.

His bow is also made of flowers, and the bowstring is made of a row of bees. There is a drop of nectar in every flower which the bee seeks. The bees fly back and forth, with a buzzing sound, very much like the twang of a bowstring as it is pulled back and released.

The five-flowered arrow cannot cause any physical injury, but they make people fall madly in love. This is a 'wound ' with a peculiar agony, and paradoxically solace only comes from the very source that caused the wound in the first place.

The poets Kalidasa and Jayadeva are masters at describing the mental and physical state of lovers as they go through the pangs and ecstasy of their relationships.

Poetry offers us a medium to express the subtler aspects of the mind in a symbolic language which has a deeper meaning than prose. To be able to perceive the deeper structure of language and associate words with their truer meanings is the gift of the poet. The poet, like other artists, is therefore able to see much more than a non-poet. This insight is arrived at by deep pondering and penetration.

Some Notes from "The Living Goddesses" by Maria Gimbutas

In Neolithic Europe and Asia Minor (ancient Anatolia) in the era between 7000 BC and 3000 BC religion focused on the wheel of life and it's cyclical turning. This is the geographic sphere and the time frame I refer to as Old Europe. In Old Europe, the focus of religion encompassed birth, nurturing, growth, death,and regeneration, as well as crop cultivation and the raising of animals. The people of this era pondered untamed natural forcers, as well as wild plant and animal cycles, and they worshiped goddesses, or a goddess, in many forms. The goddess manifested her countless forms during various cyclical phases to ensure that they functioned smoothly. She revealed herself in multiple ways through the myriad facets of life, and she is depicted in a very complex symbolism.

First I will explore these forms in detail, looking mainly at goddess figures, and then I will unravel their meaning. The images of the goddess can be loosely categorized under her aspect of life giving and sustaining, death, and renewal. Although male energy also motivated regeneration and life stimulation, in both the plant and animal worlds, it was the feminine force that pervaded existence.

The human body constituted one of Old Europe's most powerful symbols. As a result of modern cultural programming, we often associate nakedness with sexual enticement. The modern analyst naturally projects these attitudes back thousands of years and assumes that ancient depictions of the body served basically the same purpose.

Writing grew out of religious symbols and signs. Humans have been communicating by means of symbols for a very long time. Abstract signs emerge in the Lower Paleolithic Acheulin and Mousterian periods ( from circa 300,000 to 100,000 bc)

The scandanavian magician priestess known as Thor Volva had a council of nine wise women.

In some areas like Minoan Crete and the Agean Islands a completely theacentric, gynocentric civilization and religion endured through the first half of the second millennium bc.

Krishna tends to Radha's feet

2010-06-30T12:10:00.000-07:00

Saundaryan Lahari Verse 5

haris tram aradhya pranata saubhagya jananim
pura nari bhutva pura ripum api ksobham anayat
smaro'pi tvam natva rati nayana lehyena vapusa
muninam apy antah prabhavatim mohaya mahatam

O Great Mother, once the great Mahavisnu, having
worshipped you (well known as the bestower of happiness on all those who are devoted to you),
changed himself into a woman of exquisite beauty.
He caused agitation even in the mind of the great Siva,
well known for his restraint as the burner of the three cities.
Kama, the god of love, whose body is invisible,
smears his erotic enjoyability on those whom he chooses;
they are licked by the goddess of erotics and thereby
confusion is caused, even in the minds of the great sages
who are well established in their meditations.

Commentary

The Universal Mother is praised here as the bestower of blessings on those who worship her. There are two other references: one to the myth of the Churning of the Milk ocean and the other to Kamadeva, the God of Love.

The Churning of the Milk ocean by the Devas and the Asuras produced the pot of the elixir of immortality. In Kalidasa's poem "Kumarasambhava", Siva burns Kama, the god of love, to ashes. Moved by the laments of Kama's consort Rati, the Goddess allows Kama to exist in a bodiless form. This has reference to the effect of love on a person, which like hunger has no particular location and can suddenly afflict a person. Kama is also known as Smara, which means memory, and Siva is also known as Smarahara, the destroyer of Smara. Memory preserves the continuity of our experience, but becomes an obstacle when we want to experience universal consciousness.

The Milk Ocean is the abode of Visnu and the realm of all specific values. Both the Devas and the Asuras, the bright and dark forces, are vying with one another for immortality and supremacy over life. Brahma the creator advised them to churn the ocean of life to gain the elixir of immortality. As the churning could not be done by any group separately, it was agreed as a joint venture. The great Mount Mandara was used as the churning rod. The beginningless ocean also has no bottom. Therefore it became necessary to find a ground for the churning rod to rest upon. Visnu being the preserver changed into a turtle and provided that ground. The rope used for churning was none other than the great serpent Ananta, endless time. The Devas held the tail and the Asuras held the head of the serpent.

As a result of the churning, fourteen precious things appeared one after the other: the celestial white elephant, airavata; the mace, gada; the parijata tree, kaumodaki; the white horse, uccaissravas; the desire-granting cow, kamadhenu; the conch shell, sankha; the crescent moon, candra; goddess of grace and abundance, Laksmi; the great bow, dhanuh; virgin of the stars, Astreya, the jewel of great luster, kasutubha; the celestial nymph of great beauty, Rambha; and finally the god of medicine, Dhanvantri, bearing a pot with the elixir of immortality, amrta.

The churning agitated the snake Ananta and it vomited the world poison, kalakuta. This terrified the Devas and the Asuras. To calm their fears Siva drank the poison and saved the world. Henceforth his neck turned blue because of the poison and he came to be known as Nilakantha, the Blue-Throated.

The Asuras snatched the pot of elixir from the god Dhanvantri and ran away. The Devas did not want the Asuras to become immortal by partaking of the amrta, elixir of immortality. Vishnu turned to the Universal Mother with devotion and appealed for help. By Her grace he was able to transform himself into the very incarnation of beauty named Mohini, the grand seductress. On seeing her charming form, the Asura who had snatched the pot of elixir gladly handed it over and thus the Devas were able to retrieve the amrta.

In this verse Siva is recalling the beautiful form of Vishnu when he had assumed the form of Mohini, the grand seductress, and wants to see that form again. This is referred to as Vishnu causing agitation to Siva.

According to Joseph Campbell, the function of mythology is to waken and maintain in the individual a sense of wonder and participation in the mystery of this finally inscrutable universe.

In this verse we come closer to the subject matter of the Saundarya Lahari which is erotic mysticism. Erotic mysticism is well developed in classical Indian culture. The ancient grassroot traditions existing from pre-Vedic times on the soil of India, worshipped the Goddess. From Babylonia to Egypt, from Crete to the Indus Valley Civilization, we find evidence of Goddess worship through numerous archeological discoveries. Classical Indian culture absorbed the ancient goddess into their culture. This is a very different history from the suppression of the goddess in Medieval European society. The earlier Pagan religions viewed Nature as a theophany, a manifestation of divinity, not a 'fallen' creation of the Creator. The Pagans recognized the female divine principle, called Goddess, with a capital G as well as, or instead of, the male divine principle, god. European Pagan culture also has elements of erotic mysticism but the unfortunate events during Medieval times virtually destroyed it. The rejection of the feminine in favor of the masculine godhead led to a radical shift in the culture and progess of Europe. The witch hunts of the 16th and 17th centuries across Europe finally decimated the grassroot goddess cultures and brutally replaced it with a rationally male mode of thought. The prudery of religion in modern times has alienated human beings from some of their basic biological urges. Among thinkers it was Rousseau who considered human beings to be naturally good, and blamed society as a corrupting influence

Religious doctrines that discredit the value of nature do a great disservice to the dialectical relationship between man and woman. When nature is somehow considered 'inferior' to god, who is turn is thought of as male, the relationship between man and woman becomes lopsided.

Among the great culture creating civilization of the ancient world we have the Egyptian, the Indian, the Greek and the Chinese. These civilizations have vanished, but they have left their imprints in the consciousness of humanity. Modernism has developed in Europe and America and its progress has been fueled by the discovery and utilization of fossil fuels along with scientific and technological developments.

Classical Indian culture excelled in erotic mysticism. The epic Mahabharata has many stories of spontaneous eroticism narrated with honesty. Both dance forms and temple iconography, depicted the gods and goddesses with anabashed eroticism. Classical Indian culture recognized the intrinsic unity of truth, goodness and beauty - satyam, sivam, sundaram. Erotics, srngararasa, is considered to be the most superior and is placed highest amongst the nine aesthetic moods, navarasas. Classical dance and iconographical representations mirror each other, one is fluid and the other frozen -- still images of a dancer's continuous movement -- moments of eternal flux captured in space-time. A talented artist liberates the latent energy of form into freedom through the medium of delightful expression.

Greek culture on the other hand, developed tragedy out of the proto-tragic dithyrambs. The tragic plays of Aeschylus were witnessed by the public who experienced a cathartic release of their suppressed pain and suffering. The emotion release that tragedy provided gave the audience relief from their stress, hardship and privation. Early cinema of the 1940s and 1950s often depicted tragedy. Vittorio De Sica's neorealistic films as well as some early Indian cinema often depicted the reality of life as a tragedy. Shakespeare was deeply influenced by Greek tragedy to write his own tragedies in Elizabethan England. Literature is replete with examples of romantic love, often ending in tragedy. Even today real life love tragedies are reported in daily newspapers.

The modern world massaged by the media prefers glamor and comedy, while tragedy is almost entirely absent from both the cinema and theater. With modern medicine and technology increasing longevity, providing better physical and mental health, and easing the physical drudgery, the accent has moved away from the tragic to the entertaining. Relief is sought in entertainment, recreation, and having fun. Television coverage brings real life tragedy daily into our lives from all over the world and so there is no need for cinema or theatre to point out the nihilistic dimension of life.

Rather than the tragi-comic polarity, classical Indian culture polarised the ascetic with the erotic. Thus Siva is both a supreme ascetic, seated in deep meditation on Mt. Kailasa, and he is also the greatest of lovers depicted in Kalidasa's Kumarasambhava. This inclusive dialectic of "this and that" rather than "this or that" stems from deep understanding of the dialectical interdependence of the apparently polarized nature experienced as the world phenomena. One of the finest depiction of love between Radha and Krishna in found in Jayadeva's "Gita Govinda". As Krishna pulls Radha closer for an embrace in the secrecy of the bower by the banks of the Yamuna river, she shyly resists his embrace, pushing him away with her hands, but is unable to conceal the faint smile of assent on her downturned face. Here is a juxtaposition of innocence and eros, the paradox of love where two opposites unite into a blissful cancellation of counterparts. Their relationship is an expression of Divine Eros, a verticalized sexuality, which inspires music and poetry, dance and romance. This is Keat's "Thing of beauty" that is enjoyed age after age. This is very different from earthly Eros which is horizontal and transient. Earthly eros tends to be gross while heavenly Eros is divine and uplifting. From time immemorial refined cultures around the world have sought the aegis of heavenly Eros as their guiding norm. Divine Eros is grounded in the eternal - the undiminishing well-springs of consciousness, bliss, value, knowledge, sat, cit ananda. There is a continuum, a perennial joy associated with Divine Love. This is called bhauma. Earthy eros has a temporality, a limitation of space and time and a termination followed by recurring need. There is a blissful, explosive ecstatic experience, followed by a diminishing and a fading away, like an elusive moment which can be repeated, but cannot be grasped. This is called tucham, or alpa, small, meagre, little. When the pull of the vertical dimension is weak and the horizontal aspect is preferred, there is physical attraction and gratification, a pleasure pain cycle which ultimately leads to dissipation.

Childhood is lost into adulthood with the first signs of passionate desire to unite with the opposite sex. The playful innocence of childhood is transformed into an irresistible passion, a longing to experience the thrilling dimension of togetherness. But the thrill can be accompanied by negative counterparts like fear and attachment, while social forces can conspire to ruin the relationship. Hunger has no particular location and can affect the entire body. Similarly, the pangs of love afflict the entire personality of a young man or woman. This is the work of the God of Love, whose bodiless form can cause great agitation even in the mind of a great ascetic like Siva.

The union between a man and awoman is akin to the coming together of heaven and earth. Woman is considered closer to nature, while man represents the heavenly spirit. Through the dialectical pairing of man and woman life continues on the planet. Each feels incomplete without the other. The lover and the beloved fulfill each other to experience a sense of wholeness. There is a complementarity, reciprocity, contradiction and cancellation in their dialectical relationship. In the togetherness of their close embrace they slip through time and glimpse the timeless. The dialectics of man and woman, which is at the very foundation of our very existence, is also the fecund ground of paradox. We speak of marriage being made in heaven, or "falling in love". Both these expressions accept the irrational and sudden nature of love between woman and man. Kamadeva shoots his flower-arrows at whomsoever he pleases.

It is said that the language of nature is mathematical. The effects at the experiential level are supported by causal laws that govern the universe. These laws are deterministic and have been understood by mathematicians and scientists and are classified as physical, chemical and biological laws. When we come to human nature we arrive at the threshold of paradox. Within the ambit between wisdom and ignorance there is the possibility of a great amount of variation, making up a composite matrix, displaying a vast range of behavior patterns that can be rational, irrational, stoic, emotional, etc.

In this verse the Devi is using her tongue to lick Kamadeva, the God of Love, into existence. Licking into shape is a very delicate, subtle and intimate way of shaping the god, rather than using the force of the hands or a crude tool. The Goddess's supreme power and position is emphasized here, along with her power to enchant and to enlighten. This has reference to the power of women to generate excitement in the minds of men. Even ascetic minded people find it difficult to avoid the influence of Kamadeva, the God of Love. Visnu takes the form of a beautiful woman to distract the demons when they snatch the ambrosia of immortality from god Dhanvantri as it emerged from the churning of the milk ocean. When Vishnu assumes the form of a grand seductress, Mohini, the demons drop the pot and pursue the beautiful form, which was only a phenomena, a superimposition on Visnu, who was not a woman at all. So is the world a phenomenal projection on a more fundamental reality which is quite different. The foolish are enchanted by the phenomena and in trying to grasp it forget the hidden splendor of their own Self. Such is beauty - a deluding and an emancipating force. Such is the paradox of life around which center problems like the One and the many, being and becoming, and the transcendental and the immanent.

2010-06-24T13:29:00.001-07:00

Saundarya Lahari - Preface

I was introduced to the Saundarya Lahari in the 1980s, and have been drawn to the composition over time, often after long gaps. In spite of its allure it did not make much sense to me. Later I was involved in proofreading, indexing and publishing. A serious study only began in 2009. Earlier I had pondered over the text, admired friends who understood its meaning and hoped to have a better understanding myself someday. I had worked on the Index and Bibliography of Nataraja Guru's commentary and I also contributed to the cover design and the structural diagrams for the first 24 verses..

In 2009 I began to chant the first ten verses every evening before retiring for the day. After several weeks of this practice, I began to notice a quantitative change in my consciousness. It was as if something new was being revealed, which was also giving me a very different perspective of life. It was around this time that my good friend Sashi Chandran suggested that I give an introductory class to an interested group in Coimbatore. As we were deciding on a convenient date, I met university scholars in Bangalore and Delhi who were involved with the Saundarya Lahari. It was as if inner and outer circumstances were aligning themselves and gradually the commentary began to yield glimpses of structure and meaning. I found myself feeling a little confident to attempt an interpretation of the first three verses. These verses subsequently became the first class given to a group of twelve women at the Nitya Gurukula, Coimbatore, on 2nd April, 2010. (They are yet to be transcribed for the blog).

The outcome both surprised and inspired me to continue the study and interpretation of the text. It has not morphed into an online commentary which will, I hope, by the Grace of the Supreme Goddess, culminate in a book in due course of time. It is an interesting coincidence that I am commencing this writing in Cambridge, Massachusetts, not far from Harvard University, where Prof. Norman Brown translated and commented on the Saundarya Lahari in 1958 as part of the Harvard Oriental Series.

2010-06-23T17:16:00.000-07:00

Saundarya Lahari
Introduction

India has always presents a complex matrix of cross-crossing cultural currents to both the visitor as well as many of her residents. The paradoxical juxtaposition of opposites, often seen side by side, forms a rich tapestry rather than a homogeneous society with easily defined parameters. Any attempt to unravel some of the contradictions draws the seeker at least 30 centuries into the past. Even then the mystery might get even more intriguing rather than resolved. The German philosopher Hegel thought that India did not possess any history as such. True, the records of historical events are rather sketchy and the hagiographical accounts of the past cannot be considered as true history. Yet customs have persisted from the Bronze Age and one can see the happy coexistence of the various strata of history in the practice and the philosophy of the people.

Let us here trace a fairly simple pathway based on current scholarship as well as the insights afforded by the huge body of texts that have survived and the complex practices that are still being followed on the subcontinent.

The earliest strata surviving in the modern world is made up of various tribal communities. Indigenous peoples such the Mundas and the Gonds have a rich tradition of folklore, art and craft as well as knowledge of medicinal plants. This ancient strata forms the earliest layer and the basis for the development of myths, legends, and traditional medicine, which were further refined and classified by later generations.

With the discovery of the The Indus Valley civilization a highly developed urban culture, with refined handicrafts, sophisticated agriculture and contemplative traditions was established. The contemplative proto-Siva model comes from this time, as well as the worship of the goddess. The Indus Valley Civilization was followed by the Vedic overlay, which introduced a host of new gods, new customs and a new social stratifications. Not everybody agreed with the Vedic way and there were notable differences, such as Buddhism. The Vedic teachings themsevles underwent considerable revaluation and were restated in the more contemplative teachings of the Upanisads. The polytheism of the Vedas is absorbed into the montheistic philosophy of the Vedanta. Vedanta developed into the most refined philosophical system based on the teachings of the Upanisads.

A long spell of Buddhism dominated the Indian subcontinent with Asoka being the most prominent king to be deeply influenced by the Buddha's teachings. A long line of Buddhist scholars and teachers refined the teachings of the buddha and established a distinct school of Buddhism.
In the 8th Century there arose in Kerala a brilliant thinker named Sankara who traveled the length and breadth of India and was able to establish his school of Advaita Vedanta based on the work done by an earlier Guru named Gaudapada whose commentary on the Mandukya Upanisad, called the Mandukya Karika, became the basis for Sankara's own philosophy of non-dualism. With the establishment of Sankara's Advaita Vedanta, Buddhism lost its potency in India.

The next significant cultural pattern was the Islamic empire during Medieval times. This was followed by British colonization in the modern era.

In the course of this mixing and sifting, blast and counterblast, juxtaposition and revaluation, many ideas were gained ascendancy and others declined. A quest for the truth persisted though these outward upheavals and the desire to know the ultimate knowledge continued to inspire the best minds. The perennial questions of "Who am I?" and "Whence the world?" never ceased to engage the intelligent person.

Vedanta became the Weltenshuaagen of the elite, while the grass-root masses preserved their own ritual, folklore and non-vedic traditons. Yoga, Sri Vidya and Tantra belong to the non-vedic sources. While the elite found their solace in abstract and sophisticated philosophy, the grass-root masses happy followed their own patterns of behavior and their own belief systems. It was not possible to ignore the attraction of non-Vedic traditions. It is this tension between a sophisticated elite culture and the popularity of grass-root movements that is resolved by Sankara in the Saundarya Lahari.

Saundarya Lahari, "The Upsurging Billows of Beauty" is a composition by Shankara. It is in Sanskrit and consists of 100 verses.

Ever since serious scholars have studied the Saundarya Lahari, there have been controversy about the authorship of this work. Sankara is a staunch Advaita Vedantin and a composer of many Sanskrit classical works including commentaries on the major Upanisads and the Bhagavad Gita.

The Saundarya Lahari is a poem in praise of the Universal Goddess, or Shakti. The work is rich in images, metaphor and allegory and hence it roused a lot of controversy about the authorship of Sankara. While Advaita Vedanta speaks of the highest as having no form or name, the Saundarya Lahari describes the beauty of the feminine form.

Nataraja Guru confirms that the Saundarya Lahari is indeed a composition of Sankara and he also gives us the insight that the work is written in proto-language which is the primordial form of communication using symbols. The other works by Sankara are written in meta-language, which is language about language. Today symbolic language presents to us a new possibility of communicating as the world gets rushed and there is lack to time to read through voluminous texts.

Once the work is seen as a proto-linguistic expression it begins to reveal the possibility of teaching Vedanta through the symbols of Beauty.

Advaita Vedanta is the culmination of an inquiry that has its basis in the Upanisads. Earlier in the Vedas there are references to the Ultimate Being. This notion is developed in the Upanisads.

Saundarya is Beauty. Lahari is the Upsurging billow. Beauty can be represented in several ways. In the mineral world we have gems as the most beautiful; in the botanical world it is flower that is considered most beautiful; and in the human world the woman is considered most beautiful.

2010-06-11T10:58:00.001-07:00

Saundarya Lahari Verse 4

tvad anyah panibhyam abhava varado daivata-ganah
tvameka naivasi prakatitavarabhityabhinaya
bhayat tratum atum phalamapi ca vanchasamadhikam
saranye lokanam tava hi caranaveva nipunau

Free translation:

Other hosts of Divinities
Show the gesture of protection
And the granting of boons.

You alone are unique
in not showing any gesture of protection
or granting of boons.

O Gracious Mother,
Worthy of being taken as our refuge,
in your infinite compassion
you protect us,
even before one knows the source of fear.

And you bestow what is truly desirable
even before it is asked for,
Such indeed is the bounty of grace
that is showered from Your divine feet.

Commentary

From the dawn of prehistory, human beings have sought shelters to protect themselves from the fury of nature, the ferocity of animals and the violence of their fellow human beings. Within the impenetrable walls of their defenses, humans feel secure, sheltered from the fear and insecurity that are partially real and partially a figment of their imagination. From the fears of primitive humans, to the alarms and surveillance systems, security staff and military buildups of modern civilization, the discomfort of fear is a powerful motivation to humans to fortify themselves physically, mentally and emotionally.

While fear is experienced as a negative inhibitory factor, its counterpart is desire and want. Here a person is motivated to act, to acquire and hoard. A review of all the things that we have accumulated over time shows that many items are not really necessary. In an age of consumerism and aggressive advertisement, many artificial and unwanted needs are created along with a strong desire to fulfill these needs. When a desire remains unfulfilled it causes unhappiness. Frequently god is invoked to cope with both the fear and desire that afflict human beings.

The place of God is very significant in human life. From time immemorial civilizations have build temples to house their images of god and have taken refuge in prayer as well as supplicated their gods to fulfill their needs. Religiousity is a device for people to communicate with the Supreme. While the Supreme is the Ultimate Truth, the rituals and belief systems developed by various religions are man-made devices. Religion has functioned from time immemorial because it recognizes the Supreme and establishes a relationship through faith and belief. Thus God will always have a place in human affairs and prayers will always be uttered, having stood the test of time. Yet praying to the gods for protection does not root out the cause of the problem of fear, and prayers for boons can deviate into a tangent.

In their iconographic representations the gods of religion are shown with hand gestures (mudras) of protection (abhaya hasta) and granting of boons (varada hasta). If one were to travel to the temple town of Kanyakumari, for example, and visit the Devi temple there, the most prominent feature of the icon is a palm facing downwards in a boon-giving gesture. This deity grants boons to her votaries. A devotee will make offerings to her with the expectations that she will fulfill the votaries wish. In the context of temple worship protection from fear and the granting of boons is of very great importance to the religiously minded person.

In verse 3 four types of aspirants were mentioned. The most honorable one of them is the seeker of wisdom. The theme of a troubled worshipper approaching a deity for help finds its resolution by invoking the cause in this verse.

In this verse the Goddess does not have any such hand gesture. This means that She is not to be thought of as a tutelary deity to whom the worshipper goes in times of need to ask for favors. She is beyond the religious idea of a god who listens to a devotee's requests for protection and boons, which are human apprehensions and desires arising from an ignorance of the true dynamics of oneself and the universe. The Goddess of this verse does not participate in the overtly religious domain.

However, Her greatness goes beyond the protective and boon granting deities. In, Her omniscience She is well aware of the real dangers that can afflict a devotee and also understands what is really desirable to make her devotee happy. In Her infinite compassion She steers the devotee away from danger even before the devotee is even conscious that any danger exists. Similarly She grants more than asked for boons because She knows what is desirable. A human being with his or her limited understanding can only ask for a limited boon. The Devi in Her absolute generosity bestows much greater boons. Therefore it is said:

tava caranav eva - your feet alone
nipunam hi - are expert indeed

The reference to the feet of the Goddess implies the primacy of cause rather than the effect. This is the alpha point from where all origination takes place. It is also an indication of the methodology of the work, which is sat-karana-vada, or "giving primacy to cause over effect" which is a feature of Sankara's Advaita Vedanta.

The fountain source of both the individual and the universe, the manifest and the unmanifest is here represented by the feet of the Goddess. This is the alpha point from where a person embarks upon his or her life journey towards the omega of fulfillment. In philosophical terms, this is the ontological negative factor which is the true ground of the universe from where both the subjective world "within" and the objective world "outside" are experienced.

In simple words this is like a caring mother asking her children to be calm and untroubled and to place their trust in her compassionate care. As the Supreme Creatress the Devi is fully aware of the unchanging plan and laws of the ever-changing universe. She says, "Cast away your troubling worries and your disturbing desires. Instead, take refuge at my Lotus Feet. I shall always protect you from harm and provide you with everything that you need. I shall forever guide you on your proper path."

The bija mantra for meditation is Srim. The Yantra is in the form of a
fully opened lotus with eight inner petals and eight outer petals.
(See p. 33 of Guru Nitya's commentary of the Saundarya Lahari).

Meditation on this verse bestows the devotee oneness with the manifested and the unmanifested world.

2010-04-06T21:56:00.000-07:00

SPIRITUAL RESOURCES TO NAVIGATE CLIMATE CHANGE

-- Vyasa Prasad --

Mystic Messages Beyond Time and Clime

One is beyond what can be counted,
the other is ordinary; other than these two there is not any other form
existing in waking, or in dream,
or in some city of the gods; this is certain.
Atmopadesa Satakam V. 67 (Narayana Guru)

The Tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.
The unnameable is the eternally real
Naming is the origin
of all particular things.
Tao Te Ching, V.1 (Lao Tzu)

There was a door to which I found no key,
There was a veil past which I could not see,
Some little talk awhile of me and thee,
There seem'd -- and then no more of thee and me.
Rubaiyyat of Omar Khayyam V. 32

When Self-knowledge (atma-vidya) shrinks,
then ignorance is fearful;
substantiation by name and form,
in the most terrible fashion, looms here, ghostlike.
Darshana Mala, Ch.1 V.7 (Narayana Guru)

We take long trips.
We puzzle over the meaning of a painting or a book,
when what we're wanting to see and understand
in this world, we are that.
Jelaluddin Rumi, Quatrain 549

Earth is the Mother; and we are her children.
Atharva Veda

Backward Glances - Causal Speculation

Emerging out of the Dark Ages the thinkers of the 18th century European Enlightenment laid the foundation for the scientific revolution that would transform the entire world. The shackles of dogma had already been weakened by Copernicus and Giordano Bruno. But as reason gained ascendency over faith, a schism developed between spirit and matter. The philosophies of Descartes, Locke and Newton encouraged materialists to dominate nature with their culture and dominate feelings with reason. Matter came under the purview of the scientists, while spirit was relegated to the realm of religious experiences. The physical world investigated with empirical instruments became the domain of science, while the metaphysical realm beyond the reach of measurement became the concern of religions. The divorce of faith from reason sowed the seeds for conflict centuries later.

Western desire and means to control and dominate nature gradually spread around the world through the industrial revolution, international trade and colonization. In due course the schism between spirit and matter became established in the minds of leading thinkers of the modern era, and the "objective" "demonstrable" and the "a posteriori" came to be accepted as the most reliable form of knowledge. Seeing is believing.

The East never created a schism between the world of experience and the realm of transcendence. Both were understood as two aspects of the same Ultimate Reality. The Rishis of the Upanishads composed rhapsodic hymns in praise of the Supreme Spirit, which is at once the transcendental and the immanent. The objective world of experience is a projection of one's own consciousness. We see what we believe.

SPIRITUAL RESOURCES TO NAVIGATE CLIMATE CHANGE

Thus the cultures of the East and the West developed two civilizations: that which resonates and is one with all earthly manifestations, and that which denies sentience, spirit and psyche to all elements exterior to humankind. At the same time, western society's notion of liberty, equality and fraternity liberated the rigidly hierarchical societies of the east. The dismantling of ancient social structures has not yet been fully accomplished and the east is in the process of assimilating change and coping with the interim chaos as centuries old established modes of life begin to collapse and new possibilities emerge.

In "The Relation of the Individual to the Universe", Tagore writes, "The civilization of ancient Greece was nurtured within city walls. In fact, all the modern civilizations have their cradles of brick and mortar. These walls leave their mark deep in the minds of men. They set up a principle of 'divide and rule' in our mental outlook, which begets in us a habit of securing all our conquests by fortifying them and separating them from one another. We divide nation and nation, knowledge and knowledge, man and nature. It breeds in us a strong suspicion of whatever is beyond the barriers we have built, and everything has to fight hard for its entrance into our recognition."

In contrast to the civilizations cradled in brick and mortar we have the way of the rishis and druids living in forest hermitages or wandering freely, neither sowing nor reaping, nor storing in barns, living in absolute freedom, sustained by the benevolence of Providence. It was from these forest communities and desert retreats that the wisdom heritage of the world emerged. Wisdom teachers have continuously affirmed the oneness of consciousness, happiness, knowledge, god and the Self. These are not disjunct values, but aspects of one essence.
In the light of Tagore's observation, modern democracy is inherently flawed in favor of urban dwellers and the culture of opulence.

Neurotheology, an emerging interdisciplinary field of neurological and spiritual studies, is demonstrating that the human brain is uniquely constructed to perceive and generate spiritual realities. Left to themselves humans are naturally spiritual, while the influence of urbanization might actually fracture spiritual capability. Natural spirituality corresponds with the Upanishadic dictum, Tat Tvam Asi, "That Thou Art" and the principle of the via negativa followed by the 6th century mystic Dionysius the Areopagite and the Vedantins of India as well as the Negative Education of Rousseau.

Epistemological Framework

An overall epistemology takes both the Beyond and the Ordinary together into consideration and deals with the problem in a wholesale manner, rather than dealing with a piecemeal annexation of one aspect disjunct from the whole. We cannot treat the problem as an event "out there" without a corresponding awareness "within". Contemporary lifestyle has interfered with natural laws and so climate change may be considered as the outer manifestation of an inner ethical problem of human beings.

Many insights are shrouded in the lingua mystica of the ancients and need to be restated in the lingua scientific of the modern world. In this task we are confronted with a very fundamental problem -- that of the alphabet itself. David Abram in his book "The Spell of the Sensuous" blames the invention of the phonetic alphabet for triggering a trend towards increasing abstraction and alienation from nature. He writes, "Only as the written text began to speak would the voices of the forest, and of the river, begin to fade. And only then would language loosen its ancient association with the invisible breath, the spirit sever itself from the wind, the psyche dissociate itself from the environing air." Another author, Leonard Shlain in his book "The Alphabet Verses The Goddess" points out the difference between images which are concrete and are perceived in an all-at-once manner, and alphabets which are abstract, with symbols arranged in a linear sequence. To perceive images the brain uses wholeness, simultaneity and synthesis. To get the meaning of alphabetic writing the brain relies on sequence, analysis and abstraction. Both authors agree that alphabetical writing altered the neurobiology of the brain to severe human connection with the natural world. The poet and the artist is able to capture the essence, while the scientist struggles in vain. While technology has created a new culture of virtual spaces and mass communication, there is a silver lining in the reemergence of symbolic language through cinema, television and computer graphics. We see rudimental symbolic language in the use of the color scheme in traffic lights and identical icons on signboards in airports across the world. Power Point presentations have become ubiquitous. The emergence of the Vook integrates video with written text. As eBooks become popular, there is a possibility of new genres of
animated picture-written-word literature. In these instances symbolism offers a new language of secularism. And when we dream we enter a realm of symbolic language. We may be at the threshold of another neurobiological transformation, this time by reviving the ancient human relationship with symbols.

The iconography and symbolic pictographs of the ancient world used protolanguage based on images. These cultures are known to be egalitarian, natural, with considerable harmony between the genders. One of the best examples of such an egalitarian society is the Harappan civilization. The anthropologist Jonathan Kenoyer has studied the Indus Valley Civilization, and he writes, "The Indus cities did not grow up around a central palace or temple, as was common with other early states. There is no evidence of elite burials filled with material wealth. Perhaps the most striking feature is the small amount of evidence for military conflict and not a single depiction of warfare or captive taking...From these early times, people decided how to organize their settlements, how to interact with other communities, how to resolve conflicts, what to do with surplus food and wealth and how to pass on knowledge from one generation to the next." They used images extensively in the form of seals and symbols (which are yet to be deciphered). Today we can experience the mystique of iconography in statues of the dancing Nataraja, among many others.

In the Indian philosophical tradition there are four means of obtaining valid knowledge. 1. Direct Perception; 2. Inference; 3. Comparison; and 4. Word Testimony. The first three means are useful in the transactional world while a priori word testimony, shabda, is the means to gain transcendental knowledge.

Like students of mathematics willing to accept the abstract notion "x", let us accept the a priori normative notion that the Eternal Spirit pervades the universe, including the individual self. The Isavasya Upanishad says, "Isavasya idam sarvam" the Lord pervades all this. The spirit is indestructible pure consciousness, beyond the reach of climate change or global warming. This is the One Beyond of Narayana Guru, the Eternal Tao of the Taoists, and the Mysterium Tremendum of Omar Khayyam. Nothing can bring about the destruction of This which knows no decrease, according to the Bhagavad Gita (Ch.2 v.17.)

Having established our a priori foundation, let us now deal with our a posteriori knowledge of climate change and the looming apocalypse of global warming. This is the realm of the ordinary of Guru Narayana, the place of a little talk of me and thee of Khayyam, and the realm of particular things of the Taoists. This is where we find ourselves when Self-Knowledge shrinks. This is the world where we seek our daily bread.

It is in this world that human beings should act as good stewards, managing their natural resources with care. Instead their actions are careless, bringing destruction to the world along with the natural habitat of myriad other living creatures. Narayana Guru observed, 'It would not have mattered so much if the effect of man's misdeeds struck its blow only at mankind. But the innocent monkeys and birds in the forest have to forfeit their peaceful life because of man. The rest of Nature would be thankful if, in the process of self-destruction, man would have the good sense to destroy himself if he must, alone, leaving the rest of creation at least to the peace which is its birthright...'

Methodology

Between the edict of a dictator and the tantrum of a child we have the possibility of a mature dialogue. Both dialogue and dialectic have the same Greek root, dialegesthai, meaning "converse with". Dialectical understanding takes both the counterparts in a situation into consideration. The activist on the street is the counterpart of the meditator seated in a Zendo. One is active, the other is contemplative. Their apparent mutually contradictory stands are cancelled by intuitively understanding the common ground they share, which is their intentionality and their goal. The meeting point of opposites is a non-polarized neutral position where they cancel each other out. Cancellation does not yield horizontal gain or loss, but a vertical value of satisfaction. The transcendent (One beyond) and the immanent (the ordinary) intersect and function in and through the living experience of every person. One cannot escape into the transcendental spirit and at the same time continue his or her existential life. Neither can existential life be devoid of the transcendental element. Reducing environmental pollution will enhance the transcendental in the here and now.

Spiritual Resources
Our first resource is abhaya, fearlessness. We resolve to be courageous and use our creative intelligence. The only thing to fear is fear itself.
The second resource is satyam, truth. A transparent vision should guide our understanding. Truth should be the foundation of thought, word and deed. A corollary to truth is dharma, the innate principle that gives integrity to everything.
The third resource is jnana, knowledge. We must have reliable sources of knowledge so that half-baked notions and superstition are kept at abeyance. The world we experience is not real as such, but a phenomena created by the relationship between coexisting opposing forces. The blue of the sky, for instance, does not exist, per se. It is a phenomena generated by the interaction between invisible rays of light with invisible particles in the atmosphere. When the sun is near the horizon, light rays elongate and blue turns to red. We cannot see the invisible photons or atmospheric particles which are the cause, and we see only the effect which is the blue color of the sky. Climate change is an effect that is thought to have an anthropogenic cause. Interdisciplinary thinking is better than compartmentalized specialization. Buckminster Fuller said that specialization precludes comprehensive thinking.
The fourth resource is ahimsa, non-violence. Human beings should respect nature and hold all natural processes in awe and reverence. Nature is a symbiotic interactive system. Interdependence is the modus operandi. Her hierarchy develops from simple structures to intricate complexity in a spiraling centrifugal manner. Nature is self-replicating and proliferates manifoldly. It is a self-governing and self-regulating system, with inbuilt homeostasis and cybernetic feedback loops that affect self-correction. Paradoxically, nature functions in a perennial state of imbalance. It is therefore impossible to control nature and unwise to interfere with her inherent intelligence.
The fifth resource is tapas, effort. All accomplishments require sustained effort. One should not feel disheartened and should be willing to apply oneself diligently until the goal is attained.
The sixth resource is damyata, self-restraint. Restrain the addiction to control and dominate, and restrain the urge to enjoy at the expense of the environment or by exploiting fellow human beings. Aggressive extroversion needs to be tempered with sobering introversion. The ego creates a boundary by assuming the role of knower, doer and enjoyer.
The seventh resource is datta, being charitable. Sharing and giving spreads wealth. A need based system of equitable distribution should replace the current economic model propped with banking cartels and unfair trading practices. There is enough food to feed the world and enough goods to cater to everybody's needs. Economic imbalances need to be set right for a just and fair world.
The eighth resource is daya, compassion. Human transactions should be touched with an element of kindliness and compassion. Cruelty to the planet, plants and animals and to ourselves and fellow human beings should be sublimated into a compassionate attitude towards all sentient and non-sentient beings.
The ninth resource is saundarya, beauty. Nature is beautiful. The starry heavens above, the snowy mountains below, the colorful flora and the captivating fauna around us are alluring. Aesthetics should infuse our sensory world, elevating our consciousness and refining our emotions. The artist Paul Gaugin lamented, "There is always a heavy demand for fresh mediocrity. In every generation the least cultivated taste has the largest appetite." Quality rather than quantity should be the norm.
The tenth resource is tyaga, relinquishment. Ultimately everything passes away and perishes. Instead of clinging and holding on, it is wise to let go of things and ideas that have served their usefulness. Static and closed attitudes should transform into dynamic and open states of mind.

Transformation

It is ironic that scientific progress has led us to an age when an impending apocalypse has become a unifying force. This enantiodromia is an opportunity to move forward towards the greater challenge of understanding consciousness -- the inner environment, or inner landscape, that is shared by all of humanity. The cosmos and the psychos are interlaced to create the grand universe, understood objectively "out there" and subjectively "within" by all sentient beings.
The complexity of geodialectics with power plays between nations was evident when world leaders gathered at the United Nations summit on Climate Change in Copenhagen recently. Climate change has been given due recognition at the highest of international forums. But arriving at consensus and or even fully understanding the complex nature of the issue seems to have eluded influential governments, encouraging concerned individuals to take for climate change in their own hands. Google Earth announced that it is adding new features that will allow users to "view" any location on earth up till the year 2100, according to both the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's high and low emissions scenarios. This feature empowers every desktop and laptop computer user to become a Climate Change monitor.

The industrial age opened the "Pandora's Box" of sequestered carbon buried in the earth for millennia.
Nobody thought of managing the tons of carbon released into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels.
This shows the one-sided approach of science and technology.

New engineering is necessary to mitigate disaster with the help of innovative ideas. Large rafts of reflective material can prevent the north pole from heating, should the ice melt. Geodesic domes can protect entire coastal villages from inundation. Networks of rural and urban centers can become hubs of transportation, involving the population to mobilize resources, while at the same time localizing consumption patterns. Along with the reduction of green house gases, disaster management strategies need to be put into place.

Conclusion

Lasting peace at the personal and interpersonal levels is the ideal foundation for human happiness and well being. Meaning is important to satisfy the spiritual nature of human beings. Our answers have to be in the context of the perennial questions of Why are we here? Where have we come from? and Where are we going? Only by addressing the ultimate questions do we find the final solution.

References

Atmopadesa Satakam
100 Verses on Self-Instruction by Narayana Guru

Tao Te Ching
Lao Tze (Translated by Stephen Mitchell)

Rubaiyyat of Omar Khayyam
(Translation by Edward Fitzgerald)

Open Secret - Versions of Rumi
by John Moyne and Coleman Barks

Darsana Mala
Garland of Visions by Narayana Guru

Word of the Guru
Nataraja Guru

The Bible

Sadhana
by Tagore

The Spell of the Sensuous
by David Abram

The Alphabet Verse The Goddess
by Leonard Shlain

How God Changes Your brain
Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman

Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization
by Jonathan Mark Kenoyer

Isavasya Upanishad
Bhagavad Gita

Buckminster Fuller
Quotations

Spiritual Resources from
Bhagavad Gita
Patanjali Yoga Sutras
Brhadaranyaka Upanishad, Khila Kanda.
_______________
 

Henri Matisse's Great Leap Forward

2010-04-05T18:17:00.000-07:00

Henri Matisse's Great Leap Forward

2007-11-01T06:22:00.000-07:00

COURSE of STUDIES

A draft of the course proposed for wisdom seeking students of the Narayana Gurukula.

Possible venue for studies are tentatively at Fernhill, Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu; Sreenivasapuram, Varkala in Kerala, ShantiNagar, Palakkad, Portland, Oregon and Bainbridge, Washington, in the USA.

Narayana Gurukula Foundation is a contemplative institute for higher education to benefit all wisdom seekers, irrespective of the student's country of origin, faith, language, gender, economic means, and educational status. As the Narayana Gurukula Foundation is founded by Nataraja Guru holding in his mind Narayana Guru as an exemplar in wisdom appreciation, there is bound to be a bias for the fundamental teachings of Narayana Guru, in the course proposed. The roots of Guru's value vision belong essentially to classical Indian studies of Aryan and Dravidian origin. This natural affinity of the Gurukula to India's historical culture and civilization doesn't exclude the basic stand of the major religions of the world: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam of the Semitic areas of contemplative mysticism and the Jain, Buddhist religions originated from India, and the theistic Indian religions like Saivism, Vaisnavism and Sikhism (or recent origin).

The period for this course of studies is limited to seven years. Therefore, it is not possible to make extensive studies in any of the above mentioned disciplines. The main interest of this course is not to make a historic survey, but to help students to evolve ultimately into their own utmost development, which thy have to achieve by continuously making their immediate and present interest and abilities progressively channeled to their unfoldment to fit into the future of their physical, aesthetic, moral, intelligent, and spiritual advancement.

Two basic aims of the Narayana Gurukula Foundation are:
1. Self realization in its accurate and fullest sense
2. To become a fellow citizen of every living member of the human family of the world at large.
In other words each person should be able to take upon him or her a total commitment to the welfare of mankind as a whole with unlimited liability. Such a course of study is to be placed within three spheres:
1. The enormous unlimited field of the possibility of search with a view of turning to the relevant field of the most probable.
2. Helping each person to become fully experienced researcher by making his or her program of action fundamentally based on the ultimate probe by which one can narrow the field of the possible into the most probable.
3. The exposure to the expanding consciousness of extending one's avenues of interest to the maximum opportunity of promoting the most relevant probability into the facts of life by which actualization of values can result in one's personal endeavor.

Where to Begin and What Should be the Priorities?

The search is to begin with an introspection of each individual. By listing the person's value vision and making a studious effort to define, describe and illustrate the values which each person holds supremely important to the individual's actualization of life's goal. Out of the value matrix each person can make convincingly a chosen path for his or her ultimate pilgrimage.

Why Values?

From microbes to the fully developed wise person two questions are held before each.
1. Where is one placed? This question can be put better for human beings as 'where am I placed?'
2. Subsequent possible question are 'what or whom am I related to?'
Ultimately there may arise the question, 'how can my chance relationship be fully taken advantage of to arrive at the most satisfactory performance. This necessarily has to include in it the uniqueness of a person as well as the participation of the person in the universal context. The desired result can be achieved only through positive relationship of caring, sharing, and working together from the basis of a commonly accepted criteria of universal and benevolent knowledge.

Why Uniqueness?

To explore a possibility of each person's position in the world is to be considered only by interlinking a person's position in time and space. No person or no thing can be simultaneously at two places in a given time. Thus, the position of the seeker comes instantaneously where the search is to be commenced. It is in reference to the 'position in time and space' that the vista of a certain possibility might arise as an area of consciousness with deep temporal and futuristic significance. The first delineation that comes in deciding th size of the possibility is by relating everything in the world to the uniqueness of the seer or the knower who will invariably also be the doer. Hence possibilities stem mainly from the uniqueness of the 'position' held by the programmer, to a position of factual relationship in which the objective environmental aspect and the subjective imperiential aspect can be brought to bear upon on each other in the most meaningful manner. By pursuing less the same methodology of reduction one comes to the unique fact of actualization. Thus without confirming the uniqueness of the educand, no program of education can be commenced.

Why Universal?

The uniqueness of an individual, the individual's position and the individual's structural and functional reality are stemming from a homogeneity that constitute the universal concept of space and time. There is an ever-changing, shifting, moving, streaming flux of being which is held paradoxically in the changeless law of purposive change. Thus the universal is a matrix of innumerable varieties of uniqueness. This brings the categorized requirements of reaffirming the time commencement and it's closure. Thus space time continuum necessitates the individual to be unique. The same law necessitates the uniqueness of the individual to generate the universality of the social matrix to which uniqueness belongs.

What Order Follows When Relating the Uniqueness to Universality?

The incomparable uniqueness and universality gives the monitoring of the greatest theme of search in education. Our continuous search is for becoming fully conversant with values of the highest order. The values invariably belong to the relationship between two unique units and as if in magic both the unique and the universal contribute to the universality of the flux of being. In other words the most desirable study is to decipher all values to make the most valuable probe into the seemingly irrefutable values and make every individual able to arrive at the certitude that can be self-evident. The probability thus resides in the varying and variegating relationship between several sets of uniqueness.

Is it Possible in the Carving of a Program in the Search for the Possibility Without Recognizing the Position That Leads to a Certain Possibility?

The probability of healthy relationship btween units and maintianing the position of a unique perosn can be a hypothesis which may bring contraries. The epistemologies of the unique and the univerals can be correlated only by designing an overall epistemology of the unique and the universals. This is achieved only by exposing the unique individual to the universal society and the universal society coming into encounter with various units which all share collectively. What results from it is well known in the world of science as evolution.

We begin this course of study with an invitation to those who understand that they may have to plunge into fundamentals. For that they may have to question the precedent convictions which are honored ad the bulwark of faith held true for many eons.

At the first step of our entry into this universal search, let each one of us prepare our own bio-data as a value seeker. Use the following chart for it:

1. Time of birth
2. Exact place where you were born.
3. The name and a short history of your father.
4. The name and a short history of your mother.
5. The structure of your family and your position in it.
6. You can leave out any comment of the schooling you had and the public programs in which you happened to be associated with. Instead give genuine questions that have come to your mind up to now.
7. The search you have made, if any.
8. Is the search continuing as an inner urge or have you given it up to revise and restart?
9. What are your personal convictions about you, your relationship with your most intimate partner or co-worker with whom you share your most intimate thoughts?
10. Do you have any religious faith? If yes, what?
a. To what conclusion has that taken you?
b. Are you fully satisfied?
11. If you are joining the course of studies of the Narayana Gurukula Foundation what considerations prompt you to look into its possibilities and probabilities?
12. What is the exact field where you want to actualize your highest search?

2007-10-21T04:11:00.000-07:00

Consolation of Philosophy (Latin: Consolatio Philosophiae) is a philosophical work by Boethius written in about the year AD 524. It has been described as the single most important and influential work in the West in Medieval and early Renaissance Christianity, and is also the last great work that can be called Classical.

Some Images from the life and teachings of Boethius

This early printed book has many hand-painted illustrations depicting Lady Philosophy and scenes of daily life in fifteenth-century Ghent (1485)

From a 1385 Italian manuscript of the Consolation: Miniatures of Boethius teaching and in prison

Lady Fortune with the Wheel of Fortune in a medieval manuscript of a work by Boccaccio; Consolation of Philosophy was responsible for the popularity of the goddess of Fortune and the wheel of fortune in the Middle Ages

2007-10-21T03:37:00.000-07:00

"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all."
"All formal dogmatic religions are fallacious and must never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final."
"Life is an unfoldment, and the further we travel the more truth we can comprehend. To understand the things that are at our door is the best preparation for understanding those that lie beyond"

Hypatia of Alexandria: C370-415AD

Follower of Plotinius who developed neo-Platonism at Alexandria from about 400 to her death in 415. She was so well-known, apparently, that correspondence addressed only to "The Philosopher" is said to have reached her.

Also a leading mathematician and astronomer, she is thought to have taught ideas relating to different levels of reality and humanity's ability to understand them. She seems to have believed that everything in the natural world emanates from "the one" - and that human beings lack the mental capacity fully to comprehend ult imate reality.

Her subsequent obscurity probably reflects the fact that none of her work survives (although letters from a pupil do). It appears, however, that her influence made the city's Christian community feel threatened - perhaps partly because of her emphasis on the value of science. She was torn to death by a Christian mob (including monks armed with oyster shells). Admirers revere her as a philosophical martyr comparable to Socrates.

THE TRAGEDY OF HYPATIA

by John Spiers

The acknowledged head of the Platonic Academy at Alexandria, Hypatia’s martyrdom at the hands of a monk-led rabble, marks the first great blot of dogmatic intolerance in the records of orthodox Christianity

Millions of people have seen one or all of the many spectacular films depicting life in Roman times, and there have been quite a number and probably more to come showing the courage of Christian martyrs under the tyranny of the Roman emperors. But it is hardly likely that more than one cinema-goer in a hundred thousand has heard of Hypatia. A hush-hush curtain spreads over her name, and yet compared with many a saint of the Church, Hypatia was a far more important individual, being the recognized Head of the Greek philosophic world.

The Christians murdered Hypatia -- savagely -- in a Church! Such a scandalous, unheard-of deed is unlikely to be the central theme of any of these cinemascopic entertainments. People can stand seeing Christians being nobly slaughtered by pagans. It goes to prove the intolerance of the opposition. Non-Christians are expected to be brutal. But when a proved intolerance is equally manifested on the part of Christians themselves, as soon as they stepped into imperial power in the person of the Spaniard, the emperor Theodosius in the year 379, there is silence.

Her Eminence: Hypatia lived during the reign of Theodosius and his sons (who divided the Empire at Rome and Byzantium between them). Hypatia was born at Alexandria, a city which for hundreds of years had been famed as the great meeting-place of the whole world, where Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Persian and Indian met in commerce and above all in religion and philosophy. Until the dictatorship of the Christian emperors it had always had an open character. Great teachers had achieved fame in its halls, and the noble Plotinus, some 200 years earlier, had found his Guru at Alexandria in the person of Ammonius the Sack-Bearer (probably an Indian), as had also Origen who was a Christian, and between these pupils, one pagan and one a follower of Jesus, there was no quarrel. The memories of the great Library (burnt accidentally when Julius Caesar was there) lingered on in what was left of it, and in the later additions of three centuries. The official language was Greek and great scholars whose names are still in use were proud to belong to his university city of the old world. Euclid was an Alexandrian and so was Eratosthenes who correctly measured the globe, and there was Apollonius who wrote on conic sections. Hipparchus charted the stars and here also Hero devised a steam engine.

To rise to academical eminence in such a centre as Alexandria was therefore difficult, and yet Hypatia, a Greek woman, daughter of Theon, a mathematician, filled the highest seat of honor. To thousands of pupils who flocked to hear her lectures she was the incarnation of wisdom, a veritable Athena, a true disciple of Plato and Plotinus. She seems to have been an only child, and she assisted her father in his learned commentaries, as well as writing commentaries herself on learned subjects like astronomy and mathematics.

Hypatia was noted for four things: her modesty, her beauty, her eloquence and her devotion to philosophy. All her contemporaries of whom there is record bear witness to these four qualities. Many sincere Christians who strove to know something of philosophy, attended her lectures, and among them was a student called Synusius, who after wards became the Bishop of Ptolemais. His letters to her which are extant, are full of reverence and praise. He asks her about the construction of an instrument for ascertaining the positions of the planets and stars, called an astrolabe. She was also on friendly terms with the highest officer of the land, the Prefect of Alexandria, a “pagan” named Orestes.

Why she was murdered: But her advent was at an ill time. Only one hundred years before, the Christians were being persecuted most atrociously by Diocletian, the Roman emperor. Now, although the tables were turned, and a Christian emperor ruled at Constantinople, the memory of those years still persisted, smouldering like an underground fire. And it was Hypatia’s misfortune to be the innocent victim of an occasion for that fire of hate to burst out.

In the year 412 Cyril was made Bishop of Alexandria and there began a kind of minor inquisition, for Cyril wanted power for the church and he was, at the same time, representative of that zealous bigotry which marks many Western theologians. Cyril was the main supporter of the creedal dogma that the Virgin Mary was Theotokos, the Mother of God, and managed to get twelve anathemas on the subject accepted at the general church Council of Epesus in 431. Already there had been rumblings of the hatred-response of the Christians. The great statue of Serapis or Siris had been destroyed by the Christians. The Egyptian Trinity Osiris-Isis-Horus was clearly a rival to the new revalued Christian Trinity, and it had to go.

How irritating for Cyril then, to be bishop of a stronghold of the new religion, and to have even his own best intelligences stolen by a beautiful pagan woman. No compromise was possible for a man of his type. The danger must be stopped.

It was easy. In March, 415, led by one Peter the Reader, a mob of monks from one of the many monasteries, abducted Hypatia when she was returning from one of her lectures. They stirred up the Christian crowd and carried Hypatia to a church - yes, a church! There they stripped her, flayed her with oyster-shells and burnt her poor body piecemeal...

Thus they thought to kill philosophy by savaging an innocent woman. So did the torturers of
Spain and the witch-burners of Scotland and Massachusetts even a few hundred years ago. They all thought that by hurting and liquidating humans they could stifle supposedly rival views. But one Hypatia for her philosophy is worth a thousand emperors and plaster saints. There is no outward monument to this last of the classical Greek philosophers, but in the hall of the Absolute she lives eternally, a lovely light bright in the midst of a light of loveliness.

Illumination from the Liber Scivias showing Hildegard receiving a vision and dictating to her scribe and secretary

Hildegard of Bingen (German: Hildegard von Bingen; Latin: Hildegardis Bingensis; 1098 – 17 September 1179), also known as Blessed Hildegard and Saint Hildegard, was a German magistra who later founded (Rupertsberg in 1150 and Eibingen in 1165) in the third quarter of the 12th century.
Hildegard of Bingen was an abbess, artist, author, counselor, linguist, naturalist, scientist, philosopher, physician, herbalist, poet, activist, visionary, and composer. She is the first composer for whom a biography exists and one of her works, the Ordo Virtutum is the first form, and possible origination, of opera [1][2]
She wrote theological, botanical and medicinal texts, as welll as letters, liturgical songs, poems, and the first surviving morality play, while supervising brilliant miniature illuminations. A biographer, Carmen Acevedo Butcher, described Hildegard of Bingen as a polymath in the 2007 publication, Hildegard of Bingen: A Spiritual Reader.

2007-10-19T07:34:00.001-07:00

Ouroboros

Depicted as a serpent biting its own tail. 'My end is my beginning.' It symbolizes the undifferentiated; the Totality; primordial unity; self-sufficiency. It begets, weds, impregnates, and slays itself. It is the cycle of disintegration and reintegration, power that eternally consumes and renews itself; the eternal cycle; cyclic time; spatial infinity; truth and cognition in one; the united primordial parents; the Androgyne; the primeval waters; darkness before creation; the restriction of the universe in the chaos of the waters before the coming of light; the potential before actualization. In funerary art Ouroboros represents immortality, eternity and wisdom. In many myths it encircles the whole world and is the circular course of the waters surrounding the earth. It can both support and maintain the world and injects death into life and life into death. Apparently immobile, it is yet perpetual motion, forever recoiling upon itself. In Orphic cosmology it encircles the Cosmic Egg. It is also called 'heracles' which identifies it with the solar passage; Macrobius associates it with the movement of the sun. The Alpha and Omega are often depicted with the Ouroboros. Alchemic: The unredeemed power of nature; latent power; the unformed materia; the opus circulare of chemical substances in the hermetic vessel. Buddhist: The wheel of samsara. Egyptian: The circle of the universe; the path of the sun god. Greek: 'All is one.' 'The All was from the beginning like an egg, with the serpent [pneuma] as the tight band or circle round it' (Epicurus). In Orphic symbolism it is the circle round the Cosmic Egg and is Aeon, the life-span of the universe. HIndu: The wheel of samsara. As latent energy Ouroborus shares the symbolism of Kundalini. Sumero-Semitic: The All One.

The Source of Philosophy

The main source of philosophic questioning is the sense of wonder, a childlike wonder just about everything. Philosophy starts with bewilderment, astonishment, amazement about the world, life, and ourselves. Philosophy arises from the workings of an inquisitive mind which is bewildered by seemingly common things or by those that appear to be entirely impractical. It emerges out of readiness to follow the call of human intellectual curiosity beyond common sense acquaintanceship with the world. The same idea is expressed in the old saying that the business of philosophy is to deal with the things supposedly familiar, but not really known and cognized. Philosophy reveals the illusion of knowledge where none in reality exists. B. Russell resuscitates the same idea in claiming that philosophy "keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect". Verily, everything touched by philosophic bewilderment miraculously changes its character from a known to an unknown. As soon as we begin to philosophize, we find that even the most everyday things lead to confusing problems while those initially "impractical" issues often prove very significant even for our mundane needs and certainly for our self-understanding.

2007-10-19T07:12:00.001-07:00

Philosophy

The word 'Philosophy', meaning "love of wisdom" comes from the Greek 'philein', to love + 'sophia', wisdom.
In the Western world, philosophical pursuits are mainly generated by one's curiosity to know Truth, whereas in India, philosophical pursuits also imply the disciplining of one's life in the light of one's best knowledge. In the pursuit of wisdom the seeker should have at least a hypothetical notion of the kind of truth he or she seeks. That will decide the epistemological characteristics of the pursuit. The word "epistemology" is derived from the Greek word "episteme" which means knowledge.
Two Sanskrit words which come closest in meaning to "philosophy" are 'darshana' and 'tattva jnana'. 'Darshana' means the envisioning of truth. 'Tattva-jnana' means knowledge of the fundamentals. 'Tttva-jnana' is constituted of three terms: 'tat'. 'tvam' and 'jnana'. 'Tat' means "That"; 'tvam' means "you"; 'jnana' is "knowledge. In other words, it is knowledge about 'tat' the universal, and 'tvam' the particular.

2007-10-17T08:18:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends,

The inaugural session of a rather ambitious project to learn the wisdom traditions of the Western world began in a modest way with a group of friends in a coffee shop in a book store. There is a certain degree of romance attached to such a setting considering the intellectual ferment that has taken place in coffee shops all around the world.

There are challenges to face when undertaking such a study. The first being the technical terms used by philosophers. They generally use ordinary words but give them special meanings. The word "Form" used by Plato is one such example. We, living in India, have our own heritage and traditions which have a lot to offer. In this study we have set aside any prejudice and learn with an unbiased mind the teachings of masters whose words have stood the test of time. We still hear the names of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Plotinus, Diogenes, and many many others, and thus we understand that their insights are valuable and can enrich and deepen our own understanding about the perennial questions that always vex our thinking species. May this study broaden our intellectual horizon.

Given below is an entry on Plato from the Encyclopedia of Mysticism. The dialogues mentioned are:
1. The Republic
2. Meno
3. Phaedo
4. Phaedrus
5. The Symposium
6. Theaetetus
7. Timaeus

With the help of the comments in the Encyclopedia we can chose one of the above Dialogues for detailed study. We can also conduct our own independent research through the internet and relevant books. Please feel free to share any insights and comments.

For those of you interested in Neuroscience, you may read and listen to Dr. Ramachandran's The Emerging Mind lectures on the web:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2003/

Plato (427 - 347)

Athenian philosopher. Socrates taught him to search for ethical definitions, disciples of Heraclitus that the world of our senses is in a condition of constant change, disciples of Parmenides that true reality cannot change. Contact with Pythagoreans in Magna Graecia showed him that in Geometry we deal in propositions which are never more than approximately true of the visible world, but are absolutely and immutably true of the triangles and circles we can perceive with our minds. So he came to his Theory of Forms (or ‘Ideas’). True reality is unchanging, and is perceived with the mind. The perfect Triangle is imperfectly materialized in the physical triangle, the perfect Table in the tangible table, perfect Beauty in beautiful objects, perfect Justice in human actions. The things of this world may ‘imitate’ or ‘participate’ in the perfect Forms, but they are never more than shadows or reflections. ‘Plato’ said Diogenes ‘I see tables and cups but not Tableness and Cupness.’ ‘Precisely,’ said Plato, ‘because you need eyes to perceive tables and cups , and you have those; you need intelligence to perceive Tableness and Cupness, and that you do not possess.’ In The Republic he compares mankind with prisoners in an underground cave, watching shadows on a wall (The Myth of the Cave). The philosophers is the man who is released into the daylight. At first he is blinded by the brilliance, but gradually his eyes grow accustomed to the light and he sees objects, nor shadows, and knows the shadows for what they are. If he then goes back into the cave tells the prisoners that they are living in a world of illusion they will mock him. Nonetheless, go back he must.

The soul which knows the Forms must itself be immortal since they are eternal and only like can know it. Plato put forward in the Meno and Phaedo a doctrine of Recollection. The soul has known the Forms before birth, but ‘our birth is but a sleep and forgetting’ and material objects may serve for us a reminder of eternal truths. Plato took from the Pythagoreans the doctrines of transmigration and reincarnation. He expounded the immortality of the soul in mythical form at the end of Phaedo and The Republic. But the soul itself has a rational and an irrational element, and it seems that ultimately the rational alone survives.

The aspiration of the soul to things higher is called Eros, Love. Plato gives an account of it in Phaedrus and The Symposium. In the latter the ultimate vision is one of Beauty. It was a passage which gripped the imagination of Shelly: ‘He who has been instructed thus far in the science of Love, and has been led to see beautiful things in their due order and rank, when he comes toward the end of his discipline, will suddenly catch sight of a wondrous thing, beautiful with the absolute Beauty...he will see a Beauty eternal, nor growing or decaying, not waxing not waning; nor will it be fair here and foul there, nor depending on time or circumstance or place, as if fair to some, and foul to others; nor shall Beauty appear to him in the likeness of a face or hand, nor embodied in any sort of form whatever...whether of heaven or of earth; but Beauty absolute, separate, simple, and everlasting; which lending of its virtue to all beautiful things that we see born to decay, itself suffers neither increase nor diminution, nor any other change...O think you...that it would be an ignoble life for a man to be ever looking thither and with his proper faculty contemplating the absolute Beauty and to be living in its presence? Are you not rather convinced that he who thus sees Beauty as only it can be seen, will be specially fortuned? and that, since he is in contact not with images but with realities, he will give birth not to images, but to Truth itself? And being thus the parent and nurse of true virtue it will be his lot to become a friend of God, and so far as any man can be, immortal and absolute.’ (Sym. 210E-212A tr. R. Bridges.)

In The Republic the ultimate is the Form of the Good, Good not in a merely ethical sense, but representing the source of all value and all excellence. As the Forms are Reality, and are contrasted with the material world as Being to Becoming, the Form of the Good is said to be ‘beyond reality’ or ‘beyond being’. It is the source of knowledge: as the sun enables the eye to see and objects to be seen, so the Form of the Good enables the mind to know and the Forms to be known. Scholars have argued whether Plato identifies the Form of the Good with God. Certainly he does not explicitly do so.

In Theaetetus (176 A-B) Plato wrote that because of the imperfections of earth we ought to try to escape as speedily as possible to the place of the gods. To escape means so far as possible to become like God; and that means to combine righteousness and holiness with wisdom. This concept of ‘likeness to God’ is frequently quoted by later writers.

Plato’s most influential work on subsequent religious thought was Timaeus, a kind of hymn of creation. The divine Craftsman is good and desires all things to be like himself. So he brings order out of chaos and fashions a world-soul; the cosmos is thus a living creature endowed with life and intelligence. The material universe includes fire and earth to make it visible and tangible, and the other elements to give it proportion. The Father creates the divine heavenly bodies, the visible gods; and entrusts to them the fashioning of the mortal part of man; he himself creates, from what is left over from the creation of the world-soul, souls equal in number to the stars. Physical objects are produced by the imprint of the Forms on matter within the Receptacle of space. The vital aspect of the cosmology of Timaeus is that soul bridges the worlds of being and becoming.

Plato is somewhere at the root of nearly all Western mystical philosophy.

Socrates preparing to drink hemlock

2005-07-21T18:38:00.000-07:00

Creation Myth

In the beginning it was as if non-existent. Actually we do not know if it was existent or non-existent because knowledge was not divided into the knower and the known. There was only the unmanifest, and no non-living or living entity whatsoever. Maybe it was Darkness or the Void. Or maybe it was consciousness embedded in Consciousness. One Alone was. In fact we cannot even say that it was, for there was no time to measure the past, present and future. Only a tremendous mystery pregnant with possibility, an unknown wonder pervading itself. Not a sound to disturb the Silence, not a form to occupy space. Nothingness, nothingness, nothingness.

Yet this apparent nothingness harbored a quiescent knowledge, for in the vastness of eternity there first appeared a dimensionless location from where originated a stir, a pulse, a ripple that reverberated and that instance was followed by another and a sequence began. Time was created and together with the movement of the spreading ripples, space. As time and space came into existence, the quiescent consciousness seemed to become chaotic with no purpose, no meaning - only a disorientation lacking structure and function. It seemed disastrous, but the primordial consciousness was also an intelligent knowledge principle in which a homeostatic possibility merged the chaos into itself. This was none other than absolute Love. At once the disorderliness was overwhelmed by this shining wonder. In the presence of Love, structures began to organize themselves. Rules were laid out and the elementary particles started to emerge in pairs, each embraced by its partner.

The grand drama of the cosmos began. A sense of joy and of creative happiness pervaded the cosmos, even though there were hardly any forms, and structures were yet unfinished. The self-aware knowledge began to formulate mathematical laws together with the all-pervasive energy that was everywhere. Information and energy combined to give shape to the ideas that were being dialectically formulated. Energy began to make very precise spins, like eddies in a river, and matter magically began to appear out of nothingness. With the attraction and repulsion of the basic blocks of prime matter, more complex forms came into existence. The living principle pervaded the newly formed matter in a hylozoic fashion. It was very miraculous and amazing. After a while the laws became self propagating and self-proliferating. The limits became apparent only when there was disharmony with time and space, or with Love. Accretions of ignorance appeared due to the imperfection of increasing complexity.

Since relative time had now become operational, it took billions of years for matter to settle down. The potent transformation never ceased in one form or another, at the same time there came to be stable masses where the elements remained relatively unchanged. In these circumstances a new drama took place in which elements combined in a very precise manner and became self-generating creatures. A stable environment assisted these creatures in their development and they were called living because of their stimulus and response. From the mineral world, in association with the sun and the moon, there came plants that were rooted to the ground. In the waters of the oceans that girdled the earth there emerged creatures gifted with mobility and the ability to swim. Some even had the freedom to move on land. The creative principle, never at rest, continued to express itself in myriad ways. Like a creative artist or a poet with a fecund imagination, the primordial consciousness operating from the core began to relate with its own manifestation at the periphery in a variety of ways. The centrifugal and centripetal game that ensued created one creature after another. But bewildered by the grandeur of the surroundings in which they were living, they were largely compelled to act on their self-preservative instincts.

Into this blindly instinctual world there came a higher manifestation of intelligence. This complex being was able to understand the meaning and purpose of the grand universe and all the creatures that inhabited it. Even this being had limitations, but being blessed with an innate ability to invent language, the being was able to transform the visible into the intelligible. Most of these beings were fearful and could only huddle together, but a few became bold and ventured to put searching questions. At first they made up stories to keep themselves amused and to explain things they could not understand. But then newer generations became smarter and were not satisfied with stories because they noticed that they could explain things more clearly by stating facts. The wisest of them were also the most kind and generous and they gave to their fellow beings the knowledge that would make them happy and set them free. Thus the perennial primordial quiescent original knowledge, without beginning or end, came to known itself through its manifestation. Those who know live in wonder.