Shankaracharya's Eka Shloki

Thanks to Shri Aravind-ji who provided me this topic to write on.

शङ्कराचार्य विरचितम् एकश्लोकी

किं ज्योतिस्तवभानुमानहनि मे रात्रौ प्रदीपादिकं
स्यादेवं रविदीपदर्शन विधौ किं ज्योतिराख्याहि मे ।
चक्षुस्तस्य निमीलनादिसमये किं धीर्धियो दर्शने
किं तत्राहमतो भवन्परमकं ज्योतिस्तदस्मि प्रभो ॥


Is it your light that shines in the day as the sun and as the bright lamp in the night? Let it be. Which light shines when I close my eyes? (in mental vision) Which light illumines in my mental perception? You are that supreme light that illumines the awareness of 'aham' and I am that light.

(Translated by: Dr. Saroja Ramanujam)

The entire *light* of Upanishads is put there beautifully in that one shloka in such a simple manner. Let me try to elaborate the same with my limited understanding in the following post.

I bow down to that Guru Shankara who is the ever guiding light.

गुकारश्चान्धकारोहि रुकारस्तेजोच्यते
अज्ञानग्रासकं ब्रह्म गुरुरेव न संशयः ||


When there is darkness at night, one can't see anything around, he has to light a lamp to illumine those things. But when the sun rises, the same dark world is now visible owing to sun rays. The commonness in both the sun rays and the lamp's fire is the light by which the objects are illumined. The objects thus illumined are seen by the eye. The same eyes, when closed, still make the objects visible in the antahkaraNa, in our imagination and dreams! Where is the sun then? Where is the lamp then? Where is the world and its objects then? How are those same objects visible with the eyes closed? So the objects are neither seen by the eye nor illumined by the sun/ lamp. That light which illumines is within.

While the mind fades away into deep sleep, what is seen? I see darkness. When the sun sets, the objects are darkened, but still darkness is visible. That darkness, even, is illumined by the inner light. For me to know that I slept blissfully, or to know nothing during deep sleep, I need to exist. That avashtAtrayAtita Self is the one that illumines the darkness of sleep, the waking and dream worlds; the Self illumines the intellect, antahkaraNa, the eyes (senses), the sun and the lamp and thus the objects are perceived!

In other words, if the sun illumined the world, how would I see the world when the sun sets? By the lamp's light? If so, how would I see the darkness without the lamp and the sun? How would I see the world in my dreams without the sun and the lamp to light them? How would I know of deep sleep, or not know it, or see darkness without the sun and the lamp? And to close the loop, how would I see even the sun during the day and lamp during the night if I didn't exist? So I exists as the guiding light. That I, the Self, is the brahman that the shrutI declares as the substratum of everything, that illumines all that is sentient and insentient.

Chandogya 3.13.7 says:

अथ यदतः परो दिवो ज्योतिर्दीप्यते विश्वतः पृष्ठेषु
सर्वतः पृष्ठेष्वनुत्तमेषूत्तमेषु लोकेष्विदं वाव
तद्यदिदमस्मिन्नन्तः पुरुषे ज्योतिः॥३.१३.७॥

There is a light that shines beyond all things on Earth, beyond us all, beyond the heavens, beyond the highest, the very highest heavens. This is the light that shines in our heart.

Katha 5.15 says:

न तत्र सूर्यो भाति न चन्द्रतारकं
नेमा विद्युतो भान्ति कुतोऽयमग्निः ।
तमेव भान्तमनुभाति सर्वं
तस्य भासा सर्वमिदं विभाति ॥१५॥

There the sun shines not, nor moon nor stars;
These lightnings shine not, let alone this fire.
All things shine with the shining of this light,
This whole world reflects its radiance.

Kena 1.2 also declares:

श्रोत्रस्य श्रोत्रं मनसो मनो यद्
वाचो ह वाचं स उ प्राणस्य प्राणः ।
चक्षुषश्चक्षुरतिमुच्य धीराः
प्रेत्यास्माल्लोकादमृता भवन्ति ॥१.२॥

The Self It is the ear of the ear, the mind of the mind, the speech of speech, the breath of breath, and the eye of the eye...

The world here, the world of the dreams, those heavenly abodes that the कर्मकाण्ड rituals provide for... beyond all those exists a light that illumines all those. That very light is the one in our heart. How else can they be illumined without the existence of I? Who will witness it, who will provide for jIva to be bound to those worlds without being illumined by I? What will the jIva erroneously enjoy or suffer if not illumined by I? How will the jIva even exist without That I? All the worlds that the jIva binds to, gives reality to, thinks of, assumes, errs, enjoys and suffers, including its suns, lamps, and the objects, is but the reflection of the ever-free, ever-shining I, the very Self, the brahman of the shrutI.

ॐ तत् सत्


PS: The mind is in layA in deep sleep, it has not met its end, per se. So, it wakes up to a memory that tells it of darkness in the deep sleep, or of not having any knowledge of time and space, akin to one recalling the samAdhi bliss or sleep bliss in meditation or at other times. That too is *attributed* to the Self, for the mind being illumined in sleep when merged too.

As for the Self being illumining, its not as if it shines on purpose of reflecting in the mind... its self-luminous, thats all. The mind being illumined is a side-effect, so to say, totally unwilling of the Self!

Discussion: http://www.orkut.com/CommMsgs.aspx?cmm=36599859&tid=2556688899122037647&start=1

avidyA: anirvachaniyatva

avidyA, ignorance, nescience or some may say mAyA, is absence of Knowledge of brahmaN. Various persons have opined on avidyA as to its positive existence, negative non-existence or both/none/inexplicable (anirvachaniya) nature. One of the examples is of the snake in the rope, wherein the snake is projected on the substratum rope due to ignorance of the rope in dim light.

i) Since the snake was seen at some point of time gives it a positive nature during that time.

ii) Since it disappears after knowing it to be a rope gives it a negative nature not only after knowing the rope to be a rope, but also the same person will not see, and not be able to see, the snake again even if he wishes to and can not be scared by it after knowing the rope!

iii) But since it was a snake *once*, even while being a rope, gives an apparent reality to the snake from an unbiased neutral analysis. How the snake made its first appearance cannot be known, beyond the absence of knowledge of rope. So the "when?" or time factor of avidyA formation also becomes a moot point! A question if posed to the person in (i) as to "since when do you see the snake?" will amount to a reply "since ever". So avidyA is said to be anAdi, without a beginning, or to mean untraceable beginning, inexplicable, indescribable or anirvachaniya.

To my understanding, Shankara left the description of jagat as mithyA (apparent reality, not illusion) and didn't describe it further is for this reason, since it cannot be described. Logic falls short of understanding timelessness of anything; we are tuned to think in finite dimensions, avoiding ad infinitum.

If you ask a person who doesn't know German since when does he not know German, what kind of answer do you expect? Similar is the case here. But on learning and knowing German, if you ask him to go back to not knowing German, can he do that? Impossible. German would have become a part of him. With this example, I intended to present that the Q is ridiculous, not the answer of anirvachaniyatva!

To extend the example further, if a person who doesn't know German and French was to be taught German through French, he would laugh it out as a joke. This leads us to a logic that one cannot learn another language without knowing one first. So not even going as back as how did the world bring languages, even to think only as back as how we learned our first language in this life, we face a seeming logical flaw that goes against the earlier logic that we established! These kind of things are inexplicable to logic, as we know, but still perfectly reasonable and justified.

The discussions on avidyA are meant to hone the intellect and understand the subject better; they are not to be taken beyond that since what the words can't describe can never be described. A person may take any of the above stands as long as it helps ones sAdhana to move ahead and not get stuck, since all are valid, invalid and somewhat valid from various angles of pAramArthika, vyavhArika and pratibhAsika satta. The thing to remember is that in either of the stands, one of the questions will still remain unanswerable and hence lead to anirvachaniyatva. A detailed analysis, of course is possible, with nyAya shAstra and things like that to refute/ support everything, but only to jog the brain and intellect, and thats that. :)

shankarArpaNamastu

Reconciliation

Most of the traditional Advaita Vedanta and direct path followers are against each other in a battle of words. While the latter interprets the former directly and "appears to have dropped" everything preceding it, this is my humble effort to show why it is not really so!

The direct path, as Bhagavan Ramana's or Nisargadatta Maharaj's path is often tagged with, is an interpretation of Advaita Vedanta's last step in nidhidhyAsana. Or a direct inversion of mahavAkya to lead to a Q. What is important to note is that the Maharshi didn't invent something that the tradition already didn't have. In many of Shankara Bhagavatpada's works, its obvious, especially for the uttama adhikAri. However, in spite of it, the Acharya recommended formal saMnyAsa, after the sAdhana chatushTaya and all that is possible for chitta shuddhi. The later advaitin acharyas have also opined that formal saMnyAsa is not necessary for moksha, so the direct path is not divorced from tradition that way either.

For the madhyama or Adhama adhikAri, practice is utmost important, that cannot be discounted. In AV, this practice is to remove avidyA; its an undoing. To do that, all the shravaNa and manana is necessitated to bring chitta shuddhi and gradually increase the adhikAraH. And the ones that disagree with this, in the direct path, are either realized or are deluding themselves to think that they are realized! Maharshi's "Who am I?" question when not resulting in immediate moksha means that the person is *not* an uttama adhikAri. He has much of his karma to burn to achieve chitta-shuddhi. And in the direct path, its no different than it is in traditional AV. When a person is inquiring, he is also questioning "whence am I?" which is questioning in the manner that avidyA is found! Its an effort to not do anything else and just be close to this question day in and day out, meaning an effort for chitta shuddhi! Its so very clear in the face, but people would still say: "no practice needed, I'm ever free". Sadly, these very people will do anything else but sAdhanA!

Coming to the final point of saMnyAsa, it would interest us to know how Maharshi reached the Arunachaleshwara temple and the things that *happened* to him to indicate a saMnyAsa vidhi that nature bestowed upon him! Why did he leave home and sit in a cave for near 20 yrs are other points to note and reconcile tradition! I've mentioned this earlier too, but again I recall the incident here: when Maharshi was asked by someone if its necessary to leave home and family, He said no. But after the person left, Maharshi's aide asked why did Bhagavan say that it wasn't necessary to leave home and family, while Bhagavan Himself ran away from home long back? Bhagavan Ramana just smiled and said: "I didn't go around the town asking everyone if I should leave home"!

ramaNArpaNamastu

jnAna, anubhava and anubhuti

Discussion to define and differentiate between jnAna, anubhava and anubhuti

Background: How Vacasapati's Bhamati defines aparoksha jnAna and differs from Vivarana's niddhidhyAsana, brought us to a terminology of anubhava, initially interpreted differently by me, from Aravind-ji (Antharyami). Following is what transpired further in order to come to an agreement of what jnAna, anubhava and anubhuti are:

Antharyami: ... and mere scriptural knowledge can give only paroksa jnAna.

me: True :) Wouldn't samAdhi be liberation otherwise! :D

Antharyami: Why samAdhi ?

me: Because samAdhi can give an experience of not having avidyA! But avidyA is not gone!

Antharyami: anubhava is simply not possible by scriptural study. anubhava is more emotional and is subjective, which can be done only by the practice of AtmopAsana.

me: anubhava can't be emotional per se! anubhava at such a stage means being That. I think I fail to capture whatever the subtle difference is being indicated in practice of AtmopAsana versus niddhidhyAsana.

Antharyami: I personally feel that we must be careful with usage of the terms anubhava and anubhuti. anubhava according to my understanding is subjective and emotional, while anubhuti is "being That".

me: Ah ok, agreed. Sorry, I assumed anubhava to mean anubhuti, since we were talking of achieving aparoksha jnAna.

Antharyami: So then, you accept with three fold notions: jnana, anubhava and anubhuti?

me: I don't know these as notions, but I agree with difference between anubhava and anubhuti though. As for jnAna, if meant as brahmajnAna, I think its anubhuti.

Antharyami: There seems to be an indentity between jnAna and anubhava, not jnAna and anubhuti. jnAna is vritti rupa, while anubhuti is not. So the difference is clear.

But look at jnAna and anubhava! Both seem to sound synonymous. This is because of the influence of nyAya definition, since they classify jnAna into two: smriti and anubhava.

me: (hmmm hmmm) Agreed, but brahmajnAna can't be vritti rupa!

Antharyami: Exactly. brahmajnAna is not vritti rupa . So to say "jnAna" here is gauna pada - aupachArika - figurative. It is actually anubhuti, and not jnAna.

me: Okay, then we are on the same page. :)

Antharyami: So with that influence we tend to confound with jnana and anubhava. But to Vedantins, it must differ for the fact that jnAna is objective (vishaya gata) while anubhava is subjective.

me: The difference could mean that jnAna is generic understanding, while anubhava is internalizing for a particular understanding. Thats perhaps why one person finds one example more befitting than the other for the same topic, but both agree on the generic understanding!

Antharyami: (hmmm) You mean anubhava is inclusive of jnAna and jnAna is inclusive of anubhava? Oops! This seems to be hair splitting .. man

me: Something like that :) God is in the details :D

Antharyami: How do you mean "anubhava is inclusive of jnAna and jnAna is inclusive of anubhava"?

me: I think the way I read that is... "both mean similar things but not exactly same"...

Antharyami: Similar things are apparently not the same.. continue...

me: One means generic and the other means particular; now: generics are made of all particulars, while particulars are built over generics. So both include each other!

Antharyami: So which one is generic?

me: That one is generic over which you and I both (and others) would agree, but build different examples for particular understanding.

Antharyami: For example?

me: (hmmm) Well, ... lets say... we both were told that there's place to sit in the park. Thats generic jnAna. You think it to be chair, in your anubhava since it has a back rest and accommodates one person, etc, while I think it to be a bench in mine!

Antharyami: Wait wait wait, to my understanding, chair and bench are generic by nature which is jnAna. But the chairness and the benchness that actually refers to the place where we can sit is subjective and this is what I call anubhava. What do you say ?

me: Thats nyAya there! :)

Antharyami: :)

me: I didn't mean it so literally, but only as an example... you went a step further with the same example. And in that sense, I agree. :)

I think anubhava when added up there, between you and me, can bring more generic jnana out!

Antharyami: jnAna is invariably related with smriti and not anubhava. In this case, you and me can have the generic sense of jnAna in relation with smriti, *but* for anubhava, my dear!

me: I don't know if you'd agree if I say that jnAna is some anubhava, made verbose?

Antharyami: (laughing) There you are! Its not anubhava; it is smriti!

me: Agreed; but smriti of what? smriti of anubhava! :) (laughing)

Antharyami: Why so much in love with anubhava? It seems to be regressive kind when you say "jnAna is some smriti made verbose" !! Am I making sense ?

me: Yes... it seems so! Then its the right time to end! It was good satsanga, thanks.

Antharyami: Without the pratipatti vAkya?

me: Everytime you use sanskrit terms, my smriti fails. :) pratipatti vAkya is?

Antharyami: Statement of conclusion (SOC)!

me: And how do you say statement of confusion? :)

Antharyami: I wont let you tumble down to bed unless you sign an MOU with proper SOC. (laughing)

me: (laughing) I think that will have to be that jnAna is objective & generic, anubhava is subjective & specific... anubhuti is beyond both!

Antharyami: Thats a good SOC!

Beginner's selfish sAdhanA!

The individual sAdhanA is a lazy path. Unless there's a satsanga around a sAdhaka in immediate access, the mind poses a potential threat using many of its tools. The first and foremost among those is the set of vAsanAs that a person may have carried across lives and at the very least, this life. The immediate past is what one must look back to, learn and scale up plans to prevent anything that affects sAdhanA from recuring. Very closely following pitfall is laziness. This results in procrastination on a minute by minute basis. A person may think that sleep is helping him recharge, but the sAdhaka doesn't have much time to recharge. He should be clear enough that any extra sleep, especially the ones after the sun has shone, is a trap, unless he is really very sick. Any sickness too needs to be analyzed; the very reason a sAdhaka has fallen sick is because he didn't do what needed to be done! Rarely ever will there be a reason that couldn't have been avoided in the first place. There are other traps which are also as important. These ones form up in the shape of fear at times of loneliness when the sAdhaka has missed discipline in his daily sAdhanA. Fear may result in the person sleeping more too! There are worldly bindings that pop up to trouble the sAdhanA. These take the shape of emotions, or other things such as insults, ego issues, hurtings, etc. A sAdhaka may get carried away with these ill intended occurrences and notice much later that all of it was a waste and the time lost can never be recovered. He should also be aware that the money lost in anything other than a basic support of livelihood and sAdhanA is a waste, while time lost in similar activities is equivalent to money lost if he is not earning. A luxury of travel is to be afforded only in case of satsang and darshan when in dire straits. Its also to be remembered at all times that any journey means disrupting discipline that one has taken pains to setup in years in thoughts and acts. Also seclusion is lost in totality in travels, brings more worldly contacts with potential vAsanAs and/ or obligations. Any trip, therefore, is best avoided!

Finally, I'd stress more on money. If a sAdhaka spends more money than required, he's not only lost the money and time with it, but he'll have to earn the same by spending more time. Thats already four times what is lost in monies! Next, every earning cycle is more time spent and more worldly interaction! Of course, its *only* money, but for sAdhanA, spiritual time is the most expensive resource!

isAvAsyaM idaM sarvaM

Caste, Women and Vedas

This is one of those ageless, endless, inconclusive debates of what Hindu's caste is all about, why are shudrAs and women treated as inferior, why are some allowed to learn and chant the Vedas, while others aren't, and such things that pop up in passing these topics. You may ask if its inconclusive, where do I get the ego and guts to write on it? Interesting question and I do say that the debate is fruitless... my intention is only to establish my opinion and conviction that the shAstras say what they say, we understand what we understand and that doesn't change the shAstras. One may say that he or she understood a point properly or improperly, but saying that the shAstras are not applicable in this era, they are backward in this modern scientific knowledgeable world and such is all utterly foolish. I may well be smart in this age, for this age, but calling the entire tradition as wrong, directly or indirectly, without even having data of when the Vedas were formed (they are timeless, whether or not it fits my stupid modern logic), being a frog in the well, thinking that "this is all the logic I'll ever need", "I've learned all that there is to learn; there cannot be anything else", "All that doesn't pass my test is wrong", is an arrogant ego-satisfying feed, nothing more. In fact, its a destructive thinking that will not only not take me anywhere closer to freedom, but also tie me up in things that I'll myself have to painstakingly untie in years or lives ahead.

Before moving on to repeat what Vedas proclaim as caste, a few words of caution:
  • Vedas are to be learned from the tradition to understand the real meaning... that in itself takes decades, if not a lifetime!
  • The Sanskrit used in the Vedas could be much different than what exists today. Also, some of the Vedas have their own grammar covered in separate sections provided therefor! Sanskrit, unlike English, has many different meanings for each word and the meaning is contextual. Most of the arguments are due to such interpretation, with individual biases and fanaticism.
  • It is impossible that a person will understand the true cryptic meaning of scriptures without faith in them, God and Guru, *equally*. Revelation by the scriptures is a thumb rule, mostly beyond understanding for many of us. The Veda mantras, etc, are attributed to a seer to whom the mantra was revealed!
So what the caste is, is defined by the capability of the person. The capability is identified in the childhood when many branches of knowledge are taught. Based on these, we have the brahmins or priests, kshatriyas or warriors, vaishyas or businessmen and shudras or worker class. Now, this classification is utterly and ridiculously misunderstood as based-by-birth alone in this age; however, it is on birth-and-ability. You may well ask why is birth *also* to define the class, and the answer to that is clear in my mind as:
  • Birth defines the family, relations, geography, friends, opportunities, etc... in fact, everything, based on purva karma. Without the karma theory, no one can justify why one person is born poor and the other rich; one handicapped while the other has an additional intuitive sixth sense too; else it ends up in a flaw of calling the God as a racist! (Atheists do not have a place for an argument at all here! They are stuck with explaining the law of averages too!) So too, birth defines the work recommended for the person in this life, for his own spiritual growth.
  • A person born in one family usually learns the family caste better than others and so better fits the caste.
  • Yes, there are exceptions to the rule, but extremely rare.
  • Mixing up the above has resulted in the confused society as it exists today!
Lastly, it is not to be understood as a privilege of one caste to do something, but a responsibility and a liability to do it, failing which, one becomes a dharma brashTa that results in bad prArabdha in the following life/ lives. So a brahmin's is not a privilege to learn and teach Vedas, but he is obliged to do it. Only then will he and the society with his caste and others' benefit largely. That is a brahmin is duty-bound to chant the Vedas, perform rites, and teach others, while using the kshatriya's protection, vaishya's business provisions and shudra's services in exchange. Similarly: a kshatriya protects everyone as his inherent nature in return of brahmin's chantings, prayers, rites, and teachings for his and his family's benefit, vaishya's provisions and shudra's services; a vaishya meets for the society's demand for commercial enterprise, using shudra's services, kshatriya's protection and brahmin's teachings; and a shudra serves with various works in return for brahmin's chanting, kshatriya's protection and vaishya's provisions. Thats how a tightly-coupled society is.

The purusha-sukta describes Narayana to be a conglomerate of all of these castes. Imagine that Narayana as a society, as a person in the society: whose productive and sustaining forces are his shudratva, commercial and business enterprise are his vaishyatva, administrative and military prowess are his kshatriyatva, while his spiritual wisdom and splendor are his brahminatva. It would be ridiculous, then, to say that one quality is better than the other. But to give one example, can the Purusha even stand tall without his legs?

Even so, I reckon the problem arises when any person looks at one thing as a privilege and not as a duty. Its also an issue when one wants to do what the other does, without even caring as to why! These two things, IMO, are the cause for the downfall of man and society as it stands today. Everyone wants to do what the other does, so to say as a fashion statement and a good example of that is the way everything has come under the umbrella of yoga. Let me quote here that the caste comes from the Vedas on what is now famous as: Better his own path though imperfect than the path of another well made!

Similarly, women are exempted from following the Vedic injunctions due to the way they are made by God! There is a clear physiological and psychological difference between man and woman that I think is obvious for all. Those are the reasons why women have a clear edge on some things where men are hopelessly lacking and vice versa on others. No amount of a man's wanting to learn motherhood, inclusive of carrying a child, is going to bring him that. In that way the woman has been blessed more with emotions. There are more Gopis, Radhas and Meeras than Tukarams, since bhakti is natural to women. A child is naturally attached to his/ her mother while s/he learns about the father. But its foolish to say that the nature is biased towards women. So too, Vedas are prescribed to be chanted by the man as his duty since he has more of what is termed as dhAraNa[1] than the woman. Now, this is not a biased statement against women, please, since the woman is exempted from doing it while still getting the benefit of Vedic chanting by father/ husband. If anything, its a bias favoring women! Why women have less dhAraNa is because women mature earlier than men and undergo very many changes in their physiological and emotional states during the monthly periods. This reduces the time that women could devote otherwise to Vedic learning in terms of continuous effort on a daily basis as needed! Its to be remembered at this juncture that the Veda mantras were *seen* by the seer; thats the perfection called for in a Vedic pandit of being able to *see* the mantras, mandating continuous revision. Chanting without mouthing the words, but just mentally, also is to be avoided during these days and its almost impossible to avoid if a woman is learning the Veda mantras, since its more of a continuous effort to retain and improvise dhAraNa. Even among men, only those who start learning Vedas at a very young in childhood can use their dhAraNa to learn, memorize and chant the Vedas without errors, after over a decade of learning at least; its not something meant to be read off the book! Any error in chanting can bring about negative effects since the mantra words carry a potential power (shabda brahma).

None of doing-what-the-other-does is necessary for moksha or liberation from the cycle of births and deaths. dharmo rakshati rakshatah doesn't simply mean protection; it also means that the dhArmik following itself will take one ahead into the greatest good, naturally. The Vedas form the basis of dharma, artha, kAma and moksha. Without following the prescribed dharma, the money earned is adhArmik and so are the desires met; how then will it lead to moksha? Its important to note that balance is an essential feature of nature and whenever things have forcibly been taken out, it has resulted in the imbalanced nature to retort with greater force! I'm well-convinced that lack of following one's own dharma has led to a disastrous social and moral order today, that is clear to most. Of course, some may see that as a wonderful progress [including the technology that allows me to blog this :) ] and I have no arguments with them!

I'm also aware that there are a good many exceptions of women pandits in the scriptures, since they overtook all boundaries imposed by womanhood, physiologically and psychologically, and therefore, are a rarity. The way the tradition is by discounting the exceptions, by and large. All said and done, the women carry the respect of a mother through the Vedas, the Vedas themselves called as shruti mAtA, barring a few extracts taken out of context and/ or ridiculously translated by fanatics and people with ill intentions!

[1] I'm thankful to Shri Syam-ji, a Vedic pandit, for his scholarly contribution on this subject on Orkut's Adi Shankaracharya community.

Upcoming blogs

Most of the times, I just put blogs in draft mode and forget about it. Quite a few of them have got published, but some remain incomplete, as mere topics, or as some thoughts that never got elaborated. Since a long time I haven't been able to blog, or even read. I want to revisit another way today: another meta blog entry that talks of upcoming blogs. I hope to write all the following, most of them refutations of endless stupid debates on controversial topics, in arrogance against such arrogance in order to present my conviction that shastras: Veda or Vedanta are ever humble; its a foolish mind that sees them as biased or befitting another *backward* era or things like that.

May Ganesha and Guru bless my journey on blogs that will cover, in bits:
--Caste, Women and Vedas
--Jnana mArga and why it is moksha dAyaka
--Science and Vedanta

And then on, perhaps, I intend to cover:
--ashTAnga yoga of Patanjali Maharshi.

I may or may not delete this placeholder entry after those entries! :)

gurorarpaNamastu

Thoughts 78

(originally written on April 17, 2007 and forgotten in travel!)

78: While the worldly merges into certainty, the world fades away into uncertainty!