Are All Tools Equal? Are All Mantras? [was Matangi]

[Guest guest]

Dear Mary Ann:

 

Thank you. I'm glad you liked the story and found it relevant.

 

As it happens, I was just now reflecting on this story again, and

what it might teach us about mantras, and whether some are "more

powerful" than others – or whether they are all equally powerful in

their own way. And so, as a strange little coda to the story I told

in my previous post, I will add a bit of a postscript to that tale.

I hope some of you might find it useful:

 

You see, after my father retired, he bought a piece of land on a

lake in the far northern woods where he was born and raised,

figuring he had another 20 years or so to enjoy there (as it turned

out, he had two years left). He hauled away the old collapsed ruin

on the site, and was all ready to built his dream retirement

hideaway there, as he'd always hoped and planned: Full circle, back

to where he started.

 

Well, "back to where he started" turned out to a good description of

the project, but not in quite the way he had intended. You see,

there were two factors at work in that remote corner of the world:

First, winter comes early there, so you really have only three good

building months per year. Second, it is a very rural, sleepy

backwater kind of place, and the locals have no concept of rush or

hurry or deadlines.

 

So my father and I went around talking to the local carpenters,

telling what was needed and asking them to come up to the lake and

give us an estimate. They all said, "Sure, I'll be up in a day or

two" – but a day passed, then two, and no one came, of course. Now,

as I said, my father grew up in this place, but he'd been away a

long time and his personality had become somewhat less laid back –

soon he was pacing back and forth like a caged tiger and getting

very surly.

 

At a certain point, he finally tossed me a shovel and took one

himself and said, "Well at least we get something started while we

wait," and we began digging holes for the concrete foundation

stanchions, by hand. A day or two passed and we finished, but still

no carpenters or other contractors came. So my father rented a

little concrete mixing machine and backhoe and we finished the

foundation. At that point, my holiday time was over, and I had to

leave him. So he called a couple of his old school pals – now achy

65+ year-old characters like himself; children of the Great

Depression and World War II – and three or four of them kept working

along at their own slow-but-steady pace. Within a few weeks, they'd

finished the sub floor and by the end of a month or so, they'd

managed to frame the walls and raise the center beam for the roof

(how I do not know, since they were all pretty queasy about heights).

 

Now – as I related in my earlier post, by this time in his life my

father had gained a pretty nice reputation as a wildlife woodcarver,

and in that capacity he'd accumulated all kinds of fine precision

tools for close, fine woodwork. However, all of this fancy stuff was

useless to him there in the backwoods: He needed the big heavy rough

tools essential to house construction. And he didn't have them.

However, after a lifetime of woodwork he *had* learned to improvise

a bit, and – no exaggeration – he was literally using a rickety old

circular saw for about 90% of what needed to be done there.

Throughout the summer, he continued to look for professional help;

and throughout the summer they promised to come – but they never did.

 

So in the end, he finished the house himself with his old pals and

their old-fashioned, beat-up hand tools. They were so proud! It was

like their last great act of defiance and achievement before

surrendering to the passivity and infirmity of old age. I mean, the

house wasn't 100% finished, not in all the details, but it was

finished enough to secure it for the long, cold winter – all roofed

and shingled, dry-walled and insulated, and with a few basic

utilities. It was (and remains) a handsome, rugged structure.

 

Well, sure enough, in late August or early September, just like in

the fairytale "The Little Red Hen," the contractors suddenly

realized the cold season was coming and they'd better get to work

and earn some money for the long winter ahead – so one by one they

all remembered my father, and came up to the lake saying, "Okay, now

what do you need done again?" And one by one, he sent them all

packing.

 

So the moral, I guess, is this: I'd mentioned that my father, at the

end of his life had two important possessions – (1) innate

woodworking skills, highly developed through a lifetime of effort

and practice; and (2) excellent tools that allowed him to exploit

these skills to the fullest. Then suddenly, at the end of his path,

with all these precision tools and skills at hand, he found himself

with a job for none of these fine skills and tools did him a damned

bit of good – a big, rough brawny job that required the grossest,

most basic, "meat-and-potatoes" skills and tools.

 

But because he'd gathered his skills and tools slowly and

methodically, he could draw on the deep roots of his long, steady

professional evolution – and improvise; i.e., he could build a

beautiful little home from the ground up with little more than some

old hand tools, a worn-out circular saw, and a couple of cranky,

arthritic pals. You see? To truly be useful, even a distinguished

old fellow with lots of fine, fancy precision tools needs to retain

something of Sarabhanga's young hotshot who could fix a clutch in a

pinch with an old, bent-up, blunted screwdriver.

 

Which brings me back to the subject of mantras and their

ultimately "equality" or otherwise: For some things we need to go

back to the old tools; the simplest, most basic mantras. Even a

great guru, facing a particular shishya, cannot do his job by simply

reeling off the greatest, most refined truths of the most secret

texts. Sometimes he needs to go back to square one, rethink the

basics, and build something new and suited to the job with only a

few improvised tools at hand.

 

One such guru recently told me of a young hotshot in the realm of

esoteric knowledge, who approached him asking for knowledge. Already

this young shishya could reel off ancient truths and secret texts

like a stormtrooper. He was a wonder to behold. But he lacked the

practical grounding and, due to his intoxication with secret wisdom

and divine siddhis, and due to the self-regard he'd developed in

relation to his prodigious knowledge, he lacked the patience to do

the boring, unglamorous work of building a truly lasting spiritual

foundation.

 

The guru told me that even though this ambitious and talented young

adept could (in Tantric terms) produce fine moving clockworks and

intricate filigrees, he couldn't hack together a basic lean-to

shelter with an ax to protect himself if he were ever to face a

killer storm. In other words, he had all the flashy, fancy tricks,

but lacked a solid, staple-grain foundation to rest them upon. He

had the frosting, but lacked the cake.

 

That too, I think, teaches us about how all mantras might be equal,

if only after their own fashion.

 

Aum MAtangyai NamaH

 

, "Mary Ann"

<buttercookie61> wrote:

>

> Namaste DB:

>

> What a beautiful story about your father, and yes, it does seem

apt

> to the question. It is similar to musical instruments: the highest

> quality material makes highest quality sound, and whatever

> limitations or gifts the musician brings to it are another matter.

>

> The "are all mantras equal" question brings to mind some opinions

I

> have heard that it does not matter what religion one s

to,

> if the faith is strong, the prayer works. My perspective is that

it

> is important to recognize underlying factors that may be present

in

> prayers, mantras, belief systems, etc. and clarify those elements

> and refine them out so as not to continue disharmony within and

> without. To my mind, this clarification and refinement process is

> about bringing the talents and the tools together successfully to

> bring about the unstoppable state.

>

> Mary Ann