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Published: 20 October 2008

Created: 20 October 2008

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THE WORD OF THE GURU

 

The Life and Teachings of Narayana Guru

by Nataraja Guru

 

 

PREFACE

The first part of this book was written when the Guru Narayana was still living. I was then on a tour of Europe and, under the general title of 'The Way of the Guru', these first nine chapters appeared originally as contributions to 'The Sufi Quarterly' of Geneva in 1928. The articles aroused much interest, and were later reprinted in book form, first in Geneva in 1931 and later in India in 1942. Sir Francis Younghusband was one of the first to welcome their publication and in a letter to the Editor of the Geneva journal he said:

'What an excellent number your January number is! I look forward to further instalments of Sri Narayana's life. There are wonderful people in this wicked world still...'

The celebrated French writer, M. Romain Rolland, also noticed the articles in his now famous work on the life of Ramakrishna, in which he admirably summed up the import and significance of the Guru's life as follows:

'Glasenapp does not say anything regarding the new religious manifestations in South India, which are not negligible: such for example is the great Guru Sri Narayana, whose beneficent spiritual activity has been exercising its influence during the past forty years in the State of Travancore on nearly two millions of his followers (he passed away in 1928). His teaching, permeated with the philosophy of Sankara, shows evidence of a striking difference of temperament compared with the mysticism of Bengal, of which the effusions of love (bhakti) inspired in him a certain mistrust. He was, one might say, a Jnanin of action, a grand religious intellectual, who had a keen living sense of the people and of social necessities. He has contributed greatly to the elevation of the oppressed classes in South India, and his work has been associated at certain times with that of Gandhi. (Cf. the articles of his disciple P. Natarajan in 'The Sufi Quarterly', Geneva, December 1928 and in the following months.)'1

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No doubt the reader will be aware of a difference in style and method between these chapters written more than twenty years before those that follow in the remainder of this volume. These early chapters were written unpremeditatedly, with very little intellectual planning, with the sole purpose of presenting something of the personality of the Guru, fresh from the anvil while he was still living, and before the intensity of the actualities of the Guru's presence evaporated by lapse of time and the mellowing of memory. The attempt was then made to delineate in broad outline a first-distance view of the whole of the Guru's personality, stressing perhaps certain emotional and intellectual highlights, including some of his personal traits in a rather sketchy, general way, and without too much emphasis on any deeper philosophical aspects.

The Guru passed away at Varkala after the first two chapters had appeared in print, while I continued to live and teach in Switzerland. My studies in individual psychology on the one hand, and on Vedanta and philosophy in general on the other hand, taken together with preoccupation with bricks and mortar in connection with establishing two idealistic institutions called 'Gurukulas' in India, one at Fernhill, Nilgiris and the other at Varkala, Travancore, kept me occupied for nearly fifteen years thereafter.

Now that these years of necessary action have come to a natural close, I have been moved again to attempt the completion of my long-cherished ambition of presenting the teachings and theoretical aspects of the Guru Narayana's life in a form which I hope will be acceptable and understandable to seekers of truth in the West, as well as to those in the East who are trying to comprehend, in terms of Western values, their own rare heritage of wisdom in revalued and restated language. The hospitality of the Gurukula founded by my friend. Harry S.Jacobsen, at the Schooley's Mountains in New Jersey, USA, in 1949, gave me just that needed quiet retreat and access to libraries and books which has made it possible to write with some seriousness. In dealing with the present work and with future projects, I must take the reader into my confidence, so that the general aim intended here will be understood.

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The personality of the Guru is of such a rare kind that it does not fit itself into the usual scheme of biography. As a personality he is elusive and enigmatic and therefore hardly capable of being appreciated with the hasty publicity which even ephemeral figures get. But on the other hand, as has always been the case with the teachers of the perennial wisdom, his deeper message with all its real values will persist, like a glowing subterranean fire which will influence thought through time.

In writing the life of a Guru it is essential for all readers, particularly those outside India, to know not only the background of the personality, but the background which is the setting for the teaching, in which the wisdom has its first meaning. To that extent, background details are relevant, enabling the reader to surmount the merely personal and rise into the region which might be described as the biography of the Word-Wisdom.

I have three volumes altogether in mind, of which this is the first and perhaps in some ways the most difficult to write. I have here retained the earlier impressions and pen-pictures which constituted my first presentation of 1928, and this, being a section by itself, can be regarded as a preliminary introduction to the second part of this volume.

In the second part, as far as possible, I have attempted a rambling treatment of the whole subject-matter, lapsing wherever possible into personal anecdote, and intentionally and consciously refusing to confine myself to any conventions of style, or what might be called an academic form. Such liberties as I have taken in these matters may be excused in the present work, which is only meant to introduce the person of the Guru together with his teachings grosso modo rather than by way of a 'close-up'.

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For the ordinary reader some of the terms, phrases and ideas may at first sight appear unduly heavy. The wisdom-philosophy was so much part and parcel of the life of the Guru that such initial terminology is unavoidable if a true picture is to be presented. The loading of heavy or unfamiliar expressions has not been done on purpose. The wisdom-teaching has been lost or has been confused with much vestigial or irrelevant matter, all of which needs reasoned clearing and a fresh restatement of relevant values made before the Guru and his Word can be understood in its authentic grandeur.

In the third part of this volume, translations of some of the writings of the Guru Narayana will be found. These are only samples from the large body of writings left by the Guru. They have been selected and graded to illustrate some of the mystical yet always human values presented by the Guru. The last of the selections on 'The Science of the Absolute' or 'Brahma-Vidya' sets the limit, as it were, to this volume. This science requires deep and critical study, of which only a foretaste is provided here. The major literary works of the Guru were concerned with this science, and the two further volumes which I hope to publish later will deal with this in extenso. In connection with this present work, my indebtedness to friends is great, both directly and indirectly, and I shall not attempt to enumerate them all here. Above all it is to the Guru that I am mainly indebted, and in acknowledging his personality, conceived in general terms, I include all others who love wisdom. In this sense I incline inclusively before all in the One.

During the summer of 1949 I was in Paris, still working at my manuscripts, translating and taking notes. I availed myself of the use of the library at the Musée Guimet and also at the Institut de Civilisation Indienne at the Sorbonne. I frequented the lecture-rooms of the Collège de France and contacted thinkers such as Prof. 0. Lacombe whose recent work, 'L'Absolu Selon le Vedanta' (The Absolute according to the Vedanta), has been of considerable help to me. I have also had the benefit again of sitting in the study groups round Prof. Masson-Oursel. My indebtedness to these academic foundations of Paris has to be recorded here with gratitude.

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Such subjects as physiology, Assyriology, Egyptology, atomic physics and general philosophy interested me at Paris, and to the various professors who have enlightened me I acknowledge my gratitude. The kindness, encouragement and hospitality of Madame L. Morin of Paris, who introduced me to the various intellectuals of that city, is not to be forgotten.

In April 1951 I arrived back in India and reached the Gurukula at Fernhill, Nilgiri Hills, in May. My friend and colleague John Spiers, with whom I had already established intellectual and, if I may say so, spiritual, contact for nearly five years, and who even substituted and deputised for me at the Gurukula there in my absence, was sufficiently interested and strangely well-qualified to look through the manuscripts I had brought back.

Much editorial revision, additions, including many footnotes, and ordering to make the meanings more explicit, are to be attributed to the labours of this friend who comes from that same part of the world from which originated John the Scot in the ninth century and whom I consider as a God-send in the context of the Word of the Guru. I have largely relied on him for all work requiring editorial sagacity and a sense of the public mind, from the stage of typing out the manuscripts in their final form to that of seeing them safely through the press.
To him and to all others I here express my thanks.
P. NATARAJAN

1 Translated from the French from: 'La Vie de Ramakrishna' par Romain Rolland, p.160. (Librairie Stock, Paris, 1980).1



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PART I
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY

Where is happiness? Where is rest from the fever of life? Where is the image of perfection? Where is the fountain-source of wisdom from which the thirsty traveler can drink? Where is that luminous something, in which we can live apart and be free - free from sense of want and suffering?

These seem to be some of the eternal questions echoing and re-echoing through the ages within the heart of humanity. Some think that the answer can be found in material comforts. Some search for the answer in books. Some sit in meditation, trying to tune their life-breath in unison with the Great Knowledge. Some others 'scorn delights and live laborious days'. All these attain degrees of success.

Once in a hundred years, solitary among a hundred thousand, there arrives at the caravanserai of life one, at the sight of whose features the seekers instinctively arise from their varied occupations and greet him and see in him and his ways a clear commentary, a silent interpretation, a radiant centre of all that they were seeking. He becomes the object of reverence and common pride. He is able to dispel age-long doubt and darkness by his words, and the hearers smile and for a moment feel a strange happiness. Literature and art and science grow round his person. Historical events find a centre round which to turn.

Narayana Guru was one such. He was one of those who followed in his life the ancient and immemorial programme of oriental saints and prophets. He left his home in search of truth. He lived in lonely hill, cave or forest for years, unknown to men, performing Tapas 1.

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He emerged from seclusion, having solved some great riddle in life, and wanted to give his solution to the world at large. Therefore, without any sort of hesitation whatever, he called himself a Guru or Teacher. Penniless himself, he began to command an influence over rich and poor, educated and uneducated. People flocked to take the dust off his feet.

Today his words are recognised as a most modern echo of the ancient wisdom of the Orient. In him we had, combined once again, a bard who sang about the aspirations of the soul of man, a philanthropist whose one aim in life, night and day, was to devise ways to minimise human suffering, and a seer whose daily food and drink was the highest form of Truth. Although out of reach of newspapermen and propagandists, this silent sage was the recognized spiritual leader of more than two million people in South India to whom his word was more imperative than law. Within a period of less than a decade he had established more than one hundred places of worship on the West Coast of India alone, which are day by day growing into centres of educational, philanthropic and economic activity. Crowded meetings are held in which his name is the unifying element. His message to the people is the subject of weekly comment on many platforms, and scores of associations have been organized in various parts of South India to spread his ideals. By the spell of his name young and old are seen to join hands in a common undertaking; rich and poor are seen to rub shoulders. It can be asserted that he has set in motion a force which is bound to spread into a new impetus for the regeneration of India and the world.



NOTES
1 Tapas, meditation and self-discipline performed in retirement with a view to illumination.



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CHAPTER II
THE GURU AT HOME

 

 Kerala, where most of the Guru's life took place.

 

Narayana Guru at Advaita Ashram, Alwaye.

The traveller who was animated by a desire to see this leader of one of the modern religious movements in India would most probably have had to alight, as the present writer once did, at the small railway station called Alwaye, two stations to the north of the terminus of the Cochin State Railway. Alwaye is a small municipal town belonging then to the State of Travancore 1. It is associated with the name of the great Indian philosopher, Sankaracharya, who is said to have taken Sanyasa, the vow of renunciation in search of wisdom, while bathing in the broad river of crystal water winding its way through the town. If the traveller had directed his footsteps along one of the roads leading to the riverside, he would have come across a stile leading into a compound which he must cross, keeping his way along the narrow avenue until he reached the bright riverside beyond the trees. He would have found, on turning to the right, a neat little white building strewn round with pure river sand - the silence of the place broken only by birds or by the voices of occasional bathers in the river. On one side he would see below him the river boiling over with a thousand whirlpools on its broad breast, the banks overgrown with luxuriant vegetation. If the Guru was in the Ashram (hermitage) he could invariably be found on a little raised seat overlooking the river. As he turned to look at the visitor, the latter would, if he had a keen eye, discover from the expression of his face that the Guru had just been disturbed from some all-absorbing subject while he sat gazing at the river scene. There could be discovered a peculiar composure in his features revealing a peaceful other-worldly contemplation. He would ask the newcomer who he was, in the most gentle of voices; and treat him, probably, to a meal of fruits and milk.

 

Advaita Ashram, Alwaye.

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After that, if he conversed, the topic in all probability turned on how human nature must improve; how there is no necessity for man to quarrel with man as he does at present on supposed religious, national, or racial distinctions; how, while a cow or a dog may be considered to belong to a different 'caste', it is absurd to think that one man differs from another except in trivial things like dress or language; and how it is immaterial in everyday life what school of philosophy or what creed a man professes so long as he does not transgress the bounds of common human goodness. Before the newcomer retired from the abode of the Guru, leaving him to gaze on the river scene in absorbing meditation, let him walk round the humble hermitage and he would not have failed to observe the neat little kitchen where a Brahmachari (Dedicated students who 'walk the path of Brahman' or the Absolute are called Brahmacharis, from 'char'- to move). prepared light food for the Guru, or noted how sparing the Guru's diet was. In the grounds of the hermitage he would have found trees, each one of them receiving its share of the Guru's care. Before leaving the precincts, had the visitor cast his glance on the inscription in golden letters on one of the walls of the Ashram, he would have read as follows:

'One in kind, one in faith, one in God is man,
Of one same womb, one same form,
Difference none there is at all'



NOTES
l Under the Indian Union the two States of Travancore and Cochin now form the State of Kerala.



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CHAPTER III
TWO RANDOM IMPRESSIONS

 

Narayana Guru's Birthplace.

A junior officer of the Indian Civil Service once gave the following account of how he met the Guru for the first time in his life:

'My leave was about to expire and I was travelling back to Salem in a mail train. I was seated in a second-class compartment. At about ten o'clock in the morning the train steamed up to the crowded platform of Calicut. A number of people dressed in spotless white were seen on the platform. In the centre of the group was, seated on a chair, an old gentlemen dressed also in white, who was well-nigh sixty years. He was tall, slender, and erect. The arrival of the train and the consequent bustle did not seem to produce any effect on the composed features of this person.

When the first bustle had subsided, the person slowly got up from his seat and walked into the very compartment in which I was seated. My curiosity to know who this revered man was became aroused; and I began to watch him minutely. I soon guessed that he did not belong to the class of rich people, for he wore neither gold nor silver on him. His dress was of the simplest description, consisting merely of two pieces of white cloth. He wore no sort of head-dress but, after the manner of the Sanyasi, had a clean-shaven head which showed a sparse crown of white hair. There was a sedate grandeur in his countenance, which was not suggestive on the one hand of the cold, calculating nature of a man of wealth nor, on the other, of the sternness of a fighter. Relaxed and restful, like the countenance of a child, it still revealed an undercurrent of seriousness which led the critical observer into the unfathomable depths of something inexplicable.

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The supreme restfulness and leisureliness of his manners, unaffected by anything that was passing round him, the spotless purity of his personal attire, the delicately artistic perfection of every one of his movements, even the manner in which the flowing dress clung round his person - half negligently, yet in a way that the artist would have had the rumples adjusted - the silence and the gentleness of his ordinary behaviour made him carry with him, even in the busy atmosphere of a modern railway-station, a still halo of reverence. When he talked - which was only now and then - his voice which, though not loud, had still a rich mellowness in it, exercised a peculiar lulling effect which could be compared to the far-off chiming of temple bells or the noonday murmur of bumble-bees. As I was watching him I could observe that tears filled to the point of overflowing the eyes of this great man, as one by one the devotees that had gathered on the platform measured their lengths in prostration before him. Each one of them touched the foot of the strange leader and placed an offering of fruits and flowers before retiring from his presence. Age had not robbed his features of that soft freshness, rich fullness and restful relaxation so characteristic of the Indian Yogi. A pair of not-at-all large eyes which seemed to be constantly gazing at some object on the far-off fringe of the horizon; lips with the corners slightly turned down as if in open-eyed meditation - all these and many more little traits, revealed to me that the stranger was one of the Mahatmas or Holy Men of India.

The train soon left the station, and, as we stopped at the next station, I could observe that Narayana Guru - for the stranger was none other than this revered leader of whom I had heard so much - was engaged in giving away one by one to some poor children who appeared at the carriage, all the fine oranges that he had received at the previous station until not one was left of the pile beside him. A householder, I thought would have reserved some, at least, to be taken home. When I had observed him thus far in silence, I was overcome by a desire to talk to him but, having adopted the customs of the Western nations I felt some difficulty in introducing myself. I struck upon a plan. I was then carrying with me some oranges of the finest quality plucked from the orange groves of the Wynad.

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I took out one of these and determined at last to break the silence. 'Swami', I said at last: 'Would you mind my offering you an orange? 'Those were the 'fitting words' with which I chose to break the silence; to which the saint replied rather pertinently, as I only realized later, 'Have you failed to find that out in spite of having watched me all this time?' Surely I had seen him receive a hundred oranges without any sort of protest, and felt for a moment how ridiculous a figure I cut in the presence of one whose manners belonged to the unalloyed past. This was how I met the Guru Narayana the first time in my life.'

To this effect, mainly, were the words of the officer. Coming from a perfect stranger to the Guru, this picture of him has its value inasmuch as it serves to show how the Guru appeared in the eyes of a casual stranger.

There is another impression of the Guru which the writer of this narrative had occasion to hear - this time from one of the representatives of the poor. Towards the small hours of the night it was - we were travelling together on the deck of a steam launch in the backwaters of Malabar. The first blush of day was just appearing at the corner of the horizon. The boat at this time passed a big church, surrounded by palm trees which moved in front of us, as we sat up in our beds, like a silhouette picture against the brightening sky. The rough hands of the fellow-passenger and his dress, which were just beginning to be visible, revealed that he was a simple labourer. After some preliminary questions about my destination and antecedents, this new friend began to narrate the following anecdote, after he had crossed himself most reverently as we passed the church. 'Sir, I have seen the Guru', he said, 'It was the year before last that one day I heard that he had arrived at the house of a landlord in the village where I live. I had heard of him long ago and wished very much to meet him and lost no time in going to see him in that house. When I saw him I could not resist the thought that he was like our Saviour Jesus Christ. He was surrounded by people who either wanted to be healed of sickness or came to seek his advice regarding some calamity that had befallen them. Some there were who were eager to take the dust of his feet and others were waiting for the water that had cleansed them. Surely this was the way in which, as we read in the Bible, Lord Jesus himself moved among the multitude. I am a poor man, without learning or wealth.

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I had a secret desire to invite this great man to my humble dwelling-place, in spite of its being very poor and dirty. I mustered strength to express my wish to him. What was my joy when he consented to come forthwith. Within a short while he had already started. As we were on the way the Guru asked me about all my affairs and my children and all the rest, in a voice which was full of tender regard. When we were not far from my house, I excused myself and went ahead by a short-cut in order to set things in order before the honoured guest arrived. I dressed my children up in their cleanest clothes and spread a white cloth on an easy chair, had some incense sticks lighted and with a brass vessel full of pure water, awaited his arrival at the outer entrance. Like the morning beam of light carrying the message of peace, the holy man entered. Although at first he resisted my approach to wash his feet with my own hands, I had my own way, on which, while I was bending, he gently placed his hand on my head. That solacing touch at once earned its message of blessing to the innermost recesses of my being. 'When this honest man came to that part of the narrative, the day had almost dawned and the sun made the backwaters full of orange-crested waves, and in the daylight could be seen the features of my fellow-passenger showing visible signs of emotion. His voice cracked and his honest eyes grew dim. There was a pause for a few minutes, after which he continued as follows: 'When the Guru had finally taken his seat, I called my son and asked him to take the dust of his feet, which he did. The Guru asked him which class he was studying in and advised him to be a good and diligent boy. Turning to one of his men who was standing by, he then ordered a rupee to be given to the boy and told him that he was expected to return that rupee, when he became a grown-up man, back into the public funds. Turning to me, he told me in so many words that I was not to consider myself as one who belonged to a different creed or religion: 'We are all one and the same'. His words are still echoing in my memory.



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CHAPTER IV
BROTHERHOOD

 

The Lagoon Country of Coastal Kerala.

It was a red-letter day in the history of the little Ashram or hermitage at Alwaye, on which was to be celebrated, by some of the enthusiastic young men of the surrounding districts, the anniversary of their association for Universal Brotherhood. The celebration was to be held in the afternoon, at the Sanskrit Patashala (School) founded by the Guru. An extensive palm-leaf roof had already been put up to accommodate the delegates. It was known - almost instinctively, for no newspaper announcements were made - that the Guru would grace the occasion with his presence. Batches of young men began to arrive at Alwaye early in the day, both by the North-bound and the South-bound trains. Before going to the Guru at the riverside hermitage they had to plunge in the river and then put on their purest raiment. The Guru himself, who rose during the small hours of the morning, was usually ready, after his morning silence, to receive the visitors and talk to them on whatever subject they raised and to clear away individual doubts that were brought before him in the considerate, witty, and convincing manner usual to him. On this particular morning it was one of the new young men who had arrived at the hermitage and who had decided to be a worker among the people, who was standing reverently, talking to him about the meeting that was to take place. The Guru turned his face, with half-wakeful eyelids, towards the optimistic young man, and asked him, his voice softened by the peaceful rest of the morning meditation: 'Do you think there is any use in holding big meetings?' 'Yes', was the decided reply of the young man, 'meetings are the best means of spreading ideas'. 'But', said the Guru, 'they do not appear to produce as much action as noise. People come in crowds very seriously to take part in meetings. They speak at the tops of their voices and seem to rouse passions.

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The Guru with young followers.

The speakers propose to reform the whole world, and the audience applauds and enthusiastically raises hands in unanimous votes of support - and if, while someone is lecturing, there is heard the whistle of a train, he excuses himself to the audience quite abruptly, takes up his bag and baggage, and goes back home. Meetings frequently end in this manner. But they may not be completely useless. It is good, all the same, to have some meetings now and then to rouse the public conscience... Can you speak to the crowd?' 'I shall try to', replied the young man humbly. 'It would be a good thing', continued the Guru, 'to tell them about the excessive greed of human beings. Don't you think that the animal called man is worse than the rest of the animals in this respect? The desires of animals in the forest are safely controlled by natural instinct from all abnormal excesses. The elephant is simple and fat, and does not need tonics or treatment to keep it so. The jackal hides in the woods all day and comes out only at night when all is quiet. It does not take much food - just a few fresh crabs and the clear stream water, reflecting the moonlight, to drink - and it is content. It enjoys its life with its nightly music, and you can see that it is none the worse for this sort of life - its neck is as plump and glossy as a pillow. The animals have no exaggerated needs like man. Man trots about the earth as a veritable demon of destruction. As he marches, he carries behind him a trail of devastation. He cuts down the trees and blasts and bleeds into paleness the green beauty of Nature for the sake of the plantations and smoky towns and factories which his unbridled desires necessitate. Not content with destruction on the surface, he tampers with the crust of the earth, making it weaker and weaker day by day, and he covers the surface with miles and miles of iron and coal. Man is terribly inconsistent. The state, which calls itself interested in humanity, would, for example, vehemently forbid even a man suffering from the worst form of skin disease to quit his miserable body. On the other hand, it will madly engage itself in wholesale manslaughter, after due deliberation and in the holy name of altruism or religion.

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Man does not know what he does, although he prides himself on being more intelligent than the animals. It is all a mad deluded rush. Oh, this man!' he said, lapsing into wistfulness... 'He must lay waste: his greed can be satisfied only by the taking away of life. As the Guru repeated the word Man, the youthful orator watched his composed features and could not but discover a distant tinge of sadness in his voice and in his venerable features. 'Man knows not what he does', the Guru repeated, and became silent for a moment. 'It would not have mattered so much', he continued, 'if the effect of man's misdeeds struck its blow only at mankind. But the innocent monkeys and birds in the forest have to forfeit their peaceful life because of man. The rest of Nature would be thankful if, in the process of self-destruction, man would have the good sense to destroy himself if he must, alone, leaving the rest of creation at least to the peace which is its birthright...'1

These words had their proper effect upon the young man, and by this time more young men had gathered round the Guru, and he rose and walked 'gently as a summer's cloud' to the place where the preparations were going on for the afternoon celebrations. The public were to be the guests of the Ashram for the day, and the Brahmacharis were busy preparing a dinner of rice, vegetables and buttermilk for the numerous persons who were expected. The palm-leaf lecture hall was being decorated with festoons of young green coconut leaves. The Guru walked round, interesting himself in the arrangements, and afterwards sat down on the floor of the veranda talking to the young and old who surrounded him, anxious to imbibe his words. 'It is precipitate thought', he went on, 'that makes a man try to proclaim his own opinion as the best. No one opinion, however loudly proclaimed, can justly represent the Whole. It is like the story of the blind men who went to examine the elephant. It is only waste of breath to argue vociferously to establish any one religion. It is impossible in the nature of things that only one opinion should prevail.

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Kerala Scenes.

Without realising this simple fact, men divide themselves into rival camps and fight for the mere words that seem to divide them, forgetting the most primary of human interests. Speeches should not be made with a spirit of rivalry or hate. All speech is for knowing and letting others know. A man's religion is a matter of his personal conviction, which is bound to be at varying stages of natural evolution in different people. Each man, therefore, may be supposed to belong to a different religion, and no two people belong to the same religion. On the other hand, all the religions of the world agree in spirit, the most essential part of religion. All religions represent values of Truth or Duty. The goal is common. Why should man fight for his faith? It is an unwise act - one should not be swayed by the conflict of opinions, but should remain tranquil, knowing the unity in all human effort, which is happiness. Men differ in dress. Some people like to wear a beard; others are clean-shaven - serious people do not quarrel over these things! Again, languages differ, but it requires no proof to see that humanity is one in spite of such differences. Why then should man differ and cultivate hatred? It is in vain - men have still to learn that fighting only destroys. If man only understood the simple truth, he would not fight.'

Thus continued the Guru, talking gently and wafting home to the simple folk that stood round him the eternal principles of human conduct which burned in his heart, though his talk lacked oratorical perfection, for it was broken now and then by lapses into silence.

Another of the Guru's favourite topics on such occasions was caste or racial distinctions. He disapproved of all imaginary distinctions between man and man, in which he saw the cause of much unhappiness and unrest. The young men had already made him commit himself to a definite statement about the burning question of caste distinction in India; and the Guru's message, which they had printed in his own child-like autograph, was ready to be distributed in the afternoon. It ran as follows:

'Whatever may be the differences in men's creeds, dress, language, etc. - because they belong all to the same kind of creation, there is no harm at all in their dining together or having marital relations with one another'.
NARAYANA GURU.

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The Guru continued his conversation, contemplating man's manifold self-made troubles. As he sat and spoke, on one side of him stood fanning him an old man who disliked the youngsters and stoutly opposed, with all the influence he could command in his own village, the contagious spread of the levelling philosophy preached by these 'hot-headed young men' - and on the other side stood the leaders of the youthful reformers themselves, as tame as lambs in the presence of this strange old man who puzzlingly combined and represented the views of the hot-headed young reformers and those of the callous, conservative elders. The silent Guru stood between the two rival parties - who vied with one another in doing homage to him - as the personification of the principle of exalting synthesis. His love of men made him the most artful and just peacemaker, whilst remaining himself most obstinately uncompromising when occasion demanded.

It was nearing midday. The Guru rose and wended his way to his riverside resting place. On the way he stopped, seeing some boys giving the last touches to the decoration of a triumphal arch through which the delegates were no enter. He suggested that the mystic syllable AUM 2 might be written 'as large as the head of an elephant' to decorate the top of the arch, and under it the words 'Sahodaryam Sarvathra',
'AUM, BROTHERHOOD OMNIPRESENT FILLS !'



NOTES
1 Cf., 'Writings of Chuang Tzu', Book IX ('Sacred Books of the East' series. Vol. XXXIX, trans. by J. Legge, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1891).

2 AUM, a symbolic word made up of the elements of 'A', 'U' and 'M'; supposed to refer to three aspects of reality and together to constitute the essence of all mystical doctrines of the Upanishads. Cf., Mandukya Upanishad.



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CHAPTER V
MYSTIC EXPERIENCE

 

 

 

 

Forest Streams in South Travancore.

It is in a little-inhabited district of South Travancore on the banks of a foaming mountain stream where, roaring through rocks and pebbles it passed into the plains, that our next scene is laid. The secluded valley resounded with the noise that rose from the river, and the tall trees around looked as if imploring heaven incessantly. Except for the cowherds who followed the cattle into the woods or the goats leaping about among the rocks, there were scarcely any signs of human life in the vicinity. Such was the place in which, in the year 1886, a man of about thirty years of age emerged into public attention in the manner we are about to recount.

Leaving his home behind him, for years he had wandered from one man to another, from one centre to another, before he came to settle down, for the time being at least, at this spot. During this period of restless travelling he had sometimes walked three or four hundred miles with no better provision than that of a mere mendicant. Sometimes he had to swim across rivers or stretches of backwater on the coastline; but these barriers could not hinder the spirit of search that had awakened in him. Unknown to the millions who only later began to adore him, he passed from one village to another, sleeping at night on a cloth spread on the stone slabs of some wayside rest-house with his stick as his only companion beside him. Other vesper hours found him perchance on a wayside veranda or in some forsaken temple yard where, with the leaves rustling in the gentle evening breeze and sometimes with the moon shining, he spent his night, famished perhaps, fatigued and forlorn, but at least apparently in slumber - in reality inwardly awake with the 'light of the silent tabernacle of the mind'.

15

 

Boat transport in the backwater country.

Generally uneventful in the usual sense of the term, the life of the ascetic became more uneventful still as his search made him turn more and more within himself for consolation. That search began to depend less on outside persons or things and, as it became more pronounced, it was necessary for him to protect himself from the 'madding crowd's ignoble strife'. It was in the beautiful district we have referred to that his search reached its final stages. Now established in his forest abode he was beginning to witness within himself an event of more import than the eruption of a volcano or the conquering of a kingdom. It was thus that the villagers of Neyyattinkara had the opportunity of making continued contact with the ascetic who sat by the riverside, his face shining with inner resolution - and who was none other than Narayana Guru beginning his life as a teacher of men.

One villager after another who went past him in the forest in pursuit of his daily occupations began to wonder what the matter was with the man who was seen day after day, not specially occupied in doing anything. He seemed to be busy over nothing, anxious over nothing, attached to nothing, and no events seemed to shake his calm. While the passer-by had slept and waked and fed his hunger and mixed with his mates and passed again, there the seeker sat with his calm yet resolute face, with his gaze showing complete wakefulness but seeming to see nothing in front of him. He was absorbed in some thought, the nature of which was a mystery. Thus day after day passed by. As the villagers' curiosity became greater, they soon discovered that there were people in the neighbourhood who brought the strange man milk and fruits which they left beside him; but the birds and the squirrels were seen more often to partake of them than the man himself. A single banana and some clear water formed his sustenance from day to day as he spent his time in introspective absorption.

 

 

Scenes from village life in old Kerala.

His ways frightened some and served to keep them aloof. Others approached nearer and made bold to break the silence and try to induce him to take more food. There was one elderly dame whose maternal instincts prompted her almost to compel him to take more food by putting rice into his mouth.

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Narayana Guru.

To a vast majority of people who had not come near him, he remained merely an abnormal man. Some thought him an impostor trying to play on the religious sentiments of the credulous. Others thought him one whose virtue was only a cloak to hide laziness or even vice. Some of them blamed him openly, even though the young seeker had asked for no favour of them whatever and was totally unrelated to them in any way. They blamed him and hated him and without apparent cause gave vent to their aversion in strong language. Indifferent alike to praise and blame the young man sat, neither loving less nor hating more, but imploring God in the most supplicant terms to save him from his inner misery and lift him beyond blame. Some strange cosmic emotion was heaving within him and he was in the pangs of the birth of an inner life to which the life dictated by the senses was becoming more and more repulsive.

This state of self-absorption increased soon after. Human company of any sort became unbearable to him. When a curious passer-by stood and watched him as he would a curious animal in the zoo (so he himself described it), he would sometimes spring to his feet in resentment and walk off to the neighbouring hill-top, on the summit of which on a pile of stones for a seat, he would sit cross-legged, erect and silent, gazing at the vast panorama of hills that was visible from that point of vantage. He sank deeper and deeper into oblivion of the affairs of the world. The mind seemed to feed on itself and reap a strange happiness.

The emotional counterpart of this incessant search was so heavy as to make even a sturdy supporter groan under its trials. The torrential stream on the banks of which he sat was but an objective representation of the state of emotion in his heart. Nothing can describe adequately the trials he underwent. It would be vain to undertake the task.

17

(Note:the description that follows is not an arbitrary one. It is taken from various passages of devotional poetry which he wrote for the sake of the village worshippers who gathered round him.)

It was as if he was drunk. The red fire of knowledge was beginning to glow within him. It was as if his feelings were beginning to melt. It was as if the ambrosial essence of his being was beginning to pervade his mental horizon. This emotion made him call upon God as his only refuge - God, 'whose tender feet dripped with the honey of compassion'. God was to him the pearl of perfection, the dancing centre of his life, the lotus that sprouted in the silence of his heart, caught in the centre of which, buried among the petals, like a bumblebee having its fill of honey, his soul enjoyed uncoveted blessedness. It was as if his soul in the form of a radiant child, planting his foot in the centre of a glowing radiance, had devoured within his being the light of the sun and the moon.

It was as if this radiant form was dancing and swaying at the centre of his being, mounted on the back of a peacock with outspread feathers of green and gold. It was as if a lamp shed its steady light in the silent house of the mind...

It was an experience beyond words; and the volume and force with which images such as these surged up within his mind, richly breaking through barriers of rhyme and metre in some of his prayers written at this period, throw ample light on its nature.

This new experience was not in the nature of an event. It was an experience that changed for him the meaning and import of all events, so called. He waited no more for events that would bring him pleasure or pain. He inwardly smiled at the events that others round him attached so much importance to. The events that disturbed or frightened others round him, making them put on grave faces and speak to one another with hidden hatred, seemed to him child's play. Death had lost its bitter meaning for him and the unknown had lost its mystery. It was as if he had come into possession of a rich heritage.

 

A veritable ball of radiance had come into his possession. Its light seemed to heave with every breath, reaching beyond the bounds of the three worlds. Sounds seemed to fill the sky. The eye was filled with beauty. Music and rhyme burst forth unpremeditated in his voice. Tears of compassion and pity stood ready, at the least little demand, to overflow into action. He became a changed man with a strange silence in his ways - both the subject and the object of utmost compassion, undivided and uncramped with trivial events.

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Time to him became richer and richer in inner meaning, while the ponderable aspect of time became of less import. Past, present and future merged into a continuous whole and he forgot weeks and months as they glided freely by without affecting him. The joy of the state into which he had fallen was luring him deeper and deeper into his own consciousness.

Controlling with an iron will the domination of one set of emotions over another, upright as a bolt, established firmly in that kind of reasoning which concerned itself with the most immediate realities of a simplified world, he soon entered into a distinct phase in his life. The hunger of a simple villager who came to visit him became a matter of greater concern to him than theological disputation or the establishment of a new religion. He began to live in a present which was the result of an endless and pure experience of the past and the most far-reaching expectation of the future. The result was that his duties became clear as daylight to him at every step. Philanthropy became a natural hobby to him. Philosophy gave his actions a detached motive, and poetry gave him the means of natural expression. His life and ambitions were simplified and the foundations of a career of benevolence and prosperity were laid in his personality.

As days passed by, the crisis of the emotion connected with the breaking-in of the new life was over. He became able once again to converse with the people who gathered around him, still keeping himself established in the state that he had made his own. While these great subjective events were taking place the villagers had put up a roof for him to sleep under when the weather happened to be bad. They had made special arrangements for his food. They had appointed office-bearers to be in charge of the different activities of the place. People arrived on foot and in bullock carts to see the Yogi. Women and children constantly gathered round him, bathed in the river, and brought simple presents of fruit or flowers which they placed as an offering before him. The crowds of such visitors had to be managed. They invariably partook of the hospitality of the place and returned to their normal business after a few days of comfort and consolation derived from ministering to the wants of a Yogi.

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Fatigue, both physical and mental, was dispelled at this riverside hermitage, and the place grew into an institution, an Ashram as they call such in India. The place, however, still lacked one feature of an Ashram, and that was a place of adoration. This became specially necessary as the Yogi was beginning to move about again from this abode. On these occasions the atmosphere which his presence gave was lacking, and thus the need of a special place of worship was felt by the little community which had spontaneously established itself in connection with the new Ashram.

This new need raised a whole tangle of problems. What was to be the shape of the place of worship? What form of worship was to be adopted? Was it wise to depart completely from popular tradition, or was it better to respect tradition in its harmless aspects and point the way to reform? Agreement on these various problems seemed almost impossible. Under the encouraging guidance of the Guru the villagers progressed from one form of compromise to another until they reached a point which represented the furthest progressive step they could take. Uncouth formalities and customs handed down from time immemorial were mostly cut out, there being only retained some of the simpler harmless ones like the waving of camphor lights and the offering of flowers. The difficulties that at first appeared Himalayan dwindled down into insignificance. There among the hills was to be established a temple of Shiva, the God of Renunciation. There the women and children could gather together. That would form the centre from which the children would begin to love the clean and the beautiful. The idea satisfied all concerned, and the Guru - instead of refusing to co-operate with the peasants and the villagers because he himself had risen above the need of formalities in worship - consented to consecrate the temple with his own hands. The necessary land was soon purchased and the date was fixed for the consecration of the temple.

20

 

On the appointed morning, long before the 'hunter of the east' began to throw his pink noose of light across the sky, the Guru was up to prepare himself for the duties of the day, bathing himself in the bubbling river. The spot for the installation of the stone altar had been selected and made ready. Thousands of people had gathered overnight to witness the event. The stars shone still when the young ascetic entered the enclosure. What miracle was going to happen? This was the thought engaging the minds of the thousands of villagers who had gathered in eager expectation under the starlight. There, in the centre of them, stood the silent ascetic ready to perform the installation ceremony of the central stone of the altar. The darkness was lighted only by the golden flicker of a five-petalled brass lamp set among flowers.

To some present it all seemed strange and suspicious. Was the young ascetic fitted to perform such a serious ceremony? Was he orthodox enough for it? Had they not heard him talk of Shiva as a mere historical figure, some ancient hunter who lived in the Himalayas who, because of his virtues as a leader of his people, was loved and began to be worshipped with godly attributes. Was he pretending to be a devotee? Would the wrath of God descend on the village for such breaking-away from tradition? These were the thoughts that passed
through the minds of some of the crowd as, standing nearer to him than the rest, they watched his features to find a reply to their doubt.

 

Village Temple in Kerala.

No answer to these separate questions seemed available. He stood in the centre, his face eloquent with expression, and with his eyes lifted in silent prayer. 'Let increased blessing come! Let the poor and needy be comforted! Let them prosper and let not their daily bread fail them from day to day! May they learn to be truthful and seek the ways of happiness, each in co-operation with the other!

May they learn to be cleaner day by day! Let all hatred and dissension vanish from among them! Let them learn to respect the feelings of the least little creature of God! Let at least a portion of the Great Truth dawn on them and bring them consolation!'

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These were the wishes with which he lifted up his eyes. As he thus prepared himself for the act which was to be the living link, not only between the past and the future, but also between his deepest feelings and those of the ignorant millions for whose sake he was performing the act, in outward evidence, as it were, of his earnestness, the questioning villagers saw on his resolute features, rolling down in unceasing streams, just simple childish tears.

Silence prevailed while the crowd, moved by the same contagious emotion, looked one at another in the starlight. Soon the installation ceremony was over. The day had dawned. The clarion call of the conch rent the sky, and as the white-clad crowd began to disperse beyond the hills, each felt the petals of a new hope unfolding within; and victory seemed to reign.

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CHAPTER VI
GURU ROLE BEGINS

The little white-walled institution nestling among the hills soon grew out of its infant struggle. The people of the locality formed themselves into a regular association to give continuity of life to the tradition started by the Guru, and the plant showed signs of growing into a useful tree. The Guru began the role of a gardener, not of plants but of a field of institutions scattered over the West Coast of South India. Old ones he was obliged, in some cases, to uproot and establish anew. He was content to prune some, while he grafted others on the stock of ancient tradition. For the next thirty years of his life he travelled in annual cycles, watering and weeding them with the care and concern of a true husbandman. Calm as the seasonal changes the reforms took root, starting a new era for the people touched by them. Thus his role as a Guru began.

All was not smooth on the course. Three thousand years of tradition, gone to seed, had covered over and shrivelled the life of the people. They held to the thin reed of traditional life with the tenacity of a drowning race. Deprive them of the be-all of life, they would call it their fate and meekly suffer it; but touch the nerve having its root in the traditions of their ancestors, and the hungry men rose to die for what they prized more than life. Not even the king could try to change tradition. The established religions could only continue the traditions that they inherited. The people were willing to carry their popes in golden palanquins as long as they respected the least little detail of tradition, but even a departure from a baneful practice was enough to dethrone them from Guruhood. Such were the forces.

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There was a safety-valve which tradition itself afforded and this consisted in the respect for renunciation. From time immemorial, the ruling kings rose from their seats to honour a holy man who entered the palace from the street. The people instinctively recognized such holiness. The books laid down the marks of such a one. It was traditional to think of a man of renunciation as a representative of God. Time and again in the story of that vast continent seething with population a simple man of renunciation had lead the people to the gates of safety. This tradition is still alive and is the silver lining of hope for the future.

The rare privilege of leadership in reform adorned the ascetic features of the Guru with a natural grace. His heroic qualities had been tested in fire. There came a night dedicated to the memory of Shiva, the ancient leader of the Himalayas, which kept a large crowd awake, hearing orators, musicians and lantern-lecturers and waiting for the elephant procession at midnight and the fireworks in the morning. They made the secluded riverside into a town for the night, and young and old gathered at the spot which was the seat of the ascetic life of the Guru. The Guru sat protected from the crowd at a distance, finding out from the bystanders all that was happening.

 

Elephant Procession in Kerala.

He spoke of the vulgarity of elephant processions and the waste involved in fireworks. He made no speeches, but the crowd heard his views through the speedy medium of rumour; so that, while he pronounced no judgement, the people carried out his suggestions, as if responding to their inner voices. At midnight the Guru came into the crowd. There was to be a meeting and the Guru was to preside. A deep unconcern sat on his features while he sat at the head of the crowd. Orator after orator rose to his feet and spoke on the ideals of the Guru as they understood him, as the Guru sat silent behind them. They moved the crowd, mixing their voices with the subtle emotional atmosphere of the midnight vigil.

A group of women and children, more sunburnt than the rest of the crowd, sat segregated from the others. They were poor peasants, who, after a day's hard work, had come in search of consolation to the festive scene. For ages these poor labourers and their ancestors had tilled the soil for the richer people who took advantage of their goodness. On the basis of their caste, these people had been condemned to age-long suffering, and were segregated and spurned. The Guru's watchful eyes lighted on the group. He asked the orators to wait a moment.

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Low-Caste tribal people in Kerala.

He asked the crowd if these people should be segregated. Why should they not come and feel equality with the others? The Guru arranged that two of the boys from the crowd be brought onto the platform, and seated them, after kind questions, one on either side of him. 'They are God's children as much as the others', he murmured, and tears of compassion more eloquent than speeches carried home his silent message to the crowd. Even they who would have growled at such a departure from tradition, could not resist the winning power of the Guru's eyes.

They crouched, innocent of the axe which the Guru aimed at the dead root of tradition. No statesmanship or subtle diplomacy was employed. It was the simplest manifestation of humanity, welling up in the heart of the Guru, that won the case for ever. Thus the first victory of the Guru was won. The boys were later admitted as members of the hermitage; and they and many such remained near the Guru, wherever he went, until the day of his passing away. While others spoke and became excited over the past or the future, striving for hours to direct the popular mind, the Guru sat silent, and acted. His silence, when judged by its effect, marked the high-water-mark of oratory. In winding up the proceedings of this memorable day, the Guru had merely a few simple words to say. These he put in the form of a motto, which one of those present proclaimed to the crowd. It read:

'Devoid of dividing walls
Of caste or race
Or hatred of rival faith,
We all live here
In Brotherhood.
Such, know this place to be,
This Model Foundation!'

Such, then, was the manner, and such the character he gave to his work. It soon overflowed the limits of the province, and spread its seeds far and wide. Let us follow him a step further in his silent task.

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Village Life in Old Kerala.

 

Let the reader imagine a village in Travancore in or about year 1895. The sandy village lane is untreadable in the midday heat. It is more than a hundred yards long and leads to the village temple and the pond. A poor villager, a hard-working agriculturist, and his tired newly-wedded wife have traversed the hot sand on their way from afar. They meet the priest of the temple who enters the lane from the opposite direction. A newcomer to the village would have heard an angry shout raised by the priest, which was meant for the approaching couple to make way for him. He was the representative of God and had to be given the wall. The harsh traditional shout was effective in making the tired couple retrace their steps all the way backwards until the priest could pass without distance-pollution from the poor workmen. Let the visitor pass on to the temple yard, which is the centre of the village life. The white walls of the temple which once formed the canvas on which inspired artists tried to express the richness of their inner life, was now a place which the idle village urchins scratched and defiled with ghastly figures in charcoal. The temple festival had degenerated into drunken merrymaking. Instead of the spirit of heroic sacrifice, society connived at the cowardice of the ritual sacrifice of animals. The spirit had fled from the temples, leaving the shell of tradition behind. The unholy wand of degeneration had touched with its deadening touch the once-luminous spirit that radiated from the village temple. Such and a hundred other such so-called places of worship were the canker at the core of a fallen society.

Not far from the temple stands the house of a trustee of the temple. The mistress of the house has finished the duties of the day. The children have retired to rest after their evening meal. The last visitor has arrived in the village, and this happens to be none other than the Yogi of the riverside hermitage. A youthful follower is with him and conducts him through the slatey darkness beneath the palm trees with the light of a torch. They partake of the last remnants of the meal and prefer to sleep in the open under the starlight. At day-break the anxious housewife discovers that the bed on which the Guru slept is made, and the Guru departed.

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He is already on the scene of action. He has called the leaders together and talks to them. Animal sacrifices must be stopped; the temple must be demolished, it is too dirty for a place of worship; drinking must be discouraged; all are equal in the sight of God so long as they are clean and moral; there is no harm in modern innovations in shaving or dressing - such was his outlook and programme. Soon the task appeared to take on serious aspects. Hydra-headed tradition raised difficulties. Age-old precedents were quoted. Bloodshed was threatened. The wrath of the gods would descend on the race. The voice of a thousand years of convictions questioned the authority of anyone on the face of the earth to touch a hair of the accepted tradition of their forefathers. Some even trembled and gave vent to hysterical outbursts, while the Guru sat on another side talking in his usual gentle way to the leaders. After hours of pitched battle, one by one the leaders yielded to reason. Demonic feelings of ancient origin danced their last dance, exhausting themselves, and fell back before the gentle tear-filled features of the Guru. His voice sounded stronger than the shouts of vested interest. One by one the diverse elements melted into harmony.

 

Village Temple.

Next morning the Guru began the demolition of the old temple. The stones were to be used for a new temple. An overgrown grove, untouched for generations out of superstition, was to be cut down by the Guru's mandate. The timber available therefrom was to be used for the school building that the Guru proposed for the education of the idle village urchins.

Innumerable privations were involved in such a task of reform. Some of them were self-inflicted. Others took the form of protests, while still others were resorted to give a better example to the people. It sometimes meant that on entering the gates of a rich mansion where he was invited, he had to turn away in protest on seeing some poultry in the yard which made him mumble something about the cruelty of rearing a bird or animal with parental care until it was grown, and then on a fine morning applying the sharpened knife to its neck just to satisfy the wild desires of the palate. It meant at other times that he walked twenty miles on foot in protest against the ill-treatment of an animal drawing the vehicle in which he sat.

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It meant, at other times still, that he walked all night, disgusted with the heavy snoring of some of his followers who had feasted with him on a previous night. Once he spent a whole night sitting by the riverside, refusing the requests of a rich landlord to come and sleep in a couch prepared for him in the house, just because he had seen a visitor spit on the ground within sight of his window. It meant starvation when he refused to take even milk on a day on which he had no supper, telling the bystanders that the milkmen were cruel to the calves and did not leave enough milk to satisfy their hunger. Such occurrences were constant events in his life, giving intensity and depth to his silent message which he carried with him wherever he went.

For fifteen years he travelled incessantly, attempting to bring more cleanliness and light to the poor people of the country. He helped them to clean up the houses and streets; he helped them to have cleaner habits; he introduced and set an example in better diet; he gave an impetus to right moral standards; he pointed the right road to reform and more prosperity; he helped them to see clearly through maladjusted emotions - but these were only preliminaries to the real teaching that was to follow. This he left behind in the form of verses and writings for his future followers to learn and interpret.

As the honey in a flower attracts insects, so also the natural kindness that radiated from his person made him specially interesting to intelligent young men in the places that he visited. They gathered round him and followed him and were influenced by his ideas and ideals in various degrees. He talked with them, unceasingly helping them to distinguish the higher duty from the lower and opening their inner eyes to the light of truth 'with the golden needle of knowledge'. With the care of a parent, alternately kind and harsh as the seasons of their mental unfolding demanded, the Guru guided these men from one high pinnacle of thought to another. Some dropped off; others lapsed into household life, where the training they received near the Guru made them shine in their self-chosen careers.

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Others developed the Guru-qualities themselves and, filled with the spirit of the Guru's message, burst away from him as seeds burst to scatter themselves. It was a continuous task for the Guru.

After these fifteen years of wanderings, in which he was everywhere and nowhere in particular, he emerged into a more settled sort of public life again at a place forty miles north of the original Ashram. He had selected a neglected hilltop on which a poor peasant had built a shed for him out of coconut-palm leaves. The sea was visible as a silver gleam from there, and all the undulating country below. Visitors, when the more persevering of them had succeeded in discovering him in that secluded spot, found him once more absorbed in tapas.(Austere Self-discipline. Literally, 'heating up'.

He sat unconcerned. The perennial springs which gave rise to gurgling streams at the foot of the hill had water as clear as tears, and represented objectively the inner state of peace within him. As before, he wrote prayers for the people who were interested in him. This time he chose to address God as his Mother. The devotional language, instead of reminding one of the torrential stream, reflected the perennial flow of crystal water.

'0 Mother', he called, 'when will my spirit's fever be calm and mingle in the core of the radiant-petalled glory of the One Primordial Mind? When will the deceptive snare of hungry visions cease? '

Such was the strain of his music at this period.

This place also soon began to grow into an institution by the same magic touch of his presence. He protected under his care a few of the poorest children he found round him. They did odd jobs for him and lived with him. To one he taught weaving and how to earn his living thereby. Another was his personal attendant and read him books while he waited on him. He talked with each of them, directing their thoughts into purposeful channels. He simplified his philosophy for them, with the greatest consideration for their ignorance. In his attempts to explain to these poor children his religious attitude in simple language, he wrote the following verses for their daily meditation. Translated they read as follows:

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'God, protect us and keep us ever from harm!
Thou art the Great Captain,
And a mighty steamship on the ocean of being
Is Thy foot.
Counting all things here,
Touching them one by one,
We come at last to where
There is no more left;
Then, lo, the quest stops
In stillness.
In Thee, likewise, let the inner self
Attain its rest!
Food and clothes, and all things else we need,
Thou givest us unceasingly:
Ever saving us from want,
We thrive on Thy bounty, Lord!
Our only God Thou art.
To sea, and wave and wind and depth compared,
Let us within us see the plan, respectively
Of us ourselves, of Maya, Thy Power and Thou Thyself!
Thee we find in Creation;
The Creator, too, Thou didst become, and
Creation's myriad magic;
And the very stuff of all created things.
Truth thou art,
And knowledge and bliss likewise.
The present time art Thou;
Past and future merge in unity in Thee.
Even the spoken word, a moment's thought reveals
As but of Thine own self again.

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Victory to Thee, Great Master!
Ever-watchful Saviour,
All-knowing, bliss-filled Sea of Kindness, Hail!
In the deep ocean of Thy Glory,
Let us all together immersed be,
For ever and forever -
There to dwell everlastingly in bliss.
AUM.'



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CHAPTER VII
PRINCIPLE AND PRACTICE

The Guru represented the principle which stands, as it were, inactive and still at the centre of practice, whose proper place is at the frontier or the circumference. Practice was concerned with particular events, while the principle was the dynamic centre which gave continuity and coherence to the separate events. The principle stood colourless and neutral in comparison to the particular act that was to be accomplished, but it was the silent and simple principle that lent support and benediction to every righteous cause. At Varkala, which was his new abode, the Guru became more and more the representative of the Principle with a capital 'P'.

 

The Coast at Varkala.

Varkala was not a populous place. The blackened rocks that cut into the greenness of the sloping hills looked hard and unyielding. The seekers after ease and pleasure had therefore deserted this place and lived nearer the seacoast where the abundance of fish, moisture and fertility favoured the proliferation of human life. Away from the competition and strife of daily life the Guru sat on the hilltop, removed from the highways of business. To him the neglected spot had its aspects of sublime beauty. Hidden behind the apparently unchanging fixity of the rocks, the meditative eyes of the Guru could see the principle of change and becoming. The ancient breezes that rose far away on the ocean's breast greeted him where he sat. The starlit nights were rich with the distant murmur of the waves. At the foot of the barren rocks, hidden amongst the growth of fern, crystal springs perennially formed themselves into gurgling streams. The virgin beauty of the spot could not be discovered by the vulgar eye of haste or greed. To the Guru, as he himself used to say, it was the 'Punya Bhumi' (holy land), where the signs of human pettiness and greed were not in evidence.

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A stranger would have thought that the Guru was inactive, or that he was resting without much work. A longer or shorter stay at the Ashram soon changed that notion. It was true that at early dawn, before even the contour of the hills became visible, the Guru, who had finished his morning ablutions, sat still on a raised couch while one of the Brahmacharis read in musical tones parts from an elevating scripture. His long staff and lantern with half-raised wick, and his sandals which he left on the threshold of his little dwelling-room, seemed to add to the still picture of meditation; so did the morning shadows at the foot of the mango-grove. It was true that most of the day he spent talking to various kinds of visitors, young and old, on topics that made a hasty man impatient while he stood listening to him. It was true that after his midday meal he shut himself up or sat under the shade of the mango tree. It was true that he retired soon after nightfall and lay down on his couch while someone read or sang to him. But the Guru was still wakeful. His voice would come unmistakably when the reader made a mistake that had to be corrected. Grammar and pronunciation were not neglected. The style was not left uncriticised. No sublime height was left unappreciated, while still he appeared to be lazy. Separate days mingled thus their boundaries in a peace that was ever active within him. It was a state of continued Yoga. It was a life of dedication to a principle which he shared with the sun and stars. The world of actions was only an outer zone of shadow compared to the brilliance of the light that burnt within him.

It was not that he did not engage in activity. The attitude of strenuous activity was a natural counterpart of the Yoga which he practised day and night. As a result of this ever-wakeful attitude, he always did what others forgot to do, and even this kind of activity generally kept him more occupied than most people. On a rainy morning, when all the inmates liked to stay longer indoors, he was already getting the water-ways clear of the obstructing earth that the overnight flood had deposited. In the midday heat when the building overseer who volunteered to supervise the erection of the new school building was absent, he was there present himself to direct the stone-breaking and carting operations.

33
He was at the timber yard at night to put away valuable timber that the workmen had neglected to store away in safety. The poor boys of the Sanskrit school had helped to wash the mossy greenness off the parapet wall that surrounded the temple of Sarada, and he was there helping to make and distribute milk pudding to the children with his own hands. It was a peaceful routine of activities, some strenuous, some calm, which the continuous principle that he stood for made him engage in without ado. Life was to him a continuous day of harmonised activity. It was not that he believed that all must work hard, but it was rather that man could not remain without activity. 'What can one do?', he used to say, 'our hands and feet and fingertips are all asking for work. They are like restless horses. We should be ill if we did not give enough work to them'. He would therefore stubbornly insist, saying he would cook his own food or wash his own clothes when a devotee tried to deprive him of the chance. He would walk miles and miles to escape from some of the helpful attentions of his devotees.

Occasionally there came a visitor who was a knight-errant in some frontier cause connected with the principles that the Guru symbolised. Perhaps it was one coming from the ancient temple-city of Madura where, since the time of his breaking away from the leader in the fashion we have referred to, several years before, he fought the slow but winning battle against popular superstition and darkness. Or he came from the island of Ceylon or from the Kannarese-speaking country of Mangalore on the coast towards Bombay. Some others returned to the Master with fruits and flowers from Kashi (modern Benares) or, farther still, from Haridwar. They touched the feet of the leader and remained with him, imbibing afresh his message, before they travelled back to their chosen frontier. The spirit of reconciliation filled the atmosphere in the Ashram when any such came, and the inmates, young and old, rejoiced in the sense of life that came from the alternation of separation and return of the members of the great family of the Guru. The frontier was the real seat of activity. The Guru himself appeared inactive, and unconcerned with affairs as such.

34

 

Rabindranath Tagore.

Once came the poet Rabindranath Tagore, on one of his southern tours, to visit the Guru. In honour of the great poet of Bengal the people in the vicinity of the hermitage arranged a kingly reception. Elephants were requisitioned. He was to be brought in procession as far as the foot of the hill of the Ashram. Musical accompaniments were arranged. The Guru stood in the veranda of his rest-house and himself ordered the best carpets that the hermitage possessed to be brought out to adorn the foot of the seat of the honoured guest. The people thronged around the guest, anxious to hear the conversation between the Guru and the seer of Santiniketan. Each of the crowd thought himself the chosen follower of the Guru and, as space was limited, it took some time to establish silence for the conversation. The two veteran leaders greeted each other with joined palms and sat down facing one another. The seer of Bengal broke the deep silence that marked their meeting, and complimented the Guru on the 'great work' he was doing for the people. The Guru's reply was not delayed. 'Neither have we done anything in the past nor is it possible to do anything in the future. Powerlessness fills us with sorrow'. His words sounded an enigma to some; others thought he was just joking; still others examined the logic of the statement. A characteristic silence followed the remark. The crowd looked at one another for a meaning, but it was the Guru's face itself that gave the silent commentary to the words. Deep silence and earnestness sat on his features. Smiles of curiosity and the rival expectations of the people were drawn into the neutral depths of silence by the suggestion that was expressed on the features of the Guru. All was silent for a minute or two. The climax of the interview was reached in silence where all met in equality. Usual conversation followed and the poet and the crowd retired.

The apparently unproductive principle which the Guru stood for was all the time ripening fruitful results all round. Some were merely seasonal expressions of his message. Others had continuity beyond the limit of seasonal cycles. They began in the shape of reading-rooms in the name of the Guru which later developed into places of worship. The social and economic institutions were spontaneously aggregated round this central nucleus.

35
Humble individuals, trained in persistent effort, once touched by the Guru, were at the bottom of each such new sprout. They carried pictures of the Guru in procession. They arranged popular conferences in which men and women took part, and searched for the direction of progress to which the Guru pointed. Those who had special political or social disabilities answered the rallying-call of the leaders more than others. Soon, hundreds of little nuclei of institutions were scattered all over the country in Travancore, Cochin and Malabar. Later, they spread into Ceylon and the Madras Presidency.

Prominent among the permanent organisations that thus grew, as it were, in the shade of the parent principle, was one started in connection with the management of the original riverside temple of Shiva at Aruvippuram. The Guru sometimes sat at its annual deliberations, and he directed the course of its growth from year to year for more than thirty years of his life.

Sometimes he protested and would have nothing to do with it. At other times he accepted its invitation and blessed its efforts. Its membership grew from a number of two digits to one of six.

Although the Guru did not place much faith in big organisations which were obliged to work at the dull level of the popular mind, the voiceless people whose rights were trodden under the feet of special interests found a powerful organisation here to voice their rights. Beneficial results accrued from year to year. This association still flourishes, and its ponderous name signifies 'The Association for the Propagation of the Dharma 1 of Sri Narayana'.

The peripheral limits of the Guru's influence were where his principles lashed in the form of waves against the rocks of diehard conservatism and public opinion reflecting the dead formalities of traditional life. This was the region of actual conflict. This was the frontier where the cause advanced and receded in succession. This was the region where the leaders arose and became 'men of the hour'. They worked in the dust-clouds of controversy; they believed in mass meetings and demonstrations; they adopted tactics and made compromises.

36
Youthful enthusiasts found food for imagination in this work and joined in numbers the ranks of the older leaders. They used the name of the Guru and owed their leadership in varying degrees to his moral and intellectual guidance. He commended and ridiculed them as occasion demanded, and they visited him now and then to spend a day or two at the Ashram.

By this time the Guru had become a social force that could no more be neglected. He had the right to prescribe a deviation from customary practice. He could even alter marriage and funeral rites and enact reforms. It was accepted that he was working for the good of the people. Protests and murmurs of dissent were raised, but the vital voice of truth and justice carried all before it. After a time, even these murmurs died in the silent victory that belonged to the principle that burnt in his heart.

Once, a beautiful European girl stood by an Indian student who had not long before returned to India from his overseas studies. Intimacy had grown between them while in Europe and, true to her word, she had crossed the ocean and come to the man of her choice. The father of the young man, who was much respected in the neighbourhood, had spent many a sleepless night thinking what would happen to the family traditions if his son married an 'imported' woman from a strange shore. The atmosphere of panic prevailed. Was the family, by this mingling of blood, to break away forever from the rest of the relatives whom they loved? Debates were held in nooks and corners. The wise people shook their heads. Ill omens were imagined. The troubled father at last came to the Guru for advice. The Guru saw no harm; the wedding could take place in the Ashram itself. The public were invited. And there the couple stood: the brave girl, radiant in an Indian sari, by the bridegroom who was then a professor at a university. The Guru, who sat on a platform built at the base of a mango tree hung with jasmine festoons, surrounded by a crowd of several thousands of people of all religions, after a few simple formalities consecrated the marriage. In the absence of a proper bride's party, the Guru specially asked an Englishman who was present to say a few words as a representative of the bride's people.

37
Rival social and religious representatives met on that happy and significant occasion and feasted together. The clouds that seemed to threaten disaster only brought joy in all hearts as they departed from the Ashram. It was the silent principle which the Guru represented that had again won a calm victory. This was only one of many smaller victories of the same kind which were almost of weekly occurrence at the Ashram.

Meanwhile, the youthful enthusiasts were preparing the ground for a more serious clash with vested interests and conservative opinion. Events seemed to accumulate, as it were, underground for a long time before they found characteristic expression in what is now a fairly famous event known as the Vaikom Satyagraha struggle. In this, the Guru's efforts came into contact with those of Mahatma Gandhi. As the Guru's attitude in this campaign was not clearly understood 2, we shall here give a brief account of the main happenings and circumstances with a view to studying his general attitude in relief.

As in many other parts of the world, some religious institutions, instead of being consecrated by a living symbol of justice and righteousness, had degenerated and the temple walls had become the ramparts for the protection of vested interests. The traditional respect of the people for the name of God and religious duty began to be exploited by a minority.

Public benefactions were being diverted into unlawful channels. Those who could not claim holiness were reduced to the humility of waiting outside the institutions that their money supported, while those who were already not specially needy feasted within the walls. Dirt and demoralisation spread its contagion. Myth and fiction, having their justification in special circumstances in the past, overcovered simple realities beyond all recognition. Even some important roads were thus reserved for particular sections of the public, not to speak of the right to share in the advantages of the public institutions.

38
With the general awakening to popular rights that followed in the wake of the nationalist movement in India, the nation was beginning to search its own conscience. Among the sore spots in the national consciousness was the question of caste privileges which had been for a long time mixed up with social and religious duties. One seemed to lend justification to the other until, in the dull background of the popular mind, one became confused with the other. Long lapses of time made them inseparable from the primitive stem of popular belief, and they came to be spoken of under the sonorous title of 'Varnashrama Dharma'. Not only did the hereditary priests reserve to themselves the right to interpret this 'Dharma' or duty but, what was more, they reserved the right to decide when they were right. Thus, by a vague sort of justification which was more felt than found reasonable, an unjust domination remained unaffected by the ebb and flow of popular opinion.

 

Gandhi arriving to take part in the Vaikom Satyagraha.

Dayananda, Keshab Chandra, Vivekananda and other pioneers of reform in India had for a long time protested in their own ways against this injustice; but it was Mahatma Gandhi to whom belongs the credit of inducing the nation as a whole to include items like the removal of untouchability in the national programme, and trying to clean the national conscience. It was, however, from the point of view of All-India politics that the Mahatma looked at the question.

 

Gandhi at the Vaikom Satyegraha.

Some of the youthful followers of the Guru were impatient for results. It was some time since they had started a movement for the throwing open of Hindu temples to all sections, irrespective of caste or birth. They linked their efforts with those of Mahatma Gandhi and the National Congress.

 

Gandhi and Narayana Guru.

They went to see the Mahatma, who advised them to try the special method of fighting the situation which he called 'Satyagraha'. It was a kind of passive resistance with ethical principles and a philosophy which had evolved in connection with the personal life of the Mahatma in his work in South Africa and India. 'Soul Force' was its watchword, and it sought to obtain real results by the use of weapons which belonged purely to the emotional world. Even the nearest followers of the Mahatma were liable to be mistaken in the interpretation of this method which Gandhi's mind had conceived and perfected through various stages of trial and error in his life.

39
According to the Mahatma's advice a Satyagraha camp was established at Vaikom, one of the ancient temple towns of Travancore state, where the injustice was keenly felt. Volunteers arrived from various parts of South India. Constant directions came from the Mahatma, who was at Ahmedabad. The Guru's land and centre at Vaikom was placed at the disposal of the Satyagraha committee, and the Guru's followers supplied much of the manpower required for the campaign. The Guru encouraged and visited the camp, but as usual took no direct part in the campaign. More men and money poured in from all parts of India, and the campaign, which was the first clear expression of the pent-up feelings of the people against a long-standing blot, soon took on grave proportions. Batches of volunteers went to the road that the Travancore government reserved for the high castes and stood facing the police constables who were posted there to obstruct them from entering the road. Without retaliation the men suffered privations month after month, standing at their post in the heat and rain, hoping to raise the right emotion in the conservatives that would bring victory to the cause. The tension of public opinion grew from day to day, and still they kept on under keen provocation from the rival camp.

At last, Mahatma Gandhi himself came to Travancore to inspect and, if possible, terminate the situation. He talked with all the parties interested in the question, and came to Varkala to speak to the Guru. It was thus that the silent Sage of Varkala met for the first time the historic figure of Sabarmati.

The Mahatma represented a wave of reform that, starting in a political ideal, tried to make the people spiritual. He believed in Satyagraha as a special weapon of self-purification of the masses. They were, therefore, called upon to believe in this doctrine. The thought of the welfare of the masses haunted him day and night. He sought to serve their cause with all the earnestness that was at the command of his frail body.

40
When his plans failed or produced a reaction, he took the blame on himself and confessed before the public that he had committed a Himalayan blunder and implored the mercy of God in the most supplicant terms.

To the Guru, the elements of continuity of the principle were more important than the particular extensive application of a doctrine or method to a given situation that arose. Rules served their purpose for a time and had to yield place to others. Each situation called for its own special intelligence and there was no one panacea. The mind was to be left free to thread its own way through the maze of situations that presented themselves before it, and rules were straight lines compared to the zigzags and curves of the course of right action. He emphasised only two platforms of thought. One was that of the everyday world of facts, and the other that which belonged to the reality beyond. He carefully avoided preaching or lending his assent to special philosophies or standpoints to serve temporary or temporal purposes, lest such creations should continue to haunt the minds of the ignorant after the creeds had ceased to serve an immediate cause, and thus add to the heavy load of superstitions with which the poor people confused their honest brains. Popular agreement in a course of action was not to be the result of faith in a doctrine or the appreciation of a special philosophy, but the natural outcome of tangible realities of everyday life, interpreted as simply as possible for the sake of the people.

The Mahatma saw special use in declaring himself a Hindu and a Vaishnava (Vishnu-worshipper ED), besides preaching the doctrines of Satyagraha and soul-force. He also believed in 'Varnashrama Dharma' which he elaborated and interpreted in his speeches and writings. The Guru was content to call himself a man, and to call upon man to recognize God and the simple realities of life. One tried, as it were, to reach the heart of the masses from the circumference, with variety as the starting point: while to the other, the starting point was the recognition of the One without a second. It was natural that the leader of All-India politics should differ from the solitary Guru in the point of view that he accepted as the basis of activity.

41
One represented the peripheral and the other the central compromise of the same abstract principle. The Mahatma emphasised and voiced the master sentiment of the nation, while the Guru stood for the neutral principle.

The Mahatma represented the rare case in which the logic of the emotions coincided in its essential aspects with the logic of pure reason. The test of both these kinds of logic was in action, and this was the sure point of contact between the Guru and the Mahatma. As with the Guru at Varkala, Gandhi had 'untouchable' children with him at Sabarmati. The Mahatma still stood for Hindu-Muslim Unity. Both of them were keenly interested in cottage industries; and the type of saintliness both represented had marks of a common lineage. Although, therefore, in the interview with the Guru the Mahatma seemed to differ from him in what concerned Hindu Dharma and Varnashrama and the dogmatic aspects of Satyagraha, theoretical differences converged until they met in practice. The Guru, for example, subscribed to the Khaddar campaign (for popularising homespun cloth). After exchanges of mutual veneration the Mahatma took leave of the Guru.

The Satyagraha struggle terminated in a partial victory for the cause of the masses. On the land which was the scene of the historic event the Guru erected a school for the poor children of the locality. It stands there to commemorate the noble efforts of many youthful souls who suffered. The Guru liked to see continuity in human endeavour and, as continuity is the essential factor in a principle, he countenanced events which were mere expressions of seasonal enthusiasm. While the waves seemed to advance and recede at the circumference, the centre remained undisturbed. At Varkala the winds wafted their message as usual and the gurgling streams interpreted the continuity of the Guru's silent hours.

The Brahmachari who read by the bedside of the Guru had his usual course of grammar and pronunciation. The inner brilliance kept the Guru self-absorbed, while his influence spread into action all round. He showed in his life that principle and practice, ends and means, were related to one another like the stem and branches of a great tree. Withdrawn into the central core of all practice, he remained silent. His life was a continuous commentary on the words of the Bhagavad Gita:

'Mentally renouncing all actions, the sovereign dweller in the body resteth serenely in the nine-gated city, neither acting nor causing to act.' (V-13).



NOTES
1 The Law of Righteousness.

2 Cf. 'Young India' by Mahatma Gandhi.



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CHAPTER VIII
FROM THE PAST TO THE FUTURE

There are two distinct orders of greatness. One of them expends itself in the region of contemporary life, while the other belongs to that order which leaves behind it 'footprints on the sands of Time'. It was to this second order that the Guru's life belonged more than the first. What such a type of greatness lost in the extent of its dominion, it gained by invading regions of Time, Thought, and Pure Reason. Surviving lightning-flashes that seem to efface it for a while, such greatness enters the horizon to stay there like a guiding star. The silent lustre of its message belongs as much to the past as to the future and links up the past and the future with one vital bond. We shall here take a short retrospective survey.

 

Imagine a great country, the vast continent of India, being subjected to constant waves of invasion during the course of several thousand years. The influx came mainly from the North-West. Imagine in this process a constant sifting and selecting of the population, one set of traditions giving way before another, a third gaining over a fourth, and so on, overcovering again and again the special sprouts of culture that protected leisure fostered here and there. Out of all the discordant sound which thus resulted, imagine one period when there seemed to be a pause and a rapid assimilation of the conflicting elements into one clear expression, of which the name of the great Buddha was the inner symbol. This silent epoch was followed by a great pulsation of human endeavour. India united in the religion of kindness; and art, literature, science and philosophy put forth their finest blossoms. Following the great unison that was thus attained, there arose a vast tidal wave of civilisation that swept the length of the land, carrying its seeds across to Ceylon and Siam, and along the chain of islands situated in the Indian and Pacific oceans - authorities have traced this influence as far away as the Hawaiian Islands.

44

 

 

The Spread of Hindu Culture in the Middle Ages.

This tidal wave receded after a time and shrank within India itself, leaving in various protected parts - on islands and in the seclusion of mountainous tracts - remnants of the days of expansion and growth. As flowers blossom in seclusion, these remnants of the past lay hidden from the public gaze.

 

Vasco da Gama arrives in Calicut.

 

 

Vasco da Gama's ports of Call on the Kerala Coast.

The touch of the first adventurous mariner on the coast of India marked the beginning of a new order of things. From the seacoast imported cultures of diverse qualities began to be absorbed rapidly. New models of greatness were before the public eye. Moral standards built up in the course of ages crumbled down into ruin, and the masses were face to face with new facts which required revision and readjustment. The rich traditions of old India began to be overcovered with the debris of its own greatness.

Saint after saint arose in different parts of India, pained by the vision of the beautiful vessel in which their forefathers withstood the waves drifting helplessly away from their reach. Some stood on the foreshore imploring heaven, others were overwhelmed with emotion and gave vent to their feelings after the style of tragic heroes. Others went to martyrdom. Few had the courage and the presence of mind to plunge into the waters and do something practical to save the situation.

Between the advancing and retreating waves of conflicting influences only a sturdy swimmer could survive. The task was difficult. To light the torch again from the dying embers of past glory and pass it on beyond the borders of the new, so that the best of the past could survive in the future - this was the primary task the Guru felt called upon to perform.

Of all the channels through which ancient thought reached the masses of India, the fountain-source was the Sanskrit language. This was the tongue that had preserved, recorded in the form of inflections and sounds and epitomised in symbol, the best thought of the ages. From the ancient chant that burst from the lips of our early ancestors, when the disc of gold that hid the face of truth was removed to reveal to them their first surprise, Sanskrit culture had flowed through regions enriched by the writings of great minds like Vyasa, Valmiki and Kalidasa, and at the present day it continues to kindle in the heart of the modern votary of this mother of languages rich and ancient emotions. Spurred by the sounds, the human spirit soared at its noblest and highest. Sanskrit combined the primitive and the pure into one magic spell.

45
This was the source to which the Guru turned to bring fresh life and reopen the weak eyelids of the people. At the time of his advent this great river that had nourished the spiritual life of the whole population for many thousands of years was all but absorbed completely in the sand of its bed, like some of the holy rivers of South India. The once-rich tributaries of patronage that this culture enjoyed stood over-drained. Sea-borne influences shook and distorted its quiet growth. It was more the shell or bark of the culture that remained, and the votaries of Sanskrit worshipped the forms and formalities of its dead relics rather than lived in the spirit of its culture. The Sanskrit schools, instead of reviving in the pupil the purest memories of the past, had become degraded into institutions where the ancient chants and formulas were repeated parrot-like. They turned out men to whom holiness was a profession and whose other-worldly absorption was strangely influenced by shining nickel or silver. Surface pools and stagnant waters of petty utilitarianism had contaminated the once pure and healthy springs which had their origin deep in the rock-bottom of the past. The problem was to rid the nourishing source of the contaminating influence and to draw only the purest water. The Guru showed how this could be done. He had in fact prepared himself for this task from his early years. As a boy he had imbibed the best of the past, both in the Sanskrit and in the Tamil writings. These were the two ancient languages which were connected with the history of thought among the masses of South India. In later years these two streams of culture approached until they united into one like the confluence of two great rivers, and one thought became in essentials the same as the other. Saints like Tiruvalluvar and Tayumanavar echoed the best in the Vedic culture. Long filtration and purification through centuries had made the essential characteristic of these cultures one and the same.

46
The Guru had early bathed himself in these influences, and had made their spirit his own. He tried to impart to others what he himself had imbibed, so that, enriched in background, young men could advance to fresh fields of adventure and triumph. It was in this sense that the Guru fulfilled the role of a true educator.

The spiritual life of the Guru had never acted as a hindrance to the performance of such a task. It was true that while at Aruvippuram he was still passing through the agony of the birth of the mystic experiences which were constantly trying to break through stony obstacles. But even in those days he had preserved his role of educator intact. In fact this was one of his personal occupations or hobbies that ran uninterrupted through his life.

Wherever he was there were a few young men who waited on him in the mornings to read and have passages elucidated. The Guru's voice fell on their ears in half-meditative, gentle, musical tones as he put completely original interpretations and out-of-the-ordinary meanings into what they read. The result was an attitude of intellectual wakefulness in his pupils like that in his own mind. It was a subtle personal influence that he thus exercised constantly and continuously. Many young men were thus influenced.

 

Kumaran Asan, major poet of the Kerala Poetic Renaissance.

Among their number was one, a poor lad of a village near Trivandrum, who came to the Guru to have certain doubts cleared. The Guru helped him and he became so attached to the master that he left his home and his relatives and went with the Guru as a Brahmachari. His name was Kumaran. After some years of training the Guru took him to Bangalore and later sent him to Calcutta to complete his course of advanced Sanskrit studies. On his return from his studies this young man was trained to organise the people, and for many years he filled the office of General Secretary to the big association started in the name of the Guru, which we have already had occasion to mention. What was more than this, he became a poet whose poems have become now a part of the literature of that part of the country and mark a distinct literary epoch. Those who know the character and distinction of this poet can trace unmistakably the subtle influence the Guru exerted on his writings, whose educational influence was thus subtle but fruitful.

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It was a model attitude, a global expression that the Guru was responsible for in his educational work. The technicalities and details did not concern him as directly as this attitude which he tried to impart. It was this which was his great secret, and it belonged as much to a synthesis of the past as to discriminative analysis of the future. It is a paradox to call this essential quality a 'secret', for it was a secret only in one sense, in that all did not possess it at a given place and time. In the sense that essentially the same quality was possessed by individuals of divergent races and cultures at different epochs in the history of the world, this 'secret' was nevertheless a public one.

It was no other than the secret of religion, whose natural expression was in a certain stillness or silence. This was the same secret which gave the master-touch to the work of art. This was the secret of the professor and of the pundit. This secret of stillness it was that filled thousands of temples with images of the Buddha in meditation, or again gave the touch of religion to the expression of a Madonna. This again was the secret into which Leonardo da Vinci dipped his brush to complete the features of his Jesus.

This secret of stillness is not merely the special possession of gifted individuals. It is the secret unconsciously shared by phenomena in the natural world. The fly-wheel of a giant machine appears motionless; a top sleeps while it spins in perfect poise; there is silence in the full flood; even a heartbeat has a significant pause - all these belong to an inactivity which is only apparent but is always dynamic and positive. It was this secret of stillness, silence or neutrality that the Guru possessed in rare abundance, and which made him the source of energy, physical, mental and spiritual. It was the secret of such a stillness or silence that made him the most successful educator and helper of men. This was the secret that made him the Guru.

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The essential mystic experience of the Guru had passed through various phases by this time. It had taken the form of supplication and melting devotion of the most inconsolable type while he performed Tapas on the banks of the torrent river at Aruvippuram. At Varkala the emotions had become softer and more tender. The kind Mother was the ideal of the soul, and he was the child seeking consolation in the thought of the Mother. As the pearly nautilus changes its shell, he had outgrown these earlier stages and left them behind.

By the year 1912 the Guru had again changed his headquarters. He wandered farther north. After several tours in which he became publicly recognized as a Guru between the limits of Cape Comorin and Mangalore, he fixed on Alwaye as his abode. On the brink of the river, under a simple roof made of dry palm leaves he again settled down, absorbed in meditation.

 

The Guru's house in Alwaye.

He was no more a devotee in the usual sense of the word. The silence of the full flood had entered his heart. He sat, as it were, idly watching the calm level of the winding river on whose surface were being traced without cessation varying patterns produced from the uneven bed of rock and sand over which the clear waters glided. He could see, far off, the river forking into two beyond the thin mist and the rich vegetation as he sat with his mind feeding, as it were, on the nectar of his own heart. Only now and then a boat laden with bananas and vegetables, gently transported along the river to the weekly fair by some neighbouring cultivator, reminded one of the busy world of men. All else was calm at the Ashram and the Guru was the centre of this calmness.

It would be vain to attempt to record here even a little of the nature of the state which he thus again entered. As he sat in the calm strength gained through years of Tapas, Time's narrow limits shrank within him, bringing to his ken the vast expanse of years. Ancient and immemorial truths that have their being in regions far away dawned upon him, making the present consciousness radiant with a brilliance beyond words. He thus describes the feeling:

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'The dawn of knowledge comes
Like the brilliance united
0f ten thousand suns.
This light it is
That, with its keen saw,
Can tear asunder the darkness,
Truth-hiding, impermanent,
Of Maya:
And victorious reigns!
Primordial Sun Supreme!'

The roots of Maya had thus been cut in him and the dawn of Truth was now no ambition of the future. The luring vision of enlightenment had led him nearer and nearer the Truth. Now it had become part of his own experience, harmonised and united with the rest of his being. The thirsty traveller in a vast desert was, as it were, overtaken by an overwhelming flood. He had gained an entry into a world of sound, of music that, falling on his ear, made his eyes open. He accomplished what he himself predicted for others:

'The blue dome on high
Shall radiant resound!
And that day
Through its portals wide shall fly
All this visionary magic of the world.
Then too that still small voice,
That bridges the gulf between the known
and the knower,
Shall cease its tiny trumpet
And, all sound absorbed,
Pure space remain
Self-radiant!'

This was the vision that had come to him at this time. All thoughts of devotion vanished at this spot, self-effaced. Sin and evil and suffering had no place in the scheme to which the vision belonged. Good and bad, truth and falsehood faded before the uniting principle. The visible world melted and formed part of the vision. It was not a vision that came to pass away. It was one into which one entered to live there forever. Here was a state in which all colours and shades mingled into one white light.

50
It is like trying to describe the nature of light in terms of darkness to try to state exactly the nature and character of this state. Some have tried to describe it as Nirvikalpa Samadhi. Others describe it as the state of the Paramahamsa. The Buddhists have the word Nirvana and the conception of the Boundless Light or Amitabha, into which the individuality merges its identity. In more unsophisticated language some others call it the attainment of the Supreme Bliss or Happiness.

Some attain this only after death, and then it is Salvation or Heaven. This corresponds to the conception of Moksha in Sanskrit, and according to this conception a man can attain Moksha while still living here on earth - this is called the state of Jivan Mukti. By whatever special name this state is known, it is one and the same experience. This experience is in more modern language called Cosmic Consciousness. It may be described as the experience of the whole, which leaves no remainder. It is the vision of the supreme unity that characterises all the states referred to. There is a happy expression in Sanskrit which describes the essential nature of this state in the least controversial form, and that expression is 'Advaita', which means the state in which there is no second to speak about. The Upanishads sum up in the boldest possible terms this conception of Advaita when they state: 'Tat-tvam-asi' ('That thou art'). It was this same eternal and universal principle of which the Guru's life was an expression. His writings revealed the same philosophy. In the Guru's 'One Hundred Verses of Self-Instruction', which he dictated to his followers at this time, he sounds the same note of the ancient discovery:

'Primordial Knowledge,
Its own true nature seeking,
Thus manifests Itself
As earth and sky.'

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This state of Advaita consciousness continued in the Guru and, as before, expressed itself in the form of activities that bore the stamp of Advaita. The Advaitashrama at Alwaye was its first expression. Here was established a Sanskrit Patasala - a boarding-school where the children lived the life of Brahmacharya 1 and learnt some Sanskrit and English and other subjects. The Guru himself took a keen interest in planning and constructing the new school building. Here, Christians and Muslims and high- and low-caste Hindus met and lived in unity. They bathed in the river in the morning, and grew brighter every day under the spell of the broadening ideals that the institution represented. This was the way in which the Guru wished the people to practise the principle of Advaita. The reader has already been introduced to this institution in a previous chapter.

The Guru's work had slowly broadened out all these years. Not a week passed without his being invited by a deputation from some village in the interior where the people had built a new temple or school under his guidance. Now it was a popular leader of the poor who desired his presence at a mass meeting; or again there was a long-standing dispute or faction over the formalities of a religious ceremony which divided the village into two bitter parties, causing much bad blood, which the Guru was requested to come and settle. Possibly it was a family discussion, arising from an incapacity for impartial appreciation of points of justice which the Guru could alone supply and bridge. Manifold were the ways in which he became intimately related to the people. He was thus loved and respected as a leader within a growing circle of devotees. To come into touch with him was to be influenced by him for life.



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CHAPTER IX
LATER REMINISCENCES

We shall conclude this humble attempt to present the main attitude and happenings in the Guru's life with some simple personal reminiscences pertaining to his last years. It was at Trichur, in one of the Ashramas he had founded, that the coming event of his passing seemed to cast its earliest shadow. As the writer of this narrative entered the enclosure of the little garden facing which he sat, the Guru was seen in a special state. It had been his habit on previous occasions to touch upon some philosophic theme. For many years he had thus kept up, with interruptions of months and even years, the chain of an argument he had begun. The writer remembered his last conversation in which he had treated of the problem of philosophy in simple language. Quite like a scientific philosopher he had said: 'Matter is divisible. Nothing has indicated anything to the contrary. Imagine a body subjected to division and sub-division ad infinitum. We can imagine that we thus reach what one would be tempted to conceive as 'nothing'. But it is something still. This is the primordial substance. This is God or whatever you may choose to call it. This is one way of arguing the point'. Then he added: 'There are other ways of arriving at the same point. They appear more complicated and involve postulates less easily acceptable to the world, but there is nothing wonderful or secret or difficult about this knowledge. It is the simple essence of Vedanta'. Such or similar were his last words on a previous occasion. This time it was different - as the writer entered and stood by the Guru expecting the usual conversation for a few minutes, he witnessed something unusual. The Guru shut his eyes and sat self-absorbed without a word. Some inner vision caused a gentle glow of vitality to play about his face, venerable with all the outward marks of old age; it reminded one of a simple child's countenance: softly smiling, peaceful and absorbed.

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To the mind of the present writer this was no mere accidental attitude. The Guru had purposely meant it to indicate the closing and the culmination of his long years of conversation. Silence expressed the secret of them all much better than words. This silence was the culminating point of his life. This silence was his joy. It was in the lotus-core of this silence that he wished to live. All murmur of message was absorbed in this silence. The emptiness of sights and sounds and sensations lay buried in degradation in its sublime presence.

Thus was the last lesson in Vedanta given by the Guru. He was then travelling in Cochin State. The Sanskrit school that he had founded at Alwaye stood in need of constant financial support, and now he was thinking of providing a small endowment so that in the event of his passing away that part of his work could continue unhindered. The villagers of Cochin and Travancore everywhere received him with kindly honours. They decorated the streets, took him in processions sometimes miles long, and placed whatever money they could contribute at his feet. The Guru would accept willingly from some; to some others he would suggest the amount they could reasonably pay; a third person he would refuse or return part of his offering. In this tour he was evidently preparing for the coming event. The other institutions, the Ashram at Aruvippuram and the one at Varkala, with the big English School which he had founded, could stand on their own legs. It was his Sanskrit child, which was rather weak, with bad days facing it, that was now holding his last attention.

Towards the end of the year 1927, when his labours had come to a sort of finish, the Guru was definitely unwell. His complaint was old age, which laid its hands on him. The writer remembers meeting him at Palghat where he was under treatment. There were with him several doctors, besides representatives of the various public and religious bodies that he had founded, from the various parts of Travancore, Cochin and Malabar. The time was early, and the Guru had had a bad night's rest. As the writer stood before him, he was resting, seated on his bed and supporting himself erect with his now emaciated arms. His breathing was difficult and he could not speak except in monosyllables. 'These', he said, meaning the sounds of his obstructed breaths, 'have come as escort'.

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The people came to visit him and expected that, being superhuman as they believed him to be, he would not feel any pain when he was ill. As if to contradict this idea, the Guru was heard to cry like a child at every cause. While the crowd of villagers waited outside, they could hear the Guru's voice from inside murmuring like a distressed child, '0 Mother! 0 Mother!', again and again conveying to them, through the tone in which it was uttered, a message that rang in their ears ever after, and containing the same attitude, the same essence of devotion and simplicity to which he had dedicated the rest of his life.

As the image of Jesus carrying his cross has served as an symbol of his love and service to humanity, so also great masters make even their sickness and suffering serviceable to their fellow beings. The life of the Guru was in every detail of it an example of the principle which he enunciated as follows:

'Acts that one performs
For one's own sake,
Should also aim the good
Of other men'.

In fact this maxim may be said to form the keystone of his whole life. By apparently trying to be selfish, he on many an occasion impressed a useful principle or habit on the many who came in contact with him. He would insist that the barber who shaved him had the sharpest razor, and would see that the best methods were used in the art. He would complain of his chauffeur who did not gently put on his brakes when he came to an uneven part of the road. He would teach him to be proud of his car, and found fault with him if he had omitted to observe a new kind of car in which a visitor had come to see the Guru.

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He would say that he preferred a garland of gold to one of roses if, while on a tour, people greeted him with empty applause and theoretical loyalty and devotion. He would insist on good cooking, more with a view to reforming food habits than for his own sake. He would insist on small details in building, and order an alteration in spite of expense in order to set a better example in architecture. He would like to hear music so he could patronise musicians. Himself an adept in the art of healing, he missed no opportunities, whenever he was ill, to call together a little group of medical men of different schools of medicine in order to discuss with them the various bearings of the case and make them discuss the details. In the system of medicine called the Ayurveda, which is the ancient Sanskrit system, there lay buried and forgotten gems of ancient experience which he found valuable to unearth and apply, suffering himself to be the subject of the experiment.

His last illness was rich in such opportunities. He would find some point in which one system failed and in which someone else knew better. Suffering and bedridden as he was, he would argue the minutest details with his doctors and those who attended on him. He went to Palghat and travelled about four hundred miles north-east to Madras, carried on stretchers and transported from place to place from one doctor to another; from the care of one devotee who loved to keep him under his care to another. Then he came back to Travancore from where a strong deputation had arrived to take him to Varkala. One of the stations on the way was Alwaye, where on the platform were gathered all the students, young and old, of the Sanskrit School and Ashram for which he had given long labours. The coming event was still unknown to them but a deep emotion at the illness of the Guru sat on the features of each one.

He arrived at Varkala. Some of the symptoms of the illness which the experts of one school of medicine had declared incurable, were demonstrated to be curable by others of a different school. For some time the Guru seemed quite well.

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The radiant glow on his features had never disappeared. He still retained his good humour and, although he was weak in body, he never yielded or compromised except where it was necessary. He guided the deliberations regarding his property and legal affairs with a perfect sense of justice and awareness of all shades of opinion. He regained a stage in which he took little walks on his own and, though highly emaciated, was still the same alert, radiant and kind Guru. It was in this condition that the present writer left him on his voyage to Europe.

The 73rd birthday was celebrated by a select group of friends, representatives of different nations and religions, in September, 1928, in the beautiful city of Geneva. For the first time the Guru's message was proclaimed in the West. Strangers united in worship, feasted together and discussed informally the significance of the ideals of universal appeal which the Guru's life had symbolised.

On the 20th September, 1928, about a week after this event, the Guru entered Maha-Samadhi or the Great Silence, peacefully and silently, at Varkala. In one of his last writings he wrote :

'That Dispenser of Mercy, could
He not be that reality
That, proclaiming words of supreme
import, the chariot drives?
Or Compassion's Ocean ever impatient
for all creation,
Or Who in terms clear non-dual wisdom
expounds, the Guru?'



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PART II
CHAPTER X
THE DIALECTICS OF ADVAITA VEDANTA

Silence, a silence filled with a certain content of kindliness - such was the note on which Part I, 'The Way of the Guru', came to a close. Both silence and kindliness are but aspects of a simpler, unitive and central human value. This value is not merely a philosophical abstraction, but a value that is liveable and realisable in actual terms.

Both existence and reality are comprised within the notion which, globally conceived in terms of human value, tends to abolish all shades of duality and consequent conflicts. To effect such a harmony in life through contemplation is our subject in the pages that follow.

'On the tree of Indian wisdom, there is no fairer flower than the Upanishads, and no finer fruit than the Vedanta philosophy'1. In these unmistakable terms. Dr. Paul Deussen, the eminent western philosopher, recognized the place of a certain expression of eastern wisdom more than half a century ago. He then undertook a visit to India, and on leaving its shores again said: 'Vedanta in its unfalsified form, is the strongest support of pure morality, is the greatest consolation in the sufferings of life and death - Indians, keep to it!' Alluding further to the philosophies of Kant, Sankara and Plato, he added characteristically: 'Here we have the same doctrine' (i.e., of the mental nature of the visible)' in three different parts of the world.'3. Since the scholar wrote these words, there has been much recognition of Vedanta in the West. 'The Word of the Guru', as presented in the following pages, belongs to the same Vedantic context.

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Through Vedanta, especially the Advaita of the Vedanta (which is the formulation of non-dual wisdom) it is hoped that it will be possible to rediscover valid and universal human values in the terms of whatever is the dominant note in present-day world civilization. This implies a subtle interplay of dialectics between sets of values known or formulated hitherto in different epochs and contexts. Such a dialectical revaluation may help to regulate human relations and may offer a commoner or more generous basis for human conduct, one that is truer and stabler than ever before. With such a hope we have written these pages.

A Conventional Picture of Sankara.

The Advaita Vedanta as formulated and presented in the writings of Sankara was itself a revaluation of the Upanishadic and Buddhist wisdom which formed its background. Sankara subjected the values held before and in his time to a critical and methodical scrutiny. His approach could even be said to be that of a positivist, since objective rational norms entered into it, and because he did not try to explain away anything. That was over a thousand years ago but, making due allowance for the conditions of his day, Sankara may be said to have approached the subject in a fully scientific spirit, insofar as such an approach could apply to a subject in which much a priori reasoning has to be given its legitimate place. More than a millennium after Sankara, from almost the same part of India, there appears another Guru, the Guru Narayana, who, as it were, is a representative of the same direct and vertical line of philosophical re-valuators - a recognizable revaluators-line which can be said also to connect Sankara in his turn with the most ancient phase of human history.

A series of dialectical restatements of human values have emerged and held the field in human history, and India has been a favoured soil where, for one reason or another, personalities have appeared time and again to influence the course of history and enrich human life generally.

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In this last outstanding exponent of Vedantic wisdom we have the same phenomenon repeating itself. Narayana Guru, born of humble parents among a peasant population of South India, once again emerges into world attention with his own formulation of perennial wisdom - but a formulation which nonetheless follows essentially the same lines of dialectically-revalued Advaita Vedanta as his predecessor, Sankara. The voice of Narayana Guru comes to us with a clarity and conviction all its own. Just those points in the original which needed more focussed critical scrutiny receive Narayana Guru's corrective touch, his further elucidation or modification - while the message as a whole remains intact. His contemporaries instinctively recognized his authority and responded to him in the characteristic way that we have noted already in the first section of this book.

The best authority we have in thinking that the Guru Narayana was a direct successor of Sankara comes from the mouth of the Guru himself. 'What we have to say is what Sankara said', he once informed the writer, as if to guide him directly in his enquiries about the correct place of the Guru's teaching. In the Guru Narayana the same Advaita Vedanta is treated with a freshness often startlingly unique and simple, taking into its scope and purview more consciously and wakefully, not merely subjective idealistic verities, but also all those secondary implications that Vedanta has, or can have, bearing on such human topics as equality and justice. He was for fair play between man and man, and in his hands this latest formulation of Advaita leads up to a natural programme of action belonging to Advaita as its necessary corollary. What is more, his method and approach to the subject of non-dual wisdom for the first time conforms not merely to objective or critical standards, but - and this is of epochal significance - even comes up to the requirements of a normative or experimental science, as far as that will probably ever be possible.

Thus revalued, contemplation, which uses a subtle dialectical method and touches both the actual and the ideological, becomes more than merely an art or an introspective mystery.

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Contemplation has wisdom for its result and in this renewed form has a satisfactory and convincing content, worth or value; not only interesting to the dilettante but applicable to the welfare of the common man. Its simple non-secretive, public, natural and central objective is to solve and reconcile duality in every phase and thus eliminate conflict at every step we take in life throughout the entire range of human activity or interests, part by part and all in all, with immediate conclusive finality. Such Word-wisdom as herein denoted is therefore to be regarded as the common heritage of all humanity conceived as one whole, without thought of time or clime. In human solidarity and human well-being is to be found its centre of gravity.

At this preliminary, indicative stage of our study and inquiry the sweet delicacies or the subtle intricacies of the Advaita Vedanta must not lure us into any actual discussion of its various merits. Moreover, our intention here is to adhere as closely as possible to the living personality of Narayana Guru himself. As his own words are to us the most reliable and direct sources needed for the elaboration of the non-dual wisdom of the Advaita Vedanta here, in his own words, we present our basic starting-point for all further detailed explanation:

'Beyond all count is One -
Then the common reality here.
Than these two besides - no form
There can be, nor in memory, in sleep,
In that city on high,
Nor anywhere else, indeed!'4

As we have remarked elsewhere, kindliness is that spiritual value which is essentially human, distinguishing our common human life. It is alluded to here as constituting one terminal reference or pole, as it were, of the real. It is the regulating principle of all human relations; its corollary being the brotherhood of man.

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Kindliness necessarily exists as a primary condition of human life. Reaching out from the world of kindliness here and now, the human spirit soars high into the freedom of unknown and absolute values through the exercise of a faculty higher than mere ratiocination, with its attention fixed on a form or value which is transcendental. The human spirit thus aims at perfection, fullness or freedom. In the hymn of dialectics which is the 'Word' of the Guru, one note after another is fingered on the scale of human values which stretches between the extremes of the polarities or terminals that are indicated here. The intensity or the volume of each value-productive note depends upon one or other of these two antipodal factors.

This series of human values is lodged in the human personality, and human life is to be understood in terms of the blending of these two fundamental regulators - that is to say, on the fusion and coalescence of the unifying common kindliness in personal relations and the unitive supreme value, absolutely free and transcendent.

Such is the simple 'given' or a priori finality with which we wish to mark our starting point, in almost proverbial terms, as the basis for all further elucidation of the Word of the Guru. Even the two levels or extremes - the outspreading world of kindliness and the other, the Absolute - indicated as the value-denominating factors, only seem to stand out as distinct due to the limitations of language whose very nature is disruptive; for finally, when consummated, non-dual wisdom is an inner, unitive, awareness beyond and without words. But here kindliness draws its meaning from the Absolute; while the Absolute itself becomes meaningless and insipid unless thought of in terms of the good or the generous. Contemplation alone can annul the distinction between these seemingly dual value-constituents. Here the duality is tentatively accepted only in order later to establish the non-duality that is really meant by Advaita. The actuality of existence here will be seen to lend reality to the ultimate that is beyond till, all duality dissolved, the light of the good life can prevail and triumph over all. How that is possible, the 'Word of the Guru' is intended to make more explicit. Let us then journey together, as companions on a pilgrimage into the presence of the numinous unknown.

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Many are the teachers of mankind who have come and gone since the dawn of human history. In spite of them all - each of them in himself so great - human problems have remained unsolved to the present day. The need for fresh incarnations or Avatars seems always to be there. The final victory of truth over falsehood, freedom over bondage, of brotherhood over egoism, seems always to be receding in spite of pride in a progress claiming to take forward strides. The promised day should not be thought of statically - instead, all such problems should be understood intuitively, inwardly, or contemplatively as part of a process of dynamic becoming, avoiding mechanistic notions on the one side and mere mathematical abstractions on the other.

Even the redeeming task of the best of Avatars has to be viewed realistically and factually, as being bound up with necessity - social, individual, or human. Within these limitations even Gurus come and go in our midst, fulfilling as best as they can their high role. Without such personalities, human life generally would be impoverished. Life would get out of joint, as it were, in just the same way as the Avatar himself would be savourless and vapid, lacking all potency of message if treated disjunctly away from the context to which he naturally belongs. Treated together with the historical and other dialectical counterparts accompanying them, each Avatar will be seen to hold up to view a high and laudable human value. If this is true of Avatars it is all the more so in the case of the Gurus or teachers of mankind. Each Guru should be viewed in his own dialectical environment, in historical terms as well as in the terms of the heritage of the Guru-Word of all time.

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In the person of a Guru - which includes his silence or his uttered Word - there is represented a dialectical revaluation of life-components which belong to his own epoch, while there also remains present, judged in its essence, almost a perennial mathematical constant, clearly given to the eye of contemplation, a constant which can equate and cancel out differences that are extraneous. All Gurus have been thus representatives of the same Guru-Word. They were all lovers of humanity and truth. They wanted freedom with bread for all. Abundant kindliness was the seal set on their foreheads. Taking their stand on the platform of freedom and food for all, they pointed their silent fingers to the superabundant generosity and goodness of the Absolute Principle. Although human problems still remain to be solved, as they are bound to be for ever, the Way and the Word of the Gurus of successive generations have helped to guide humanity in the past and shall do so evermore, as long as humanity here has a future.

This way of looking at great spiritual leaders of mankind in the light of a central human value, expressed generally as kindliness, is the subject of a masterly composition from the pen of the Guru Narayana. In this work, entitled 'Scriptures of Mercy' (Anukampa-Dasakam), grace, kindliness, or compassion is referred to as 'the guiding star of life', and regarded as a universal correlative principle inherent in the spiritual teaching of many apparently different kinds.

Running through all such expressions is to be sought and found that golden thread of human value which gives unity and meaning to the whole of life. Such is kindliness as seen, for instance, in Krishna, who out of his excessive love of justice and fair play, even condescends to become the driver of the chariot of his disciple Arjuna in the ancient war on 'Duty's Field' (Dharma-Kshetra), while speaking the Word of high wisdom - as seen in the chapters of the Bhagavad Gita. Again, the same kindliness is seen more directly in the Buddha who pleads before and converts half the world to his principle of non-hurting (ahimsa) of even animals and little creatures.

In the same spirit of exceeding kindliness Sankara plays the part of a great Guru and, with great effort propounds Advaita's non-dual wisdom for the easy understanding of all men.

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At another of the historical cross-roads there arrives Christ, who baptizes with the Holy Ghost in the capacity of both Son of Man and Son of God at once, mediating between the daily bread we need and the coming of God's kingdom.

Again, Mohammed, than whom there is none other more chosen of God, brings to man a sense of equality and justice revealing the same bounty or generosity of the Most High, in the example of his Nabi or Prophet, full of kindliness himself for suffering humanity, for widow or orphan.

In the personality of all these great leaders in wisdom, the two virtue-sources we have noted, the two fundamental poles of the axis of reality, come together in unity in various ways according to a principle implied in Advaitic teaching. To revert to our musical analogy, the notes may appear to sound differently, but they belong to the same ineffably uniate music. The strings of the violin of the human spirit can be fingered at various intervals of interest or necessity, but the music is common, the pleasant melodious harmony of kindliness which is in tune with 'the music of the spheres when the universe was born' and when 'the morning stars sang together and all the Sons of God shouted for joy' 5. Sometimes the music is deep and low and bends down to reach the earth. In the generosity of nature, which seems to imitate that of heaven on high, the poetic and mystically contemplative eye of the Guru sees the same principle of kindliness in the overladen fruit tree - a counterpart on earth of the wish-fulfilling tree which is said to be in Indra's heaven as known to Indian mythology; or in that wonder-cow called Kamadhenu, dwelling in the regions of both fable and fact, unceasingly yielding the milk of human kindness. In all these varieties of expression we have a dialectical formula in which the components are placed between two extremes which are marked out for contemplative purposes. In their interaction the polarities or extremes reveal the presence of the noumenous which can be called material or spiritual as we choose, while still to the contemplative it remains a unitive simple reality or a life-value.

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Contemplation, as it is intended to be understood in these pages, may be said to oscillate between two terminal positions, extremities or poles, as it were: one implied by our common life here, and the other by the Absolute that is transcendent. All human values are necessarily an expression in ambivalent terms, swinging now to one, now to another end of the life-shaft, so to say, and such human values must be capable of being validly thought of by the mind. It is in this sense that the truth of the Guru's verse is to be understood.

Although this double-charactered or basic dichotomy is bound to persist in all human beings, contemplation is expected to penetrate into the duality and resolve or reduce it into unitive understanding. In making such an attempt at synthetic understanding it is possible for the mind to get lost in endless hypostatic fixations or hierophantic idolatries by conceiving reality asymmetrically in favour of one of these two extreme normative psychological principles.

By favouring the hypostatic, there is the unbalanced stress, for instance, on innumerable beings such as angels and spirits; while, by emphasising the counter-extreme, the hierophantic, inordinate value is attributed, for example, to stone images perhaps surviving from prehistoric times. These value-resultants can be good, bad or indifferent, depending on how they are treated or permitted to influence human relations or conduct. Inevitably they find a place, in one form or another, refined or etherealized though they may be, even in the most puritanically iconoclastic or 'imageless' of religions. All hypostatic ('other-worldly') forms have first to be reduced to terms of everyday values in human life, while hierophantic presences (animistically or otherwise conceived) have to be referred to the common norm of the Absolute before these two categories can have the value proper to them assessed or related in the contemplative context of spiritual progress.

These are matters whose probable obscurity at the present stage of our discussion will be considered later. The inherent difficulties of our subject can only be dispelled piecemeal. Insight into matters which are elusive and subtle by their very nature will become stronger, and our vision clearer in the light of the Word of the Guru to which closer and more serious attention will be given as we proceed.

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One further point may profitably be mentioned here in order to avoid initial misunderstandings. In the Guru's verse above there is a categorical denial of the reality of other forms - perceived or unperceived - than those coming within the scope of the dialectical interplay of human values. A promiscuous mixing and confusing of realities or values which belong to different planes, classes or systems, leads to absurdities and irrational situations in life.

In the first place the broad distinction must be made between the actual and the perceptual. As one Indian proverb puts it, 'a charm cannot make a mango fall', and another says the same thing, 'Vedas will not stop a bull from butting'.

Existence and reality have to be treated apart in a way that will still give unitive answers contemplatively, in the correct way known to the science proper to contemplation. Sankara made this unequivocally clear in his treatment and approach to Advaita Vedanta. The method of the Advaita Vedanta, in order that it can yield clear-cut objective results of any worthwhile applicability to life, has always been to keep these two aspects of the actual and the perceptual as distinct from and non-interfering with each other - as their intrinsic nature calls for Caesar's domain as distinct from that of God or, as Sankara would put it, the empirical or pragmatic (vyavaharika) is to be understood and dealt with differently from the rational or idealistic reality (paramarthika).

Philosophical speculations are largely determined by the profuse references of an ambivalent nature to pairs or couples of antinomies such as the phenomena and noumena of Kant, likewise his practical and pure reason; while other pairs are the 'here' and the 'hereafter', the ontological and the teleological and the immanent and the transcendent. Of all these dualities, one will always refer to the existent, while the other will apply to the real or the true.

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Any error in referring to one or the other of these ambivalence-pairs in a given context of contemplative wisdom will utterly compromise its value. Like milk in a dirty vessel (or to use the analogy of Sankara, like milk in a dog-skin bag), such a compromised wisdom becomes unfit for human consumption.

It is in this way that endless confusion often results in regard to matters that ought to be taken either as permissive or mandatory. Likewise the necessary law of the world of the existent (ritham) is often confused with what should properly belong to the real (satyam), as it is to be rightly understood in Advaita Vedanta, i.e. as an attribute of the Absolute and ultimate value called Brahman.

At the present stage, however, as we have said, we shall avoid getting lost in further intricacies of the Word of the Guru. It is enough to remember here, in passing, that Narayana Guru categorically denies all values here or hereafter other than the two normative formulations implied in this verse. Thus, according to the teaching given here, whatever does not yield meaning in terms of human understanding in the light of one or other of these two standard valuators or norms must be dismissed to the limbo of the absurd, the erroneous, irrational and false - to the non-existing here as well as hereafter.

This no-man's-land between what is rational and what is within the laws of existence is the breeding-place of all doubts and hesitations, full of disastrous portent. Irrational values which attract and repel the human spirit are the infernal elements productive of fear, maladjustments and even wars. This is the the realm of the counterfeit, of delusion and self-deception at all levels; where pseudo-science, bogus spirituality, entangling pretended philosophical and religious theories and charlatanries strive in this twilight region of the intelligence where the obscure, the occult and the absurd vie with one another. For its own sanity and survival the clarified intelligence indeed must abolish this zone of deception and imposition from within and without. Such a region of doubt has been philosophically spoken of in India as Maya in the terminology of Advaita Vedanta. It is a mistake to regard Maya, as some have done, as a doctrine of faith. Maya is just a generic name for the possibility of error in consciousness and, as long as error is possible, some such negative yet determinative term will have to be employed. For, before its avoidance can be observed, even error has to be systematically examined, analysed and classified.

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And so the categorical denial of the absurd and the spurious has its place in this basic verse. The Word of the Guru is meant to disperse all dross and clear away all rubble so as to reveal the simple reality with equally simple straightforwardness; to put order and sequence into human life; to bring intelligent understanding to bear upon human conduct here and now; and to give plain warnings of the pitfalls and dangers in the way of unitive understanding, so that disasters and calamities, big or small, can be safely avoided.

This guiding Word of the Guru has contemplation as its pivot; for contemplation alone clearly reveals how to fit one end of reality (so to say) into its legitimate counterpart or apparent opposite to which it naturally belongs, and by this means enables us to harmonise our life practically as well as spiritually in relation to the three chief approaches to existence, namely: in the intimacy of functional metabolism within the limits of the body; in the larger domain of the whole cosmos; and finally, in terms of reflexive self-realization as a whole. It is in this sense that Narayana Guru, like Sankara, categorically denies any intermediacy, any 'third platform' (tritiyam sthanam). The fertile realm of the absurd is rigorously excluded.

But an equally grave source of error remains. Although religious, racial or cultural concepts have often involved these invalid third-feature luxuries; thus helping to divide the house of humanity against itself, that integral and unitive way of contemplative understanding which is called wisdom should never be treated as if it were an extra flourish, a luxury or appendage to life. Prejudices are often put on a pedestal and worshipped while fundamental human values are thrown away as useless lumber. Every closed, integrated, human group develops static modes of thought and behaviour which prepare that group for war against another. History has many such instances of large-scale brutality; hence those cherished values that hold humanity together as one family have to be restated. Man has need to be more truly ambitious in a more worthily human sense.

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For this to come about, contemplation has to come to the aid of right thinking. Guru Narayana's words contain the seeds of such a freshly-integrated, wholehearted way of thinking. They have a direct bearing on individual or collective human happiness. In fact it is to the extent that a Guru is concerned with the welfare of humanity as a whole, and in his primary role of enabling men to discover universal human values, that Guruhood itself may be said largely to consist. In this sense every Guru worth the name is a World Teacher (Jagat Guru).

Such a Jagat-Guru may seem humble to his contemporaries, and may be slighted by them while still alive, but he carries with him the secret of contemplation which, when understood, contains those dynamic life-principles which can help all closed groups to break open their frontiers and join hands with their neighbours and fellow men everywhere in a spirit of forgiveness and willingness to start anew ever-freely in the adventure of bold, integral living as men among men, all differences abandoned. Advaita Vedanta, therefore, is not an apologetic escape symptomatic of weakness in confronting life, but rather a necessary aid and power for ensuring human welfare.

We take it for granted that all men are interested in their own happiness and in what is the same thing generally, the happiness of humanity as a whole. The one cannot be exclusively contemplated without the other. When either one individual or many are isolated the formula becomes misapplied and gives contrary results which we call 'fatal irony', Nemesis, or a travesty of providence. The strange factor of irony which is known as Maya melts and vanishes before the keen eye of contemplative science. Solutions to problems become simplified. The duality between the One and the Many must be abolished. Those 'open' human values which never come into conflict with others must be rediscovered and directed to the service of one and all. This implies the discovery and application of a secret dialectical wisdom which has been taught by the Gurus of humanity from time immemorial, but which tends again and again to be forgotten.

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Without this cementing ingredient disclosed by contemplative wisdom, life would easily fall apart. Happiness would recede into the background of obscurity without that rare light of wisdom brought forth from time to time by Gurus for the consolation and strengthening of humanity. If such a prize is worth pursuit and attainment, then the contemplative way of solving human problems must be cultivated more and more. Without the crowning jewel of contemplative wisdom which alone can make letters glow with dynamic word-import, libraries and universities are merely teaching the dead letter on mere paper.

Human interests, whether collective or individual, have their common centre in the Self. The Self is the secret key to those human values most dear to the heart of man. From the time of Protagoras twenty-four centuries ago who held that 'Man is the measure of all things', and of the oracular Delphic inscription of ancient Greece, 'Man, Know Thyself!' - the same theme runs down the ages, echoed by poets like Pope who declare 'the proper study of mankind is Man'. Contemplation is the culminating science which resolves this theme - the science dealing with Self-knowledge through reflection, again and again discovering and rediscovering it with newer patterns and with purport and background suited to the varying stages of history - just those universally human and timeless values which can help man to dwell at peace with himself as well as in cordiality with his brothers. Religion itself has to be contemplatively understood as seeking to better man's relations with his fellows, endeavouring to raise him to a truly higher status as Man.

Religion, therefore, cannot afford to be exclusive; neither should it tend to be orthodox or even heterodox. And this is where contemplative science has its virtue, for this superlative science is productive of that regulative principle or solvent of values without which religious or ideological rivalries can only spell disaster. It was in this sense that Narayana Guru used to say:

'Whichever the religion, it suffices if it makes a better man.'

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In modern life religious and ideological rivalries assert themselves in various false garbs. Many are the new-fangled names employed by interested groups to label truth as a patent for private monopoly. Rivalry works the doom of the rivals, but the game goes on. The Guru-contemplation, with touching concern, tries as much as possible to bring out a new attitude, establishing order where chaos has reigned. Guru Narayana's kindly concern for universal welfare has been aptly expressed in the following lines, with which our preliminary remarks may fittingly conclude:

'To an outsider's view
A certain faith is low;
The cardinal doctrine of one
In another's measure, lacks.
Confusion in the world shall be
While the unitive secret herein
Remains undiscovered...' 7



NOTES
1 See Preface, 'Outline of the Vedanta System': Dr. Paul Deussen of Kiel University (Wood's trans., Cambridge, Mass., USA.)

2 See Appendix to 'The Elements of Metaphysics', Deussen, address delivered at Bombay, 1893. (Duff's trans., Macmillan, London, 1909)

3 Ibid.

4 Verse No. 67 of 'One Hundred Verses of Self-Instruction' (Atmopadesa Satakam) of Narayana Guru.

5 See Narayana Guru's poems on this website

5 Old Testament, Job, xxxviii, 7.

7 Atmopadesa Satakam, (verse 45).



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CHAPTER XI
THE WORD AND THE SILENCE

The Word and the Silence are the same. It is the essence of a paradox. It is the everlasting mark of interrogation in the eternal present. It involves and implies the principle of contradiction without any consequent conflict. It may be said to correspond to the middle term of the syllogism, and laws of thought have been so formulated as to accommodate the Word in a central and neutral position at their core. The Word has its place as a link between the thesis and the antithesis, and is implied in the natural expression of the synthesis. It is self-evident and is sufficient reason unto itself without having to be propped up by ratiocination, cogitation or deduction. A priori and a posteriori thought processes have in the Word their common point of departure. Inductive and deductive reasoning turn round it, their pivot. The particular and the general, cause and effect, species and genus, and all other apparent pairs of opposites cancel each other out into the neutral zero or into the neutral nothingness of the Word.

If the Word is thought of in terms of the light of wisdom it will tend to be white or pure without any particular colour. With a dazzling effect its brilliance fills all space. Nothing is left outside the scope of this stunning experience. Observation, the observed and the observer - all three fall into one straight line, one eclipsing or implying the other two, when contemplated in the light of the Word which is present in all three at once. The Word is not the predicate of another reality, but all else can be predicated of it.

There is nothing to know beyond the Word. The known, knowledge and the knower meet in one presence in the Word. Outside itself it has no cause, and itself is innocent and oblivious of all question of cause and effect. Pure thought has to turn on itself before it can see its own nature.

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Failing accomplishment in the usual way, only by final contemplative effort is the numinous Word left alone to represent reality and existence in one 1. It thus stands for the subject and the object at once, glowing in single splendour in terms of a supreme value. In this sense it is both the Logos 2 and the Nous known to classical Greek philosophy. All things fall under the scope or influence of the Word, and nothing can be said to be understood contemplatively without the Word-presence implicit in each reality or entity - and all knowledge would become insipid and valueless without the weight that the Word lends to it. It is the keystone supporting the archway of the sentence, the verb of verbs, the sense and meaning which constructs the architecture of language. The unitive principle represented in the Word continuously transmutes mere opinion into knowledge which radiates the clear light of awareness or wisdom itself. All relative processes of becoming in time, all movements, whether historical or cosmological, tend to be purified into terms of pure being by the touch of the Word implicit in all being as such 3.

It is often left to the combined faculties of guesswork and imagination to arrive at a correct concept of the Word which wisdom represents. The functioning of the higher intuitive faculty which contemplation induces is allied to poetic genius. Implied in this noesis is a certain boldness of approach, a firmness of step which holds the head clearly above doubts in a certain characteristic manner, a firmness which is a distinguishing mark of the assured contemplative, recognizable behind the differentiating veils or formalities of languages and epochs. Yet, alas, when stated in cut-and-dried terms which may be logically or mechanistically correct, something vital seems to escape out of it. Its perfect beauty is poised on a strict neutrality and a delicate impartiality. Many-sided in its sympathy, million-headed and facing every way, with joy the Word omnipresently confronts the actual and the real. It is a whole-hearted global sentiment which cannot be enjoyed piecemeal. It rises as a full-flooded surge of generosity within, utterly without petty distinctions between man and beast. Its bounty knows no bounds.

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The wonder of the Word! Add what may be wanting; subtract what is extra; strike the mean and balance or neutralize it once again; turn it round and examine it from different angles; scrutinize it minutely or take a megascopic view - yet it still remains the same magic wonder. Install it, if you will, on a pedestal, ideologically or idolatrously; or remove it again in iconoclastic fervour to gaze into the vacancy where it was before - it is still a marvel, old or new. Rid it of all attributes and conditionings, and it will then loom large within consciousness, filling the three worlds to the limit, above, below, and at every point of the compass, multidimensionally, as though in radiant, omnipresent terms of electromagnetism.

The light of the sun and stars is within the scheme of such a universal principle - at once attracting or repelling, or devouring all within the ambit of its all-embracing law. Eluding all, reigning above all, exulting in its own ineffable enigma, it blows where it pleases within the expanse that is limitless.

The Word can take wing and become a metaphor, a parable or a gaudy figure of speech. Allegory and the myth-making instinct must colour its soap-bubble until it bursts again, over-bloated. But the colours of paradise may play on it for a while before ever and anon all is again lost in the renewed wonder of bursting. Thus the alternating sport ever goes on, growing out, diverging fanwise or expanding again from sheer nothingness. The twinkling nucleus ever shines on, bright or dim as its own fancy may dictate, indeterminate and undeterminable, following a rule that is one unto itself, the law never to be formulated entirely to include all contingencies. In the pursuit of the Word many a savant turns grey-haired and the eyes of loyal seekers of truth often grow dim, while the Word glows on for ever.

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In never-ending beats, it continues in quanta pulsations of energy to be calculated in split-seconds or in millions of light years, while new and unknown galaxies leap into the ken, adding to a wonder that is dumfounding. All Platonic ideas of Justice, Courage, Truth or Beauty owe their initial capital letters to the Word-element which enters into their meanings. According to this contemplative approach to reality and existence together, we see that 'Good' already implies its own tail-end of 'Evil' which it can absorb into itself when it prevails in consciousness which is active or positive 4. This is accomplished by a double negation of the unreal. Judas must belong to the twelve and sit at the same table, whether he is good or not 5. Ends and means must be conceived unitively in contemplative terms so that one can justify the other, for otherwise both would belong to the absurd. Word contemplation can hold together opposites 6. It is only when viewed horizontally, as it were, that opposites exist - but when looked at vertically the duality vanishes. But this destruction of duality applies to the domain of contemplation and not to the field of action. A river may be thought of as touching its two banks alternately or as curving round in its course, but it can never, in principle, turn tail on itself and reverse its current.

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Contemplation likewise goes forward towards its final goal. Even cataclysms and disasters have to be understood in the natural light of the Word, which itself represents an event of great magnitude in the eternal present. Other realistic answers are partial, and many such answers are possible, but the one given by the contemplative type of reason convinces and satisfies the innermost cravings for knowledge, while explaining away no actuality or evil as such, in the historical or the relative sense of everyday life. Headlines in journals may divert even intelligent minds for a moment away from contemplative verities, but it is on the background of the contemplative verity that even headline events must make a meaning. Whichever side it favours in a battle, the Word always wins and often, from its viewpoint, the one who gains all, loses all. This is summed up in the proverb, 'Nothing fails like success'.

It is the Word that makes the last the first. As the ocean includes and implies all the waves that rise upon it, the Word as the central reality draws all within its scope, abiding in its nature and ever implied in terms of self-realization.

Justice is represented as blind. This refers only to the outward factors, while Justice weighs all in terms of a contemplative inner sense of equity, a more-than-merely mathematical or quantitative equality. Thus it is that in politics the Word-principle underlies and regulates the connotation of slogans such as 'Liberty, Equality and Fraternity', or even mottoes such as 'All for one and one for all', which contain the dialectical secret of the Word-formula. In literature and art the Word is that 'thing of beauty' of Keats, which 'is a joy forever which will never pass into nothingness'7. In the integral personal experience of the yogi or the balanced mystic the Word can be that bright radiant sphere which fills all, within and without, with a clear light of awareness. It is the stunning personal experience of the man who has attained cosmic consciousness, lit with the inner dawn of ten thousand suns rising together.

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The man with the Word in his thoughts becomes holy, generous and loveable. Steeped in the perfection of the Word, he is poised between all points of view, to each one of which he seems to have the same assenting benediction which can accept all truth as pertaining to its own proper place or facet, and to each of which he has the same numinous response of Amen or Aum, thus blessing them all from the particular standpoint proper to each. Established thus in its own calm, the Word, all-accepting, can bestow "the peace that passeth understanding".

Word-wisdom can make life more abundant, leaving no room for penury. It is Shakespeare's 'twice blessed mercy that droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven' - 'above this sceptred sway' and yet 'enthroned in the hearts of kings'8.

Its praise is beyond utterance - such is the glory of the silent Word. Although thus it would seem to call on its votary to hold his tongue, volumes of words flow out of the very mouths that try to be mute. The potent Word accumulates its force beneath the level of the open Word and bursts all barriers.

The secret of the Word cannot be kept. It must at least be a wail in the wilderness or a shout from a high tower. It must burst into tears - otherwise the predicament of 'She must weep or she will die'9 would hold true. Just those who have tried to be taciturn have given expression to most effective volumes of words. Why silence is golden has itself to be explained in words. Endless scrolls filled with Word-wisdom, on silk, palm-leaves, papyri or parchment, or engraved on wood and stone, have thus come out in the past from persons filled with Word-content within. The Maha-Bharata, the Ramayana and the Tiru-Kural represent such oceans of Word-wisdom in the Indian context. The stream of words sometimes attains torrential proportions, meeting all challenges of metre, syntax or prosody. The cryptic, gnomic, aphoristic or enigmatic sayings of the Chinese Lao Tzu, the Indian Badarayana, the Greek Socrates or the Jewish Christ still blow with sharp mystical freshness wherever leisure for contemplation of the Word is found, from Peking to Pasadena, from New Delhi to New York, from Madura to Manchester. The Ganges must flow on, as the Euphrates or the Nile. Their waters find their way on the Rhine and the Seine, on the Cam at Cambridge, on the Hudson or even on some far-off tributary of the great Amazon. The car of Jagganath must roll on by necessity. Such is the urge for the Word in human life.

80
In far-away China, there was a wise man who began by saying that what could be named or put into words was not the real. In spite of this conviction, however, he filled a book of five thousand Chinese characters before he felt satisfied that he had explained what he really meant 10, much in the same naive manner of the pilgrim woman in Chaucer's tales who went on enumerating the items of a feast she did not want to describe in detail. Whatever the literary device employed, words have their inevitable place in the understanding and in the sharing of ideas containing high human values. The Word itself is the highest of human values.

A strange law of opposites, of antinomies synergistically interdependent with a living reciprocity, seems to be regulating the subtler aspects of life itself. This is the ambivalent phenomenon known to modern psychology. Passionate longing is mixed with fear and disgust; attraction and repulsion are simultaneously present - a locking together of positive and negative vital charges. Whether sex or God, there is a combined love and fear, at once sacred and profane.

81
A certain nemesis seems here implied. Clip the shrub or shave a beard, it must grow again thicker than before. Break off the radial arm of a starfish, and it regenerates the broken ray with amazing rapidity. Even try to drive away a fly that wants to sit at the tip of your nose while you try to rest on a summer's afternoon, and it persists in returning to the same spot. Challenge meets with redoubled response. A wilfulness or pressure, which is a categoric or necessary imperative urge to action, seems to be behind all nature, whether individual or collective. Unitive life is expanded and displayed variously by this urge which pushes manifestation forward as if from nowhere. Raise your hand in front of a mirror and it reflects the same menacing attitude.

 

Instruct a servant too particularly or order a child rudely - one reaps the familiar consequences. These are but a few of the familiar examples in nature which point at this same principle of polarity. And ever between the horns of this double-charactered principle of equal difficulties, the Word sits solving the dilemmas into neutral contemplative terms of a higher intelligence.

As a growing root can split a rock, the Word also is potent with power. The true Word spells freedom and happiness. Word-wisdom and consequent happiness cannot be enjoyed in exclusive isolation. It necessarily has to be conceived in terms of the greatest good for all. The secret of happiness needed for all political and other theories of our collective life here can be found in a recognition of the relation of the one to the many. As Plato has pointed out in 'Parmenides' and elsewhere, the one and the many are related dialectically as counterparts of a central reality. The happiness of the one depends on the happiness of the many and vice-versa. This is an aspect of secret dialectics which is of imperative importance in everyday life. Necessity and obligation bind us at one end while the possibility of freedom is also present for the will to make its own.

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Life thus involves the taking of a contemplative decision between two alternatives, the choice always of surrender or sacrifice to a higher interest rather than to mere egoistically-limited sense-pleasure. Necessary aspects of life have to be willingly faced, while the contingent must be given free play in a spontaneous self-confidence. When the two functions are properly partitioned, Word-wisdom shines with its own unborrowed light.

This is the way by which Word-wisdom leads us to tranquillity. In dealing here with the Word of the Guru, therefore, let us resign ourselves to play a humble and ordinary role, one that many great spirits have followed before with great distinction. As usual, let the muses be called upon to sing those heavenly songs in which Word-wisdom has been taught from most ancient times. Vyasa invoked the aid of the elephant-headed god Ganesha to write for him, with the tip of his broken tusk, long scrolls full of beauteous verse describing the life of the humble mouse as well as praises of the highest and proudest gods of the Himalaya. So let there be an overflowing spate of the good Word like the discharging flood of the Ganges as it is said to descend from the matted locks of Shiva, as the earth is watered from the heavens. Or we can turn perhaps more appealingly to one more refined and favourable - the goddess Saraswati, patron of all the fine arts besides that of the Word itself - invoking her aid traditionally as many have done before, so that her approving smile may encourage the free flow of the Word.

Let the Word brighten our intelligence and set us free. Emancipated hence from the power of darkness, let the liberating Word help the spirit to soar into the realms of pure light. Lazy automatic conditionings adhering and clinging to the spirit, and through memory affiliations withholding it in its onward flight, shall all be countered and sundered by the inarticulated potency of the Word of words.

Brooking no duality, the Word, as the eternal witness within us, suffers no change. All the wordy learning that has ever been uttered or written has to be burned away; and then, without being lost in the forest of words, the one Word,finally will sum up all, representing all there is to be known.

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Such a Word will be the key to all knowledge. The mind with its rational, conceptual and perceptual powers will confront it, but will recoil vainly and frustrated in attempting to treat it as an intellectual problem posed for solution. From the bottom as well as from behind, the Word fills the spirit while the focussed attention in bewilderment tries to clutch it. But to obtain the secret of the Word, to feel its presence, one has to become the Word, and then it is known to be inseparable from the Self that has mistakingly looked afar when all the time the Word was the gazing Self itself.

Within the womb of silence the Word lay dormant. In the intermediate stage the world was filled with mere words. Punditry and scribblings filled the libraries. Then it began to be recognized that analysis and research could go on endlessly. By analytical specialisation important human problems were bypassed. Words had to be reduced and raised into synthetical terms. Unitive integral thinking had to step in to save thought from branching out into infinite ramifications. Too much departmentalization of knowledge in academic or scientific institutions means losing sight of the general perspective in the wholeness of which human values normally reside.

Rid of vain sophistry or eristic argumentation, the Word of the Guru again seeks to balance thought with synthesis. Dialectics is brought in again to relate and reconcile seeming oppositions and dualities. Thus the glare or the glamorous thunder of the Word is once more subdued and the Word which speaks in the still small voice of the silence within can be heard. As bees in the nectarine core of the lotus become silent, so the Self is sound-absorbed when fully fed on the Word within, joy-intoxicated with the personal experience that
remains. Such Word-content is both cosmological and psychological, and such is the Word of the Guru within his silence.

Thus in the Guru Word both Logos and Nous (Absolute and personal intuitive principles) are reconciled; the Word bringing together in identical inseparability the Guru's personality and the teaching. God and Guru so conceived are cohesive in the Word, a fact recognized by a long human tradition both in East and West.

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This is the eloquent silence aglow on the features of that ancient model of a Guru who was once approached by the Vedic Rishis who sought the highest wisdom. As legend holds, he sat on a raised stone platform, under an overshadowing banyan (fig) tree facing southwards in the mute glory of the inarticulated Word. He has been the accepted model for all spiritual teachers for all time. Moreover his teaching, given in this way, was recognized to be fully satisfying, at least to his disciples. Sankara, a Guru of a period thousands of years afterwards, revived the memory of the silent teacher. And here we revive the picture again, in a modern tongue. This is what Sankara wrote:

'A picture marvel. Lo!
Under yon bodhi-tree, behold!
Elders are the pupils
And of tender years the Guru.
The teaching, in silence mute it goes,
And what is more, the learners
In utter sundered doubts, remain!'

It is to a similar situation that the Word of the Guru dealt with here belongs. It fits clearly into its place in a general context of its own, a context in which the personality of the Guru and all the attendant circumstances that go with it have to be imagined together, so that the full living meaning of the Word may shine forth. Two distinct aspects of reality - the universal and the temporal; the general and the personal; wholeness and apparent separateness; Guru and man - can thus be made to meet and reveal in dialectical unison the full presence of the Word directly in a way that volumes cannot
otherwise display or explain.

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The symbol of the model Guru, the southward-facing silent-tongued teacher of wisdom, tranquilly sitting under a tree, carved in stone or cast in metal, with many variations - sometimes with a gentle smile twisting the blissful corners of his lips; at other times profoundly serious, with eyes open or closed - has filled places of pilgrimage in the East and museums in the West, from Kamakura in Japan to the Musée Guimet in Paris, while still from time to time living Guru-models arise in ancient lands and far-flung corners of the globe who relive and re-exemplify the timelessly old pattern, and speak the same silent Word.

Their seemingly enigmatic silence is a marvel indeed, a thread of gold which runs through all the aspects of worthwhile knowledge throughout the passage of history. Many are the rival schools of thought arising around them. Many are the Avatars and Messiahs appearing and disappearing on the bright stage of recorded history. Some speak in the stern voice of God, others beguile with gentle art and song - but the Guru-witnesses simply look on with the silence of the unspoken Word. The Guru Narayana both consciously and unconsciously conformed to this Guru-model that has survived the tumults of time. He represented the Guru-Word in its primary and pure form. Any uniqueness or originality in him consisted in a stricter adherence than ever to the requirements of the Guru-Word, as it is to be understood in its reiterated re-valuation in a modern setting. Anything in the life of the Guru Narayana which seemed to lend support to other than the pure Guru-Word was but incidental or human, belonging to the setting and not to the principle. It is therefore as a Guru who lived in recent years, fully alive to human affairs, most of which are still of current concern, while he yet conformed to the most ancient of Guru archetypes, that our interest in him lies.

Narayana Guru's kindly ways, his silence, and the Word implied in his personality - all have one reality. They point to a sublime or exalting human situation or value. All spirituality or morality consists of appreciation of personal human values. Like two-headed Janus, or the obverse and reverse of the same coin, opposing aspects meet in the personality, thus yielding an intellectual ground on which moral or spiritual values can be appreciated.

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As the original and the image meet in the substance of the mirror's surface, so the central crystal within, which is the personality, is the meeting-point of divergent facets. By meditation on this central living principle one becomes that crystalline substance oneself. The Word represents this focal point and, with its own background of silence, it dwells in the lotus of the heart of man as a pearl of price. The discovery of this value within constitutes bliss; while the Word is the key to this Self-discovery, the realization that our own Self is the transparent jewel, colourless and pure.

Knowledge, the person and the Word are interchangeable terms. The correct elaboration of the Word is sometimes called Brahma-Vidya (The Science of the Absolute). The Word itself reduced to its simplest form is said to be in the three letters A, U and M: these being the open, the half-open and closed sounds, representative of the cosmos, the psyche and the Self - three aspects of the real. More subjective still is that numinous aspect beyond expression which is named the 'fourth' state or stage. The spoken and the soundless Word meet and form the mystical syllable. This is constructed by equating the articulated trio to the inarticulated 'fourth' or vice versa. This takes us to some of the secret intricacies of Indian mysticism into whose depths we shall not enter further here. More can be found available to all in Upanishadic lore, especially in the smallest of all such works, the Mandukya Upanishad.

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So far we have tried to fix as definitely as possible some answer to the natural question: 'What do you mean by the Word?' No answer is really possible to such a question for, as we said at the outset, the Word is an enigma and a wonder. Vedantic contemplation only helps us in this matter insofar as it makes the wonder itself a doubtless one and deep. In such an attitude to the numinous there is no superstition. Because it is a marvel, the reality only becomes an adorable one. Before concluding this part of our work in which we have tried to express ourselves freely on the subject of the Word, it is fitting to address our adorations to all Gurus who have come and gone, to all who had the strange, mysterious silence of the Word on their features. Known or unknown, they have lived in all climes and times. Sometimes derided or persecuted, they have been content themselves to live like simple men, mistaken even for simpletons, sometimes famous but many a time steeped in ignominy. The earth has been sanctified by the touch of some of the humblest of these Gurus as they slept on the ground in their lonely purity of life away from all the comforts that collective life affords. Often the only pillows on which to rest their weary heads have been their hands. Each has tried hard to live up to the best standards of the Guru tradition, adding their share to the accumulated wealth of Word-wisdom as a heritage for humanity. Praise be to all of them, those dauntless unperturbed spirits, representatives of the human race of whom we can never be too proud, those who were replete with wisdom's Word. They are the common fathers of humanity, with One High Absolute for ideal, one religion of commonweal to follow and one solid human fraternity to which all belong. Praise be to the Gurus, known or unknown, who have consciously or unconsciously represented the glory of the articulated or inarticulated AUM.



NOTES

1 Cf., Plotinus: 'Our every act is an effort towards contemplation' Enneads, III, 8.

2 Cf., Gospel of St. John, i, 1: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God'. (In the original Greek, 'Word' is 'Logos').

3 The Mandukya Upanishad uses AUM as Logos, declaring it to be the world, time, consciousness, knowledge, Self (Atman) and Absolute (Brahman).

4 Cf., Tao Teh Khing, Chap. 2: 'All in the world know the beauty of the beautiful, and in doing this they have (the idea of) what ugliness is; they all know the skill of the skilful, and in doing this they have (the idea of) what the want of skill is. So it is that existence and non-existence give birth the one to (the idea of) the other; that difficulty and ease produce the one (the idea of) the other; that length and shortness fashion out of the one the figure of the other; that (the ideas of) height and lowness arise from the contrast of the one with the other...'

Also: Bhagavad Gita, X, 25 '...of speech I am the one syllable...' i.e., the Word, called Aum, and Verse 36 'I am the gambling of the cheat...and the goodness of the good'.

5 Reference to Christ's last supper with his twelve disciples, which
included Judas whom Christ knew would betray him. (see Sts. Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22, John 13).

6 Cf., Bhagavad Gita, X, 32: Here in this chapter, Krishna as Guru utters the Word of the Absolute: 'Of creations I am the beginning, the end and also the middle, 0 Arjuna; of the sciences (I am) the science of the Self; of those who debate I am the dialectic'.

7 Endymion, opening lines of Book I

8 The Merchant of Venice, Act. IV, Scene 1.

9 Tennyson's 'The Princess'.

10 Lao Tzu's Tao Teh Khing of 5,000 Chinese Characters. The first chapter says, 'The name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name' and Chapter 56, describing the contemplative, has the well-known saying, 'He who knows does not speak; he who speaks does not know'. Lao Tzu lived in the 6th century BC. The poet Po Chu-i (9th century CE) with gentle irony wrote:

'Who know speak not, who speak know naught,
Are words from Lao Tzu's lore.
What then becomes of Lao Tzu's own
Five thousand words and more?'

11 This is perhaps the chief theme of Prof. Arnold J. Toynbee's vast work 'A Study of History'. He classifies the challenges in two main divisions, physical (geographic and climatic) and social (the disintegration of a former society, or contact with a new one).

12 Dakshinamurti Stotram (Hymn to the Lord Facing the South) found, p. 240) together with several other reputed works of Sankara, in Atmabodha of Sri Sankaracharya (Sri Ramakrishna Mutt, Mylapore. Madras, 1947).



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CHAPTER XII
DISTANT DRUMS AND WORD ENIGMAS

The wonder or the enigma of the Guru Word has to be studied in its natural setting. The physical and mental background, including geographical, historical, cultural and even including ante-historical ethnical features, is part of the whole scene and must be filled in so that the Guru as a symbolic Word-person can have vital three-dimensional depth. So we return now to that riverside retreat of the Guru Narayana at Alwaye in Travancore 1.

 

Dusk had spread its slate-coloured velvety wings over the Ashram where Narayana Guru was staying during the beginning of the hot summer months. Swiftly, as always in these low latitudes in the tropics, night had already come. The still heat of early summer was now and then relieved by gusts of cool air from the broad riverbed. But, in contrast to the lush green richness of the post-monsoon or rainy season, when we looked at the same scene before, now the river's course was partially uncovered, showing a wide expanse of sand with only jewel-like streaks of star-reflecting water glistening here and there - the emaciated limbs of the languishing river-goddess gleaming through the heat-haze.

 

In the distance, where the waterways could be seen spreading out, was a tall fig tree with wide-spreading branches. The coconut palm and the mango trees were comparatively recent additions, mingling their dark umbrageous foliage with the characteristic vegetation of this Malaya region so well known to Sanskrit poetry 2.

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In silence, the Guru sat in front of the little white building of the Ashram. Only a few people were about, although the annual festival in memory of the prehistoric God Shiva was again close at hand. No lights were visible except those coming from the flickering oil lamps in the prows of country canoes. Some way off, a number of these canoes huddled together, having brought parties of villagers from a distant part upstream, and these villagers cooked and ate their evening meal of rice in the boats, as they spent the time anticipating the annual Shiva-Ratri (Night Festival of Shiva).

Not a word fell from the lips of the Guru as the humble listener who now sets down this record waited patiently for the usual favour. All was still dark while the lamplight from the canoes made long streaks in the undulating waters as some late bathers splashed in the water, their gentle laughter breaking the monotony. The listener still waited for the word.

Under the tall tree where the waters parted, nearly a mile across from where the Guru sat, some people had gathered and started preliminary drummings, evidently to propitiate the departed. There was an unusually large stone, more than half-hidden by the sand of the river bed, which came to view each year as the waters subsided in anticipation of the scorching summertime. Most probably this was one of those prehistoric monoliths marking the spot where some ancient stalwart of the race was lying; for many such have come to the recognition of archaeologists in recent years in South India.

 

The crude rhythmic drumbeats went on and on into the night in never-ending manner, while at the same time a mysterious silence filled the air. The atmosphere was surcharged with ancient memories - as far as these could stretch backwards to the very dawn of human history. Memory became almost a clear intuition as it tried to visualize inwardly human life as it flourished around the same river bed before the date of the civilization of the Susa excavations 3. Life around this scene perhaps reached back to the beginnings of the Sumero-Babylonian civilizations or even further beyond them. A span of time, at least six thousand years in its depth, is what even a scientific imagination would permit in connection with the origins of the archaic language of the continued drumming, or as it should have meant to a trained and attuned intelligent spirit.

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This festival of the Night of Shiva, associated as it is with the worship of plain undressed stones, was evidently a characteristic group behaviour of antiquity, when people wanted to honour those who had passed away. It was a custom both normal and necessary. Year after year on the same sandy bed of the river, through the centuries, people responded to the stimulation of habit coming from the distant ancestral past. And the custom in this way continued to the present day when tens of thousands came to bathe in the river, offering handfuls of rice-balls for support, as it were, with prayers and incantations for the spiritual status of their forefathers in a symbolic act of gratitude. With ancient Vedic chants on their lips and with faces uplifted towards the sky, emotionally distorted in thanksgiving, the supplicants thus responded to prehistoric-based atavisms. This pattern of behaviour has persisted through the centuries, or rather millennia, holding the soul of man relentlessly within the grip of karma or necessity. Archaic patterns have their way of asserting themselves through the ages with an adamantine rigidity of expression.

Uninitiated as yet to the mysterious lispings of a language belonging to the cradle-phase, as it were, of humanity, these primitive drum-beats meant next to nothing to the present chronicler. The study of modern branches of learning filled him with a certain mistrust. Although he was familiar with geology and palaeontology - sciences also concerned with the remote past - they shed a different light on aspects of life other than the human field revealed by archaeology and anthropology. His studies were concerned more with the dumb dawning of life, with the vital or mechanistic force which asserted itself over inert matter within the course of millions of years, while the cautious, conservative approach was also distinctive and alien to the understanding of the throbbing drums. Thermodynamics was even more generally disjunct from the situation, and its spokesmen theorised boldly about the origins of energy and its end with calculations involving billions of years.

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Science thus seemed either to stop short or to bypass human values, while at the same time reading more fantastic than the wildest productions of fiction or fable. But in the domain of the Word, on the contrary, we confine ourselves to normal and natural human values, and in doing so keep in mind certain implicit methodological and epistemological considerations. One closed or over-specialized scientific system may seem to contradict or give an altogether different result from another. Each science has to be appraised within the framework of its own norms or values, and within such limits each remains a science, not absolute, but relatively exact in the world of its isolated facts. Another science, the Master-Science of the Word, has to step in to reconcile the contradictions, to resolve all the relatives in the one fact of completion or wholeness, where all the strivings of individual questers towards exactitude can meet together in a final unity. It is this Science of sciences which gives meaning or value to both the scientist and his own particular science. It is the Light of lights of the aphoristic wisdom found in the textbooks of this science in India 4.

And so, in this enlightening intelligence springing from unitive wisdom, consisting of the universal and perennial human values involved in that Word-language which extends beyond the spoken and written languages, the sound of the prehistoric insistent drummings heard from across the river on this occasion ought to have had a meaning and a significance of its own. This thudding drum-beating itself revealed a state of mind with an implicit behaviour-language which spoke across the gulf of time. Human memory, when properly awakened or functioning naturally, can become lucidly awake to such a suggestive language of drums and ancient supplication, even without the artificial support found in archaeology, epigraphy or even philology. Instead of depending upon the evidences buried in the earth or recorded on stone, pure memory should be able to delve directly into the past by means of sympathy and insight.

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Thus an immediate contact with the remotest life-expression of the past can be established. The reasonable means here is not external digging into the debris of vanished civilizations but, by 'contemplative archaeology' or research by means of the light common within each of us - a light which vibrates responsively to every shade or expression of any real Word-import - even, as is the case with electro-magnetism, one can tune in and gather the immediate echoing response when the right wave-length or frequency is touched. Listening in this way, these drummings legitimately suggested to the intuitive insight of the listener something akin to the following imagery:

Shiva, the mighty hunter of ante-historic times, was a leader of his age. He was also a contemplative, a yogi who sat cross-legged under the spreading branches of a huge fig tree or banyan. His hair was matted and bound up to a conical crest. Around him were gathered his favourite animals, tame or wild, who seemed to regard him with respect. The hunter's feminine counterpart was also there, represented within the forking of the tree, symbolic of the fecundity of the mother-principle. The tree itself was a mysterious symbol of the unknown and the adorable. Shiva himself typified the virile male principle of the bull.

 

 

 

Popular art depictions of Shiva and the Goddess.

 

 

He often forgot himself in the joy he felt within and danced in the forest lit with the light of the waxing crescent moon; while the goddess-companion often rode a tiger in awe-inspiring majesty suggestive of the potent, creative urge. Such were a few of the dominant images that must have surged up within the minds of the people gathered together round the drummers. The antique Shiva hieroglyph of primeval memory, with all the associated trains of thought it brought up, steeped their minds in a joy that was intensely pleasurable and satisfying. Hence they kept up this festival habit, year after year, until it became an inseparable part of the necessary side of their personal lives 5.

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While the drumming went on, rhythmic and persistent, and night closed in on the land, the silence of the Guru remained unbroken. The writer still waited for the Guru-Word to fall like a welcome drop of rain on the parched earth of his mind, and indeed the voice of the Guru at last did gently break the long period of suspense. He said little, but enough and of sufficient pregnancy to kindle a certain curiosity which, after more than a quarter of a century, has elaborated itself in the manner indicated above. But at the time the dead weight of concrete scientific impedimenta retarded the imaginative flight of free intuitive knowledge. On that occasion too, the Guru seemed to break the silence on purpose, as it were, in order to dispel a certain sterile indifference and mistrust towards knowledge in general, a condition then affecting the writer, particularly concerning the relevancy or value of ancient knowledge. It seemed to the writer then that modern science and contemplation had their faces irreconcilably turned away from each other. Time, however, has shown that this need not necessarily be so. 'Do you hear?' the melodious-ringing Guru voice was heard to enquire, 'Do you hear that distant drumming? It has been like this not only for a few years; it has been like this for ever!'

 

 

A characteristic final intonation put its enigmatic and mysterious punctuation on the last word as he uttered the phrase: 'It has been like this for ever!' The Guru said no more on the subject, but deep within the listener the words 'for ever' made an impression impossible to erase, arousing a lingering curiosity and a strange sense of the unknown which the writer tried to explain to himself, half-heartedly, at that time. The Word worked its secret ferment in the form of a lingering question-mark, like a catalytic agent affecting doubts and opinions concerning scientific validities, rationalisms and values then strongly held.

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Nearly three decades have now passed, but the strange enigmatic impressions have remained in their setting as bright jewels in the treasure-chest of memory. And although further study and meditation have helped to widen the wonder within, yet the enigmatic nature of the impression has not disappeared.

This example of the Guru-Word has been revived here in detail on purpose as an illustration of the utter economy of the spoken word he employed in his teaching. The Guru Narayana always wielded his word in such a way as to stimulate a certain type of curiosity in the unknown. Invariably the problems themselves, from a superficial point of view, were left unsolved or unanswered, but his response suggested the line of thought or meditation to be followed. Such meditation had the final result, not of solving mysteries, but rather of making the sense of the mysterious live in the heart of man for ever. That Shiva-picture which we have drawn from the pure memory-approach to the drums with all their perennial associations belongs to a dialectical situation which must be considered as a whole. The Guru's own personality also belonged to the Word context. For he too was a yogi who sat in meditation under a tree, and the drums naturally revived in him pure memories which formed part and parcel of his own meditations. Here was an affinity with the far-off past to which the Guru responded in a direct and simple manner, uncluttered by those obstructive limitations and often beclouding assertions of science in its usual sense. The Guru in fact represented in his personality the dialectically-revalued counterpart of the same prehistoric situation in which the Word noumenously evoked the result which we have attempted to interpret in terms of the Shiva pictograph. The same spiritual climate prevails now as it did then. At two points in time everlasting, situations are marked by the same essential Word-value, so that the stimulus or emphasis of the one induces or recalls the other in a subtle dialectical similarity of language - a clarion call heard across barriers of nothingness. One lends content to the form of the other in mutual reciprocity till in each other's light they mean the same reality of the Word, as understood in terms of self-knowledge. This will become increasingly evident as we follow further along the pilgrim path of the Word. The enigma of the Guru-Word provides us with many other examples. Narayana Guru's early writings especially reflect this ancient atmosphere of the Shiva outlook.

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Shiva as Nataraja.

 

Bhadra Kali.

Saraswati.

 

Subrahmanya.

 

Ganesha.

Bhadra Kali, Saraswati and other members of the sacred family of Shiva, such as the War-God with six heads called Subrahmanya or Karthikeya, and that other, elephant-headed, pot-bellied God, Ganesha, whose vehicle is that dialectical counterpart, the field-mouse - all figure in his writings. Shiva himself is portrayed as a hunter or a beggar, half-naked in his radical individuality; while his markedly emphatic wild frenzy recalls vividly his Greek counterpart, Dionysius. A whole world of antiquity is stored up in these primordial figures, and generations upon generations have utilised them to express mystical and philosophical doctrines of rare value to humanity. Thus conserved and considered, they all breathe the same spiritual atmosphere of a subtle dialectical situation, containing a certain ineffable substance of mystery.

Geologically, the sandy expanse and the river must have been there from primordial ages. Right through a long period of prehistory down to the present the drumming and characteristic group behaviour must have persisted. But beyond both these time-surviving elements, and transcending even the boldest hypotheses of thermodynamic theorists, pure human memory, like the clear waters of the river, must have preserved the same mystical Word, reflecting time and again through the human soul or spirit its consoling message for all who could respond to its timeless presence.

Illumined by the starlight, like the gleam on the surface of the waters, the same mystical presence and message shines now as ever for those who can see. Add the Guru-Word, and the meaning of a simple situation such as that described becomes transmuted; but fill the mind and clog the memory with particular hard facts, harsh and insipid, and instead of the bread of life there remains but a stone.

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Supported by apt imagination and made transparent in the light of intuition, bold flights of memory are desirable qualifications for anyone who wishes to trace the Guru-Word back to its true sources where it emerges from its own stratum and background. Retrospective imagery, it is true, sometimes weakens the triumph of emancipating progressive thought, but even to reject what is extraneous or superfluous intelligently and to reach the pure core of essential wisdom, a requisite clarification of memory-function becomes inevitable. The mind must be cleared, for if anything remains, it is likely to be the fanciful product of instinctive curiosity, myth or fable. Here the affinities of the Guru-Word are traced back to reveal its anterior implications first, so that its meaning with reference to the future may be made more realistically one's own.

This reaching out and linking up of prehistory with contemporary life may seem a far cry indeed. It might even appear impossible to throw a bridge between the two. But when we admit that the same sun shines now as it ever did before, or that the same vertical streak of mother's milk continues as milk uninterruptedly through generations, connecting each one of us materially with the remotest of our ancestors, the possibility of one enduring Word persisting through the vagaries of human language is, after all, not so absurd as it might at first sound. The perennial nature of the wisdom that comes to us through a symbolic, yet essentially human spiritual language, cannot therefore be too easily questioned. If we could abolish our prejudices in favour of what is non-contemplatively called 'objectivity', many of the problems now considered insoluble by the sciences would yield new answers. Sayings like 'as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be' would no longer sound as an apocryphal litany but rather as apodictic statements of law based on a priori reasoning.

As in linguistic symbolism, ideological and spiritual insignia with accompanying psychological attitudes and recognizable situations persist through time and reveal a common human parentage. This is well established in the study of comparative iconography. Divergences in the Word tend to vanish from faiths in the light of intuitive research into the deep recesses forming the racial past. It is in this sense that the picture-symbols of the Mohenjo-Daro stamp-seals can be helpful to us. They are clear indicators of the original patterns of the earliest formulations of the Word of the Guru with which we are concerned in these pages. As we have said, the yogi sitting on a stone under a tree is a familiar subject of these prehistoric Indus Valley seals.

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This figure of the man meditating under a tree has dominated the spiritual language of India persistently and continues to dominate it today as ever. Both literature and iconography are full of references to this archetypal emblem. It serves here as an ideogram denoting Word-wisdom.

 

Dakshina Murti.

Dakshina-Murti (which means 'the Divine Personality of the South') is Shiva when he plays the role of Guru to the Vedic Brahmins of North India. In Shiva as Dakshina-Murti the prehistoric currents of thought meet, counteract, and mingle with the spiritual Word-content which penetrated into India from the outside with the arrival of the proto-Vedic immigrants or invaders. The recognition of this dialectically-revalued synthesis of the two apparently different spiritual traditions - that of the Shiva of pre-Vedic antiquity and that of the priest-preceptors of the wandering Aryans - is established throughout present-day India by the acceptance of Shiva as the Guru Dakshina Murti.

As we have seen in the well-known verse of Sankara quoted in our last chapter, Sankara praises the glory of this model Guru Dakshina-Murti who is also represented as sitting under a fig tree. The cryptic formula, the archaic standard situation depicted and formalised in the Indus Valley seals, thus repeats itself here unmistakably.

 

 

 

This 'picture-model' of a teacher of higher Vedantic non-dual wisdom thus proves and establishes a revaluation of the ingressive early Vedas themselves in terms of Vedanta; and Sankara, as a high authority in Advaita philosophy, here in this Dakshina-Murti poem definitely puts his seal of approving recognition upon this revalued spiritual synthesis. And when we also remember that this mark of recognition is the dominating note even of contemporary Indian spiritual expression, the significance of this cryptic language of antiquity for the understanding of the message of Narayana Guru must be sufficiently clear.

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Buddha.

 

Jnana Mudra.

There are innumerable images of the Buddha, too, which intentionally or by traditional instinct, conform to the ancient Shiva-yogi pattern. A stone image of Dakshina-Murti could often be mistaken for that of Buddha; for both, according to tradition, taught five learned Brahmins under a sacred fig tree (the Bo or ficus religiosa), and both are often represented with that typical gesture of the thumb and forefinger forming a circle known as the 'jnana mudra' (the wisdom-gesture), which is made by the Guru of tradition when he faces his disciples. In both cases, too, deer or goats may be seen carved on the pedestals of the stone seat, the one case interpreted to say that Buddha taught in a deer park, the other to inform us that Shiva was known as Pasu-Pati, or Lord of all Beasts or created life. The common people everywhere, and certainly in India, still instinctively understand the meaningful language thus transmitted from generation to generation through mute but nevertheless eloquent stones. In this way, through the long course of history, written and unwritten, a cherished value exceedingly dear to the Indian mind has been preserved. In its descent through the ages, revalued and restated many times, the essential message has rid itself free of all angularities, and now gives us a simple formula of Guruhood in an epitomized form. The main purpose of this key formula is not merely to enable us to enter the world of the ancient gods known to iconography, nor even to understand the accumulations of mystical lore - important side-issues though these may be. The paramount aim is to enable us to appreciate the constant language of dialectics which, in all contexts: archaic, historical, mediaeval and modern, becomes the recognizable master figure of speech, peculiar but inevitable for expressing the secret of all Guru-Word-Wisdom. It is in this sense that the Guru-Word is an enigma or a paradox. In the Guru-Word both past and future, so far apart elsewhere, are inviolably welded together in the unity of an eternal present. The apparent antagonism between anteriority and posteriority is neutralized when the Word prevails. Time, as the old endless serpent, is seen at last to swallow its own tail, in the contemplative language of the Word. Thesis and antithesis disappear in the presence of the synthesis. But to delve into the enigma of the Guru-Word and move another step forward we shall now lapse into another illustrative anecdote. And if the enigma becomes only further underlined we shall be so much nearer to the heart of its mystery 6.

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Once at Varkala 7 the writer was standing near Narayana Guru. The days of the Guru's living presence among his disciples were beginning to be numbered with anxiety, for he was then old and suffering from a serious illness. In spite of this circumstance, however, he had occasional spells of good health which encouraged all who could to gather round their beloved teacher to benefit by his word as far as possible while he was still among them. And of those who were present the writer was one, likewise intent upon benefiting from the Guru-presence.

The Guru had taught the writer many a subtle truth before, with kindliness and spontaneously. Never before had the disciple dared to put a direct question frontally as it were. But this time it was different and he had resolved to try the experiment while it was still possible. He thought that a definite answer from the lips of the Guru would be valuable. And so the writer decided to break the usual silence. His question concerned the meaning of one of the Guru's own verses which, translated, is as follows:

'With cares for its content,
Five-petalled and with tiers two,
Revolving and beginningless
Is the lamp which, hung on high,
(Is) the Self. In shadow form it burns.
Past habit tendencies its oil consists;
As for the wick, functioning itself is'.8

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On hearing the verse the Guru turned and looked at the questioner. His eyes lighted kindly on him for a while, but he again lapsed into his silent mood. No answer came. Undeterred, the questioner passed on to another verse which at that time puzzled him:

'Eating of the fruits five,
Such as light and the like,
Perched the while on a shot-gun foul,
Ever in wily changeful sport
Are those birds five; down what could turn
Shred to bits all these at once!
Such lucidity wielding - the inner Self
To brilliance - let it attain!' 9

Seconds and minutes passed but no answer came. Instead, one could notice, if well trained to discover such traits, a peculiar seriousness which was associated characteristically with the same jnana mudra or wisdom-gesture which we have already described as the time-honoured secret dialectical password of the Guru attitude. One waited in vain for any further communication. As with the ancient model defined by Sankara, the silence was meant to be self-explanatory. The very next verse following the one just quoted indicates to some extent the line of thought containing the significance of what the Guru meant by the silence:

'Who spends his days
In contemplation beneath a tree,
Climbing whereon, a blossomed creeper
Bears aloft on either side
The flowerings of the psychic states -
Verily, such a recluse remains
By inferno ever unapproached'.10

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The writings of the Guru Narayana abound in enigmas of this type. These constitute a challenge to the modern man, a challenge coming from the past of India and the East. They have a psychology and a cosmology of their own whose validity may be doubted by those unfamiliar with the technique of ancient Eastern wisdom. Such crypto-symbolic verses involve major problems, questions to be answered, enigmatic paradoxes of a unique dialectical category which demand scrutiny in the light of the type of knowledge which dominates contemporary civilization. These writings must be understood again in a global context.

These verses of the Guru that we have given here contain the solution to the silence of the Guru. That characteristic silence belongs to the general nature of Word-wisdom and must be incorporated into the wisdom-context to make the fully rounded meaning. As with the Guru Dakshina-Murti, this silence symbolises the negative way of the Word (the 'via negativa' 11, of the Christian mystics), or the 'neti neti' ('not this! not this!') of the Upanishads. This can be compared with the Christian-Platonic method stated by the pseudonymous Dionysius the Areopagite 12. In the language of Vedanta this 'Way of Withdrawal' (Nivritti Marga) is opposed to the 'Way of Forward Action' (Pravritti Marga). In the normal Guru attitude these contrary attitudes are neutralized, culminating in an unbiased central reality which is of the essence of non-duality (Advaita).

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It will be profitable to quote here another enigmatic verse found in one of the early poems of Narayana Guru (Shiva Satakam). It is addressed to Shiva. The theme of the prayer to this ancient god of the chase is at first apparently developed along traditional lines; but gradually the radical note is heard and a dialectically revalued mystical doctrine is eventually seen to be implied throughout. The work consists of one hundred verses, of which the 85th verse reads:

'Viewing thee on a mountain top
Intent on beasts to slay,
And so their skins to flay for me,
If now, this one here in turn
Should think 'Halt, halt'
And in worthy mien approach,
Wouldst thou then (0 Shiva)
Filled with many a witty word,
Even into laughter break?'

Here we must note two counterbalancing factors. On the one hand we see the basic symbol of Shiva in its antique purity, depicted fully in its even gruesome actuality; while there is the antithetical Guru personality of a far later epoch, the author of the poem - but both the Shiva image of the poem and the person of the poet have the dialectics in common, only in the latter case the spiritual Word is revisioned and revalued.

Narayana Guru is the revaluating principle himself here, and all antecedent valuations occurring at different epochs, such as the Buddhist or the Jain, have been telescoped summarily in the new Guru assessment. The ancient yogi, like Socrates who offers a cock 13, is a killer of animals. This is the prehistoric element retained in the anterior dialectics of the Word. This is brought into close juxtaposition with the posterior Word-content so that together they yield the synthetically revalued Word, which represents the mystery of the Unknown itself. This verse affords a typical example of what we have called here the enigma of the Word. Here for the time being we must leave the import of the subject. But before concluding this section of our discussion, there is one more short episode to relate which may help to bring out another aspect involved in dealing with Guru-Wisdom.

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On this occasion the place was a secluded village temple in Travancore, not far from the Varkala Ashram. The temple was founded by one of the Guru's humbler followers who came from this village. He had built a simple palm-thatched hut as a place of worship and had also constructed a tiny white-walled room beside the temple for meditation.

Villagers passed to and fro along a footpath through the wooded grove which surrounded the shrine. On the veranda of the room and turned away from the glare of the tropical sun, protected from the view of passers-by, the Guru once sat as the guest of his devotee. The traditionally familiar fig tree also happened to be there, while vesper prayers were announced by the note of a blown conch-shell. Bells, a metal trident and a plainly-dressed upright stone completed the furnishings of the most holy sanctum of Shiva-worship - all that was essential for the simple believers in this virile Principle. As the Guru sat once again in an environment reminiscent of the simple primeval conditions: an ante-historical setting, as it were, projected into present times like an outcropping of Archaean strata - one could observe on his features a certain spiritual glow of alert or positive wakefulness. His voice carried a resonance that was marked, and his every movement unmistakably reflected the delicacy of his state of mind. He was a yogi who sat aloof in self-chosen loneliness in this neglected wayside temple. Clearly in this spot he felt at home and had decided to spend a week there with his follower.

A yellow-robed sannyasi disciple of Narayana Guru who was there with the writer, brought up the subject of a biography of the Guru, which, he intimated to the Guru, the present narrator was hoping to write.

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The Guru expressed some interest in the idea. 'Biographies', he remarked, 'often degenerate to the discredit of human nature'. He referred to the autobiographical confessions of some great men who, in the name of veracity, had often put themselves at a lower level than was good for humanity. 'Such literature must raise up higher models to view', Narayana Guru went on. 'Man must be made better one way or another - otherwise what is the use of biography?'

About his own biography he simply asked, 'Who is there to believe it?' It is possible to write the most admirable of biographies representing the highest human values. Yet it would still lack its other essential part - someone ready to read it and understand it in the intended light. Hence with characteristic wistfulness the Guru inquired, 'Where is the man who will believe?'

With the best of intentions Rousseau wrote his 'Confessions'; and, given a Boswell, it would be possible to record every word of a Johnson; but despite these different styles, misunderstandings and wrong or distorted judgements about them still flourish, reflecting unintentional disrepute and humiliation on human nature generally and often too on the subject of the biography. Even here two sides have to come to a dialectical agreement. A bi-polar relation is inevitably implied - a relationship belonging to the same order that was the secret of the Socratic 14 and other discursive methods of ancient wisdom now gone into ill-favour and desuetude. It is in the harmonious interaction of counterparts coming into play together that values are thrown out. The soil is as important as the seed. Pearls have to be equated with the swine without any absurdity being implied in the situation. All vital relations, such as those between father and son or husband and wife imply the same bipolarity of relationship which is the secret of contemplative reasoning 15.

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Insofar as it is independent of the evidence of the senses, the true nature of this bipolarity is elusive. A priori knowledge has as much place in it as a posteriori knowledge. Our constant recognition of all values in everyday life implies this secret of contemplative reasoning. When this secret - which is so unique and yet at the same time so common, so present in every reasonable situation - is seen in this light, enigmas will lose their strangeness as such, remaining enigmas inasmuch as the wonder will still be there, and will only declare the presence of the real which is the most commonplace and yet the most wonderful of wonders, the real which exists or subsists in and through all situations, and which can be seen in all things, provided they are viewed correctly according to the disciplines of contemplative thought. It is in this way that the Guru becomes as important as the sishya (disciple), or vice versa, as we shall see in our further considerations of the Word.



NOTES

1 See Part I, Chapter II, 'The Guru at Home'.

2 Malaya - now known as Malabar, with Malayalam as the language.

3 Susa was the capital of the ancient country of Elam, north of the Persian Gulf and now part of Iran. Its civilization is considered to have been established between 4000 and 5000 BC.

4 Cf. 'Brilliant is It, the Light of lights...'- Mundaka Upanishad, II, ii, 9.
'...the Light of lights, said to be beyond darkness '. - Bhagavad Gita, XIII, 17.

5 The seals of the Indus Valley excavations lend ample support to the picture we have tried to construct here: Ref. 'Mohenjo-Daro and the Indus Civilization' by Sir John Marshall, and many popular modern histories of India (e.g. pp. 28 et seq. of 'The Pageant of Indian History' by Mrs. Sen).

6 Cf., 'Tao Teh Khing', Chap.1. 'Where the mystery is the deepest is the gate of all that is subtle and wonderful'.

7 Varkala is a coastal town in southern Travancore, some 20 miles north of Trivandrum. It was here on Shiva-Giri (Hill of Shiva) that Narayana Guru spent a great deal of his time.

8 'Atmopadesha-Satakam' of Narayana Guru, Verse 17.

9 Ibid., Verse 8.

10 Ibid., Verse 9.

11 Philo the Jew (1st century) was the first to stress the withdrawal of the senses as the way to Self-realization; then the tradition was elaborated by Plotinus (3rd century), and in the meantime adopted into Christianity by St. Augustine, leading ultimately to the Quietist form of the great Mystics of the Middle Ages in Europe.

12 'Neti! Neti!' occurs in the following passages in the Brihad-Aranyaka Upanishad: II, iii, 6; III, ix, 26; IV, ii, 4; IV, iv, 22; and IV, v, 15.

Dionysius the Areopagite was the title given to the author of mystical Platonic treatises introduced into Western Christianity in the 9th century by John Scotus (Erigena) who translated them into Latin from the original Greek. They are given as of 5th century composition. In Book V. of Dionysius', 'Mystical Theology', we find the following plain account of the Way of Negation: 'In the practice of mystic contemplation, leave the senses and the activities of the intellect and all things sensible and intelligible, and things that are and things that are not...' and in 'The Celestial Hierarchy', II, 3: 'Divine things shall be honoured by the true negation'.

13 See the death of Socrates in Plato's 'Phaedo'.

14 Cf., Plato's definitions of dialectics in his work, 'Sophist' (p. 262 D) where he takes the structure of the Greek sentence as his starting-point. To make sense or have value, the sentence requires (implicitly at least) both subject and predicate. Even the exclamation. 'Oh!' implies '(I say) oh! (to you or to myself)'. Disjunct words have no virtue, being merely like collections of stones, merely printer's marks or meaningless noises.

15 In Sankara's Dakshinamurti poem already referred to, in Verse 8, this same set of dialectical pairs is stated, proving that Sankara was fully aware of the fact of the dialectical principle in dealing with the exposition of the Word.



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CHAPTER XIII
GURU AND SISHYA

It is the Word which stands neutral and silent between the Guru and the Sishya (Master and Disciple). Silence is the normal state of Guruhood. That normal Guru state has no message to deliver - except that of the silent Word, perhaps. Neither has it any gospel to spread, nor course of action to recommend on its own initiative. It is free from the sense of agency in the world of activities or works. These exist in the domain of necessity or restraint and take care of themselves according to natural laws of imperative urges, causal chains or obligation. Thus the Guru rests in his heart's cave of tranquillity, locked in the secret of his silence, beyond all turmoil in the peace that passeth understanding. Someone might approach a Guru with a question. The best answer and the reply the Guru wants to give is his silence. The indifference on the surface is only seeming. The Guru really intends to honour the questioner by his silence. Indeed silence is a form of recognition given sometimes to the most intelligent of questioners. For the well-formulated question, fundamentally sound in its basic premiss, supplies in itself half at least of the desirable question-answer situation which is a dialectical situation, like a subject seeking an object or predicate.

On hearing the question the Guru may open his eyes for a while, but presently relapses into his natural state of calm quietude, that being the most preferable of responses. Expressed in this way through his personality, his silence stands for all the reply needed. This very silence of attitude conveys the sense that the truth is so clear and simple that it needs no vocal evidence. Silence itself is the missing counterpart which covers the question like a benediction. The question can refer to one specifically possible answer, but the silence is an answer to all possible varieties of questions, even to those concerning the future. It is the crowning answer of answers, a finalized reply to the endlessness of questioning in an unexpected form which is itself paradoxically rhetorical.

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We may say that the questioner must know the answer vaguely or roughly before he can ask a pertinent question; and the Guru, in assenting to this prepositional relevancy in question form, meets him half-way with his neutral silence.

Thus it is that a Guru sometimes just witnesses the supposed helplessness of the disciple, but with a kindly look in his eyes. He wants no duality, even between the question and the answer: at both beginning and end of the discourse there must be agreement. If the dialogue is not mere disputation, but dialectically of the order of contemplation, then every question answers itself in terms of self-knowledge. Verities are equated intuitionally, and the problem is solved without burdening the answer with the extraneous. Dialectics is said to be the coping-stone of wisdom. It implies two sides of which Socrates is usually the common factor.

Many are the questioners and varied the queries, but all the answers are already there as one answer in one Socrates. The silence of the Guru goes even further in perfecting the dialectical approach to wisdom. It conforms to the simplest requirements of Self-contemplation; and the question seems to stand still without swerving from its well-established selfhood in perfect symmetry and beauty. In this manner the silence seems to take the disciple lovingly by the hand and conduct him into the realms of pure reason. It beckons from the tranquil heights where the Gurus normally dwell, directing him into the glory of the light of wisdom. Thus the grace of the Guru is manifested as the blessed look of silence, exalting the disciple and leading him, even as Dante was conducted by the Master-poet until he came to the regions presided over by Beatrice, and was thence guided by her into the light of the highest wisdom in the spheres of glory and peace on high. Thus the disciple mounts from one Everest height of positive understanding to another until he wants to return no more.The enticement of such a kindly glance is given only to some;

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others may receive only a nod of assent, or a recognizing smile. In the Upanishads the Guru is known sometimes to say, 'Pleasing youth, you question well', thus encouraging the seeker sympathetically.1 In another mood, when surrounded by inquirers of a more usual and ordinary type in a crowd, the Guru may even explain a little. He may add a remark of his own to something said, but mostly, when in the midst of a multitude, if he does speak, it is generally on topics of everyday interest or of fundamental human value.

The Guru does not enter into anything secret or esoteric. Any stimulus generally suffices for him to begin and - like the murmur of a brook, the sound of the noontide bee or the chiming of distant bells - his words flow smoothly and gently into the ears of his hearers, as he seems to talk as much to himself as to all others at the same time - never anxious to convince anyone, but with a conviction welling from his own pure depths, as one interested in humanity. The lulling effect of such words on the hasty listener is often the same as his silence itself. In this manner the Word of the Guru is sometimes uttered for the sake of one or many questioners at a time. Both topic and treatment of the subject are such that it does not matter who listens. For it is of interest to one and all at once and, although intimate matters may find a place in it, nothing that is not entirely open and just or in the interest of all will find a place in it. With Narayana Guru it was humanity as a whole that interested him primarily, far and above all private ends or any unilateral personal good. A contemplative neutrality and stillness always characterized his attitude. The Guru-moods vary according to the situation implied in the attitude of the questioner.

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It is his consideration for others that induces the Guru to descend from that eminence where he sits clothed in the glory of his silence. Everlastingly he waits in this exalted loneliness, waiting for the right kind of disciple to approach him - almost like a lover for a beloved, waiting so that he can share with another the peace at the fountain-source from which he himself constantly drinks 2.

Although the market-place is not his favourite haunt, he may be seen even among publicans 3, so as to be available to those who may need him most and to wean them, if possible, to ways of peace and joy. Alternately human, alternately divine, in the light of grace that plays on his ever-serene features, he patiently awaits thus the natural fulfilment of his purifying role.

As the lambent glory of sunrise illumines one pinnacle of the Himalaya after another, so the Guru-silence glows gently and ineffably on one general hypothesis after another, until finally all is included in the silent fullness of the risen sun of the Word. Or it may be likened to a softly played sonata, one note of music being struck after another, finally falling away in thematic completion with the last tinkling touch of the keyboard - a diminuendo of sound which is the crescendo of silence, the crowning glory of the inexpressible Word.

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By the secret technique of negating involved in all this, the Guru is not shirking or evading, but on the contrary, ever-bent on fulfilling his part of the necessary diacrasis, the dialectical situation arising from the presence of ideological inquiry, which demands, at its highest level, the transcendent unity of silence. What looks like reserve is only the underlining of the most effective method of conveying his meaning, which is incapable of being given by the methods usual to other kinds of knowledge. The Guru truth implies the negative approach. It is given a priori, and sounds as if it is 'dogmatic' and not reasoned in the modern sense. Induction, hypothesis and dialectics are some of its distinguishing features, as distinct from what is called discursive or eristic logic or ratiocination. The Guru-truth is invariably behind or implicit in what is explicitly stated in cut-and-dried terms. Again and again frustrated in their attempts to transmit their deepest affections, the Gurus often subside into the most intensely expressive of silences. Such loneliness - such an 'orphanage in God' - might be called their everlasting agony, crucifixion, or state of detached Nirvana - so great is the hunger of the Guru for a true disciple.

In 'the flight of the Alone to the Alone' 4, which constitutes the Guru-state, the sympathetic call arises for winging another into the joy of this Samadhi. This constitutes the 'sad' element, for this Advaita consciousness seeks expression, final consummation and fulfilment - and that can be only by transmission somehow to the right kind of disciple.

It is the possibility of questioners arising which transforms the lonely contemplative into the Guru. Every big library in the world is in existence in response to the need to answer questions. Every book is some sort of answer to a question, trivial or profound.

All the time we are teaching or learning and each one insists on instructing or learning in his own way. Egoists insist on teaching when they should rather be listening, while the humble tend more to listen than to teach - though often better qualified than their would-be teachers.

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The purpose of contemplation is often defeated by the pressures of necessary life, resulting in a travesty of Guru-Sishya dialectics. The delicate threads are snapped by misapplication. A catalectical situation replaces the dialectical.

The tables are turned, for the disciple often consciously or unconsciously counters his own master. Again and again the rare blooms of wisdom wither at the hands of the gardeners in whose care they have been left, so that the accumulated wisdom resulting from the highest levels of human experience repeatedly suffers great losses. Aristotle thought he knew better than Plato and broke from his Academy to become a peripatetic philosopher. To the extent of that cleavage, the history of philosophic thought in the West wavered in its course down through the Dark and Middle Ages to the twilight dawn of the Age of Reason.

A true disciple is therefore an indispensable counterpart for the preservation and continuation of the heritage of a great master's wisdom. The histories and confusions, dissentions and schisms that mark the course of many of the world's great religions and philosophies bear out the need for this continuous authenticity of wisdom descent. It is the main reason for the decline and fall of what was originally noble and of high value 5. Guru and Sishya are therefore the two vital links of that chain which, as it were, supports the lamp of wisdom which, like a beacon, lights up the world of humanity through the ages.

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Each link is as necessary and significant as the other, for between them the dialectical torch of truth is transmitted down the narrow line of successive generations; and by this technique of conveyancing the Word is handed down, enduring for all time, accumulating momentum until its value becomes a good and mighty heritage for all.

On the part of the disciple the Word of the Guru demands a sympathetic understanding. The knowledge to be absorbed is global, unitive and integral; and it is in the personality of the Guru that these aspects are held together as one whole. The relation of the disciple to the Guru is the important factor, and a process which is a kind of spiritual osmosis then occurs. It is an attuned communion of two who cease to be two in terms of the spirit, vivified beyond the personal by the dialectical lightning-flash of the Word.

In our day philosophy itself has lost its purity. But the global attitude thus transmitted is a synthetic résumé of the gist of philosophy in its total sense. A historian of philosophy has to be a philosopher himself if he is to relate philosophic thought systematically. Likewise a Guru is an impartial witness of all that philosophy in general attests, rather than just a philosopher of any one school or system in either the academic or religious sense. He is thus a philosopher of philosophy: one who represents the Truth of truths, the Word above the wordiness; the All-in-all above the systems; the fact beyond the data; neutral vision above intellectual speculation, dream, supposition and outlook; as the light of all intellectual illumination, endowed with an inner wisdom which has reached its term. As the Upanishad declares, a knower of Brahman becomes Brahman itself. He is thus crowned with the Crest Jewel of Discrimination 7. He is the 'Sarvajna' (the All-knower) or the 'Sarva-vit' (the One aware of all). In him all the knots of doubt have been sundered. His personal value becomes exalted among men and his authority unquestionable. Such are the marks of Guruhood.

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Without Sishyahood, which is the counterpart of Guruhood, the latter would be meaningless. As a king cannot be without subjects; so no Guru can be without the typical 'purvapakshin' (the doubter, the one who is sceptical, who has the point of view which is anterior to finalized wisdom, the persistent critic found in all the texts of the Word-wisdom).

He may be Arjuna to Krishna, the chariot-driver in the Bhagavad Gita; a whole group of illustrative critics, such as Gorgias or Theaetetus contra Socrates in the dialogues of Plato; a doubting Thomas querying Christ; a King Milinda questioning Nagasena the bhikshu; the disciple Ananda and the Buddha - or even a Boswell drawing out the worldly wisdom of a Johnson.

Plato and Sankara employed the situation as a necessary literary method, but one that was naturally taken from experience, far apart though they were in time and locality. In all such cases, the essential nature of the relation is the same. The humble camp-follower of the Guru, often called the 'ante-vasi' (the dweller near at hand), or the poor Brahmachari (the treader of the path of Brahman), often in rags, serving his Guru for decades for the sake of the wisdom, are not really inferior in spiritual status to the Guru. Indeed, on occasion, their feet deserve to be washed by the hands of the Guru, even as Jesus washed his disciples' feet as a recognition of the contemplative ambivalent relationship 8.

The bipolar Guru-Sishya relationship thus requires not only a genuine Brahman-knowing Guru, but also an enthusiastic or earnest disciple. Only then can the Word of the Guru be elaborated. And in conforming to this genuine relationship, the Sishya on his part has to fulfil certain preliminary requirements.

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These, in the Vedanta context 9 are often referred to as the six graces or treasures (sat-sampatti) 10. He must first of all be prepared to listen and not be in a hurry to teach himself. He has thus to submit himself to a self-imposed period of preliminary silence, similar to that imposed in the Pythagorean communities at Crotona (the 'Mystiké Sioté'). This patient waiting must be of a positive, alert and actively waking kind, and not just a sloppy succumbing into the torpor of laziness. The ego has to be held back or encouraged, as required, stage by stage, to positive inner adjustment. Besides the truthfulness, purity and love of wisdom for its own sake which constitutes the pedestal or base upon which the statue of the seeker, the Brahmacharin or Sishya is to be erected, there is also implied in these six qualities a certain rigorous immunity to hardships, an adaptability, and a stamina that is uncomplaining and capable of smiling under duress. In the unique Guru-Sishya relationship which we are endeavouring to define, the raison d'être of which is the task of establishing wisdom, positive aspects of the personality of the one have to be grafted on to the radical or negative aspects of the other. Rare and wonderful and delicate is this transmission of the Word! 11 The typical Sishya of the Upanishads is often an interesting study himself. He is a "Devadatta ("God-given") or a Satyakama ("passionate lover of truth"), and usually of tender years.

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Even if he happens to be of questionable parentage, as with the latter, this is no drawback. Only his honest zeal counts in the eyes of the Vedantic Guru. Sankara recognizes this in many places and quickly abolishes any pride there may be in a Sishya of the Brahmin caste 13. Svetaketu, twenty-four years old, the equivalent of our modern graduates, has his conceit broken by his father-Guru 14. His counterpart is the touchingly innocent boy Nachiketas. His greedy ruthless father Vajashravasa drives him away, but Nachiketas, in the allegory, receives the priceless Word from the lips of Death himself 15. (Incidentally, there is another feature in this 'parable'.

Vajrashravasa is the typical Vedic ritualist, sacrificing everything, even his son, for the sake of a reward from the gods; while the real boons are to be had from the Guru Yama - Death or Time - who is also known as the Dweller in the South, i.e., in the non-Vedic region of India. This has bearing on what we wrote in our last chapter on the Vedic-prehistoric synthesis of the Word).

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Traditionally, then, the aspiring youth arrives at the abode of the Guru who generally lives away from society in a forest hermitage. The future Sishya is expected to bring a token bundle of firewood as a sign of his willingness to submit to the household discipline required of him when he enters the Gurukula (the family of the Guru) 16, He proves in this way that he is one who has sacrificed all for the wisdom that he prizes more than family and friends. He is therefore a true orphan of God or humanity 17; a stowaway on the cosmic ship, unwanted by society; a radical idealist by inclination. Even if he is of highly respectable parentage he is expected to take no pride in his family traditions. He has transcended and left behind that chapter in his life.

So, like a stray animal pleading for adoption, he appears of his own accord at the Guru's threshold. He is docile, of good manners and of pleasant mien. He is earnest enough and zealous to pay the utmost price for the wisdom he seeks; willing, if need be, to give the loyalty of a lifetime. He does not know wisdom in its completion, but he is aware that there is wisdom. He has, as it were, a foretaste of its value, known in a vague way, and this inkling gives him the impetus, enabling him to take the ultimate step to discover it with whole-hearted aim, come what may. All this is understood and symbolically implied when he knocks at the Guru's door. Thus he is deeply sensitive, but neither timid nor hesitant.

The Brahmacharin of tradition rises before the sun and usually has his morning dip in the nearest river or lake. There is nothing severe about this in a tropical climate. At early dawn he is ready for service at the Guru's bedside. Various kinds of service are exacted from him in keeping with his character as a student. Begging is not taboo provided it is just as much as is needed for elementary bodily needs.

Competition with others in this connection is forbidden, as may be seen from the story of Aruni who was reprimanded by the Guru, as mentioned in the Mahabharata. Extreme tests are sometimes applied 18 until the mutual adoption between the Sishya and the Guru becomes firmly established. It is an educative process, a drawing out, and, without the essential bi-polar adoption recognized on both sides, it must fail.

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Such in outline was the practice employed traditionally, according to the sources at our disposal. The Sishya was not to question the authority of the Guru. It is clear also from the stories concerning Milarepa and others equally famous, whether from the Indian or Tibetan Guru-Sishya literature 19. The testing period over, and adoption complete, proved by service to the Guru or by other methods, all is ready for the instruction, which generally takes but a little time to give. The mantra (sacred syllable or word) is given to the disciple, the Maha-vakyas (Grand Aphorisms) are bestowed, and the climax of the relationship is reached 20.

There is glory in being a Guru, but by its own terms there is greater glory in being a Sishya. The willingness, submission, discipline and extra good breeding implied in the tender strength of the personality of the Brahmacharin is no less a marvel than that of Guruhood. The Brahmacharin is at the beck and call of the Guru. In the Guru's presence he never sits or plays pranks, but rises respectfully when the Guru enters.

In the presence of other elder Gurus he is expected to be modest and only when asked shows off his knowledge. To be requested to sit in the Guru's presence is a rare recognition, gained only in the later period of discipleship. The word 'Upanishad' which means 'to sit beside' (derived from the Sanskrit root 'shad', to sit, and 'upa', near by 21) indicates the privileged nature of the Guru-Sishya institution. It is an instruction to be given only when ritualistic service and works have been rightly performed or transcended. After these comes wisdom (jnana) as a distinct chapter.

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The understanding between the Guru and Sishya is like that of a knight-errant who takes up the gauntlet. A tacit challenge is invoked. The Guru may want something in the middle of the night. The Sishya is not to be caught napping. When the Guru speaks, the Sishya is all ears. As in a well-bred domestic animal, his eyes follow the Guru's least movements. Subtle exchanges must be taken in good faith and in the spirit of a chivalric code of honour. Dogged pursuit of truth is demanded. No retrospective glance of regret is permissible to the strict Brahmacharin. He must gaze ever forwards. The peak has to be conquered, the citadel stormed. Moral courage dare not flag for even a minute. Ever listening, ever wakeful, ever willing to serve, and cut off from every situation irrelevant to the task in hand, the student treads the path. Such is the heroic nature of genuine Sishyahood.

This Sishyahood is in effect qualification for citizenship of the City of Brahman 22, for admission to the mystical acropolis. This is the antithesis of the politics of everyday life. Between two citizenships the disciple must choose. Except in the final context of the highest contemplation, where there is no question of service at all, serving two masters is not possible. In this universal sense, when a pupil becomes a citizen of the Guru-world he is no more bound by nationalisms or other distinctions. Artificial social, class or caste differences no longer affect his conduct. Neither is his racial background of any importance, and even when he does not know the name of his father, as in the case of Satyakama, the son of a maid-servant, he is accepted since he has all the qualifications that are needed: truthfulness and sincerity. He is as if reborn, taken into a new fold, baptised with water, or by the holy spirit of wisdom, or the Holy Ghost; born into a group which transcends social systems, into the new society of the Word-wisdom, thenceforth dedicated, even as Vestal Virgins were dedicated in ancient Rome.

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In such a personality the sacred thread of the twice-born is there, not in the social sense, of course, but truly implicit as a mark of grace for one who is treading the path to Brahman 23, the Absolute. Birth here is irrelevant. He can be a Brahmin merely by adoption of clean living and dedication of life. Generally he clips off the tuft of hair worn ceremonially by caste people on the crown of the head (known as the 'sikha'); or later he may retain it so as to be able to assist at rituals of birth or death. But as far as possible he lets the dead bury their dead and avoids being involved in ritualism. By necessity he may be sometimes involved in a religious ceremony, but he never affiliates himself consciously with the world of priestcraft. His ideal is pure wisdom only, and his path is the negative way (Nivritti Marga), devoid of self-willed activity. Neither has he social duties to perform for the same reason, as his personality is wholly dedicated with unswerving loyalty to the idealism of the Word-wisdom.

An experiment of such an extremely idealistic kind of 'negative education' may come up to the stage of positive fruition, or it may fail. Some detail may be overlooked. The Guru-Sishya relational technique has to conform minutely to a science of its own, to a code which is at the same time traditional - the result of long experience - and dialectically universal. All leakages to other interests have to be blocked and a constant pressure uniformly maintained until results accrue. The nervous system has to be trained to bear the strain of the psychological search. On some occasion, suddenly, the votary may relapse into regret. The soldier has to be removed to a rest-camp. He may have tried his best, but a freer flight into the alone, into the adventure of the unknown, may be too much for his moral stamina to sustain.

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Hence the institutional device of the four Ashramas in India, as base-camps for the pilgrim-mountaineers. Camp IV would be the culmination of the Brahmacharin stage, as taken in its full Sanyasa implications - one who has renounced everything else with the aim of making the last ascent to the freedom of the heights. Camp III would be the Vana-prastha, (literally forest-dweller) here signifying the climber who wants to make the attempt again but needs further recuperation. Camp II would be the Gri-hastha (householder) who is still absorbed in the world of necessity, but who, at the same time, knows there is a mountain to be climbed, and is helpful to those who are on their way. Camp I is the starting-off base, the Brahmacharin camp where all types meet together, some to go forward, others to halt at the different camps.

This Ashrama device was envisaged in view of this possible falling back of Brahmacharins. It should therefore be considered as a contingency device to be viewed from the top, from the Guru-level, and not from the bottom, from the social ground-level: for from the bottom view-point as some have interpreted it, forgetting the Guru-Sishya intention, it might seem that the ascent to the top of the mountain of Self-realization could only be attained by prolonged halts at each of these rest-camp or Ashramas. But the rest-camps have relevance only from the top view, not from the bottom view. Those who can, could - and, as in the case of Sankara and the youths of the Upanishads, did - march right up the mountain, not halting at any of the camps. From being Brahmacharins they became full-fledged sanyasins and, in turn, Gurus themselves.

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The Brahmacharin's weaning from the anterior social background had to be cautiously graded to have healthy results - for otherwise maladjustments would easily set in. With the Ashrama alternatives, viewed thus as merely recuperative rest-camps, no chances were lost, nothing became irretrievable, no career-chance was broken or personality distorted. The Brahmacharin returned to the family life, enriched in spirit, where he could apply some of the values he had learned to appreciate while with the Guru; and might in time bring up his children more in conformity with the Guru-Word, so that they at least might succeed where he himself could not make the grade. A programme of continued assault on the heights was therefore charted, and nothing once gained was really lost, and ground once gained was owned for ever.

Guru and Sishya form the two poles of a process of Self-realization that is essentially an axial relationship. The disciple seeking knowledge - at the cost of his life if need be - touches the foot of the Guru who is established in that high wisdom. In his turn, the Guru blesses the Sishya and touches him on his forehead in recognition of his aspiration. A mutual appreciation each of the other then begins, which results in their further spiritual rapprochement. Finally, all distinctions vanish. The Guru is the Sishya and the Sishya is the Guru 24. They are chips of the same block, sparks from the same anvil, poles of the same magnet, or beams of the same light. Image and original merge into the substance of one and the same integral awareness. All is absorbed again into the silence of the Word 25.

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Thus we see how, in the final stages of the relationship, the tables are turned, the situation transposed. At first it was the disciple who stood at the entrance to the Guru's home, with his symbolic handful of faggots in his hand, and with formulated questions in his mind. With burning doubts, in great distress of mind, he was like the parched earth under the scorching heat of the sun. His position has often been likened to that of a trapped animal with a wild forest fire surrounding him on all sides. His youthful enthusiasm was caught within the ways of social life, all his radical idealism thwarted and bottled up. His state of mind has been compared also to that of a solitary mariner lost in mid-ocean, caught in adverse gales and rocked helplessly in fear and despair. In this nightmare of unknowing darkness he is unable to find the safe harbour on the further shore of life. 20

No sooner is the right relation with the proper Guru established than the weight of anxiety is lifted. The storm abates, the forest fires are extinguished by the cloudburst. The darkness is lifted and the welcome light reveals the longed-for shore and the safe harbour. Blessing from above, the Guru calms the tumult in the breast of the disciple, and calls on him to rise. The Guru utters the Maha-vakyas (great sayings): 'Thou art That; That Self of thine is one with Brahman; Knowledge is Brahman Itself; All is Brahman', etc. And thus, with eyes moist in compassionate understanding, they merge into the pure non-duality of That Word of Truth - SAT AUM.



NOTES
1 The classical example is, of course, in the Katha Upanishad (II, 7-9). Here the Guru (Yama), after testing the young disciple, Nachiketas, says 'Many do not even hear of this teaching, and many, even though hearing never know; hence the expounder is a rare wonder, and the attainer is gifted, and the knower who is properly taught is also a wonder! This (Absolute) cannot be properly understood when taught by a person of inferior understanding, being then given a bias. Unless declared by another (i.e. a qualified Guru) there can be no realization; for this is subtler than the subtle and beyond measurement (not arguable). Not by mere reasoning is this notion reached. But when it is taught by another (i.e. Guru) indeed, 0 dearest friend (prashta) it is easy to know. This (relationship with a Guru) thou hast attained! Ah, thou art of true steadfastness! May there be for us a questioner (prasta) the like of thee. 0 Nachiketas!'

2 Cf. the words of Christ, 'The water I give becomes a spring, welling up to eternal life'.

3 Christ was questioned as to why he had his meals with publicans (or state employees of the Romans). He replied, 'They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.' and 'I will have mercy, and not sacrifice...' (Matthew, IX, 10-13).

There is also the classical case of Socrates who was always in the market-place. The word Agora originally meant not a market-place, but assembly, but the meaning lingered. It was the place of assembly, then a place for trials and meetings, and finally a place for buying and selling.

See Zimmern, 'Greek Commonwealth' (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 3rd ed. 1922) p. 65.

4 See Plotinus' 'Enneads' (VI, ix, 11) by Stephen Mackenna (Medici Society, London, 1917). In his summary in the first volume the translator, in rendering the passage, gave the words as quoted here; but in his final translation in the fourth volume, he gives the rendering: 'the passing of solitary to solitary'.

5 Cf., 'The Milinda Questions' (trans. of T. W. Rhys-Davids in Vol. XXXV, 'Sacred Books of the East', IV, i, 61.) Nagasena, the Buddhist missionary tells King Milinda or Menander of the three ways by which a precious wisdom-teaching can disappear:

'(1) The decline of attainment to an intellectual grasp of it, then even the man who conducts himself aright in it has no clear understanding of it.

(2) The decline of conduct in accordance with it, hence the promulgation of the rules of the discipline ceases, only the outward form of the religion remains.

(3) When the outward form ceases, the succession of the tradition is cut off'. This necessity for continuing the 'succession of the tradition' was recognized by the Buddha as the 'Ancient Way' in the same work, IV, v, 12.

6 Summed up in the Maha-vakya (aphorism) 'Tat tvam asi'(That thou art), as repeated nine times with different examples, to the disciple Svetaketu by his father. Guru Uddalaka in the 'Chandogya Upanishad' (VI Prap. Khandas 8 to 16, inclusive).

7 'The Crest Jewel of Discrimination'('Viveka-Chuda-Mani') is the title of a Vedanta textbook by Sankara.

8 See John, XIII. 4-17.

9 The qualifications of the disciple (and of the Master) are given in many other contexts, but all bear a close resemblance. The interested reader may refer to the following: for the Platonic qualifications, Plato's 'Republic', Book V; for the Christian, instructions to the twelve disciples in Matthew, X, XXIII, as well as elsewhere, e.g., praise of Mary for sitting still and listening to the Guru-Word in Luke, X, 38-42; and for the Buddhist (twenty-five qualifications for the teacher and ten for the disciple - to begin with) in 'The Milinda Questions', IV, i, 8-9.

10 These qualifications will be found in Sankara's important textbook, the 'Viveka-Chuda-Mani', 19-30. They are: (besides the longing for freedom, the intelligence to distinguish with reason between what is real and unreal, and the abandonment of self-will (vairagya) the following six attributes:
1 the calm resting of the mind on the goal to be attained (sama);
2 checking and turning the senses away from distractions (dama);
3 refusing to allow the mind to be carried away by other interests than the global or unitive (uparati);
4 endurance of the troubles incidental to the life of discipline without petulance or self-pity (titiksha);
5 intelligent confidence in the words of the Gurus of the past as preserved in their writings, as well as full trust in the teachings of the present Guru (shraddha: this is often mistakenly called faith, synonymous with blind belief.
Any discerning reader will at once note the vast distinction implicit here.), and finally, 6 constant firm remembrance of the fact of the Real or Brahman, but without curiosity, fancy or imagination, i.e., no hypostatic creations (samadhana).

In the last verse (30) referred to, Sankara utters a warning note that without the true love of liberation from the unreal (mumukshutva), and the surrendering of other diverting interests, these attributes are as useless as a mirage in the desert.

11 Cf. Bhagavad Gita, VII, 3: 'Among thousands of men, one perchance strives for perfection; and even among those who do strive and succeed, scarcely one knows Me in truth'.

12 See Chandogya Upanishad, IV, iv, 1-5.

13 See for example, 'Upadesha-Sahasri' ('A Thousand Teachings of the Guru') Part I, 10-13, where the Sishya is asked why he, as a Brahmachari, calls himself the son of a Brahmin.

14 See Chandogya Upanishad, VI, 1 et seq.

15 See Katha Upanishad, Valli, I.

16 Ref. ff. passages in the Upanishads; Chandogya, IV, iv, 5; V, xi, 7 and VIII, vii, 2; Kaushitaki, I, i; Mundaka, I, ii, 12; and Prasna, I, i.

17 Cf., 'Tao Teh Khing', 20. 'I alone am like one without a home'. In ancient China the emperors were styled orphans because of their lonely position - the 'orphan sons of Heaven '.

18 But not so harsh as those employed by Zen Abbots.

l9 Many of these accounts of Guru-Sishya relationships are now available for the Western reader, due to the patient scholarship of highly qualified translators like Max Muller, Paul Deussen, Rhys Davids, Robert Ernest Hume and Dwight Goddard, etc. Milarepa was a Tibetan saint. See 'Tibet's Great Yogi Milarepa', by W. Y. Evans-Wentz, and 'Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines', by the same author in collaboration with the late Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup (both from Oxford University Press).

20 For examples of the tests in the Upanishads, see Katha, I, 20, ff; Kaush., III, 1; Chand., IV, 2; IV, x, 2; V, iii, 7 and VIII, viii, 4; Brih.,VI, ii, 6 and IV, iii, 1 ff; and Maitr., I, 2. Shankara sums up the situation in a verse (42) of his 'Viveka-Chuda-Mani': 'To him who has sought his protection, who is thirsting for liberation, who duly obeys the injunctions of the scriptures (i.e., including the Sishya duties etc.), who is of a pacified mind, and endowed with calmness,(to such a one) the sage proceeds to teach out of sheer grace'.

21 Cf., Deussen on the meaning of the word 'Upanishad' in his 'Philosophy of the Upanishads' (Clark, Edinburgh, 1906), pp. 10-15. This work is considered by Hume and other scholars to be 'The most systematic and scholarly work on the subject yet produced, executed with a rare combination of linguistic and philosophic qualifications for such a task'(tribute by Hume in 'The Thirteen Principal Upanishads', p. 499, Oxford University Press, 1934).

22 St. Augustine's 'City of God'(in his 'De Civitate Dei') has parallels in other religions. The whole of Book V of the 'Milinda Questions' deals with the City of God or Truth, entrance to which is made by surrendering karma (action, works).

23 Brahman in Sanskrit is neuter and stands for the Absolute. The true Brahmin (Anglicised version of Brahmana, is either a Brahmajnani or knower of the Absolute, or one whose life is dedicated to Brahman.) The definition of the true Brahmin has been made clear in the 'Vajrasuchi Upanishad' (pp. 110-112 of 'Thirty Minor Upanishads', translated by K. Narayanaswami Aiyar, Vasanta Press, Adyar, 1914).

24 Cf., Ramana Maharshi 'God takes the form of a Guru and appears to the devotee, teaches him the Truth and, moreover, purifies his mind by association. The devotee's mind gains strength and is then able to turn inward. By meditation it is further purified and it remains still without the least ripple. That calm expanse is the Self', The Guru is both 'external' and 'internal'. From the 'exterior' he gives a push to the mind to turn inward; from the 'interior' he pulls the mind towards the Self and helps in the quieting of the mind. That is Guru-kripa (grace of the Guru). There is no difference between God, Guru and the Self'. ('Maharshi's Gospel', Sri Ramanashramam, Tiruvannamalai, S. India. 1946, p. 38).

25 Cf., Farid ud-Din-'Attar (12th century Persian Sufi) 'Speech of the Birds'(Mantiq ut' Tayar), an allegorical poem of 4600 couplets, where the pilgrims (typified by various birds) reach the light of the divine Presence and are astounded by realizing that they are the Presence and the Presence their own Self, as in a mirror. They are struck dumb with amazement.

26 See 'Viveka-Chuda-Mani' of Sankara, Verses 35-42 inclusive.



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CHAPTER XIV
THE FAR-FLUNG AFFINITIES OF THE WORD

To follow the Word-formula through its historical vicissitudes calls for a lucidity of imagination and a transparency of memory. Names like intuition, insight, guesswork intelligently undertaken, the yogic eye (or 'Uha-poha' as Sankara terms this kind of intelligence) l - all refer to that rare instrument of knowledge which is able to see reality, as it were, multidimensionally. The contemporary setting of actualities is the resultant of generations of action and reaction, strife and counter-strife. Over and over through vast stretches of time, the opposing interests of humanity, like the drifting, shifting sand dunes of the desert, silting up the wells and oases, choke the living waters of the formulated Word. But the waters are there. For we have the surprising phenomenon in Narayana Guru of the possibility of a Guru of the original type, giving utterance to the same perennial wisdom formula in a modern context, in spite of all the adverse winds that have raged against the Word for ages, proving afresh after thousands of years that the Word can still endure and survive the counter-currents of hard history. Although driven backwards and forwards throughout the more troubled times of history rather than prehistory, the Word has endured, unmistakably present by evidences from far-flung regions and in diverse environments, coursing hither and thither, but surviving and ever and again cropping up into the contemporary surface of human life. These varied contexts indicate the affinities of the living Word, the living waters bubbling up through the sands of history.

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But the pure Word strains have to be distinguished from the freakish accumulative details, often more misleading than illuminative, supplied by the objective disciplines of epigraphy, iconography, archaeology, anthropology, or even philology. For, in spite of these public and publicised methods of investigation, the field for study is teeming with controversy. Generations of devoted scholars have spent their lives labouring in this field where angels fear to tread, but the yogic eye of insight is superior even to that of conventional 'angels', and its depth of penetration exceeds the acutest limits of scholastic vision, delving further into the mists of time.

By producing and joining lines in the a priori productions of their geometry, the ancient Greeks were able to make exact astronomical calculations 2. The spectrum can reveal the composition of starlight and by its shift measure stellar distances; and the radio compass and radar can steer aircraft and ships without landmarks through fog and darkness. In the world of pure thought, similar methods remain unexploited by human intelligence. It is here that contemplative insight has yet to develop its methods and norms. Inner disciplines make effective operational results simpler than is conceivable in so-called 'objective' fields. The possibility of error and consequent disaster being common to both 'insight-objective' science as well as 'outlook-objective' science, there is no reason why inner disciplines should not be properly developed, standing firmly upon their own a priori foundations. Without the support of sense-evidence the science of dialectics was known in classical times both in its ascending and descending modes. This same science of dialectics, contemplatively employed in terms of Self-knowledge, can also be applied, and it is here that the traditional methods and working procedures implicit in the Guru-Word become profitable for examination.

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It was with this unsophisticatedly innocent clarity of insight that Narayana Guru once, while conversing with one of his Muslim admirers, seemingly by way of a pleasantry, made the remark that the name of God in Islam, 'Allah', must have some affinity with 'alla' which in the Tamil and Malayalam languages of South India means 'not this'. Elaborating his meaning, the Guru continued, 'The Supreme is beyond and other than all that we see here'. According to him that was the common meaning to be derived from both 'Allah' and 'alla'. The All-Merciful God of the proto-Semitic peoples was known by the same Word and this must have been retained in Islam by adoption from an old stratum of language. The Guru inquired of his Islamic friend if such an interpretation would be repugnant to the Muslim historians. His friend replied that he could not think of any objection, for, taken together with the main characteristics of Islam which emphasizes belief in a true God, raised above all idolatrous, polytheistic taints, the interpretation of the Guru seemed at least possible and even probable 8.

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When the present writer heard of this conversation, his first impression was that the Guru was laughing at some of the far-fetched constructions and facile obscurantisms indulged in by some philologists, as for example, the statement by some that Christ and Krishna are the same, which is more improbable than impossible.

In his serio-light-hearted manner - according to the reaction of the listener, the Guru repeated this conversation. This time he explained that the difference between the two syllabic forms 'alla 'in Malayalam and 'Allah' in Arabic was really very slight phonetically, the variation only being around the consonant 'L', which after all was a very slight detail. 'Perhaps the man had a potato in his mouth' the Guru jocularly speculated. As the Guru never made jokes for the mere fun of wittiness, nor at the expense of anyone, his remark, though humorous, held a linguistic secret well known to those who study the shifts in speech 4.

It was important for him to trace the affinity of the Word, with his lifetime of contemplation applied to the understanding of its mode of transmission. Hence his half-serious and modest method of suggesting its parentage, indicating the common sources of the spiritual tradition, and how the Word could have been wafted across oceans and deserts even as the wind carries the perfume of flowers over the walls and fences of gardens.

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The affinities of spiritual formulae reveal many mysteries of this order to ethnologists, Egyptologists and others, as is well known 5. Here is the mysterious ground of the Word, where humanity becomes united with strands of invisible horizontal identity, even in the contemporary setting of human life, quite apart from those deep-rooted prehistoric links which represent the vertical affinity, as we endeavoured to trace in Chapter XII.

To be able to see not only affinity but equivalence and agreement where none is apparent to the ordinary non-contemplative vision is one of the features of that yogic eye to which we have alluded. That clearly-focussed eye of rare intelligence discovers the evidences of affinities everywhere. This intellectual vision is a corollary of the integral consciousness of the man of wisdom, from whom, as from the mouths of babes and sucklings, words of wisdom flow in the natural crystalline clarity of truth. Here philosophical profundities agree with infantile prattlings and the naive proverb joins with apocryphal verities as balanced apodictic equations stating factual truths. The luxury of bourgeois spirituality meets the down-to-earth common-sense reasoning of the man in the street. The Word of the Guru speaks from this universally integrated and unitive zone of neutral wisdom. Even his casual remarks thus become pregnant with vital wisdom. A few examples that come to mind will not be out of place here.

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Nilgiri Mountains, Kerala.

 

Once when in Coimbatore, a district adjoining Malabar and falling within the Guru's natural orbit of travel, he called attention, while strolling along the countryside, to the panoramic view of the mile-high Blue Mountains (the Nilgiris). 'Look at that trough-like depression', he said. 'You will find that same characteristic formation in many other places'. The Guru was no geologist, but this matter of contours, stratifications and formations was familiar to him in a general way. It was common sense, but this typical remark illustrates how constantly intent he was on discovering and recognizing similarities wherever they showed themselves. They spoke a language of universal affinities in the mysterious universe that surrounds us. Cosmology, whether appreciated through the medium of relativity, electro-magnetism, gravitational fields or thermodynamics, is mainly a problem of uniting separate observations - the problem of finding affinitive connections to weld all into one harmonious whole. It is the search for the universal agreements, the co-ordination through likeness of the many into the one, the search for the unitive law in the universe. Thus the twinkling of the most distant visible star has its counterpart in the rods and cones of the retina of the human eye, proving that man can be sensitive to even the faintest tremor of light emitted on the periphery of the cosmos. Here is a fundamental affinity wherein mechanics and mysticism meet in a mysterious unity and closer to the real than many otherwise one-sided so-called real facts.

 

The river at Aruvippuram.

The writer also recalls how the Guru made a similar remark when he stayed at a travellers' rest-house outside the hill town of Kandy in Ceylon. Here there was a river descending to the plains, foaming and bubbling over rocks and pebbles. The sound of the little cascades made the Guru feel at home as he noted its resemblance to the scene at his Ashram at Aruvippuram, where as we have seen, he meditated during his early years. Places thus suggested to him the same eternal message as the words of scripture. There were teachings in brooks and sermons in the stones. Like a poet he found himself at home in nature and he even tried to make others feel the same homeliness anywhere in the universe.

 

Kandy, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka)

On another occasion while in the same island of Ceylon, which has so many associations with the civilization of Ancient India, Narayana Guru was visited by an elderly lady of an old Tamil family long resident in Colombo. The present writer was also there and the Guru did not miss the opportunity of noting a resemblance between this old lady and a grandmother of the writer. 'She is just like that grandmother', he said. It is in such casual remarks, and poking pleasantries, with their substratum of parallels and affinities, that the Word of the Guru is to be sought, revealing eternal verities of an intimate kind, as much as in the Guru's formal verses - for a seriousness of principle underlay his lighter sayings as well as his deeply philosophic writings. Even jesting Pilate would have had to wait if face to face with this subtle blend of the commonplace and the unique, the agreement amid apparent variety, the resultant of the Guru-Word in which reality was wed to existence in the Guru's arresting and convincing style.

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The Muslim admirer we mentioned earlier once asked permission, which was readily given, to put the following hard theological question to the Guru:
'People say' he began, 'that human beings enter into salvation, but in spite of this there seems to be no decrease in human population'.
'Perhaps animals get promoted to human status', the Guru suggested.
'Even they do not decrease', the admirer replied and seemed to have won the point.
The Guru asked, 'Who created them?', 'God', the man replied.'And has He now forgotten how to ply His trade? 'asked the Guru.

It was in this half-joking, half-serious way that the Guru met all problems. The Guru-Word by solving problems almost in a childish way thus reduced the chances of ideological conflict. Dr. Johnson once said that poetry came into existence when a child told the story of 'Jack and the Beanstalk'. Naïve childish prattle has the quality that truly enriches language, making it an instrument of happiness and Self-knowledge. It is in this sense that the Word of the Guru in the instance given should be taken.

Every literary device and figure of speech has to be used in the service of the Word, including wit and humour. Each has then its own high role. When employed consciously to exalt and extol the Word-wisdom, literature fulfils its best purpose for man. Without being interpreted too literally, all literary forms - paradox and parable, fable and metaphor, song, chant and magic spell, personification and apostrophe, dialogue and soliloquy - have to be pressed into the service of true Word-wisdom.

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To the contemplative mind everything is a figure of speech and can thus be reduced to a Word-formula. The perfect Word above is the same as the Word of words below in which all words meet, making the music of the spheres. Nominalism or phenomenalism are only words uttered loud or low. Some bang the piano in a tragic frenzy, while others caress the keys with the moth's kiss. Good musicians appreciate both phases; but to the unmusical all is conflicting discord. So with literary devices, innocent or exotic; they are incidental - it is the Word-content that counts. In triumph it proclaims itself through blare of trumpets or by pounding of drums, marking the end of a tragedy. Not always need it be the slow sonorous measures of piety; for even the apparently opposite effect of abandon can stimulate the presence of the good when masterfully employed, as the Guru did when he seems to quarrel with Shiva himself in some of his prayers. He would even seem to be using swear-words against this God, as if challenging him in the language of prehistoric bluster. He thus took liberties in his own way, as a child would with a father; or like Lava and Kusa of the Ramayana epic, who fight their father Rama on the field of battle, even if he is the scion of the Raghu clan 6. But supplication too has its place in the Guru-Word, every bit as much as the self-assertive 'Eigensinn' (obstinate wilfulness) and the seeming arrogance of the 'Maha-vakya' (great formula) which says 'I am Brahman' (Aham Brahma-asmi) - yet containing the ultimate figure of speech of the Word.

No device, no technique that could add to its effectiveness was outside the scope of the Word as employed by Narayana Guru in his writings or speech. Every form of plea or persuasion; shock tactics or gentle suggestion; intimate familiarity or total abandonment - were alternately applied until the required introspection was induced in the subject. Prayer, supplication, adoration, as well as philosophical discussion, were all meant to develop a special state of mind favourable for the prevalence of truth, both intellectually and morally. No style known in the development of Indian thought: whether of Sruti (directly heard Word-Wisdom); Smriti (indirectly heard, remembered wisdom, or wisdom applied to practical situations in life); Purana (traditional lore), Aranyaka (forest injunctions); or Brahmanas (obligatory laws of ritualist life) - is rejected in favour of another by Narayana Guru - but, in accordance with a methodology and an epistemology of his own, all these literary forms have their place in his writings.

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All the Guru's writings call for a contemplative approach which can be an injunction, an admonition or a simple suggestion, according to context, but always for a better human life or understanding - for this is the motive coursing through his writings as a whole. And - lest there should arise confusion of thought because of the many possible avenues of thought - his verses invariably end with an appeal to reason, memory, unity, vision, awareness or kindness. As against sophistry, hair-splitting doctrine or eristic argument, he pleads for the avoidance of vain disputation and recommends the steady, generous way of contemplation. It represents a new approach to truth altogether. Instead of being lukewarm, the Guru's method is wholehearted, almost passionate, one-pointed, radical, fervent, intoxicating or heroic to the extreme. Uninterrupted, constant, faithful, ceaseless, and life-long are some of the other qualities outstandingly revealed in research on the Word of the Guru. In their cumulative effect, all these make of Guru-wisdom a field of knowledge all its own. And although at the same time there may seem nothing very original or altogether new - still there is a synthetic way which is new; an approach which is unique; a living and down-to-earth appeal - a breadth, confidence and bold atmosphere encompassing Narayana Guru's writing which distinguishes it, making it of epochal value. Nowhere does this uniqueness appear with greater force than when the Guru's method of thought is juxtaposed with notions current in the world today. Ever since the telescope became important, theology has receded into the background of general interest while science, by way of the theory of evolution, may be said to have provided the means of distinguishing modern from mediaeval times. There are, of course, also materialism and relativity as other ideologies, but there is little doubt that in place of theology, the master idea prevailing at present and influencing writers and thinkers, is still evolution. So, for a typical example of the clash of contemplation with science, let us pause for a moment and consider the reactions of Narayana Guru to the theory of evolution.

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The writer was then a student of zoology and had just sat for a degree on that subject in the University. During the summer holidays that followed, he happened to be standing in the presence of the Guru, discussing, as usual, some philosophical subject. This time it was zoology that was involved.

'What does that European pundit say?' the Guru inquired, referring to Darwin and his famous theory,
'Does a monkey become a man?'
'Such at least is the theory', the writer responded.
'Has anyone in the forest seen a monkey changing into a man?' the Guru continued, but went on, 'Perhaps he would say that the process was too slow, so that, like the movement of the hands of the clock, one could scarcely notice it'.

The conversation drifted to other examples of animal life. The writer mentioned the case of the hermit crab and described to the Guru how it would scoop out the flesh from the shell of a mollusc and then insert its own soft abdomen into it for protection, and thus live like a hermit, disappearing into the shell on approaching danger of any kind. 'But why not leave the hermit crab to be just like that? Why explain its natural history at all?' the Guru asked.

Facts according to the Guru had to be treated as facts, plainly conceived from the phenomenal material point of view, and nothing more. When this strictly objective, experimental or empirical position of the scientist is rejected for any reason, what then is the next valid alternative? An endless series of compromises between extreme rationalism and empiricism becomes possible to an impartial thinker, and any one of these would have as much validity as any other.

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The article of faith of the evolutionist has itself undergone much change since Darwin adumbrated it. He called it a theory to explain the origin of species, but his ultra-enthusiastic disciples went further. Some called it even the 'fact' of evolution. Most of them treat it as a corollary of natural philosophy. Being of the nature of a hypothesis it can even be called a credo, a cultus or doctrine. Then in the hands of Bergson, evolution became almost like the Maya of the Vedanta, the principle underlying change or becoming. Add to these all the other possible variants, such as parallel, emergent, or mutatory evolution, and we find that belief in the theory does not mean anything definitely fixed. It can only be said to be a position which denies the theory or doctrine implied in the Old Testament book of Genesis. Since its character has thus a negative derivation, it has the same status as the doctrine or view it opposes. Fossils and samples of comparative anatomies are found in museums or biological laboratories as concrete facts but, whether because these samples are facts, the interpretation of the origin of different species of animals also becomes a fact of general agreement, is a matter upon which even authorities seem to be confused. Dogma persists in domains where we least expect it.

When Narayana Guru asks a modern student of science the simple question: 'What is it that evolves, life or matter?' and goes on to say that if it is life that evolves, that is a truism; while if it is matter that evolves, that is impossible by very definition; we have a new way of reasoning which is neither that of the "Age of Reason" of Voltaire 7 nor of the "Age of Theology" of the Scholastics. The modern mind can hardly find a relevant answer to the objections when thus stated.

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To find an answer to these questions demands an intellectual discipline of quite another kind. This is referred to as the higher reason, imaginative insight, and so on; but the nature of this kind of reasoning is still undefined, although many have recognized the need for it 8.

Although with Bergson intuitive reasoning again got another lease of life, its place in the general scheme of philosophical methodology and epistemology remains as vague as ever to the modern mind. In the science of the Word or the science of the Absolute, the contemplative or intuitive way is the only legitimate means to use. Although scientific theorising may serve a limited purpose - each supposition giving a more or less plausible answer according to practical requirements - no final answer comes by the use of this method. To be a sceptic and to know that there is a kind of natural boundary to reasoning is as far as this type of science dares to go. The schoolboy who sees a candle burn is allowed to ask 'how', but is discouraged from asking 'why' it burns. The schoolmaster has to refer the pupil to another teacher who may be confident enough to try to answer such questions, And generally, unless he is that rare being, the scientifically trained contemplative, such teachers degenerate into replying with the puerile forms of dogmatism that civilization has just outgrown. Thus we see that our age of scientific reason is up against a dead end. A new and bolder form of reasoning is now called for - a form of reasoning admitting much more than just imagination, a form of reasoning that will touch the most concrete aspects of science - not omitting the field held by such theories as that of relativity.

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And if this is the case with regard to the future of scientific investigation, how much more so it must be in the pursuit of the affinities of the Word which we are trying to trace. Let us therefore proceed a step further in the direction we initiated at the beginning, exposing to view some of the axial routes of the dialectical re-formulation of the Word in a bold, imaginative general way, but in so doing, not losing sight of actualities.

Prior to the age of the Tower of Babel, archaeologists begin to get lost in the haze of time. Objective evidence absorbs their energies and devotion. A larger view, a bolder flight, a living and open or transparent method of approach is called for. Word affinities have to be traced by form as well as by content. To take the example of heredity, we see that living organisms repeat themselves through a different mechanism than that of the formation of crystals in suitable solutions and other conditions. The crystalline growth is a purely quantitative material repetition of form; while the growth of life and its transmission from one living organism to another has to be conceived vitalistically in terms of qualitative factors which are subtler and elude measurement. Hence form and content both have to be considered in tracking the Word back through time.

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A song once sung can remain recorded on celluloid or metal tape for years. It can be repeated mechanically. That is the form. But whether the music will appeal or not to the hearers is a different matter. That is the content, the quality factor. Hence mechanistic preservation alone of the Word does not suffice. And in tracing Word-affinities the living content of the Word-formula has to be kept in mind. The Word represents an ever-present personal value in life. It satisfies and liberates us. It is therefore with these main directives in our minds that we here enter into a survey of the Word-formula, to trace its history and affinities in far-flung and disjunct contexts.

Natural and impenetrable barriers have preserved India in such a way as to give the land a personality all its own. It is a strange compromise of vertical factors having profound Word-values, preserved through time and only moderately affected by factual cross-breezes of strife. This peculiarly personalized isolation applies all the more forcibly when we come to think of the extreme South-West of India, that Malabar Coast where the Guru Narayana, like Sankara, lived and taught against a background of prehistoric Shiva-worship.

We have already touched upon some of these aspects. Land invasions of India for the most part came from the North, while the extreme southern limits of the country were connected with distant lands only by adventurous mariners. From time to time these bold visitors from afar had the effect of injecting new elements into the traditional social fabric. In this way, alternately stimulated and enriched in small effective doses, with intervening rest periods during which the stimuli were absorbed through long centuries, the West Coast remains to this day a zone of life-expression which contains the remnants of all the varied stratifications of history, like outcroppings of rocks, side by side, as it were. Disturbances originating and affecting the North of the Indian land-mass were absorbed by the main bulk of the country long before the shocks reached the southern toe of Mother India; while sea-borne social influences were sufficiently gradual to be more or less negligible in the far South, leaving only small clotted ganglia of distinguishable social units. This was true of the main western coastal region of the south; while in the furthest South-West, over the high mountain barriers of the Western Ghats, and also due to forest and climate, the social stability of the people for ages prior to written history remained intact and unaffected by the turmoil and change taking place in the more exposed territory in the rest of India.

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For these reasons, as well as the psychological effect of a contemplation-inducive climate, certain Word-values linking the present to the most distant epochs of antiquity have been preserved in these southern regions.

 

In blue, the Spice-Wine Axis; in red, the Silk Road.

If one could revivify the spice-and-wine axial link connecting Alexandria, Antioch, Athens and Rome with the ancient Malaya, which is the modern Malabar Coast, many of the riddles of the Word and its affinities would leap into a new and surprising solution. Some of the historico-philosophical puzzles would no longer be baffling. For example, the following would all find appropriate relationship, would no longer be isolated questions: the background of Socrates; the secret of the emergence of the Pythagorean communities who were both vegetarians and believers in metempsychosis; the sources of the ontological hylozoism of the Eleatic and Ionian philosophers from whom Plato drew so much of his doctrines; why Plato's dialectics had to be given a new turn by his own disciple Aristotle to become once again matter-of-fact in the pre-Socratic way; and then the explanation of the amazing phenomenon of Plotinus, whose personality and teachings are so characteristically those of an Indian Guru, in whom all the philosophical waters of the Eastern Mediterranean seemed to meet as in a great calm sea - Plotinus who is so Indian in temperament and yet reflecting the cooler atmosphere of the Italian coast. One by one these puzzles would be solved if we imaginatively conjure up and re-establish the Mediterranean-Malabar trade axis along which, to and fro, much more than gold and wine, pepper and ivory, were transported. The clue to begin with might well be the Guru of Plotinus, the mysterious Ammonius Saccus, whose very name suggests the sack porter who followed this great East-West trade route in the guise of a peddler or a carrier of bags of pepper.

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If we could tread the thorny field of the Biblical landscape, we would discover how it is possible to reconstruct more imaginatively those events which can throw the necessary light on the dialectical process of the revaluation of the Word as it was wafted across desert sands and ocean billows; by the camel caravan routes to the meeting-places or synodiai at Antioch in Syria on the shores of the Mediterranean, or by ships to Egypt via the Red Sea 9.

 

Ancient Routes of Trade and Cultural Exchange.

 

The four Great Civilisations of Asia.

 

Archaeologists, Assyriologists and Egyptologists study each piece of the jigsaw puzzle more or less in isolation in almost nationalistic terms, relating finds to kings and dynasties. But even in ancient times the world was one - and particularly so for the Word that knew no frontiers or monarchs. Archaeological specialists therefore miss the human, dynamic, or dialectical secret that fuses the many obscure separate facts into one living whole; for across the warring separate kingdoms and independent of the political rivalries, life hummed intensely backwards and forwards across the spice-wine axis. Hence it is only when this connecting welding axis is inserted into the picture of the ancient world that it leaps to life and the whole has relevant movement and meaning, thus solving the many conundrums of history, religion and philosophy, and disclosing what is important for us, namely the universalising of the Word. For if the old Biblical world is fitted into the Indian counter-world - to that Eastern world which has changed comparatively little while the old Jewish world has perished as a living substance for direct evidences - and if at the same time the axial commercial link is kept in mind, then the darkness surrounding most of the Biblical records is to a large extent, if not totally, dispersed. We have to conjure up a world of courageous and adventurous travellers, sailors and caravan leaders, fond of making easy money by smuggling not only goods but people across difficult frontiers.

139
To take a few of these Biblical enigmas drawn from the Old and New Testaments, as for example: the myrrh and spices produced by Nicodemus and so easily available; that group of women, the Marthas and Marys who seem always so in fear of the Jews; the 'miraculous' production of barrels of wine; the Flight into Egypt and how it was managed; the burning bush; the angels who differed from the prophets about commandments or idolatry; the Golden Calf; the 'resurrection' of Lazarus from a cave-tomb, later paralleled almost exactly in the case of Jesus himself; the Wise Men of the East, and the pillar of smoke by day and of fire by night - all of these illustrative riddles find a solution in the light of what we have said, and one which is at least theoretically as plausible and as valid in its own way as the theory of evolution whose status we have discussed 10.

140
Without violating more or less accepted possibilities, the Healer himself can be imagined to have come and gone along this route or axis more than once at least. The doubting disciple Thomas is believed to have founded seven churches on the Malabar Coast as early as the first century of the Christian era. Whether this is true actually as claimed or not, some probabilities in the same direction are indisputable. Of all the coasts available to such a founder of churches, whoever it may have been in actual history, the simple fact remains that churches were founded on the Malabar Coast, which is sufficiently suggestive for our purposes here. Gnostic, Nestorian, Egyptian, Persian, Arab, Jewish, Greek and Manichean groups came to this coast and founded colonies here, preserving contact with their motherlands. Their colonies and ethnological traits are impressed indelibly on the fabric of the population of Malabar 11.

The hum of life across the Erythraean Sea must have endured through several centuries and, while worldly goods were being busily exchanged, the dialectical process of the revaluation of the Word must also have gone on apace, as revealed by the affinities such as the instance alluded to by Narayana Guru. But phonetics was not the only factor involved; a variety of considerations have to be treated together imaginatively and impartially.

141
Authorities have found it quite reasonable to think that Jerusalem could have derived its name from 'Uru' and 'Salem', both of which retain their original meaning in a suggestive manner as pertaining to a prehistoric context. Though the evidence is as yet disjunct and incomplete, the resemblance is at least curious and striking, considering that 'Uru' in Tamil means 'city' and 'Salem' might very well apply to a temple city, as in the case of the present-day city of that very name in South India. These and other matters of the same kind are rife with speculation 12. Nevertheless, however controversial the nature of the questions involved may be, this should not deter us from seeing the similarities that suggest affinities which, in the light of what we have said about the great Malabar-Mediterranean axis, does lend some plausibility to the existence of linguistic relations, and even to dialectical, spiritual or contemplative formulae belonging to the context of perennial wisdom. Hence such study is interesting for its own sake.

142
However, probabilities become more than just possible when such facts as the evidence of diplomatic relations existing between the Roman Emperor Augustus and the Pandya ruler of the South-West Coast of India as early as 20 BC are considered cumulatively 13. Recent excavations in South India have unearthed treasure-trove revealing unmistakably the intimate relations then existing between East and West l4.

Research in South India will bring out many more surprises of this kind for the future historian who accepts and works on the basis of the hypothesis we have suggested, the underlying principle of which is the existence from of old of a reciprocal and subtly dialectical relationship between the head and tail ends of the dragon called civilization. But this must be conceived imaginatively through the Word-affinities underlying all the given or yet-to-be-uncovered evidence, for all such concrete facts will only lead us astray if unguided by the framework which is based on the Word-formula. The whole field of historical research needs re-examination, not merely in a truly scientific spirit, but with the light thrown upon history by the higher insight of contemplation.

143
Besides its double-filtered isolation by mountain ranges and a mighty ocean, the Malayalam-speaking coastal region of the South-West of India had - and to a great extent still has - other features which helped to maintain the calm cultivation and the preservation of vertical Word-values intact. These special features are of a cultural, climatic and sociological nature. They are of such special significance to the Word of the Guru that if they were omitted from reference, the Word would be like salt that had lost its savour.

In this South-Seas-like palm-beach part of the world, the temperature year in and year out, and throughout the twenty-four hours, comes as near to that of body temperature as can be expected under natural conditions of rain and winds. The rain-fed crops upon which the population mostly thrives, such as yams; and the coconuts and spices such as pepper and cloves, so cherished even in prehistoric times; supplemented with abundance of fish in the sea, inland lakes (the Backwaters) and rivers, have made luxury items meet necessary ones in a beautifully blended compromise in the daily life of the people. As De Quincey was able to note, among his other subtle remarks in his opium dreams, man himself seemed to be a weed in these parts, as distinct from the cultivated plant that he tended to be in the West.

Exotic hothouse products were striking in the West, but the land-supported populace of the Malabar Coast could hold its own with almost nothing monetary to its credit at all. Buildings need no heating, while a palm-leaf hut was even better, in many respects, than a brick and tile structure.

144
Half-nakedness was normal, and too many clothes made no sense either on women or children. The open air was better to sleep in than a luxury bedroom, just as the numerous pools and streams were better than well-fitted bathrooms. All could share in such nature-provided luxury without the question arising of dinars or dollars. Season after season the land supported the families, and invading drums often meant nothing to them when in most places there was nothing to rob, no treasure to loot. Gardens grew the vegetables needed for the table. The pineapple gave its luscious fruit unwatered and untended, and even when one ate it and threw the top away on some soil, it would most likely strike root, survive and thus provide fruit for yet another human mouth, as if from the hands of the Supreme Goodness itself, as Narayana Guru used to say. Women were satisfied with ear ornaments of lac or palm-leaf. Gold was not even desired as embellishment. Palm-leaf umbrellas continue to be used to-day, in spite of a civilization thriving all round ready to encroach into the quiet precincts of this almost prehistoric self-sufficient simplicity. Even now the postman still has a hard time delivering a telegram to an anxious young wife whose husband may be on military service somewhere; for the postman would have to cross many a pool or muddy puddle, through rice fields and over narrow stiles to reach houses with no streets or serial numbers or any such mechanical distinguishing marks. The huts are often hidden because of clustering giant banana trees and palms of many kinds, nestling from view in the lush foliage through which sun-tanned children, clothed only in thin air, may be seen peeping out with innocent wide eyes. Life flourishes here by the bounty of nature, and in spite of all that is against it, the average man's life in this demi-paradise is thus equal to a prayer in a cathedral elsewhere. Such a picture is as true now as it ever was before, stretching back past the dawn of human history, and therefore the language that these people understand is the language of humanity. Such is the sociological, geographical and biological background of the Word of Narayana Guru.

145
To complete this quiet idyllic picture where vertically-growing human values were preserved through the sheer abundance of favourable circumstances, we must fit in another strand of the setting - a group of circumstances which now and then had the effect of a lancet opening up a tumour. The ships came from afar, bearing ruthless, strange and often greedy adventurers. But even a highway robber is good in his own way. If not to all the world he is at least obliged to be true and loyal to his fellow-ruffians. These were men fully alive to the value of commodities of all sorts. Gold was exchanged for spices, and wine and women were mixed up in their minds as they were exchanged or bartered the one for the other to satisfy the appetites of men on a large scale. Apart from other evidence, popular proverbs to this day preserve something of the atmosphere that must have prevailed. To weigh a man or a woman in gold was a familiar deal. A bag of spice when it reached a distant land, one to four months away in time, equated itself in terms of gold at the port of delivery. In Malabar 'To go to Kollam' (the modern Quilon in Travancore) was 'to lose one's Illam' (i.e., family honour), and 'To go to Cochi' (as Cochin is called) meant 'to forego one's Achi (woman)'. Women seem to have been treated in terms of commodity-value and included as an article of export or import with the connivance or for the pleasure of luxury-loving monarchs in different parts of the world 15.

Artists and philosophers moved with buccaneers, pirates and prostitutes in ships or caravans across these dialectical axes between the Mediterranean world and the Spice Coast of India, Monsoon winds did not deter them, nor did the dry desert sands where only manna (which some identify as a species of lichen) could keep them alive. Some women transported thus adorned distant harems, and often used their good offices to patronise and protect an itinerant philosopher of the type with which India then abounded, especially after the Buddhist period. Some went abroad as porters (as we have noted in the case of Ammonius Saccus, the Guru of Plotinus); others probably were tent-menders or camel-keepers, or as clerks and storekeepers. Old medicine-men or healers like Nicodemus rubbed shoulders with merchant magnates or turbaned princes.

146
Coming and going in this way for centuries, a subtle Word-dialectics developed along the commercial axis connecting the Ganges, Euphrates and Nile into one unit, as described by Dante. This dialectics has influenced the history of thought in mysteriously effective ways. Although this dialectical transmission can be traced also along the silk road across Tibet to the Pacific shores of China; and again from another aspect, across the wilderness of central Asia to the plains of Europe and eventually to the Venice of the Doges in the Middle Ages of the West - as shown by the discoveries of explorers and scholars like Stein, Teichman, Lattimore and Yule 16 - its colour and complexion there took on a more subdued and recessive character, although again South Indians played a major role in carrying the Magi-treasure of the Word 17.

147
For, at least during the historical context of the last three millennia, the head of the dialectical dragon of Word-wisdom seems to have been turning more and more westwards. The great rivers and seas formerly - and now the continents of the air - are the backbones of this dragon-axis of the Word, whose head hides now under the very shadow of the tall buildings where modernism expresses itself most dominantly today.

148
How far have we to think back to take in the whole amplitude of the long process of the formulation of the Word? Here, to a large extent, we have to rely upon linguistic evidence. Prof. Max Mueller and other authorities since his time have convincingly drawn the attention of the West to the fact that India, which gave the world the so-called Arabic numerals and the decimal value to the Zero, held also many philological secrets which made her a sort of elder sister to all others coming later. India was thus the key to open many locked doors in scientific and philosophic thought; and in the light that India could shed, many problems could be solved or simplified 13. This was true, Max Mueller said, not only philologically, but by the style of expression of homely thoughts in a characteristic time-honoured way which was recognizable in the fables of Aesop and elsewhere 19.

149
If this is true of India as a whole, it is all the more true of the extreme South. The affinities of the Word, if thus traced, would help us to see how the joking remark of Narayana Guru to which we alluded at the beginning assumes a more and more reasonable light of probability.

 

 

The languages of South India, collectively known as the Dravidian group (including Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Tulu, Kota, Toda, Telugu), as well as the central Dravidian group (consisting of Gondhi, Kurukh, Malto, Bhil, Kolami and Naiki), and also inclusive of an ancient Dravidian remnant in Baluchistan known as Brahui, have all unmistakable prehistoric affinities which take us back from four to eight thousand years before Christ 20. There are in language peculiar interjections, maintained especially by the peasantry, with vowel or consonant intonations, doublings and other features: all having a homely personality of their own which subtly flavour a living language and elude exact definitive research based only on outward evidences 21. It is akin to the memory-recognition of tone and sound whereby a dog knows its master's voice. Pure memory, as we have tried to show, thereby supports itself on such a priori elements; and when such pure memory is given attention it conveys convincing meanings and indicates kinships - all charged with depth of understanding concerning puzzling relationships otherwise inexplicable.

150
The unique approach to matters of historical affinities that we have recommended and developed in this chapter of our work will enable us to discover what evidence is relevant amid the many varied and miscellaneous items, as a magnet can quickly find the iron filings in a huge mass of sawdust; and in this way we can now perhaps see clearly the evergreen nature of the Word-formula as it has expressed itself in the naturally favourable environment of South India.

Traced backwards to its pristine, natural, source, such evidence gains in volume of convincing character as we approach the essential Word in its purity and simplicity. In later periods philosophy is of the nature of an elaboration of a fundamental human truth, a human truth known to the humblest members of the race from time immemorial 22. The South Indian contemplative matrix, the soil of spirituality, once again repeats the same simple Word-formula through its representative Guru Narayana, in whom many aspects of philosophical speculation from widely-dispersed regions of the world come together focally to neutralize themselves in the simplicity of a brilliant zero. Many are the problems that in this way become simplified. Let us, for example, take Dionysius, around which name veil upon veil of mystery is enshrouded. It is the name of the nature-god of the ancients. The same name continues to be applied to various divinities or semi-human heroes or mystical personalities. The very fact that a cultured Greek, Megasthenes, who came to India as an Ambassador in 302 BC, at once recognized the affinities between this ancient Greek divinity and Shiva, although discredited by many writers, holds out a challenging suggestion 23.

151

 

Dionysius.

Dionysius was variously called the Divine Bacchus, the Young Tyonée, Evan, Iacchus and Lenée 24. The elephant, tiger, bull and tree are associated with this divinity, as with Shiva. His relations with women votaries and the manner of his espousal with Ariadne, the daughter of the snake- and bull-worshipping Minos of Crete 25; his visit to India and the mystery plays at Eleusis near Athens 26, from where the name seems to have passed on into the closed Christian preserves, through Dionysius the Areopagite, sometimes mistaken for Dionysius the theologian, (called the 'pseudo-Dionysius') 27 - all these offer interesting titbits for thinkers in tracking the Word-affinities too complicated to enter into here.

152
To turn to another part of what is the same mystery, we find in the New Testament John the Baptist wearing 'camel's hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins' 28, or even the Prophet Elias or Elijah, who was another hermit and 'a hairy man dressed in skins' 29 - both apparently belonging to the prehistoric context of the Word. St. Denis, the patron saint of France and Bishop of Paris - who is also Dionysius in Latin - honoured by the earliest kings of France, must also be considered as belonging to the same potent influence of the Word, with its affinities reaching far into modern spirituality itself.

Our object here is not to prove anything or to displace any view that may now be accepted. It is rather to look at the same facts from a new angle, in a more contemplative manner which involves and employs pure memory-factors dynamically, rather than by the more usual way of viewing them statically or mechanistically. What are called proofs often prove nothing of any value; whereas integrative affinities, understood generously with the contemplative imagination, can only strengthen bonds between one race and another, between one tradition and another.

153
The spiritual treasures for which some are willing to lay down their lives must be recognized in common human terms. And, if approached humanly, with common understanding as the aim in view, our manner of studying the Word-affinities as indicated here may be helpful. Until we discover that we are of one true blood, we may see brightnesses because of divergences in the actual factual conditions; but with greater inward light we shall see the common one-Word-factor lighting up all the modes, only varying in given situations. If a common-sense proof was insisted upon we could think of no more valid one than the average South Indian peasant. Imagine a Christian missionary approaching him with the Bible, intent on preaching the Gospel of Christ. To the peasant the language, the style, the phraseology and the figures of speech would present no problems. Indeed they would all seem homely and would ring familiarly in his ears. And this applies not only to the texture of the Old Testament but also to the dialectical subtleties of the Christian scriptures, such as the almost Vedantic-sounding chapters of St. John's Gospel. The opening lines of St. John, 'In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God' would have the same authentically familiar ring as his own time-honoured spiritual language.

Even the parables and figures of speech have the same homely note. Although it sounds unfinished and queer in the English version, 'Blessed are the poor in spirit' 30 speaks a home truth when translated into any Indian language. Add to these the innumerable other suggestive features of a miscellaneous nature such as: baptising with water; anointing with oils and spices; eating loaves and fishes; speaking to a woman at the well; rolling up one's bed and walking away with it; washing the feet of guests and out of faith wiping them with one's hair; and such items as burnt offerings; the anointing of dressed-up stones; the pillar of light; the fig tree under which Jesus met John and the parable of a fig tree and that of the mustard seed; the offering of fruits; and vinegar drinking and even living on 'locusts' (carob beans, ED) and wild honey in caves in the hills and wildernesses - all these sound not at all out of place or exotic to the ears of the Indian peasant.

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And so is that 'Kill not!' commandment, so often explained away in the West, rightly received by him 31. The preaching of Christianity to the country people of India gives rise to a situation which is not without its humorous side; an aspect which is not missed by the shrewd common man or woman who listens to the fervent preacher of a 'true religion' who wants to save the souls of the audience by teaching them what they already accept almost instinctively without question. The 'message', after going the rounds of time and space, returns to its original home where it has always been part of the mental climate.

As the elder sister - or mother - in the preservation of the Word in its pure Vedanta form, India and particularly South India in her great Word-representative, the Guru Narayana, accepts all reality implicit in the holy Word, as Brahman or Logos, silently assenting in the all-embracing formula of Aum or Amen.



NOTES
1 Sankara's 'Viveka-Chuda-Mani', 16. 'medhavi purusho vidvan-uha poha-vichakshanah; adhi-karya-atma-vidyaya-mukta-lakshana-lakshitah'. 'A superior man of wisdom, well-versed and fully specialized in intuitive understanding, where analogy and its subject are involved, and one qualified for Self-knowledge'.

2 The theorems of the Greek mathematician Euclid (c. 300 BC) still constitute the basis of modern geometry. But he was only one of a band of famous Greeks who can be traced back to the Eleatic philosophers, to Zeno (4th cent. BC) and Pythagoras (6th cent. BC). Thales (6th cent. BC) predicted the eclipse of the sun of May 28th, 585 BC.
Eratosthenes (3rd cent. BC) was the director of the famous Library at Alexandria, and measured the circumference and axial tilt of the earth and the size and distance of the sun and moon. All these ancient geniuses based their daring scientific flights on a priori logic drawn by inheritance from the contemplative training of the Pythagorean-Zeno Eleatic School.

3 In the Islamic world, the great Sufi poets have made wide use of those verses in the Holy Quran, 'God was, and there was naught but He, and it is now even as it was then'. and 'He is Allah beside whom there is none who should be served, the Knower of the unseen and seen; He is the Beneficent, the Merciful. He is Allah beside whom there is no God, the King, the Holy, the Author of Peace, the Granter of Security, Guardian over all, the Mighty, the Restorer of every loss, the Possessor of every greatness; high is Allah above what they set up with Him. He is Allah the Maker of all things, the Creator of all existence, the Fashioner of all images - His are the most excellent and beautiful attributes (that man could imagine); everything that exists in the heavens or in the earth declares His glory and His perfection, and He is the Mighty, the Wise'. (Quran, LIX, 22-24).

For an example of Sufi poetry which introduces the non-duality implied, we give a quatrain from the works of Abu Sa'id ibn Abi'l-Khayr (967-1049): (trans. by Ed. G. Browne).

'The Gnostic who hath known the Mystery,
Is one with God, and from his Selfhood free:
Affirm God's Being and deny thine own:
This is the meaning of 'no God but He'.'

4 Modern comparative philologists recognize that the doublings of vowel or consonant sounds can indicate deep-seated affinities between different ancient languages. Father W. Schmidt's works ('The Culture-Historical Method of Ethnology', 1939; 'Primitive Revelation', 1939; etc.) show how affinities can be revealed 'through phonetic traits such as the distinctions between voiced and voiceless consonants' etc. (Cf. also articles in 'Encyclopaedia Britannica' under 'Philology').

5 According to D. Nielsen (see p. 5, Vol. V, Mythology of All Races: Archaeological Institute of America, Boston, USA., 1931) the South Arabian deity ILAH or IL, which is also the common Semitic word for God and corresponds to the Hebrew and Aramaic deity EL or ELOHIM, is one of the names of the Moon God. The North Arabic ALILAH - ALLAH, who became the supreme and only God of the Muslim religion, and EL or ELOHIM of the northern Hebrew tribes, who became the deity of Hebrew monotheism, would thus also originally denote the ancient prehistoric Moon God.

6 See Uttara Kanda of Valmiki's 'Ramayana'.

7 The attitude implicit in what is called the Age of Reason can be seen from the following quotations. Writing on the earthquake in Lisbon in 1755 ('Poème sur le Désastre de Lisbonne') Voltaire said:

'Mais comment concevoir un Dieu, la bonté même,
Qui prodigua ses biens à ses enfants qu'il aime,
Et qui versa sur eux les maux à pleines mains?

Un sophiste arrogant nous dit qu'il ne l'a pu:
'Il le pouvait, dit l'autre, et ne l'a point voulu:
Il le voudra, sans doute' et, tandis qu'on raisonne,
Des foudres souterrains engloutissent Lisbonne...'

('Can we conceive a God beneficent,
Upon his children's happiness intent,
Yet on them sorrows sparing not to heap?

His power to mend the sophist loud denies.
'He wanted but the will', another cries.
And while the disputants their views proclaim,
Lisbon is perishing in gulfs of flame'.)

8 After the Age of Reason typified by Voltaire we find that scepticism itself changes its rigid adherence to mere facts. This can be gathered from the following taken from Tyndall (1820-1893) who said: 'If you ask him (the materialist) whence this 'matter' of which we have been discoursing, who or what impressed upon this the necessity of running into organic forms, he has no answer. Science is mute in reply to these questions. But if the materialist is confounded, who else is prepared with a solution? To whom has this arm of the Lord been revealed? Let us lower our heads and acknowledge our ignorance, priest and philosopher, one and all'. (see 'Fragments of Science for Unscientific People', 1871).

The same physicist, besides admitting the helplessness of science, believed in the need for 'imagination' (by which he could mean none other than what we have tried to establish above as the new contemplative way of envisaging verities). Of this 'imagination' he further says:
'There are Tories who regard imagination as a faculty to be feared rather than employed. They had observed its action in weak vessels and were duly impressed by its disasters. But they might with equal justice point to exploded boilers as an argument against the use of steam'.

9 The name 'Red Sea' was formerly the 'Erythraean Sea', and was applied to the whole Indian Ocean by the ancient European mariners. Then it was applied only to the Arabian Gulf, and finally it was restricted to its present limits. Great ports, like Berenike in Egypt on the Red Sea, and the port of Muziris (Cranganore) on the Malabar Coast may not find a place on the world map of today, and may have shrunk to the status or insignificant villages; but they were thriving world centres in the world of antiquity - vide 'The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea' translated by W. H. Schoff (Longmans Green, New York, 1912).

10 The suggestive allusions in this paragraph should not be looked upon - at present at least - as any elaborate rival theory to existing and prevailing notions. When we read in the Bible (Matthew, IX, 6; Mark, II, 9-12) 'take up thy bed and walk' it evidently fails to make sense in a Western context. In the warm climate of South India where it is usual to carry light matting bedding from place to place, this would make better sense. Prof. Max Muller is one of those experts who have been able to trace many modern fables from Europe to their sources in India. His philological insight and intuition were responsible for these epoch-making findings. The same kind of mental operation can be applied to the various mysteries of the Biblical context. Real piety would not suffer by such insight, but would rather be enhanced, since religion and philosophy must support one another rather than be at loggerheads. We have expressly left the mysteries unsolved in the above paragraph. In the light of the previous discussion it is for the reader to closely scrutinize the passages referred to and see if there is any better understanding of them in the light of the spice-wine axis against whose background we have placed these problems. It will serve no purpose here to enter into the merits of each of the enigmas listed, since each one would involve much preliminary discussion. Some student interested in this aspect of history may perhaps take this up for further investigation at a future date.

11 In passing, we might mention the existence of another commercial- cultural axis linking up the Malabar Coast this time with China and the Far East. Chinese admirals in huge armadas of fifty ships have been known to visit Malabar. (Prof. Duyvendak, an eminent Sinologist of Leyden University gave a series of lectures in London in 1948, since published in book form as 'China's Discovery of Africa'; in which he mentions an expedition in the early 15th century, consisting of 62 ships bearing 37,000 men. Their motive was partly to exalt Chinese prestige, partly to acquire curiosities for the court, 'sent a-shopping for the ladies of the Imperial harem'. The Chinese too left their legacy on this trader's coast, and today one may see the pagoda-roofs, typical Chinese evidences in tiles, canoes, fishing-boats and fishing-nets, and unmistakable Mongolian faces amongst the people.

12 The following is a sample of the authoritative speculation employed in dealing with Old Testament linguistics:
'Hosea (X, 14) in a hopelessly corrupt passage preserves the name of Shulman. Since Ishtar of Assur is called Shulmanitu, 'She is the city of Shulman', it is obvious that the Assyrian god is identical with the name of the same city, as Adad was called Iluhallabu, after the city of Aleppo. Shulmanu and Shalman are probably identical with the ancient name of Jerusalem or Shalem where Melkizedek was king and priest of the god El, in the days of Abraham (21st century BC). The name of the city was written 'Salem' in the correspondence of Abdihiba, King of Jerusalem, with Amenophis of Egypt in the 15th century, but with the Sumerian prefix Uru (city) and consequently U, ru, sa, lim replaced the older name before the age of Moses, and became Jerusalem of the later period', Cf., 'Mythology of All Races', Vol. V. (Langdon, Boston, 1931).

13 H. G. Rawlinson, the famous historian, quotes Strabo, the 1st century Greek geographer who mentions the reception given to the Pandyan ambassador in Rome by the Emperor Augustus (Strabo, Geography, XV,73).

Rawlinson also quotes Pliny's 'Natural History' (VI, 22), which tells us of a revenue ship of Annius Plocamus in the reign of Claudius, which was caught in the monsoon and covered the distance between Aden and Ceylon in fifteen days. The usual time was about forty days. Rawlinson considers it 'highly probable that there were actually Roman colonies at Cranganore or Muziris (where there seems to have been a Roman temple). Madura, Pukar at the mouth of the Cauvery, and other places. A Tamil poet sings of 'the thriving town of Muchiri, where the beautiful large ships of the Yavanas (the Ionians, generically applied to all Europeans) bringing gold, come splashing the waters of the Periyar, and return laden with pepper',(pp. 16-17 of 'The Legacy of India', Oxford University Press, 1937.
In his essay on 'India in European Literature and Thought' this careful historian summarises a great deal of highly interesting and relevant material. An account of the enormous volume of commerce is also quoted by Padmini Sengupta who gives the evidence of Pliny: 'In no year does India drain our Empire of less than 550 millions of sesterces (80 lakhs of rupees, $3,000,000 or £600,000) giving back her own one hundred times their cost price', (p. 113, 'Everyday Life in Ancient India', Oxford University Press.1950).

l4 'Roman coins have been found buried under a tree in Calicut in Malabar. The merchants who left them there meant to return but evidently never did so', (p. 114, 'Everyday Life in Ancient India', P. Sengupta).

'But in the early days, the Tamil South had little taste for anything Europe could offer in exchange, except gold, so gold had to pay for most of the Indian goods. Roman gold coins have turned up in astonishing quantities along the Malabar Coast, around Madura and other places in the South. One such treasure trove consisted of 'five coolie loads'. Most of the coins belong to the reigns of the first five Roman Emperors. A unique example among them is a coin of the Emperor Claudius (41-54 AD), struck to commemorate the Roman conquest of Britain', (p. 202 'The Pageant of Indian History', G. E. Sen, Longman's, 1948).

15 In that classic of the spice-wine axis, 'Periplus Maris Erythraei', a guide-book to the Indian Ocean ("The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea"), written by an Alexandrian sea captain about the time of the Roman Emperor Nero, mention is made of the import of 'singing boys and choice girls for the royal harem'. These were, of course, imported Greeks. But there can be little doubt that human cargo was carried both ways, Greeks and others from the West to East, and Indians from East to West.

16 Of these writers and scientists, perhaps the most valuable from the point of view of the tracking of Word-dialectics is Sir Aurel Stein, whose massive 'Serindia', an account of fieldwork in tracing the old Silk Road between China and India across the roof of the world, is the most interesting contribution from the evidential aspect. All along that route, extending from the Pamirs across the wastes of the Gobi Desert to the Great Wall, this great explorer-archaeologist found ample remains, proving beyond doubt that the land route was in constant use for millennia. Finally, at Tunhwang (Blazing Beacon) on the very borders of China, where Kansu Province touches the Gobi, in 1908 he located a sealed library in the Caves of a Thousand Buddhas. Rolls and scrolls and paintings and all manner of manuscripts showed that Tunhwang was a kind of Central Asian Library of Alexandria for, besides the Buddhist relics, there were works in Sogdian, an Iranian dialect, in Aramaic, and others in Sanskrit, in Asian Brahmi, in Manichaean Turkish, and in Tibetan. One large block-printed roll bore a date corresponding to 868 AD and was therefore the oldest specimen of a printed book so far known. But to us the chief interest lies in the fact that halting-places were so well organized that they developed into centres of learning and religious-philosophical study, linking up the wisdom of South India with parts of the world five thousand miles distant. And hence, aided by the commercial travellers, the Word passed on this trans-Himalayan axis to be rekindled in the hearts of the Chinese-Mongolian peoples. The outstanding Indian visitors were from South India, and one can only mention that titanic figure, known as Bodhi-Dharma (in Chinese, Pu-ti Ta-mo), the founder of Ch'an (Japanese Zen) Buddhism in the 5th century, as typical of many who carried the Word abroad to the Far East.

Marco Polo (13th century) the amazing Venetian, proved that the Cambulac (Peking) and Kinsai (Hangchow) axial connection with Constantinople and Venice was still open in his age; and for descriptions of the great trading cities of Malabar which Marco Polo visited on a mission from the Great Kubla Khan, and many other interesting features, one must refer to Sir Henry Yule's double volume 'The Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian, concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East' (3rd ed., Hakluyt Society, 1903). The Word-wisdom also traversed this China-Italy axis, no doubt influencing many of the European mystics and probably Dante Alighieri who was exactly contemporaneous with Polo.

17 See para 1 of the above note. In all the drawings of Bodhi-Dharma he is represented as a darkish heavy-featured individual, typical of the tough prehistoric strain which persists to this day in South India. Ostensibly Buddhist, his teaching, based on Sanskrit texts which are now only found from Chinese sources, consisted of the purely Jnana (Wisdom) works - those revealed by long lines of Gurus. Hence the name for his School of Buddhism, the Dhyana (Contemplative) or Mahayana (Great Way).

18 Speaking on 'What India can Teach us' before Cambridge University, Prof. Max Mueller said: 'Sanskrit was the elder sister of them all and could tell of many things which the other members of the family had quite forgotten'. He continued to describe how the expression 'I am' had behind it a long philological history, although it appears natural now. He traced this simple expression with its root AS (to breathe) and thence to ASMI (I am) and concluded that 'great efforts of our forefathers are to be found in such and other expressions originating in Proto-Aryan speech'.

The same leading scholar declared: 'If I were asked what I considered the most important discovery of the nineteenth century with respect to the ancient history of mankind, I should answer by the following short line: Sanskrit Dyaus Pitar equals Greek Zeus Pater equals Latin Jupiter equals Old Norse Tyr'. And in his Preface to his Gifford Lectures before the University of Glasgow in 1892, he gives the clue to his imaginative-scientific genius. 'My endeavour has been', he said, 'to submit to facts only, such as we find them in the sacred books of the East, to try to decipher and understand them as we try to decipher and understand the geological annals of the earth, and to discover in them reason, cause and effect and, if possible, that close genealogical coherence which alone can change empirical into scientific knowledge. This genealogical method is no doubt the most perfect when we can follow the growth of religious ideas, as it were, from son to father, from pupil to teacher, from the negative to the positive stage'

And again: 'My object was to show that there is a constant action and reaction in the growth of religious ideas...It has been my chief object to show that this reaction was produced or at least accelerated by the historical contact between Semitic and Aryan thought, chiefly at Alexandria...' and 'I have tried to show that the doctrine of the Logos, the very life-blood of Christianity, is exclusively Aryan'.

19 See Max Mueller 'On the Migration of Fables', in 'Chips from a German Workshop', iv, 412. 'Selected Essays', i, 500. The oldest folk-stories, woven into the web of European literature (as Rawlinson tells us) may be traced to those great Indian collections of tales, the Buddhist Jatakas or Birth-stories: the 'Panchatantra' and the 'Hitopadesha' or 'Book of Useful Counsels'. (These include not only Aesop's 'Fables', but such common tales as the 'Judgement of Solomon', 'Sinbad the Sailor', the 'Fables of Pilpay', the Welsh story of Llewellyn and Gelert, and most remarkable of all, the story of Josaphat (a concealed Bodhisattva) etc.)

20 R. Narasinhacharya writes: 'The Sumerian language,which was non-Semitic and earlier than Assyrian and Babylonian, was beginning to be a dead language as early as 2000 BC. The Sumerian civilization must have been an old-established one long before 3800 BC, which is about the date of the earliest of their written documents that have yet been discovered...The language has, like the Dravidian group, the characteristic of agglutination and vowel harmony ' (p. 13, 'History of the Kannada Language', University of Mysore, 1934. Cf., also Sweet's 'History of Language').

21 The Kings of Judah were bewailed at their death with the phrase, 'Hoi adon!', 'Alas! 0 Lord!' (Jeremiah XXXIV, 5): so says Langdon on pp. 76-77 of his 'Mythology of All Races', Vol. V., and adds that this custom 'belongs to the sphere of Semitic religion profoundly influenced by Babylonia. In its development it was essentially of the Tammuz cult transplanted to Phoenicia', etc.

22 Cf., that wonderful chapter, called Ma Thi or 'Horses' Hoofs', written by the 3rd century BC Taoist Guru, Chuang Tzu, in South China, in which, from the Word-Way or Tao-Teh, the earliest so-called primitives, who were without class, caste and the knowledge of differences, are shown to have had their own natural integrity and happiness, and man lived at ease and friendship with nature, naturally virtuous. Cf., also chapters in the Tao Teh Khing of Lao Tzu, especially Nos. 37, 40 and 80. ('Sacred Books of the East', Vols. XXXIX & XL).

23 Dr. Jane Harrison, a noted anthropologist, writing of Dionysius, says:
'Another trait marks Dionysos off from the Olympians. They are wholly human; he keeps about him some vestiges of plant and animal shape. He is the tree-god (dendrites), and at will he can change himself back into plant or animal form. When the Bacchantes in extreme peril call upon Dionysos for vengeance, his ancient incarnations loom in upon their maddened minds:

'Appear, appear, whatso thy shape or name,
0 Mountain Bull, Snake of the Hundred Heads,
Lion of the Burning Flame!
0 God, Beast, Mystery, come!'

(the poem quoted is from Prof. Gilbert Murray's 'Euripides' Bacchantes', see pp. 76-77 'Myths of Greece and Rome' by Jane Harrison, Benn, London,1928). The similarities between Dionysos and Shiva, quite apart from the many-headed Snake, are patent, likewise the (fig?) tree motif.

24 See 'Etudes et fragments' of the French poet André Marie de Chenier (1762-1794), in which the lines occur:

'Viens, O divin Bacchus, O jeune Thyonée,
0 Dionyse, Evan, Iacchus et Lenée...'

25 See 'Palace of Minos', by Sir Arthur Evans (4 Vols. 1921-35).

26 Nilsson traces the Dionysian religion to the ancient Bull and Snake religion of the Minoan civilization of Crete (3000 BC) and says it had 'to be hidden underground' in Greece at the time when Attica was overrun by the Doric invasions, (see his 'The Minoan-Mycenean Religion and its Survival in Greek Religion'). Later, a compromise was made with the Appolonian Sun religion, and Delphi, the ancient centre of Greek faith, was actually shared between the sky-dwelling Olympians and the earthy Dionysius.

From the inscriptions and wall-paintings in the so-called tombs or underground chambers in central Italy, in Etruria, which have so far baffled all efforts to decipher or fit into the setting of European history, it might be suggested that here is another Dionysian-Shiva link. The tree, the bull, the fish motifs and the spirit of frenzy are prominent and resemble the pictographs of far-off Mohenjo-Daro in India. (see Phaidon, 'Etruscans and Etruscan Places' by D. H. Lawrence, Penguin Books, 1950).

27 Evelyn Underhill, well-known writer on Christian mysticism, says:
'To Dionysius the Areopagite (probably a Syrian monk who lived between 475 and 525 AD), Christian literature owes the paradoxical concept of the Absolute Godhead as the 'Divine Dark', the unconditioned, the negation of all that is, i.e., of all that surface consciousness perceives - and of the soul's attainment of the Absolute as a 'divine ignorance', a way of negation. The idea is common to Greek and Indian philosophy. With Dionysius it enters the Catholic World' (p. 457 of 'Mysticism'- Evelyn Underhill, 1930).

28 St. Mark, i. 6.

29 See Old Testament, II, Kings, i, 8:also I Kings, xvii-xix. Elijah (Elias) is treated as a venerable Guru, with sishyas such as Obadiah who falls on his face at his feet, and Elisha, etc., who apparently lives with fifty 'sons' of the prophets, i.e., spiritual sons, disciples of some other Guru.

30 St. Matthew, v. 3.

31 Ibid, xxii, 37-39: 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself'.



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CHAPTER XV
THE ASCENDING DIALECTICS OF STONE-LANGUAGE

In the East more than elsewhere perhaps, wisdom often enshrines itself in images. Iconology in India becomes as important as theology is in the West. In its own way it speaks the profound and secret language of dialectics. Although the simple Shiva Lingam (mark) is just a round upright stone which is decorated and anointed, it becomes an eloquent presence, an inspiring noumenal hierophany.

 

 

Shiva Lingam.

But as we travel westwards away from the primeval or primitive centre of the Word in the heart of South India, the originally pure hierophany begins to be discredited, until finally it is only a fugitive radial thread, almost entirely overwhelmed and almost invisible in the midst of environing doctrines, prophecies and rigid commandments 1. Historically, as soon as the Word in its transmission down through the ages and across the oceans attains a certain recognition, it is revalued. This revaluation frequently manifests through statues, idols or images, crude or refined as works of 'art'; and these are often epitomes of all the Word-value hitherto recognized by the parent symbol; but nevertheless, at each stage in the passage of the Word, its revalued iconological expression proclaims itself to suit the 'novelty' in which its votaries live out their daily lives, and they feel its renewed significance both through memory and intuitive imagination.

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Sacred Stone.

However, as with a verbal doctrine, its comprehension is limited to the intelligence and understanding of the subject, and hence, even with the same symbol, the individual response may be a dull subdued lambency or it may be a radiant blaze. For our part here, because the earlier writings of Narayana Guru contain much of this subtle popular image-language dialectics, incorporating Word-verities of rare mystical value, it seems profitable for us to pass in quick review over some of the implications of Indian iconography.

On the Indian soil one of the distinctive features of this Word-iconography is that it synthesises both doctrine and sacred presence, both the teaching and the numinous feeling. In the prophetic religions - Judaism, Islam and Calvinism - sacred presences tend to be discarded in favour of legalistic doctrine, and where this tendency has come about suddenly, encouraged by social circumstances (as in the case of the Reformation in Germany) it has often developed an iconoclastic turn. Yet in spite of this hatred of idols and idolatry, sacred objects still persist within the body of such Protestant religions.

 

The Sacred Stone of the Qaaba at Mecca.

Mecca has its Qaaba; and the Bible, even in severely Protestant Christian countries, is regarded with a kind of invested noumenal awe and regularly used in courts of justice as a silent powerful witness to the truthfulness of the attestants. The icon treated as a symbol belongs to language, but considered as an object it is stone, wood, metal, paper, etc. - just matter. But not even the simplest idolater in India takes the idol to be 'just matter'. It says something to him, however vague or crude that may be.

 

Aspects of the Mecca Stone.

Some sort of sacred object, whether in the form of a marble statue or wooden totem, persists among human beings, whether known as cultured or primitive. The 'primitive' is one poor enough to be laughed at while the 'cultured' idolater is called a dilettante, a 'connaisseur d'objets d'art'. The difference is not at all mutual exclusion but relative or even reciprocal.

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African Sacred Statue from Congo.

 

The Black Virgin Mary of Monserrat.

The uncultured African carves what have been called his 'god machines', while the often puritanical collector looks down on the carver but takes pride in exhibiting the carvings themselves. Thus a certain type of dilettantism goes with its own counterpart of puritanism or iconoclasm; but when toted up in the arithmetic of values, both together constitute the sum of what human nature demands by way of spiritual appetites and satisfactions. If we hope to follow the implicit dialectics of Indian iconology, there are some primary notions which must be borne in mind. We have to note the existence of an old order of values, then additions to the old order; crystallisations and constant revaluations as hardening processes set in during the unravelling of the panorama of history; submergence almost, then resuscitation and fresh recognition under revaluation, each revaluation being for the general good, the fluid Word spreading like a benediction over the affective territory 2.

 

Sphinx.

 

Kamakura Buddha.

The dumb stones require a traditionally trained or dialectically contemplative ear attuned to the message of their secret sermons. The enigmatic Sphinx and the tranquil majesty of the Kamakura Buddha whisper the same secret to the initiates of each Word-culture, whether they are dedicated Egyptian hierophants or Zen Brahmacharins.

If the tracing of the Word through history were like sailing in a fog, then our present task is like exploring in the Stygian gloom of the Catacombs. To follow the intricacies of the Word across the multi-textured entanglements of the forest of Indian icons and myths where the Word, like some rare bird flitting from tree to tree, is forever moving from one revaluation to another, needs very special equipment - an inner sagacity to discover the evidence that what we seek is here and not there.

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Indeed, to use a simile common to Vedantic literature, it is like tracking the musk deer by its scent. Both a certain naive simplicity, and an innocent yogic eye of honesty must be our main guides, and we must abandon the leadership of both loud erudition and pontifical authority, even as simple jungle-dwellers wearing a dress of leaves and bark can follow where uniformed and heavily equipped hunters have to be left behind. For the quest of the Word we require 'Simplicitas Dei' - the simplicity of God.

The key to the dialectics of the Word may be said to be that resultant synthesis and fusion of values uniting from the opposite ends of a central numinous Absolute Verity. The Word in its endurance through time may be compared to the formation of the white limestone pillars found in deep caverns, where the icicle-like stalactites pendant from the roof meet the conical stalagmites from below; but both due to the same imperceptible drippings and tricklings of calcium bicarbonate solution percolating slowly through the centuries. Stalagmite needs stalactite to form the pillar. Time does not count here. The common solution of lime ignores the difference between the downward and the upward movements. At last, after layer upon layer has been deposited, they meet in an eternal present.

Thus ambivalence cancels itself out gradually. The common value-factor is always there. From the prehistoric drummings throbbing in the antique darkness far from civilization to the modern orchestral concert played in a fashionable city hall - the basic value of rhythm and melody remains the same. What has been there primordially, in the 'forever' that is the essence of the eternal present, is music that was and is pleasing to the hearers. In every case of music, old or new, however varied the instruments or strange the sounds, there has been someone to compose and produce the melodies and someone to respond appreciatively. Sound-form and formless happiness of hearing thus come together. In the same way the simple Indian peasant who took a plain dark stone and made it holy and sacred, dialectically related form and idea so that they met in the central Word, thus bypassing the danger of 'the letter that killeth', and ever revealing to the inner eye the white marble pillar of pure vision.

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Chidambaram Temple.

 

Shiva Nataraja.

At the ancient temple city of Chidambaram (literally: mind-horizon) there is a famous bronze statue of Shiva which is worshipped by hundreds of thousands of persons each year. The temple is dedicated to that aspect of Shiva as Nataraja (the Dancing King). The towers of this temple scrape the skies with rows of golden spires. The votaries here are undoubted survivals of an ethnic group who have defied the ravages of time. Their remote ancestors traded with far-off lands when India's glory was renowned, and with characteristic devotion they built these fabulous monuments to represent their own iconologic formulation of divinity.

 

 

 

Temple Festivals.

And still today as ever, festivals in temples such as these in South India attract enormous crowds, absorbing a lavish expenditure of flowers and incense. Drummers and clarinet-players come from far-off corners of this ancient land. Tradition survives with the wilful necessity of the car of Jaganath. Again, as millennia before, it is the prehistoric Shiva whose glory is celebrated in contemporary India. This bronze dancing image marks the culmination, as it were, of a certain genealogical line of iconographic dialectics. The potent, primitive, fecund, and animistic presence of double power - for divine protection and at the same time ominous destruction - to which we drew attention in writing of the early Mohenjo-Daro seals, offers essentially the same enigma in this frenzied abandon of Shiva as the King of Dionysiac dance.

With these two examples in our minds: of the prehistoric Shiva as the jungle hunter-yogi and as the triumphant Dancer of Chidambaram, it is possible for us to examine how the language of stones is employed to explain perennial wisdom or mystical doctrine. We have already noted how the Indus Valley seals often represent a spiritual truth or value around the personality of Shiva. As Narayana Guru used to say, Shiva was a simple hunter of prehistory who, because of his goodness, was loved by his contemporaries and later became sanctified.

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The Shiva imagery has had various lines of growth as it has been transmitted from land to land, the original imagery modified, transformed and grafted on to many different bodies of thought and religions. Within the bounds of India itself, where idolatry was accepted as a recognized mode dialectically familiar to the genius of the South Indian villager especially, the Shiva tradition enriched mythology and supplied many archetypal foundations for later iconographic elaborations of the spiritual formula.

Here we must try to give a few explanations of the chief usage of the Shiva Word-formula as it found expression through the development of this imagery-language. Each member of the sacred family of Shiva became representative of some aspect or other of the applied spiritual formula. Thus Ganesha, the child-god of elephant-head and satisfied appetite, the eldest son of Shiva and his consort Parvati the huntress, was the personification of relaxation, contentment and calm contemplation. This induced the same qualities and attitude in the votary or seeker after wisdom. Good could only accrue when Ganesha (or Gana-pathi as he is sometimes called) had been duly worshipped and propitiated. Wholeness (or holiness), normality, health, balance and all the other middle qualities, including a global sympathy, dwell together in the mind of the devotee when he meditates on this Ganesha symbol of the Shiva tradition.

 

Ganesha.

 

Subrahmanya.

In the Shiva hierogeny another iconomorph is Subrahmanya, also called Kartikeya, the younger brother of Ganesha. As the war-god, Kartikeya provides a more positive note, the power to counter evil effectively. In glorious lightness of body he rides a peacock. He was born of light from the contemplative middle eye of Shiva. He has six heads, luminous like brilliant suns or stars. To sing his hymn of praise meant to emancipate oneself from the thraldom of evil and suffering. Thus many emphatic psychological and cosmological images were telescoped together in a single divine personality created for the mass mind by the mystical votary of wisdom or self-realization. Parvati - goddess, wife and mother - also typified a number of grades of numinous feeling, each with its own iconographic representation.

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She could be the personification of the tragic power of creative becoming, the great irresistible urge that dominates phenomenal nature. This is the consort-counterpart of Shiva as Mother Kali, the Terrible as well as the Beneficent. Parvati-Kali is thus the correlating principle of all manifestation, both in its positive and negative modes. She becomes good or evil depending upon the requirements of the worshipper for consolation or correction. This ambivalence is true of all sacred presences, whether represented physically or conceived mentally. God is to be feared and loved; at the same time an object of attraction and repulsion, both hated and adored. And so from this one multi-personal feminine principle many symbolical characters have emerged as Uma, Kartyayani, Gowri, Kali, Haimavatiswari, etc. - each successively portraying some one aspect in varying degree of divine tragedy or delight.

Into the positive reality thus visualized the idea of negative Maya (phenomenal becoming) has to be understood. When traced to its emergent source it is united to the head of Shiva as the primal cosmic principle. This transcendent source is invisible but from there arise all beneficent creative principles.

Iconologically, the Ganges (Ganga), the greatest river in India, source of existence to millions of people, is therefore symbolically the greatest of human values or goods; and it is appropriate also that the cornucopious 'Mother Ganga' should be imagined as gushing from the head of Shiva.

When intimately associated with wisdom, the tragic modes of Kali are superseded by the gracious mode of the gentle goddess Saraswati, who is always clothed in radiant white and born of a pure lotus as the first of creation. Tender-hearted as the Madonna, her Indian lyre, the vina, glorifies art, while the book she carries extols the contemplative search for wisdom. In Saraswati, the Brahmacharin and the Vedantic novice have a saintly or divine Mother who, like the Sophia of the Greek and Christian records, ever inspires and elevates the seeker, sublimating all instinctive weaknesses into the courageous conquest of repressions and weaknesses, constantly weaning him from the old habitual ways, until as a spiritual athlete he attains full rank in the inner courts of this Indian Queen of Wisdom and Raja-Yoga.

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The image-language of the Shiva iconographic family has elaborate ramifications. The peasant devotee can sing endlessly rich and meaningful lyrics intended to stimulate his numinous understanding in the ascending dialectics until the light of wisdom triumphs; from the pedestal step represented by the virile power of the bull (Nandi) upon which Shiva rides step by step upwards through all the degrees of the symbolical 'scala perfectionis' or spiritual ladder to perfection, the Shiva imagery inwardly supports the aspirant, towering higher and higher until there is attainment by likeness contemplatively with that sacred central eye of wisdom's fire before whose eruptive glance all doubts and ignorances are withered and consumed, never more to rise. Thus is attained the terminus of all spiritual travail in that pure and holy domain of Absolute Goodness and Kindly Abundance.

Through this long ascent, the statue of Nataraja, God of the Cosmic Dance, represents a culminating station in the graded formulation of the Shiva Word-principle. The virtue of the simple round Shiva-stone consists in this: that it suffices to recall all these associations. This is the language it speaks, while to those who are unaware of its eloquence it is just a dull dumb rock. And what this numinous object by its natural limitations cannot do is supplemented by the stanzas of adoration sung with instrumental accompaniment in the great and venerable temples of South India whose foundations were laid in the times of antiquity.

The stone of Shiva is sometimes a pillar, to be 'read' in the dialectical language as an endless column of light, a shining presence of verticality, typifying the Absolute Principle which is neither matter nor mind, but neutrally supersessive, solvent and reconciliatory of all antinomies and oppositions implicit in existence and truth. This pillar of light, effulgent and haloed with glory, reaches from heaven to earth. Vishnu as the boar in the icon-language could not dig out the bottom of this pillar without end; nor could Brahma (the highest of the gods of existence) as a swan fly to its top.

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Such is the greatness of the Shiva pillar of light, illustrative of the mystery of the unknown, as defined in later supplementary accounts. In almost endless variety, artists have interpreted the glory and light of the Shiva-presence. Readers will remember that Shiva form known as Dakshina-Murti, the Guru who sits on a raised stone platform facing the South - perhaps in recognition of the ancient mother-source of his wisdom, just as Muslims turn devotedly towards Mecca. We have already noted elsewhere the Word-idea accompanying this Guru model. In iconology Dakshina-Murti is seen as the luminous Guru with his fingers forming the jnana-mudra (gesture of wisdom), either facing the disciple or the supplicant. Jaina and Buddhist images must also be said to belong 'linguistically' to the same icon-context. Later exponents of the icon-language used more eloquent 'phrases'; exercising their ingenuity and creative imagination ultimately in the Cosmic Shiva of the mystical dance, the Nataraja or Tandava. Nowadays this figure is recognized all over the world as a masterpiece of significant form. In some degree or other this striking creation of Indian mystical art speaks a direct language outside the dictionaries of diverse peoples. Scholars have elaborated its meaning fairly minutely, but in the light of the suggestions developed in these pages we must add some relevant remarks.

The positive majesty of the protective blessing Shiva is expressed in a cosmic dance over the inert body whose recumbency signifies the negative aspect. For the glory of truth to shine it requires its own anterior background of weakness, negation and falsehood. The achievement of wisdom is of the nature of a triumph of a certain personal value, a victory that discards its elephant and tiger-skin crudeness or lethargy - as Shiva is supposed to have done when he frenziedly danced in ecstasy in the forest by the light of the crescent moon. Although awe-inspiring, he really meant to be kind to all. In the same dramatic image-language, it was he who drank the poison which is so disastrous for humanity during the churning of the milk-ocean, thus making him the saviour of humanity. In the eternal conflict between good and evil, that poison represents the middle region of doubt and uncertainty.

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The virile Shiva-principle, rational and assertive, absorbs and digests this third factor of absurdity. Hence in the legend Shiva drinks the poison, and forever afterwards has the honoured title of Blue-Throated (Nila-Kanta).

These and many other associated ideas are familiar to the common man in India, conveying immense content of doctrinal meaning in applied psychological and cosmological wisdom which, to be grasped or used properly in everyday practice, requires direct imaginative intuition.

 

Shiva's dance, known to the art world of India, has the special name of Tandava. It is the full manifestation of masculine vigour, and adds special character to the language of the Nataraja image. Thus to the intuitive mind of India the single Shiva-Nataraja dancing the Tandava equals what in the West would take centuries of sermonising to accomplish. Locked up in one expressive symbol is the material for volumes of religion and philosophy, epitomised and telescoped. Nurtured in the traditional spiritual climate of Shiva-adoration, the common people of India are familiar with all the implications of this effective compact compendium in bronze.

Meaning is aided by the stories and songs related or sung under the village trees or in temple courtyards by peripatetic minstrel-pundits. Although considered illiterate, there are many homely grandmothers in rural households who know well the secret mystical doctrines in their own unacademic or unofficial way. Thus the hidden or ignored domestic or country life of India enables wisdom to survive through generations. The wisdom-heritage is cultivated further by being incorporated into the institution of the Ashrama, which often combines temple, monastery and community life. Here the Guru and Sishyas live with the co-operation of idealistic members in a natural, unconventional commune of common unlimited liability, open to all to whom the pure ideal appeals. These institutions emphasise the wisdom more or less consciously and more or less secretly, according to the immemorial traditions of perennial wisdom, handed down from Master to Disciple. Some of these traditionally-inherited Ashrams may have degenerated, which is natural, but this does not prevent new ones from emerging, and endeavouring to sustain the original aims and high ideals.

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Within the scope of our remarks here it is impossible to do any justice to these subjects, even in outline. Only long familiarity with the image-language can disclose the unitive scheme of Word-wisdom which is the alpha-omega of this whole subject. The key to this strange stony linguistics is the enigma of the Word with its double-values or ambivalence. Every image seeks to clarify or draw attention to the numinous Absolute essence, and hence icon stands upon icon in vertical procession and successive transcendence, reaffirming the prime purpose in revalued terms, preserving the wisdom-aim, conserving the past expressions, but adapting the theme of imagery to suit the advancing transformations of new generations, both religiously and socially. But all manifestations or elaborations speak the secret of the Guru-Word which remains ever the same, and which is ultimately best expressed in the full-flooded silence beyond all imagery of language or stone. After the crashing thunder of the musical symphony comes the still silence of heaven when all the vibratory waves of sound and thought are calmed, and in that absolute tranquillity only the pure Word itself floods all with the cool splendour of moonlight. If our words too seem strained and hurled impetuously at the reader, it is to one end only, the inducing of the after-silence where our words cannot go.

Contemporary India, particularly in the South, is still steeped in this image-ideology of the adoration of the Shiva of prehistoric times. The language of icon and myth is in everyday use and is instinctively understood by the people. Once, in a modern part of the city of Madras, the present writer was waiting for a bus. He then heard some children of an adjoining primary school singing in chorus some popular song just before achieving their freedom from the boredom of school hours. As the words of the song struck the ear of the listener, he felt a conflict, for at that time a dichotomy or ambivalence of sentiment was in his mind, the desire for decent standards of education for citizenship alternately struggling with an appreciation of the rich heritage of India. But as the verses from an ancient bard came from the lips of these innocent boys and girls he was aware that they were too young to be either shocked or profoundly moved by them. Translated, the following are some of the words of this old song:

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'0 Madman, Crescent-wearer,
Mighty Master, mercy-filled,
To Thy thraldom to demur
How can I ever! 0 Father mine?'

The song then stopped, but soon again the little voices renewed the refrain. Again it was to the ancient Shiva. It rang out:

'0 Thou of radiant golden form
With tiger-pelt around Thy waist
And bronzed hair and middle eye;
Except of Thee, 0 Father dear,
How can I for a moment even think!'

This slight sketch of the relation of the dialectics of the Guru formula would be incomplete without some reference to our main theme; hence, before concluding our examination of icon and myth we must refer to that living image which was the personal aspect of Guru Narayana himself.

Both Sanskrit and Tamil-Malayalam traditions - both North and South India - accept the principle of identity of Guru and God. To unite the two currents of theology and mystical teaching is the task of Guruhood. In such an equation of Guru with God, every movement, posture, attitude or gesture in the actual person of the Guru is as important as the abstract teaching. All the time he is under the limelight of a devout and watchful public and hence there must not and cannot be any withdrawal from the stage of teaching, even by the flickering of an eyelid. The form is only the anterior half of the idea (or name) which is the posterior half; while both together combined give a central unitive totality, as when similar correlations are expressed either by geometrical or algebraic methods in modern mathematics. The same fundamental relation is revealed by either. Similarly the form which preserves the past is the pedestal for the idea which is the abstract doctrine. These meet; extremes are cancelled and the result is a central non-dual unity which is the silence and the Word.

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And so it was once in the same city of Madras in 1925 that the Guru was one day missing since the early hours of the morning. As was habitual with him, he had left his bed without being seen, and had gone out for a long early-morning walk by himself, leaving behind a group of Brahmacharins, Sanyasins and laymen who comprised his entourage. All of them, bewildered, set out to find the missing Guru. They went to his favourite haunts, one of which was a secluded spot on the sea beach, where a cluster of shady trees, a bridge and a river broke the sandy monotony of the sea front. A horse and carriage had also been sent by one of his hosts.

After hours of vain search, when the disc of the sun had already risen over the eastern horizon, making the sweeping billows of the Bay of Bengal gleam like a drawn sword, from under the dark shade of a tree the Guru made his appearance. Without ado or speech he got into the waiting carriage. Fisher-folk living nearby were still asleep as the horse trotted along. Some, including the writer, sat in the carriage with him while the rest followed on foot. The Guru then chatted on the importance of names in giving a sense of reality to an existent thing. The name, he said, when coupled with form, finalized a notion, and therefore to destroy a false notion, the abolishing of the name went a long way. He said that thus caste prejudices could be avoided.

We arrived at the host's house. After the fatigue of the early morning's chase had somewhat abated, it was arranged that the Guru would be photographed. The cameraman had already arrived, but Narayana Guru raised his usual objections. On the insistence of all, he sat on a leopard-skin spread on a raised seat on the sunny terrace of the house. Murmuring protests about something or other that was not just right, he was at last prevailed upon to sit in the usual cross-legged posture of repose, confronting the camera.

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Across the Guru's features there appeared an expression which the writer had never noticed so clearly marked at any time before. His casual countenance dropped its former mild indifference and became deep and clear. The eyes seemed to be looking into pure space. The corners of the lips curved downwards a little, in an expression which was neither a smile nor a serious frown, but connected, it seemed, with something unrelated to the events that went on around him, something which absorbed him to its very depths. A mild form of 'ecstasy' must have been there, but this was almost imperceptible to all but the trained eye of one familiar with such effects of the Yogic tradition. One had to look carefully to discover in the clear-eyed features of the Guru the secret gesture or mudra. Evidently, on merely being asked to assume the posture of the yogi, sensitive as he was to each little suggestion in the air, Narayana Guru had lapsed into the traditional yogi state. A Sanyasin standing by seemed to disturb the calm repose into which the Guru had fallen, by holding out to him a small silk pouch of holy ashes. Thus disturbed, the Guru questioned its need and for a minute seemed to object. 'Is it necessary?' he asked. 'Yes', was the response in an almost insistent tone. Thoughtfully, the Guru dipped three of his fingers delicately into the grey ashes, and with the tips of the three fingers made the orthodox triple streaks of ash on his forehead. But the quantity of ashes he had thus taken was barely sufficient to make the beginnings of the lines visible and then only half-way across the forehead. Thus the lines were both visible and invisible, present and fugitive at the same time: a subtle display, perhaps half-consciously implied, revealing how, under the dialectics of chance or occasionalism, the Guru wished to be both orthodox and heterodox at the same time.

This fuss and detail seems almost futile, banal and moody, if it is not understood as part of the unique language of Guruhood, when known as it is in India and elsewhere in its esoteric significance. Every odd situation provides an opportunity for the exhibition of the teaching. The Guru himself has to express, as a Guru, the Guru-Word through behaviour of personality, as well as through posture, gesture, passing expressions, signs, subtle hints, indications - in addition to speech and other methods of communication.

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Behaviour-teaching becomes as essential as the spoken instruction. To those who stood around him the actions of the Guru spoke the Word-language, while he himself remained neutrally withdrawn within his own sphere of inner meditation. He was the yogi and had no objection to the animal skin on which he sat because, for one reason, the leopard was no longer alive, and for another reason, it was part of the recognized paraphernalia or traditionally-fixed appointments of the yogi, adopted as essential and inherited from the days of the prehistoric Shiva - belonging to what had become, through ages of association and habit, part of the necessary being of people's lives. In this case the Guru's objections would have been unavailing. Helpless to abolish the past, he therefore accepted it with graceful resignation, while using it as a pedestal from which to declare his revalued Guru-Shiva message - one of the principles of which was a strong disapproval of killing. But to break totally with the past under these circumstances would have made him a destroyer who could not fulfil. The Guru-message has thus to use even dead letters to express its living truth. Some entrance has to be effected into the receptive heart of mankind, hidden though it may be within an age-old crust of immovable fixtures of habit and custom. The living Word is therefore established on the existing platform of the effete and archaically-defunct anterior structure. On such a platform it is then possible to keep the back-benchers in their place as an audience, and to win their consent to changes and corrections which they would otherwise resent and would not listen to, but on the contrary, would dive underground and become a powerful opposition.

Like any other person born in this world, Narayana Guru could not escape his own background; and therefore he consciously recognized this instead of falling into the mistake of escapism and vainly protesting against it. He thus willingly played the role he had accepted with all it necessarily implied. If a tiger was killed unjustly in the past, kill it justly, or do not kill it at all if possible, in the future.

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In the meantime be free and reasonable, basing conduct on common sense. Keep the teaching to the domain proper to it, keep it where it belongs and keep necessary action within its field of the inevitable and the incidental. Never let a good doctrine become a fetish of blind faith or a fixed dogmatic idea - both being productive of suffering and anguish. Let the Sabbath be for man and man for the Sabbath intelligently and not just by blind obligation or superstition. Only those who love might chastise; only a certain degree of conforming could reform effectively. Breaking with the past entirely would create a rival camp, and it was precisely this which the Guru wished to avoid. Indeed the bane of human life is the formation of closed and static groups which are organized on a basis of rivalry and competition. The role of the Guru is to find points of agreement and reconciliation, something far more than mere patchwork compromise. Here it is the contemplative Word-message which contains that synthesising medium which acts like a cement on dialectical pairs of opposites, bringing such dualities together into single unitive comprehension.

The three lines that the Guru smeared on his forehead belong to the prehistoric context of Shiva adoration. As we have said, Shiva dances the dance of the victory of the radical, tragic, uncompromising destruction of the old in favour of the new contemplative value. Shiva thus represents the positive principle in self-realization - that will which transcends Maya and becomes the pure Absolute. This will, when sublimated in this way, burns to ashes all that is of the materially relative, or the vitalistic aspect of the personality. Madana, the Eros of the Indian myth, is burnt to cinders by the fire emitted from the central eye of Shiva 3.

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And so, having by heavenly fire from the Self within burnt up all instinctive conditionings, the Self triumphs in positive freedom, revels and dances in its own joy. Three instinctive levels are envisaged in this refining process. These are known as sattva (pure, rational), rajas (active, passionate), and tamas (inert, negative or dark). These three - even the pure and rational - have to be transcended by the intuitive will, so that Word-content may manifest itself.

Such is the theory implied in the wearing of the holy Shiva ashes. Conquest of these instinctive vital levels is indicated by the three lines on the brow of the yogi. In all probability, with this kind of interpretation in his mind, Narayana Guru agreed to conform to the wish of the Sanyasin regarding the usage of the holy ashes. By maintaining a strict neutrality between the former and the revalued positions; between what was anterior and what came later; between the orthodox and the revolutionary - the Guru-function of fulfilment was accomplished without disruptive commitment.

We shall see in a later place how the Guru was not partial to the Shiva cult. He moved amidst Vishnu-worshippers and adopted their form of orthodoxy also for expressing the same dialectical neutrality of the living Word, a neutrality which accepts the necessary and yet announces the freedom of the contingent will at once in each act, attitude or utterance 4.

From the figure of the ancient hunter and yogi of the prehistoric Mohenjo-Daro seals, through the Buddha images and the dancing figure of Nataraja in bronze, we have therefore witness of the same Guru-language persisting in varied ways, revalued in the Dakshina-Murti model Guru and reaching right into the present, to be given further revaluation by the Way and Word of the Guru Narayana.



NOTES
1 The noumenal is, however, irrepressible and often assumes other forms which are less recognisably iconic: some growing from a reasonable stem, others parasitic on the tree of sentiment, and others plainly absurd. Thus the Bible fresh from the press with the printer's ink half-dried becomes iconic. A numinous aura surrounds old landmarks, historical sites, national flags etc. Then there are private relics endowed with the noumenal, such as the manuscripts of poets and kings; and then the descent to the purely sentimental - the locks of hair of dead parents or personal bric-a-brac from infancy, etc. - all of which have the power of recollecting presences imbued with greater or lesser effectiveness. For the evocative presence and not for the often trifling item itself, individuals or nations are even willing to fight to the death.

2 In 'Traité d'Histoire des Religions' by Prof. Mircéa Eliade of the University of Bucharest (Payot, Paris, 1949), confirmation of what is implied here is elaborately worked out by an authority of high academic status. It is to the author of this work that the present writer owes the expression 'dialectical revaluation of hierophanies'. One sentence by way of a sample may be quoted from this book. Prof. Eliade writes:

'Nous recontrerons un nombre considérable de telles revalorisations des hièrophanies primordiales, l'histoire des religions étant, en grande partie, l'histoire de dévalorisations et de revalorisations du procès de manifestation du sacré'.

('We find a considerable number of such revaluations among primordial hierophanies, the history of religions being for the most part the history of devaluations and revaluations of the process of representing the holy'.) pp. 35-36, ibid.

3 Compare the following passage from Plotinus: 'That our good is there is shown by the very love inborn with the Soul; hence the constant linking of the Love-God with the Psyche in story and picture. The Soul, other than God but sprung of Him, must needs love. So long as it is there it holds the heavenly love; here its love is the baser. There the soul is Aphrodite of the heavens; here, turned harlot, Aphrodite of the public ways - yet the soul is always an Aphrodite. This is the intention of the myth which tells of Aphrodite's birth and Eros born with her'
(Enneads, VI, ix, 9).

4 Cf., the passage in the Upanishad: 'For, just as men here below pursue the aim after which each aspires as though it were done at command, whether it be a kingdom or an estate, and live only for that (so in their aspiration for heavenly reward they are the slaves of their desires). Therefore he who departs from this world without having known the Atman or those true desires (satya kama), his part in all worlds is a life of constraint; but he who departs from this world after having known the Atman and those true desires, his part in all worlds is a life of freedom'. (Chandogya Upanishad: VIII, 5-6).



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CHAPTER XVI
BLAST AND COUNTER-BLAST

The Bhagavad Gita opens with two armies facing each other in battle array. The well-known scene is laid on the Field of Kuru which is at the same time the Field of Free Exalted Duty (i.e., both Kuru-Kshetra and Dharma-Kshetra). The impending conflict between right and wrong; higher spirituality and its anterior version - is to be announced. It is the beginning of an historically dialectical revaluation, stated in terms of a heritage preserved from antiquity, which is to take place again and again on the Indian soil. Both parties in the struggle are ready to lay down their lives for what they prize more dearly than life. The great warriors are named and distinguished and their might stated in terms of a heritage preserved from antiquity, which is to take place again and again on the Indian soil. Both parties in the struggle are ready to lay down their lives for what they prize more dearly than life. The great warriors are named and distinguished and their might and prowess declared openly in the barbaric but pure setting of a prehistoric epic.

Here therefore we have the essence of the formulation of the Word of wisdom in a typical situation of opposition. The hour strikes. Pipes, bugles, trumpets, drums and conch-shells tumultuously echo and re-echo in blast and counter-blast. Between these bellowing challenges the Word is again formulated. One hears its silent, still voice. In subtle reciprocity one shrill blast evokes and implies its counter-blast, and in that delicate relationship is the secret of silence - of the Word-wisdom of the Guru. We have seen what it implied in the context of hieratic imagery. We shall now pass on to its manifestation in noetic literature.

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In the first place, we have to distinguish between the two sets of writings of Narayana Guru himself. His earlier works were more related to the Indian scene than the later ones, which were free, as far as this was possible, of all special background. The earlier compositions abound in references to Indian myth and legend and generally speak the language of iconology. Here we find Kali the tragic Mother of timeless becoming; Ganesha the baby-god with the head of an elephant; Bahuleya the son of Shiva who is nursed by six mothers; and Saraswati, that lustrous deity of the Word; Vasudeva or Vishnu; Lakshmi the goddess of normal human values in life - and all the associated galaxy of heroic or godly conceptualisations and personifications of virtues associated with India's long traditions entered into these early works of the Guru in a simple, natural form. These early writings fulfilled a fundamental need; they were written for those who really wanted them - for those who had to be taken by the hand in a kindly manner. For such people the given imagery of god-forms had rich numinous meaning: hence, from this starting point, through their own accepted language, they could be trustfully guided to hitherto unknown and subtler domains of reason or wisdom. The Guru's method could not omit any intermediate stage in the educative process of conveying the Word. Nothing might be skipped. But the weaning from old to new had to be gentle and in conformity with the primary formulation of the Word as it had appeared in the ancient context of primeval Indian life.

Hence the role of the Guru consisted mainly in clearing away the impediments rather than in changing or interfering with the basic structure of Word-expression. Like a midwife he had to see that the healthy child of wisdom was born in safety to the satisfaction of the mother. At the birth of the Word the Guru was also a foster-mother, for as a mother he had to know the nature of the child; and as opposing tendencies are involved in every process of weaning or emancipation, the problem here was one of incessant adjustment of ambivalent factors, of protection and education going on simultaneously 1.

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Once while sitting under the spreading branches of a mango tree which the Guru planted near the temple of the Goddess Saraswati at Varkala, a bystander alluded to one of the Guru's early compositions whose verses were rich with all the imagery of poetry, with rhythm, melody and rhyme. Commenting, Narayana Guru gave evidence of the way he meant these early productions to be looked upon. 'They happened to have been written once upon a time', he remarked, as if half-disowning them and seeming to infer that he did not consider them as containing his fully finalized or formulated Word. In the light of his later writings, which were more impersonal and adjusted to standards of a more publicly positive critical order, it was clear that here the Guru wished to draw attention to the esoteric nature and individualised personal mysticism contained in these earlier productions. Even these earlier works, however, when closely examined by the critical eye of Vedanta, reveal the same fundamental principles of Advaita (non-dualism), but they have the addition of poetry or mystical music, using the keyboard of deistic imagery. It is the electric current of Vedanta lighting up the variously-shaped lamps. The wisdom-light is the same throughout all the Guru's works. There is nothing in the older poems to reject or revise, but he was addressing a more intimate and smaller circle of devotees. Later, as the numbers increased, he stated the same message in terms of universal impersonal applicability - his circle of admirers becoming wider and wider, including all, without even India as a limiting factor.

Narayana Guru further clarified his position and defined his attitude to spiritual or mystical literature on another occasion, when someone read out to him some verses from Tagore's 'Gitanjali' which at that time was making its debut before the English-speaking world 2.

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'The verses sound like conundrums', the Guru remarked. Such a style, he seemed to say, was natural to poetry but positive teaching had to be critically conceived without these naive musical forms. True, suggestive riddles have always been employed to reveal secret doctrines from olden times. Ornate and figurative language, using allegory and fable or puzzles, is familiar to all in esoteric literature, as myth has also been used. But the Guru thought teaching should be more consciously overt or public. A method and a theory of knowledge with a well-defined scale of values ought to be used, or implicit at least, with consistency and in a doubt-dispelling conclusive style. Where laws can be enunciated they have to be clearly formulated. Where laws do not or cannot prevail, this should be explicitly understood. Knowledge has to be more than merely an intellectual luxury. Besides the sweets there has to be the substantial curry and rice.

Vaguenesses lead to dogma and the confusion of doctrines. Spiritual statement has to come to close grips with actuality, with existence, reality or truth in crystalline, unambiguous language 3.

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It was in order to emphasise the same distinction between the two classes of mystical literature - the private and public, as it were - that Narayana Guru once asked a Sanyasin who was a Tamil scholar, which mystical Tamil writer he most admired, Tayumanavar or Tiruvalluvar. The former was an ancient Tamil bard full of mystical loneliness who poured his soul out, as it were, in strains of philosophical and poetic fancy. He employed an ornately suggestive and figurative style. The mystical message was essentially that of Vedanta, but the treatment resembled Sufi or Christian-Plotinian poetry, in its flights of 'the alone to the alone'. The other sage, Tiruvalluvar, belonged to a prehistoric Shiva background. Sixty-three other saints belonging to the hierarchy of his days are honoured once a year, even now, at the temple at Mylapore, in Madras. This saint was not of Aryan origin, but came from an earlier Indian stratum, and was therefore approximately designated as of an aboriginal 'caste' or as an 'untouchable' in the dull statistical language of modernism, which has lost its memory in regard to its own heritage. He was untouchable' because he was proto-Aryan, but he was also worshipped by all because he was unmistakably related to Word-dialectics from its very inception. Thus he has an everlasting place in the life of the people and presents one of those enigmas of South Indian life in being both respected and despised at one and the same time. Tiruvalluvar was a reply as well as a riddle, a yes as well as a no. And so 'every year in the month of April a festival is celebrated in his honour and he is worshipped as a divine Guru' 4.

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Tiruvalluvar's fame rests upon the Kural 5. In 1,330 metrical couplets this ethical and mystical work deals in a pungent homely style with the great questions of life and death. We have dwelt at some length on these two ancient poets of the Tamil land because of the bearing they have on our present subject where we are concerned with understanding the nature of the blast and counter-blast, the thesis and antithesis in the process of the formulation of the Word in its Indian 'home'. We have seen how the Shiva-tradition, far from being overcovered during the five thousand years and more from its earliest visible appearance in Mohenjo-Daro, still survives as the dominant spiritual note in common Indian life to the present day. The key to the time-honoured spirituality of South India is to be sought in the Sacred Kural of Tiruvalluvar. This ancient sage, mystic, moral and spiritual philosopher, as well as gifted genius in poetry, at once shrewdly poky and also dialectically true to the Word, commanded great respect at the hands of Guru Narayana, as may be gathered from a composition he wrote apostrophising the Lord of Mercy in which he said:

'Or else is he that sage
Of crowning fame so great
Who ministered anew that holy script
Of wisdom antique
Already then well known
And writ in Hara's name?'6

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In the far-off background of South Indian history, hidden away and forgotten, overlaid by later formulations, was a valuable heritage of wisdom which the Guru's keen eye and clear memory recognized and revived. In this we touch a stratum of universal values and a form of Word-wisdom which was the antecedent blast to the counter-blast of post-Aryan spirituality. Between the proto- and post-Aryan formulations of the Word was to be sought the neutral ground of synthetic and comprehensive understanding of which the Kural accords an antique example of a masterpiece of perennial wisdom.

All this brings us naturally to a consideration here of the two main currents of spiritual as well as social history - without which understanding the whole import of Indian spirituality would lose much of its importance. Historians and scholars have so far touched on this aspect with somewhat hesitant hands. But now any further hesitancy can only damage a cause equally dear to a lover of India or of its best heritage.

'The Foreign North' and 'The Indian South' are titles of distinct chapters in a recent book on Indian history by an able American lady.7 Although it is not our intention here to inflame local sentiments or rivalries around the question of Aryan and non-Aryan, it has to be recognized that without an understanding of the principle or process of blast and counter-blast, of challenge and response, of attack and retaliation in the dialectical formulation of the Word-Wisdom, much of the spiritual expression and literature would remain a closed book full of enigmas and riddles. What is called Dravidian should be taken in a wholesale integral sense as meaning pre-Aryan; and what is called Aryan should be understood as including all that vast literature of the Sanskrit language, put out age after age in the centuries following the settling of the Aryan people in India as a result of their contact with the pre-Aryan (or Dravidian) people.

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Pre-Aryan and Aryan therefore belong together as the obverse and reverse of the same coin - the India of to-day. The Indo-European or Aryan centre, often referred to by historians, was somewhere in the Asian North, possibly beyond the north-west frontiers of India. From this reservoir of human life certain forces and influence penetrated into the closed matrix of proto-Aryan life in India itself, which extended far beyond the South and included the Indus Valley civilization along with others. The influx could be put at from three to four thousand years ago 8.

This penetration of peoples from the steppes of Asia into India must have been slow and continuous over several centuries, and it is not important for us here to say whether it was one steady flow of the same Aryan group or whether there were waves of immigrants of different layers at different times. The chief point to remember is that two distinct currents of thought met and neutralized each other for a long period of time. Imagine the vast subcontinent, then in a state of super-saturation with its own Word-content. The mass of humanity therein was an amorphous matrix. The invading groups, on the other hand, were organized, pyramidal, theocratic units. They had the ritualistic Brahmin priest as the apex of each formation, with the fire-sacrifice or 'burnt offerings' to the sky-gods of nature, accompanied by Vedic chants and a phenomenal cosmology, as distinct features.

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The spearhead of these rebel groups on the north-western fringes of the prehistoric Indian society was evidently round the leader-types such as Drona of the Mahabharata epic war. This invading spearhead at once started a disturbance in the socio-religious society of pre-Aryan proto-Dravidian India. This challenge constituted the blast we have mentioned, to which there came the responsive counter-blast from the hitherto stabilized proto-Dravidians, thus converting what was a prehistoric into an historic situation. Stalwarts like Bhima in the same epic who were polyandrous and related to the dark-skinned Yadava (cowherd) leader Krishna, belonged to the remote times of prehistory; while the priest-leaders such as Drona of the Kauravas, monogamous and fair of skin, constituted the then modern socio-ethical beginnings of Vedic history, recorded conveniently in the Maha-Bharata.

The other great Indian epic which poetises another historical effect is the Ramayana; and it can also be examined in the light of the same blast and counter-blast. Here the geographical movement is plainly from the North to the South, from the Himalaya to Ceylon (Lanka of those days). This is the Aryan challenge, the 'blast' of our metaphor. But the Southern counter-blast is evident in the Maha-Bharata - as for example in the closing scenes where the epic narrative moves northwards to the Himalayan gateway to heaven; and there one of the principal characters, the chief of the Pandavas, who is depicted as a man of well-recognized renunciation and spirituality hard-won by battle, refuses the Aryan heaven (which is justly rewarded to him) because it debars admission to his dog.

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Thus a universal sentiment or value is introduced into this otherwise Aryan tale, revealing the infiltration of higher values which must have been derived from a different and contemplative society which can only have been the proto-Dravidian.

In the Ramayana, on the other hand, a contrary position is depicted. A heavy legalism predominates over the higher laws of the less positive but more contemplative society being overrun. Rama in his southward march is known to have killed a sage called Rishyasringa because he claimed spirituality without being a Brahmin by family stock as the Aryans understood it. Again the 'monkeys' who co-operated with the hero Rama in all likelihood were the proto-Dravidians he had won over to his side. When examined from the standpoint of social virtues such as monogamy and other latter-day refinements at present accepted by Hindu society, Aryan morals were of a higher order; but against that it must be understood that the intensely spiritual content of the conquered proto-Dravidians, non-social and amoral from the viewpoint of a fixed society, and working out from an individual rather than a group level, was in many respects of a superior moral character. But in the Ramayana the coded group-morality of the victors, though inferior, won a victory over the uncoded individually-free morality of the prehistoric, contemplative, wisdom-appreciating southerners. Ravana, the King of Ceylon, was the last of the Southern heroes of antiquity to resist the power of the northern conquerors. This stalwart giant had to be made into an Aryan civilised man through the moral standards personified in Rama.

Such is the implicit nature of the blast and counter-blast as evidenced from the ancient epics, and within whose opposing orders of values the spiritual Word achieved restatement and a reorientation which had terms of agreement with both the forces involved.

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Apart from evidence from the epics there is a large quantity of miscellaneous literary evidence which could be gathered together to strengthen the double-sided picture we have tried to present above. For example allusion is often made to dark-coloured Rishis (sages) as against fair-hued ones. The fair ones were often called Brahma-Rishis, while the dark ones who adhered neither to the fire-sacrifice (the agnihotra) nor to the Vedic ritual, were sometimes included in this order by sheer force of merit - their worth could not be suppressed or ignored. Parasara, the father of Vyasa, the author of the Maha-Bharata, was a dark-skinned outcaste; while Vyasa himself had to be granted Brahma-Rishihood by sheer force of his superiority. In the Maha-Bharata it is Krishna, the dark-complexioned man of the cowherd caste, who is the hero and Guru; and Krishna is related by marriage to Arjuna, his pupil, who is one of the Pandavas who uphold caste and Aryan sociology. Drona, Vasishta, as well as Valmiki, the author of the Ramayana, all belonged to the Vedic Aryan social context. The suggestions we have put forward, as well as the dialectics of the situation, alone can explain this commingling of values and must shed much light on features of Indian literary and spiritual history which are otherwise inexplicable.

All the legends connected with Shiva add weight to the view presented here. In spite of Brihaspati being the teacher of the Vedic gods, he is displaced by Dakshina-Murti who is the accepted Guru of the other Brahma-Rishis and, as we have explained, the latter is none other than a revalued Shiva of the South, a model Guru for India. The same clash of rival values is found in the hierography describing the various marriages of Shiva. Thus, although he is labelled an outcaste (an akula) by her father, Daksha's daughter weds Shiva by sheer wilful prayer, while Daksha disapproves of the marriage. Shiva is said to have disturbed sacrifices many times; one such striking instance being when the same daughter of Daksha, married to Shiva by a miracle from the air, finally gives up her life at another sacrificial ceremony to prove her loyalty to her husband, Shiva, and counter to the wishes of her father who happens to be the officiating ceremonialist.

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Agastya, a Vedic Guru, is accepted in the South only after the mediation of the God Subrahmanya (the son of Shiva), who becomes his Guru. Then there is the case of Drona and Ekalavya. The Aryan Drona refuses to permit Ekalavya to learn archery because the latter was only a proto-Dravidian chief. But Ekalavya does learn, by the device of substituting a dummy Drona for his Guru and, according to legend, this inanimate presence was sufficient (by telepathic sympathy) for him to learn the art of archery well enough to become an exact marksman. However, this displeased the Vedic Guru Drona, who insisted on having his dues as a Guru repaid by cutting off Ekalavya's thumb.

The Aryan heroes excelled in political standards of a very rigid and exacting kind, as we see in that part of the Ramayana called the 'Uttara-Rama-Charita' (the 'Later History of Rama') where the whole tragedy consists in putting the personality of Sita, Rama's queen, under and not above politics. The code was ruthless, the law inexorable, even when Caesar's wife was involved and proved innocent. Today the bugling conch-shell of controversy still resounds in India, echoing and re-echoing over plains and hills in everlasting challenge and response. There is an axial movement of pilgrims, subtly dialectical in its nature, still passing to and fro, as of old, from North to South and South to North, between the two poles of Indian socio-spiritual life, between Mount Kailasa in the Himalaya and the Ultima Thule of Cape Comorin at the far southernmost tip. Between these two termini, one of snow and rock and the other of burning sands washed by warm seas, a dialectical interplay of ancient inherited values and legacies, moves, meets and mingles, all interfused, a jostling mixture of Aryan-derived and proto-Dravidian peoples and patterns, while through and through the bellowing conch-shell still rends the air. Subrahmanya (son of Shiva) is the god of the Palni Hills in the South where he still receives much popular homage. At Palni he is seen as the ascetic with only the loincloth and ashes, understood from time immemorial as the typical expression of renunciation and spirituality in the Shiva-language of the Word-wisdom.

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But in other temples Subrahmanya is worshipped in the form of a married man, and then his wife invariably belongs to a pre-Aryan tribe, as for example his spouse, Valli, who is of the aboriginal hunting caste. Even Kalidasa 10 describes the goddess Saraswati - notwithstanding all her refinement of learning and Vedic wisdom, and symbolized by the book and the Vina she carries - as a 'mathanga kanya' (a maid of the untouchables). The poet thus recognized the subtle Word-dialectics in so alluding even to the purest presiding deity of all art and wisdom.

The point of fusion in the caste-antagonism as between the extremes of Brahmin and Pariah as it obtains to the present day must also be considered in the light of the same Word-dialectics if it is not to continue as an unpleasant enigma for ever. Even to this day the untouchable Pariah has strongly-rooted spiritual objections to intercourse with the Brahmin, who is unwelcome in the 'cheri' or reserve where the 'untouchable' tribes live. This again is related to the bilateral development of untouchability itself in the social context where the Aryan pattern of life prevails. The enigma of Brahmin and Pariah therefore belongs to a certain secret of dialectics without which it can never be understood. Any philosophy that aims at touching the life of the people must have as part of its task the bringing together of these two ends of society into unitive terms of sympathy and comprehension. It is here that the Word of the Guru Narayana has been a potent factor in the recent history of South India. It is in this field that the Guru's value as a representative of the silent model of the Guru-Word gains fresh point and importance.

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Buddhist and Jaina solutions to socio-religious evils failed to succeed, although they did leave colouring traces which are still valid in Indian life today. Their failure was due to the extreme or unilateral or asymmetrical emphasis laid upon them by political groups from time to time, producing a grotesque exegesis. But certain valuable ingredients from each were assimilated into the dialectical content of Indian spiritual life.

Thus the prehistoric Shiva's element of cruelty in hunting was modified by the 'ahimsa' (non-hurting) doctrine coming into and dominating Indian life for some time under the teaching of Vadhamana Maha Vira ('The Prosperous Great and Brave One') of the Jains and the similar teaching of the Buddha, and his followers 11.

Modernized Vaishnava cults that once flourished all over India during the post-Pallava 12 period (after the 7th century AD) also made their contributions of social refinements and virtues, adding an overlying pattern of equality, emphasising justice and other values - more apparent in some parts of the country than in others - so that life was maintained at a more reasonable level than before.

The Guru Narayana strove to revaluate all these contributory factors in the life of the country, conserving all former revaluations in a supremely generous synthesis of Advaitic vision.

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Mahatma Gandhi described his ideal India as a 'Rama-Rajya' or a Regime Based on Rama Rule'. Rama personified the social virtues of the Aryans. A Vaishnava sense of equality was noticeably implied in this Gandhian outlook to which India responded characteristically, particularly adopting it in the struggle for emancipation as an integrated political unit. But political unification is not the end. Integration has to be deeper still. It needs to touch both root and branch. Hence the value, we believe, of the understanding of Word-dialectics in the light we have tried to throw on both social and spiritual effects, and especially through the medium of the original contribution of the Guru Narayana to the subject. For in spite of the fact of political integration and emancipation, problems of a communal and social nature still remain unsolved. Strife between Hindu and Muslim offers difficulties which come from sources deeper than mere surface differences, and therefore solutions for such problems have to be also deeper, more radical and thorough. Here also the Word of the Guru is of direct and practical importance. Dayananda stressed the importance of the Vedic and Aryan virtues of equality.

Vivekananda defended Hinduism primarily in the name of Mother-worship of Kali; Gandhi stressed Vaishnava democratic notions in public life; and Tagore sang songs breathing something of the freedom of the Upanishads across modern India - all of them aiming at raising the status of India in the world. The silent Guru of Varkala, sitting on a hilltop at the southern extremity of Mother India, steeped in the silence of non-dual unitive vision, integrated all the contributory views and visions into one whole; brought all within the scope of one contemplative Word-wisdom by which human dignity could be held high everywhere and all mankind become free.



NOTES
1 This analogy of the Guru as a midwife is not far-fetched, for we find it elaborately worked out in Plato's 'Theaetetus'. Here, in the mouth of Socrates, we are told how the spiritual midwife has a difficult task: 'for women', he says 'do not bring into the world at one time real children, and at another time counterfeits which are with difficulty distinguished from them; if they did, then the discernment of the true and false birth would be the crowning achievement of the art of midwifery' and he continues, 'I attend men and not women, and I look after their souls when they are in labour and not after their bodies; and the triumph of my art is in thoroughly examining whether the thought which the mind of the young man brings forth is a false idol or a noble and true birth...Some of them (the young men) appear dull enough at first, but afterwards, as our acquaintance ripens, if the god is gracious to them, they all make astonishing progress; and this in the opinion of others as well as in their own', (see Plato's 'Theaetetus', Jowett trans. 'Works of Plato', Modern Library Series, pp. 490-493).

2 'Gitanjali' was first published in English in 1912. In 1913 Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

3 Western critics of Sankara, and of the Advaita Vedanta generally, level two main objections, even when they are sympathetic to the wisdom-teaching. One objection is that it is impractical, that nothing concessional or of daily use is done for the problems of ordinary life; the second is (in the words of Dr. Paul Deussen) that the spiritual teaching is accommodated in the wrong way: what is called 'the practice of clothing metaphysical intuitions in the forms of empirical knowledge', which 'is met with not only in India, but also in Europe from the earliest times'. (see Deussen, 'Preface to the Philosophy of the Upanishads', Clark, Edinburgh,1906, p. ix). The Guru Narayana, as we shall see, by the use of Word-dialectics, avoided both these errors: the error of retreat to an ivory tower of spiritual or philosophical isolation on the one hand; and the error of hypostatic fixations on the other hand.

4 H.A. Popley, p. 16, 'The Sacred Kural', Oxford University Press, 1931.

5 There are many books on the Kural with translations in English and other languages. Popley (ibid.) lists 26. By far the most compendious - but not literal, because it was forced into English rhyme - is Dr. G.U. Pope's, pub. 1886, when the great Tamil scholar was eighty. One of the latest and fairly accurate translations in English, is 'Tiruvalluvar's Tirukural in Tamil with English Translation' by Prof. M.R. Rajagopala Aiyangar, (pub. S.Viswanathan, 56, Broadway, Madras. 1950).

Mrs. Sen says rightly, 'The Kural is the most beloved and the most widely read book in the whole of South India. Tamil children begin their education by memorising its verses', (p. 200, 'The Pageant of India's History').

The precise date of Tiruvalluvar is uncertain, but it lies between 1500 and 2000 years ago, according to scholars. M. Ariel, a French scholar in Tamil, has written: 'That which above all is wonderful in the Kural is the fact that the author addresses himself, without regard to castes, peoples or beliefs, to the whole community of mankind; the fact that he formulated sovereign morality and absolute reason; that he proclaims in their essence, in their eternal abstractedness, virtue and truth; he presents, as it were, in one group the highest laws of domestic and social life; he is equally perfect in thought, in language and in poetry, in the austere metaphysical contemplation of the great mysteries of the Divine nature, as in the easy and graceful analysis of the tenderest emotions of the heart'. There is little doubt that the Kural gives a strong clue to the deep practical mysticism of the proto-Aryan South, and the fact that it is having a quasi-political revival at the moment of writing adds some passing interest to the powerful hold it has had on the South for centuries.

6 Hara is a name for Shiva.

7 Mrs. Gertrude Emerson Sen, Chapter VIII of her book 'The Pageant of India's History' (Longmans, 1948), dealing with 'Indian South' begins with the following paragraph: 'Histories of India nearly always have a peculiar northern bias, and it is to be feared that the present one is no exception. South India and the great Deccan Plateau are sadly neglected, and the distinctive contributions of the Dravidian South to Hindu civilization as a whole are overlooked or given scant attention. This neglect of the historian is due to no fault of his own, but to a series of circumstances over which he has no control... Mohenjo-Daro itself may possibly represent a mainly Dravidian type of civilization' (p. 173).

8 Prof. Arnold J. Toynbee discusses the origin of the Aryans and the reason for their wandering into and occupation of India as well as Europe in his gigantic 'Study of History' (Oxford University Press have published a one-volume abridgement compiled in Toynbee's own words by D.C. Somerwell. 1947. His theory is that the Aryans were living as 'an external proletariat' of outlanders to the universal society called the Sumeric whose territory, culturally at least, extended from ancient Egypt to South India, and covered the valleys of the Euphrates, Tigris, Indus, etc. 'The break-up of this empire after Hammurabi, (1947 BC) ushered in the period of the Aryan Volkerwanderung', Toynbee says.

'While some', he also writes, 'entered India, others overran Iran, Iraq, Syria and finally Egypt, where they established in the 17th century BC a rule of barbarian warlords known to Egyptian history as the Hyksos'. These invading peoples from the Eurasian Steppes had horses, and the very close correspondence between the chariots which appear in literature, carvings etc. all over the same wide region mentioned above, and gradually extending even to such remote places as Ireland, confirms the tentative theory of the original Aryan homeland being 'somewhere between the Danube and the Oxus'. The evidence from Ireland is 'that elements of the curious and complicated ritual of the ancient Indian (Vedic) horse-sacrifice survived until the 12th century AD in Ireland, etc', (see Chapter VII, 'Conquerors from the West - the Aryans and the Rigveda' discussed in 'Prehistoric India' by the Prehistoric Archaeologist Prof. Stuart Piggott - Penguin Books, 1950).

9 Padmini Sengupta writes: 'Rama, for instance, against his own conscience, had to exile Sita for no fault of hers because it was the custom that no wife who had stayed for any length of time in another man's house, whether willingly or under force, could be received back into her husband's house, no matter how innocent she was. Despite Sita's proving her purity, and despite Rama's great love for her and his belief in her chastity, she had to be sent away until finally Mother Earth opened her arms and Sita was carried into the furrow from which she had been born. One feels today that it was a blot on the otherwise perfect character of Rama that he should have treated his faithful wife so cruelly, but his subjects demanded it, and in his time no alternative course of action was open to him as a king', pp. 51.52, 'Everyday Life in Ancient India' (Oxford University Press, 1950).

10 Kalidasa, considered by some to be the greatest Sanskrit dramatist and poet, lived about the fifth century AD in Malwa. His 'Sakuntala' is well known outside India. His 'Kumara Sambhava' tells the story of Shiva's austerities and his wedding, nevertheless, to the daughter of the Himalaya.

11 Maha Vira (599-527 BC) was the founder of the Jain religion.

12 The Pallavas ruled in South India during the 3rd to 9th centuries of the Christian Era. Their centre was Kanchi or Conjeevaram. They used a Prakrit (Sanskrit variant language) and performed the Asvamedha or Vedic horse sacrifice, but were also worshippers of Shiva. They were tolerant of other religions, and the Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang in the 7th century found 10,000 Buddhist priests and a number of monasteries at Kanchi.



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CHAPTER XVII
THE GURU TRIO OF SOUTH INDIA

Buddhism's divergence or at least superficial appearance of breaking away from the main body of the line of descent of the Word-formula as we have traced it - a heterodoxy which is implied in the Buddhist religion - was the reason for its displacement on the soil of its birth by fresh formulations of the Word which, while new revaluations, were at the same time not severed from older formulations.

1. From the study of biology we learn that over-specialization leads to the extinction of a species, and that organisms survive by the conservation of their original simplicity, as in the case of the immortal amoeba.

2. Too good, too perfect, simply means not true, as proverbial wisdom puts it. A goodly apple is often rotten at the core, and painted tombs do worms unfold. Languages become dead when their grammar becomes too exacting. To modern society and politics Sanskrit is a dead language, although its exactitude makes it ideal for the survival of the wisdom which still lives within it. The heavily-armoured species of gigantic animals of past geological ages leave nothing more behind them than their fossil bones or the impressions of their huge bodies. So too with mankind; jungle primitives can survive under conditions of adversity which would mean death to the civilised man in the bowler hat, softened by socks and shoes and modern ways of life.

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It is the same with the Wisdom Word. The growth of the Word in many mouths for collective action is different from its simple survival through time as a trickle of perennial wisdom. That is why the rich man cannot enter the kingdom of heaven, and why the world cannot be gained at the cost of one's own soul. A Constantine 3 or an Asoka 4 can make whole empires follow a faith, but there is something in the faith itself which is needed in addition to all the efforts of well-meaning reformers, something which alone gives stability and permanence to the good after which men strive. Dynamic and living aspects are deep-seated under the visible surface, while the static and closing-in tendencies in each religion defeat their own ends by using means which are contradictory to the dynamic or living principles.

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And so, bearing the above in mind, after having traced the formulations of the Word from ancient times, we shall now follow three of its modalities as they were manifested in South India in those Gurus of more recent times - Sankara, Ramanuja and Madhva - a trio whose Word-formulae still prevail and regulate the lives of people in contemporary India. It is not because we want to be partial to South India that we select these three, but rather because they are sufficiently representative for our purpose and what we have to say of them would apply to others, mutatis mutandis.

Buddhism and Jainism were repulses against the first blast of the Aryan conch-shell. Later they themselves became too good, too etherealized in an intimate personal sense, to be existent or real. Theory and rarefied argument, of a kind comparable to the hair-splitting dogmatics of the Christian theologians of the European Middle Ages, became for religion an end in itself.

Thus over-specialized, raised above and escaping from human needs in the day-by-day sense, these two religious expressions evaporated into the peripheral fringes, while new revalued formulae once again grew out from the centre, near to the source of Word-wisdom, and by their intimacy with the old but undying roots, prevailed in India. It might be said that Buddhism and Jainism were not ousted, but rather that they ousted themselves by spectral unsubstantialization - something too rarefied for the masses. And so the simplest and the lowliest held the secret that could make the last the first, by the renewal of the inner sap of wisdom from the deep fountains buried within the humanity of India, and when the wisdom-spring was tapped properly it could be applied again to whatever situation was present in a way that was ever fresh and rich in its content of common human values.

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Sankara 5 effected the necessary synthesis and link with the past. He opened the old wells of wisdom. On the one side the conventionalist pundits and priests of the Aryan heritage suspected him of heterodoxy and called him a 'Buddhist in disguise' (prachhanna bauddha); while, on the other side, his attitude to and respect for Aryan patterns of life, such as taking caste distinctions for granted, made him suspect as a 'revivalist' by the Buddhists and Jains of his time. The fact is that he balanced his attitude delicately between both heterodoxy and orthodoxy. On the one hand he rid religion of its tendency towards over-abstraction and vain theorising; and on the other hand he endeavoured to breathe into it the fresh air of a vitally rational and imaginative interest. In spite of the boldness of the Upanishads, the Vedic tradition had entered a blind alley. The thread of the Word was almost snapped. Sankara led the Upanishad message again into the open; strengthened the old cords, and even brought and bound Buddhism within its scope, despite the latter's seemingly atheistic expressions. Sankara did this with a forceful sweep of unitive thought, arguing at enormous length, in a war that he decided must end all wars.

Sankara himself conformed to a Sanyasin-Guru model of the Dakshina-Murti-Shiva tradition that we have already described in Chapter XI; but he proclaimed a new, revalued Word-formula in which stern renunciation and tearful devotion met and neutralized each other. Without the spearhead of the fire-sacrificing Vedic priest, the Aryan-turned section could not think. This could not be bypassed. It was part of the necessary background of the Word as it had been formulated from the most ancient historical times. Sankara made the best of the situation and of the caste notion which followed as a corollary to the Vedic priesthood, treating it all as a necessary background for Advaita Vedanta. Philosophically, caste notions and Vedic priestcraft were abolished; but in practical life actually accepted apologetically - as can be seen from his composition called 'Manishi Panchakam' which is a dialogue, actual or imaginary, between Sankara and an 'untouchable' in Kasi (Benares). In these verses Sankara admits and accepts defeat on Advaitic grounds from the outcaste whose reasoning is so apodictically final. But in his many great commentaries on the canons of Vedantic thought, Sankara fails to exercise his Guru role effectively, excusing or glossing over caste and indeed seeming to be its apologist.

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Whenever the Guru Narayana came across a Sanyasin of the Sankara tradition he rarely missed an opportunity of referring to this question. The Bhagavad Gita explains caste in its own way, reducing and confining it as necessarily part of human society, part of the limitations of a world of necessity and restraint, upheld by the God of nature 6. It is also shown, however, that this condition is dissolved by the 'God' of freedom who emancipates by wisdom when the devotee turns towards the goal of Self-realization.

Wherever reference to the question of the duties and obligations of caste is made in the various commentaries of Sankara we find that he is seemingly excusing the orthodox attitude, without however supporting it philosophically 7. Injustice in the name of this vestige of the historical conflict therefore remains unrectified in Sankara. His zeal for toeing the line of orthodoxy and also for absorbing the wisdom-values that Buddhism had brought to the surface, left him a Sanyasin more or less like a Buddhist bhikkshu (monk) - a pure votary of wisdom which he personified again as Saraswati of the prehistoric Shiva tradition. Piety, faith, devotion and uncompromising rational wakefulness to reality combined with imagination and insight - these made Sankara the last of the great Gurus of ancient India.

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He could not have effected any more perfectly synthetic or revalued restatement at that historical period when the heterodoxy that Buddhism spelled had still to be more symmetrically poised. India was more self-contained at that time. We find therefore in Narayana Guru a more finalized version of the Advaitic Word-wisdom. In fact he stated his affiliation to Sankara when he once called the present writer and said: 'Sankara's point of view is our own'. This had to be taken with his further remark that if there was anything that he, the Guru Narayana, came to teach it was that there was no room or justification for caste distinctions like Brahmin and Pariah 8. The revision of the position by the Guru was thus unequivocal.

Taken all together, perhaps beginning with the ancient Shiva-Yogi model or symbol from prehistoric Mohenjo-Daro times, modified or revised by the tradition established by Buddhism (an anti-ritualist monastic system of shaven-headed, yellow-robed monks with begging-bowls) as well as the prevalent ideal of renunciation, Sankara added his touch of devotion to the Wisdom-Goddess Saraswati and combined this with the Dakshina-Murti model of the Shiva-Guru, thus offering at that critical phase of Indian history a pattern of ethico-religious life consistently in line with what was then currently accepted, as well as with the most ancient patterns of Indian Word-wisdom. Sankara also revalued atheistic Samkhya rationalism and even put in something of Charvaka Epicureanism (the so-called materialism 9), adding a note of stoical severity. Thus the prehistoric God Shiva was re-established with deeper significance in view of maturer thought from these various sources; but Sankara also linked Shiva cosmologically with the more ancient Pancharatra legend where God is said to have slept on the primordial waters, by calling Shiva 'Narayana Priya' (the Beloved of Narayana)l0. Shiva is made the first-born man, the yogi, recluse, ecstatic dancer and Guru by Sankara, identified with the supplicant and yogi who approaches him in the meditative prayers composed by Sankara in the words, 'Sivo-ham, Sivo-ham!'('I am Shiva! I am Shiva!') 11

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Among the numerous hymns attributed to Sankara there occur the following well-known words of a popular prayer, which will help to confirm the views we have expressed regarding Sankara's place in the ancient tradition of perennial Word-wisdom.

'Worship Govinda! Worship Govinda!
Worship Govinda, muddle-headed boy! -
When death takes you, grammar won't save you,
No matter how many rules you employ'.12

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The reference to Govinda here would apply both to Sankara's Guru who was known as Govinda, or equally well, as some think, to the pastoral Krishna who is also known by that name. Simple piety, faith and devotion found their place side-by-side with uncompromising support of the primacy of wisdom, as in the opening verses of the 'Crest Jewel of Wisdom' ('Viveka-Chuda-Mani'), one of Sankara's immortal monuments to rational religion. In this work wisdom is extolled as the only medicine for true freedom, while yogic and other practices, puja (ritual), etc., are ridiculed in a way that Voltaire could not have bettered. Sankara, indeed, seems to combine the tearful sentiment of a J-J. Rousseau with the pride in reason of a Voltaire. In this way he reconciled opposites, from ordinary standards a baffling figure, only to be understood in the light of his work as a Guru, conforming to the ancient model and taking on himself the neutrality of the non-dual or Advaitic attitude.

This neutral Word-formula referring to the Absolute has its corollary in what is known as the doctrine of Maya, as put forward by Sankara. Any factor impeding unitive comprehension of the Absolute contemplatively (whether because of vital energies or other effects disturbing the restful, unconditioned consciousness) is taken in its totality of double-characterised expression as of Maya. Maya is both good and bad, existent and non-existent. Nothing definitely can be predicated of it. It is, however, the supreme generic category of possibility of error. It is Maya's double negation, implicit in its nature, that leads to the triumph of non-dual vision. Maya is a necessary stepping stone, a final diving-board to spring from firmly before plunging into the depths of the challenging unknowable.

The Maya of the Buddhists was like the Bergsonian cinematographic function of thought which sees stills of life - cross-section views of universes in static terms of Euclidean space. It was highly psychological in its approach. Sankara added the personal touch of piety, devotion, theology and orthodox correctness and consistency, while holding firmly to the position gained in the form of pure wisdom. In matters of devotion the Shiva-imagery was his natural point of departure. By his uncompromising love of philosophical precision, Sankara suffered the disadvantage of being considered too theoretical in his attitude. To theologically pious minds God or Iswara was a necessity, and they could not understand the error of the duality implied in such a concept which was as high as piety could go. And therefore in the rallying of people round Word-values, other formulae than Sankara's came into vogue. But without Sankara's initial labours these variants could not have had their genesis. To Sankara is due the high honour of giving the initially impelling revaluation of the Word.

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Hence there were variants in method of approach, diverging according to actual social needs, adaptations of the original non-dual position of Sankara which was implied in the philosophical silence of the Buddha himself 14, who refused to commit himself either by denial or affirmation; thus allowing a neutral ground for the Word, not only through Sankara but others as well. And therefore, in the vast matrix of amorphous Indian life there were aggregations of people around variations of the Word-formula, with varying degrees of orthodoxy in that theocratic political setting of the post-Pallava period. These variants in the Word-formulation took their point of departure from the concept of Adi Narayana (the Original cosmological person later identified with Vishnu and Vasudeva, the consort of Lakshmi), basing their philosophical structure on Vaishnavite forms of worship. Temples were more important to them than Mutts or monasteries. Although Ramanuja 15 took to monastic robes, the severe touch of Buddhist monkhood and renunciation was transformed by degrees to suit the requirements of family or social life.

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While the theory of salvation through Brahman still remained the common doctrine of the Absolute, yet the Vedas were to be accepted; and the Upanishads permitted interpretations of the mystical teachings because of their charmingly sublime but vague paradoxes, enigmas and compression into aphorisms. The effect of the spearhead shock of ritualistic priestcraft and the strain of its exclusive severity had to be mitigated somehow; and Ramanuja and Madhva 10 therefore formulated suitable variations of the Word which accorded favourably with the needs of those who integrated themselves under them. Any detailed discussion here of the philosophical implications of the positions taken by these three Acharyas or Teachers of South India would take us into the core of the methodology and epistemology of the Vedanta. This must be left for treatment when we come to the translations of the writings of Guru Narayana. It must suffice here to indicate first that any primacy given to Maya relatively minimises the need for a personal deity or Isvara. But the theological requirements of society (i.e., religion as ordinarily understood with its injunctions and rules etc.) are not met by mere critical philosophy. The primal source of 'creation' itself being Maya (and its consequent evils), all the determinative creative necessities (God monotheist or gods many) or demiurges theologically desired, are comprised under the general title of Maya-effect; while the negation of Maya, which is the aim of yoga as understood in Vedanta, brings us to pure Advaita or non-duality without even the need for God(s) 17.

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When the Maya-effect is stressed, even in terms of the most precious of human values in a personal God in which duality is implicit as between a worshipper and a worshipped, it is known in the technical language of India as the Satkarya-Vada (the theory of the primacy of effect). This is opposed to the position of Advaita Vedanta where the duality of worshipper and worshipped is abolished and the Satkarana-Vada (the theory of the primacy of cause) declared.

Giving primacy to the Maya-effect leads to the supreme Effect which is God as the object of meditation or adoration. The personalized God is thus none other than Maya conceived positively (known as Iswara). Two of the main recognitions of such a Supreme God - within the Vishnu cosmology rather than in the Shiva psychology - are represented by the teachings of Ramanuja and Madhva. The names Visisht-Advaita (non-duality of the specialized) and Dvaita (bi-polarity) which are applied to these religio-philosophic schools, further indicate their gradation or variation in relation to the original neutral Word-formula as we have traced it and demonstrated on earlier pages. Our aim in showing these variations is merely explanatory.

The history of Western philosophy could likewise be graded with reference to Plato or Aristotle as expressions of complementary dialectics. Similarly, these Indian philosophical expressions depend the one upon the other and can all be strung together into one single necklace of visions or insights (= sanskrit 'darsana' - in German, 'Anschauung') as the Guru Narayana has done (in his Darsana-Mala or 'Garland of Visions'), or as in the earlier attempts of Sankara's followers (the 'Sarva Darsana Siddhanta Sangraha' - 'The Epitome of all Possible Visions of Truth')'. Madhva also compiled a summarization 19.

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In the work of all who take up the study of comparative philosophy the acceptance of a common substratum of values is implied, as in the able histories of philosophy in the West, such as those of Victor Cousin 20 and others. A tacitly-understood scale of values joining all together is present in all such critical histories, depending upon how pragmatic or idealistic each writer is willing to be. Because no-one escapes being human the golden thread of precious human values, stringing together all the possible philosophical aspects or visions, remains common to all humanity. It thus becomes possible for the Guru Narayana to sympathise with all philosophers, and even to be at one with all the Gurus who ever spoke in the subtle dialectics of Word-wisdom, without the slightest duplicity or lukewarm weakness being involved. Faith and reason are treated as complementaries, and the one is meaningless without the other.21

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Kanchi (modern Conjeevaram) near Madras, was the capital of the Northern Pallavas after the third century AD and was dominated by them up to the ninth century. Formerly it had been the centre of the Chola kingdom - a city of ancient Shiva temples and with contacts spreading to the Mediterranean as far back as the times of King Solomon, at least 1000 BC.

Kanchi has been one of the focal centres not only for the emanation of the Word but for its revaluation in historic times. Like Ujjain of the golden age of the Guptas, celebrated by the great Kalidasa and other geniuses, Kanchi was a city of immense significance in the spiritual dialectics of India. Its temple towers, paved courtyards and broad streets survive to this day, still reflecting a glory that reaches back to prehistory. A cultural history is remembered and kept alive here as in some other world centres such as Paris or Peking. Kanchi is a landmark in the historical process of the formulation of the Word-wisdom, a glowing focal centre in the South. As in Alexandria in Greek-ruled Egypt two thousand years ago, where Greek Dionysians, Platonists, Egyptians, Jews, Persians and Christians resided together and debated and mingled philosophically; so too at Kanchi, right through the centuries of Pallava occupation.

All this has relevance when we come to consider the age in which our South Indian Guru trio lived. This was a major part of their field and constituted an important background to their roles as Gurus. Sankara was probably born in the year 788 AD in the village of Kaladi in North Travancore near Alwaye where the Guru Narayana had his Ashram. Ramanuja was born in 1017 AD at Sriperambudur near Kanchi. It was a region of temples, including Sri-Rangam (further South) where purer philosophical and monastic trends aided the work of giving Vedantic formulations of Vishnu-worship. Those followers of Ramanuja who gave primacy to the Northern-originating Vedas were called Vada-galais; while those who identified themselves with Southern or Tamil revelatory sources were known as Then-galais - the two prefixes indicating 'north' and 'south' respectively. Madhva was born in 1199 AD in the village of Pajakakshetra six miles south of modern Udipi on the West Coast. Although worshippers of Vishnu, the worship of Shiva was allowed in the temples of the Madhva followers.

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The affiliations of the Madhva cult extended in the form of temples and monasteries from Udipi in the south to Dwaraka in the north, and the followers traced their faith to the historical personage of Krishna of the Bhagavad Gita. South India is pervaded by the influence of this group today. Sankara, Ramanuja and Madhva each commented on the Brahma-Sutras (terse aphorisms summing-up Upanishadic wisdom on Brahman or the Absolute) of Badarayana. The West Coast of South India was the home of two of these Gurus, Sankara and Madhva, and the temple city of the East Coast of South India, where the South was gripped by the domination of the North, was the place where the third of the Guru trio, Ramanuja, lived and evolved his Word-formula. Thus in the religious expression of these three great Gurus might be seen, as if in a cross-section, the dominant trends of South Indian orthodoxy. In order to see how the Guru Narayana related himself to these expressions we shall lapse here once more into intimate personal anecdote.

It was in the same city of Ramanuja, now called Conjeevaram, the ancient renowned Kanchi, that the Guru Narayana was residing in quiet retirement in the Sev-Ashram (Home of Service) founded there by his disciple Govindananda. Hundreds of temples still burned incense both to the Shiva-symbol of prehistory as well as to the Vishnu of a later age in this town of antiquity, where priest, soldier, philosopher and courtesan had passed and repassed across the scene, through a drama of many centuries, filling the atmosphere with mellowed old memories dear to the mind of the devout Indian.

Once again the present writer was standing in the presence of the Guru listening to the stimulating conversation that constantly went on around the Guru wherever he happened to be. The company consisted, as was often the case, of yellow-robed disciples, but there were also present this time white-robed holy men wearing the distinguishing religious marks of both Vishnu and Shiva groups. Thengalai Ramanujas and Vadagalai Ramanujas rubbed shoulders with Madhvas as well as with Smarthas of the Sankara school.

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Such holy men were called Brahmins, whether or not they had actually descended from the original Aryan priests of the time of Drona, Visvamitra and other patriarchs or Rishis of the Vedic epoch. At present such Brahmins comprise all ethnic groups, united only by common loyalty to the heritage of the Word-wisdom through the Bhagavad Gita, the various Upanishads and the Brahma-Sutras. These wisdom-writings, and the extensive commentaries on them, formed the background of all these group configurations of 'Brahmins'; and when considered together with other members of prehistoric ethnic groups, such as the merchant communities of all these South Indian temple towns, united to form a completely representative cross-section of the socio-religious life of South India today.

The Guru sat amidst this motley crowd surrounded by a garden of equally varied shrubs neatly arranged round the edges of a fenced-in, sand-strewn, open courtyard. The air was filled with incense burned in his honour, and despite the modernist age, an atmosphere of old-time reverence and veneration for a Guru prevailed. The scent of rose and jasmine, mingled with the fragrant incense smoke. Here religious atmospheres of far-flung contexts and memories met in the unitive presence of the serene and silent Guru, whose characteristic mystical composure once again distilled all into a common blend radiating an ineffable sense of peace.

As was usual with the Guru, he avoided the use of the first person singular pronoun 'I', but using the collective 'we', he began to speak to the writer, recognizing him with a kindly eye, from the many of whom he was the last or the first, accordingly as the Guru's glance lighted on him or not. 'They took us inside', he declared. 'They took us into the very holy of holies of the temple of Sri Perambudur of the Vishnu-worshippers. Though very orthodox, they showed no indication of caste prejudice. Full temple honours were bestowed on us and we were received with full ceremonial pomp with all its usual accompaniments'. The Guru seemed touched by the recognition thus instinctively extended to him by the latest descendants of the Ramanuja school of wisdom-adoration.

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They had heard of the Guru's arrival at Conjeevaram and had been impressed by his erudition and saintliness. His humbler and more common origin among a peasant population was no bar to the recognition of the type of spirituality that sat so clearly on his features, unmistakable for the trained eye of South Indian religious experts to see at once. Here was another Guru who represented the time-honoured Guru-model which was at the back of their memories as a priceless archetypal heritage - another Guru, in the repeated phenomena of history whose voice and presence the flock recognized. Guru Narayana too declared, as Ramanuja himself had done, the equality of all in God, and it was remembered that Ramanuja's first disciples were men of humble callings in life. The masses had re-formulated the Word through Ramanuja, and Guru Narayana was also one such who was neither orthodox nor heterodox, although incidentally, if it would stimulate goodness in man, he could behave like either. 'Then', the Guru continued, 'they took us to an anteroom in the temple precincts where the priests put on their marks of piety or holiness on their foreheads'.

Traditional orthodoxy was exacting to the minutest detail even in this matter of forehead decoration, using sandalwood and other pastes and ashes. The mark shaped like the letters U or Y with a red or orange streak in the middle and carefully applied to the forehead, had to have its limbs carved in a specially formal way as the stroke was drawn up with a pencil-like tracer. It took long years of practice before this could be done with full satisfaction, probably one of the precautionary measures of orthodoxy.

'We tried to respect their feelings by conforming to this requirement. The result was surprising to ourselves', the Guru explained. Through sheer sympathy he astonished all the orthodox followers by conforming with precise exactitude of detail to their customs. He became one of them, even in conforming to outward requirements of orthodoxy. As related in his own words, this incident gives us the key to the Guru's personal attitude to the various religious groups in South India which it will be important for posterity to know, in as direct a manner as possible, so that no cleavage can develop between the Advaita Vedanta he represented and those other schools which are supposed to be different or opposed, by those less familiar with the true nature of the Guru-wisdom as understood and explained in these pages.

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On another occasion the Guru Narayana was walking along a street in Cochin with a number of his admirers. It was in the Jewish quarter of the town. The Jews had been there since the Fall of Jerusalem. Someone expressed the view that the Jews were peculiar people. As if in protest to this attitude the Guru walked into the house of a wealthy Jewish merchant, well known in Cochin. He was received with kindness by a respectable-looking lady of the house and he spent a day or two there as her guest. Many years later an American Jewish friend of the present writer visited the family and the story of the Guru's informal visit was repeated to him at table, with that strange sense of appreciation which was characteristic of the understanding evoked by this simple gesture. The lady had become old but had treasured the incident in her memory as a valued souvenir.

The Guru thus fitted himself into the contemporary context of the spiritual life of the people in a simple, human and natural manner without frontiers or barriers of any kind. He belonged to all contexts without partiality or preference, but he carried his own proper background with him by sheer necessity as the incidental aspect of his universal outlook. Such a reconciliation of seemingly conflicting aspects was his mission in life, if there could be said to be any 'mission' at all for a yogi. His attitude to the Madhva background needs no further explanation in the light of these incidents. In Mangalore, not far from Udipi, near which place Madhva was born, the Guru established temples which followed the Madhva tradition. He called one temple Gokarna-nath, affiliating it to that of Madhva; and one of his last disciples who came from that part of India was named Ananda Theertha which was Madhva's name also when he took to the monastic order. Apart from these evidences there is a prayer to Vasudeva written by the Guru in his early years, which breathes the Madhva atmosphere of Sri, the Goddess Lakshmi, and Vasudeva or Vishnu of the conch, discus, mace and lotus-holding hands, radiantly shedding the grace which the pious devotee (the Bhakta) can drink as he worships at his lotus feet.

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The Guru's name itself - Narayana - means Vishnu rather than Shiva; although prehistorically and originally it refers to the primordial spirit which sleeps on the waters of creation - as the etymology of the name indicates. The name really refers back cosmologically to creation itself, where all traditions - whether of Brahma, Vishnu or Shiva - meet and efface themselves. The Absolute has been alternately known by one or other of these names, and hence as names and in the light of the Word-wisdom with which we are here concerned, they should be regarded as interchangeable terms and nothing more 22.

Orthodoxy in itself meant nothing to the Guru. Nor could he commend heterodoxy. Between or above the positions there is a point of accordance, an agreement which is of the essence of the contemplative way of seeking truth. The progress of spirituality has to be conceived in the living dynamic terms of a conquest of the new and a relinquishing of the old; but in terms of pure transcendentalism there is nothing to win or to discard, for the eternal present is the meeting-place of becoming and being.

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These and other matters have been touched upon by us in their various aspects and bearings, and in the discussions that follow we shall have occasion to return to this dynamic formula of progress in spirituality many more times before its full implications can be exhaustively brought into view.

We shall here conclude by referring to the relapse into lazy attitudes of complacency which marked the religious atmosphere in India after the decline of Buddhism. In trying to find normal human values, the pendulum began to swing in the opposite direction from the Stoic asceticism of the earlier days. The naive episode of the churning of the ocean of milk is a typical example of belief reflecting the atmosphere that began to prevail after the age of the Pallavas. Sri, the Goddess of Prosperity, Plenty and Beauty was the personification of the value that all sought. Sri or Lakshmi is indeed the first prize that emerges from the lacteal ocean of good in the well-known allegory wherein Shiva and Krishna figure equally. Krishna grabs the prize for marriage while Shiva drinks the poison as the god of tragic frenzy. The various other factors involved in the allegory reflect utilitarian values. A static and comfort-loving form of mysticism thus existed in India for several centuries (at least in the South) after the Pallava era until the rude shocks of invasions from outside again acted as a spiritual eye-opener.

Huns and Khans did the work of again awakening India to deeper-seated, more virile values. Later we again see how the leaders of India such as Dayananda, Vivekananda, Tagore, Gandhi and others contributed to the deepening of the same value-potency into a supreme synthesis of living idealism. Whatever may be the doctrine or philosophy accepted by a people, it is for them to make it alive so that it serves mankind.

By themselves, doctrines do not effect good results. Merely to belong to a religion does not automatically save man. Whether in the form of faith, piety, renunciation, truth or reason, contemplation has to come in. The mind has to consent to look upon the face of truth. The weight of tradition or memory has to be lifted and purified. Finally, an intuitive vision has to be developed, which will ultimately triumph in terms of Self-realization.

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These three laws of spiritual progress are voiced in the following three verses from the Guru Narayana's work 'A Hundred Verses of Self-Instruction' (Atmopadesha Satakam) which we give in translation. A willing and neutral attitude in reaching Self-realization is stressed:

'This which prevails by overcoming the hindrance
Of each object of sense cognition
One's own memory alone
Can counteract.
Yet retrospection most lucid
Can with all reason be expected
To discover and to bring to light
All-transcending wisdom's treasure trove'.(v. 64)

'Mere orthodoxy that bans with insistence
As heretical all other doctrines of the ultimate
How can it knowledge ever bring?
Lip service will never do,
The status of the Supreme
Has to be contemplated upon'.(v. 62)

'That same knowledge, which from this knowledge here
Is not other, and than to know which
Immediately, there is nothing else here,
That by heterodox disadoption, to know,
Such, the secret supreme of the well-informed,
Who is here alas! to know?'(v. 63)



NOTES
1 Many passages from the writings of Buddhism make it clear that Buddhism's revolt was only superficial. The following may be quoted as an example. King Milinda was the Greek Menander of the second century BC. He was converted to Buddhism by the teacher Nagasena, who visited Menander's capital Sakala (present-day Sialkot in the Punjab). The Milinda-Panha is believed to have been written in the first century AD and it is in the form of a Guru-Sishya dialogue.

'King Milinda: Venerable Nagasena, it has been said by the Blessed One, the Tathagata, 0 Brethren, the Arahat, the Buddha Supreme, is the discoverer of a way that was unknown'. But on the other hand he said: Now I perceived, 0 Brethren, the ancient way, the ancient path, alone which the previous Buddhas walked'. If, Nagasena, the Tathagata be the discoverer of a way not previously found out, then it must be wrong that it was an ancient way that he perceived, an ancient path along which previous Buddhas walked. But if the way he perceived were an ancient way, then the statement that it was unknown must be wrong.

'Nagasena: Both the quotations you make, 0 King, are accurate. And both the statements so made are correct. When the previous Tathagatas, 0 King, had disappeared, then, there being no teacher left, their way too disappeared. And it was that way, though then broken up, crumbled away, gone to ruin, closed in, no longer possible, quite lost to view, that the Tathagata, having gained a thorough knowledge of it, saw it by the eye of his wisdom (and knew it) as the way that previous Buddhas trod' IV, v, 12-13, "The Questions of King Milinda", translated by Prof. T.W. Rhys-Davids, (Vol. XXXVI 'Sacred Books of the East').

2 The amoeba is the simplest animal, about 1/100th of an inch in diameter, a tiny mass of protoplasm. New amoebae are formed by a cleavage of the body, by simple division in two. Thus there are neither parents nor offspring, neither birth nor death, but plainly immortality. See pp. 5-8 'The Standard Natural History' - Edit. W.P. Pycraft (Warne &: Co.1931).

3 Constantine I (288?-337 AD) Roman emperor and founder of the Holy Roman (Christian) Empire at Byzantium, which he renamed Constantinople, where he forbade any 'pagan' religion.

4 Asoka, India's greatest king. For forty years he ruled over a vast empire extending from what is now the NW Frontier to the borders of Mysore. After a period of war and conquest he was converted to Buddhism, introducing Buddhist morality, ahimsa and tolerance into his empire with missionary zeal. He died in 237 BC.

5 The date of Sankara's birth is generally accepted as 788 AD.

6 The relevant verse in the Bhagavad Gita is IV, 13: 'The fourfold caste was created by Me by the different distributions of energies (guna) and actions; though I am the author thereof, know Me to be actionless and immutable'.

7 The method adopted by Sankara is apparent in his 'Thousand Teachings' ('Upadesha-Sahasri', Ramakrishna Math, Madras 1949) which begins by a Guru-Sishya dialogue, the Sishya being a Brahmin. The Guru tells the Sishya that in the context of Self-wisdom it is wrong to think 'I am the son of a Brahmin belonging to such and such a family line', and that there must be renunciation of any idea of difference such as implied in the Vedic ritual, castes etc. Caste is only rejected on the contemplative level, but not on the level of society, where it is treated as something belonging to the body.

8 Detailed discussion of this subject is postponed at this juncture.

9 The name "Charvaka" literally means 'sweet-tongued' (charu-vaka)'.

10 See foot-note 22 below. The title occurs, in Sankara's 'Hymn to the Great God' ('Shiva-namavalyashatakam') verse 7. (see p. 274, 'Self-Knowledge - Atmabodhah', Sw. Nikhilananda, Ramakrishna Math, Madras, 1947).

11 See 'Six Stanzas on Nirvana' (Nirvanashtakam) each verse of which ends with the refrain 'Sivo-ham, Sivo-ham!' ibid., pp. 302-304.

12 The hymn is called 'Charpata-panjarika-Stotram, and consists of seventeen verses, each one ending with the refrain quoted, which in the original Sanskrit reads:

'Bhaja Govindam, Bhaja Govindam, Bhaja Govindam, mudamate, Samprapte sannihate kale, nahi nahi rakshati dukrin-karane'.- ibid., pp. 287-297.

In his day Sankara founded several institutions - four of which are still extant - known as 'Mutts', with semi-monastic rules, and with successors who hold the title of 'Sankara' generically or hierarchically. Few have come up to the Vedantic height attained by the founder, and a great many of the hymns and works attributed to the original Sankara are obviously, from the internal evidence and departure in content from the Advaitic standpoint of the founder, not the founder's at all, hence our qualification 'attributed'.

A similar attribution of what are very often inferior writings to the canonical original author is found in the case of scriptures elsewhere, Christian, Buddhist, etc.

13 E.g. 'Let people quote scriptures and sacrifice to the gods, let them perform rituals and worship the deities, there is no liberation for anyone without the realization of one's identity with the Atman, no, not even in the lifetime of a hundred Brahmas put together.' (Verse 6.)

'Work is for the purification of the mind, not for the perception of the Real. The realization of Truth is brought about by wisdom-discrimination alone and not in the least by ten millions of acts.' (Verse 11.)

There are several English editions of the 'Viveka-Chuda-Mani'. A fairly reliable one is published by the Advaita Ashram, Almora, Himalaya.

14 The Buddha refused to speak when asked about the existence or non-existence of God and Soul (Atman) by the Bhikkhu Vachagotta, thus taking the time-honoured stand of the great Gurus of the past which Sankara used as an illustration in his 'Dakshina-Murti-Stotram' (verse 12) and to which we have already referred in Chapter XI of this section. See Samyutta Nikaya for the silence of the Buddha.

15 Ramanuja (1017-? AD) inherited the bhakti (devotional) background of a long line of Tamil saints known as the Alvars. His philosophy is known as Visisht-Advaita ('The Non-duality of the Qualified, Special or Attributed') and emergent evolution (parinama) is preferred to Maya.

16 Madhva (1199-C.1300 AD) played a Christ-like role in which his monotheistic 'Father in Heaven' was Vishnu. His philosophy or religion is known as Dvaita-Vedanta (Dualistic Vedanta). Madhva was born near Udipi on the northernmost fringe of modern Malabar, in what is now South Kanara.

17 Cf., Plotinus:
'Think of The One as Mind or as God, you think too meanly: use all the resources of understanding to conceive this Unity and, again it is more authentically one than God, even though you reach for God's unity beyond the unity the most perfect you can conceive. For This is utterly a self-existent, with no concomitant whatever. This self-sufficing is the essence of Its unity. Something there must be supremely adequate, autonomous, all-transcending, most utterly without need'. "Enneads", VI, ix, 6 (translation by Mackenna and B. S. Page).

18 Although attributed to Sankara, the 'Sarva Darsana Siddhanta Sangraha', by internal evidence is really to be traced to one of his school. A study based on this work which contains valuable critical remarks on the lines we have adopted above, is to be found in the University of Paris thesis of Iswar Dayal Tawakley (pub. Jouve et Cie., Paris, 1927).

Prof. Lacombe's 'L'Absolu Selon le Vedanta' ('Les notions de Brahman et d'Atman dans les systèmes de Sankara et Ramanoudja', Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, Paris, 1937) analyses the theoretical aspects in a thoroughgoing manner which will further confirm what we have stated.

19 This Madhva-Acharya was elected in 1331 AD the head of the Smarta order in the Mutt (monastery) of Sringeri in Mysore territory, founded by Sankara. The 'Sarva Darsana Sangraha' of Madhva-Acharya has been translated into English by E.B. Cowell and A.E. Gough (Trubner, London, 1882).

20 Victor Cousin (1792-1867) celebrated French educational leader and founder of the eclectic school of philosophy.

21 Faith must always accompany reason and reason, faith. Cf., 'Weakness of faith combined with strength of intellect are apt to lead to the error of talkativeness. Strength of faith combined with weakness of intellect are apt to lead to the error of narrow-minded dogmatism.' from 'The Supreme Path, The Rosary of Precious Gems', X, 1-2: (trans. from the Tibetan of Gampopa in 'A Buddhist Bible', edit. Dwight Goddard, USA).
And 'As the text (grantha) is completed by reason, (yukti), so is reason revealed by the text; therefore let there be reason and the text.' from 'The Lankavatara Sutra', 'Sagathakam', verse 883, trans. from the Sanskrit by Prof. D.T. Suzuki (Routledge, London, 1932).

22 Besides the coincidence in name we can go deeper into the source of the Narayana tradition. Nara, water; and Ayana, suggesting inclining, refer to the cosmic man as the first principle of creation. This name later became identified with Vishnu. The Sathapatha Brahmana (XIII, 6-1) alludes to Purusha Narayana attaining to Godhood by virtue of a series of sacrifices lasting five nights called the 'Pancharatra satra'; and the Vaishnavite religious expression known under the name of 'Pancharatra', having the 'ekanthika bhakti dharma' of Vasudeva or Krishna has been linked later with Purusha Narayana. The reference here to the Vedic sacrifice, used as a test, must mark the point where the Shiva tradition of prehistoric times terminated, to be revalued in terms of Vedic ritual, especially of sacrifice. Sankara, whose background is Shaivite (Shiva-worshipping, ED), in his 'Shiva Namavali Ashtakam', apostrophising 'Chandra Chuda' (the Wearer of the Moon) i.e. Shiva, refers to Shiva himself as being 'Narayana Priya' (Verse 7), i.e. the 'One Beloved of Narayana', which appellation gains added meaning in the light of the tradition anteriorly accepted. As Prof. 0. Lacombe points out: 'Vishnu also passes from his subordinate position in the Vedic texts to a supreme rank. His identification with Narayana and with Vasudeva takes place at the epic period, posteriorly to the composition of the Gita'. p. 26 'L'Absolu selon le Vedanta' (translated).



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CHAPTER XVIII
THE DUALITY OF ENDS AND MEANS

Hitherto, in order to place the Guru-Word in its proper perspective and background or context we have delved deep into the past and traced its course through history, iconography, myth and forms of faith, and brought it up to the surface in its setting in contemporary India. But essentially the Word is not concerned with institutions or social life, neither with the altar nor the pulpit. By implication these may be there in the background as a matter of necessity, but the Word itself rises above petty utility to the lofty status of a sublime treasure or a supreme human value.

The Word reconciles 'ends' with 'means' without being either of them. From the one side all ends are reduced to 'reality', while the means come to meet them from another side. These 'means' are sometimes called Karma - 'works', or ritualistic, pious actions with a view to attaining Self-realization or final emancipation. Self-realization, being non-dual, belongs to neither ends nor means, but in itself is a full-flooded silence beyond the reach of mind and word. In the Word which represents this kind of silence the positive and negative ways of mysticism or philosophy meet. As the Bhagavad Gita says (Chapter XIII), the field (kshetra) and the knower of the field (kshetrajna) have to be distinguished the one from the other, even as in the case of 'knowledge' and the 'Self', in order that, by abolishing the duality between them, or by bringing them together as dual aspects of the same silence, one may gain a globally-integrated and immediate awareness of truth without being subject to synergic or ambivalent antinomies or rival conditionings of uncertainty or conflict. The duality in all ends and means has to be abolished systematically. There is no place at all for chance of any kind; and no amount of fortuitous, haphazard, mere nonchalant gambler's daring, radicalism, nor even free-lance bohemianism will by itself suffice.

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Systematic abolishing of duality therefore requires a methodology and an epistemology. These are found in Advaita Vedanta. Indeed, without them Advaita Vedanta would be at best only a variety of personal dogmatism, a luxury or hobby. The Word is a personal appreciation of value in life in a very real sense, and this might excuse or condone dogmatism, but even in doing so a strict acceptance of first principles, of method and theory of knowledge, is necessarily involved. The state of mere ecstasy or bliss, or mystical travail or agony, in vague, varied and often picturesque terms, such as 'practice of the presence of God' 1, will take us but less than half way in formulating an exact science in regard to Word-wisdom.

In the Indian legend, Krishna has to steal the nectar from the hands of the evil forces (Asuras) for the benefit of righteous humans. Or, to use another parable, Prometheus has to be unbound by a strong Hercules from his Caucasian rock where an angry Zeus had chained him for stealing the fire of the Olympian gods to light the life of men of clay. Whether called nectar or the life-fire, Word-wisdom is an end in itself; and all means meet the end indifferently when used for the sake of the Word. Self-knowledge is sufficient to itself, and the Word is what induces self-knowledge to find peace and joy in itself, which is oneself. Perfection prevails before, perfection prevails after and, taking the one away from other, the same perfection remains over. Such is the ancient formula of Word-wisdom. Word-wisdom can make use of cryptic esoteric language wherein doctrines of rare personal value for emancipation or salvation in a private sense can be enshrined. Then it relies upon metaphor, allegory or other figures of speech. Myth itself is but an elaborated figure of speech. Apocryphal or dogmatic expressions of reality appeal to the masses and remain recorded in localized traditions. Sometimes a certain language, Hebrew, Arabic, Sanskrit, Pali, Greek and Latin) or a civilisation's remnant, is able to make use of these forms of expression for current usage within a circle large or small.

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Parochial variations still make such a language inadequate for general use. Then the Word itself, in its triumph over limitations, speaks without theology, myth and even without dogma. Through a living and workable framework of reasoning, the Word emerges into public view as a value that is for the general good; while it remains for the good of all treated individually too. Then it rids itself of its own weight of traditional memories. The hitherto dark background becomes transparently clear as the higher reasoning or intuition penetrates into all that confronts the intelligence. Through the acceptance of an epistemological frame of reference; using method and criticism; with freedom of the will to live for all and for oneself too without conflict of any private egotisms - the Word again triumphs in another sense. Bold spirits, bards, giants of wisdom or supermen arising from time to time, also declare the freedom of the Word in terms of pure Self-awareness or Self-realization, in which again ends and means coincide. Laws take the place of dogma and the necessity-aspect is dealt with separately from the contingent aspect of Word-wisdom. Existence and reality are correctly related to a truth that makes all free.

Word-wisdom, thus conceived as a human value, is then common property, a genuine commonwealth of and for all. The frontiers of closed communities and civilizations can then be abolished or they wither away, while imaginary iron curtains are seen to consist merely of thin air, penetrated easily and effortlessly by the clear vision brought by Word-wisdom. We have seen how the Guru Narayana drew the line of demarcation between his earlier and later writings. Having completed the background setting of the Word, we shall now concern ourselves with a more direct examination of the implied method; of the frame of reference employed vis-à-vis the various aspects of knowledge; and of the scale of higher human values disclosed in the triumph of Self-realization when it is positively finalized.

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The first axiom of the methodology of the Vedanta is one that we have referred to in Chapter One. The 'Isha Upanishad' has the expression 'Satya-Dharman', which means that the person who is the truth-seeker is also a man of righteousness, a follower of the true 2. In the man envisaged by this expression moral values meet the mystical or philosophical truth. When the Sabbath is made for man, inner integrity is given primacy; and when man is made for the Sabbath outer standards prevail.

The secret of Word-wisdom is where the Logos and Nous 3 meet and cancel each other out in terms of Self-realization. Intellectual enthusiasm for truth which, as some say, was Hellenic, meets the Hebraic enthusiasm for morality, and so again truth prevails. Both the pure and the practical aspects of wisdom have to come together in unity. Vidya and avidya (reason and nescience) have to be treated together, so that by transcending ignorance, positive wisdom shall emerge victorious The same formula applies to the notion of being and non-being ('sambhuti' and 'vinasa') as subtly and finally alluded to in the same 'Isha Upanishad' 5.

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Pure being is synonymous with 'emancipation', 'freedom', 'gaining immortality', 'attaining salvation', Nirvana or Moksha. When reduced to terms of Word-wisdom there is no duality; but examined from the angle of the method, i.e., the practice of the aspirant, the duality in treatment becomes inevitable. Electricity is a single energy, yet its positive and negative have to be recognized by the practising electrician. The real nature of the energy remains the same; it does not become two, but the supposition helps the initial understanding of the practitioner or apprentice.

So it was with Madhva. If he seemed to stress duality it was not because he did not realise the unity of Brahman, but plainly because he was interested in the methodology and epistemology of the Vedanta and had a programme of institutional life attached to the movement he started. Sankara had enough to do arranging the theoretical aspects. His polemics were directed against the previous schools who had failed in various degrees to satisfy the aspirations of aspirants, by being either too good or without high aims. Vaishnavite love of luxury and excesses of ritual and imagery marked other schools, while what they wanted to say remained the same. Thus Satya (Truth) and Dharma (what is held to be right) have to meet, but not in such a way that both would be annihilated, as so often happens when they are treated together; but rather in a manner that enables freedom of reason to triumph, finally abolishing all taint of duality in the consciousness of the 'Satya-Dharman', the truth-natured. Hercules can kill the ravenous avenging vultures gnawing at the flesh of the imprisoned, struggling Prometheus; but it is the fire of pure wisdom that finally gives him spiritual freedom. The nectar must be worth stealing from the Asuras (demons) by Krishna for the Devas (gods). It is therefore in Word-wisdom that ends and means become reconciled, and the conflict is over between Jnana (wisdom) and Karma (works).

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Thus the bi-polar reciprocity, the synergic antinomy or ambivalence underlying action and wisdom, the existent and the subsistent, the actual and the perceptual, and many other pairs of seeming contradictions is no longer puzzling; but, consequent on the axiomatic position indicated above, methodological corollaries follow and a unitive understanding prevents all conflict arising. Satya or Truth has to be approached with the full freedom of the intelligence as a part of the contingent in human life, while Dharma or duty is seen as belonging to the necessary, to the prior, relative, obligatory, social or traditional context of the Word. Any mixing of these axiomatic fundamentals, any confusion of the one with the other, makes all method, criticism, logic, reason or ratiocination give wrong results. The calculation will go awry because the essential constant is left out. As in mathematics, functions and operations of contemplation have to be based on fundamental premisses which are at the root of Advaita or Bramha-Vidya as conceived as an exact discipline.

The high human value of Brahman is revealed both by the a priori and the a posteriori methods of reasoning operating hand in hand, regulated by epistemological and methodological axioms or laws, and this brings about Self-realization. More than any other philosopher of India, Sankara brought out this subtlety in regard to the understanding of the Upanishads and the Brahma Sutras. He never mixes up religious duties with wisdom under the vague intermediate title of Dharma, which is often a no-man's-land between the existent and the real, the necessary and the contingent. Over and over again, wherever the occasion presents itself in his various bhasyas (commentaries) we find him pointing out the absurdity of what is called 'Jnana-Karma-Samuchchaya' (treatment of wisdom and works in combination) 6.

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Dharma involving 'vidhi', (obligatory injunctions - as for example, the Ten Commandments of Moses and all the 'thou shalt' portions of scripture) referring to social duty of a conformist orthodoxy is one thing; and the dedicated life to wisdom is another. It is the distinction between Christ dedicating his life to the Father and others to Caesar and the Mosaic laws. Dharma is relative within time and history. The life devoted to wisdom through speech transcends action, reaching to the perceptual through the actual, reaching the 'Satyam', the Real, through the 'Ritham', the Existent. This involves a double negation - of ignorance, evil, darkness, sin or concupiscence.Whatever the name, it is the negating of the negative factor which is opposed to Self-realization - hence a negation of a negation, the negation of Maya, the Negativität of Hegel 7.

The positive result of wisdom is indicated by the reality of Brahman, which is existent reality perceptually or conceptually implied in the word. The Absolute (Brahman) is not a mere abstraction, but a value; not a nothingness or darkness, but a good; not an absence of awareness, but a bliss given to pure contemplation. Sat (existence), Chit (idea) and Ananda (supreme value) meet in Brahman, the Absolute thus conceived.

Advaita Vedanta is essentially a 'sat-karana-vada', a philosophic insight built on a primacy of cause over effect. The cause is more real than the effect; and, starting strictly in an apodictic, ontological, realist and common-sense manner, avoiding dogma or theological belief of any teleological nature, Advaita constructs a monumental edifice of knowledge leading up to the Absolute notions of value covering the triad of aspects just mentioned (Sat-Chit-Ananda).

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Even in the matter of seeking a cause, the Vedanta has its own norms of validity. There is the 'nimitta karana' (the incidental or immediate cause) which is of the nature of a secondary agent; and there is the upa-dana-karana (the cause that draws out into being something out of itself). There is therefore a vertical as well as a horizontal set of cause-effect series. The horizontal series is that of physics; while the vertical is that of more fundamental ways of seeking knowledge, beginning from matter considered intrinsically as in the modern hypotheses of matter as energy, dynamic, etc., or the values emergent from chemistry etc. Aristotle's philosophy of entelecheia and prius 8 recognized this way of seeking causes, ontologically, as opposed to other and ideological approaches which, as it were, put the cart before the horse, by postulating far-off ends hidden away from present actualities.

The pot and the clay is the cherished, classical example of the Vedantin here. The potter is incidental and secondary. His instruments may be many and his art a nebulous item, but the clay is real and is the basis of the search for the real, for the essential substance behind the many pots. In the clay lies the true value.

Another favourite Vedantic example is the wave and water. The wave is but water with a certain conditioning of name and form. The resulting wave has no existence apart from the cause, which is water. One can eliminate or change the incidental causes, but the primary substantial cause is the basis of the pot or the wave itself, and the search stops there with the ultimate.

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The Self is its own cause and, as Spinoza 9 perhaps would put it, the 'natura naturans' of the Self is the cause of the 'natura naturata' 10 of the world of nature, karma and dharma, society and necessary duties. In seeking the 'thing in itself' (Ding an sich) we seek the substantial, natural prime cause, the substratum, and thus pass from the merely phenomenal to the noumenal, to use Kant's possible explanation 11. The descending dialectical process of Plato envisages the recognition of the real and the actual too, in the general context of his approach to truth in terms of goodness and beauty etc., which are effects rather than causes 12. Ideal beauty is a perfected effect in the vague world of the intelligibles postulated by Plato. Propped on hypothesis after hypothesis, the term of high wisdom is attained in such an effect; but this transcendent ideological tendency has to attain simple existence by a reversal of hypotheses, referring back to ontological immanent aspects of the real which are here below on earth.

Thus some of the secrets of the methodology of the Vedanta are: that primacy in seeking the real must be given to cause rather than to effect; that an ontological approach be made at the beginning, without transcendentalism coming at that stage at least; and that an appeal be made always to the immanent, existent and simple reality of public common sense.

This methodology seeks reality first through its own existent aspect, then passes on to its rational aspect and finally conceives reality as a human value.

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These two poles of truth, which meet as Satya-Dharman in a person and are thus expressed as a unitive human value, become more and more distinguishable when we turn to functional or intellectual aspects. According to the Bhagavad Gita: 'Wisdom as to the field and the Knower of the field - that in my opinion is the wisdom' 13. Unequivocally, this states the need of recognizing the distinction between the perceptual and the actual aspects of wisdom, which together make what we have tried to designate as Word-wisdom.

Many are the unvarnished examples that philosophers and mystics have used to drive home this truth. There is a popular proverb in Malabar which says, 'Magic won't make a mango fall', and another 'The Vedic chant is useless against a maddened buffalo'. Sri Ramakrishna used to say that if you shake a calendar which forecasts rain, no water will fall down. Sankara has the same when he says that while one can carry a burden for another, there is no use in drinking his medicine for him. Vicarious suffering and other theological doctrines of grace and sin contain the same antinomian principles 14. Discussions round these antinomies such as 'grace' and 'nature' 15 are endless because philosophers do not go to the root of the matter which involves the double-facing principle, in the truth we all seek. Good and evil, the one and the many, genus and species, indeterminism and predestination, nurture and nature, free will and fate, the general and the private good, unity and diversity - all these are pairs held together in reciprocal ambivalent relationship by a central value, grounded in the Absolute Brahman in terms of Self-realization.

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Every school of philosophy could be studied profitably with reference to its historically or ideologically anterior counterpart. The Stoic has the Epicurean; the idealist has the materialist; the mechanist has the vitalist; the empiricist the rationalist; and so on. The Christian New Testament is similarly built on the basis of the Old Testament; the Vedanta Upanishads on the Veda; the later Sufis' works on the Qur'an; the 'Tao Teh Khing' on the Shu-Khing, Yi-Khing, Shi-Khing and Li-Khi, etc. The Purva Mimamsa (earlier inquiry), which is related to religious obligations in Vedic ritual discussed critically, has always to be strictly distinguished from the Uttara Mimamsa (later inquiry) which is a posterior critique or philosophy, as in the Upanishads. The 'Shruti' (literally, what is heard) which pertains to pure knowledge as heard directly from the mouth of the original Guru or Rishi is to be understood as distinct from the 'Smriti' or 'Smarta' literature which pertain to duties arising from the original teachings in the form of various recommendations, directions, injunctions or obligations which recognize laws of existence or of certain necessary aspects of reality. The latter comprise all the Dharma Shastras (Scriptures on Law), covering commandments and codes for social or individual life, in an everyday practical sense.

Any Indian pundit or scholar who fails to make these lines of demarcation clear is treated with as scant respect as the medicine man of the ancient Ayurvedic school who did not know which names applied to chemicals and which to herbs. The anterior knowledge was always to be distinguished as the 'purva-paksha' (the former position), and what the Guru added on the basis of such an anterior position which would be taken by the disciple or implied from a previous school, would be the 'Siddhanta' (the attained conclusion). The dialectical process of revaluation of old truth in new terms thus goes on between the Guru and Sishya, between the man of wisdom and the sceptic. The prophet speaks with his authority coming from a deep conviction 16.

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His oration is sanctioned by God's truth or Self-knowledge, and then he speaks out in the unmistakable accents of a Guru as an oracle, a prophet or a messiah. Supermen or Avatars have the authority of conviction, earnest truth or love of humanity. They do not hesitate to call others 'people of little understanding', or 'generations of vipers', while such words as 'Verily, verily, I say unto you' mark out the superior distinction of their utterances when they depart from the hitherto accepted to the re-valued statement of truth 17.

The Bhagavad Gita has the expressions 'me matam-idam' (my firm opinion is this)18 and 'Nischitam matam-uktam' (my certain and highest opinion)19 - words uttered by Krishna as the Guru of the Guru-Sishya dialectics (or Guru-Sishya-samvada as it is called in Sanskrit) to his disciple Arjuna. Many are the references in the Bhagavad Gita to the intrinsic difference between karma (action) and Buddhi-Yoga (a spiritual discipline of wisdom); indeed the Gita itself as a whole fails to make any cogent meaning if not examined in the light of the implicit dialectics in its method of 'purva-paksha-siddhanta' (the attained conclusion after discussion, with the sceptic representing the old way of knowing), through a literary device which permits a 'samvada' (discourse) as between a Guru and a Sishya. Implicitly or explicitly, all Vedantic literature has to recognize this distinction.

When examining a Dharma Shastra (code belonging to ritual commandments, injunctions and prohibitions) one has to look for the 'vidhi' or rules to be unquestionably followed. As with the soldier on the battlefield - 'theirs not to question why, theirs but to do or die' - it is final.

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But the obligatory nature of the Shastra changes in the Uttara (later) Mimamsa (critique) where one can discuss and question with the Guru. Artha-Vada (discussion of implications) becomes not only permissible, but something encouraged by the Guru. Imagine a disciple of the ancient Upanishadic period arriving at the door of a Guru with a bundle of firewood in his arms, willing to serve the Guru round the sacrificial fire. He can be a forlorn Devadatta, a gentle Svetaketu, an abandoned Nachiketas or a sincere Satyakama of humble birth, whose acquaintance we made in a previous chapter. He has to hold his breath in silence in the presence of those who have known the nature of the Brahman. He has to respect them in the light of the indications given by other wise men who render them homage. In silence and submission he has to wait his turn and has, in the meanwhile, to be engaged in the 'nitya' and 'naimittika' (daily or incidental) duties, following the life of a Brahmacharin (one who is willing to tread the path of Brahman-wisdom). The 'smarta karma' or obligatory aspects of duty have to be complied with first, whatever they may happen to be according to the context or tradition to which the disciple belongs. By traditional or social upbringing Jabala was not a Brahmin, but that was no hindrance. He had to serve the necessary term, accepting the necessary side of the discipline in one form or another. After sometimes years of trial and patient suffering, when this period is over, the Guru asks the Brahmacharin to sit down by his side for the free discussion with him of the Vedanta, the subsequent aspects of free contingent wisdom. Then that other transcendent reality begins to be discussed, but only after the time-honoured distinction has been well recognized by teacher and pupil.

The Upanishads themselves, however cryptic or ambiguous their contents may be described as by modern philosophers, never fail to make unequivocally clear the fundamental distinction between karma and jnana, work and wisdom - the distinction which is so important methodologically. Invariably this is done at the very commencement of the Upanishad. Either the distinction is directly broached, or else it is included in a preliminary literary device.

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The pupil Nachiketas is accorded his first two boons easily, but when as the third boon the Spirit of Death is asked for the clearing of a doubt which shifts the subject into the domain of pure higher knowledge, he wails piteously and puts forward apologetic excuses and objections, because it is rare and unattainable by ordinary people who have not come to seek it wholly. Death asks Nachiketas to choose another boon, one less difficult to bestow, and even tries to fob off the young questioner by giving him an extra boon as a bonus 20.

In another Upanishad, Uma Haimavati, the resplendent daughter of the Himalaya, has herself to come down to explain to the Vedic gods Indra and others the nature of the Absolute which is only a mystery in the form of a Yaksha, (semi-divine being) to them. Here, Uma, who is the personification of higher wisdom, is the consort of Shiva; and in the light of what we have said earlier regarding the historical blast and counter-blast of Word-wisdom, this meeting of the two traditions in allegorical form in an Upanishad should not be without its significance to the reader 21. In other places distinction is made between 'para' and 'a-para vidya' (ultimate and non-ultimate knowledge). Narada, who is a Brahma-Rishi of the Vedic context, frequently affords the dialectical link needed to make these aspects of knowledge clear. Although a Rishi himself, he has to learn the difference between 'mantra vidya' (knowledge of chanting) and 'atma vidya (knowledge of the Self) from Sanatkumara who was wise before him 22.

The 'pravritti marga' (forward and active path) and the 'nivritti marga' (the way of negation, the 'via negativa' of European mysticism), are also constantly distinguished in all Vedantic literature. In his 'Bhagavad Gita Bhashya' (commentary) and also in his commentary on the opening sutra (aphorism) of the Brahma Sutras, which expressly uses the words 'therefore or then' or 'hereafter or now' (atha ato) as a kind of double protection against the anterior doctrines of a different nature, Sankara underlines again how important it is to differentiate and recognize the gulf between these two aspects of wisdom which are variously named in their different contexts.

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In concluding our present discussion there are many other features of the Advaita Vedanta, but they require more detailed treatment since they involve subtleties not to be dealt with summarily. Incidentally, we have referred already to one of the peculiarities of the Vedanta which belongs to its methodology and epistemology. 'Nirvisesha' (absence of specialisation) sums up what we mean. In Vedanta high thinking is part of plain living. This is the touch of renunciation or abnegation, a refusal to be lured away by luxuries or by over-specialisation in life. Ceremonial elaborations are therefore also repugnant to the Vedantin's way of life. Without being too severe with himself he stresses natural and normal daily values. Clean-shaven plainness is inseparably associated with a man of the Vedantic tradition on the Indian scene; and, while it is true that this is a matter of outside appearance only, what it implies is valid to the general outlook of Advaita Vedanta.

Vedanta also tends to stress a certain inwardness in thinking. Outer events and actions lose their importance in the Vedantic context. The central, the subtle, living core or kernel of our being interests the Vedantin more than even the cosmos. Although cosmology may enter into the field of Vedanta, incidentally accepted in a form modified to suit its dialectical, contemplative, inward approach, Vedanta is more psychological in its subject-matter and approach. Contemplation thus undertaken from the interior of each Self or 'thing-in-itself' tends to become solipsist in its outlook of aloneness, and the extreme idealism which results might also be mistaken for sceptic phenomenalism of the Hume pattern or for Berkeleyan one-sided noumenalism - which, when closely examined in the two-sided nature of Word-wisdom, are really complementary 23.

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Utilitarianism and pragmatism, insofar as they stress unnatural and complicated or mechanistic values in modern civilization, tend to be discredited, as also materialism and empiricism. In thus accepting many schools of philosophy hitherto considered distinct in the West, the modern mind might even label Vedanta as a form of syncretism; but this, instead of being objectionable, should rather be taken to be the good point about Vedanta. Strict Vedanta admits of no eclecticism. It is a distinct, contemplative or mystical discipline, understood and employed at all times and climes by those who have kept the traditional torch of perennial wisdom burning, irrespective of all the outward differences of history and geography.

We must also note that Sankara often stresses the distinction between what he calls 'Lakshanartha' (the figurative) and 'Vachyartha' (the actual, literal sense). For example, when Brahman is said to be 'sat-chit-ananda' (existent-rational-value) he is never tired of pointing out that when Brahman is described in words we have to take the inner meaning and not the outward, dead or literal sense, which seems to exclude one adjective from another. The same unitive Brahman is described as sat, chit and ananda, and it is for the intuitive mind of the seeker to put these three together into one complete unitive whole of global awareness in terms of Self-realization.

In this plea of Sankara we see the affinity of Vedanta with Abelard's conceptualism 24. The Idea and the Intelligibles of Plato were brought down to meet actualities in Plotinus 25 and the Neo-Platonists. Abelard and other theologians of Paris derived from this synthesis a 'conceptualism', or what is sometimes also called nominalism. The doctrine of the Word (Logos) of St. John's Gospel comes near to this and lends weight to this view and brings our own point of view here in treating the Word of the Guru as close as could be expected to an ancient line of thought.

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Cartesianism 26 itself, although named dualistic, is only mistakenly thought to be so. It attempts to refer valid reasoning to inner rather than outer norms and thus it lays the foundation for later rationalism which paves the way for all the later idealistic traditions in modern philosophy. Through later idealists in Germany 27 dialectics was rediscovered, while intuition was again given its place by Bergson 28, bringing us back to a position in which the discussion of mysticism and Vedanta in a systematic way becomes possible in a modern context.

Finally, it might also be pointed out here that Vedanta, at least Advaita Vedanta, aims at proving or solving nothing. As Eddington 29 said, the proof is the idol the mathematician worships, and final solutions in the matter of the Absolute are an impossibility. The word 'Absolute' has no definite meaning unless interpreted in terms of some human value, high or low or ordinary. It is to be understood in a numinous presence of the Good that we recognize within ourselves, or in some dear object or idea that we conceive without. The very fact that people are prepared to lay down their lives for ideas which they prize, shows that such values do exist, and they exist in an endless possible series, all of which could be arranged along the rungs of a Jacob's Ladder or scale of values reaching from earth to heaven.

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All visions of ultimate values could be strung together under the presiding "Crest Jewel of Wisdom" which is the brightest ornament on the crown worn by Saraswati who, though a lowly-born goddess of pre-Vedic times, still reigns on the Indian scene as the representative of the Guru-Word.



NOTES
1 A phrase much in use by Christian mystics, especially by the Quietists and sometimes by members of religious bodies who have no liturgy or theology but who follow the 'imitation' of Christ.

2 Isha Up., v.15:
'Hiranmayena patrena satyasyabihitam mukham,
Tatvam pushannapavrinu satyadharmaya drishthaye.'

'The face of Truth is covered with a golden disc,
Remove, 0 Sun, the covering for one whose law is
Truth's to see'.

3 Christ and his disciples were hungry and plucked corn on the Jewish Sabbath, thus breaking the religious law. The Pharisees (one class of priests) questioned Christ who declared that when a man was hungry he had every right to eat and concluded 'The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath', (see St. Mark, II. 23-28; Matthew, XII: l-8; Luke, VI, 1.5).

4 These two Greek words are very difficult to translate, because of the cosmological, psychological and mystical meaning woven around them. 'Logos' is the Word itself, the creative unitive word before the thought is expressed - the Word of God. 'Nous' is pure Buddhi, the divine Mind reflected in Man, his soul or spirit or 'higher reason'. These and other Platonic terms were introduced into Christianity during the first centuries in Alexandria in Egypt when the Word-wisdom was being formulated by the Christian sages.

5 Isha Up., v., 14:
'Sambhutim cha vinasham cha yastadvedobhayaum saha,
Vinashenamrityum tirtva sambhutyamritamashnute.'

'Those who worship being and non-being together
Get over death through knowing non-being
and win immortality through knowing being'.

6 The distinction is made particularly clear between the two sections of the Vedas as scripture, the 'works' section (karma-kanda) and the 'wisdom' section (jnana-kanda) or in general terms, between Veda and Vedanta. See Sankara's 'Svatmanirupanam' ('One's Own Self Defined')

'Amshadvayavati nigame sadhayati dvaitameva ko-apyamshah:
Advaitameva vastu pratipadayati prasidvamaparom-ashah'.
(Verse 50)

'Of the Vedas consisting of the parts, one part enunciates duality and the other plainly expounds the non-dual reality'.  From 'Select Works of Sri Sankaracharya', (Natesan, Madras).

The division is in most scriptures: between the Old and New Testament, between Tao and Teh in China; or even between Lao Tzu and Confucius; clearer still in the case of the dharma spoken of by the Buddha in its mystical sense, and the dharma of an Asoka, purely social in meaning. All teachers, have used this division, but have generally made confusion by using the same terms, using the word dharma for both man's will and God's. Only with Sankara is the division made clear between wisdom and karma, with dharma as part of karma.

7 Hegel: (1770-1831) famous German philosopher.

8 Aristotle (384-322 BC) the pupil of Plato coined the word 'entelechy' from the Greek words 'en telei ekhein' meaning 'to have in perfection' i.e., the perfection attained by anything, by reason of which it actually exists and realises its true function - its self-existent value. 'Prius' is from the Latin, meaning what is previously there, the 'given' in life or nature.

9 Spinoza: 'The Euclid of metaphysicians', born in 1632 in Amsterdam of Portuguese Jewish parents. Died 1677.

10 'Natura naturans' is the a priori or God-given in nature. 'Natura naturata' is the a posteriori mode by which the God-given appears. Both Latin terms were Spinoza's own.

11 Kant: (1724-1804) German philosopher: reduced phenomena to his categories of understanding, and used logic to prove the 'Ding-an-sich', as quoted above.

12 There is the well-known passage from Plato's 'Symposium'(211)

'Such is the true order of going - to use the beauties of earth as steps along which one mounts upwards for the sake of that other Beauty, going from one to two, and from two to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair actions, and from fair actions to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of Absolute Beauty, and at last knows what the essence of Beauty is'. (Jowett's translation, 1871).

13 'kshetrakshetrajnayor jnanam yat taj jnanam matam mama'. (Bhagavad Gita, XIII, 2)

14 When Luther nailed his 95 theses on the church door at Wittemberg in Germany in 1517 - which was the critical act that led to the great Protestant Reformation - he was really pointing out the absurdity of vicarious suffering, although it was the sale of indulgences by priests which was the immediate cause of his protest.

15 In Christian writing one of the best of these discussions on the aspects of nature and grace is found in 'De Imitatione Christi' of Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471) e.g.: 'My son, mark diligently the motions of Nature and of Grace, for in a very contrary and subtle manner do they move, and can hardly be distinguished but by him that is spiritually and inwardly enlightened'. Book IV, Chapter 54, v. 1.

16 The word 'prophet' ('prophetes' in Greek) means 'one who speaks out', not 'one who predicts'. In the Bible it was used to translate the Hebrew 'Nabi' - 'announcer' and 'roeh' - 'a seer', which is too close to the Sanskrit word 'Rishi' to escape significance, (see Wyld's 'Universal English Dictionary' and Zimmern's 'Greek Commonwealth', p. 124 ff.)

17 These phrases are found in Old and New Testaments of the Christian Bible.

18 See Bhagavad Gita, III, 31-32; VII, 18.

19 Ibid., XVIII, 6.

20 See Katha Upanishad, Valli I.

21 See Kena Upanishad, Khanda III, 1 et seq.

22 See Chandogya Upanishad, whole of VII Prapathaka.

23 David Hume (1711-1776): noted for his philosophy of complete scepticism. George Berkeley (1685-1753): Irish Bishop whose philosophy is known as Subjective Idealism.

24 Peter Abelard (1079-1142). French philosopher and teacher. Had a tragic romance with Héloise. He emphasised Aristotle's dialectic as opposed to the devotionalism current in his time.

25 Plotinus (c. 205-270) revalued the whole Greek philosophic tradition at his school outside Rome. His works survive as the famous Enneads. He was an Alexandrian. The Neo-Platonists had their chief school at Alexandria in Egypt during the era just before and after the beginning of the Christian period. They revived and revalued the teachings of Plato and his successors like Aristotle.

26 Cartesianism derives its name from René Descartes (Latin Renatus Cartesius) (1596-1650). French philosopher and scientist. Famous as a mathematician (he originated the Cartesian co-ordinates and Cartesian curves), and in philosophy 'doubts everything but the existence of doubt itself', which he expressed in the famous saying 'Cogito ergo sum', (I think, therefore I am). God is to him the link between noumemal and phenomenal.

27 Such as Kant, Schopenhauer, etc.

28 Henri Bergson (1859-1941): French philosopher and author of brilliant and imaginative but precise philosophical works (winning him the 1927 Nobel Prize in Literature) such as 'The Two Sources of Morality and Religion' (1935), 'Introduction to Metaphysics' (1903) and 'Creative Evolution' (1907).

29 Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882-1944): British astronomer and physicist, but more famous as a popular expositor of scientific subjects, and author of a number of books such as 'Nature of the Physical World' (1928), 'The Expanding Universe' (1933), etc.



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CHAPTER XIX
THE LIVING METHOD

In Guru Narayana the critical and methodical standards used in gaining insight into Word-wisdom were employed so perfectly as to make this a Science of sciences. We have used the simple title of "Word-Wisdom" in our writing, but it would be equally correct to use the Sanskrit terms Atma-Vidya (Self-knowledge) or Brahma-Vidya (knowledge of the Absolute). Methodology, epistemology and a certain theory of human values which are normative, are all present in this science and clearly evident in the writings of the Guru: more implicit in the earlier works and in a particularly positive explicit manner in his later productions.

Word-Wisdom deals with inner human values and therefore cannot be impersonal. The human personality is an integral part of its very scope of enquiry. Cosmology and psychology are treated in an intuitive and intimate manner with a special metaphysics peculiar to this science and derived from contemplation rather than from merely external objectivity.

Avoiding the indirect approach through lifeless symbols, the science of Word-Wisdom aims at establishing a rapport between subject and object, so that by impartially neutralizing all possible prejudices an universally valid wisdom can be achieved in integral, unitive or global terms. While myth, allegory and all other forms of speech and literary devices can be (and have been) employed by the masters of this science, these usages are never to be understood in their literal sense but always in that synthetic spirit which leads to attunement to, or awareness of, a high human good or value, in accordance with Self-knowledge.

Empirical philosophy postulates subject and object as real; rationalism places these within the mind; pragmatism sobers down the excesses of idealism and brings values within the scope of human needs; naturalism seeks to establish norms in accord with nature and natural laws; utilitarianism aims at satisfying one and all with something positively worthwhile, and idealism stresses freedom as a precious value. In all these systems of philosophic thought there is an implied 'self' and 'non-self'; a knowledge and an ignorance; a Logos or a Nous. In them all there is the attempt to reconcile, find agreement, explain, equate or cancel one view of reality or truth in terms of the other. In doing so their interest lies in revealing a motive for human relations or conduct with oneself or with something in one's environment. They seek norms of value which belong to the various levels of possible contexts in human life.

The common centre, the clearing-house where all these apparently different expressions of philosophy meet is the human personality or the Self. The ideological approach will give certain answers; the ontological will supply others. Immanent aspects have their corresponding transcendental counterparts. All these are understood by the various terminologies of different schools of thought, but underlying them all there is an implicit unitive epistemology; and when this is understood by means of the laws of thought or of contemplation, with axioms or corollaries which cling together systematically, they are all found to be grounded in the Self. Such a study, when strictly conceived, will be found to fulfil all that is required of a science.

Sociology and economics, which are considered to be sciences, are based on statistical evidence. Though meant to be normative, they are often open to prejudiced data with subsequent wrong conclusions and findings. All the same, these are accepted as 'sciences' in modern life. The a priori basis is gaining more headway in the preserves of scientific thought, so that laws and doctrines tend to mean the same, to be more or less synonymous.

In view therefore, of these modern developments in science, there remains no more valid reason for excluding Self-knowledge from the status of a science; especially when the subject is treated with strict objectivity, with critical reasoning and positive recognition of laws and norms of human value, as the Guru Narayana has done.

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This is particularly manifest in his various later writings, such as the 'Advaita Deepika' ('Lamp of Non-Duality'), 'Atmopadesha Satakam' ('One Hundred Verses of Self-Instruction'), and the 'Darsana-Mala' ('Garland of Visions'). In many of his miscellaneous works too, some of them written quite early in his career, such as the 'Brahma-Vidya Panchakam' ('Five Strophes to Brahman-Knowledge'), and even in his compositions clothed in the conventional figurative language of South Indian Shiva-worship, there is a completely elaborated and coherent presentation of scientific knowledge of great value.

What is known as scientific method today consists of what Bacon 1 called experiment, observation and inference. In the normative sciences, where strict laboratory experiments, as in the case of the study of simple phenomena in nature, become difficult or impossible, statistical evidence based on questionnaires or 'mass observation' are commonly employed. Variation experiments under controlled conditions, and the comparing of results obtained - eliminating some and retaining others - are the familiar ways of science today. These ways have become fashionable. The intrinsic merits of the method employed in a particular case are not seriously questioned. Much passes for science which at best is but quasi-science. Charlatans can quote scientific scripture in the form of graphs, charts or schematic representations. The letters of the Greek alphabet are freely employed in equations which are reducible to common-sense statements, but which the scientists prefer to present in their own almost secret codified mathematical language. Cases have been known of differences between physical and chemical calculations involving the same initial factors. Geological results vary from thermodynamical conclusions. According to one such set of data the history of the earth will be quite a different picture from that painted by another who speaks in terms of the 'entropy' of the universe.

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There are pundits and theologians of science who are just as vague and sentimental as in other fields of human knowledge. Wherever higher subjective values are involved, foolproof methods seem difficult.

But, as Tyndall pointed out, burst boilers need not deter us from continuing to make use of steam. In able hands, and in the essential rules of its discipline, the scientific method can be applied to any section or field of knowledge. Perennial philosophers of all ages and climes have had this objectivity, this apodictic common-sense realism, a love of fact and down-to-earth public actuality, a 'coming down to brass tacks' and 'hitting the nail on the head' and 'calling a spade a spade' as the vulgar might say. These popular expressions, however,do mark a point where the actual living language recognizes a certain agreement or accord, a consolidation of facets of reality, bringing out to view tangible results of value in everyday life. Common speech, proverbs and adages often enshrine this attitude, bringing out a certain kind of conviction which interests and satisfies the man of intelligence as well as the man in the street. Such ought to be the quality of a scientific truth. It must be of a general public nature so as to induce that well-known sense of certitude in all impartial minds - whether a priori or a posteriori reasoning enters into the proving of such convictions.

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From time immemorial our intelligence or reasoning faculty has been compared to vision or the eye that sees light 2. The light is the objective counterpart of vision, which is subjectively implied in the eye. Sun, eye and vision all refer to the same central phenomenon in consciousness, although each gives primacy to one or the other of the three aspects of subject, object, or central reality that is suggested. These three are called 'triputi' (tri-basic) in Vedanta.

Apart from these distinctions, which are incidental and not fundamental as far as reflexive Self-knowledge is concerned, the eye, sun and vision have essentially the same content which, contemplatively conceived, is a relation, a situation, an accordance, an agreement or an equation. The eye sees an object and with the help of sunlight removes or eliminates the possibility of error with reference to that object. The error is a kind of veil or darkness which the eye with the help of light is able to penetrate. A certain veiling (avarana) is removed and reality directly apprehended. This is called 'pratyaksha' (given to sense).

This process of penetration into reality as such is pushed forward by science. As science proceeds with such a task, the primacy of objective light becomes inevitably transformed, either by slow degrees or at once, into a primacy of the inner light. We can know the true nature of an object only by something prior to the object itself. There is a memory factor which is prior to the sensation, and with which it must tally to make any meaning or sense. Sensation has therefore to depend upon an innate sense. This innate sense being of the nature of knowing or awareness, resembles light, having a similar essential value; and this, contemplatively, can be equated with light such as that of the sun. This light within, when theoretically conceived after the manner of the 'prius nobis' of Aristotle, has its reality in oneself.

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The supreme idea of the world of the intelligibles of Plato is also a factor that is grounded in the Self. Just as the eye cannot see itself, so the subjective aspect is not known objectively, while conversely the objective aspect is not known subjectively. Contemplation reduces the difference that separates these two - as between light and the eye, or Self and knowledge.

Intense meditation on the intrinsic verity of these two forms of knowledge abolishes the difference between them, merging both in a central, neutral, non-dual awareness which is both transcendental and immanent, 'positive', as well as 'negative'. This awareness remains a final thing of joy, a rare human value much coveted by human beings from the most ancient times. It holds interest both for public and private life.

Socratic wisdom is summed up in 'Know Thyself' 3. The entire devious course of speculation since his days is but the further elaboration of this central problem, finding, reference or dictum. The Self is on one side and 'objective' knowledge on the other.

All the mystical formulae such as 'Thou art That', 'I am Brahman (or Shiva)', or 'This Self is Knowledge', known as the 'Mahavakyas"  (dicta magna or "great sayings") of the Vedanta, are neutral statements wherein positive and negative wisdom cancel each other out in terms of a central personal experience of value.

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Words can go no further to explain this simple situation, and yet in seeking for an explanation of this Word-wisdom, men have travelled far and wide in all times and climes. Sankara discusses this simple position of the Advaita Vedanta in his 'Drik Drishya Viveka', ('Wisdom of Seer and Spectacle'), a work which follows the methodology and epistemology that we have indicated. Other schools, calling themselves and distinguished by other names, have given primacy to one or the other of the aspects of being and becoming. In 'neutral monism', as Bertrand Russell would call it, all the contributions of speculation gain unitive correlation 4. The two categories remain always at the basis of all knowing, whether based on laws of thought or parts of speech. Mathematics knows of positive and negative quantities and infinities, and of rational and irrational numbers. It also knows functions, operations and correlations through algebra, geometry, or Cartesian correlates. Employing like methods and the same underlying epistemology, it is possible to discover, round the simple formula of Self-knowledge, a series of graded personal values which will suit every major situation in life or which will answer the major questions of the human quest. As there is a strange agreement between water and thirst, the central experience of knowledge remains the same, whether satisfactions are simple or complex. It is of course possible to erect more and more complicated superstructures round the simple nucleus of Self-knowledge as an answer to all the possible situations that are likely to arise in the complications of human life. Such further elaborations of Advaita Vedanta are without any end in scope or possibility, but the innermost nuclear knowledge remains ever the same simple Word-wisdom 5.

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However, in spite of this verity, we find much vain disputation tearing asunder large sections of humanity. Frontiers are marked out, endlessly dividing man from brother man. Hence, in the task of reconciliation the emergence of a new and exact science which will help to establish the greatest consensus of opinion through proper methods of reasoning, by a sound epistemology and by normal appreciation and arrangement of values, becomes a matter of great import.

The method arising from the contemplative discipline of Word-wisdom is based on an inherent dialectics where two reciprocally ambivalent and synergic antinomies, or double-charactered aspects or poles of quality, phase or sign - have their interplay in a tacitly-understood relation - an operation or function as in mathematics, each counteracting, cancelling and revaluating the other opposite twin. What results or emerges out of such a contemplation effects a symmetrical view of reality, a resultant or value slanting neither to the objective nor the subjective prejudice into which the mind is naturally prone to swing.

Contemplation therefore strikes a true balance and, blindfold to externality, arrives at the resultant plummet-line along which all true central points of human value lie. Glamour, exaggeration of ego, or attachments to persons or places due to habits, memories, or external or extraneous considerations, are avoided.

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When the counterparts are determined, the intelligence discovers equations and finds accords, points of continuity and agreement. A synthetic, global attitude brings the 'existent', 'real' and 'dear' aspects of a situation into one unitive appraising whole. This is then reduced into terms of the Self so that the final fusion of apperceptive wisdom may result.

This kind of direct or immediate awareness attains wisdom's centre without difficulty or fuss. There is nothing in this wisdom about which to lose one's head. One's own Self becomes convinced and satisfied with the elimination of doubts and conflicts. Virtues shine by themselves when the extraneous aspects clinging to the surface of the mirror of the Self are wiped off. Conditionings vanish from consciousness and errors of judgement decrease till, for all practical purposes, they may be said to exist no more. One says 'And so that's that!' or attains 'Yata-tatya' (the-way-it-ought-to-be). A new matter-of-fact attitude is attained in which everything is reduced to a natural simplicity where the necessary and the contingent meet to make life a harmonious flux. This in Vedanta, is known as 'Anubhava' (realizing) 6. The man who comes to this attains detachment and unconcerned harmony.

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His flight is from the 'alone to the alone'; or he is the yogi who holds the prize "like a gooseberry within the palm" - he is a man of free will, an emancipated person. Various degrees of such detachment cause rarer and rarer values to be represented in such persons. He is knowledge and, thus equated, he becomes holy, adorable, kind, good or divine. He begins to live according to the Guru-Word-wisdom. Beauty, joy and love wait upon such a man who lives for himself and for all others at one and the same time.

The theory of knowledge or the methodology of Word-wisdom can be elaborated or stated simply and succinctly. Always it has to be grasped by a certain grace or blessing of a Guru. Nature itself in very rare cases can play the role of a Guru, and many Gurus can represent the fruition of one result of Word-wisdom in a person. Whatever way it comes about, wisdom is the mercy or grace that 'blesseth him that gives and him that takes', like that quality which is synthetically spoken of by Shakespeare. It always takes two sides to bring it about.

In all wisdom of the kind spoken about here the Sishya relationship is implied. He comes to the Guru with his typical doubts such as 'Who am I?', 'How does this phenomenal world come to be?' etc. The burning quest is a thirst which has to be quenched by its corresponding counterpart of the consoling water of wisdom which a veritable Guru carries always with him. Baptism implies this situation. The disciple then rises to his feet and, conversely, may be waited on by the Guru. They attain unity of status in the context of the pure contemplative life. Thenceforward they are fellow pilgrims in life's journey.

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We shall have occasion later, with individual specimens of the Guru's writings before us, to enter into further aspects of the approach to Word-wisdom. Many aspects are necessarily implied by hoary custom and tacitly understood in the Guru-Sishya relationship in India. The willing disciple in India fits into a certain rigidity of framework given by tradition. This, however, needs some revision in the light of modern notions of self-respect and dignity; without however spoiling its essential purity, its bipolar intensity and directness. Thus the Guru and Sishya belong intrinsically to the methodology and epistemology of the Advaita. They are the inevitable counterparts of its vital contemplative dialectics.

Rare indeed is that philosophy which can speak of scientific fact in terms of human value and of human values in terms of simple scientific reality. The Svetasvatara Upanishad, which is one of the later productions according to scholars, accomplishes this synthesis of wisdom and value in lines such as the following:

'Transcending the world-tree, time and forms
Is He from whom this universe emerges;
The source of right, the destroyer of sin,
the Lord of Glory.
Know Him as the immortal, the abode of all,
as seated in one's own Self' 7.

The Bhagavad Gita too, sets before the reader this ideal of an apodictic, common-sense finality of easy and convincing public discipline underlying its mystical teachings which it praises thus:

'Royal Science, Royal Secret, pure, of high value is this
Which by direct awareness is sensed;
Ever conducive to right living, easy of practical application,
And knowing no decrease ever'. 8

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Although it is true to some extent that Indian mysticism tends to stress individualised values, sometimes at the expense of public virtues of a social order, often subjecting the latter to neglect and distortion 9, there are valuable lines of thought suggested, like the above which bring secrets out of their hiding-places into common public view for general benefaction.

Esotericism can meet openly-declared truths, and orthodoxy unite equally well, satisfied and convinced, with heterodoxy, in the light of a Self-realized, reflective, yet public discipline supporting universally valid norms which a new Science of the Word can employ.

It is precisely in this content that the unique quality of the writings of the Guru Narayana consists. A strange agreement of matter and method underlies his treatment of mystical contemplation. He includes all within its scope. What has been the object of endless discussion, of hair-splitting, non-contemplative, blind, unsound, or feeble understanding, is most ably brought by him under unitive dialectical scrutiny. Counterparts are determined by a certain inherent theory of knowledge which distinguishes between actualities, realities and truths. Absurd entities are put, as it were, into the wastepaper-basket and the rest reasonably arranged into orderly pigeon-holes till there is no jumble of paper remaining on the desk, so that the simple work of meeting any situation squarely may proceed unhampered.

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When all that has no value has been rejected and the remainder sorted out tidily, each essential in its place, the result is a harmonised life. Vain beatings about the bush are avoided and much human energy conserved for ever-better uses. Let us take one example from the Guru's writings to show how he simplifies all questions in the light of a contemplative method which one can say goes to the extent even of resembling a modern-style scientific laboratory experiment. Exact thinking is therefore introduced into problems hitherto considered as belonging properly to the domain of mere speculation or some vague spiritual doctrine, left in the hands of various philosophers and men of religion, of East or West.

Such a problem is that of the nature of the 'Soul' or the 'Self'. The 'jivatma' (individual or living Self) and the 'paramatma' (the ultimate or universal all-Self) have been for centuries but vaguely defined in books. Buddhists are supposed not to believe in the Soul or the Self; and in the case of Western theology we know how many battles have been fought round pluralism, genus or species as applied to souls or other hypostatic entities, such as the Persons of the Trinity, Angels, Archangels, etc.

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Although Kant 10 and Comte attempted the critical examination or positive classification of such concepts under categories or universal laws, the problem has been generally considered unfit for any kind of treatment other than in poetry, mystical effusion, speculation, philosophical theorisation and hypothetical postulations. It was certainly never brought into the field of laboratory science.

Yet the problem has to be tackled somehow in keeping with the conditions of everyday living; and, whether a priori or a posteriori reasoning is employed, it has also to be valid in the terms of one's own inner experience, which alone supplies final conviction. Here the scientific method need not be ruled out; experimental conditions can easily be imagined for controlling and regulating the result to ensure the certainty that is sought. And although not based on sense objectivity or actuality in the gross meaning of the term, still the certainty has to be immediate. At the same time, although this immediate awareness is of an inner order, this does not mean that it is a private domain of closed esotericism. All men generally being equally endowed with common sense, the validity of the certainty thus achieved is as sound as in an actual experiment in the laboratory. Statistical evidence need be gathered only when some residue of doubt is possible, but here in the experiment we are coming to, as arranged by the Guru from a matter-of-fact position of reality, the whole problem becomes simple and self-evident and needing no statistical support. Contemplation tallies here with the common-sense everyday experience of one and all, and there is no fear either of heresy or of speculation entering on the scene, and no room for the easy, lazy luxury or dream of a private heaven to be accessible by undeserved grace. Irrespective of sin and absolution, we have the matter discussed in a truly scientific and even experimental spirit. The soul of man is demonstrated to be not a mystery but an existing and subsisting everyday reality, and one capable of being studied in the same way as other facts or problems in science are capable of being examined.

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The same strictness of approach characterizes the Guru's writings throughout, while his witty conversation was filled with humour and always carried that touch of apodictic finality which ever marks the utterances of great men of all times and places. The Self or the Soul, or the Paramatma, together with the Jivatma of Vedantic lore, are brought under close and related scrutiny by the Guru as follows:

'Who sits there in the dark? - Speak!'
Says one, which the other, hearing,
To know in turn asks:
'And you there, who may you even be?'
To both of these but unitive remains
The word of response.

The ever-repeated 'I','I'
All contemplated from within
Is not many - it becomes one;
Divergent egoity being plural
With the total of such
The substance of the Self
Continuity it assumes.'12

In conclusion we may summarise the discipline of Vedanta as follows:
1) great reliance on common-sense and a priori Self-realization;
2) abolition of duality in such reciprocal ambivalences as the one and the many, subject versus object;
3) elimination of the prejudices of what is called in Vedanta 'triputi' (i.e. threefold points of view, the giving of primacy to one or other of these three as 'the subjective', 'the objective' or 'the meaning');
4) reference to a principle of continuity understood as an eternal 'now' or as being rather than becoming;
5) non-acceptance or rejection of creative Specialization (nir-visesha);
6) giving primacy to cause rather than effect (satkarana-vada);
7) and lastly, viewing the whole situation contemplatively and
realistically.

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These are some of the time-honoured methods and basic principles of knowing kept in mind by the Guru Narayana in his writings and which may be found in this and other examples; but, at the same time, the whole treatment is revised by him to suit the requirements of the modern scientific outlook and the modern method. The two men in a dark room speak of an ultimately unitive but undeniably existent ego, which nobody can deny - an ego that is common and the same to all and therefore a universal real. Moreover this Self is one which sits neutrally in the dark, knowing its own side as well as the side of the questioner. What he is meets what he is not in a neutral or undifferentiated consciousness of the Self. In this neutral Self the silence is again reached, the silent detachment of full freedom of the Absolute Witness of all.



NOTES
1 Francis Bacon (1561-1626): English philosopher, statesman and littérateur. Formulated and introduced the inductive method of modern science as opposed to the a priori method of scholasticism. Among his most famous works are 'The Advancement of Learning', 'Novum Organum Scientiarum', 'Essays', and 'The New Atlantis'.

2 Cf., Plato: 'In every man 'there is an eye of the soul which, when by other pursuits lost and dimmed, is by these (philosophic) studies purified and re-illumined, and is more worthy of preservation than ten thousand bodily eyes, for by it alone is Truth seen'. (Republic, 527 E). 'And so we have at last arrived at the hymn of Dialectic. This is that strain which is of the intellect only, but which the faculty of sight will nevertheless be found to imitate. When a person starts on the discovery of the Absolute by the light of the reason only, without the assistance of the senses, and never desists until by pure intelligence he arrives at the perception of the Absolute Good, he at last finds himself at the end of the intellectual world, as in the case of sight at the end of the visible'. (Republic, 532 A).

Also Plotinus: 'Never did the eye see the sun unless it had first become sun-like, and never can the soul have vision of the First Beauty unless itself be beautiful' (Enneads, I, vi. 9)

And Goethe:
'War nicht das Auge sonnenhaft
Wie konnten wir das Licht erblicken?
Lebt' nicht in uns des Gottes eigne Kraft,
Wie kannt'uns Gottliches entzucken?'
('Entwurf einer Farbenlehre')

3 'Know Thyself ' ('Gnothi Seauton') was the inscription at the entrance to the oracle-temple at Delphi, a town at the foot of Mount Parnassus in Ancient Greece. It was known as the 'Navel (i.e., the centre) of the World', because it was an international spiritual centre of advice, holding otherwise-fragmented Greece together, and not only Greece but other states as well. Originally a temple of Dionysius (the Greek Shiva); it was later shared with Apollo (the Greek Surya), by the former during the winter and by the latter in summer. When the Greek philosopher Socrates (469-399 BC) was 30, the Delphic oracle pronounced him the wisest man in Greece, and accordingly he took on the role of a Guru, questioning everyone to discover the truth of the oracle.

4 In Russell's own words: 'The philosophy appropriate to quantum theory, however, has not yet been adequately developed. I suspect that it will demand even more radical departures from the traditional doctrine of space and time than those demanded by the theory of relativity...While physics has been making matter less material, psychology has been making mind less mental...Thus from both ends physics and psychology have been approaching each other, and making more possible the doctrine of 'neutral monism' suggested by William James's criticism of 'consciousness'. The distinction of mind and matter came into philosophy from religion, although, for a long time, it seemed to have valid grounds. I think that both mind and matter are merely convenient ways of grouping events. Some single events, I should admit, belong only to material groups, but others belong to both kinds of groups, and are therefore at once mental and material. This doctrine effects a great simplification in our picture of the structure of the world'. (p. 861, 'History of Western Philosophy', Allen and Unwin 1946).

5 Cf., Chuang Tzu, (c.300 BC): 'Infinite, unceasing, there is no room for words about the Tao (Brahman). To regard it as in the category of things is the origin of the language that it is caused or that it is the result of doing nothing; but it would end as it began with things...The name Tao is a metaphor, used for the purposes of description. To say that it causes or does nothing is but to speak of one phase of things, and has nothing to do with the great subject. If words were sufficient for the purpose, in a day's time we might exhaust it; since they are not sufficient, we may speak all day and only exhaust the subject of things. The Tao is the extreme to which things conduct us. Neither by speech nor by silence can our thoughts about it have their highest expression'. p. 130, 'Writings of Chuang Tzu', translated by James Legge (Vol. XL. 'Sacred Books of the East', Oxford, 1891).

6 This free and easy attitude comes out emphatically in the teaching of Zen Buddhism (introduced into China by the South Indian Bodhi-Dharma 6th century AD). Zen is Japanese for 'Ch'an' in Chinese, from 'Dhyana' in Sanskrit, meaning contemplation. Zen stresses the crystalline state achieved by resolving the dialectical counterparts arising from the adoption of individualisation or egoism. e.g.:

'No offence offered, and no ten thousand things;
No disturbance going, and no mind set up to work:
The subject is quieted when the object ceases,
The object ceases when the subject is quieted.
Obey the nature of things, and you are in accord with the Way,
Calm and easy and free from annoyance;
But when your thoughts are tied, you turn away from the truth
They grow heavier and duller and you are not at all sound.
One in all,
All in One -
If only this is realized,
No more worry about your not being perfect.'

(From 'On Believing in Mind', by Seng-T'san who died 606 AD, from 'The Bible of the World', Edited by Robert 0. Ballou in collaboration with F. Spiegelberg, Columbia University, Kegan Paul, London, 1946.)

Perhaps the nearest of the Advaita Vedanta texts to Zen is the 'Ashtavakra Gita', (English translation by Swami Nityaswarupananda, published by Advaita Ashrama, Mayavati, Almora, Himalaya, 1940) where the happy state is extolled, e.g.:

'Equanimous in practical life as well,
the wise one sits happily, sleeps happily,
speaks happily and eats happily'.
(Chapter 18, Verse 59.)

7
'Sa vrikshakalakritihhih paro-anyo
Yasmat prapanchah parivartate-ayam;
Dharmavaham papanudam bhagesham
Jnatva-atmasthanamritam vishvadhama'.
(Svetasvatara Upanishad, VI, 6.)

8
'Rajavidya rajaguhyam
Pavitram idam uttamam
Pratyakshavagamam dharmyam
Susukham kartum avyayam.'
(Bhagavad Gita, IX, 2.)

9 Cf., J.M. Nallaswami Pillai: 'Amongst the ancient Indians, whose consciousness of human solidarity, of common needs and common interests was but slightly developed, the sense of the objective worth of moral action (that is, the worth it possesses for others), is very inferior to ours, while their estimate of its subjective worth (that is, its significance for the actor himself) was advanced to a degree from which we may learn much'.

(pp. 364-5. Madras Review, Vol. 6 (1900) quoted by Hume, p. 505, 'Thirteen Principal Upanishads' (1934.))

l0 Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) the first and greatest of the line of modern German philosophers; author of the 'Kritik der reinen Vernuft' ('Critique of Pure Reason'). To Kant, 'things-in-themselves' or noumena, are unknowable. His 12 categories of a priori concepts are as follows:
of Quantity (unity, plurality,totality);
of Quality (reality, negation, limitation);
of Relation (substance and accident, cause and effect, reciprocity);
and of Modality (possibility, existence, necessity).

Moral concepts, he affirmed, originate a priori, hence the famous Categorical Imperative (a certain action is right because it is so), and its corollary, the Hypothetical Imperative (i.e., acts with a motive.)
Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was the real successor of Kant and by a reading of a Latin translation of the Upanishads, modified Kant's views in the light of Vedanta. One of the best textbooks of the Kant-Schopenhauer school is Dr. P. Deussen's 'The Elements of Metaphysics' (translated by C. M. Duff, MacMillan, 1909.)

11 Auguste Comte (1798-1857), French philosopher, founder of the positivist school. Saw the history of philosophy in three stages,
(1) Theological (where phenomena are explained by the supernatural);
(2) Metaphysical (cause is abstractions); and
(3) Positive (where observation, hypotheses and experimentation explain phenomena). He further classified the sciences hierarchically, beginning with mathematics as the most general, followed by astronomy, general physics, chemistry, biology (including psychology) and ending with sociology (a word he invented) which he placed at the head of the hierarchy. Each later science depended upon the last one.

12 From the Guru Narayana's 'Atmopadesha Satakam'('One Hundred Verses of Self-Instruction'), verses 10-11.



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CHAPTER XX
MORE INTIMATE JOTTINGS

Sankara's opening verse in his 'Viveka-Chuda-Mani' (Crest Jewel of Wisdom) offers the usual adoration to his own Guru called Govinda 1. This is also the name of the pastoral Krishna of the Vishnu tradition. The name Govinda occurs again in the refrain by Sankara beginning 'Bhaja Govindam!' (Worship Govinda!) which we have already quoted in translation 2. Some hold to the interpretation that it is the pastoral god Krishna who is referred to; while others, more cogently it would appear, consider that the reference is to the person of the Guru of Sankara. In that case, the Guru Govinda must have come to Malabar with a Vaishnava Vedic outlook, to which Sankara's own mind reacted, throwing up a revalued Guru-Word representing a new synthesis. In both these instances therefore, the reference would be to the person of the same Guru. It is unlikely that Sankara would recommend Krishna worship, at least in the usual sense, for salvation, considering that Sankara was so well known for being uncompromisingly in favour of reason; as well as one who gave primacy so wholeheartedly to the contemplative wisdom of non-dual Vedanta. Whatever the theory, there is an enigma here, especially when we know that Sankara adhered to the Shiva tradition in all his writings. Although lukewarm critics may mix everything up, it is worth while for us to linger here to discover the underlying principle uniting this intimate personal devotion (bhakti) with the pitched polemical battles that Sankara always fought in the name of the primacy of reason (jnana).

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The opening lines of the 'Viveka-Chuda-Mani' themselves afford the key. Govinda the Guru is apostrophised both as one who is visible and invisible. He is said to be visible to the eye of one of finalized Vedantic wisdom, but invisible otherwise, although to Sankara he was a living Guru. Here we witness a delicate dialectic interplay between aspects of reality. Existence and Subsistence meet, as if from opposite poles, neutralizing each other in one central presence which thus comes to represent the Absolute, not in merely one-sided abstraction, but in a manner by which the Absolute becomes adorable also. The dualism inherent in the methods of Bhakti (devotional worship) and Jnana (pure reason) thus tend to be abolished. This way of approaching reality from two opposite yet reciprocal ends is also the secret of the contemplative mysticism of the Upanishads. The Isha Upanishad has an invocation to the Supreme Sun as 'Pushan', which has the fairest of forms as seen by the adoring supplicant 3. The form is seen in the Sun but soon the worshipper also says, as if on second thoughts - 'He who is yonder, yonder Person, I myself am He!' By mutual recognition the Cosmic Person is thus equated to the Psychic Person within. Sankara therefore only continues this ancient way of wisdom when he makes the Guru Govinda the meeting point of two distinct aspects of reality, as if from opposite sides. The subjective and the objective aspects of the personality, the noumenal and phenomenal, thus fuse and blend in the Guru-Presence which is both visible and invisible. There is no Guru apart from the essential high human value called Guruhood. The actual visible appearance of the Guru as given to the gross senses is incidental or secondary in the presence of this neutral or central Guru-personality which represents non-duality itself as it is to be understood in Advaita Vedanta.

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The life and teachings of a Guru have thus to be considered as the further elaborations of Guruhood. The second Person of the Trinity in Christianity has been treated exactly in conformity with this system of Guruhood. In India there are popularly-known devotional verses in Sanskrit which proclaim 'Guru is Brahma, Guru is Vishnu' and 'Guru is Maheshwara (Shiva)'. Theology and ritual flow together in a single river of this Master-Tradition. Mystical doctrine and contemplative philosophy are in the same stream of perennial wisdom, with their implicit methodology and epistemology.

Equating Guru with God is recognized in various disconnected contexts the world over, but the common source of this pattern of thinking is to be traced to the East, to India of the far South in that protected area at the tip of the Peninsula - that coastland where the world made contact with India, and where as in Valencia 'the earth is water and men women'; the land of milk and honey where nature has been kind to human life for millennia. The ocean's surf washes the feet of Mother India here where the formula of Word-wisdom is preserved, and strangely manifests itself repeatedly millennium after millennium.

Doubly protected and preserved by the high mountain ranges of the Ghats, the Vindhyas and the far-off Himalaya, this ancient 'Malaya' region of the Sanskrit poets gave birth to simple yet true bards and philosophers such as Sankara, Govinda and Narayana, who all belong to a single line which links prehistoric Shiva with the latest revaluator and perfect expositor of the Guru-Word. Ancient drummings, extending far behind recorded history, beat out a perennial message which is transmuted and scientifically restated, after passing through the vicissitudes of history, through Guru after Guru, while the wonder and simplicity of the healing unitive Word rises triumphantly out of its own ashes, phoenix-like, in its natural Malaya home, where the contemplative science can flourish, unmolested by the strivings and disturbances going on in less protected lands 4.

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The personality of the Guru is the meeting-place of the Word and its own wisdom. As the central principle of correlation can be expressed in mathematical language in terms of functions and operations, all of which become possible round the neutral point of a zero (which is an Indian invention); so it is also possible with a simple neutral Word-formula to reconcile sacred objects and supreme ideas (both hierophanies and hypostasies - as with the reconciliation of geometry and algebra) into harmony with a central neutral verity which is of the core of Word-wisdom. This is the hub of the wheel 8. This is the radiant centre. This is the seed. Every Guru carries this secret of the Guru Seed-Word (bija-akshara). This is the milk of human kindness which is life itself. All meet in the silence of this adorable high value.

A biography of the Guru Narayana on usual lines and giving primacy to factual items has been hitherto consciously avoided in these pages. But now that we have been able to explain to some extent the position involved; now that we can see facts in the simple light of Guruhood, and will therefore be able to assess such facts as they ought to be treated, we shall be able to enter, in a rambling and intimate way into some of the details pertaining to the life of the Guru Narayana.

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Without some such rounding-off, all our previous remarks might seem truncated or incomplete in the eyes of the general reader who might chance on what we have written, and who might not be acquainted at first hand with the background and particular context of the Word of the Guru as we have studied it in these pages. And so, without attempting orderliness or sequence, as if we were jay-walking along trafficless cross-roads, we shall here dispose of some of these miscellaneous matters belonging to biography.

A Guru who consciously or unconsciously conforms to the values or patterns of Guruhood does not get involved in actualities as such. He refuses to live in a bloated and sensational world of newspaper headlines. Contemporary actualities interest him only insofar as they are related to normal human happiness against a lasting background, a background that survives the shifting acts and figures of history. He avoids the lure of mere glamour. Tinsel and glittering trash do not hold his interest except as part of a passing show before him.

This attitude implies a certain detachment and abnegation. It is a state of retirement, withdrawal or calm self-possession. He seeks no happiness outside himself and thus attains peace 6.

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The relation with that aspect of the Absolute which is not immediately implied in his actual person is sought in the Ultimate, the Supreme, the transcendent 'That' beyond, which is 'the Most High God', or the Purushottamah 7. This supreme value meets the ontological everyday existent aspect in the Guru's own person, and together they give synthetic unity and virtue to Guruhood.

Nothing that pleases or pampers the senses can give this dialectical counterpart which is needed for a life of elevated human value. Wealth and fame, family and friends, are not ends in themselves. They serve a higher end which is Self-knowledge or the other pole of reality. This is the sacrifice mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita where this second or transcendental pole of cherished value is marked out to maintain purificatory interest in an ever Self-fulfilling and Self-realizing process 8. All normal interests can be stepping-stones to the next higher interest, when properly taken advantage of as 'a tide in the affairs of men' 9. Adversity itself, as Shakespeare says, can be put to its 'sweet uses' 10.

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When these two poles of the immanent and the transcendent are brought together into interplay in everyday life we have what is called the dedicated life of the Guru, whose value is finalized and grounded in the Self - that Self which is to be realized by the given Self itself which is already there by necessity. This is the gist of the doctrine of 'Nishkama Karma' (non-greedy action) of the Bhagavad Gita 11. Although each stage of such dedicated living can have an individual complexion of its own, the underlying technique or principle is the same. The dialectical counterparts of a given situation have to be treated together, contemplatively, for a naturally dedicated action to result. This involves a normal amount of detachment which yet does not become so stoical, puritanical or austere as to be of the nature of self-immolation or torture. In such a mystical discipline agony is not loved for its own sake (as it is by some persons) - instead every situation is made to yield its own maximum interest which is legitimate in the contemplative context.

Thus a Krishna's love for the Gopis (cow-herding girls) finds its place, as well as the destruction wrought by Shiva when he makes Rati (the Spring Goddess - Koré-Persephone) bewail her lover Kama-Deva (Eros, God of Desire), who is reduced to cinders by one glancing shaft from Shiva's fiery middle eye. All normal human values find their place and arrange themselves in an orderly way in the light of the Guru's presence. All natural and normal interests have the Guru's blessing, whether in child, woman or in the mature, positively awakened man of wisdom. Woman's wisdom too is given its legitimate place without insisting that it should conform to asymmetrically distorted standards often demanded of it by agitated or greedy manhood. A sanctioning, presiding, neutral, subdued and finalized value is ever represented in the just vision of Guruhood as it ought to be understood in the context of the Guru's Word-wisdom.

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All is viewed by the Guru from his calm, contemplative, central or symmetrical position. As the Bhagavad Gita puts it, he makes no distinction between a holy, pious Brahmin of great learning, a cow, an elephant, a dog, or even a dog-eater 12. Representing himself a finalized value, the Guru makes no comparisons, he passes no judgements; but views all with the same eye of a just and equal mystical catholicity, characterized by boundless generosity and kindliness.

Closed loyalties in the name of the Gurus are not, therefore, in order. Every Guru worthy of the name is a Jagat-Guru (World-Teacher), whether he be humble or well known. Pontifical paraphernalia and cavalcades of camels, elephants and footmen, do not add anything to Guruhood in its essence; although they may add to social status or authority, which is a different thing. Between these two sources of virtue or ethics the Guru exercises his higher judgement as each situation presents itself. Generally speaking, he leads a life of plain living and high thinking.

Clean-shaven, with no ornamental things about him, the Guru Narayana avoided even any stripes or colours in his clothing. He dressed in two seamless pieces of white cloth (in later years tinged orange at the request of his ochre-robed disciples of the Sanyasin tradition). He would sip clean pure water as if drinking a rich beverage, and extol simple foods like fruits or roots. Often he preferred to sleep on a cloth spread on stone for a couch under the clear starlight, with his own arms alone for a pillow; and likewise he preferred bathing in rivers and walking on foot; and he would eat any kind of food from the devoted hands that offered it in village homes as he moved among the people.

To the Guru Narayana peasant or proletarian was the same, while priest and publican received from him equality of treatment. Born of humble parents himself, the Guru Narayana lived in conformity with the highest traditions of Guruhood.

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He recognized no exclusive disciples for himself. 'All or none' was his position in this matter. He avoided the division arising from the terminology of a narrow way where a camel could not pass, in which those 'not against were with', and those 'not with' were 'against', with its pattern of a flock closed to humanity in general. The Guru's sheep were found in all folds, and no folds were without the Guru's sheep. Such was the open character of his attitude. For himself he had no programme of action, although all worthy programmes of action started by others received his blessing, if sought. The blessing would be of the nature of a silent assent to all that had any value in a human context.

We have traced the history of the Word of the Guru in our own way from antiquity, making no great distinction between immense antiquity and eternity or timelessness. When an origin is removed to a vast degree from the normal extent of human perception or interest, it tends to have an indifferent meaning. Endless antiquity means nothing, just as an endless future cannot have a definite meaning either, in relative terms. Thus we have to accept both retrospective and prospective life-values in the light of a simple present, in an eternal Now. Whatever the antiquity (or, conversely, the futurity) of humanity may be, that same humanity is distinguished by those essential spiritual qualities which give it its human nature. The personality of a Guru has to be looked upon in an eternal context. There are peculiarities of temperament or character which distinguish one person from another. There are light-hearted people who carry with them an easy and pleasant atmosphere and there are others who are heavily weighted down by emotions. A balancing of these ambivalent tendencies comes from an equable climate and those kindly natural conditions in which man can live at peace with his environment. Egyptian deserts are said to have been favourable for the wisdom that has come down to us from Abraham and Moses, and from the early Christian Fathers; and certain temperamental peculiarities have also been fostered in Malabar for the nurture and preservation through time of a certain Word-wisdom and patterns of Word-value shown in the personalities of Gurus such as Sankara and Narayana.

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Malabar life, beyond the Ghats to the West, in that long strip that lies so close to the ocean, is populated by a light-hearted, plain-living people who, (hitherto at least) eat of the simplest of foods and clothe themselves with the least ornament or luxury. From year to year the land supports the people evenly, while invading war drums have no meaning here as nature cannot be robbed too much in advance. No clothes are needed for the sake of warmth, as there is no winter at all; while body temperature prevails with only negligible variations between day and night. Man and nature blend in harmony without conflict.

 

When foreign economies did not percolate like water into this domain, all was self-sufficient and easy, and spiritual life, like a flame untouched by a breeze, burnt on steadily through time. This had its effect on the temperament. The Malabar man had simple, human, almost prosaic emotions. Effusions were foreign to his nature, and Bhakti or devotion was not overladen with flourishes, elaborations, or heavy ornamentations. All remained simple, as with the Polynesians before the arrival of Captain Cook and other explorers. Indeed, the comparison in every respect between these two antipodean peoples has been remarked upon by many writers, and Malabar has been described as the South Seas of India 13.

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Old Kerala.

Sea-fish and rice and the seasonal fruits and spices kept the masses alive from age to age. Simple Word-wisdom lay deeply buried under this calm and steadily peaceful pace of life. Sankara and Narayana were typical products of such a soil. Wisdom was there, with wit and humour, simply conceived; as even the Zero was conceived by the simple Indian mind with whom simplicity itself constituted its high genius. A down-to-earth, matter-of-fact realism was also a part of the social environment of the Malabar people. Travancore is the remotest of the monarchies of antiquity that has survived to the present day. Pre-Pallava Travancore was essentially Shaivite (i.e., prior to 8OO AD). There was an intermediate period of Buddhism and Jainism, which, having spread its influence as far as Ceylon where it still flourishes, gives us the clue to the state of affairs that prevailed in Travancore until it was overcovered by Vishnu temples.

It was about the Pandyan and Gupta periods (c.300-600 AD) that Vaishnavism penetrated into Malabar, displacing Buddhist remnants; and when this process was complete the triumph of religious reformers such as Madhva and Ramanuja (11th and 12th centuries AD) was also completed. A Travancore ruler became attached to these new movements and went as a recluse to Sri Rangam in the Tamil country, while another became a Muslim and went to Mecca. Two Nambudri (Brahmin) families of Malabar became custodians of the Christian religion in the earliest years of its history. There is one day set apart for the Syrian Christians of Malabar to observe some Hindu orthodox customs; and after the marriage ceremony among the orthodox Nambudri Brahmins, on the fifth day the couple are expected ceremonially to catch fish in a pond, perhaps in reminiscence of their ancient origins among the fisher-folk. These are some of the miscellaneous enigmas that Malabar still presents to the modern sociologist.

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The infiltration of Vaishnavism brought with it a theocratic form of government. The older Shaivite stratum was submerged and became more or less inarticulate. The Buddhist remnants were either effaced or absorbed. Theocracy further introduced a complicated hierarchy of castes, on the topmost rung of which hierarchical ladder was the priest, especially of the Vaishnavite temples.

A form of the feudal system became established round the theocratic authority which kept the monarchs under its power. In the place of serfs in this pyramidal formation, the masses became 'untouchables' - at first ceremonially in the context of the temple, and later by dint of the economic and other disadvantages that this system brought upon them. The little kingdoms that still survived here and there, ruled by the archaic masses, were annexed one by one and brought under the suzerainty of the Vaishnavite temple theocrats.

Iconography unmistakably reveals how King Mahabali, who must have been a remnant of the Buddhist period, was cheated of his empire by the Vamana Avatara (Pigmy Incarnation) of Vishnu. The Malabar people, in spite of this overcovering of the antecedent conditions, to this day celebrate the glory of the ancient days of Mahabali. The yellow cloth is worn by all, and girls sit on swings in the harvest season, singing ancient songs which speak of Mahabali - 'When Mavali ruled the land, men were equals, one and all; no cheating then, no falsehood too!' - such are the words of their familiar refrain. And so theocracy came to stay. Temples that were part of the Government could only be entered by those who were within the theocratic fold. All others, comprising more than half the population of petite-bourgeoisie, medical men, astrologers, fishermen and coconut-climbers, not to mention all those who gained a livelihood like Shiva himself of antiquity, from hunting, from the gathering of natural products, or from harvesting, etc. - all in fact who belonged to the vast amorphous matrix of prehistory, comprising both proletarian and peasant groups within a vast, inarticulate but persisting social stratum, were excluded from the theocratic caste, religious and social system.

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Let the reader now imagine an undulating country prospect about twelve miles to the north-east of Trivandrum, which is the Englishman's version of the original name Tiru-Ananta-Puram (the City of the Holy and Prosperous Ananta, i.e., the many-headed snake representing eternity, upon whom Vishnu reclines on the Ocean of Milk). The temple of Sri Padmanabha (which is another name of Vishnu, from whose navel a lotus came, and which later gave birth to Brahma and all creation), is the central institution in this capital city of the theocratic state.

 

Padmanabha Temple, Trivandrum.

Narayana Guru's birthplace.

 

 

 

 

Scenes from rural Kerala.

In this rolling countryside, then, imagine also a little palm-leaf-roofed house standing at the edge of rice fields, with tall coconut palms raising their heads high into the air. The tender green of the rice fields, the clear vibrant blue of the sky, a flock of white cranes startled by the passer-by - these perhaps give the necessary touches to this self-sufficing tranquil picture of peaceful domestic life. The straggling pepper vine, the big generous jackfruits, and the mango trees add to the variety and colour of vegetation.

 

Traditional Kerala costumes.

An agricultural family lived at this country place about the year 1855. The father, Madan Asan, was more than a mere farmer. He was versed in astronomy and Ayurvedic medicine, and was a teacher, as his name Asan (or Acharyan) would show. He was respected by his fellow-villagers and he guided them in matters of agriculture, land surveying, revenue questions, and so on. He walked into the temple City of Trivandrum to pay his taxes, dressed in two pieces of white cloth and carrying a simple non-folding palm-leaf umbrella, such as one can see even today being carried by villagers in these rural parts. Once a week the villagers assembled in the veranda of his house to hear him expound the Ramayana or the Maha-Bharata, the two ancient epics of India. His son Nanu was the Guru Narayana of later days. We have to fit the son into this picture, dressed in similar simple attire, as an assistant to the father; and in the exposition of the epics sometimes deputising for his father. In later years, when the son became more learned, the father looked upon the youth to do better than he himself had done.

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The village had the name Chempazhandi and had its own wayside Shiva temple, in a state of much neglect, where the ancient trident and the Shiva stone are still dressed-up and anointed, with the inevitable religious fig-tree (ficus religiosa) - the entire environment being evocative and reminiscent of prehistoric Shiva days.

 

Chempazhandi Temple.

It was in the rice-harvesting season, soon after the festivities in memory of the King Mahabali of the days of the yellow robe, in the Indian month of the Lion (Simha or Chingam) that Nanu, which is a contraction for Narayana, was born, about 1854 AD 14.

The simple and pleasant young wife of Madan Asan, the mother of Nanu, was a sensitive and pretty woman known as Kutty. This simple name which means 'child', fitted the basic simplicity of her nature and social status. She just happened to be there, as if by nature's own conspiracy, and neither titles, sophistry, nor any extra embellishments of dress or ornament happened to be superposed on her. Nature itself had given her grace and kindliness, which the son inherited, with wisdom. The sensibility of the Guru Narayana has to be acknowledged as drawn from this simple woman who gave him birth, and who in her quiet ways seemed to merge into the background of nature itself and seemed hardly to exist at all. Her personality did not make itself felt on the surroundings with any loudness or gaudiness. Neither trimmings nor frills were added to it. Her ancestry and that of her husband belonged to a simple human context; to that same human simplicity which we have tried to trace in earlier pages. Here was a gentleman farmer, instructed in Sanskrit, Astrology and Ayurvedic medicine (medical science coming from Vedic times), belonging to the context of ancient Shiva-worship, outside the Vishnu fold of later days, living the life of a 'mute inglorious Milton', as the poet Gray would put it, with a simple, unpretentious but pretty wife who gave ample evidence that nature had endowed her with beauty and sensibility.

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The son was known to be a slender, agile little boy full of pranks and fond of acrobatic tricks. With a single stone he could make a mango fall from the tall village tree near which he grazed cattle with other village lads, even like a pastoral Krishna. He was good at his lessons and had a clear calligraphy free from the need of corrections. The neatness of a scholar went with him from his earliest days. His alphabets included the ancient hybrid script called Malayalma which was neither Malayalam nor Sanskrit. For all we know, this alphabet could easily have had affinities with the ancient Akkadian and Sumerian scripts.

The boy Nanu lost his mother when he was fifteen or so, and his father too passed away when Nanu Asan (Teacher Nanu or Narayana) which he had become in the meanwhile, was about thirty years of age. He had already started his life as an itinerant teacher by this time, and came to the parental home only once in many months. He taught Sanskrit to a group of disciples who came to him. Some of them occasionally accompanied Nanu Asan to neighbouring places within about fifty miles - a distance from his house which in those days formed the natural orbit of his wanderings.

This transition, from a farmer's assistant to the status of a teacher, took place by imperceptible stages within the period of his mother's passing away at his fifteenth year and his father's passing away at about his twenty-eighth year. He once left his home without telling anyone, leaving a letter and a gift of cloth to a friend, and was sought and found by his uncle thirty miles north, where he had begun to live and teach. On the occasion of the father's passing away it is told, according to graphic accounts given by villagers of sufficient age to have been eyewitnesses, that Nanu Asan arrived in time by some strange coincidence. He did not enter his family house straightaway, but sat in a neighbouring house.

He entered the room where the father lay, with other village neighbours sitting by the bedside. The father referred to the son as 'a well-instructed teacher (vidvan)', and also referred to a significant circumstance, saying: 'He eats food from many hands', and added a request that his son should hand him some nourishment with his own sanctified hands, which, as he put it 'themselves were nourished at the hands of many'.

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Nanu Asan had thus attained a pattern of life of a Bhikkhu or Sanyasin who supported himself by 'Madhukara Bhiksha' (i.e., a honey-bee-like livelihood) and this was already recognized by his father on his deathbed, and by his accepting the presence of his son as a last blessing.

The years between his childhood and the death of his parents has to be filled in by his days of more advanced Sanskrit education which he went to seek at a place fifty miles north called Karunaga-palli. Here a traditional teacher belonging to the orthodox theocratic context admitted Nanu and several others to sit and have lessons. The name of this teacher was Raman Pillay Asan. Although orthodox rules demanded the segregation of the non-theocratic class children from those more within the fold of the Malabar theocracy, the teacher treated all his pupils with kindly consideration.

Here the Guru became more than a mere Sanskrit scholar, more, that is to say, than was required for the purposes of Ayurveda or Astrology, which was the level attained in his own village. He was now a dilettante instructed in Kairya, Nataka and Alankara (Poetry, Drama and Literary Criticism with Rhetoric). He soon went beyond even this stage by himself, and the secrets of Vedantic and Upanishadic wisdom became an open book to him by sheer dint of his straightforward simplicity, his purity of life, and with his alert positiveness of mental outlook and discipline. The lad Nanu thus became Nanu Asan, known to a circle of admirers within a radius of about fifty miles.

Soon even this imaginary shell was opened out still wider as the Guru Narayana began to gain a reputation through his life of high value to all, by his writing of prayers of great appeal and charm and in connection with the renovation and cleaning of various neglected Shiva temples - a work that he naturally undertook for the sake of the villagers outside the fold of the new theocracy of Malabar. Soon he was in demand from one end of Malabar to the other, from the southernmost point at Cape Comorin to Mangalore in Kanara, four hundred miles to the north up the coast.

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He helped to integrate two million people through a movement which naturally opened out, breaking through later overcovering and stratifications, to proclaim again the ancient perennial Guru-wisdom that lay dormant underneath. Soon all limits were broken off and a revalued and restated Guru-Word-wisdom was proclaimed by the Guru Narayana in terms unmistakable to anyone who could recognize the voice of a Guru.

His Sanskrit education helped the Guru to formulate the Guru-Word in perfect relation to the past heritage of the Word. This was but one circumstance. After his education he disappeared into the mountainous region near Cape Comorin and lived in caves, eating from the hands of surrounding villagers. Here he practised most intense introspection. His father died in 1884 - if astrological calculations that have been made in this matter may be finally relied upon.

About the year 1890 a holy man, a recluse, a yogi of silent ways, haunted the caverns of the rocky hills near Kanya Kumari (the Virgin Daughter) which is the name of a temple at the Cape from which the Anglicised name Comorin as it is now called, has been derived. Here is the last southernmost stone of India, where Vivekananda of Bengal sought the same prehistoric Mother and sat meditating on the blackened rocks which rise out of the multicoloured sands by the everlasting sea. The caverns in the nearby hills, and the lotus ponds abounding in the locality, where the great seas meet from East and West, and pure oceanic breezes sweep forever across the land, unhindered and uncontaminated, were favourable to the formation of the pearl of the potent Word-formula in the Guru Narayana. The personality of the Guru matured here and attained to its full stature of Guru-value.

Thus was the Guru Narayana born. From Nanu, a village boy of humble birth, we have to imagine the birth of a Guru, having the full stature of Guruhood in every respect. His silence, his voice and his kindly harmonised values expressed in his life's work - all point to a personality of rare value for a long time to come. His visible aspects are only incidental to the value which arose, mature and finalized, as the culmination of non-dual Word-wisdom in his personality.

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Later, the Guru's wanderings were not confined to the regions round about Cape Comorin. He was known to have lived in a Muslim house, mixing with fisher-folk in Anju-Thengu, now called Anjengo, which has an old fort established by mariners who came from the West hundreds of years ago. He soon got involved in the temple reformation and renovation movement which began to grow round him spontaneously. Old and overgrown temple-groves and prehistoric snake-worship sanctuaries were uprooted, renovated, altered or abolished, sometimes in favour of schools, or refined into better shrines. A plain mirror and a lamp were installed by him at one place, so that idolatry might come into line with Self-knowledge, for at least one's own image in a mirror told no distorted lie in any hysterical terms.

And so the movement which began at the toe of India spread enthusiastically as far distant as Gokarnam, which was the northern limit of the ancient Malaya region. By the time of the Guru's passing away, all limits, whether geographical or traditional, were transcended, while philosophy and mysticism supplemented former aspects of doctrine to convert it into a Word-wisdom to be understood as a science in universal terms. In his early wanderings, the Guru was influenced by two personalities who deserve mention here. One of these was called Kunjan Pillay. He was a Chattambi, senior or monitor of the Sanskrit school where the Guru went for his finishing course in Sanskrit rhetoric. Later he became an elder brother and companion in the wanderings of the Guru. In fact, round the person of this senior companion who represented the solid native wisdom of the soil was noticed a kind of renaissance, literary, cultural and spiritual, in the Travancore of the early nineties. A group including poets, grammarians, yogis and medical men versed in Ayurveda helped in the impetus given to native wisdom. The invention of steam, the scientific renaissance with many other inventions and discoveries made during the long reign of Queen Victoria - all contributed a share to this flowering in the far South of India, bringing new values into the atmosphere.

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Chattambi Swami.

The Guru's sensitive spirit responded to the situation surprisingly. Kunjan Pillay Chattambi, who was one of the leaders of the renaissance group, recognized early the potentialities of the Guru Narayana and consciously encouraged him to unfold and open out, and by his intelligent elderly guidance, helped the shy, young and retiring Nanu of those days. One of the early compositions of the Guru called 'Navamanjari' (Nine Verses) expressly recognizes at the beginning how it came to be written at the instance of the Sisu Nama Guru, which is the Sanskrit designation for the name of Kunjan Pillay whom the Guru Narayana, at the start of his own career avowedly called a Guru. This is as good as calling him his own Guru.

 

Narayana Guru with Chattambi Swami (centre).

The relation between them has been the subject of some interested controversy, but once on being questioned about the Guruhood of the Chattambi Swami, the Guru Narayana said he saw no objection in taking Chattambi Swami as Guru. He readily accepted the senior companion and paid full respect to him, conceding him all priority. Dialectically speaking, the relation must have been something like that existing between John the Baptist and Jesus. The one who comes after is often historically greater, although in terms of baptism with water, one is senior to the other. In these matters, as Christ explained to Nicodemus, 'the wind bloweth where it listeth' and nothing more can be said or done about it 15.

 

 

Thykkad Ayyavu.

In matters of Yoga, the Guru Narayana had another senior guide or Guru. He was a man employed as 'manager' at the British Residency in Trivandrum. His name was Thykkad Ayyavu. He was versed in the secret esotericism of yoga and other obscure allied branches of study which were fast becoming extinct. The Tamil spiritual traditions preserved many secrets of personal psycho-physical discipline which interested the Guru. He explored all the avenues that were open to him, from Chemistry and Astrology to the obscurantisms and cryptical details of Panini's Grammar 16, and went to Thykkad Ayyavu for instruction in the mysteries of yoga. Thykkad Ayyavu was to the Guru Narayana somewhat as Ammonius Saccus was to Plotinus.

260
Both the above Gurus (Chattambi Swami and Thykkad Ayyavu) may therefore be looked upon as important Upa-Gurus (Secondary Gurus) to the Guru Narayana. As Sri Ramakrishna used to say, a crane can teach a man one-pointed attention when it is intent upon catching a fish. At such a time the crane becomes the Guru. Guruhood and Sishyahood also, in the final light of dialectics, are interchangeable terms. They can be equated, each one in terms of the other, when wisdom is attained - as when Jesus washes the feet of his disciples. Wisdom that is non-dual relegates all such matters to the background, although they are very important indeed to the novice seeker after wisdom to recognize.

The dates as well as other facts and figures given in the foregoing paragraphs in an effort to present actuality to the person of the Guru, should be treated in a certain contemplative context of their own. In order to explain this, and by way of an apt conclusion to this section in which we have digressed somewhat from the subject of the Word in order to give some flesh and blood to it, we shall come to intimate anecdotes. But before concluding in that way, there is one more important subject which we seem to have forgotten. What about the married life of the Guru? This we shall now answer as clearly as the evidence gathered by the present writer in the village of the one-time wife of the Guru, would permit regarding this long-forgotten story.

The lady was the daughter of a medical man of an ancient school of toxicology (Visha Vaidyan) and the cures for poisons. The Guru used frequently to visit this Vaidyan. The families of the two households: those of the Guru and this medical scholar of Chirayinkil village became intimate. The Guru had two sisters who were interested in seeing that he was married in the usual way, by arrangement - and so it was done, without consulting the Guru, as was the custom in those days.

261
A simple wedding took place in which the sisters took the leading initiative in all matters, as custom permitted in the locality. The cloth and gold neck-trinket were exchanged by proxy by the sisters, while the bridegroom sat unconcerned, reading and explaining the Ramayana - his normal vocation.

All was over. The wife lived in the maternal home, after the matriarchal system which prevailed in Malabar, and still prevails today in the circle of the ruling family of Travancore. The Guru lived under the same roof off and on. About the degree of intimacy of the conjugal relations, the present writer has not been able to draw out any definite evidence, even in spite of his wilful attack on the subject. All that could be extracted from those who knew the couple was a reported remark from the Guru's lips soon after the marriage. He is purported to have said 'Now the Vaidyan (Medical man) is happy that all the rooms of his house are occupied'. This was in reference to his taking up residence occasionally in the house of the father of his bride.

A further incident throws some more light on their relations. Once he called another neighbour and asked him to take his wife to a festival in a nearby Bhagavati or Kali temple to which she dearly wished to go. With the Guru's better ways, it was too crowded and noisy for him, but the villagers praised its importance very highly. On another occasion the Guru cured his wife who had fainted for some reason, and took some familiar green herb and squeezed the juice into her nostrils. The irritation set aright the circulation in her head and brought her back to normality. These are all the scanty remarks that the present writer is able to make regarding the marital life of the Guru. His wife continued to live in her parent's house in accordance with the matriarchal customs prevailing then in that locality. With the ever-widening path of Guruhood that our hero began to tread as more and more years went by, the question of his married life and family relations receded more and more into the background. It was thus naturally and normally transcended. She died, and no children of the marriage are known to have seen the light of day.

262
Subjects such as celibacy, immaculate conception, or virginity, etc. were points which were never raised in connection with either of them. The relation was as neutral and mysterious as the zero that we have spoken of.

The sixtieth birthday of the Guru was celebrated by his disciples and admirers at the Alwaye Ashram where the Guru was resident at the time. The Brahmacharins (dedicated students) approached the Guru in the morning ceremoniously with flowers in their hands as an offering to him. The Guru recognized them and accepted the honour. Among the flowers were some made of gold, which a rich devotee had put there. He picked up one of them, and simply remarked, 'There are some flowers with no smell'.

Conversation naturally arose on the subject of the Guru's birthday. He saw no meaning in picking out one day as his day of birth. After the manner recorded about Plotinus, he objected to such personal adoration and permitted it only in deference to the wishes of admirers. Also it was only under protest - again like Plotinus - that he would consent to have his likeness taken by the camera 17.

263
On this occasion there seemed to be more insistent objection. 'How do you know' he asked, 'that our birth is on this date?' According to astronomical calculations made by a devotee interested in fixing the date finally, and taking into account the Precession of the Equinoxes, which is recognized in some parts but not everywhere in Malabar in determining birthdays, the Guru was born on August 28th, 1855, in the month of the Lion (in the Indian calendar) and under the Moon sign of Satabhisha (which lies between the 7th and 21st degree of the zodiacal sign of the Water-bearer, Aquarius). The Moon sign is called the Nakshatram. August 28th corresponds to the Sun sign in the Zodiac of the West known as Libra or the Scales.

264
Versed in astronomy himself, the objection of the Guru was meant to be both an objection in the ordinary and in the philosophical sense at once. A Guru is never 'born' in the usual sense, and if born in the usual sense the event has to be fixed in some reasonable way to the rest of the cosmos, so that it lends itself to no abnormal myth-making.

Protests of this kind made by Gurus often constitute a cleavage between the Guru and his admirers. They misunderstand him and give him lip-veneration while he sits in himself, feeling lonely and apart from the ignoble and gross outwardness of people who come round him. Sometimes, with the best of intentions, they unconsciously slight him, degrade him and make him feel crucified in various ways. His high life is lost on them, and at best they become related to him only through religious emotionalism. A striking example of this is afforded by the following incident.

It was at Shiva-Giri (the Mount of Shiva) and the Guru was standing under a spreading mango-tree. A Brahmacharin arrived with flowers in a salver early in the morning at about seven. He had bathed in the spring before daybreak and had picked the flowers favourite to each of the divinities who presided in the little shrines scattered on the grounds of the Mount of Shiva. The shrines nestled among green trees and shrubs, through which wound neat sand-strewn footpaths immaculately maintained by the Swamis in charge of the Ashram.

Half-open lotus buds, red ixora, with jasmine and tulsi (basil) leaves, were ready to be offered with chants to Saraswati, the pure white-clad Goddess of Wisdom, corresponding to the original Santa Sophia of Constantinople.

The good-looking youth prostrated himself full-length before the image of the Mother of Wisdom, and from there went on to offer worship at a little shrine where there was established a full-sized painting of the Guru himself. 'The Guru verily is Brahma, the Guru verily is Vishnu, the Guru verily is Maheshwara' 1. These were the chants he repeated in Sanskrit while he made the offerings. The strong odour from the camphor flame spread out through the morning air, and the incense smoke mounted up, suggestive of strange past associations and habits. A flame was waved round, accompanied by the tinkling of a bell while the worshipper made mystical symbols in the air.

265
While all this was going on a group of devotees stood around the Guru. 'Look at that', he remarked to the group. 'Here I stand in reality without my breakfast and still waiting for it; but my painting gets all the elaborate ritualist attention; that is due to religion!' He meant to suggest that religion must as far as possible correspond to reality as such and not get lost without meaning in absurd dualities. Sometimes, when not controlled or balanced by the actualities of a situation, devotion causes distortions. Misplaced fervour can be like a form of hysteria unconnected and divorced from fact. On another occasion, a devout Brahmacharin brought the Guru his rice 'kanji' (gruel) when he was ill. The Guru asked him if he had salted it properly. The Brahmacharin replied that he could not do that, because it was wrong to taste any food offered to the Guru. 'Then give it to a dog' the Guru said', and see if it tastes good to him. The dog doesn't suffer from scruples'.

Religion had to be rid of its distortions and had to be made to reflect reality. This was the secret of the type of spiritual life held up by the Guru as a model. The real and the existent met in neutral truth in all his ways and words, revealing a common human value which was earthly and heavenly at once. All goods or values of life, from the most ordinary such as a fruit that abated hunger, to the highest - emancipation - in his view thus fell into a certain natural order.

As for himself, he was detached from all. If he took interest in certain goods or values of life it was mainly for the sake of others who still valued them. He was in this world but not of it. He was a detached witness of all without participating in the play himself. Such a silent detachment is of the essence of non-dual mysticism and the Guru himself wrote the following verses with regard to this state of detachment which blends disengagement and personality into one reality of high human value.

266
'What name? Caste? Trade? How old?
From questions such, when one is free
He gains release.

Come! Go! Go not! Enter! What seekest?
From questions such, when one is free
He gains release.

Departest when? When arrived? Whence and even who?
From questions such, when one is free
He gains release.

I or thou, this and that, inside or out
or none at all;
From cogitations such, when one is free
He gains release.

To the known and the unknown equalized,
differenceless to one's own or that or others,
even to the name of such indifferent,
From all considerations such, one freed
Himself becomes He, the One Released'.19

 

 

A GLOSSARY OF SANSKRIT WORDS FOUND ON THIS SITE:

A)

B)



NOTES
1 'Sarvavedantasidhantagocharam tamagocharam,
'Govindam paramanandam sadgurum pranato-smyaham.'
(Viveka-Chuda-Mani, 1).

'Visible to one of finalized total Vedantic wisdom, but not seen;
I bow to the true Guru Govinda whose nature is supreme bliss.'

2 See Chapter XVII, 'The Guru Trio of South India'.

3
'Pushannekarshe yama surya
Prajapatya vyuha rashminsamuha;
Tejo yatta rupam kalyanatamam tatte
Pashyami yo-savasau purushah so-hamasmi.
(Isha Upanishad, 16.)

'0 Universal Nourisher; (Pushan), solitary Seer,
0 Controller, 0 Sun, son of Prajapati, put away thy rays!
Gather up thy over-brilliant light! I behold Thy glorious form
He who is yonder, yonder Person, I myself am He!'

4 Cf., Lao Tzu (6th century BC) 'When we can lay hold of the Tao (the Word) of old in order to manage the affairs of the Now, and are able to know it as it was in its prehistoric beginnings, this is called the 'clue of the Tao'. (Note the word 'clue' in Chinese is 'Chi', meaning, according to Lin Yutang, 'main body of tradition', 'system', and 'discipline'.), Tao Teh Khing, chapter XIV. (rendered from James Legge's translation in 'Sacred Books of the East', Vol. XXXIX, and Lin Yutang's in his 'Wisdom of China', Michael Joseph, London, 1948).

5 Cf., 'That which is the Self (Atman) is a hub', Brihadaranyaka
Upanishad I. v. 16.

'Verily the Soul is the Overlord of all things, the King of all things.
As the spokes are held together in the hub and felly of a wheel,
just so in the Soul all things, all gods, all worlds, all breathing
things, all these selves are held together.'
(ibid., II., v. 15.)

Also Prasna Upanishad VI. 6., and Svetasvatara Upanishad, I., 4 and VI. 1.
Also:
'The thirty spokes unite in the one nave; but it is on the empty space for the axle that the use of the wheel depends'.

6
'Tas-tv-atmaratir-Sva syad
atmatriptash-cha manavah,
atmany-eva cha samtushtas
tasya karyam na vidyate.

Nai 'vatasya kritend 'rtho
na-'kritene 'ha hashchana,
na cha-'sya sarvabhuteshu
kashchid-arthavyapashrayah'

'But the man whose delight is in the Self only, who is satisfied by the Self; for him there is no work to be done. For him there is no interest in what is done or not done; nor is there dependence or interest in any creature or being'. (Bhagavad Gita: III, 17-18.)

7 Cf.
'Yasmat-ksharam-atito 'ham
aksharad-api cho-'ttamah,
ata'smi loka vede cha
prathitah purushottamah.
(Bhagavad Gita, XV. 18.)

'As I transcend the perishable and am higher also than the imperishable, therefore in the world and in the Veda (scripture) I am declared the Supreme Person '.

8
'Sahayajnah prajah srishtiva
puro'vacha prajapatih,
anena prasavishyadhvam
esha vo 'stu-ishtakamadhuk.'
(Bhagavad Gita, III, 10.)

'Having created mankind in ancient times together with sacrifice, the Lord of creatures (Prajapati) said, 'By this shall ye propagate; be this to you the yielder of the milk of your desires (Kamadhuk)'.

9 'Julius Caesar', I, iii. 218.

10 'As You Like It', II, i, 1.

11
'Asaktabuddhih sarvatra
jitatma vigatasprihak,
naishkarmyasiddhim paramam
samnyasena-'dhigachchhati.
(Bhagavad Gita, XVIII, 49.)

'He whose pure Reason is everywhere unattached, who has conquered himself and from whom desire has fled, he attains by renunciation the supreme perfection of freedom, transcending all action'.

12 Bhagavad Gita, V. 18

13 There are many scholars who consider that the Polynesians of the Pacific originated in South India. As an example here is what W.J. Perry, the anthropologist, says: 'India is of peculiar importance in the study of movements of early culture, for it was the original home to which Polynesian tradition harks back. In South India the caste of the Paravas, the pearl-fishers of the Gulf of Manaar, is composed of folk of pure Polynesian type who, together with their fellow-castes, like the Pariahs, belong to the dual grouping of society. The importance of these Polynesian pearl-fishers lies in the fact that, on every pearl bed from Ceylon to the shores of America, and, again, in America itself, there are distinct traces of a form of civilization closely akin to that of Egypt in the Pyramid Age. The Polynesians are also of great interest in one more important particular - they are partly of the same physical type as the Phoenicians, who were, as Elliot Smith claims, formed of a mixture of peoples in the Persian Gulf, again the seat of an important pearl-fishery. The carriers of this archaic civilization started from India, and went out by way of Indonesia to the Pacific, leaving behind them traces that still are to be detected...' (pp. 109-111, 'The Growth of Civilization', W. J. Perry, M.A., D.SC., Pelican Books, 1937).

14 The actual date is still under dispute. The Malayalam month of Chingam occurs from mid-August to mid-September.

15 See St. John's Gospel, III, 8.

16 According to Walter Eugene Clark, writing in 'Science in India':
'His (Panini's) grammar is the earliest scientific grammar in the world, the earliest extant grammar of any language, and one of the greatest ever written', p. 339, 'The Legacy of India' (Oxford, 1937).
Panini's date is uncertain, but is generally given as not later than 400 BC.

17 Porphyry (233-c.304 BC), the pupil and biographer of Plotinus (205-270 AD), and the 'arranger' of Plotinus' lectures into six sets of nine - the Enneads - begins his account of his Guru as follows: 'Plotinus, the philosopher our contemporary, seemed ashamed of being in the body. So deeply-rooted was this feeling that he could never be induced to tell of his ancestry, his parentage or his birthplace. He showed, too, an unconquerable reluctance to sit to a painter or a sculptor, and when Ametius persisted in urging him to allow of a portrait being made he asked him 'Is it not enough to carry about this image in which nature has enclosed us? Do you really think I must also consent to leave, as a desirable spectacle to posterity, an image of the image?' In view of this determined refusal, Amelius brought his friend Cartenus, the best artist of the day, to the Conferences, which were open to every comer, and saw to it that by long observation of the philosopher his most striking personal traits. From the impressions thus stored in mind the artist did a first sketch: Ametius made several suggestions towards bringing out the resemblance, and in this way, without the knowledge of Plotinus, the genius of Carterius gave us a life-like portrait'.
(Plotinus, 'The Ethical Treatises - The First Ennead with Porphyry's Life of Plotinus', translated from the Greek by Stephen Mackenna (Medici Society, London, 1917).

18 The following details of astronomical and astrological interest may not be out of place here. The Precession of the Equinoxes is a shift of the equinoctial points (the points at which the sun crosses the celestial equator) by which the sun reaches the meridian progressively earlier on a given day than a fixed star. It is due to the earth's axis describing a cone figure (like that of the axis of a spinning top). The completion of the cone-figure takes about 25,800 years.

In the time of the Gupta astronomer Varaha Mihira, the natural zodiac beginning with the constellation Aries corresponded with the mathematical or 'precessionized' zodiac. The latter is used in the West, while the former zodiac is in common use in India. The year of correspondence of the two zodiacs was in Mihira's time, in 498 BC. Taken at 50' a year, the increment called 'ayanamsha' in India makes a difference in the year 1950 (1452 years after the time of coincidence) of 20 degrees 10 minutes 0 seconds. Thus the Indian calendar month varies from the world calendar month by a certain amount, while for astrological purposes there is an ever-widening difference between the points of entry into the zodiacal signs. While the entry of the Sun into Aries (Mesham), which marks the Spring Equinox, will be about 21st March in Europe, in India it will be put at a date corresponding to 10th or 11th April.

Another interesting feature in Indian time is the Lunar Zodiac, the belt of the sky covered by the Moon every 28 days. This is divided into portions of 13 degrees, 20 minutes 0 seconds called Nakshatrams, of which there are 27, each Nakshatram (or Asterism as it is popularly called in the West) being again divided into four Padams. Hence a person is said to be born in such and such a month (the Solar sign of the natural zodiac) and in such and such a Nakshatram (the Lunar sign of the 27 Nakshatram zodiac).

19 'Nirvriti-Panchaka' (Five Verses on Inward Release).