Posts Tagged ‘hinduism’
Vivekananda’s Speech – Sanatan Dharma, part 2
The Text of the Sanatan Dharma is written on the surface of the world for those who may read it! Text is subservient to Speech.
Comments on: Vivekananda’s 1893 Speech at World Congress in Chicago
This speech marks the beginning of Hindu-ism as a religion, and as a “world religion,” that is, possessed of attributes going beyond a local culture, i.e., universal. As I see religion as politics, this is a political speech, if taken in the context of the times.
INITIATION BY THE FIVE GURUS
Initiation by the Five Gurus
Guru Dattatreya
A small troop of children followed me to a shaded area in the rocks where the barber would practice his art on my scalp as I considered my options. Should I make break for it and run? How far was it to the main road? How could I escape?
But, hold on. I wasn’t a condemned man walking slowly towards the gallows clinging to his one hopeless fantasy of freedom. It was only a haircut. Drop your attachments, I said to myself.
The barber handed me a small mirror in a rusty frame so that I could watch the clumps of hair fall from my head. The children giggled as they watched him shave my beard and then my scalp with his open blade. He smiled as I felt my smooth cranium, with one short tuft of hair remaining on the top back of my head. “Guru Ji,” he said, giving it a slight tug.
Hari Puri Baba had assembled four other sadhus in the ashram’s puja room. The room was dark and it took a few moments for my eyes to adjust. The walls were covered with rotting photos of awe-inspiring sadhus and posters of Indian gods and goddesses. Straw mats were spread on the floor and a few sticks of incense burned on an altar housing several deities and a few small Shiva lingas. Amar Puri Baba placed a bundle in front of Hari Puri Baba consisting of an ochre dhoti, a coconut, a rudraksha seed strung on the janeu string of the twice born, and two strips of white cloth that serve as a lingoti. Raghunath Puri, Silverbeard, a tall sadhu with long arms, directed me to sit down facing Hari Puri Baba.
Pandit Shesh Narayan entered the room with a brazier burning with red coals from the havan between two iron tongs. The pandit, Hari Puri Baba and I formed a triangle, with the brazier in the middle and the room started to fill with smoke.
With his eyes turned upward, the pandit intoned a river of mantra, magic syllables that flowed out of his mouth. I understood that he was invoking the great powers of the universe. At the end of each verse, each vedic sloka, he would toss fragrant powders onto the glowing coals, pronouncing “Svaha!” consecrating the offerings in the name of the fire deity’s wife.
I watched the white smoke rise from the coals, carrying the sacrifice of these sacred syllables to the gods. He dripped holy water into my right hand, then rice, flower petals, and more water, all the while intoning mantras. When he had completed the ritual, he took a large brass bowl, a katori, from the altar and commanded me in English to drink from it. The greenish liquid looked and smelled very strange. continue reading…
Spirituality, Authority, & Knowledge
Baba’s response to comments on his Facebook Profile, 26 June 2010
We should read carefully what Arun is writing, because the Imperial mapping of the World has not included this, even if there are DNA studies. What he writes is at the center of Indian civilization, and therefore of great relevance to those of us who are interested in it’s artifacts, such as yoga. What is for us, perhaps, the significant issue is AUTHORITY.
Spirituality is no one’s property. Anyone can make a commitment in one’s life and take the responsibility to acquire self-knowledge. Some people are born with it, according to Patanjali. Caste, race, religion, age, none of it matters. But, the path of self-knowledge, and all that entails, is no joke, and is perhaps man’s greatest challenge.
When we are ill, we go to a doctor, because we recognize his authority, and we believe that he will heal us. And if, indeed, that man does have “real” Authority, he will heal us. So, if we accept the Authority of Western Medicine, and a doctor is recognized by that Authority, then in our mind, that doctor can heal us. If we don’t believe in Western Medicine, then that doctor means nothing to us, and we believe that he might even make things worse.
After Gutenberg, the volume and reach of a voice was eclipsed by the printed page, and so Authority passed into the printed page which in time has become our mass media. Today, that Speech which commands large audiences has authority.
But we know, or we wouldn’t be reading this, that the authority of mass media, and its smaller clones, perpetuates consumption with its attendant myth of happiness through consumption. So we may question this authority, and even reject it. When knowledge is presented to us, we may question just what is the authority for this knowledge.
Nothing is equal in the Universe, and authority seems to exist within the Natural World. As infants and children we require authority to mature in the world. And we always need guidance and help. We search for authority. Our challenge today is to find some sort of authority that isn’t generated out of the cycle of consumption. And that requires a search and a seeker that doesn’t consider Knowledge with the same mind and the same Speech with which he or she shops at the Supermarket for organic muesli.
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Renuka Mata Darshan
Renuka Mata Darshan
The Mother Renuka in Mahurgarh is a head. A glimmering orange sindhur moonrock egg, head. Way too naïve to be benign. Almost cartoon-like, something I would never expect, I felt like I had come into the presence of the dark side of Howdy-Doody. Did I say dark? The inner recesses of the sanctum sanctorum was dark, lit only by flickering butter lamps making the thick stone walls black with grease. The space suggested by the confining black walls lacked definition. Enigma is black, as is the Mother Renuka before she is covered in a surface of orange vermillion and mustard seed oil. Her eyes (windows of the soul) are an attachment, black onyx with painted white ringed corneas. The only natural mark on the great Egg-Stone, the Mother’s signature, is an opening into the stone, Her mouth. For, among the Mothers, what issues from their wombs exits from their mouths. The world is born from the Mouth of the Mother, and it retreats into Her Mouth. Her Names are fifty-one, a reflection of the fifty-one syllables, worn around her neck in a garland.
Was she ammonite? Did she have a fossilized kundalini snake coiled in a circle, inside of her blackness, frozen forever in potential, resembling the Matrix of the World? Constantly pushed and jostled by the ever surging crowd of devotees, I looked around. Could these raven haired tribal women awash to their toes in primitive silver ornaments be having thoughts like these, I wondered. How could they, as they held each other’s skirts forming an unbroken chain, and sought proximity to the Stone with a Mouth? Pulled by some force. And then, from time to time, one would break the chain, scream and shake and rip out her hair and collapse with a painful sounding thud on the stone floor, writhing in trance.
It was obvious that she was most likely possessed by a not-so-benign spirit. Otherwise, why all the thrashing about? The screaming and the violence. The look of terror in their faces. Thank gods Hari Puri Baba wasn’t like that. I’d have hated to make such a fool of myself in front of all those nice people. It was enough just to stand out as a foreigner.
Not that I was securely in my body at that moment. Bells clanged, mantras intoned by priests echoed off the black walls, women broke their bangles, smeared their vermilion third eyes, and screamed, and everyone shouted out sacred slogans, praises of The Mother. Hari Puri Baba wiggled inside of me. Be good, I said to myself, meaning that body-mind shell that also had my baba as an occupant. .
“Did you have darshan of both mothers?” the priest asked me on my return to Dattatreya’s dhuni. He referred to both Anasuya, the mother of Dattatreya, as well as Renuka. I had gone to the Mother Anasuya’s Temple after visiting Renuka.
I hadn’t been aware that the Renuka Temple, on that twin hill facing us, is considered one of the most powerful shakti-piths in all India and a magnet for worshippers of the Goddess in one of her most powerful forms. Many who came were tantriks. I was told that the temple was considered by many to be one of Three in Maharashtra.
Dattatreya is thought by many to be Lord of Tantra, and Renuka is among the most worshipped Goddesses by tantriks. Many of the tantras and tantrik texts are attributed to Dattatreya, who is certainly not the property of any one sect. Many of the different sects of tantriks and yogis attribute their origins to Dattatreya.
Tantric Goddess, Mother Renuka
Tantric Goddess, Mother Renuka
Mother Renuka is an incarnation of the Great God Shiva’s consort, Parvati, the Lady of the Mountain. She was born out of the fire of a sacrifice performed at a Prayag Kumbh Mela in the Treta Age by the rishi-sage Agastya, and coming of age, married the rishi-sage Jamadagni. She reflects a complement to Mother Lakshmi, the Earth Mother, who is the consort of the God Vishnu, The Maintainer. While Mother Lakshmi is Fecundity and Her daughter, Prosperity, Renuka is Enigma and Her daughter, Transformation.
Two main stories about Mother Renuka find their telling, performance, and appearance in folk arts wherever there are devotees of this mother. They are both tales from which the Traditions of the Mysteries, Tantra, and Magic find a surface reflection. For many tantriks and other devotees, these stories are a hook, a beginning, that take the adept into deep subterranean caverns, below the surface of the world.
In the first story, the virtuous Renuka’s husband, rishi-sage Jamadagni questions her thought-chastity. Angry at her response, he orders his sons in then order of their age to kill their mother. They refuse their father, all except the youngest son, Parshuram, Axe-wielder, who happened to be an incarnation of God Vishnu. Following the order of his father without hesitation, he lopped off his mother’s head with his handy axe.
Seeing his son in such a distraught state, having committed such an atrocious act, he offered Parshuram a boon, a wish, as a reward for his unswerving duty to his father. With salty tears running down his face, the fourteen year old boy told his father that he wanted his mother back. “That’s it?” his father questioned him. “No Victory Over Enemies, World Empire, Victory Over The Gods, or Immortality? You name it!” Parshuram was never one to mince his words. He was a very serious character, didn’t joke around; he was all business. “No, give me my mother back,” he said.
For Jamadagni, the Knower of All Things, this was not a major problem. Taking care that her head was in exactly the right position, facing straight forward on the shoulders of her headless body (for once attached, the head would be fixed permanently in that posture), he fastened his wife’s head back on her body and she came back to life. continue reading…
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MORE MEHTA:
MORE MEHTA:
Drugs and hatha yoga have the same aim: to help us lead healthier lives.
India has given the world yoga for free. No wonder so many in the country feel that the world should return the favor by making lifesaving drugs available at reduced prices, or at least letting Indian companies make cheap generics.
And yet, the very international drug companies that so fiercely protect their patents oppose India’s attempts to amend World Trade Organization rules to protect its traditional remedies.
BABA: But what does this really mean to “protect” its traditional remedies? Will the village vaidya have to pay the Indian Government or even worse, get permission from them, to make his triphala churan for his patients. Maybe in that case it would be easier to buy Dabur brand, or Pfizer or Longs brand. The system is flawed, I don’t believe you get anywhere playing one part of it against the other. continue reading…
DALAI LAMA DARSHAN
DALAI LAMA DARSHAN
A few years ago, during a visit to the States, a friend took me to hear the Dalai Lama speak in Los Angeles. After walking through a carnival, Disneyland-like arcade, we arrived at the Universal City Amphitheater, where we had to abandon our mineral water bottles in case they contained explosives. Inside there were long lines of people buying cappuccinos and snacks because they knew that the Dalai Lama might go on for at least an hour. Inside I sat next to a middle age woman who ate popcorn throughout HH’s discourse and whispered comments to me about his deep wisdom.
The Dalai Lama was superb. He warmed up the audience with a few well-told jokes (I’m pirating those, I said to myself), and then with everyone having a good time, he gave a brilliant talk on compassion.
I think the tickets cost a lot but I didn’t ask because I was a guest, and my hostess was comped. HH put on a great show, he was funny, profound, inquisitive, and little naughty – this was high quality entertainment. Thank Goddess there is a human being like him around for the betterment of the world and all who make some sort of contact with him. But, excuse me, this IS show biz. We are in a new age and it seems that without show biz there is no biz. I have no problem with that, especially if it’s in good taste.
Deepak Chopra (who I know and have great respect for) and others have found ways to extract withdrawals from the storehouse of India’s Intellectual Capital, and create properties of value, for their own personal wealth, for the profit of the media multinationals who distribute the properties, and to the public who are entertained and informed by them. continue reading…
Baba’s response to an editorial in the New York Times
Baba’s response to Suketu Mehta’s editorial in the New York Times
NYT: …that anybody can make that much money from the teaching of a knowledge that is not supposed to be bought or sold like sausages.
BABA: It is for the colonizer of knowledge to create sausages out of the living animal. Sausages have a bigger market than pigs and cows.
NYT: …the forefront of the patenting of traditional Indian wisdom are Indians, mostly overseas…
BABA: Indian culture is very old and has been dealing with logic and rational thinking for millennia. Indians are very intelligent. Look what they did to the Westminster model of parliamentary democracy, the pinnacle of enlightenment thinking when it came to the human “science” of politics. They ate it alive. It more resembles Swiss cheese than anything British. I’d be proud. continue reading…
The Samadhi of Kapil Puri Ji
Upstairs, in the Hall of Darshan, in the ashram of the Old Baba, Arjun Puri, a dozen frightened individuals gathered for this most terrific of yoga demonstrations.
Shri Mahant Kapil Puri invoked his lineage, reciting it backwards, starting with his guru, Shri Mahant Arjun Puri, back twenty five hundred years through Adi Shankaracharya, back another 2500 years past the advent of the present Age of Kali, and then back through countless millenniums, past the Dwapara Age, into the Treta Age, to the Lord of Yogis, the three headed Dattatreya, and past him, past Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, all the way back to the first guru, Maha Shunya, the Supreme Void.
His eyes rolled back in his head as he sat in siddhasana, his legs crossed, the soles of his feet facing his body. He cleansed his nerve currents with Pranayama, alternating the breaths through his right and left nostrils. He lowered his head and his last breaths shook the hall with thunder. continue reading…
