The Hero

( I read a story similar to this in a competition success review, think poster in 1992. I tried to get the original but couldn't..so here is my version of it!)

THE HERO

Long ago there were two lands :Land of bliss and land of despair. Between them was a mighty river with very strong swirling currents. The people in the land of despair always wanted to cross the river as they could see the prosperity on the other side of the river, but none dared to cross. A few dare devils who tried perished in the strong currents of the river.

One day, an ordinary young man in the land of despair decided to build a bridge across the river. People mocked him and his dear ones tried to persuade him to do otherwise. But he was firm, he loved his people more than his life. One day he set off with a long rope; tied an end to the bank of the river and jumped into the river. The currents were strong and he was trying his best to keep the course, and he was about to reach the other end when a hunter from the land of bliss shot an arrow at him mistaking him to be an struggling animal. The hunter wanted to put an end to the poor animal's misery. The hero tried his best, he remembered all his people and with a steel resolve swam across. With great difficulty reached the other end of the river and managed to tie the rope to a huge rock before being washed away in the currents of the river.

Few people in the land of despair saw this and they went back and told the people that the hero tied a rope across the river. Soon people assembled and preists came. They said hero was their saviour and procalimed that by praising him, people would be liberated of their miseries. There were temples built for the hero and festivals organised. Soon he was celebrated as a God.

Looking at all this from heaven, the soul of the hero lamented,'Oh my people! The rope is a bridge for you to cross into the land of bliss. I can only show you the path. Its upto you to walk on that and reach the other side. My death was nothing more than an simple accident'
But sadly the voice of hero was drowned in the festival drums
and the rope bridge lay there... unused.

Question
Understand
Educate
Surpass
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On attatchment and vedanta

We all cherish good things in life...be they parents, siblings, friends, memories, experiences or anything we aspire to be. We have a certain liking for them and many times fiercely defend them too...How do we reconcile this with the apparently contradictory teachings of vedanta...which says be unattatched?

Do the vedas instruct us to renounce the world and sit in a forest and meditate? Do they mean we have to leave the world in front of us to seek some unseen god?

The answer is an unequivocal NO: infact Isavasopanishad begins with the verse...Ishavaasyamidam jagat(the God is present in everything of this and other worlds...) and further goes to say that we should enjoy the pleasures of this world without being attatched...as the wealth doesn't belong to anyone..

One of the Telugu poets, vemana said this in a padyam ( a short verse of a specific metre like shloka) : mother earth laughs at the fellow who claims the land, goddess of wealth laughs at miser and Yama(lord of death) laughs at the coward fleeing the battle field.

One of the prayers in sandhyavandana (dusk and dawn prayers) asks for blessings of the gods to live 100 seasons of spring, to have good health for 100 years and do the duty towards the society for 100 years.

But then look at the setting of Bhagavat gita..in the battle field. It was told to a warrior who was shying away from his duty and fighting because of his false attatchment to things that were temperory. He was told to be unattatched and fight his own step brothers!

Where do we go from here..vedanta seems to say in some place to be unattatched and in some others to enjoy life?

First of all... vedanta is a not devoid of life. It was not a topic that was discussed by some old men over a cup of afternoon tea. Someone ( I think it was swami vivekananda) once remarked that vedantic philosophy is not a retitrement plan, its an active persons guide.
It stresses that we are responsible, no one... not even the God can help us to realise the truth as it says you are that infinite bliss who has forgotten who he is. Struggle is inevitable..sooner or later; until we realise this..there can be no peace. And now that is a great power, but with power comes the responsibility..not only are we ever free, but we have to realise that ourselves...we cannot hold circumstances or God responsible for where we are, what we get..its our actions, or preudices that get us here. Like a highly chaotic system a small change in initial conditions can cause a huge difference at a later point in time.

How does vedanta address the issue of attatchment?
It says every attatchment is result of ignorance...why? attatchment means we identify with something..we identify some feeling be it happy feeling or a revulsion for some things we identify the feeling with the object. Whereas the feelings are really generated in us..The feelings are nothing but a reaction to a situation. Not the situation themselves.
One of the profound works, ashtavakra samhita, talks of the world and the attatchment as the rope being mistaken for a snake. Now as we analyse this, we can understand how the attatchment functions..Once we know that there is no snake then there is no fear of any sort(once we see the god in all things; there is no duality everything merges into one) but the fear generated from the imposition of the image of the snake on the rope is real (and hence once school contends that the feelings one experience as a result are real but the cause or the reason is not! That is what vishista advaita says(Iam not sure of this:) When we see something that is not there, then it is either a result of misunderstanding or ignorance..hence ignorance is at the root of all attatchment and suffering. But remember that image of snake had to be present from previous experiences in the mind and hence misunderstanding and ignorance is the root of all evils(again!). This does not mean snake does not exist..it is very real for the person mistaking it...just as the vedanta contends, we all find the world real! But once you see the rope, then the snake disappears and the duality of the world disappears and contradictions ceases to exist..this is moksha as I understand it. No amount of scripture reading or pious deeds can help in this quest. It has to do with the wisdom that transcends the limits of knowledge and ignorance! And that is the quest I would like to complete...How soon? I need to get back, I have a early morning meeting with my advisor!! :))

Sometimes it helps to explain terms!

The blog name and the login name might be confusing to a lot of my friends so let me preempt any questions by a brief explaination...

About my login name : Atma_tripta is a a sanskrit phrase meaning someone who is content with himself, someone at peace with himself. Such a person doesnt seek to be someone, doesnt imitate anyone, lives a carefree life and is ever free...i.e moksha or nirvana. Everyone of us is full of joy..its a matter of realisation of that truth. Iam waiting for the day it will come to me!

Kahkim sounds like a korean name (naaah..I dont have a korean GF!) its actually a combination of two sanskrit words...Kah +kim they basically stand for kah==who and kim==what.
Its also inspired from vishnu sahasranama (1000 names of vishnu a hindu god) where it is said that when a devotee asks the question savah kah kim padamanutaamam( who or what is the ultimate bliss that is the object of all sacrifices and good deeds? then the reply booms back from the question itself as the syllable 'ka' which has a hidden meaning in hindu philosophy as being the syllable of beginning/creator...This implies(obviously Iam cutting short all the explainations here!) that the god is not somewhere sitting in heaven with big stick to punish us if we dont believe him... He will be a very poor god if he is pleased by praise and displeased by the lack of it....god is here in ourselves, our thought everything we can imagine...We are nothing but drops of water in an ocean!

Kah Kim (who ,what?) are the basic questions we all need to ask to understand ourselves better.
who are we? what are we? : The attempts to sincerely answer this question without fear will take anyone to the depth of philosophy where you will find yourself! Enjoy the journey!

Life's riddles

Sometimes in life we are at cross roads, we need to make decisions; Often these decisions, once made alter our course of life. How do we react to these changes? Should we grieve at the loss? Should we feel elated and become arrogant? Should we sulk and be angry at others? Or should we choose to be happy and go ahead in life?
Yes we do not have a choice about the situations we get into, but thankfully we all have choice as to how we react to it: whether we choose to be happy or sad is really on us.
Its all in mind, whether we are happy or sad..we make the heaven or hell right here on earth. Until we realize this there can be no peace. Life is really a celebration.. an eternal festival of various colours, of different living and non living things, of different feelings, of different people, of different countries, of different moods and in the end of creator himself(or herself!!) .


I read this story long time back somewhere(Iam really bad at remembering the sources!) which really demonstrates how profound meaning can be found even in apparently small things in life!.

This little anecdote is about a japanese Zen master:
It was rainy season and the great master and his disciple were going to another monastry. It rained a lot on that day and as they approached a stream they saw this beautiful young woman struggling to keep her dress from getting dirty and staring at the dirty stream. She apparently didnt want her dress to get dirty but wanted to cross the stream.

The master stops and asks her if he could carry her across the stream...On hearing this, the disciple is red faced. How could a monk like his master touch a beautiful woman and carry her in his arms?? But he didn't say a word. The master carried the woman across the stream and left her there and went with his disciple on his way to manastry.

As they walked, the disciple grew restless. Still he didnt utter a word. He thought... how could his master carry a beautiful woman. They reached the monastry in the evening and after having food went to bed. The disciple was deeply troubled. He couldn't sleep. At midnight, he could no longer control his restlessness and barged into his masters room and asked him, "How could you carry that beautiful woman?"

To this the great zen master replied," I left her at the stream, are you still carrying her?"

Back again

Its been a long time since I wrote my first blog...much of waters have flown and many things happened in my life. Both personal and professional. Yes passing prelims is a big issue and yet it seemed so easy in the end. Sometimes I wonder, whether I have lost that touch of humanness in me. I no longer feel extremely happy or sad. Everything is so disconnected that I almost look at my life like a spectator watching a play! But may be that is good as it comes with a realisation of life and Iam enjoying every moment of it.

Getting into a little thought experiment:
Imagine as if we were transported to the country of blind. How could we explain the difference between colours to those people? Infact this question is not just some silly imagination of mine.. The same concept applies to all our daily interactions...How do we explain the point to people who are 'blind' so to speak or who have closed their eyes? I feel it is just impossible unless the person himself tries and for that faith is required either in the person talking about it or the concept of colour itself.. Then this is what religion asks us..to have faith in god before we can experience god. And if we cannot experience god in everyday life then isnt it more meaningful to wonder whether we are spiritually blind? Isnt it plain arrogance to procalim that there is no god, knowing fully well how limited our intellectual capabilities are? I am deeply troubled by the very slight difference between rational thought and rationalising thought. Few recognise that rational thought says " The following statements are true within the given set of facts" while the ratioalising thought may delcare them as absolute truth! How different are they from the religious bigots who proclaim only their religion to be the truest one?

I recently read a TOI article. It was an interesting article about the difference between the knowledge and wisdom. It said that, blind men were sent to an elephant. Some declered it to be the trunk some thought it was like a log, while others compared it to a rope. These are different opinions as the vedas declare" ekam sat vipra bahuda vadanti" one is the truth, learned speak of it in many ways. While each one of them is correct, they are also false...Knowing these options is knowledge which we can get from scriptures, but seeing the entire elephant is wisdom which can be only obtained by the reflection of that knowledge.
And I really believe, there are no short cuts in this. Everyone has to struggle: like the little drops of water that have broken up from the ocean waves and fallen on a rock. They must go back ultimately to the water they came from..the infinite bliss they are part of...thats what their destiny is...until then there will be no peace.

This reminds me of an interesting anecdote I read about my boss Hanuman: Once it seems someone asked Rama in his court what was the relation between him and hanuman. To this Rama turns to Hanuman and asks him "Hanuma what is the relation between you and me?"
Hanuman says,
" When I consider myself as body rama, Iam your servant:
When I consider myself as mind, Iam jivatma(soul) and you are paramatma (god):
But when I see myself as atma, Iam you O Rama".

A humble beginning...

Well I was till recently averse to the idea of writing blogs...I still feel that I dont need the cyberspace to vent my feelings. But oddly enough here Iam writing my first blog. .. I will start the blog with a very queer topic...Death...Today evening I was riding my bicylce and gazing at the stars while going through the almost empty Quad. The philosopher in me woke up and was becoming aware of the beautiful surroundings so full of life. What is life without death?, I thougth. Yes, what is the meaning to our lives if there is no death? Many people view the death as something opposite of life..but is it not true that the life is absence of death? so death is more fundamental... Yes I see I may be wrong here...there is something we don't quite understand about death that gives us the fear, which is born out of insecurity. We always try to control our lives, determine its course, struggle frantically at trivial things just to have a little more control over our lives. What is death but absence of any kind of communication? Its just that, death is a mystery because its a information blackhole: every bit of information can go in but we will never be able to say what it is like unless we die ourselves: but once dead we couldn't care less about the mortals on the other side who are afraid to cross the inevitible line. But if we learn to manage our fear, will we be able to conquer the death? And would a person who is not afraid of death not be afraid of anything else? I dont think the death is just about the fear there is something more to it, as Pascal once said,"man is equally incapable of seeing the nothingness he came from and the infinity in which he is engulfed" Sometimes it just strikes me how true his words are....What is the solution? or better still can there be a solution? but wait a minute..solution is to a problems not misconceptions or ignorance for which there is no easy way out except learning to discipline mind not to be distracted by the world, which in itself is tough..then there is this difficulty of overcoming our preconcieved notions, prejudices...which I can vouch for are harder to overcome than they actullay sound to be. At those horizons, knowledge meets the ignorance; unity meets diversity; and life meets death:Finally when the viel is off what do we see? thats for someother day!

(Originally posted on May 20, 2005)