Why a commentary? Vedas....

[Guest guest]

Namaste Balaji,

 

In your stimulating series of posts you have been pushing the envelope of

orthodoxy and proving

that dissent is excellent carborundum to whet the already sharp minds of the

disputants. Nor

have they to their credit lost their tempers like overheated steel. I'd better

stop now before

the metaphor runs away with me.

 

Sravana may act like the catalyst that causes the supersaturated solution to

crystallise. The

various practices enjoined by the Holy Books create that condition -

reflection, meditation,

contemplation, prayer, fasting, abstinence etc. Being the Tenth Man is a

realisation rather

than a new knowledge. It takes the word of a Master at the point of saturation

to make us feel

the force of what Coleridge in his florid way has called "truths so true that

they have lost

all the power of truth and lie bedridden in the dormitory of the imagination

side by side with

the most despised and exploded of errors". The progress to that grand eureka

is marked by a

series of minor explosions that clear the path to the Heart.

 

With insight what is scattered and disjunct becomes whole as it is irradiated

with a new

vision. The born deaf and blind Helen Keller in her autobiography describes

such a moment:

"We walked along the path to the well-house, attracted by the fragrence of the

honeysuckle with

which it was covered. Someone was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand

under the spout.

As the cool stream gushed over my hand rapidly she spelled into the other the

word 'water',

first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the

motion of her

fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten - a

thrill of

returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I

knew then that w-

a-t-e-r meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand.

That living word

animated my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! There were barriers

still, it is

true, but barriers that in time could be swept away.

 

I left the well-house eager to learn. Everything had a name and each name gave

birth to a new

thought. As we returned to the house every object which I touched seemed to

quiver with life.

That was because I saw everything with the strange, new sight that had come to

me."(from Helen

Keller 'The Story of My Life')

 

Best Wishes, Michael.