Life of Pi

[Guest guest]

"...The world makes sense to me through Hindu eyes. There is Brahman,

the world soul, the sustaining frame upon which is woven, warp and

weft, the cloth of being, with all its decorative elements of space

and time. There is Brahman nirguna, without qualities, which lies

beyond understanding, beyond description, beyond approach; with our

poor words we sew a suit for it-One, Truth, Unity, Absolute, Ultimate

Reality, Ground of Being-and try to make it fit, but Brahman nirguna

always bursts the seams. We are left speechless. But there is also

Brahman saguna, with qualities, where the suit fits. Now we call it

Shiva, Krishna, Shakti, Ganesha; we can approach it with some

understanding; we can discern certian attributes-loving merciful,

frightening-and we feel the gentle pull of relationship. Brahman

saguna is Brhaman made manifest to our limited senses, Brhman

expressed not only in gods but in humans, animals, trees, in a

handful of earth, for everthing has a trace of the dinine in it. The

truth of life is that Brhman is no different from atman, the

spiritual force within us, what you might call the soul. The

individual soul touches upon the world soul like a well reaches for

the water table. That which sustains the universe beyond thought and

language, and that which is at the core of us and struggles for

expression, is the same thing. The finite within the infinite, the

infinite within the finite. If you ask me how Brhman and atman relate

precisely, I would say the same way the Father, the Son and the Holy

Spitit relate: mysteriously. But one thing is clear: atman seeks to

realize Brhman, to be united with the Absolute, and it travels in

this life on a pilgrimage where it is born and dies, and is born

again and dies again, and again, and again, until it manages to shed

the sheaths that imprison it here below. The paths to liberation are

numerous, but the bank along the way is always the same, the Bank of

Karma, where the liberation account of each of us is credited or

debited depending on our actions." The Life of Pi, Yann Martel

 

I asked Amma to bring me a spiritually uplifting novel and She

brought me this gem.

 

Jai Ma!

Omana