India's Wisdom Traditions, Sages and Cosmogenesis Mythology

an antique from my 'Mysterious Collection'

 

The more one reads about diverse accounts involving metaphysical and spiritual aspects of being, there is noticeably some reading 'between the lines' that one might feel appropriate on a level dealing with potentialities of human life experiences.  This blogger has decided to present with this article a few succinct perspectives of India's sages and wisdom traditions for readers.  Throughout time immemorial, there have been accounts of people gifted in unusual ways as 'chosen ones' and these paths of initiation are at the basis of Eastern wisdom traditions.  In recent centuries, it is experiencers of 'paranormal phenomena' who are having phenomenal initiation.  At present, this data has seldom become a topic offering potential metaphysical and spiritual insight among the most accessible news media outlets for the public.  The selected passages in this article are suggestive of the variety of potential religious orientations in the East as in the West in relation to an individual's intellectual orientation and spiritual development. 

 

As with a great many readers during recent decades, my introduction to India's ancient gurus began with the books edited by W. Y. Evans-Wentz (1878-1965): The Tibetan Book of the Dead (1927), Tibet's Great Yogi, Milarepa (1928), Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines (1935) and The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation (1954).  Due to the necessity of concentrating on delineating the facts of my own experiences and showing correlating data while concentrating each week on sharing articles that will help readers to expand their consciousness, I decided to include some commentary about wisdom traditions of the Far East.  I found a succinct explanation of 'The Five Yogas' delineated in the winter 1954 edition of Manly P. Hall's Horizon Journal of the Philosophical Research Society.

 

Manly P. Hall (1901-1990) reported that "The word yoga means union" and offered reflection concerning the goal of one's "conscious identity with Universal Being as truth and life . . . harmony with . . . the ultimate Source of living."  The Hindu Five Yogas are identified as involving "Exhaustion of Illusion Through Conduct" (Karma Yoga), "Adoration of the Divine Principle" [Divine Love] (Bhakti Yoga), "Purification of the Mind and Body" (Hatha Yoga), "the source of Being" (Jnana Yoga) and "science of union with the divine" (Raja Yoga).  The following passages are some of Hall's observations from this article.

 

The reward of right action is growth, and the punishment for wrong action is the continuance of ignorance and suffering.

 

 

Man reaps what he has sown . . . 

 

 

The follower of karma Yoga . . . finds it better to give than to gain . . .

 

 

Buddhism followed Hinduism in emphasizing the natural path of salvation as the road that is ever open to all mankind.  By Karma Yoga, this path is walked day by day, and the disciple finds a growing consolation within himself.

Shown in this print from India among "a group of thirty religious leaders of India" at the symbolic 'tree of life' is "a representation of Krishna with the character of the Sacred Name over his head.  At lower right are Sri Ramakrishna and his youngest disciple, the Swami Vivekananda."

Meditation is [and should always reflect] the continuous remembering of the eternal reality.  In Bhakti Yoga, the disciple advances through a series of emotional experiences which end in the adoration of the Divine.  It has many parallels with Western mysticism, but assumes again the reality of the law of cause and effect.

 

The disciple . . .finds himself to be a channel and instrument through which eternal love may flow into the world for the service and redemption of all creatures.

 

. . . Sri Ramakrishna passed into a state of ecstasy when he permitted himself to contemplate the World Mother.  He was possessed by an infinite tenderness and regard, by a universal solicitude for all creatures, and an eternal gratitude for the blessed privilege of being a servant of the Great Mother.  By compassion, the soul is transformed into a parental being . . .

 

. . . the disciple discovers himself to abide forever in the love of God.

 

Manly P. Hall commented that Hatha Yoga corresponds in many ways with disciplines of the Greek wisdom tradition.

 

The fundamental concept of Hatha Yoga is the strengthening of character through continuous thoughtfulness on the level of the personality.

 

 

The true place of the body in the compound of man's constitution is clarified.  The outer form is a vestment of consciousness . . . within it is an Eternal Being . . .

 

Regarding Jnana Yoga "the word Jnana means wisdom.  The Eastern sage, however, has a much deeper definition of wisdom than is usually met with among Western scholars."

 

Through the study of medicine, the physician should come to the realization that Universal Consciousness is the eternal healing agent.  Through the study of jurisprudence, the lawyer should experience the immanence of those eternal laws . . . originating in the One Consciousness . . . 

 

The musician can discover God in harmony, rhythm, and melody.  The sacred dances originate in the concept of universal motion.  The merchant experiences his religion in barter and exchange and the distribution of useful commodities.  The parent becomes aware of the mystery of divinity through his own parental responsibilities.  In Jnana Yoga, even the most familiar and commonplace pursuits become symbol of spiritual principles and cosmic processes.

 

As the mind must be trained before it can be used by the consciousness for the advancement of knowledge, it must be further trained and disciplined for the contemplative sciences of personal regeneration

Manly P. Hall described Raja Yoga as "a highly specialized kind of mysticism" with 'the divine Principle of principles' being equated with "the complete renunciation of personal ambition or desire" and contemplation of "the universal Being."

Some blog readers may recognize the 'wheel of eternity' symbol in this nationalheraldindia.com photo of "Gandhi and his spinning wheel."

M. K. Gandhi's Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth (Translated from Gujarati by Mahadev Desai / chapters first published as journal articles during the 1920s) includes the following remembrance of the contemporary man Raychandbhai (1867-1901) and observations about the Hindu tradition of the guru.  Gandhi was born in 1869.

I said in the last chapter that the sea was rough in Bombay harbour, not an unusual thing in the Arabian Sea in June and July.  It had been choppy all the way from Aden.  Almost every passenger was sick; I alone was in perfect form, staying on deck to see the stormy surge, and enjoying the splash of the waves.  At breakfast there would be just one or two people besides myself, eating their oatmeal porridge from plates carefully held in their laps, lest the porridge itself find its place there.
 
The outer storm was to me a symbol of the inner.  But even as the former left me unperturbed, I think I can say the same thing about the latter.  There was the trouble with the caste that was to confront me.  I have already adverted to my helplessness in starting on my profession.  And then, as I was a reformer, I was taxing myself as to how best to begin certain reforms.  But there was even more in store for me than I knew.

My elder brother had come to meet me at the dock.  He had already made the acquaintance of Dr. Mehta and his elder brother, and as Dr. Mehta insisted on putting me up at his house, we went there.  Thus the acquaintance begun in England continued in India and ripened into a permanent friendship between the two families.

I was pining to see my mother.  I did not know that she was no more in the flesh to receive me back into her bosom.  The sad news was now given me, and I underwent the usual ablution.  My brother had kept me ignorant of her death, which took place whilst I was still in England.  He wanted to spare me the blow in a foreign land.  The news, however, was none the less a severe shock to me.  But I must not dwell upon it.  My grief was even greater than over my father's death.  Most of my cherished hopes were shattered.  But I remember that I did not give myself up to any wild expression of grief.  I could even check the tears, and took to life just as though nothing had happened.

Dr. Mehta introduced me to several friends, one of them being his brother Shri Revashankar Jagjivan, with whom there grew up a lifelong friendship.  But the introduction that I need particularly take note of was the one to the poet Raychand or Rajchandra, the son-in-law of an elder brother of Dr. Mehta, and partner of the firm of jewellers conducted in the name of Revashankar Jagjivan.  He was not above twenty-five then, but my first meeting with him convinced me that he was a man of great character and learning.  He was also known as Shatavadhani (one having the faculty of remembering or attending to a hundred things simultaneously), and Dr. Mehta recommended me to see some of his memory feats.  I exhausted my vocabulary of all the European tongues I knew, and asked the poet to repeat the words.  He did so in the precise order in which I had given them.  I envied his gift without, however, coming under its spell.  The thing that did cast its spell over me I came to know afterwards.  This was his wide knowledge of the scriptures, his spotless character, and his burning passion for self-realization.  I saw later that this last was the only thing for which he lived.  The following lines of Muktanand were always on his lips and engraved on the tablets of his heart:

'I shall think myself blessed only when I see Him in every one of my daily acts;

Verily He is the thread, Which supports Muktanand's life.'

Raychandbhai's commercial transactions covered hundreds of thousands.  He was a connoisseur of pearls and diamonds.  No knotty business problem was too difficult for him.  But all these things were not the centre round which his life revolved.  That centre was the passion to see God face to face.  Amongst the things on his business table there were invariably to be found some religious book and his diary.  The moment he finished his business he opened the religious book or the diary.  Much of his published writings is a reproduction from this diary.  The man who, immediately on finishing his talk about weighty business transaction, began to write about the hidden things of the spirit could evidently not be a businessman at all, but a real seeker after Truth.  And I saw him thus absorbed in godly pursuits in the midst of business, not once or twice, but very often.  I never saw him lose his state of equipoise.  There was no business or other selfish tie that bound him to me, and yet I enjoyed the closest association with him.  I was but a briefless barrister then, and yet whenever I saw him he would engage me in conversation of a seriously religious nature.  Though I was then groping and could not be said to have any serious interest in religious discussion, still I found his talk of absorbing interest.  I have since met many a religious leader or teacher.  I have tried to meet the heads of various faiths, and I must say that no one else has ever made on me the impression that Raychandbhai did.  His words went straight home to me.  His intellect compelled as great a regard from me as his moral earnestness, and deep down in me was the conviction that he would never willingly lead me astray and would always confide to me his innermost thoughts.  In my moments of spiritual crisis, therefore, he was my refuge.

And yet, in spite of this regard for him I could not enthrone him in my heart as my Guru.  The throne has remained vacant and my search still continues.

I believe in the Hindu theory of Guru and his importance in spiritual realization.  I think there is a great deal of truth in the doctrine that true knowledge is impossible without a Guru.  An imperfect teacher may be tolerable in mundane matters, but not in spiritual matters.  Only a perfect gnani deserves to be enthroned as Guru.  There must, therefore, be ceaseless striving after perfection.  For one gets the Guru that one deserves.  Infinite striving after perfection is one's right.  It is its own reward.  The rest is in the hands of God.

Thus, though I could not place Raychandbhai on the throne of my heart as Guru, we shall see he was, on many occasions, my guide and helper.  Three moderns have left a deep impress on my life, and captivated me: Raychandbhai by his living contact; Tolstoy by his book, The Kingdom of God is Within You; and Ruskin by his Unto this Last.

Gandhi mentioned in one part of his articles, "Thus if I could not accept Christianity either as a perfect, or the greatest, religion, neither was I then convinced of Hinduism being such.  Hindu defects were pressingly visible to me.  If untouchability could be a part of Hinduism, it could but be a rotten part or an excrescence.  I could not understand the raison d'etre of a multitude of sects and castes.  What was the meaning of saying that the Vedas were the inspired Word of God?  If they were inspired, why not also the Bible and Koran?"  Gandhi's residence at the time of his 1948 assassination was in Delhi and the site became a museum in 2005.  A general overview of Hindu cosmogenesis mythology is included in Myths and Modern Man (1972) by Barbara Stafford with Gene Stafford, as follows.  This passage reflects a figurative general description and not a precise literal rendering of specific teaching sources.

In the beginning and forever was the one, the absolute, Iswara.

The whole world, everything that exists, comes from the One, the Absolute, the Universal Spirit, or Iswara.  The Universal Spirit is manifested in three forms: Brahma, the creator, Vishnu, the preserver, and Siva, the destroyer.  The world itself exists and disappears as Brahma sleeps and wakes up.  Each time Brahma awakens, the world of physical beings appears.  When he goes to sleep, the world is absorbed into the Universal Spirit.  A day in Brahma's life is equal to 43,200,000 years on earth.  Eventually, after 100 years of Brahma's life, the entire universe, including Brahma himself, will be absorbed into Iswara and remain for 100 years.

The world between cycles of creation is sometimes pictured as Vishnu lying motionless on a thousand-headed cobra called Ananta, or eternity, floating on an infinite and unmoving ocean of milk.  Then from Vishnu's naval a lotus emerges with Brahma seated on it.  Before beginning the work of creation, Brahma submits to a number of austerities to build up his spiritual power.  Then he begins by creating opposites — gods and demons.

Another way of visualizing the beginning of creation in the Hindu tradition is of a golden, cosmic egg floating on the waters.  At the beginning of the cycle of creation, the egg breaks open to reveal Purusha, a manifestation of the Ultimate Being with a thousand thighs, a thousand eyes, a thousand faces, and a thousand heads.  Porusha offers himself as a sacrifice for the creation of the universe, and from each of his limbs an object of creation appears.  From his mouth issue the Brahmans and the gods.  From his abdomen come demons.  From the thighs come the merchant caste and cattle.  Manual workers and horses come from his feet.  In this picturesque way, the myth emphasizes that all of creation has come from the One and will return to it.

Vishnu is most closely involved in human affairs, for frequently his work requires that he come to earth in human form to save the world from premature destruction.  Usually his task is to kill a demon who has gained tremendous spiritual powers through meditation and threatens to overpower the gods.

At times Vishnu appears as an animal.  One appearance was as a fish when the great flood came.  He appeared to the great sage Manu as a fish, warned Manu to build a boat, and floated near him so that Manu could anchor his boat to him.

In another story of the flood, the earth was held under the waters by a demon.  Vishnu took the form of a boar and dived deep into the depths, where he killed the demon and raised the earth back to its proper place.

Other appearances were as a lion, as a dwarf who had the power to grow to gigantic size, and as two important heroes, Rama and Krishna.

The final appearance of Vishnu is yet to come.  He will appear riding on a white horse and will bring in the end of the age — and the work of Siva.

Siva, the third of the trinity, is the god of destruction — the destruction of the old, worn-out world.  He prepares the way for all to be reabsorbed into the Eternal one and for the re-creation of the world.  Siva is also associated with asceticism — the destruction of evil in the human being so that the individual soul may be reabsorbed into the One and be freed from the world of illusion.

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The publication of the autobiographical nonfiction case study Testament in 1997 made available for readers of all wisdom traditions, history, mythology and Pop culture orientations, a book of my contemporary firsthand documentation reporting about witnessing occurrences that only could be accomplished by 'the God Force' — happenings beyond anything I'd ever heard or read about having been witnessed.