Life-en-treats

This weekend I read Vyasa's Adhyatma Ramayana . It's stress is on spirituality when compared to the other versions of Ramayana, unlike Valmiki's even is astounding. In my review of Mahashweta Devi's  After Kurukshetra  I have written a bit about the relationship between causes and events in the world as envisaged in the Indian traditions. I wrote how stories gained a certain self-reflexive second level to them with the passing of time. The self-reflexivity shows in the later retellings of the main text through a mentioning of causes for events as known beforehand. The ending is often given away and  occasionally there is a twist. To the list of such self-reflexive texts that are also retellings, Adhyatma Ramayana can be easily added. In the Adhyatma Ramayana , when Rama asks Sita not to accompany him to the forest. Sita asks: "Rama, have you heard of any version of the Ramayana where Sita doesn't follow Rama into the forest? Why should, I, then stay be...

World Space's Satellite Radio's 24-hour Carnatic Music Station, Shruti interviewed Veena artiste E Gayathri last Saturday (21 st March 2009) morning. The interviews in this time-slot are interspersed with music by the artiste and reveal their artistry as the artistes themselves would describe it. I was fascinated and charmed by what E Gayathri said about the sound or naadam of her Veena. She said "if I were to play a Veena for about 150 hours, the Veena gains a sound that is specifically mine".  Her three different Veenas at home are all of the same naadam. How does this happen? She says the Veena is an instrument that takes on the breath of the player. That is why the sound of an artiste's music is unique, irrespective of his/her style of playing or expertise. If you have listened to Gayathri's music, you will have realized that the sound constitutes a major part of what we enjoy in her music. Sound rather than the craft. This is possibly what art-critic...

I remember the exact day in my childhood when I first began to experience karma. In this life, that is. Considering I can remember it, I must have been over 2 and half years of age at least. My hunch is that I was at least 6 or older. Children are exempt from the laws of karma until they are a bit older. Remember the story of a child that kills something in ignorance and then the parents perform a great penance and request that children be exempt from the laws of karma until they are old enough to understand right from wrong. I forget the source and other details of the story, argh! It was an evening and I was sitting in our hall, I remember exactly where, on the floor, near the settee. And I began to experience movements inside my head. It was an experience like none before. I scratched my head, it continued, I hit my head and it continued. Have you seen children shaking their head vigorously, by the way? So I asked my mother what it was. I told her it is as if there are ants insid...

Yesterday, I went to the Rajarajeshwari temple near Shanti theatre (close South End circle) in Bangalore. It is an old temple. There is usually a terrible rush during Rahu Kala, when women come and light lamps in inverted lemon peels serving as a diya/deepa, asking favours of the Goddess for the husbands and children. Yesterday was a Monday, so no such rush. Almost alone in the temple, apart from the poojaris, I got to read the ashtottara naamavali of the goddess (the 108 names). These 108 names are found for almost all gods; they sometimes contain in them the stories of the deities and praise them with a long list of adjectives. They also tell what the deities give us, like for example, sukha pradayini, giver of happiness and/or dushta dhvamsini, destroyer of the evil and so on. But yesterday's discovery was this; the ashtottara said, treta yuge seetayaay namah, dvapara yuge draupadyaay namah, kali yuge bharatyaay namah, one after another amidst the 108 names. Which means, we...

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 o...

Insight is also a good word to use for the Indian traditions, as is used by Buddhist Meditation as a pronoun. The misunderstanding it shatters is this: that meditation is goal-oriented in the sense that you achieve something substantive that you can then carry within you. Meditation is a process that by inducing different mind states asks you to reflect exactly on those mind states and on yourself who are made up of these mind states and more. So, even as one could largely define meditation as induced frustration if first it is understood as endowing us with abilities, it is actually only induced reflection. People also think that meditation is something complete in itself, they are told that no matter what, when and who, the one who does it should be successful in more than a few ways. There is little recognition that it is a technique to something, not an end-in-itself. The word insight captures that sense of technique involved. And says that it is but one way to discover, on...

I was wondering for sometime as to why we don't see the Indian traditions as giving us the truth, but settle to propose it simply as a provider of insight. Insights are of many kinds and reading fiction provides us with a few! So why practice or look into the Indian traditions? Truth on the other hand, is unavoidable and fundamental to our very existence, and also universal. So insight or truth? Perhaps a way to solve this is to say: Indian traditions do give us the truth, but the truth they give is the "ultimate truth", the "ultimate reality". Indian traditions do not differentiate qualitatively between other levels of reality. So we could say that although few people living at the social levels of reality acknowledge ultimate truths of the kind that the Indian traditions give us, the Indian traditions on the other hand acknowledge all levels of reality and are impartial towards these. So 'the constraint of human nature', as someone once put it, is...

The other day I came back to the center exhausted. I had just returned from France and being in Bangalore just made me tired. I was exposed to the scrutinizing look that is peculiar to Bangalore. Although open-minded in many ways, the city also has a habit of judging people for being prim and proper. While I was walking all around Jayanagar, I realized anew what it felt like to be part of this city. This city that scorns drunkards, this city that doesn't sympathize with those who don't carry themselves upright, with an objective expression on their faces. Its true that its ruthlessness is what made me who I am; made me straighten up in those crucial years of growing up. Yet its middle-classness today hits me hard. Bangalore has of course,  changed a lot. Its a global city now and it has had to accommodate all kinds of people. Its rural areas have expanded enormously, the failures of farmers only adding people to the city, as if there was something here. As if it was the Bombay...

I am reading the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra and an introduction to it by Osho. The text has occupied me for several weeks now and feel much better than ever before. I have been practicing the techniques taught. Osho talks about a lot of things very sensibly. His commentary on the habits that we take to often have a reference to the time he was living in. These comments have been largely misunderstood in most of the stuff found on Osho on the internet. I remember distinctly what Osho says about experience. He asks us to experience things in themselves without the help of beliefs and words. He criticizes us that the moment something is about to enter our experience, we hurriedly name and interpret it. In talking of the word sex, he explains how all we have lost it. Sitting in France, a stark contrast came to mind, that of Helene Cixous. She is treasured for responding in her writing to words and is considered very good for this and more, by many of my Indian friends too. I too liked her at...

Why do Brahmins practice vegetarianism really? And not all of them do too! They are not exactly non-violent in other spheres of life...what really do these feudal residues mean anyway... one may wonder. What exactly is the traditional Indian argument about preferring vegetarian food? Lets see, here is how I can explain it... A google search would reveal a variety of definitions for Vasana, here is one: vasana: (Sanskrit) "Subconscious inclination." From vas, "living, remaining." The subliminal inclinations and habit patterns which, as driving forces, color and motivate one's attitudes and future actions. Vasanas are the conglomerate results of subconscious impressions (samskaras) created through experience. Samskaras, experiential impressions, combine in the subconscious to form vasanas, which thereafter contribute to mental fluctuations, called vritti. The most complex and emotionally charged vasanas are found in the dimension of mind called the s...

Some time ago there was an extremely interesting discussion on why a guru would seek out students. Why, if he was already enlightened (if he was that is) care about others or students on the Heathen in his Blindness Yahoo discussion group. For those of you who don't know, this is the title of a book by S N Balangandhara and the Yahoo group discusses it. There were tons of interesting speculations, all of which I have been able to catch up with now, thanks to my efficient internet connection here in Lyon, France. I have been reading Talks With Sri Ramana Maharshi and here are a few things I have culled out as a follow-up to the discussions on the Yahoo group. In our discussion we had asked, is the guru necessarily an enlightened person and what and how does he teach? Ramana in his Talks suggests that enlightenment can be known intellectually . Perhaps the guru is indeed someone who knows enlightenment intellectually . Ramana in his talks advises a devotee to know the 'Self...