Transcendent Symbol

 I am wondering at the genius of Rishis. Making fire, Agni, itself as the symbol - idol - sign of the Supreme Being. The fire that is lit, even at birth looks inverted as if coming from beyond into the mundane, with his mouth on things and take-off to the beyond always. Established There participating Here. What better natural symbol-idol-sign can be there than this to meditate on Param Atman, Transcendent Supreme Being? And lo! the Rishi makes another stroke of Ojas when he says that the fire Agni resides always as the fire inside our cave of heart, our consciousness. 'Guhaiyil vaLarum kanalE'. - Nihitam GuhAyAm.

Srirangam Mohanarangan

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About a Russian book in translation

 A book in translation in Tamil which I like is 'manidan eppadi pErARRal mikkavan AnAn'. I bought it some decades ago, in street pandalled book shop of Russian books in translation, (into English, into Tamil, on various subjects Science, History, Literature etc). The book I mentioned is one written by M Ilin and E Segal. In English translated by Beatrice Kinkead. Who translated in Tamil I do not remember. But the get up of the Tamil book was so aesthetic, that you wanted to read it just because you take it and open it. Not only that, how the Tamil translator was able to capture full tones of the original is something amazing. In Beatrice Kinkead's translation the theme of the book is on the following lines:

"There was a time when man, too, lived in just such an invisible cage and was bound by just such an invisible chain. If we want to find out how he succeeded in breaking the chain and getting out of the cage, we'll have to go to the woods and see how our relatives there, who are still prisoners, live.

So we must begin this book about man with a walk in the woods and a talk about wild animals and birds.

You've often heard people talk about being "free as a bird." But do you suppose a woodpecker is free ? If he were a "free" bird he could fly anywhere he happened to take a notion and live wherever he pleased. And that's absolutely not the case. Just try moving a woodpecker to a treeless prairie. He'd die, for he can live only where there are trees. It's just as if he were chained to a tree by an invisible chain which he can't break."

But can we appreciate this sentiment just at present moments? Then are we caged by our own blindness of the haughty ahankara? Knowledge can liberate but perhaps wisdom alone can maintain freedom from the great onslaught ever possible, that is, from our own selves.?

Srirangam Mohanarangan

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Proof of faith.. ?

 Are there proofs for faith? Proofs are there if you do not believe in things of common experience. But for faith? Faith alone may be common but not its contents. May be you will like to say what does not need proof is actually faith. But who knows? Faith sometimes may search for anchor or a collateral yes, however remote. In the great commentaries of Sri Vaishnavaite devotion there goes an observation to this effect. That when you are sleeping, who is in charge you? your system? voluntary and involuntary? Who maintains your fort till you wake up? (of course even after you wake up, there are so many things happening to make it possible for you to make conscious moves, that is a different matter). If the supreme principle immanent in you is in charge during your sleep, if Paramatma is taking care of you when your eyes are closed, your system shutdown, then why should you doubt when you are awake? - 'who protects you while asleep will not fail you when you are awake'.

Czeslaw Milosz, a great Polish/Lithuanian poet, who won Nobel Prize in 1980, expresses his sentiments on faith in a poem, which are so resonating with what I understood about the Sri Vaishnavaite observation in the commentaries.

"Faith is in you whenever you look

At a dewdrop or a floating leaf

And know that they are because they have to be.

Even if you close your eyes and dream up things

The world will remain as it has always been

And the leaf will be carried by the waters of the river."

Perhaps dispassionate details may not interest you unless and otherwise accented by a hurt personal, reminding and reassuring. But can one call such hurts painful? when they really are soothing scathing bruises of doubts?

"You have faith also when you hurt your foot

Against a sharp rock and you know

That rocks are here to hurt our feet."

*

Things concrete sometimes come as proof of things abstract. Things tangible may underline our transcendent hopes. Perhaps our humility must become more and more understanding rather than just a vehement stance.

Srirangam Mohanarangan

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How we approach..

 How we approach, our methodology may be illuminating the subject of study or just discounting it whole and thereby prove a torch of not light on something but a torch of darkening something. Do we ever doubt that such a thing may happen? Perhaps not. When we have our reasoning, why not all subjects behave themselves accordingly. We may expect the subjects of study to learn discipline, to behave to our approach. Swami Nampillai, a great commentator of Tamil songs on Sri Vishnu, sung by the Tamil saints Alwars, has something to say on this. According to him, this human being by approaching all things in ego-centric ways finds itself ultimately destroying whatever is touched by its approach. Rather it can choose to change its approach. By realising its intrinsic nature of meaningful subservience to the Inner Soul, Bhagavan, the approach will become divine-centric and instead of destruction it will find exuberance and fulfillment of whatever is being touched. It all depends on seeing one's own fulfillment in the Immanent Soul, Bhagavan.

Resonating with this thought are these poetic lines frrom Lucian Blaga, the Romanian philosopher and poet.(died 1961)

Non compromising to the communist regime, he was an important Romanian poet. In his book of poetry, 'At the court of yearning' -

"I will not crush the world’s corolla of wonders

And will not kill

with reason

the mysteries I meet along my way

in flowers, eyes, lips, and graves.

The light of others

drowns the deep magic hidden

in the profound darkness.

I increase the world’s enigma

with my light ....."

Parallel reading has its own resonance and mutual illuminations.

Srirangam Mohanarangan

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How to read Savitri?

 "It does not matter if you do not understand it, but read it always; you will see that everytime you read it there will be something new revealed to you. Each time you will find something new, each time a new experience; things which were not there, things you did not understand arise and suddenly become clear. Always something unexpected comes through the words and lines. Everytime you try to read and understand, you will see that something is added, something which was hidden behind is revealed clearly and vividly."

"To read Savitri is indeed to practise Yoga, spiritual concentration; one can find there all that is needed to realise the Divine. Each step for you is noted here, including the secrets of all other Yogas also. Surely if one sincerely follows what is revealed here in each verse, one will finally reach the transformation of the Supramental Yoga. It is the infallible guide who never abandons, it is support; he is everywhere always there for him who wishes to follow the path."

(Mother on Savitri)

So true, every word of it. Pranams Mother and thanks for expressing these thoughts.

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