Observations and thoughts of Srirangam V Mohanarangan

Begun reading 'My Life and Quest' by Arthur Osborne, Sri Ramanasramam, 4th Ed., 2013. 

I like the book for the facile style of the author. He is able to pack very many mental depths into his constructions. Of course he is very lame, when he tries to compare and draw a uniform line through the religions semitic and Asian. 

From his writings one is able to understand much about the war years and the silent and ebullient quests of human beings across the globe. The sweat of the continents and the spiritual breeze of the East, are shown in realistic terms by the author. 

Gone half way. I will be back with it to you after finishing. But a very good purchase, that too in this scorching heat, such a cool and soothing reading! 

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I am growing more critical about such concepts like 'culture', 'tradition', 'heritage'. Sometimes those look nonsense to me. Every human being is individualistic and what he understands and decides in her or his life is the only thing that matters. All other word buildings are so many machinations of deceit, transmitted by default across generations, at a heavy and unpardonable cost of human well-being. Awareness breaks such illusion-eggs. Ignorance and sympathy and anxiety of belonging to the groups hatch such eggs of havoc. 

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Here is one quote from Bergen Evans -- 

"In the last analysis all tyranny rests on fraud, on getting someone to accept false assumptions, and any man who for one moment abandons or suspends the questioning spirit has for that moment betrayed humanity." 

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Anything that appeals to our reason, let us accept, even if a child should say it. On the other hand, anything that is repugnant to reason, let us reject, even though it might come from Brahma. 

-- Do you know who said this ? இதைச் சொன்னவர் யார் என்று உங்களால் சொல்ல முடியுமா? 

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The answer is -- Sri Ramana Maharishi. 

Ref: Sri Ramana Reminiscences, G V Subbaramayya, 4th Ed 2014, Sri Ramanasram 

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I thought that the Buddhist position regarding the concepts of change and unsubstantiality are quite unassailable. But Swami Vivekananda has very brilliantly shown how Advaita reconciles the positions of Buddhism vis-a - vis Advaita, in his four lectures on the subject of Practical Vedantha. Very brilliant ! 

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Reality is really how many? Or how many aspects of reality make the total reality? Or how many phases of reality coalesce to form the whole reality? Dr Sir Roger Penrose says three such realitys coalesce or at least relate among themselves to form the totality of reality. The Physical reality, the mental reality, the mathematical reality. Then what is that REALITY which houses all these three? 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9Q6SWcTA9w 

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இளைஞர்களுக்கு புத்திமதி சொல்றது என்றால் இது மாதிரி இருக்கணும். அதை விட்டுட்டு -- 

Epicurus in a letter to Menoeceus -- 

"Let no one when young delay to study philosophy, nor when he is old grow weary of his study. For no one can come too early or too late to secure the health of his soul. And the man who says that the age for philosophy has either not yet come or has gone by is like the man who says that the age for happiness is not yet come to him, or has passed away." 

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எபிக்யூரஸ் அருமையாகச் சொல்கிறார் மண்டையில் அடித்தால் போல் -- 

And the impious man is not he who denies the gods of the many, but he who attaches to the gods the beliefs of the many. 

ஸூப்பர்!

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"I do not want to get material life, do not want the sense-life, but something higher." That is renunciation. Then, by the power of meditation, undo the mischief that has been done.

Swami Vivekananda 

ஆன்மிக வாழ்க்கை என்ன என்பதை இரண்டு வரிகளில் முடித்து விட்டார் விவேகாநந்தர். 

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Custody of cow-girls !

Trying to translate Kaliyan is a good way of meditating on Thirumal.

Is not meditation itself a way of translating the human into the divine?

So shall we start working at his song Periya Thirumozhi 10.6.1

எங்கானும் ஈதொப்பதோர் மாயமுண்டே?

நரநாரணனாய் உலகத்து அறநூல்

சிங்காமை விரித்தவன் எம்பெருமான்

அதுவன்றியும் செஞ்சுடரும் நிலனும்

பொங்கார் கடலும் பொருப்பும் நெருப்பும்

நெருக்கிப் புகப் பொன் மிடறு அத்தனை போது

அங்காந்தவன் காண்மின் இன்று ஆய்ச்சியரால்

அளைவெண்ணெயுண்டு ஆப்புண்டிருந்தவனே!

Re assembling them according to Sandham

எங்கானு மீதொப்ப தோர்மாய முண்டே?

நரநா ரணனா யுலகத் தறநூல்

சிங்கா மைவிரித் தவனெம் பெருமா

னதுவன் றியும்செஞ் சுடரும் நிலனும்

பொங்கார் கடலும் பொருப்பும் நெருப்பும்

நெருக்கிப் புகப்பொன் மிடறத் தனைபோ

தங்காந் தவன்காண் மினின்றாய்ச் சியரால்

அளைவெ(ண்)ணெ யுண்டாப் புண்டிருந் தவனே.

Thirumangai Alwar expresses his wonder at Sri Krishna, comparing his present advent with his old acts.

This child is the self-same person, who came as Narayana and Nara and explained in full the Book of Piety.

To explain that book why should he come in two forms, Narayana and Nara?

To explain is not simply to give advices, to give upadesa. To explain means ultimately to do and show. Narayana gives advice, He gives upadesa. Nara does that and shows. Both are instructive and demonstrative. If both are not done then there becomes something missing from the Book of Piety, Vedas and more so Agamas. To explain fully missing nothing means to make known not only through words but also through deeds. Abstract idea and the concrete life.

So Alwar is wondering, this self-same child is the one who came in twin form, Preacher and the Practitioner. Then how docile he looks as if he does not know anything which he did in the times past!

Not only that it is verily He, who at the time of dissolution, in order to keep all the universe in His belly kept open big His mouth long enough for all the hills and dales, fire and earth and seas to go and get lodged in his stomach.

But what a wonder! it is this very child, who now is tied by these cow-girls as a punishment for stealing butter and caught in the very act of eating it.

What is the meaning of this! Such an ontological greatness! And again this puny domestic triviality, this sham act of butter stealing and bound in custody by the cow-girls!

Anywhere have you known

anything matching this

illusive wonder!

It is verily He

who came as Narayana and Nara

to explain the Book of Piety

missing nothing, through precept and practice.

Not only that, it is verily He,

who kept open His mouth

long enough to swallow all the worlds,

hills and dales, fire, oceans, sun and moon

earth and sky and everything.
 

Here and now, He is bound in chords

Of cow-girls,

kept in custody by these girls!

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Kapil's advice !

In the heart of a living thing

consciousness has to awaken

before the cosmic divinity to respond

just like in a living soul

you dont call it life

even when it breathes and imagines

but only when the conscious soul

wakes up

so sifting the consciousnes

from the body mind and senses

meditating, devoting

one should be wise in knowing

that alone through renunciation.

(reading Kapilopadesa)

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Happy Nammalvar!

There are ever so many canons and literatures and great books in the world. Every book will be so unique and will be catering to some aspects of the Man. But such books or canons which are substantially wholesome and satisfying the core aspirations of Man are few in number. I mean such books reading in which you need not be broad-minded towards them every now and then. The world over, I think such books are sparse and distanced in time and topos. One such canon, to my experience is Bhagavat Vishayam. It is universal in its vision and radical in its pervasion. You need not be born in any particular place, time or family, to become a subscriber to the world of Bhagavat Vishayam, a world of Tiruvaimozhi and its five commentaries and three notes. It is enough if you can closely read Tiruvaimozhi in full, in contents, intents and extense and become involved really with the text and lose yourselves in the exploration of its inner spaces. I find unique doors opening whenever I enter its portals. But I am not a subscriber to its faith. I am only a close reader and an avid delver into the meaning-depths. Once inside it is so self-sustaining and refreshing. I cannot but thank the great Tamil poet, Nammalvar, to have delivered it and Nathamuni and Ramanuja to have nursed it into such a big, lovable Baby. Shall I say Happy Nammalvar!.....

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Plotinus and Drg Drisya Viveka

Many have heard of Drg Drsya Viveka of Sankara. - The philosophy of the perceiver and the perceived. In the cascade of the successive perceiver-perceived stratification, it follows that the perceiver in turn becomes the perceived by another perceiver, which yet again becomes the object of perception to another. The chain goes on and the Ultimate Perceiver remains unperceivable by any other. It is a fantastic concept I like in Sankara.

While reading something I came across a quote from Plotinus, which is wonderful and says exactly the Perceiver~Perceived theory of Sankara. And it is also current in the circles of Neo-Platonic philosophy, that Plotinus experienced more than once the state of ultimate mystic ecstasy, transcending his self-identity. Here is the quote;

"In this state of absorbed contemplation there is no longer question of holding an object in view; the vision is continuous so that seeing and seen are one; object and act of vision have become identical; of all that until then filled the eye no memory remains."

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Srirangam V Mohanarangan

Observations of Srirangam V Mohanarangan 7

Sri Ramakrishna wrought many miracles. Not the miracles of matter but the miracles of comprehensive understanding and empathetic integration. He took the directness of feeling from the paths of faith and combined it with the broadness of engaging in diverse discourse of the philosophical scholarship. And he made the welded way not a front of debate but a market of engaging appreciation and involved conversation. His very deceptive simplicity in what he has done unprecedentally is very much intriguing. It takes a long meditation to break his simple codes. Vive la Kali!

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(From the Observations of Srirangam V Mohanarangan) 

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Have you ever stopped and thought about 'what is pleasure? what is enjoyment? joy? happiness?' How pleasure and thought tie up? 

A very interesting discussion is here in this conversation between J Krishnamurthy and Mr Anderson.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeOS5seSl_I 

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My book in Tamil on Bhagavath Vishaya, viz., 'பகவத் விஷயத்தை எண்ணும் போது' is coming out in a short time. I have written this dedication page in that -- 

"யாரைக் கற்கும் போது 

எந்த விஷயம் புரிய வருகிறது என்பது 

அறிவின் தேட்டத்தில் விந்தையான கணம்தான். 

அறிவுகொளுத்துவோர்தாம் 

உண்மையில் ஆசிரியர்கள். 

அயின் ரேன்டைப் படிக்கும் போது 

அரிஸ்டாடில் புரிந்தது; 

அரிஸ்டாடிலில் ஆழும் போது 

விசிட்ட அத்வைத தர்சனம் புரிந்தது; 

எனவே யாருக்கு அர்ப்பணிப்பது? 

அந்த யவனாசிரியருக்கா? 

அல்லது அயினாசிரியைக்கா?" 

Translated it runs thus -- 

It is a strange moment to say, 

What subject we come to understand, 

When? Reading whom? 

Studying something seemingly different? 

Who makes us understand, 

They are the Masters, really; 

Reading Ayn Rand, 

I came to understand Aristotle; 

Delving into Aristotle, 

Visishtadvaita Darsana became clear; 

Then....to whom am I to dedicate? 

To the Master from Ionia? 

Or to the teacher Ayn? 

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