Of Curses
One may wonder very justifiably about the principles underlying the nature of the universe. But what is, is. Discovering the principles does not guarantee that we can change it. Read this excellent excerpt on curses from Roberto Callasso's Ka.
Pg 321.
More than love or war, what really set stories going were curses and, though these were of secondary importance, the vows and boons that often served to ease a curse. It wasn’t only men’s lives that teemed with curses but the god’s too. Destiny’s turning points, a little attention shows, occur at the moment when a great caster of curses –and they are generally brahmans, and in particular seers –pronouncers of fatal words. Whether anybody realizes a curse has been cast or not makes no difference at all. Sakuntala suffered the pain of lost love for many years as a result of a curse she was quite unaware of. For those who told these stories –Vyasa, for example, who was himself in a position to pronounce terrible curses –cursing was obviousness itself, life’s bedrock, and above all precious, the most precious formal artifice for rendering life complex in a way consonant with its nature. The same texts that spend pages over every single action, describing everything down to the last detail, have nothing at all to say about the curse that prompted it, as if this were self-evident. And it is not just individual destinies that depend on curses but likewise the destiny of the world. More often than not a cosmic cataclysm is unleashed by some futile gesture that nobody has noticed.
Despite their ability to resort to metamorphosis when, for all their overwhelming powers, they find themselves in trouble, the gods can do little or nothing against a curse. Before they can free themselves, they must suffer like the merest of mortals. And when they appear among men, it is usually not to come to their aid but to free themselves from a curse. Even Vishnu’s various avatars, generally presented as those great deeds and periodically saved the world, were, as some saw it, first and foremost something he was condemned to by a curse.
The defining characteristic of the curse, or so it seemed, was this: that it always worked. As one approaches the realm of the curse, one comes up against the invisible wall of certainty. But what is invulnerable certainty? The supremacy and pervasiveness of the mind. The curse is a purely mental act. And while one day this kind of act would be considered by definition ineffective, in those days it was precisely its mental character that made it seem efficacy itself. That is why the custodians of the curse are mostly brahmans, creatures of the mind. They owe their authority, their power, and even their name to their contact with Brahman –and nothing else. Brahman strikes more swiftly than a sword. So the Brahman has no need of the sword. For a word articulated in his mind already conceals “a sharp-bladed razor”. More than their internal quarrels or their perpetual war with the Asuras, what most frightened the gods were certain encounters, above all with solitary old men who might very well appear to be the merest of beggars or pilgrims, but would then all at once start darting flames from their eyes if something should irritate them.
Pg 321.
More than love or war, what really set stories going were curses and, though these were of secondary importance, the vows and boons that often served to ease a curse. It wasn’t only men’s lives that teemed with curses but the god’s too. Destiny’s turning points, a little attention shows, occur at the moment when a great caster of curses –and they are generally brahmans, and in particular seers –pronouncers of fatal words. Whether anybody realizes a curse has been cast or not makes no difference at all. Sakuntala suffered the pain of lost love for many years as a result of a curse she was quite unaware of. For those who told these stories –Vyasa, for example, who was himself in a position to pronounce terrible curses –cursing was obviousness itself, life’s bedrock, and above all precious, the most precious formal artifice for rendering life complex in a way consonant with its nature. The same texts that spend pages over every single action, describing everything down to the last detail, have nothing at all to say about the curse that prompted it, as if this were self-evident. And it is not just individual destinies that depend on curses but likewise the destiny of the world. More often than not a cosmic cataclysm is unleashed by some futile gesture that nobody has noticed.
Despite their ability to resort to metamorphosis when, for all their overwhelming powers, they find themselves in trouble, the gods can do little or nothing against a curse. Before they can free themselves, they must suffer like the merest of mortals. And when they appear among men, it is usually not to come to their aid but to free themselves from a curse. Even Vishnu’s various avatars, generally presented as those great deeds and periodically saved the world, were, as some saw it, first and foremost something he was condemned to by a curse.
The defining characteristic of the curse, or so it seemed, was this: that it always worked. As one approaches the realm of the curse, one comes up against the invisible wall of certainty. But what is invulnerable certainty? The supremacy and pervasiveness of the mind. The curse is a purely mental act. And while one day this kind of act would be considered by definition ineffective, in those days it was precisely its mental character that made it seem efficacy itself. That is why the custodians of the curse are mostly brahmans, creatures of the mind. They owe their authority, their power, and even their name to their contact with Brahman –and nothing else. Brahman strikes more swiftly than a sword. So the Brahman has no need of the sword. For a word articulated in his mind already conceals “a sharp-bladed razor”. More than their internal quarrels or their perpetual war with the Asuras, what most frightened the gods were certain encounters, above all with solitary old men who might very well appear to be the merest of beggars or pilgrims, but would then all at once start darting flames from their eyes if something should irritate them.
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