To Whom Shall We Offer Our Oblation?

2011-02-16T21:43:00.000+05:30

On the role & importance of the Wife in the Mahabharat

2009-03-25T08:49:00.004+05:30

It is a shame that I haven't read the original of two of India's greatest epics - which can easily be called THE GREATEST epics ever written in the history of human civilization - Valmiki's Ramayana, and Veda Vyasa's Mahabharat. In fact, I don't think I know anybody from my generation - from 10 years older, to 10 years younger - who has read these grand poems of ancient India. Yes, most people do know the basic stories - especially from the serializations on TV which had become a rage way back in 1988-1990 - from almost comic-strip versions in (at least some) schools - and, possibly, from their grandparents.

It is a shame that there are no complete & convincing translations of these two works available in the market, though "The Illiad", "The Odyssey", and "The Aeneid" are available even in India, in every nook & cranny (though nobody's interested in them any longer, too). Indian markets were always filled with Shakespeare, but it is only in the last 2-3 years that Kalidasa's works can be found on book-shelves in multiplex bookstores (which are rare & empty enough to look ridiculous).

Well, I was just going through an online text (which is very fortunate!), and came across this passage on the importance of a WIFE, which was very interesting, especially as a clear demonstration of the respect & even sacrosanctity that the fair sex commanded, in Hindu culture. These words are spoken by a woman herself - Shakuntala - to her husband, the King Dushyant (also written as "Dusmant"). I'll separate the lines for emphasis, rather than present them in one paragraph. I doubt if the translation conveys the MEANING - that is, the true underlying essence - of the words or terms used in the original (which must have been Sanskrit). Though the translation is by an Indian - that itself is no reason to accept that the words convey the deeper truths or abstractions - they might be just too literal, as Sri Aurobindo so convincingly proves on his commentary on the Rig Veda. Anything given in the parentheses is by me.

Here goes:-

The wife is a man's half.

(That's why, in Indian culture, the wife is called "Ardhangini" - that is, literally, "half of the body", in the wider sense of "being", "existence", "identity". The God Shiva (or Maheshwar, Mahadev etc.) is often portrayed as being half-masculine, & half-feminine: and in such a form, is known as "Ardhanari" - the literal translation being "Half-woman". The feminine-half is his Shakti, literally "Power", without whom Shiva cannot create, without which Spirit can never manifest. It is from the primeval Hindu "Adanari" that the Hebrews derive their "Adonai". The Ardhanarishwara or Adanari has been the subject of some of the most beautiful, glowing creations in the history of Indian art & sculpture.)

The wife is the first of friends.

The wife is the root of religion, profit, and desire.

The wife is the root of salvation.

(I should've posted this on 8th of March!)

They that have wives can perform religious acts.

They that have wives can lead domestic lives.

They that have wives have the means to be cheerful.

They that have wives can achieve good fortune.

Sweet-speeched wives are friends on occasions of joy.

They are as fathers on occasions of religious acts. They are mothers in sickness and woe.

Even in the deep woods to a traveller a wife is his refreshment and solace.

He that hath a wife is trusted by all.

A wife, therefore, is one's most valuable possession.

Even when the husband leaving this world goeth into the region of Yama, it is the devoted wife that accompanies him thither. A wife going before waits for the husband. But if the husband goeth before, the chaste wife followeth close.

For these reasons, O king, doth marriage exist.

The husband enjoyth the companionship of the wife both in this and in the other worlds.

It hath been said by learned persons that one is himself born as one's son. Therefore, a man whose wife hath borne a son should look upon her as his mother.

(This is a true & interesting, if not complete, reason why many gods of old were known as the "Father, Son, & Husband" of their goddess-wives. In another place, Shakuntala tells Dushyant: The husband entering the womb of the wife cometh out himself in the form of the son. Therefore is the wife called by those cognisant of the Vedas as Jaya (she of whom one is born). This is one of the chief reasons why so much importance has been accorded to male-offspring in all cultures since time immemorial. Horus is Osiris - Jesus Christ is the Father. And Horus, the Egyptian God & son of the Creative Logos Osiris, is known as "the Bull of his Mother" - the bull being a universal religious symbol, amongst other things, of the masculine, fecundating, reproductive power in the cosmos & nature).

Beholding the face of the son one hath begotten upon his wife, like his own face in a mirror, one feeleth as happy as a virtuous man, on attaining to heaven.

(No doubt a woman is a gateway to heaven!)

Men scorched by mental grief, or suffering under bodily pain, feel as much refreshed in the companionship of their wives as a perspiring person in a cool bath.

(Now this is important, like the most relevant, practical summation:-)

No man, even in anger, should ever do anything that is disagreeable to his wife, seeing that happiness, joy, and virtue,--everything dependeth on the wife.

A wife is the sacred field in which the husband is born himself. Even Rishis cannot create creatures without women.

Do we begin to glimpse the immense reverence accorded to marriage & women in their role as wives, in ancient Hindu culture?

Today's notes on a philosophy of love

2008-09-22T18:03:00.022+05:30

One fundamental truth about the whole idea of LOVE is that it is totally devoid of FORCE.

Love is the summit of the perfection of the Freedom of Consciousness.

Force, obviously, means more than just violence, i.e. actually physically hurting or depriving another individual. It would also include any form of influence exerted on another individual in violation of his volitional perception & affirmation of reality. For e.g., mind-conditioning, misleading people by spreading half-truths, or misrepresenting facts, or using cunning, apparently convincing but fundamentally false definitions of concepts. It is in this WIDEST sense that I use the term "force". Force fundamentally is a CONSCIOUS or DELIBERATE DISSOCIATION of reality/truth, from an individual's perception of it.

Love, as Jesus meant it, not only frees the individual from the effects of coercion exerted, or mind-manipulation, by others, -- but also the need to coerce or manipulate others.

Love simply cannot be forced: one cannot force oneself, or another, to love. Anything. Whether an idea, a work of art, a flower, a cathedral, a woman, one's own life, one's own self, humanity. It has to come on its own, and is perfect only when a man is fully focused on reality. That is, when a man is fully convinced within himself of the value of the object loved, & of the depth & truth of his own affirmation.

This is why, Love - & all that it entails - CANNOT be legislated, or turned into a Law: BECAUSE LAW IS COERCION, or FORCE, & is based on FEAR - and this is the whole secret of the difference between the vision of Jesus (& all those sages before & after him who upheld Love) - and of the Old Testament Prophets. That is why, Jesus's philosophy logically leads to annihilation of the State, of the Judiciary, of armies & tax-collectors, of priests & bureaucrats. In other words, to a form of "Anarchism". (There are several dubious passages in the New Testament, which makes a selective choice of words & incidents somewhat unconvincing, & a consistent interpretation of the Jesus' philosophy difficult. That's why some people focus exclusively on the Gospel (since certain verses attributed to Paul affirm loyalty to the reigning authority), and some others like Tolstoy focus on the Sermon on the Mount (not that Tolstoy rejects the rest of the NT). For one, I don't affirm a thing simply because words to that effect have been put into the mouths of Jesus & Paul, but what is consistent with logic, with my conscience, & what I understand. I take whatever is truest to the entire spirit of their vision. I am aware that the words of both Jesus & Paul have been tampered with, seriously, to suit the temporal ambitions of the Roman Catholic Church. Many difficulties of interpretation are solved by an ESOTERIC explanation which is not only convincing, but also proper. The incident of throwing the money-lenders out of the Temple, is explained symbolically. But then it becomes difficult to separate incidents which have to taken literally, from those which are to be taken symbolically. It is not news that the New Testament neither consistently nor wholly represents either Jesus or Paul, either Peter or John. One more way of looking at it is to take the most consistent view, & reject those which obviously jar or contradict the general drift of the entire text. Yet another way is to see those portions which exhort the Christians to respect the Roman authority, as intended to make them desist from revolutionary activity. A philosophy of love & forgiveness & spiritual perfection logically REJECTS ALL subversive political activity. If anything, it overally fits in with the rest of Jesus' spiritual vision. In any case, the Christians did NOT compromise their sacred values when it came to the Roman authority, & were persecuted for it.)

It is Jesus' philosophy of Love which totally rejects any form of organized, legalized altruism & collectivism. (I must emphasize that Jesus was NOT the first or last to recognize or glorify this vision. He was one of its greatest exponents, & I also mention him as a symbol of that small group of sages who saw & lived for the truth, across the span of millennia). This is one of the fundamental differences between Christianity & ALL pretentious, false systems which are purportedly based on "love" for humanity, like Socialism. (The innermost difference being the very concept & source of this Love. In Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, or other mystical streams, Love is rooted in, & affirms - God, the Eternal Self, Life Everlasting. Whenever I use the word "Love", I mean it in THIS sense: a spiritual, moral, & psychological state of being, which is based on a grasp of one's fundamental immortality & infinity, of Atma-Brahma; characterized by an ever-growing fearlessness, serenity, & tender affection for All; a constantly deepening sensitivity & receptivity to the universe around us, & a powerful & profound empathy. Logically, the individual personality built on THIS affirmation, is radically different from one built on "rationality" - i.e. rejection of the Eternal, Infinite Self. The demands of such a vision are different; the whole life of an individual changes, takes a different form.)

Indeed, CHRISTIANITY EXPLICITLY REJECTS THE IMMOLATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL FOR THE WELFARE OF THE COMMUNITY (PARTICULARLY BY AN EXTERNAL AUTHRORITY): "Then the chief priests & the Pharisees gathered a council and said, "What shall we do? For this Man works many signs."If we let Him alone like this, everyone will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place & nation." And one of them, Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said to them, "You know nothing at all, nor do you consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and not that the whole nation should perish." (John 11:47-50)

It needn't be "proven" that Caiaphas is not the Christian ideal.

When I mentioned in my earlier post, that one has to give up the ideal for living for the welfare of others, I meant it in a very specific sense. Socrates was murdered for the "welfare" of the group i.e., the morals of the Athenians (he was accused of corrupting the youth, & of atheism!) Jesus Christ was murdered, for the "welfare" of others - i.e. the group, the collective, the Jewish nation, etc etc. Paul was beheaded by the Romans, for the "welfare" of others: Christianity was seen as a threat to the Roman Empire. The men who sought to liberate the human mind from the clutches of the Medieval Church were burnt at the stake, for the welfare of Christendom (they were seen as potential causes for the perversion of mankind, leaders of chaos & disorder, controlled & ordered by the Church). The Socialists & Communists were hellbent on murdering & looting hundreds of thousands of people, for the welfare of the Proletariate. (In consequence of achieving the same imaginary "welfare of the people" they killed millions of other people, not just the capitalists). The men who began the French Revolution for "liberty, equality & fraternity" - & for the "emancipation" of mankind from the tyranny of monarchism, a decadent nobility & aristocracy - were murdered by other Revolutionaries - in the name of liberty, equality & fraternity - which Revolutionaries in turn were murdered by yet other Revolutionaries in the name of liberty, equality, & fraternity.

In other words, the greatest individuals in the history of mankind have been "sacrificed" - the correct word is: DESTROYED - on the altar of "the welfare of humanity" - the group, the collective, the race, God, the poor, the State, the Nation etc etc.

I shall build on this point later, much more elaborately, but I think I've given a sufficient indication. I never meant INDIFFERENCE or CALLOUSNESS. I do not reject self-sacrifice or charity either. Far from being "marginal", Charity is a cardinal virtue, & it's not an accident that in the Bible, the words "Charity" & "Love" are interchangable. But all of this has to be done by the individual perfectly freely -- without coercion or guilt or regret, or the slightest unwillingness -- or for a special seat in the gallery of paradise. I have come to realize that most forms of social activism - with all their posturing of humanitarianism, "love, peace, & harmony" & "ahimsa" (this is NOT an indirect allusion to Gandhi) - are all insidious, fraudulent activities, built on mind-conditioning, & almost always with ulterior political motives, ultimately initiated, controlled & funded by big business. It is difficult to separate the sincere (though mistaken) people from the frauds, but overally, I personally REJECT ANY form of social activism which, taking its support & power in Law, does NOT focus on the welfare of HUMAN BEINGS. Human Rights obviously is a very crucial concept, & many causes in this respect are valid, & worthy of affirmation, but it is an open fact how miserably & shamelessly this concept has been used to destroy whole nations, and peoples.

Guides for further thought - incomplete notes on the purpose & meaning of life

2008-09-15T17:52:00.012+05:30

All Life is a movement towards the establishment of a deeper & vaster relationship with existence.
It would not be wholly correct to say that it is a process of expansion of SELF-knowledge.
Greater & greater knowledge of Self, and of the Universe, are inseparably one - and both impel & feed each other.
The END is the source & cause of the BEGINNING: this is a very, very important truth.
In that sense, the End is the Beginning, and the Beginning is the End.
"Progress" as I understand is, is the movement towards comprehension & realization of the ULTIMATE relationship between Man & Existence.
In this ultimate relationship consists the Joy of life, and to the extent we have realized it, we are truly joyous.
The rationalist says: Life is an end in itself.
This is a sweet-sounding, convinient escape-route, an evasion of the question: WHY must a man live? WHAT must man live for?
He approaches an answer when he says that there are moments in a man's life when men is cognizant of the truth that: Yes! This is life, and this is worth living for!
And yet, the rationalist has not answered the question.
He never seeks to elucidate the inner law of life, in all its complexity, its multi-pronged but integrated march towards a specific goal.
He finally seals the question when he says: Life's meaning is the meaning that YOU - the individual - give it.
This may be true from a specific individual's point of view, seen within a small bracket of the limited time-space he occupies.
The truth is that Life DOES have a meaning quite apart from what meaning specific men want to give THEIR specific, individual lives.
Life has its Truth & inner law independent of a specific person's conscious perception & comprehension of it.
Man's life has meaning independent of a specific person's interpretation & effort: a universal meaning which every individual must grasp & strive to establish.
The process of history has been, perhaps, a struggle to grasp what precisely this law & meaning is, and since life & human nature are so complex, it has taken thousands of years, and may take thousands of years more to actually establish the 'Kingdom of God' on this earth.

Whatever might be the details of the ultimate truth, the fact is that no philosophy of life is relevant if it is not a philosophy to be grasped, practised, & realized in this life, here & now, on this earth.
I do not necessarily mean all the externals of civilization, or joys of the body - (because, immediately it is understood that "the joy of the earth" means money & sex) - but in a broader context, not for any dimension beyond our existence as human beings.
It is possible that the ultimate truth of life here & now does NOT involve sex & art & culture: it may be something else.
Men cling to these phenomena & conceptions so militantly, because they cannot concieve of life without them, not bothering to grasp that YES, life is a big zero without these aspects, WHEN IT HAS NOT GAINED A NEW, DIFFERENT TRUTH.
If some great blazing-eyed sage wandering on unknown mountain peaks asks men to abandon sex & money & foolish, frivolous art & culture (think of the Dadaists, the Absurdists, of painting without form or pattern, music without sound & harmony, novels without events! etc.) - he does not ask men to renounce all this & sit tight & do nothing else & seek nothing else. He offers a totally different vision of life - a whole new set of activities, values, practices, disciplines, joys, achievements. A new alternative.
We, sitting inside our cubicles, don't understand because we keep seeing HIS life from OUR perspective, without quite changing it.
The rationalists' paymasters are bone-scared of THIS, and spread the propaganda that this kind of life is impossible & useless - and actually create this universal misunderstanding by creating a life, with all its fascinating & bogus glamor & glitter - in which men enslave themselves, and laugh at renunciation & mysticism.
(This does not mean that the rationalists all speak lies & there's nothing to be learnt from them; they do make many crucial, relevant points, & their philosophy contains a large degree of truth. Also, it would be totally untrue to say that all of them affirm what they do without truth & depth of conviction. They can be very profound, & infact most of them are very sincere.)

So the question arises: What must men live for?
What is the deeper essence of all movement in life? What is the direction life fundamentally takes?
Life being a process of widening, deepening, & extending our relationship with existence - it is a process of erasing all separativeness & conflict between the Unit & the Whole.
A relationship implies two distinct entities with two distinct natures.
It implies that the relationship exists at a certain level, it has its own law & its own process.
(There can be various levels, or contexts, each with its own law & process. For e.g., between two individuals there is a physical context, an intellectual context, a social context, etc.)
It implies that both entities have an ideal condition of being, which both strive to achieve.
An ideal condition of being (in the context of the relationship between these two entities) is one in which both are at LEAST conflict with one another, i.e. are in perfect at-one-ment.
It implies that the distinctness or separativeness necessarily leads to conflict - hence, the ideal condition of being has to be achieved following a particular path - in which their individuality is maintained, and yet, perfect harmony between the two is attained.
It implies that the relationship between the two entities contains the law of the process of adjustment, of obliterating any conflict between the two entities, & achievement of perfect harmony.
In other words, all of life is a movement towards greater harmony or oneness with Existence, WHILE MAINTAINING THE PERFECT INDIVIDUALITY OF THE ENTITIES INVOLVED.
The active entity in this case is man.
It also must be understood that this Whole is NOT a social, cultural, political or even an ideological whole, but a METAPHYSICAL, SPIRITUAL Whole: the ALL of Existence - its entirety.
The interpretations that the Whole manifests itself in "society", the "collective", & the "State" are all MIS-interpretations, designed for ulterior political & economic motives.

And thus, the perfect relationship - the fundamental & ultimate TRUTH - of Man & Existence is when BOTH ARE DISTINCT FROM ONE ANOTHER, AND YET, PERFECTLY ONE, i.e., in perfect harmony with each other.
This has to be understood properly: the UNITY has its own definite, unique CONTEXT, because a thing cannot be something else in ANY FINITE context (i.e. except the context which subsumes ALL possible finite, measurable, sensorily-perceptible contexts).
The Man remains distinct from the Universe as such, physically & sensorily: and that's why, he remains a specific entity occupying limited, specific time & space.
The unity is an inner unity - and exists in the spiritual, metaphysical dimension: the dimension of Spirit, of Atma-Brahma.
This is the ONLY POSSIBLE context in which a Man is both Man the Finite Individual occupying limited, definite time & space, and the Universe transcending all time & space.
Man's body does not become Existence's "body" - which is impossible.
I am not in a position to say if the Universe has a Mind & a Life: there is no reason to think it doesn't - and little to base an affirmation that it does.
But considering, for the meanwhile, that the dimension corresponding to the MIND in man, is LAW in the universe, there MAY NOT be perfect oneness between the two: a man who has attained perfect SPIRITUAL oneness with the universe may not be OMNISCIENT - may not be aware of the structure of atoms & behavior of sub-atomic particles.
So, a mental or rational unity is not the point, and perhaps is not possible. (I'm sure of the former, not of the latter).
And so, Man's MIND does not BECOME the Mind of Existence, or the Mind of God.
The IDENTITY is in context of Brahman - Tao - Dharmakaya - Ayin-Soph - the root, essence, & BASE of ALL of existence - it is in the context of God.
This, I think, tackles the question of "A is A".
Man remains a specific unit in time & space, with his own thoughts & mental, vital, emotional & physical processes: distinct from the univese: a unique entity in his own respect.
Both pursue their own laws & processes independently of each other.
And yet, he has achieved what's called AT-ONE-MENT.
Strictly speaking, Man does NOT "BECOME" the All: he GRASPS THE TRUTH that he fundamentally - i.e., essentially, in spiritual & metaphysical terms - IS One with the Totality. He always was, and always will be.
It is when Man comes to THIS realization, that he is in perfect harmony with Existence - and with every aspect, element, & particle of it.
His relationship with existence is perfect & ultimate BECAUSE HE HAS ATTAINED TO, & GRASPED, THE FUNDAMENTAL SPIRITUAL-METAPHYSICAL CONTEXT, IN WHICH THEIR DISTINCT INDIVIDUALITIES ARE TOTALLY ERASED.

Is it possible?

2008-09-05T15:09:00.007+05:30

DISSOCIATE:

Life, from Death

Love, from Hatred

Bliss, from Sorrow

Fearlessness, from Contempt or Hatred

Contemplativeness, from Inactivity

Justice, from External Authority

Mercy, from Indifference (to vice, to the Sin)

Judgment, from Indictment

Non-violence, from Cowardice or Helplessness

Renunciation, from Disillusionment, or sense of one's ineffectualness or failure

Charity, from Expectation (of gratitude)

Punishment, from Injury & the Desire to hurt, or Vindictiveness

Conflict-resolution, from Force or Coercion

Criticism, from Sarcasm & Abuse, or Denigration

Pride, from arrogance, & depreciation of those lesser abled or endowed

Mystery, from Superstition & Fear

Humbleness, from a lack of self-respect, or courage

Boldness, from Brazenness or Impudence

Courage, from Recklessness (or Foolishness)

Confidence, from Egotism & Rudeness

Advising, from Imposition

Helping, from making another dependent on oneself (or anyone/anything else)

Pity, from disrespect for the other person

Sacrifice, from lack of Conviction & Cheerfulness

Martyrdom, from Sense of injury, & hatred, & fury

Suffering, from Complaint & Resentment

Disagreement, from Abusiveness or Denigration

Intuitiveness, from Irrationality

Self-control, from Self-denial

Simplicity, from Poverty

And you get the Ideal.

Is this IMPOSSIBLE? I don't know for sure, but I think THIS is what all serious thought leads to, in the ultimate analysis.

Fan Kuan's masterpiece

2008-09-02T12:11:00.009+05:30

Only an object of sublimity

Can stir the deepest depths within man's soul;

In narrow confines men grow narrow,

But greater when their goals are higher set.

-- Friedrich Schiller, Prologue to Wallenstein (1799)

Chinese monumental landscape painter Fan Kuan's "Travelers amid Mountains and Streams", one of the most magnificent depictions of the grandeur of Nature. One of the greatest works of art to come out of China, and the prime example of Taoist art. Typically, the interpretation is on the bigness of Nature compared to the smallness of man, given the diminutive figures of men & animals at the bottom right corner of the painting. I think a little differently. I'd rather suppose we, with our highly limited dreams, in our actual physical smallness, are being called on to look at a vision of greatness which we are compelled to grasp, aspire to, and attain. Hindu philosophy says: Praano Viraat: Life is Immense. God, the Light & the Life of All, is Immense. Man is fundamentally & ultimately Immense. He has to KNOW that he IS Immense. For me, this painting is a depiction of man's intuitive grasp of the presence of God in Nature. Because it is a projection of IMMENSITY: of the unshakable & enduring - the mountain being a symbol not only of spiritual ascension & height, but also of permanence, magnificence, and eternality. It is in such aspects of the universe, as projected in this painting, that man grasps - at once, immediately & directly within himself - the Call to Union with the Immense. He kneels in reverence at the glory of Creation - not to acknowledge his smallness as the final word on himself - but in his longing & love for greatness, which indicates HIS greatness - and grasps that it is not an impersonal world of abstractions & indifferent laws, but an intensely PERSONAL universe where our soul truly belongs - that Existence itself is a Revelation. And that we see the meaning of our lives with luminous clarity only when we realise that Nature's message is the call to revere & to love - to adore the pinnacles of possibilities, to rise, to EXPAND - & to grasp the "greater than the great" - the Creator behind the Creation. Beauty & magnificence exist - in Nature - as depicted in this painting - and that they exist takes man to the heart of the secret of existence, of life, of Self. In his adoration of immensity, lies the secret of his own (spiritual) immensity. Herein lies the source of the impulsion to seek & get, the catalyst, the fuel, a symbol of the ultimate. This painting gives an immediate vision of the Immensity of Creation, & hence, of the Creator - of God - and through our rapturous adoration of this Immensity, an insight into our own spiritual grandeur. Symbolically, it gives a direct glimpse of all that we seek to be - all that we aspire for - & evokes a forceful longing to attain it.

(This painting was obtained from Wikimedia Commons. I have altered the original slightly, by increasing the brightness & contrast.)

THE ACHIEVEMENT OF SRI AUROBINDO

2008-09-01T15:30:00.025+05:30

I have read only a small fragment of the enormous corpus of Sri Aurobindo. It may not be more than 2-3% of the total output of this mind-bogglingly prolific genius & intellectual polymath, and yet, I've been overwhelmed by this towering personality. I can't say whether I agree with him on every point or not. Indeed, I cannot say this of ANYBODY. Strictly speaking, I represent MYSELF ONLY; neither any other individual, nor any other group. But I've been deeply influenced, and I adore, great men - heroes - like Aurobindo Ghosh, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Victor Hugo, Mahatma Gandhi, Madam Blavatsky, Rabindranath Tagore, & S. Radhakrishnan.

The greatest achievement of Aurobindo, or perhaps the most unique one, is the boundless GRANDEUR with which he invested ancient Hindu philosophy. The modern interpretations of Vedic-Vedantic wisdom tend to be somewhat apologetic, keeping in view the Titanic advances of western science & technology; and the focus on life's suffering, and the projection of Indian philosophy almost as a sort of ESCAPISM, is not uncommon. Many people still think that one should adopt the path of an Indian Rishi only when one is fed-up with life, or when one has piled up immense suffering through IRRATIONAL behavior (such as unbridled hedonism, or being whimsical & "non-objective" in one's decisions). The truth is this: Hindu philosophy focuses on Man's quest for GREATNESS, for PERFECT BLISS, Supreme Bliss: Ananda. Sri Aurobindo recognized THIS, and built his personal perspective on perennial wisdom not as a form of escapism, not as a route to avoid suffering, not even as the only way out from the (social, political etc.) problems afflicting the life of the individual or any larger group, -- but as a quest for the ultimate truth -- as a search for IMMEASURABLE grandeur -- as a search for SPIRITUAL GREATNESS. Not a negative, but an emphatically positive quest. Herein lies the fascination & power to draw, in everything written by him. There is no sense of self-defense, or apology, in his magnificent glorification of a magnificent philosophy. There's no meekness, or sense of one's insignificance or smallness or corruption. I've already noted that SELF-EXPANSION is at the root of mystical philosophy. Man constantly seeks to grow bigger than what he already is; he ceaselessly seeks to outgrow himself. ALL OF LIFE IS A MOVEMENT TOWARDS A WIDER, LARGER, DEEPER IDENTITY - A GREATER CONCEPTION OF SELF - and establishment of a broader & profounder relationship with existence. Religion in its truest sense, goes to the very Source, Root, and Finality of this quest. It takes man to the LARGEST identity possible to man: and, unlike non-mystical philosophies, affirms a certain, final, an ultimate achievement which encompasses, transcends, & surpasses ALL possible, concievable achievements, & conceptions of Self. Joy is in Self-enlargement. Man has found himself more true & has felt a deeper reflection of his own identity in the grandeur of the Konark Temple, or of Notre Dame de Rheims, rather than in a hut or hovel: because the temple soaring to the skies possesses a vibrant, radiant sense of immortality & imperishability, of ascent to greater heights, endurance in the face of vagaries & attacks of time & hence, of immutability, of grandeur - than a hovel or shack. Vedantic philosophy takes us to the very essence & pinnacle of THIS restless quest for immortality, infinity, immutability - which underlies all our aspirations & ambitions - for self-expansion - for IMMENSITY - through a radical transformation of consciousness. When can Man have greater love for the Universe, than when he grasps the TRUTH, that HE IS the Universe? Can man go further than grasping with his whole being: "I am the one Being's sole immobile bliss / No one am I, I am all that is"? And yet, this is the gift of Sri Aurobindo to mankind, that one wonderful statement which reveals the glory & ecstasy of Union with God. The recognition, elucidation, & glorification of mysticism focusing on THIS aspect of spirituality, is Aurobindo's unique achievement.

His emphasis is the achievement of spiritual power - the attainment of the largest & widest & deepest - and a dismissal of any lesser goal, or imperfect bliss, - which satisfies almost all of common humanity. The vicious attacks on Hindu philosophy, made by many modern so-called rationalists, that Hinduism (& Oriential mysticism in general) is based on abject fear & bewilderment, vanish when one confronts the enormous power of Aurobindo's vision. Is there fear, underconfidence, & shamefulness in a man who proudly sings: "I am a cup of His felicities / A thunderblast of His golden ecstasy's height / I am His rapture's wonderful abyss" or, "The spirit's infinite breath I feel in me / My life is a throb of Thy eternity"? Where is there fear in the soul which challenged the great inexorable sea: "Yes, thou great sea / I am more mighty & outbillow thee. / On thy tops I rise; / 'Tis an excuse to dally with the skies"? This is the voice that thunders out to people: Wake up! What are you doing, meddling with petty, silly pleasures - and half-baked, miserable little child's games? Look! Eternity waits for union with you, and Immortality seeks your recognition! You think you shall pass away, you live in constant fear of defeat & decay & death, you think you are that which is subject to ruthless time & natural law, but I say to you: Tat Tvam Asi - YOU ARE THAT - the Immortal, the One, the Infinite - the God whom you worship, and tremble before, and seek to placate in your ignorance, and cow & grovel before - SEE who He really is - and realize that YOU ARE HE!

Aurobindo's philosophy is not one of the futility of existence - of fatigue of the non-mystical life - but a confident, truthful seeing of life on this earth as the most wonderful gift to realize the Divine; that it is the mind which takes us beyond the Mind; it is recognition of that supreme truth which all the rationalists hide from men: through the exercise of the conceptual faculty, & reason, men CANNOT grasp the TOTALITY OF THE TOTAL - the TOTAL in & as ONE - BUT, IT CAN BE DONE. The immortality & the infinity which are incomprehensible abstractions for the rationalist, CAN DEFINITELY BE ATTAINED BY MAN. There is no "ultimate" for the rationalist - he cannot concieve it because he is trapped in a realm of fragments & parts and can't concieve of the WHOLE - he asks, bewildered: What do you mean by "Knowing the All?" - and he passes off his own incapability to form an idea of it, to simple people who can't envision it for themselves. On reading Aurobindo, one feels something akin to pity for the men who deride & reject Brahman; one feels: how small these men are! No, I do not recommend such an emotion, nor is it true to the spirit of God-realization; but I speak from THEIR point of view, the ones who live their life in contempt & judgmentality.

Aurobindo is a hero, and is a hero-worshipper. His whole thrust was the HEROISM & SPLENDOR IN MAN'S QUEST FOR GOD. The greatness & significance of his poetry lies in the SPIRIT of supreme confidence & solemn joyousness they exude - in the sheer psychological power in which they have their source - and the great promise they hold out to man: you are not a passing, ephemeral phenomenon, a mere speck in the measurelessness of time & space: but you can transcend change & decay - time & space itself. The promise of psychological fearlessness & expansiveness. Their significance as works of art lies in their power to evoke the primal desire in Man to seek the Ultimate - in projecting the psychological & emotional experience of God-realization as something we all seek & yearn for - in a forceful revealing that Brahmic-consciousness is something of unsurpassable value, as a culimination of all our efforts to seek joy, as something worthy to be fought for & striven for with all the strength of our being. I have neither read all his books, nor am I associated with his admirers - but I deeply adore his projection of Hindu philosophy as something totally devoid of guilt or self-hatred - as a pursuit of positives: of greater & larger truths & joys, by taking man to the logical conclusion of ALL of Man's goals & joys - & a living, possible ideal of incomparable strength & grandeur. And, from all that I've read, I shall conclude this post with these lines from this Master, which firmly & finally establish what I want to convey: the great vigorous spirit of the seeker of God:

My soul unhorizoned widens to measureless sight,

My body is God's happy living tool,

My spirit a vast sun of deathless light.

An attempt to grasp the meaning of GOD

2008-08-25T17:29:00.010+05:30

I came across this statement by the great atheist-materialist-anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, a typical argument given by Rationalists: "God being everything, the real world and man are nothing. God being truth, justice, goodness, beauty, power, and life, man is falsehood, iniquity, evil, ugliness, impotence, and death. God being master, man is the slave." While Satan is "the eternal rebel, the first freethinker and the emancipator of worlds."

I wonder: What is it that made Bakunin come to such a conclusion?

I have basically one answer to this string of indictments: AHAM BRAHMASMI.

I also came across a statement made by Friedrich Nietzsche, directed at religion, especially Buddhism: "...they see an invalid, or an old man, or a corpse, and immediately say, life is refuted."

I agree the degree of pessimism is extreme in Buddhsim (to call it "overdone" is to merely denigrate it), and given that Buddha lived in the 6th century BCE, there might've been good reason for considering all life as suffering. But this statement, coming from a man who suffered from severe mental illness for the last 11 years of his life, most probably died - at the comparitively young age of 56 - out of syphilis - and after two paralyzing strokes and a bout of pneumonia - is certainly ironic. One can feel only immense pain on reading about the tragic life of this occasionally powerful thinker, but the irony is for all to see.

I sometimes think that most young people today don't have the rancor against religion which conscientious men had even 30-odd years ago, because they are not aware of how institutionalized religion perverted & crippled human life. It is curious, nevertheless, that men were, & still are, unable to see the difference between Caiaphas & Paul. It is sad, on the other hand, that people are blissfully unaware of the roots of materialism, atheism & the various forms of rationalism.

I must emphasize that I reject atheism on the basis of a very simple idea that God is nothing but that ONE EXISTENT, which is at the Root, which is the Essence, and the SINGLE UNIFYING Existential-Metaphysical Force/Principle of ALL of existence - of EVERY aspect & form & level of it: both matter & "consciousness". It is ONE - and not multiple. Which is why it is FUNDAMENTAL. God is a LOGICAL NECESSITY. The fact that something exists, PRESUPPOSES something BY VIRTUE of which it exists: which makes the existence of ANY ENTITY possible. God is that fundamental 'SOMETHING'. And it underlies EVERYTHING that ever existed, that exists, and that can ever exist. So, in a way, & amongst other perspectives, God may also be called the VERY PRINCIPLE OF EXISTENCE - i.e. of (EVERYTHING & ANYTHING) coming into existence.

Since It is SINGLE, since It is necessary, It transcends time & space, and hence, both are simply not applicable to It.

So when we talk about the 'Infinity' of God, the basic conception is not that God is immortal or unlimited in extension, but that the concepts of time & space LOGICALLY CANNOT apply to It. Therefore it is said of Brahman that It never was born, it never came to be, never came into BEING. It is "the Unborn". In another sense, it TIES TOGETHER all of time & space, thus annuling both. In yet another sense, in terms of time & space, it IS eternal - unlimited in extension.

God has to be FIRST grasped as a METAPHYSICAL PRINCIPLE, which - THUS - is necessarily an EXISTENT.

What atheists do, is to take the EXOTERIC, "VULGAR" (i.e. pertaining to the common masses) conception of a powerful bearded hoary man who sends commandments & threats - who punishes & rewards - capricious & "jealous" - and THEN apply a melee of esoteric, spiritual concepts to it - and thus mess up the whole issue. This won't work, and is merely a futile exercise in self-delusion. Which is why atheism can be quite tiresome to refute, since the atheists are simply not seeing the point! In pure spiritual doctrine, Parambrahma, or Brahman, or Ayin-Soph, or Shunyata - have NO direct or wilful influence on human affairs.

PRAYER is a form of meditation, of contemplation, and of tranquilizing the distraught, chaotic, unfocused mind, NOT a petition for material benefit. The process of prayer itself confers SPIRITUAL, psychological, and moral benefit on a human being, so it is not devoid of value.

God is, because the Universe IS. God is, because Existence IS.

Everything that exists - exists METAPHYSICALLY - whether it be a thought, an emotion, a fleeting physical impulse, the whole of space itself, or time itself, a cosmic or psychological law, or a leptron.

What makes its existence possible? What makes the metaphysical existence of ANY entity possible?

What is THAT ONE ENTITY, which makes the metaphysical existence of ANY entity, ANY event, ANY law, ANY force, ANY possibility in existence - possible?

That ONE entity, so to speak, which is not just "Consciousness" - but the root & essence & cause of consciousness - that from which consciousness comes - & so does every particle of existence - is God.

And, again, by logical defintion, the root-essence has to be UNCHANGING, IMMUTABLE.

BY DEFINITION, IT HAS TO BE THE SAME AT EVERY POINT OF SPACE & TIME. For, if it changes, it is not the one, and cannot be fundamental; what we have identified follows a law of change, and we are not seeing the essence, but a manifestation of the essence (we are witnessing some temporary forms or patterns of something which BY DEFINITION, has to be stable & unchangeable).

It is in that stone, in that electron, in this table, in that cat, in that man, in his eyes, in the nerves connecting his eyes to his brain, in the electrons, neutrons & protons which constitute those nerves as well as the signals transmitted from the eye to the brain and back. It was yesterday, 3 days back, 10 years back, 5 millennia back, 300,000 billlion years back - always. It shall remain so tomorrow, and 5oo,000 trillion millennia hence. BY DEFINTION.

THIS is my concept of God, and this is what I affirm.

I do not see Atheists refuting this - and they cannot - because we have to begin by asking: WHAT IS THAT BY VIRTURE OF WHICH EXISTENCE EXISTS? Existence - in each & every part/aspect - as well as a whole?

It logically follows, that GOD IS THE TOTALITY-OF-EXISTENCE-AS-ONE.

In this sense, GOD IS EXISTENCE.

For some verses from India's most glorious scriptures, which, according to me, confirm my understanding, please go HERE.

The concepts of Spirit, Soul, & Matter come later: and "consciousness" - a vague modern term, variously defined - has almost nothing to do with the term "Spirit". Soul, consciousness, & Matter are UNITED in God, and there is NO fundamental, metaphysic-essential break between them. To understand 'God', we have to begin by rejecting the idea that 'God is Consciousness', or even God is 'Pure Consciousness'. The word 'Spirit' was used for God, and "SPIRIT" IS NOT "CONSCIOUSNESS".

I shall definitely attempt a more systematic, coherent elucidation of the meaning of God; right now, I was prepared only for an extremely rudimentary & elementary statement, but one not false or inconsistent or illogical. What I've written is definitely NOT new or revolutionary or original. This has been stated thousands of years ago, FOR thousands of years, and by thousands of men.

On what conditions a philosophy of love would work

2008-08-22T12:18:00.010+05:30

It would be truly unfortunate for anyone to conclude that I totally reject each & every idea & value held by Rationalists & Atheists. What may be percieved as "ranting" or "foaming" - as "tirades" & "diatribes" - are directed at specific ideas, and specific applications, not to the vast number of individuals who have accepted the validity of certain systems. I have said, and I shall repeat, that I admire many rationalists & atheists, and even many ideas of the rational-egoists.

I give this clarification, to put my own views in the proper perspective.

I am too conscious, for example, of the immense corruption of, & suffering caused by, organized religion - whether in Europe, or in the Middle East, or in India. I am too conscious of the horrendous use concepts like "Faith", "God's Will", "Karma", "Original Sin", etc have been put to. I do understand the disastrous consequences of philosophies in which the individual is seen as a means to the ends of some other entity, whether God, or the State, or "society" etc. Which is why it has to be reiterated that a philosophy of love is impossible without perfect freedom of the will, utmost respect for individual autonomy, self-determination, & a total rejection of Force (especially non-imposition of Faith) & violence.

What does horrify me, is that the Rationalist-Atheist ideological leaders themselves have their own agenda, and are part of a much larger scheme of perversion of the human mind, & destruction of man's perception of the truth. This is successful only when one stealthily puts in a few false ideas here & there in a meticulously constructed web of indubitable truths & impeccable logic. If it is not so, then they are either unwitting instruments in the hands of invisible forces, or unknowingly cause immense harm to the truth.

The truth is this: A God-affirming spiritual philosophy (I call it a 'Philosophy of Love') rejects the idea that one individual, or any collective, has the RIGHT to make decisions for another individual or community. Not only has he no such right, but HE SHALL NEVER TRY TO ORGANIZE THE WAY OTHER PEOPLE LIVE OR THINK.

The highest moral purpose of his life is HIS OWN SPIRITUAL PERFECTION: PERFECT UNION WITH THE ONE METAPHYSICAL ESSENCE OF EXISTENCE, i.e. GOD - the Totality of the All as One.

The creative expression of his moral values - i.e., the concrete goals he sets for himself to sustain & complete the course of his life - his actions & specific goals of life - are infinite. They may very legitimately be in the field of art or science. (He is also most justified in cutting himself off from the whole world & leading the simple life of a farmer, or shut himself up in a monastery.) They are more likely to be directed at making it possible for men at large to recognize the ultimate truth of life, and move towards that truth, & its perfect integration with their life-actions & life-goals - i.e.,their moral regeneration & spiritual illumination.

But in anything that he does, he simply cannot covet what is undeserved & unearned (since his needs are minimal, his life simplified to barest essentials, he practices austerity, & he has totally abandoned the desire to possess or control) - he cannot use either the force of law or of money to achieve any ends - he cannot take part in politics or trade, two of the greatest corrupting influences, the two-pronged fork of various manipulating forces to pervert spirituality to serve political & commercial agendas, & hence become partisan & sectarian - he cannot, as enjoined by the Dhammapada, "offend by body, word, or thought, and is controlled on these three points".

As Lao Tzu says in the Tao Te Ching: Can you embrace the One with your soul, and never depart from the Way? Can you concentrate your vital force to achieve the gentleness of a new-born baby? Can you cleanse and purify your mystic vision until it is clear? Can you love the people and govern the state without interfering?

We may admit that Lao Tzu's times were radically different from ours, and that new solutions have to be found in new conditions. The essence, however, has to be grasped & imbibed.

The basic principle remains: no imposition by the name of "faith" - no use of force or any form of coercion - absolute non-violence - no propagation of hatred or revenge.

There is no humanitarianism or fruitful mysticism/spiritualism without these crucial values.

An excellent image was created by Victor Hugo in Jean Valjean as an austere, saintly industrialist in "Les Miserables". Hugo opened a whole new vision for men, through that greatest of all novels. The use of the printing press, of the internet, & of various modern technological resources for the spiritual unification of mankind is imperative. And perhaps this is a part of the modern problem. They must be preserved & developed, and yet not be instruments for division, isolationism, and all forms of corruption & exploitation. (For e.g., large-scale corporations solve many problems, & create others: they help in, say, mass dissemination of ideas, & at the same time wield an uncanny, absolute control on the type of information disseminated. The magnitude of scale enables them to spread knowledge wide & far more economically than otherwise, but this brings them the kind of power which makes it possible for them to spread disinformation & untruths.) Modern civilization has to undergo change & will necessarily drop many of its currently-held notions & conceptions. How to bring about an equilibrium between the endlessly inquisitive & imaginative mind - the desire to express all the intellectual & creative powers of man - to solve all the pressing problems of human life & lift it to a new level of relationship with the universe (in intellectual, emotional & physical terms) -- and the perennial wisdom of austerity, non-attachment to material values, concentration on Brahman / Tao/ Shunyata / Ayin-Soph, total dedication to the Union with this One Immortal Being, & absolute, universal love - is perhaps the most crucial problem facing contemporary humanity.

Intriguing & Beautiful

2008-08-22T03:05:00.002+05:30

"COMPASSION" - by William Bouguereau

This image was obtained from Wikimedia Commons.

Atheists & Rationalists

2008-08-20T11:59:00.013+05:30

It might be inferred, from what I’ve written in my previous posts, that men & women who endorse rationalism, atheism, & even Violence are, by that very reason, anathema to me.
Infact, it’s not so.

The rationalists, atheists, & even those who give a qualified acqueiscence to Violence, can be wonderful people, who deserve all our respect & admiration. I personally adore many of them.

My father is an atheist (for all practical purposes), and I myself was a staunch atheist-rational-egoist a few years back.

Certainly, today I think many of these people are mistaken in their views: but their philosophy has its own justification, its own powerful basis in reality. And a large number of them are people with enormous character & strength. They possess all those great virtues which we admire in a Man: aspiration to do something meaningful in life, tremendous endurance & tenacity, inexhaustible benevolence & deep respect for the sacrosanctity of the human personality, a strong sense of justice & an intransigent integrity, a passionate concern with ideas & indefatigable industriousness, independence of consciousness & a keen sensitivity to the finer things of life.

There are also many of them who lack generosity, tolerance (a quality which is an abomination to all mindless fanatics), ability to forgive & forget, and a self-induced callousness & cruelty. This, however, is not the rule, though it isn't the exception either.

So if I do indict rationalism, atheism, and Force & Violence - it's not necessary that I condemn & hate all rationalists, atheists, & the ones who give a QUALIFIED acquiescence to Force & Violence.

When it comes to atheists, I'd love to quote Victor Hugo, from "Les Miserables":

"There are, we know, mighty & illustrious atheists. These men, in fact, led round again towards truth by their very power, are not absolutely sure of being atheists, with them, the matter is nothing but a question of definitions, and at all events, if they do not believe in God, being great minds, they prove God. We hail, in them, philosophers, while, at the same time, inexorably disputing their philosophy."

Nothing could be truer, and no attitude of mind - healthier.

Take for instance the atheists who reject the existence of God by defining God as "Consciousness". While some modern philosophers might have made the gross error of calling God "Consciousness" - the fact is that this is not the definition of God at all, and never was. Not a single scripture has defined "God" as "Consciousness" - a relatively modern term, which evolved about the 17th century CE - with no strict correspondence in the ancient world. If one has to understand what God is, one has to go back to the source, the texts where this conception took its first complete shape, to those hoary sages & prophets & mystic-seers, almost non-existent for two millennia, who actually understood & apprehended God. They never do so. They can never extract any sentence from any primeval scripture which DEFINES "God" as "Consciousness" - and which defines Consciousness, or the procedure by which the definitions have been established. This is another example of the sheer ignorance & WILFUL REFUSAL of the so-called Rationalists, who pride themselves on focusing on "objective" reality, to search for the complete truth. Have they STUDIED the scriptures? Examined each & every statement & word in its depth? Been initiated into the mysteries of mystic knowledge? Pondered for years over the immortality of the soul? Known how & why the scriptures were written, and why only hieroglyphs & symbols were used, and not plain explanation of ideas? The real meaning of allegories & symbolic fantasies?

An appalling majority of them neither bother, nor think they ought to bother - and yet are ready to spit on, & malign, & misrepresent spiritual truths - condemn the scriptures & all mystic-seers - unload gallons of abuse on them & deny them a hearing - attribute the vilest & falsest of calumnies & conspiracies to them - or at best, dimiss them with repulsive pity, or a sarcastic laugh.

Truth & Reason?

Take for instance the absurd idea of the atheist-rationalist that "God is Unknowable". They reject God because they somehow think that according to the mystic, God is "Unknowable".

But then, how does the Vedantic seer say "Aham Brahmasmi" (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, Yajur Veda) - "I am Brahman"? How on earth did he KNOW?

How does he say "Ayam Atma Brahma" (Mandukya Upanishad, Atharva Veda) - "This Self is Brahman"? (Self as in "Atma") How could he know without knowing Brahma (i.e. Brahman)?

Or take for instance the "Katha Upanishad". How does it make a statement like:- "When all desires that dwell within the human heart are cast away, then a mortal becomes immortal and (even) HERE HE ATTAINETH TO BRAHMAN."

Or, how does Yagyavalkya say:-

"Knowing that immortal Brahman, I am Immortal."

"They who know the life of life, the eye of the eye, the ear of the ear, and the mind of the mind, they have realized the ancient primordial Brahman."

The absurd, groundless hatred directed at India, and Indian ("Hindoo") culture becomes comprehensible only when one grasps that Indian civilization, philosophy & mysticism completely & totally demolishes the whole false structure of modern western Atheistic Rationalism, founded as it is on half-truths, distortions, misrepresentations, outright lies, and a laughable, pitiable ignorance. This hatred is to be found directed at the Orient in general - though it requires merely the effort to find a few good books, & now, a few websites, to see how passionately life-affirming, creative, inexhaustibly fertile, productive, & active - Oriental civilization (as also a large majority of Meso-American civilization) always was.

The rationalist, above all, seeks measurable, verbal, tangible & communicable CERTAINTY, not Absolute Truth. He doesn't like anything foggy or intangible. (Is it a concidence that the word "mystic" is so close to "misty"?) There's a great degree of weight in such a desire. Spirituality invariably descends into something as messy as black magic, astrology & prophecy, an obsession with karma & amulets & trinkets & talismans, and ALWAYS gets corrupted by aligning itself to politics & business. All this however, still does not negate the ultimate truth of scriptural wisdom. Nothing that is truly great is easy to achieve, the path is always very, very difficult - and if only a man or two can accomplish what Albert Einstein & Isaac Newton could (in the realm of intellect), only very few people can accomplish what Jesus or Lao Tzu did (in the field of spirituality). The difference lies in that in the realm of intellect, once an Albert Einstein or Werner Heisenberg has accomplished the original task, the rest of humanity has to merely understand the results, & repeat or apply, & at best, add to what they've given. I do not have to BECOME Einstein & repeat his struggle every step of the way, to understand what he did. I do not have to actually achieve his achievement. Not so in spirituality. Being a discipline of self-spiritual-development, each man has to BECOME Jesus or Sakyamuni, and do all that these men did, to achieve what they achieved. This is infinitely more difficult, and hence, while all of us may understand the Theory of Relativity, all of us can't see things clearly from Jesus' perspective. THIS is the crucial difference between mere intellectual striving, and spiritual self-development.

Certainty is not rejected by mysticism - but tangible, measurable certainty of the BASIS or starting-point of one's PURPOSE is. I really have no clue, in terms of realization with my whole being, if Brahman exists, though I CAN establish Its existence logically i.e. intellectually. And while I can percieve subtle changes in my whole being through the whole process of Yoga, it is only when I actually attain Moksha do I know that: Yes! Brahman IS, and THIS is Brahman. There is no greater certainty than this, in a Man's life. The point is that the rationalist thinks that only the Measurable & Finite exists, though, by his own terms, the Universe itself is Immeasurable (in time & space), and hence, Infinite. To the proposition that the non-measurable exists, for e.g., in emotions, or, in the phenomenon of consciousness itself, all he can do is vomit barrels of abuse on mystics as mind-haters, life-haters, man-haters. He avoids the infinite because of fear & underconfidence, or (in certain cases) the desire to mislead people & to propagate his own agenda, not because of rationality.

He does not seem to appreciate the idea that THAT which is the root & cause of, & the force behind & uniting ALL laws, all forces, all phenomenon, all forms, all levels of existence (both matter & consciousness), all of time & space - can neither be percieved by any one, or any combination, of sense-organs, or analyzed by the mind, and is not measurable, since it comprehends all measurement. It is apprehended, in its turn, by the whole being of Man, and not any specific separable part or element in him, or any limited combination of them. Hence, it cannot be tangible, or communicable (as an explanation of its specific, separative features or workings), or reduced to mathematical formulas.

This post has reached that point, where it would be undesirable to stretch it any longer, so I must halt. The thrust actually was, that the atheists & rationalists whom we come across in life (except certain specific ideological groups, or cults), are NOT people to be hated, or rejected, or disrespected. They are often excellent human beings, who truly seek the welfare of the world, and work hard for it. Their hatred against mysticism is often founded on a mistaken confusion of the obscene corruption of organized religion & certain mystery cults, for spiritualism itself, or the actual esoteric, mystic wisdom itself. But Innocent III is not St. Paul, and some pot-bellied, pig-tailed, saffron-robed, greedy, obese Brahmin spitting venom on Untouchables & lamenting that some member of a lower caste crossed his shadow, is not Veda Vyasa or Krishna. Jesus did NOT institute the Roman Catholic Church. The man who said "I and My Father are One" is not the man who established the Inquisition, and there is no deeper, ideological connection between their views. The hatred directed against the corruptions & falsehoods of organized, dogmatized religion is justified, and sacred - but the rejection of the baby with the bathwater is either innocently but seriously erroneous, or outright evil. In either case, it can have disastrous consequences, unless redeemed by an all-embracing Christian love (like that in the atheist Baba Amte) - by a passionate reverence for human life - by a fiery zeal to expand the human mind in its quest for ever-increasing comprehension of Nature's deepest laws & those of the totality of human life, i.e. for greater & greater Knowledge - & by a vast love for the liberation of the human mind, conscience & life unto ever-widening Wisdom & Truth.

Working towards a more comprehensive view of life - 2

2008-08-18T17:22:00.016+05:30

According to the modern rational-egoist, to begin with, the purpose of morality is the Self-preservation of Man qua Man. In other words, we need a code of morality for the preservation of a life which is proper to man, which expresses the deepest truth of man. Being rationalists, their definition of Man is that man is a RATIONAL animal. Hence, self-preservation of man qua man means self-preservation of Man the Rational animal.

But the ultimate purpose of a rationalist's LIFE itself is not clear, because he tailors his philosophy to serve "LIFE": which would mean: his philosophy is constructed to ensure life, i.e., the maintenance of life. But he never quite defines life itself except as a physical existence, a process of self-maintenance. He never quite explicates WHY should life be maintained, except that we happen to exist (in the rationalistic-atheistic view, by sheer accident).

The purpose of a man's life, in the rationalist view, is happiness. In broad abstract terms, this is true. (At this stage, I'm referring only to the individual, & not to any individual-vs-collective conflict.)

Hence, the purpose of philosophy maybe said to be the attainment of happiness.

But they define happiness itself as the emotional result of the proper maintenance of life. If I have maintained my life successfully, I am - or I ought to be - happy.

Which would mean, the purpose of life ('life' being the maintenance of life) is ... the successful maintenance of life.

This is like saying that the objective of the process of cooking food is to perpetuate & ensure the process of cooking food - or at best, as a pause in a long series of cooking sessions - the joy of having made the food successfully (whereas the point actually is the food, and not cooking the food, or the joy of having cooked some food).

And this is what's called CIRCULAR ARGUMENTATION.

If Life is a process of maintaining life, then the purpose of maintaning life is not to maintain life, or to stop & smile that you have maintained it successfully, but to ACHIEVE THAT which makes the maintenance worthwhile, which in turn has to be outside the process of maintenance itself.

And it is THAT, and not merely the maintenance of life, which defines the purpose of life, and of philosophy, or morality.

This "THAT" is never clarified by the rationalist, and remains something as nebulous (if not incorrect, in broad abstract terms) as "achievement of the best within oneself" - the "best" again being that which enables the maintenance of life.

Circular argumentation over circular argumentation!

The whole purpose is to find the "THAT" which is at the very essence of all endeavor, of all striving, & aspiration: "THAT" - the Ultimate Purpose - the Purpose of all purposes.

The greatest, absurdest error of the rationalist is the total denial of "non-objective", non-sensory, non-rational, non-definable means of "knowledge".

They NEVER give any REASON why such means of knowledge should be rejected, except spewing bucketfuls of abuse on the people who uphold them.

The reason of such a denial is very simple: though certainly many of them are great, benevolent, worshipful souls, in the main, RATIONALISM & ATHEISM (in their several manifestations) ARE CONSCIOUS CONSTRUCTIONS BY A CERTAIN SET OF MEN TO DESTROY MAN'S SOUL, TO PREVENT HIM FROM SEEING THE TOTAL TRUTH OF HIS BEING, AND FINALLY DIVIDE MEN, KEEP THEM IN A STATE OF CONFLICT, & CONTROL THEM.

Mystics know much better than rationalists how the acceptance of "non-objective", non-sensory, "non-rational", non-definable means of knowledge has been misutilized for millennia by power-lusting people to terrorize mankind, stupefy their minds, to destroy reason, to cripple their powers of self-realization, to control & rule the masses. This has been done for ages, as far as man can remember. Men like Tolstoy, Hugo, Dostoevsky - passionate Christian mystics - were the most powerful & dangerous fighters against the Roman Catholic Church for precisely this reason. And THIS is neither a contradiction, nor a fraud on their part (a part of the typical rationalist's insidious propaganda).

This is no reason, however, to reject these means of knowledge. It is like rejecting food because whenever food has been offered, it has been poisoned. This is the same as accepting many mystics' solution that private property & sex should be rejected because they are fundamentally animalistic, 'selfish', & used to keep people divided, in eternal conflict.

The solution is not in the rejection of food - because that too shall lead to death, or disease - but to change the person who serves the food, one who shall not poison it.

The problem is that the person who serves the food poisons it, not the food itself.

The rationalist has no way to refute these means of knowledge except the open admission that he himself hasn't grasped them (the solution being that he must attempt to grasp them) - or a smear-campaign that Jesus, Socrates, Yagyavalkya, Veda Vyasa, Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Lao Tzu, Buddha, Krishna, John the Baptist, Paul, John of Patmos, Thomas Aquinas, John Locke, Swedenborg, Thomas Jefferson, William Lloyd Garrison, Victor Hugo, Kaspar Hauser, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Blavatsky, Jiddu Krishnamurthy, Aurobindo, Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, & Tagore were all power-lusting frauds, liars of the worst order, looters, parasites, seeking to destroy men's minds, driven by an irrepressible hatred for human life, seeking to enslave mankind, who groveled in filth of self-loathing, lived in constant terror of the supernatural, etc etc etc ad infinitum.

Please don't fall for their rationalizations that these men made innocent (though sometimes costly) errors, or that they were "fundamentally" rational & benevolent etc etc. THIS misinterpretation comes from the rationalist's ignorance & miscomprehension, & discomfort to admit facts that ruin the basis of his philosophy: there was no contradiction in THOSE peoples' thinking. They knew exactly what they affirmed, and why they did so, and were the greatest stars of human benevolence & intellectual power.

Rationalism prides itself on "focusing" on "objective" reality. But an extensive scrutiny has PROVED to me, that the so-called rationalists are the most appalling betrayers of reality. The absolue incongruity between lives of the greatest benefactors of mankind, and the allegations made against mystics, is perhaps the most glaring example of the untenability of the rationalist's views.

Their whole philosophy rests on ignorance of the deeper laws of nature, of the more profound & subtle truths of man, of the complicated workings of the man's consciousness, & above all, of HISTORY. Their conception of how civilization progressed - what made development possible - and what development itself IS - is so flawed, that to demolish their structure isn't as difficult as they think it is. Take for instance, the simple idea that RATIONALITY, or rather, LOGIC, found its first systematic formulation in Aristotle. They seem totally oblivious to the existence of the NYAYA school of philosophy of India - one of the 6 major schools of Indian philosophy - which, even going by false modern dating - was developed in 7th century BCE - & evolved all the crucial laws of logic in philosophy. There is no reason - except the prejudice of the rationalist (prejudice is irrationality) - that he was not acquainted with the texts of the renowned "Brachmanes" of India. This is an extensive topic in itself - I'm just giving a small indication of the gargantuan dimensions of the errors made by typical modern rationalist-egoists.

Rejection of "non-rational" & non-intellectual means of knowledge is itself non-rational & non-intellectual. They rest on a LACK of self-examination, & REFUSAL to introspect. A wilful decision not to delve into the depths of one's own consciousness, & to study evidence of other realities in the external world: in other words, of total irrationality. Because, all these realities, & aspects of existence & consciousness - exist objectively - independent of our whims, convictions, desires, & caprices - but are 'known' or experienced or apprehended, by the individual alone, within himself, i.e. subjectively.

These means of knowledge do not militate against, or destroy, rationality itself - nor does the development of one's spiritual perception demand the destruction of the mind. That is another lie perpetrated by the rationalists. (In the best cases, such an idea is a result of their ignorance, or a misunderstanding.)

The greatest mystics were men of incomparable, almost superhuman erudition, thunderingly articulate, and had the most developed minds. They never asked men to be unlettered, not to observe nature, not to grasp her laws. Infact, rational knowledge is always the basis of all mystic knowledge. A man who has not learned language, may have a sort of apprehension of the Oneness of the universe, but it is so incoherent, incomprehensible, wild, & chaotic so as to be totally meaningless.

But it is true that a perfect scientific & mathematical understanding of the laws of nature is neither necessary, nor important, to the spiritual development of a human being, and in this sense, NOT RATIONALITY, but certain specific elements of knowledge obtained through rationality, are superfluous to spiritual development.

(Obviously, to be continued...)

Working towards a comprehensive view of life

2008-08-17T08:29:00.007+05:30

The purpose of human life is not, and cannot, be self-preservation.
That's a purpose proper for a plant or an animal, not Man.
However, this does not negate the crucial importance of self-preservation itself. For, man has to preserve his life if he must have a purpose to achieve.
The purpose of life - and hence, of philosophy & morality - has to be found in the essence of life itself.
But what is the essence of human life, and how do we find out?
This will involve finding answers to questions like:
Why do we seek to live? Why does life seek to live?
What is this wonderful mystery of the existence of life?
What is the law we observe in this development from mineral to microbe, from microbe to plant, from plant to animal & bird, and thence to Man?
The Universe is: but the very fact that it is not one infinite stretch of empty space reveals that the law of life finds its true meaning in the mystery of a movement from - where to where?
It is easily understood that a law - a process - is working itself through this whole growth from an undifferentiated unity, a One-Whole - fractured into infinite component parts - and then a mysterious, coherent re-organization of those component parts into composites which increasingly become conscious of the Whole.
Do we say that this law is one which seeks to establish both separation & unity, differentiation & integration, individuality & universality?
What we observe in the plot-structure in the grand saga of nature, is a progression from a unconscious, slumbering individuality, to an all-embracing, all-conscious individuality.
It is the not the fact of physical existence, but the relationship with the Universe, which strikes & awes us.
A pebble or a clod doesn't have a sense of "I", least of all a sense of "Us".
Neither does it have love, nor reason.
Love comes with life, with consciousness, with reason.
In Man's world, without love, wisdom is meaningless, and shall lead to destruction & sorrow.
Without wisdom, intellect is meaningless. Without intellect, reason is meaningless. Without reason, consciousness is meaningless (for a human being). Without consciousness, life is meaningless. Without life, the body is meaningless.
Hence, the joyous essence of Man's life is to be found in Love.
Reason is basically a problem-solving facility. It doesn't help in deciding what is our ultimate concern, but merely in identifying it conceptually - i.e. in a verbal formulation of what already is the ultimate concern, metaphysically intrinsic to the fact of human life itself.
Reason is not the aim, though it is a part of the aim.
Development & creative realization of all the powers of the mind & imagination are nothing but means to realize the DELIGHT OF EXISTENCE, in other words, LOVE FOR EXISTENCE.
Interestingly, in his introduction to the collection of essays "Creative Unity", Tagore translates the word "Ananda" (which actually means joy, or bliss), as Love.
This is perfectly correct, because Love is Joy, and Joy is Love.
"In love we find a joy which is ultimate because it is the ultimate truth. Therefore it is said in the Upanishads that the advaitam is anantam, - 'the One is Infinite'; that the advaitam is anandam, - 'the One is Love'." (Rabindranath Tagore)
And what is the essence of Love?
The essence of Love is to GIVE. Rather, in a Giving which IS a Taking.

A man's relationship with a commercial sex-worker is not one that of love, but of pure, animal sexual need: his concern is not to make the prostitute happy, but solely to satisfy his body's urge for pleasure. The essence is not in giving, but in taking. Men don't go to sex-workers because the sex-workers need sexual satisfaction - they go quite irrespective of the needs of the women in question.
But, in his relationship to his wife, or the woman he passionately loves, a (decent) man can't withstand the fact that he can't give her pleasure. His life shall become an unbearable torment if he's the only one who reaches climax, and his lover's body remains unsatisfied. Not so with a commerical sex-worker. Essentially, he won't give a damn to her experience.
And though Nature has designed the process of interaction & interdependence in such a way that giving sexual pleasure is beautifully integrated with recieving pleasure, the difference is clarified in the fact of nonchalance & interest in the OTHER person's pleasure, while one's own joy is maintained.
A husband indifferent to his wife's orgasm doesn't love her.
A woman indifferent to her husband's palate doesn't love him, if she enjoys her own cooked meal.
The more we move up above the pressing needs of the body, which sustain the very existence of our own emotional, psychological, even mental apparatus, the weaker the element of GIVING AND TAKING, the stronger the element of GIVING AS TAKING.
Here we move deeper into our identity as human beings, because it is in these realms that we are different from the rest of the plant & animal world, and disintinctly HUMAN.
This is why the greatest sages looked down upon the body: not because it is a heap of ordure, but because, though uniquely designed in order to reveal reason & love, it finds the justification for its structure in reason & love - i.e., in soul & spirit, which is unique only to man.
It is the cup which holds the wine: the point is not the cup, but the wine.
The wine is the aim, not the cup. There is no festival with just cups. The festival finds its ultimate purpose in the wine that is served in the cup.
In this sense, the cup has to be perfected: it should not dissolve into a puddle of clay or leak to let the wine out: in that sense, the body has to be kept healthy & strong. It is important.
But the body and its requirements are secondary, like the cup is.
INTEGRATED, but secondary.
After we quaff the wine, we discard the cup.
The cup comes into existence for the wine; the wine doesn't come into existence for the cup.
That's the relationship between Spirit & Body.

(To be continued...)

On the law of karma

2008-08-16T14:10:00.006+05:30

I thought I must add this.
I mentioned something about the law of Karma in my post on Non-violence.
Though I don't altogether reject the existence of the law of Karma, i.e. the metaphysical operation of such a law, I don't pay any attention to it either.
The theory of karma is not only unverifiable & totally closed to the simplest of logic, but also totally irrelevant.
Above all, it is psychologically & socially destructive, like astrology & the plethore of ritualism which exists in organized, dogmatized, ritualistic religion.
It's possible that it operates, but no one can ever be sure if it does, and it's not important.
What is important is not what I did in my last birth, or what I did in my previous births to suffer here & now, but - what I have done, am doing, &ought to do - in THIS "birth" - and what I've done here & now which has led, or can lead, to my suffering.
The law of karma has been - and shall always be - the bane of Indian society, and of any collective spiritual life.
It is still being used by our "God-Men" to justify casteism, suffering, injustice, poverty, & suppression.
This, please note, IS a misinterpretation - almost a historical error - and in itself is no reason why the law of karma should be rejected.
The law of karma should be rejected on the basis of its IRRELEVANCE.
When I mentioned it in the context of the Gita, I was aware that in true Vedantic philosophy, the law of karma involves only one significant idea: that every birth is an opportunity for man to move towards union with God: that is, unite with the Root & Essence of Existence (& hence, with the whole of Existence itself).
In a more simplified form, any wrong action takes us further away from God-realization, and any good action takes us further towards it.
Evil action makes it more difficult, good action facilitates perfection.
But only on attainment of Brahmanirvana do actions stop having any effect on determining the course of the immortal soul's movement.
But all this is basically inessential to the real development in a human being.
The life & consciousness of an intelligent, active-minded, rational man is endowed with sufficient meaning to impel him toward self-realization.
It is our inner burning desire for perfection which counts.
That it exists, can be strengthened, and can become the compass of our life is what counts, not whether I was a jackass in 1850, or shall be a pig in 2100.
People should not lose their heads with the law of karma because it is not the objective of a man's life to remember what he was in some previous birth, and what he did, & where he was, and whether he was Christoper Columbus or Nero or Pascal.
So what, if you were Attila the Hun, in your 1564th birth from now, or Francis of Assissi in your 37th, or a lizard in your last?
It makes no difference to you, or anyone else.
All this is silly, & unintellectual, - and above all, makes a man a very easy target to be fooled & misled.
Anything can be interpreted in any way - anything can be justified - anything can be given any explanation - and this means that someone endowed with some unidentifiable, unverifiable, indisputable "special powers" is giving an explanation, and someone lesser endowed & "gifted" has to simply accept it, on "faith".
This is mental & moral slavery, and destruction of the Freedom of Consciousness.

Rabindranath Tagore, on Freedom

2008-08-15T23:19:00.003+05:30

I have very ambivalent feelings when it comes to India's Independence Day.
On this occasion, I can only think of these immortal lines from Tagore's "Gitanjali".
Keeping these lines in mind, can we say that we're really free?

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought & action -
Into that haven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

A few thoughts on freedom on Independence Day

2008-08-15T02:50:00.018+05:30

Physical, external, & socio-political Freedom is the Freedom of Self-determination: the freedom to pursue one's values, to shape one's life in the image of one's personal ideal, to translate one's ideas into achievable concrete goals.
This freedom is self-destructive if not founded on Truth.
To live in Truth is not to do what I want to do, but to do what I ought to do.
What you want to do may or may not be right or good & hence, may be self-destructive -- the right & the good is what you ought to do.
Here we come to inner, psychological freedom.
The crux of the concept of Freedom is SELF-Direction, or SELF-Determination.
Hence, inner freedom - i.e., Freedom of Consciousness - is freedom from a state in which the contents of my consciousness: my knowledge, ideas, convictions are not consciously chosen by the purposeful exertion of MY WILL.
A consciousness shaped by random forces & impulses- functioning without clarity of perception & comprehension - is not a free consciousness.
I am free in anything in which the decision is MINE.
So what makes a MINE possible, in context of man's consciousness?
It means that I SHAPE my own mind & soul.
Purposeful exertion of will necessarily implies & constitutes consciously perceiving reality, consciously analyzing all the inputs I get, consciously engaging in integration & differentiation, in the process of evaluation, in selecting & deciding & prefering.
This necessarily implies & constitutes focusing on reality - on being fully conscious of truth.
Only when I consciously focus on reality - only when I wilfully direct the powers of my consciousness at a grasp of truth - in other words, only when I THINK - am I free.
This means: searching for WHAT IS TRUTH, WHAT OUGHT TO BE DONE.
Otherwise, the awareness, differentiation, integration, analysis, evaluation & decision is not MINE - it is basically unconscious or semi-conscious, involving only a modicum of freedom.
Thus, real freedom is not "doing what you like" - but doing what you ought to like (this, only in the broadest, abstract terms - in metaphysical, spiritual & moral terms).

Freedom is the freedom from lack of focus on reality, & grasp of truth. Freedom from thoughtlessness, from irrationality.
As long as you are unaware of the totality & essence of truth, you are not acting in complete consciousness of - who you are - what the meaning & purpose of life is - and what are the goals proper to you as a human being.
The only true Freedom is the Freedom to Know, Learn, Think, & shape one's life in accordance to one's perception of Truth ONESELF.
The curtailment of THIS freedom is true lack of freedom.
All struggle for liberty is the struggle for the freedom of the individual to determine his life in accordance with HIS perception of eternal truth (grasped only through a process of experience & thought).
Self-determination being the very crux of the concept of freedom, the individual ought to think for HIMSELF, he ought to voluntarily focus on reality & grasp his own deepest truth HIMSELF, he ought to set his goals HIMSELF.
This gives him dignity, implies self-reliance, and is a direct manifestation of his autonomy as a being endowed with mind & conscience.
Conscription, for e.g., is a violation of freedom, because men are not allowed to evaluate & decide for themselves whether they ought to kill & be prepared to get killed, or not.
This evaluation & decision-making is done by someone else.
It directly violates man's status as a rational entity who can process facts, grasp truths, formulate convictions, and take decisions to shape the course of his life.
It deprives man of volitional integration of his life-action with the essential appartus he's endowed with to decide HOW to live: his mind & his conscience.

But, strictly speaking, the whole process of focusing on reality & grasping truth is a purely inner, individual phenomenon, and nobody can take it from you.
The Freedom of Consciousness can never be curbed: that's possible only when the consciousness itself is destroyed.
You might have all the freedom to do whatever you want to do, but if you are not consciously acting in accordance with the laws of truth, you are in bondage to ignorance & error --- to never-ending fear & suffering, hatred & anger, resentment & bewilderment.
You are in bondage to the determinism of forces & laws which act upon your life.
You are You only when you shape your soul & act in accordance with reality.
True freedom is the freedom to determine your life in full awareness of truth.

Thoughts on Non-violence, & other related issues

2008-08-14T00:16:00.019+05:30

"The profession of true Christianity in its true meaning, including non-resistance to evil, frees people from all external power". - Leo Tolstoy, "The Law of Love & the Law of Violence"

I've been reading Tolstoy off-late, and am deeply influenced by the power of his arguments. The more I read him, the more I am convinced that he has a very important point to make, though I don't think he either clarified all points that had to be clarified, nor actually showed the way his profound ideas could be implemented.
That is the very, very difficult task of the future.
They all were right: Dotsoevsky, Tolstoy, & Tagore. They knew what was coming, and warned the world, but nobody paid attention.
The fears they harbored for the future then, are still applicable, and - as I see it - the only place where the solution lies, is in their writings, & in ancient, perennial wisdom.
Non-violence obviously raises far more questions than gives answers.
As I see it, non-violence is the most powerful instrument by which men can free themselves from those groups which seek to keep mankind in a state of conflict & chaos, by engineering that conflict & chaos.
It transfers the locus of control from external authority to the individual's conscience & rationality.
Thus, Non-violence is empowerment of the individual.
For centuries on end, a small - a very small - group of men have played havoc with humanity by manipulating the masses, and this has been possible only because men have accepted the law of violence.
The first thing men must get rid of, if they want to solve the problems which afflict mankind, is to totally & absolutely abandon the idea that violence can solve the problems of man.
Religion - or mysticism - or spirituality - which are synonyms for me - are exactly the passionate efforts of the greatest men of history to FREE mankind from the constant, all-pervasive, invisible, insidious manipulation of certain cliques that seek to enslave the whole world, and have been doing it for millennia, now.
They are not only the expressions of the HIGHEST truth of Man - that he is ONE with Brahman - or the Tao - or Shunyata - but also the only solutions to the age-old problem of hatred, fear, conflict, murder, conquest, plunder, colonization, , exploitation, & war.
Would all these ever exist, if men truly inculcated the value of Love?
The law of Love was also recognized in India, long, long before the emergence of Christianity in the Middle East: "By seeing the self in all beings and all beings in the self one goes to Brahman, not by any other cause." (Kaivalya Upanishad)
What is this, if not the essence of Love, the very metaphysical-spiritual root of Love?

Tolstoy correctly recognizes that Christian law annuls the State - and thus, leads to what maybe called Anarchy. (Tolstoy is sometimes associated with what's called "Christian anarchism".)
And perhaps, the anarchists are right that as long as the Individual Man shall not perfect LOVE within himself, there shall be conflict, & he shall be dependent on others for the solution of those conflicts - and hence, the entire machinary of the state.
I am also beginning to see the relevance of the age-old emphasis on poverty (actually it means simplicity & austerity), on chastity (actually means absolute self-control & self-mastery of the mind, emotions, & body), & on renunciation (actually means non-attachment: a very signficant & complex idea, to be understood best in the sense of the Upanishadic injunction: Tyaktena bhunjita: Enjoy through renunciation; and further: Always performing works one should wish to live a hundred years...).
These qualities, perfected with love, make a man INCORRUPTIBLE.
They take him straight to the heart of truth, where he finds the answer to that greatest of all questions, the answers of which constitute the totality & essence of Vedic-Vedantic thought: What is it, by knowing which, one can know all?
These values turn men's attention away from their ego-sense -- from identification with the unstable, impermanent, & undefinable ego -- from a sense of separativeness, mortality & finitude -- to a sense of unity with the universe, immortality, & inexhaustible benevolence born of fearlessness, & a vanishing lust to possess & control.
In political terms, they actually make it impossible for men to be turned into puppets, into instruments for mutual destruction, never-ending disharmony, & global chaos.
For if men refuse to arm themselves & kill each other or harm each other, the secret cults which profit from all the chaos cannot create the chaos which keeps adding to their power & wealth.
It is precisely through private property, sex, money & (frivolous) art (today replaced by showbiz) - and very importantly, through altruistic-collectivist activism, & affirmation of violence - that these groups seek to pervert human consciousness, keep it from seeing the truth, keep it imprisoned in lower states of awareness & relatedness, - and fuel conflict, terror, war.

The topic does not come to an end here. If anything, it takes up its most difficult aspect, from here. For, Hindu philosophy clearly ABOLISHES all purpose by attainment of that which is at the root of all purpose. A man who has attained Moksha or Mukti or Nirvana has nothing more to seek, nothing more to do. This is openly acknowledged.
Abolition of purpose means abolition of action.
Action, however, does not have to come to an end - and this is one of the most important points in the Bhagavad Gita.
The idea in spiritual realization is not giving up action itself, but the Karmic effects of action.
(And, as I see it, in the enjoyment of life in a state of "detachment" - i.e. fundamental non-dependence on material values, being firmly established in Unity, and fully conscious of the delights, beauties & possibilites of existence.)
The Karmic effects of action are annulled with the achievement of Brahmanirvana, since the whole idea of Karma is nothing but the progress of the soul towards attainment of Brahmanirvana.
Action must, & can - continue, but from a totally different spiritual level of being.
This, however, is not an absolute, confirmed idea, but more of an approximation: I think this is what the scriptures enjoin us to do.
From this point of view, private property, sex, & wealth may not become instruments of dividing people, & perpetrating dissension.

Christianity also clearly recognizes the great idea of Union with God, which means Union with the All: "I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word: that they may all be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us..." (John 17:20-21))
Hence, their initial social structure was Communist in nature. Strictly speaking, it was a continuation of the Essenic socio-economic system (limited to the Essenic brotherhood itself).
This, however, does not seem to be a necessity.
Not in the Vedantic outlook, where men live normal lives, but in a state of union with God.
The law of Non-violence seems to count on the benevolence & rationality of men in general, & the malevolence & power-lust of the few.
Can we say that perfection of Christian love within our souls can also solve the problem of private property, generation of wealth, and enjoyment of sex?
(Christian love is nothing but the emotional & psychological aspect of God-consciousness in the context of man's relationship with society.)
This is food for thought, and there seem to be many complications & considerations.
In the ultimate, I think (though I don't know for sure) Tolstoy denounced private property, as well as sex, except for the purposes of procreation.
This is neither the right approach, nor the desired condition, as far as I can understand.
It cannot lead to the right results (i.e. God-consciousness: union with Brahman, cosmic-consciousness: union with all of existence, above all, union with all men in love) - since it shall lead to repression, supression, envy, a mounting sense of injustice etc.
Certainly not without inculcating & perfecting Love within oneself.
Nor is it necessary in the ideal itself, since the perfected man neither needs money nor sex in any fundamental way, to achieve a sense of completion - and is not going to covet, lie, cheat, manipulate, exploit or plunder anyone else for any material values.
The problem lies in finding the right balance (?) or equlibrium between infinite love of the infinite personality, & enjoyment of mental-emotional-physical life, i.e. the finite individual personality.
So: have private property, earn money, engage in creation & pursuit of material values, enjoy sex, build a family, a personal world of your own: but, underlying all these pursuits, keep growing in a sense of love for all men: keep strengthening the moral sense: I cannot hurt, I cannot cheat, I cannot lie, I cannot disrespect, I cannot cut-throat, I cannot defraud, I cannot manipulate, I can have no fundamental desire to injure or degrade --- ANYBODY.
Whether this is possible or not, is subject for many more years of thought!
The choices (points of conflict) between the two are innumerable, if not constant.
Man's growth has to be towards greater & greater detachment towards private, individual, material values.
Towards a healthy disenchantment with acquisition, accumulation, & possession - and a greater desire to create & produce, but NOT for self-aggrandizement.
(He seeks perfection of his soul through perfection of his love for God & for Man. That is the best within him: that lies beneath the power of the mind & the desire to create, as well as beneath the desire to exist.)
Towards greater & greater tender love for all mankind.
This necessiates renunciation of power & violence.
Only then he becomes more than an individual being, and becomes IMMENSE.

The most important point, however, remains unaddressed: the involvement in socio-political humanitarian activity.
Active love for mankind & a burning desire to obliterate the sufferings of men is another cause for all the misery of mankind, and Tolstoy recognizes this.
I shall take up this point later, and it involves this: trying to grasp the proper nature of the activity through which the self-realized man (of God-consciousness, or expanded consciousness), or the aspiring man, seeks to realize his love for mankind, in action.
THIS is where the principle of Non-violence & non-coercion (or non-Force) is of paramount importance.
This is a very wide subject, and perhaps the most difficult & crucial one!

Whatever I've written in this post are mere thoughts - ramblings, if not speculations.
Have I stated any unshakable convictions? No. I am quite sure I haven't.
Because, there is a lot more to read, a lot more to know, and a lot more to understand!
I shall end this now itself, since the post is long enough. Shall pick up this thread sometime later.

THE MIRACLE WORKER as a Christian work of art

2008-08-08T19:49:00.017+05:30

When I used the term "Christian literary work" in my previous post (referring to the play "The Miracle Worker") I used the term in a very specific sense. The word "Christian" did not refer to the Christian doctrine that Jesus Christ was the Son of Jehovah, who was sent to give his blood as payment for the sins of mankind, and that Judas Iscariot betrayed him to the high priests of Jerusalem, and he was crucified, and rose from the sepulcher on the 3rd day, and ascended to Heaven & sat on the right hand side of the throne of his father. I was referring to the original spiritual-moral VALUES, the vision of soul & life which was preached by Jesus, and later by Paul & John the Beloved Disciple.

A more appropriate term would've been: religious literary work.

Unfortunately, modern consciousness has come to a stage where religion is something different from spirituality & mysticism - and all these are different from science, philosophy, & ethics. Fundamentally, all these are ONE united body, malevolently dismembered by the modern, so-called "rational" attitude.

When it comes to the word "religion", I affirm Tolstoy's definition: "True religion is that relationship, in accordance with reason & knowledge, which man establishes with the infinite world around him, and which binds his life to that infinity & binds his own actions." ("What is Religion, Of what does its essence consist?")

And thus, religion is not an aggregate of practices, rituals, regulations, & observations - but a guide for life, which determines how man sees his self (soul-spirit), the universe around him, the purpose & meaning of life & action, and the basic relationship between himself & the rest of existence.

A specifically Christian outlook is one in which men recognize the supreme importance of LOVE between men.

This is not to say that Christianity invented the concept of love between men - whether you call it "Eros" (which, according to certain interpretations, does not mean 'erotic love', but compassion), or "Agape". Christianity certainly did not first uphold compassion, charity, almsgiving, sacrifice, renunciation, or -- to put it simply -- love.

But it was Christianity which, in the western world, for the first time, upheld the idea of universal love & brotherhood, with such strength & sacrifice. The tradition of the Essenes, Therapeutae, & Nazarites seems to have been given a powerful boost by the fire of Jesus & Paul.

Now, why should I call "The Miracle Worker" a Christian play?

The first point to be kept in mind is that Christianity is that stream of spirituality which puts Love directly at the heart of human life.

Hinduism, on the other hand, places achievement of Immortality & Infinity - of a total union with the Source, Essence, & the Whole of Existence - at the heart of life. This union has been called "Moksha", or "Mukti", or "Samadhi". The Buddhist "Nirvana" is the same as "Moksha" or "Mukti" - but Buddhism is more psychological than mystical than the Vedic-Vedantic outlook. These two basic conceptions (of Christianity & Vedantism) are NOT two fundamentally different conceptions: they are inextricably ONE. It's a matter of focus, rather than essence, where the difference comes in.

The end-result & fundamental, underlying idea is the same: a very profound sense of compassion for all men (& by extension, for all life, for the universe as a whole).

A total avoidance of INFLICTING any form of injury or suffering on another being.

And, infact, a desire to reduce the sum-total of individual & collective suffering in the world, or in one's immediate environment.

Empathy, gentleness, tender affection, an enthusiastic & active interest in a being's welfare, a sense of deep-felt kinship - as if the other person were as precious as if related by blood: these were the psychological values affirmed by these streams of spirituality.

There is no reason not to repeat endlessly that the fundamental idea about LOVE is that, in Love, the biological-physical sense of separateness from another being, another entity or existent, is minimized (&, in the ideal, obliterated).

Love - whether Vedantic, or Buddhist, or Christian, or Islamic, or Judaic - is NOT something totally mystical & supernatural & other-worldly. It is wired into our being. It is an indispensable, necessary fragment of our constitution - the unique synthetic composition that Man is.

It exists in Nature, in a ladder that starts in self-preservation, and ends in absolute sacrifice, which I call absolute self-consecration to the cause of the joy of the world.

The more we love someone, or something - the more impossible it is for us to consciously, willfully, carelessly cause it suffering or harm. The more we love someone, the more impossible it is for us to be indifferent to the person's condition, to wish him any injury, to leave him alone in his suffering & loneliness - to exploit him or play around with his emotions.

In a philosophy of Love, a man grasps that the most joyful action in the world - and the highest purpose in a man's life, that imbues his life with genuine value & meaning - (after that of his own growing awareness of the ultimate truth of life, & his own spiritual perfection in love) - is the elevation & illumination of the soul of another human being.

This is the focus, the motive-power, the centruum: that through my action, I drop a ray of light into the soul of another human being, and, if only for a moment, open his/her eyes to love, to God, to perfect union with the All, i.e. to revelation of the ultimate truth of his Self.

I agree that such activity is not possible to all of us - but that's a different point, and has to be developed in its own respect, quite independently of what I'm writing now.

Farmers must farm, a doctor must heal, a teacher must teach, a politician should govern, a judge must dispense justice, an architect must build: but they can LIVE a philosophy of Love in their respective spheres without any fundamental contradiction, and, infact, turn each activity into a perfect expression of Love.

And this is what we see in "The Miracle Worker".

In the struggle of Anne Sullivan and Helen Keller, we see a quintessentially RELIGIOUS struggle: the struggle FOR consciousness.

The struggle for the establishment of a HUMAN consciousness: for without human consciousness, neither knowledge, nor love - neither creativity & productivity, nor sacrifice & renunciation - neither humanity, nor divinity - can be expressed.

The work is neither mystical nor religious either in its aim, or its style -- but the fundamental abstraction involved is emphatically religious. (The name itself reveals the inner significance.)

It is the spectacle of one human being CREATING THE HUMANITY of another human being - making humanness possible - transforming blindness, a shuddering bundle of nerves, fear, hunger, & chaotic anger - into vision (particularly, mental vision), confidence to deal with the world, fearlessness of the unpercievable, clarity, ability to give, understanding, knowledge, peace.

Here, Love is not mere almsgiving, not merely clothing & healing, not just feeding a hungry child - but a deeper phenomenon: making it possible for a human being to THINK.

Making it possible for a human being to live the life of a human being.

By teaching a blind & deaf Helen to understand words - and hence, concepts & ideas - Anne Sullivan makes it possible for Helen to bring ideas, values, purpose, meaning, & achievement into her life. She enables Helen to rise above being a mere animal, and become a human being full of dignity, reason, the power to achieve values, to take further the process of enlightenment.

If this is not CHRISTIAN, than what is?

Does Christian love merely consist in giving away old clothes & shoes, and an occasional cup of money out of an ocean of wealth for some cause which we don't even know anything about?

What is a greater gift than giving a vision of life (which is why I love the film "Titanic" despite its cliched story-background) -- than giving the ability to think, to reason -- the ability to be productive, creative, useful?

To shape an intelligence, to open consciousness to the world of thought & ideas, is perhaps as great a gift, as offering to men a vision of God, of the immortal & the infinite.

And therefore, I do think that William Gibson's play "The Miracle Worker" is an example of one of the highest Christian or religious works of art.

Two jewels, & clarifications

2008-08-06T09:34:00.007+05:30

I forgot to add two works which I think could be included in the category of greatest works of art: "Siddhartha" by Hermann Hesse, and a not-so-well-known play called "The Miracle Worker" by William Gibson.

I also forgot to clarify that I've not read "Notes from the House of the Dead" & "Les Pauvres Gens". (Have read the other novels of Dostoevsky & Victor Hugo.)

I emphatically state that Tolstoy's views are not completely & totally my views: I agree with him to a great extent, not 100%

"The Miracle Worker" is a play based on the life of Helen Keller, and it's theme is the struggle of trying to open up the consciousness of a human being to the world of WORDS - and hence, of thoughts, of concepts, of ideas. People might understand ME , or my views, better, if they understand what I mean by saying that THIS - the struggle of Anne Sullivan to pour in the light of words into the blank, dark mind of Helen Keller living in a state of sheer bestiality - the birth of a conceptual consciousness - is perhaps the most beautiful example of a Christian literary work.

Few personal thoughts on literature from a Tolstoyan point of view

2008-08-06T01:14:00.013+05:30

Leo Tolstoy names Friedrich Schiller's "The Robbers" ("Die Raubers"); Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables" & "Les Pauvres Gens"; the novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky, especially "Notes from the House of the Dead"; the novels & stories of Charles Dickens, especially "A Tale of Two Cities" & "The Chimes"; "Adam Bede" by George Eliot & "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by Harriet Beecher Stowe - as supreme examples of the greatest works of art - specifically, religious art which flows from man's love of God & of man.
I haven't read "Adam Bede" & "Uncle Tom's Cabin", but I must agree with him as to the others.
I would, however, add "Quo Vadis?" by Henryk Sienkiewicz, "Don Carlos" by Schiller, "Ninety Three" by Hugo, & "The Prophet" by Khalil Gibran.
I would also add "Gitanjali" by Rabindranath Tagore & "Savitri" by Aurobindo Ghosh - but they are poems (or collection of poems).
I don't think "Gitanjali" has the kind of inner, purposeful unity of, say, Gibran's "The Prophet" - though thematic integrity is perfectly maintained.
Tagore's play "The Waterfall" is a gem of a work, and I am irresistibly drawn to his "The Post Office", another short play, which seems to be a work of tremendous promise.
"Savitri" is not a very accessible work of universal appeal. It is too sophisticated, too cerebral, too difficult - and the best quality of all the works extolled by Tolstoy is that they are accessible by the simplest of people, and have an immediate & tremendous emotional impact. They are truly soul-changing without being cerebral (which often means 'pretentious' & 'artificial').
It is true that overly cerebral works - especially an unnecessary obsession with manipulation of style & verbal expression - is merely a cover for scarcity of content, the poverty of imagination, & a desire to stun & awe the reader, a basically unhealthy motivation.
Above all, excess sophistication of technique (& even content) is distracting, and reduces the emotional impact of a work of art, which Tolstoy correctly recognizes, is the PRIMARY point of art: the feeling it evokes in the reader.

I'd also add "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
It is the epitome of concentratedness of plot, profound symbolism, and thematic & artistic integrity, besides being a psychological-philosophical novel of the highest order.
However, it had a far, far less PERSONAL, emotional impact on me, than any of Hugo's novels (my personal favorite perhaps, is "Toilers of the Sea"), or those of Dostoevsky & Dickens.
I remember falling in love with some of the fairy-tale like stories of Oscar Wilde, though I really can't quite remember the stories themselves! (Like "The Rose & the Nightingale", "The Happy Prince" etc.)
And then, though not of the order of Schiller, Hugo, or Dostoevsky - the novel "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee was an absolute delight.
"To Kill...", & the tales of Wilde actually fall into the second category of good, true art according to Tolstoy: universal art which unites people through evoking deep emotions which men have felt in all ages & places. I'm not too sure if Tolstoy approved of the works of Wilde: apparently, he didn't like Wilde. (Wilde was one of the Decadents, who, according to Tolstoy represented one of the innumerable groups which were degenerating art.)
But I like them as very touching works with tremendous depth of emotion.
One might also add in this category some of the stories of O. Henry, an extraordinarily brilliant & imaginative genius.

If I haven't mentioned Shakespeare till now, it's because I've read (only) 3 of his plays (King Lear, Macbeth, Julius Caesar) - & I've read them all only once, and haven't been too deep into Shakespeare till now, as such.
Moreover, I think the enormous profundity of his plays - the mind-boggling philosophical sophistication - seems to warrant a greater medium than drama.
Nevertheless, Shakespeare surpasses ALL in artistic expression - in the use of words & language & poetry - and is truly the "Papa" of all.
I don't reject Shakespeare as Tolstoy does, just because his characters don't speak an everyday language. Art is not a literal imitation of life.
I do think that Shakespeare - when READ - does not make the necessary impact on the reader.
Perhaps, one must actually witness a well-made play of his, to appreciate his true worth as a playwright - than just READ it.

But the three plays of Shakespeare, or say, "Faust" by Goethe (of which I've read only the 1st part, and affirm as one of the greatest works of literature) - do not fall into the category of "Les Miserables" or "The Robbers" or "A Tale of Two Cities" or even "Quo Vadis?"
They are too cerebral - and really don't emotionally impact the reader's soul (at least that of yours truly) as a Hugo can.
They do not lack sincerity - far from it - but (perhaps) are too compressed, too A-MORAL, primarily dissecting reality & grasping out for its great hidden truths, than a revelation of the ultimate "ought to"; I don't think they achieved the task of upholding a new, shining IDEAL vision to mankind.
They were essentially REALISTS, while men like Hugo & Dostoevsky were fundamentally IDEALISTS, i.e., passionately & primarily concerned with the transformation & illumination of consciousness, of the regeneration & resurrection of the erring individual, of establishing the highest moral ideal which humanity ought to strive for.

I cannot be too sure of my views, since it's been a long time since I've read most of these books.
I read Schiller's masterpiece "Wallenstein" only once in 2002, and I hardly remember it. So I'm really not in a position to declare unequivocally if it is or isn't a profoundly Christian work of art.
Tolstoy searches for a more openly, directly, powerfully CHRISTIAN vision in his choice of art.
(Not "Roman Catholic" or "Protestant" or "Lutheran" - but pure, authentic, fundamental Christian spiritual values). The expression of - & passionate concern with - man's love for God & for Man.
The primary focus being a MORAL struggle at the heart of the work: choice between a lesser life & higher being.
A work like "Gone with the Wind" (by Margaret Mitchelle) does NOT fall into this category, neither does "Moby Dick" by Hermann Melville.
Nor do the plethore of other novels which I personally (& otherwise) summarily reject as great works of art: "The Great Gatsby" by Fitzgerald, "The Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte, "Vanity Fair" by William Makepeace Thackeray, etc etc.
(I admire both Mitchelle & Melville, though not as much as the ones mentioned before. "Moby Dick" suffers from the lack of a proper story & a plot-structure. Thackeray is a brilliant satirist.
A related but not similar case is that of Edgar Allan Poe - a towering genius - but whose works do not have the passionate religious, ethical content of a Hugo or Dostoevsky or Dickens or Schiller.)

Not that these works do not have aesthetic value. Not that they can't be powerful, or "infect" the reader with a certain emotion the author has felt. Infact, they are all novels of ideas.
But do offer to man a vision of the ideal?
Do they reveal the meaning of God to man, and clarify man's relationship with God & his neighbor?
Do they REVEAL to man the meaning, essence, power, & importance of love?
Do they deal with immortality & infinity which is the ultimate metaphysical truth of man?
Is their focus the transformation & birth of a new world of peace & harmony?
Do they express man's deepest & highest religion?
Do they care about man's desperate quest for self-realization in an ever-growing expansion of self in intellectual, creative, moral & spiritual achievement?
Have they opened man's consciousness to a whole new universe of spiritual grandeur?
Can they play any significant role in establishing a universal brotherhood of men in this world, and show men the path to spiritual purification & perfection?
No. Not according to me! Certainly not as yet.
That's why, I too wouldn't consider them to be specimen of the highest works of art.
If the reader of this post seeks to know what I mean by a truly great works of art, read the mystic poems of Aurobindo Ghosh, or "Les Miserables", or "The Brothers Karamazov", or the incomparable Book of Job.

I'm basically on my way towards a deeper understanding of things. That's the whole purpose right now: to understand. To grow with greater comprehension.
I give myself the space to change my views with the growth of my store of information, and my own knowledge.
So while these are my views - and enthusiastically so - I won't say I am absolutely, unchangeably certain of keeping them just as they are.
I've tried to look at some literary works from Tolstoy's point of view - which I am compelled to agree with, to a great extent - and this is just a first attempt to simply state my thoughts on what I've read.
I've really not analyzed any of these works carefully, and am not in a position to do so right now, so what I've written above should be considered keeping in mind this condition.

One of my favorite paintings

2008-08-05T03:11:00.003+05:30

Christ Carrying the Cross - by El Greco, 1580 (also known as the "Via Crucis")

One of the most beautiful paintings I've ever seen in my life.

(This image was obtained from Wikimedia Commons.)

The idea of Immensity

2008-07-26T00:05:00.004+05:30

"Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law ... Love is the fulfillment of the law" - Paul, Romans 13:8, 10 - New Testament

Just a few thoughts on my last post...
Today, I came across this passage in the essay "Creative Unity" by the great Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore: "... age after age there has come to us the call of faith, which said against all evidence of fact: 'You are more than you appear to be, more than your circumstances seem to warrant. You are to attain the impossible, you are immortal.'
This is the great idea of self-expansion: "You are more than you appear to be" - which lies at the heart of all spirituality.
The point in our existence, at every step, in everything we deal with, is not that we can subjugate or analyze a thing & use it, but that we can love it.
For true knowledge is the knowledge which comes from love, which is knowledge in love, the knowledge of love.
I may know all the facts of a tulip, and all the details of its bio-chemical processes: and that knowledge may give me considerable joy - but it is not ultimate knowledge.
I have ultimate knowledge of a tulip only when I feel love for it.
Only then my affirmation of its existence is complete, and expresses perfection.
Love simply for its beauty, for the fact that it exists, that there is life & motion in it, that there is color & fragrance in it.
Not simply because it is an ornament in my garden, or can be gifted to the woman I love, or offered to some deity in worship - nor just for any utilitarian purpose - but in itself, purely for its incredible loveliness.
I might pass by a clump of tulips on the roadside, & be perfectly indifferent to their swaying & nodding.
In that case, I haven't established the perfect relationship that I can, with the flowers.
They exist, in fact, in the outermost fringes of my consciousness - and are fundamentally UNREAL to me.
But they become suddenly REAL to me - & have a profoundly joyous impact on my consciousness - & truly add to those passing moments of my life - when I do love them, and recognize & rejoice in the life in them & in the fact that they live, and am deeply aware of their beauty.
Then every moment of life becomes an affirmation of all that exists - then we grow into an ongoing, never-ending awareness of the life & bliss that vibrates around us - and we truly feel one with the universe.
Only then does Life becomes a reason unto itself.
Self-expansion is to expand in an ever-growing consciousness that: "Yes! I belong here! I belong on this earth, to this universe!".
It must be an absolute ecstasy!

The question we must ask ourselves when we meet a person is not whether I can outsmart such & such person or not, whether I can use such & such person or not, whether such & such person deserves my esteem or contempt (least of all if such & such a person is "hip" or "happening" or not) - but only if I can love him/her?
How can I? What shall make it possible?
The exercise of that choice reflects the ultimate truth of your being, of your humanity.
An intense desire for such a psychological-emotional affirmation shall then become a driving force in removal of conflicts between two individuals , of laying down new tracks towards deeper understanding, and bringing about solutions to any problems that might arise.
For love removes all sense of fear, threat, & opportunism.
All our bitterness, skepticism, suspiciousness, mistrust, fear, cautiousness - comes from the fact that we've all accepted that "everyone to himself" - whereas the fundamental need of the human soul is that we all need endless, unconditional, undemanding love.
We all thirst for PRE-LOGICAL Love, which is the most important factor in building deep-rooted benevolence, trust, tenderness, gratitude, & optimism in any human being.
JUST GIVE LOVE - AS MUCH AS YOU CAN, AS PATIENTLY AS YOU CAN, AS CONSTANTLY AS YOU CAN - and see what miracles it can work in another human being!
(For that matter, to ANYTHING - even animals, plants, & inanimate objects.)
How it gives birth to love & benevolence in a person, MAKES HIM see truth, MAKES HIM want the good things in life, MAKES HIM WANT to do the good & the right!
But Love does not mean acceptance, or turning a blind eye to errors or crimes, or silence to one's misdeeds or weaknesses.
True love ennobles, purifies, exorcises fear & mistrust, fuels & rejuvenates, edifies & enlightens.
It soothes, tranquilizes, heals wounds, drives away bad dreams, sweeps away the clinging cutting shards of disillusionment, rebuilds hope & confidence, unlocks new founts of energy & resolve, propels man towards greater affirmation of the Right, generates the courage to give & fight, dissolves the weight of agesof loneliness & tortured frustration, opens new vistas to the mind & the soul .
And ABOVE ALL, the an active, constant, universal love ensures that men don't use each other & see each other as instruments & tools of material benefit -- don't trample & exploit each other -- don't deprive & deny each other -- don't harm & hurt each other -- don't cheat, & lie to, each other -- don't loot & torture each other -- don't add to each others' stock of fear, mistrust, & the rapidly diminishing inability to love & respect.
Tagore quotes the Buddha: "Buddha, who developed the practical side of the teaching of the Upanishads, preached the same message when he said, With everything, whether it is above or below, remote or near, visible or invisible, thou shalt preserve a relation of unlimited love without any animosity or without the desire to kill. To live in such a consciousness while standing or walking, sitting or lying down till you are asleep, is Brahma-vihara, or, in other words, is living and moving and having your joy in the spirit of Brahma."
THIS is true self-expansion & self-realization, for it is possible only when we have eliminated every vestige of fear, anger, hatred, & vinidictiveness from our system - and have realized the highest truth of the infinity of our souls.
To be conscious of each & all, of the life that throbs in each & all, & to feel that life throbbing in ourselves, is to Love each & all.
To feel profound tenderness & kinship & respect for each & all, is to Love each & all.
To feel no fundamental animosity, or desire to injure, or desire to see the pain of, each & all, is to Love each & all.
To wish the highest welfare, health, growth, flourishing, & full blossoming of each & all, is to Love each & all.
And to Love each & all, is to see God in each & all, to be ONE with each & all, IS TO LIVE IN THE ALL.

Self-realization & self-expansion

2008-07-19T01:56:00.006+05:30

My affirmation of ancient Hindu philosophy, Buddhism & Christianity is rooted in its grasp of the timeless truth that self-realization is self-expansion.

Growth is enlargement, and joy is contained in expansion.

This is not a growing big in physical dimensions, but an extension of limits, of pushing back horizons, of stretching the diameter of the circle of our consciousness, of breaking down walls & hacking away the obstructing brushes towards new landscapes.

This, in turn, is not conquest by subjugation - not establishing mastery over things.

Because mastery over things is nothing but making permanent our separativeness from them, of asserting our isolated existence over theirs.

It is establishment of the reign of fear - the fear of conflict & the fear of loss of control.

Therefore conquest is synonymous with despoilation, ravishment, plunder, loot, degradation. Conquest demands an adversary who poses a threat and a challenge of destruction. And an adversary is one whom we fear, however weak it might be, and however strong we might think we are, in our arrogant self-delusion.

Ancient spirituality, or mystical philosophy - or whatever you may chose to call it - sought to establish harmony not by recognizing (or holding as the primary focus) the conflict aspect of things - but the relatedness & harmony which exists between the all. It sought to solve the problem of fear not by being conscious of it every moment & fighting it, but by rooting it out of man's consciousness, & from the very face of existence. By being conscious of the fact that, in the ultimate, there is no cause for fear, and there is nothing to be feared. It sought to solve the problem of death not by affirming it completely, but by extinguishing death itself. And that was the great achievement of Jesus Christ: Jesus' triumph over death is the triumph of love over fear - of ultimate truth above superficial fact.

And thus, enlargement in a Sakyamuni or a Jesus did not take the form of establishing or setting up borders beyond borders, but by annihilating all borders.

Man is an Ocean, say the poets: the sages correct: Man is an endless ocean.

This idea of IMMENSITY was what attracted me first, and drew me in.

They who loved God were those who were aching to grow into the boundless: in them the principle of expansion knew that never through the use of his rational faculty, by intellectual analysis, by words & mathematics, by the use of his senses & limbs - can the INDIVIDUAL reach the ENDLESS with the totality of his being. Never can the senses & mind comprehend the All. For, by its very nature, the body & mind cannot deal with the totality as one - it can only deal with parts, fragments, and only in terms of bits & pieces of knowledge, however titanic & sophisticated. They knew that the principle of freedom, & rebellion against the unchosen tyranny of law, was rooted in a different realm altogether, and in that source was their final aim. That, in the ultimate, nature did not have be conquered to annul its tyranny, but had to be transcended.

Law rests on difference, and a philosophy of power rests on differentiation.

Recognition of difference rests on recognition of separativeness, of potential & actual conflict of interests. There is a difference between the I and the Non-I. The I is perishable, and seeks to continue. The Non-I is perishable, and seeks to continue, or isn't aware of the I, at all. Hence the difference, hence fear, hence the quest power, hence the struggle of conquest.

If my I is imperishable - if I am immortal - I destroy fear.

If the Non-I is fundamentally One with me - if I am infinite - I love.

And thus, the problem of difference found its true solution in realization of the fundamental non-existence of difference, in grasp of fundamental unity. That is, the philosophy of love.

The wisdom of old sought to solve problem of extension not by finalizing differences, but by finalizing identity. And that could only lead to love for the All.

In psychological terms, Christianity realized that Love is the force through which man grows into infinity, grows wide - large - in the highest sense of the term. It is the force through which he keeps growing into a wider, more expansive 'ME'. For Love happens only when the boundaries between the Me and the Non-Me dissolve; and active love is the force which dissolves the difference between Me & Non-Me.

True self-expansion is expansion in love & sympathy & relatedness - which is an ever-growing internal realization of love for all - an ever-growing sense of deathelessness & fearlessness.

Love is possible only when there is no Fear. The lesser we fear, the more we love. And fear rests on difference, on separativeness, on a false idea of self & life - on egoity, mortality & finiteness.

Love for the All is an expression of a man's infinity & immortality.

And that's why I do affirm that the highest truth of self-realization is to be found in the Vedas & Upanishads, in the Sutras, and in the New Testament.

Latest pics!!!

2008-07-16T18:48:00.002+05:30

Both taken today!!!

A few verses from Sri Aurobindo

2008-07-16T02:46:00.009+05:30

Mysticism, or Spirituality, is about transformation of consciousness.
About re-defining one's relationship with reality.
With a radical & fundamental re-definition of self & reality itself.
THIS has to be understood. Then one can easily percieve that there is no fundamental conflict between mysticism & rationality: there cannot be.
The conflict is only between a Jesus who HAS grasped this new truth, this new view - and the rest of humanity, which hasn't.
Man enlarges the very context of his being & existence, in mysticism; rather, he adds to the context: he discovers new contexts to his own being & existence: he sees himself from new perspectives.
He discovers unsuspected truths about himself, his very identity, his powers of apprehending truth.
It's not (primarily) about HOW to deal with reality - which is of crucial importance nevertheless - but WHAT is reality itself.
It's the discovery of a totally different face or aspect of reality.
And that's why, Sri Aurobindo wrote (I'm quoting out of Fritjof Capra's "The Tao of Physics"): "All things in fact begin to change their nature & appearance; one's whole experience of the world is radically different ... There is a new vast & deep way of experiencing, seeing, knowing, contacting things."
The whole objective is to EXPERIENCE REALITY IN A TOTALLY DIFFERENT WAY: & the importance of the objective lies in that in mysticism man seeks to experience ULTIMATE REALITY: it is his direct, total EXPERIENCE of reality in its very essence, its very root.
It is not UNDERSTANDING reality in the sense of being able to formulate, mathematize, & explain the processes of its working, to explicate its laws & so on: but KNOWING REALITY - TO EXPERIENCE WHAT IT ESSENTIALLY, FUNDAMENTALLY IS, in its TOTALITY, as ONE, COMPLETE WHOLE.
Not description or analysis, but plain & simple experience of the totality of reality by the totality of our being.

Here are a few lines from "Savitri", Aurobindo's magnum opus, which I've been trying to read for a while.
It's very heavy, very difficult to read at one stretch, and my own effort is broken & a little disjointed because I've to pay attention to other theoritical subjects which are of greater immediate, pressing importance.
But these lines are just fabulous:

Our souls can visit in great lonely hours
Still regions of imperishable Light.
All-seeing eagle-peaks of silent Power
And moon-flame oceans of swift fathomless Bliss
And calm immensities of spirit space.
... ... ....
In the unfolding process of the Self
Sometimes the inexpressible Mystery
Elects a human vessel of descent.
... ... ...
A breath comes down from the supernal air,
A Presence is born, a guiding Light awakes,
A stillness falls upon the instruments:
Fixed, motionless like a marble monument,
Stone-calm, the body is a pedestal
Supporting a figure of eternal Peace.
... ... ...
Or a revealing force sweeps blazing in;
Out of some vast superior continent
Knowledge breaks through trailing its radiant seas;
And Nature trembles with the power, the flame.

Or,

In moments when the inner lamps are lit
And life's cherished guests are left outside,
Our spirit sits alone & speaks to its gulfs.

Or, these poetic lines of unparalleled beauty glorifying the heroic in man:

His days were a long growth to the Supreme.
A skyward being nourishing its roots
On sustenance from occult spiritual founts
Climbed through white rays to meet an unseen Sun.
His soul lived as eternity's delegate,
His mind was like a fire assailing heaven,
His will a hunter in the trails of light.
An ocean impulse lifted every breath;
Each action left the footprints of a god,
Each moment was a beat of puissant wings.

There are a lot, lot more, but I'll put them up or just express my thoughts on them later.

SOME INDICATIONS OF THE TRUE NATURE OF GOD

2008-07-04T06:56:00.004+05:30

"All this is Brahman immortal, naught else; Brahman is in front of us, Brahma behind us, and to the south of us and to the north of us and below us and above us; it stretches everywhere. All this is Brahman alone, all this magnificent universe."
(MUNDAKA UPANISHAD, Aurobindo's translation)

"She said to him, 'It is the Eternal. Of the Eternal is this victory in which ye shall grow to greatness.' Then alone he came to know that he was Brahman."
(KENA UPANISHAD, Aurodindo's translation)

"OM is this imperishable Word, OM is the Universe, and this is the exposition of OM.
The past, present & the future, all that was, all that is, all that will be, is OM.
Likewise all else that may exist beyond the bounds of Time, that too is OM."
(MANDUKYA UPANISHAD, Aurobindo's translation)

"All this universe is the Eternal Brahman, this Self is the Eternal, and the Self is four-fold".
(MANDUKYA UPANISHAD, Aurobindo's translation)

"In the beginning the Spirit was One and all this (universe) was the Spirit; there was nought else that saw..."
(AITERIYA UPANISHAD, Aurobindo's translation)

BEYOND THE CONFINES OF OUR NARROW EGOCENTRIC SELF - Written in May 2006

2008-05-16T16:37:00.011+05:30

Driving down one of the busiest streets in Delhi, I noticed on the branches of trees that flanked the road, the arrival of spring.

Brilliant green shoots - trembling little droplets of green light - had begun to make their first bashful but joyous appearance on the boughs - glistening an almost blinding phosphorescent in the rays of an early spring Sun.

When I pointed out to my friend the sheer beauty & luminosity of the burgeoning life blossoming at the fringes of the bare branches, he merely nodded, and continued to drive, concentrating on the jangling traffic ahead.

It pained me to see that this magnificent offering of Nature - so powerful & yet so delicate, so joyous & yet so muted, so fervent & yet so reticent - had no taker, no grateful spectator - evoked no loving response from the millions of hearts that sped by everyday.

And that made me think: weren't those trees, in a sense, lonely? Weren't they, as it were, waiting for the touch of a beloved who had expired, never to return, never to pay the tribute of his love?

Waiting for a touch of comprehension? Of love?

Like a beautiful woman unnoticed & unseen by legions of blind men who pass by her without ever being aware of her existence, her beauty, of the longing in her heart?

And further, thought I, how is it that these men - empowered with science & technology - so energetic in their pursuit of some abstract notion they call "life" - how is it that they do not find it in their hearts, and in their souls, to even notice this glowing statement of the universe - this "Here I am" - beyond the narrow, stifling confines of their lives?

This indifference, & disparagement, is symptomatic of the blindness of Man & the self-interment of his essential Self in today's age. It is an indication of a certain spiritual disease that has infected human society the world over.

Indeed, as in our life, our consciousness has got restricted to closed, claustrophobic spaces: the constricted spaces of our cars, our pigeon-hole city apartments, & most of all, by our office cubicles...

These symbols of modern civilization in which our lives are moulded, have shaped & narrowed down our spiritual vision too.

The universe - the vast, limitless Being beyond - is no more than a vague, impersonal abstraction.

And what is worse, this sense of the unreality of the world begins just outside our doorstep.

A man's universe today is limited to his cubicle.

The breadth of his consciousness, his sense of Self, is no larger or wider.

Everything beyond is an abstraction to be analyzed & be made use of - a quarry to be mined - an object to be used & discarded.

What of that sublime spiritual vision in which every entity, every leaf of grass, every sunbeam of the universe vibrated with life, and had a deep meaning for Man's innermost soul - so profoundly articulated in our scriptures?

What about that sacred sense of life in which Man beheld in every apparently small & insignificant detail of a living, breathing Universe, a call of Love, a call of Union with the One & the All?

What about the that highest extension of consciousness in which every half-open bud, every speckle of foam on the crest of a frolicking wave of the sea - conveyed a message of Love from the Beyond - from the Unobtrusive, Silent Creator of countless worlds?

The loss of this holiest of all perspectives has robbed us of our capacity to see the Life & Breath beyond the cubicle of our narrow self as something vital - connected to us in a deep, ineffable way - fundamental to our being - personal.

Something to be seen, touched, loved, & nurtured.

The loss of our capacity to connect to the whole wide world beyond our stifling cubicles has rendered our lives lonely & desolate - and above all, has strangled the Lover in our souls.

The Lover who connects & heals - who lives in infinite sympathy & joyous relatedness with the whole of mankind - who sees in men not just distant obstacles & opportunities, but living reflections of himself.

The Lover who sees the soul in the heart of creation - the Person in every man - the Humanity of humanity.

For the capacity to reach out to Nature springs from the same source, the same element in us, which enables us to reach out to other human beings, to mankind, to the whole Universe - to the whole of Infinity; indeed, to God.

And it is from this element that comes our love for the Right, the Just, the Beautiful, & the Vast.

This element, this fountainhead of all Life in the world, is called the Self - Brahman - by our greatest sages-seers.

Our society today is essentially a society of constricted consciousness.

We can see the results of this constriction all around us.

We do not even think of another man's suffering until it affects an iota of our smug, indifferent, narcissistic contentment.

We live in a seemingly endless darkness of oblivion, of blind indifference, of tortured frustration, asphyxiating our own capacity to Love, & to Give.

We rave & rant about a "dog-eat-dog world", about life being a rat-race: & try as hard as possible to become so many dogs & rats.

Justice, Freedom, Joy & Harmony are made possible only through an extension of consciousness - in the reaching out of our hearts to the heart of the universe - in the embarking by our Soul on a journey to the Soul residing deep in the innermost niche of every particle of Creation.

Let us come out of the cubicle, the box, the throttling Definition that we mould ourselves in.

An infinity, an eternity of Joy & Love & Life is waiting for us - to be emancipated, to be known, to be realized - through ever-increasing Love & Sympathy - not only out there, in the limitless tracts of space beyond our petty-little egocentric selves - but here, deep in the cave within our own hearts.

2007-09-24T02:05:00.008+05:30

A FEW THOUGHTS ON THE SYMBOLISM OF THE ROSE, Part 1

A Bouquet of Roses: Auguste Renoir

The flower that most powerfully gripped the poetic vision & mystic reverence of the west, is the Rose.
Alongwith the Cross, the Sacred Serpent (or Dragon), the Circle, and the Eagle, the Rose is the most complex & popular of all religious, mystic, esoteric, & cultural symbols of the western world.
As a symbol of Venus, of Sexual Love & Eroticism, of the Yoni, and of fertility & fecundity, the rose has been largely phallicized & over-simplified.
It might stand for all these things, but there are deeper depths to this luminous image & representation of Beauty. For the men of wisdom, the brethren of divine knowledge, initiates into the mysteries of the universe, and hierophants who held the keys of gold & the keys of silver, the rose meant much, much more.

It was a symbol of Perfection: of the Man who has attained moral & spiritual Perfection: of his soul.
For, of all flowers that illuminate Nature, the Rose was always considered the most beautiful, & the most perfect.
And so, the most perfect of all men - and the perfected human soul - were symbolized by the Rose.
Logically, it was a living symbol of perfect Harmony - of the harmony that is fundamental to God's creation.
The harmony that can be grasped only through the light of highest knowledge - and stands as a living testament to God's Presence in Its Universe.

A Glass of Roses on Gold Cloth: by Martin Johnson Heade

And thus, wrote Albert Pike, "The Rose was for the Initiates the living and blooming symbol of the revelation of the harmonies of being. It was the emblem of beauty, life, love, and pleasure."
In the context of the Roman author Apuleius' novel The Golden Ass, this makes perfect sense.
In the novel, also known as The Metamorphoses, the author, obsessed with magic, accidentally gets transformed into an ass. Towards the end, he invokes the help of the Egyptian Goddess Isis. Isis gives him a rose to eat, after eating which he is transformed into an enlightened human being.

Meditative Rose: by Salvador Dali

Apuleius clearly adopts the Rose as a symbol of Divine Wisdom, & its transformative power.
To eat the rose is to ingest & absorb knowledge about God & God's ways, of the true nature of the Uncaused Cause, of Creation, of the human soul of the fundamental & occult laws of nature.
To meditate upon the rose is to meditate upon the Law by which the Universe is governed, to meditate upon the fundamental harmony, unity, equilibrium, & hence, beauty & truth of the All, through which Man can attain to a vision of the Highest.
In the context of The Metamorphoses, it may also be considered a symbol of Divine Vision, or Divine Revelation, like the one granted by Krishna to Arjuna - in which Arjuna contemplates & grasps the infinity, immensity & glory of the Word, of the Divine, of the One beneath the All & the Many - which vision becomes the final cause of his transformation & spiritual re-generation.

The Rose has also been called the symbol of Dawn, and there is more to this than the fact of the roseate splendors of sunrise. Dawn has been traditionally called "rosy-fingered", & the rose has always been sacred to Aurora, but that's not the principle reason.
The conception of Dawn is to be understood, not as a literal ascension of the Sun above the ring of the horizon, but as the onset of spiritual enlightenment. The Dawn itself is a symbol, for e.g. in the Rig Veda, of the emergence of spiritual illumination. The Rose, and Dawn, symbolize the coming forth of Light from Darkness - of the integrity & coherence of wisdom from the chaos of ignorance - of vision & clarity from blindness & misperception - of right discrimination from confusion & doubt.
In this sense, Rose & Dawn are symbols of Birth, and further, Re-birth.
In Theosophy, the Rose, is the western equivalent of the Oriental Lotus, which is a symbol of "the emanation of the objective from the subjective; divine ideation passing from the abstract into the concrete or visible form".
In other words, the rose is a symbol of manifestation, blossoming, or EPIPHANY.
The Birth of the New Man, of the New Age, of God in humanity, of the New World.
Manley P. Hall writes, "The fact that flowers blossom by unfolding has caused them to be chosen as symbolic of spiritual unfoldment." And so, the rose-bud is a symbol of potential, of divinity enfolded in the heart of humanity - while the full-blown rose symbolizes complete spiritual unfoldment -- the complete unfolding to & into Absolute Truth, Love & Bliss, i.e. complete self-realization.

La Rose Cosmique: My beautiful friend Marina. Whenever I think "Rose", I think "Marina".

By logical corollary, the Rose is a symbol of RESURRECTION.
Of the resurrection of the Sun of the Spirit from the Night, the death-sleep of material existence unpenetrated by the Truth of God.
The rising up of Life out of Death, --- of the Second Birth of Man - Birth into the higher reality of Cosmic consciousness & Buddhahood or Christhood, -- of the donning of new shining garments of Universal Love & Absolute Truth after discarding soiled, stained garments of limited, finite love & wisdom.
Of the birth of the New Self. That is, of resurrection.
In this context, Albert Pike wrote that the deeper meaning of the Cross was that it was a glyph of LIFE: "of that life that emanated from the Deity, and of the Eternal Life for which we all hope; through our faith in God's infinite goodness".
Hence, the Rosicrucian heiroglyph of the Rose-Cross means the Dawn of Life Eternal.

The Man who Laughs by Victor Hugo - Part 2

2007-05-19T20:26:00.000+05:30

Paul Cezanne - Boy with Skull

To continue.
In TMWL, Hugo’s unique and disturbing grasp of the nature of existence, life, & society – of human experience itself – is brought out precisely in the rich construction of paradoxes, and whelming use of antithesis.
Through this medium, Hugo effectively destroys the “rational” view of the universe which is fundamentally dualistic & separative.
According to a rational philosophy, the world can be understood properly only in terms of opposites: dark & light, night & day, beautiful & ugly, sublime & grotesque, high & low, rich & poor…
The very story of TMWL, its characterization, its plot-movement, and the inner meaning of all its elements serve this one crucial purpose: to show that dualities do not exist...
Human reality, or any part thereof, seen in its totality, seen in the context of the whole, eludes such convenient classification & definition.
It’s not that Hugo doesn’t have any notion of Good & Evil, or that “everything is permitted”, or that anything is as good as the other. The truth is the contrary: Hugo has a very definite view of what is Good & what is Bad.
But TMWL is not, primarily, an ethical novel (like “Les Miserables” or “Ninety Three”). It is primarily a metaphysical novel examining & portraying the truth about the way things are; the way things work.
And while there is Good and there is Evil – there is Light and there is Darkness – there is “Yin” and there is “Yang” – Life/Death - Presence/Absence - they are not found as such in their pure essence in this world.
In the same vein, at every step and at every turn, Hugo destroys the reader’s notion that God is an ultimately benevolent force & that Good finally triumphs. He sets up situations in which the cruelty & absurdity of things seems to have been swept away by the grace & love of Providence – but the very next moment, he dashes & shatters all our illusions as to a comfortable finale to pieces.
The moment the reader starts thinking that justice will prevail – from above – Hugo demolishes any safe, naïve, & illusory belief that God shall finally set things right.
But this doesn’t mean that Hugo did not believe in God or in the ultimate redemption of Man. He was a profound mystic and that must be kept in mind while examining the patent Godlessness of TMWL (or his other novels).
In the same way, it’s not as if Hugo did not clearly project a distinct notion of good & evil in the novel, or that one cannot think in terms of dualities: but, at the same time, he constantly shows how difficult it is (infact, impossible) to actually categorize, judge, & condemn our experience, the matrix in which we exist.

TMWL performs the highly “modern” task of demolishing any system of opposites which ensures certainty, and the security of certainty.
In the novel, the High is Low, the Low is High, the Small is Powerful, the Big is Weak, the Blind see, the Misanthrope loves, Wisdom shirks Life, the Beautiful is Grotesque, the Grotesque is Sublime…
In TMWL, Laughter is an expression, not of joy, but of cruelty… the image of Happiness & Mirth is a symbol of Pain… What Resurrects, brings Death… Death is a Liberation & a Union … the barrier between the Laugh & the Sob dissolves… and Laughter diabolically brings Death…
Vision comes, but not from (physical) sight (it comes from conscience)… the Base is an essential part of the Great… the Virgin may be a Whore… the blind can see Light...
By constantly merging all sorts of opposites, Hugo destroys the view that the world can be understood – clearly – in terms of precisely defined opposites… he shows that absolute contraries do not exist, -- and that every concept contains its opposite…
The most puissant symbol Hugo creates to project this idea is the nightmarish image of the rotting corpse of a malefactor dangling from a public gibbet: a malefactor whose deadbody has been preserved by Law as an “example” (deterrent) to other criminals: A thing can be, and yet not be … A man may be dead, and yet he may not be dead … Death may not be Annihilation… Justice maybe a crucial Injustice … being and non-being may co-exist in the one & same object...

One could consider statements Hugo makes in this context, such as: “He was on a plain, & on a hill, and he was not” … “He was palpable and yet vanished” … “this visible nothing” … “it was naught, yet a remainder” … “to exist no more; yet to persist; to be in the abyss, yet out of it; to reappear above death as if indissoluble. There is a certain amount of impossibility mixed with such reality. … This being – was it a being?”
Hugo’s work destroys & subverts in a uniquely liberating & enlightening way.
It deals a violent blow to the half-truths of the ordinary, traditional, conventional view of life, and paves the way for more perceptive & truthful comprehension.
And thus, Laughter is not Joy … Beauty contains Deformity … Chastity is not Purity … Mutilation & deformity are not necessarily handicaps – they maybe an asset … Blindness is the root of true vision … To Rise is to Fall …
The very name Hugo gives to Ursus’s wolf: Homo – integrates several complex ideas bringing out a curious paradox: Man is an Animal … the Animal is Man… Given that Homo is a loving, gentle, tame creature, Hugo's scathing indictment of humankind by comparing Man to a wolf, and then explicitly symbolizing unreasoning hunger by the image of a wolf in Ursus' play "Chaos Vanquished" is yet another paradox …

Whom does Hugo vilify, what does he affirm? Does he make a final, definitive statement about the idea of the wolf? Does he establish an umambiguous, unequivocal idea relating to this symbol/image?

The Paradoxes keep multiplying; the stream of antithesis flows on in trembling fury -- the questions raised are innumerable; -- the perspectives, endless...

The All, as Hugo sees is, is a Gigantic Paradox. Existence itself is Paradoxical. God is a creator of Antithesis.
The crucial idea in religion & mysticism, that dualities are transcended only in the realm beyond the matrix of matter, of “binary oppositions” which characterizes our existence, is given a shattering blow in TMWL: here, in our very own human reality – there is nothing which is a pure opposite.
Everything runs into the other. Everything contains the other.
The realm beneath Transcendence can be now percieved in the same terms as the transcendental realm.
Everything in the universe is informed by both principles – No entity, no existent, no “concept” is free of inner paradox.
There are many, many other great ideas projected in this unsurpassable novel: but I have dealt, so far, and only cursorily, with only one element so far: the element of paradox.

THE MAN WHO LAUGHS by Victor Hugo - Part 1

2007-05-15T04:52:00.000+05:30

An idea is a guide; he had no idea.
They had brought him there, and left him there.
They and There.
These two enigmas represented his doom.
They were Humankind.
There was the Universe.
For him in all creation there was absolutely no other basis to rest on but the little piece of ground where he placed his heel, ground hard & cold to his naked feet.
In the great twilight world, open on all sides, what was there for the child?
Nothing.
He walked towards this Nothing.
Around him was the vastness of human desertion.

- From "The Man who Laughs" by Victor Hugo

I have always wondered why critics have held that the genre of literature represented by Victor Hugo projected a pretty, sweet, romantic, tidy view of life. A false view of life which ought to be destroyed. That the world of Hugo – and all that he represented & stood for – was hypocritical, that it drew a veil over the harsh truths of life, and pulled down a blind on the horror & ugliness of reality.
When they read “Les Miserables” and “Notre-Dame de Paris” – novels which present human pain & suffering with more poignancy than most novels – they realize how pathetically wrong they are – how groundless their constant derision has been, so they catch on to other bromides: excessive sentimentality, oversimplified characterization, “contrived” plot structure, useless digressions, improbable situations & stunts, MELODRAMA (the worst & most common criticism of Hugo), an overdose of coincidences … etc etc etc.
But a careful reading by an unprejudiced, intelligent reader will reveal that there’s NOTHING of the sort.
Once in a while, one finds them reluctantly admitting that he is “nevertheless” a “genius” – that nobody can deny his “genius” – but, in all contradiction, keep on repeating debasing bromide over bromide, baseless denigration over denigration.
Honestly, there is NOTHING of the sort.
The usual academic-literary-critical view of Hugo has been so bad, that the man who was undoubtedly the greatest man of letters in the 19th century, has been relegated to the background of great literature as one of “great Romantic French poets”.
Three steppings-downs: he is JUST a Romantic, he is FRENCH, he is a POET.
In other words if you consider him as an author with a more universal aesthetics, if you start comparing him with authors outside France, and if you focus away from his specific stature as a poet, Hugo fares pretty poorly.

The most powerful indicator of this bias is the dark sea of total oblivion into which his novel “The Man who Laughs” has been sunk into.
The fact that people go on endlessly debating novels like those of Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Henry James, Hermann Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Gustave Flaubert, Emily Bronte, & Honore Balzac – without even mentioning Hugo, what to speak of “TMWL”, is a sufficient indicator to a reader of that novel, of the conscious, deliberate hostility (& prejudice) towards Hugo. Or of enormous stupidity.
Ayn Rand, perhaps the most famous & most eloquent & assertive of all of Hugo’s admirers in the 20th century, considered TMWL to be his best novel.
I would occasionally question Rand's grasp of Hugo's method, philosophy, & psychology - she did make some errors in judging him - but she also offered several very startling insights into his novels, the deeper meaning of his literary vision, and her glowing tributes to him DID propel a particular section of serious readers to (re-)discover Hugo’s dazzling universe.
She noted that TMWL was not merely a historical novel - but a symbolic fantasy of vast metaphysical dimensions.
Though she did not explicitly identify the theme in her introductory note to the novel, she said – very perceptively & correctly – that, transcending the mundane & the commonplace, the trivial & the boring, – Hugo had presented his view on man's existence itself in the form of a suspenseful, violent story.
I may disagree as often as I agree with Ayn Rand, but here, she is perfectly correct. (I doubt, though, if TMWL is really violent). One ought to salute her for stating this truth.

Victor Hugo had a penchant to present his novels as mere socio-political dramas. That is, works serving some republican, socialist, democratic, reformatory, & didactic idea. As such, he is right – unlike most indifferent men of genius, he played the role of acting as the conscience of his society & time – something which, again, bafflingly, – irritates many people; but his own wording gave the handle to the critics to dismiss his work as lacking philosophical depth & significant meaning.
“The Man who Laughs” is indeed a profoundly METAPHYSICAL novel.
It is a novel about the debasement of Man, the obscuration of the Truth about Man, the loss of his vision & perspective, his descent into the lower realm of existence, and his quest & struggle to realize his own highest truth.
Gwynplaine’s defacement is not just a symbolic representation of “Man’s cruelty to Man” (a dismissive interpretation of the novel’s essence); nor about the aristocracy’s suppression of the poor, i.e. social injustice (another over-simplification, albeit correct in itself).
His defacement is a symbolic representation of the Soul’s obscuration in the frame of Matter (the “Flesh”). It images the loss of the inner & highest truth about Man whose soul is couched by & hidden deep within the Body.
It is from such a perspective that one ought to view this novel, and only then can one grasp its immense profundity.

If PARADOX is one of the most exalted literary values of modern thought, then I doubt if there is any other novel which can be called “a novel of paradox”, if not TMWL.
Hugo deftly & seamlessly weaves several ideas into one coherent, comprehensive symbol. Every symbol, thus, becomes a veritable tapestry, intricate, made of several harmoniously interlaced strands.
The image of pain - Gwynplaine's deformed face with its eternal laugh - is, paradoxically, at the same time, an image of laughter.
This image of obscuration (of the truth) is, paradoxically, at the same time, a revelation of the truth.
It hides the truth about Gwynplaine, & yet it also speaks the truth about his condition.
The symbol of the injustice, cruelty & suppression in society – which ought to evoke horror – is, at the same time, the symbol of the apparent prosperity & happiness of society – which evokes mirth.
It represents the surface, not the depth - and yet, it also represents the deep, dark, stark truth of the human condition.
What more complex symbol? What, more profound?
A Mask is a Face. And yet, the Mask is not the Face.
Gwynplaine’s mask is a truth. And yet, it is an untruth.
Hugo was FULLY CONSCIOUS of his use of paradox: “That eternal and fatal law by which the grotesque is linked with the sublime—by which the laugh re-echoes the groan, parody rides behind despair, and seeming is opposed to being—had never found more terrible expression.”
Contrary to enforced perception that Hugo’s view of life was oversimplified, and cast in black & white, & hence, is not “modern”, TMWL comes across as a powerfully modern work.
With all the profound premises of modernism & post-modernism without any of their abounding half-truths & untruths.
Hugo's use of paradox has been criticized as an overuse of "antithesis" -- a completely useless, unprofound, & derogatory criticism, which merely amounts to criticism for the sake of criticism.
The extensive, constant use of antithesis is a logical consequence of all-pervasive paradox-construction in the novel.

Through paradox and antithesis, Hugo achieves something which is attempted, in a way, by Zen Buddhism too: to absolutely destroy a strictly "rational" view of society, life, & existence.
The absurdity of things, the absence of strict logic, the inherent contradiction that pervades All: these are projected through Hugo's paradox construction & use of antithesis.
Existence, God, Man, Life defy all rational analysis at every step - what is, isn't & what isn't, is - an unmistakably ambiguous, almost sinister, projection of God's benevolence & power - indeed, at every step Hugo destroy's Man's faith in God - these are just some of the philosophical implications of TMWL.
Do we call this irrelevant, unmodern, and unprofound?
I do not wish to categorize Hugo as Romantic or Absurdist or Existentialist or Modernist or Post-Modernist or Masonic or Rosicrucian or Hermetic: Hugo is simply Hugo.
(Even though he called himself a Romanticist, I seriously doubt if Hugo can be called a Romanticist in the conventional sense of the term. His vision is too complex for such simplification).
Comparison with Modernist & Post-Modernist literary thought is merely to show that he cannot be dismissed as "unmodern", that his works stand the test of contemporary literary criticism (though that itself is irrelevant) - and that one could only be baffled at why he is not hailed as one of the most profound of all the predecessors of our "modernists".

Dedication

2007-05-13T22:52:00.002+05:30

1 In the beginning rose Hiranyagarbha, born Only Lord of all created beings. He fixed and holdeth up this earth and heaven.
What God shall we adore with our oblation?

2 Giver of vital breath, of power and vigour, he whose commandments all the Gods acknowledge. The Lord of death, whose shade is Life Immortal - and death.
What God shall we adore with our oblation?

3 Who by his grandeur hath become Sole Ruler of all the moving world that breathes and slumbers; He who is the Lord of men and the Lord of cattle.
What God shall we adore with our oblation?

4 His, through his might, are these snow-covered mountains, and men call sea and Rasa his possession: His arms are these, his are these heavenly regions.
What God shall we adore with our oblation?

5 By him the heavens are strong and earth is steadfast, by him light's realm and sky-vault are supported: By him the regions in mid-air were measured.
What God shall we adore with our oblation?

6 To him, supported by his help, two armies embattled look while trembling in their spirit, When over them the risen Sun is shining.
What God shall we adore with our oblation?

7 What time the mighty waters came, containing the universal germ, producing Agni, Thence sprang the Gods' one spirit into being.
What God shall we adore with our oblation?

8 He in his might surveyed the floods containing productive force and generating Worship. He is the God of gods, and none beside him.
What God shall we adore with our oblation?

9 Never may he harm us who is earth's Begetter, nor he whose laws are sure, the heavens' Creator, He who brought forth the great and lucid waters.
What God shall we adore with our oblation?

10 Prajapati! thou only comprehendest all these created things, and none beside thee. Grant us our hearts' desire when we invoke thee: may we have store of riches in possession.

- Hymn 121, Mandala 10, Rig Veda