66 Integral Yoga
29 Yoga
9 Poetry
8 Occultism
4 Mysticism
3 Theosophy
2 Sufism
2 Psychology
2 Philosophy
2 Hinduism
1 Thelema
62 Sri Aurobindo
24 Sri Ramakrishna
22 Nolini Kanta Gupta
14 The Mother
9 Satprem
7 A B Purani
3 Sri Ramana Maharshi
3 Kabir
3 Carl Jung
3 Alice Bailey
3 Aleister Crowley
2 Vyasa
2 Swami Sivananda Saraswati
2 Swami Krishnananda
2 Rabindranath Tagore
2 Mahendranath Gupta
2 George Van Vrekhem
23 The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
7 Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo
7 Essays On The Gita
6 Vedic and Philological Studies
6 The Synthesis Of Yoga
6 The Secret Doctrine
6 Talks
6 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08
5 Record of Yoga
5 Hymns to the Mystic Fire
5 Essays In Philosophy And Yoga
4 The Life Divine
4 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07
4 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04
3 On Thoughts And Aphorisms
3 Kena and Other Upanishads
3 Essays Divine And Human
3 Collected Poems
3 A Treatise on Cosmic Fire
2 Vishnu Purana
2 The Study and Practice of Yoga
2 The Secret Of The Veda
2 The Human Cycle
2 Tagore - Poems
2 Songs of Kabir
2 Some Answers From The Mother
2 Preparing for the Miraculous
2 Letters On Yoga II
2 Letters On Yoga I
2 Isha Upanishad
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02
2 Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01
2 Amrita Gita
2 Aion
2 Agenda Vol 10
2 Agenda Vol 01
2 A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah
00.03 - Upanishadic Symbolism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Besides this metaphysics there is also an occult aspect in numerology of which Pythagoras was a well-known adept and in which the Vedic Rishis too seem to take special delight. The multiplication of numbers represents in a general way the principle of emanation. The One has divided and subdivided itself, but not in a haphazard way: it is not like the chaotic pulverisation of a piece of stone by hammer-blows. The process of division and subdivision follows a pattern almost as neat and methodical as a genealogical tree. That is to say, the emanations form a hierarchy. At the top, the apex of the pyramid, stands the one supreme Godhead. That Godhead is biune in respect of manifestation the Divine and his creative Power. This two-in-one reality may be considered, according to one view of creation, as dividing into three forms or aspects the well-known Brahma, Vishnu and Rudra of Hindu mythology. These may be termed the first or primary emanations.
Now, each one of them in its turn has its own emanations the eleven Rudriyas are familiar. These are secondary and there are tertiary and other graded emanations the last ones touch the earth and embody physico-vital forces. The lowest formations or beings can trace their origin to one or other of the primaries and their nature and function partake of or are an echo of their first ancestor.
Man, however, is an epitome of creation. He embraces and incarnates the entire gamut of consciousness and comprises in him all beings from the highest Divinity to the lowest jinn or elf. And yet each human being in his true personality is a lineal descendant of one or other typal aspect or original Personality of the one supreme Reality; and his individual character is all the more pronounced and well-defined the more organised and developed is the being. The psychic being in man is thus a direct descent, an immediate emanation along a definite line of devolution of the supreme consciousness. We may now understand and explain easily why one chooses a particular Ishta, an ideal god, what is the drive that pushes one to become a worshipper of Siva or Vishnu or any other deity. It is not any rational understanding, a weighing of pros and cons and then a resultant conclusion that leads one to choose a path of religion or spirituality. It is the soul's natural call to the God, the type of being and consciousness of which it is a spark, from which it has descended, it is the secret affinity the spiritual blood-relation as it were that determines the choice and adherence. And it is this that we name Faith. And the exclusiveness and violence and bitterness which attend such adherence and which go "by the "name of partisanship, sectarianism, fanaticism etc., a;e a deformation in the ignorance on the physico-vital plane of the secret loyalty to one's source and origin. Of course, the pattern or law is not so simple and rigid, but it gives a token or typal pattern. For it must not be forgotten that the supreme source or the original is one and indivisible and in the highest integration consciousness is global and not exclusive. And the human being that attains such a status is not bound or wholly limited to one particular formation: its personality is based on the truth of impersonality. And yet the two can go together: an individual can be impersonal in consciousness and yet personal in becoming and true to type.
The number of gods depends on the level of consciousness on which we stand. On this material plane there are as many gods as there are bodies or individual forms (adhar). And on the supreme height there is only one God without a second. In between there are gradations of types and sub-types whose number and function vary according to the aspect of consciousness that reveals itself.
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0.00 - INTRODUCTION, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Ten years after his coming to Kamarpukur, Khudiram made a pilgrimage on foot to Rameswar, at the southern extremity of India. Two years later was born his second son, whom he named Rameswar. Again in 1835, at the age of sixty, he made a pilgrimage, this time to Gaya. Here, from ancient times, Hindus have come from the four corners of India to discharge their duties to their departed ancestors by offering them food and drink at the sacred footprint of the Lord Vishnu. At this holy place Khudiram had a dream in which the Lord Vishnu promised to he born as his son. And Chandra Devi, too, in front of the Siva temple at Kamarpukur, had a vision indicating the birth of a divine child. Upon his return the husband found that she had conceived.
It was on February 18, 1836, that the child, to be known afterwards as Ramakrishna, was born. In memory of the dream at Gaya he was given the name of Gadadhar, the "Bearer of the Mace", an epithet of Vishnu. Three years later a little sister was born.
--- BOYHOOD
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The temple of Radhakanta, also known as the temple of Vishnu, contains the images of Radha and Krishna, the symbol of union with God through ecstatic love. The two images stand on a pedestal facing the west. The floor is paved with marble. From the ceiling of the porch hang chandeliers protected from dust by coverings of red cloth. Canvas screens shield the images from the rays of the setting sun. Close to the threshold of the inner shrine is a small brass cup containing holy water. Devoted visitors reverently drink a few drops from the vessel.
--- KALI
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After completing the Tantrik sadhana Sri Ramakrishna followed the Brahmani in the disciplines of Vaishnavism. The Vaishnavas are worshippers of Vishnu, the "All-pervading", the Supreme God, who is also known as Hari and Narayana. Of Vishnu's various Incarnations the two with the largest number of followers are Rama and Krishna.
Vaishnavism is exclusively a religion of bhakti. Bhakti is intense love of God, attachment to Him alone; it is of the nature of bliss and bestows upon the lover immortality and liberation. God, according to Vaishnavism, cannot be realized through logic or reason; and, without bhakti, all penances, austerities and rites are futile. Man cannot realize God by self-exertion alone. For the vision of God His grace is absolutely necessary, and this grace is felt by the pure of heart. The mind is to be purified through bhakti. The pure mind then remains for ever immersed in the ecstasy of God-vision. It is the cultivation of this divine love that is the chief concern of the Vaishnava religion.
--
On the return journey Mathur wanted to visit Gaya, but Sri Ramakrishna declined to go. He recalled his father's vision at Gaya before his own birth and felt that in the temple of Vishnu he would become permanently absorbed in God. Mathur, honouring the Master's wish, returned with his party to Calcutta.
From Vrindavan the Master had brought a handful of dust. Part of this he scattered in the Panchavati; the rest he buried in the little hut where he had practised meditation. "Now this place", he said, "is as sacred as Vrindavan."
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0.00 - The Book of Lies Text, #The Book of Lies, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
Vishnu, the preserver, the principal expounder of
Vedantism.
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0.05 - Letters to a Child, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
with outspread wings is the vehicle of Vishnu, the destroyer of
serpents. He seemed to be standing behind you to protect and
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0.10 - Letters to a Young Captain, #Some Answers From The Mother, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
law of Vishnu cannot prevail till the debt to Rudra is
paid." What does this mean?
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the law of Vishnu cannot prevail till the debt to Rudra is paid.
To turn aside then and preach to a still unevolved mankind
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0 1958-08-09, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
Anusuya: wife of the rishi Atri and endowed with a great inner force. In her husband's absence, three gods came (Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva) disguised as brahmins and asked her for something to eat. Then they refused to eat unless she served them naked. Since they were brahmins, she could not send them away without feeding them, so by her inner power, she changed them into babies and served them naked. This film was shown at the Ashram Playground on August 5, 1958.
***
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0 1958-11-04 - Myths are True and Gods exist - mental formation and occult faculties - exteriorization - work in dreams, #Agenda Vol 01, #unset, #Zen
It was only a film story, but anyway, the goddesses, the three wives of the Trimurti that is, the consort of Brahma, the consort of Vishnu and the consort of Shivajoined forces (!) and tried all kinds of things to foil Narada. I no longer recall the details of the story Oh yes, the story begins like this: one of the three I believe it was Shivas consort, Parvati (she was the worst one, by the way!)was doing her puja. Shiva was in meditation, and she began doing her puja in front of him; she was using an oil lamp for the puja, and the lamp fell down and burned her foot. She cried out because she had burned her foot. So Shiva at once came out of his meditation and said to her, What is it, Devi? (laughter) She answered, I burned my foot! Then Narada said, Arent you ashamed of what you have done?to make Shiva come out of his meditation simply because you have a little burn on your foot, which cannot even hurt you since you are immortal! She became furious and snapped at him, Show me that it can be otherwise! Narada replied, I am going to show you what it is to really love ones husbandyou dont know anything about it!
Then comes the story of Anusuya and her husb and (who is truly a husb and a very good man, but well, not a god, after all!), who was sleeping with his head resting upon Anusuyas knees. They had finished their puja (both of them were worshippers of Shiva), and after their puja he was resting, sleeping, with his head on Anusuyas knees. Meanwhile, the gods had descended upon earth, particularly this Parvati, and they saw Anusuya like that. Then Parvati exclaimed, This is a good occasion! Not very far away a cooking fire was burning. With her power, she sent the fire rolling down onto Anusuyas feetwhich startled her because it hurt. It began to burn; not one cry, not one movement, nothing because she didnt want to awaken her husband. But she began invoking Shiva (Shiva was there). And because she invoked Shiva (it is lovely in the story), because she invoked Shiva, Shivas foot began burning! (Mother laughs) Then Narada showed Shiva to Parvati: Look what you are doing; you are burning your husbands foot! So Parvati made the opposite gesture and the fire was put out.
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0 1961-04-29, #Agenda Vol 02, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Narayana: another name of Vishnu, one of the gods of the Hindu trinity. He watches over the creation, whereas Brahma is the creator and Shiva the destroyer.
Rakshasa: demon of the vital plane, as opposed to an asura, a demon of the mental world.
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0 1965-08-25, #Agenda Vol 06, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
No real peace can be till the heart of man deserves peace; the law of Vishnu cannot prevail till the debt to Rudra is paid. To turn aside then and preach to a still unevolved mankind the law of love and oneness? Teachers of the law of love and oneness there must be, for by that way must come the ultimate salvation. But not till the Time-Spirit in man is ready, can the inner and ultimate prevail over the outer and immediate reality. Christ and Buddha have come and gone, but it is Rudra who still holds the world in the hollow of his hand. And meanwhile the fierce forward labour of mankind tormented and oppressed by the powers that are profiteers of egoistic force and their servants cries for the sword of the Hero of the struggle and the word of its prophet.
(Essays on the Gita, XIII.372)
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0 1966-02-26, #Agenda Vol 07, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Because, according to theogonies, the gods have remained in contact with their Origin and they feel themselves to be the representation of the Origin, as in the Indian theogony in which they say that Shiva is the representative of the SupremeBrahma, the creator, Vishnu, the preserver, Shiva, the transformer and all three are conscious representatives of the Supreme, but partial ones.
Its perfectly obvious that those are only manners of speaking. There are indeed entities, they do exist, but its only a way of telling the story; in one way or another, its the same thing. Metaphysics is also one way of telling the story. And one isnt truer than the other.
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0 1967-10-11, #Agenda Vol 08, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
I also have deities (Mother catches hold of three bronze statuettes, immersed with some others under a flood of papers): this is a standing Ganesh; this is Garuda, Vishnus attendant; and this is Shivas bull. And there (a little farther on the table), I keep three Ganeshas: a tiny little silver Ganesh, between the legs of this deity (a modern-looking one), then another Ganesh, I dont know what its made of, and finally a bronze Ganesh. And in there (Mother points to a drawer in which she keeps money), I have three other Ganeshas: a bronze one, a silver one and a gold one! Its because he promised me that he would give me all the money I need, so this way (laughing) he cant say I forget him (or his promise either!).
This particular Ganesh (on the table) was given to me by a little boy maybe two and a half years old. When that little boy was a few months old and till the age of one, his mother always brought him to me and he would cry and scream and make scenes the parents were desperate. Each time I would tell them, Dont worry, all will be well, well be very good friends. Then the parents would look at me in disbelief. Now he is two and half or three, and as soon as he is in the stairway, waitingMo ther, Mother, Mother! (or Ma, I dont know). But when he comes in (he is the first of the family to enter the room), he comes with a flower; and it was he who gave me this Ganesh, but with such consciousness! He is wonderful. Yesterday, he was absolutely exquisite: he comes in first, so self-assured, so joyful, then gestures to me as if to say, Everything is just fine, dont worry! And I speak to himhe doesnt understand a thing of what I say, but he approves gravely. Absolutely exquisite.
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0 1969-01-22, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
Tirupathi or Sripathi: the master of wealth (or husb and of Lakshmi the goddess of wealth that is to say, Vishnu).
***
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0 1969-12-13, #Agenda Vol 10, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
223"If I cannot be Rama, then I would be Ravana; for he is the dark side of Vishnu." (Rama is a divine incarnation, whereas Ravana is the incarnation of a demon.)
Mother gave this comment on the last of these Aphorisms: "It means that gentleness without strength and goodness without power are incomplete and cannot entirely express the Divine. I might say that the charity and generosity of a converted Asura are infinitely more effective than those of an innocent angel."
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02.03 - An Aspect of Emergent Evolution, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
What is the implication of such a conclusion? It comes perilously near the Indian conception of Avatarhood! The central line of evolutionary nisus is the line of Avatarhood. At each point of the line, on the level of the newly emerged principle, there is a divine embodiment of that principle. The esoteric significance of the graded scale of Avatarhood, as illustrated in Vishnu's ten Forms, has long ago been pointed out, by some thinkers, in this light.
The principle of Avatarhood stands justified in this scheme as a necessary and inevitable element in the terrestrial evolutionary movement. An Avatar embodies a new emergent property: he incarnates a new principle of being and consciousness, he manifestsunfolds from below or brings down from above upon eartha higher and deeper principle of organisation. He is the nucleus round which the new organisation crystallises. A Rama comes and human society attains a new status: against a mainly vitalistic and egoistic organisation whose defender and protagonist is Ravana, is set up an ideal of sattwic humanity. A Krishna appears and human consciousness is lifted, potentially at least, to a still higher level of spiritual possibility. The Avatar following, rather tracing, in his upward movement the central line of the evolutionary nisus, cuts a path, as it were, in the virgin forest of a realm of consciousness still unknown and foreign to human steps. As the Avatar presses and passes on, the way is cleared for other, ordinary human beings to come up and naturalise themselves in a new country promising a higher destiny which He discovers and conquers for them.
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03.01 - The Malady of the Century, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Eternal Enemy appeared and spread out before our enchanted eyes the panorama of earth's riches and glories, not merely riches of comfort and pleasure and well-being, but glories of power and knowledge; we could not resist this time; we hurled ourselves headlong into the valley of temptation, delivering, as the price of the bargain, our soul. Indeed, we are masters of many fields, our knowledge and power extend over an immense variety of regions, uncharted till now. Even like Vishnu the Dwarf, our consciousness has covered with its three strides the entire creation, barring that domain alone where the soul resides.
Our mind, our life and our body have become today far more conscious and consciously powerfuleach has found itself and is big with its own proper value. But what was familiarly known as the mind of the mind, the life of the life, the body of the body has vanished and all it meant. The pith has been taken out, We are now playing with the empty stalk; the secret thread on which the pearls of life-movements were strung has been removed and they lie about scattered and disjointed. We have enriched our possessions, we have made ourselves more complex and multiple in our becoming: the telescope and the microscope in the physical world, and a subtler sense in the mind also, have extended the superficies of our consciousness. But with all that and in our haste to be busy about too many things, we have forgotten and left out of account the one thing needful.
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03.09 - Buddhism and Hinduism, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 02, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The original and primeval Indianism was built upon the Vedic realisation of the Everlasting Yes. That luminous body of an integral realisation, which means the Veda, came to be covered over by a more strenuous demand of immediate necessity, by an over-emphasis on one side or aspect or line of growth of the human consciousness; a negative approach was needed for man to rise out of its too earthly a tenement to glimpse his divine possibility beyond, before he could hope to build it here below. The long reign of Siva was a necessary preparation for the advent of Vishnu.
And yet Mayavada even while it reigned supreme, was never the be-all and end-all of the inner Indian spirit. Always there was along with it the other strain; in the background, driven underground its presence is felt persistently. The Shunyam, the Asat, the Akshara Brahman could never totally obliterate the Sat Purusha, the Purushottama or the Mahashakti. The Line of the Everlasting Yes was kept living and vibrant in the Tantric discipline, for example, although at times it also suffered a change under the compelling impact of the Great Negation.
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05.02 - Gods Labour, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 01, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The general idea of a descent of the Spirit, that is to say, the Divine, the conception of avatra and avataraais, of course, not new. But here there is a difference. Avatara or Avatarana in the older disciplines was more or less an intervention of God as God, the working of a Force come specifically in the midst of the world circumstances, maintaining still its divine transcendental character, to work out a given problem, accomplish a special mission and then, when the work is done, retire to its own status. It is, as it were, a weapon of flame and light hurled into the earthly frayeven like the discus of Vishnu and having accomplished its mission, going back into the hand of the thrower, its fount and origin. The task of the Avatara was usually bhbhra-haraa, lightening earth's load: it means removing the sinful and preserving the virtuous, re-establishing the reign of Law. Esoterically, he also embodied the Way to spiritual fulfilment. There was no question of saving humanityit was more serving than savingby transfiguring it, giving it a new body and life and mind, nor was there any idea of raising the level of earth-consciousness.
The Divine acts in three different ways in his three well-known aspects. As the transcendent Reality he is above and beyond creation, he is the Unmanifest, although he may hold within either involved or dissolved the entire manifestation. Next, he is the manifestation, the cosmic or the universal; he is one with creation, immanent in it, still its master and lord. Finally, he has an individual aspect: he is a Person with whom human beings can enter into relations of love and service. The Divine incarnate as a human being, is a special manifestation of the Individual Divine. Even then, as an embodied earthly person, he may act in a way characteristic of any of the three aspects. The Divine descended upon earth, as viewed by Sri Aurobindo, does not come in his transscendental aspect, fundamentally aloof and away, in his absolute power and consciousness, working miracles here; for transcendence can do nothing but that in the midst of conditions left as they are. Nor does he manifest himself only as his cosmic power and consciousness, imbedded in the creation and all-pervading, exercising his influence through the pressure of Universal Law, perhaps in a concentrated form, still working gradually, step by step, as though through a logical process, for the maintenance of the natural order and harmony, lokasagraha. God can be more than that, individualised in a special, even a human sense. His individual being can and does hold within itself his cosmic and transcendental self covertly in a way but overtly too in a singular manner at the same time. The humanised personality of the Divine with his special role and function is at the very centre of Sri Aurobindo's solution of the world enigma. The little poem A God's Labour in its short compass outlines and explains beautifully the grand Mystery.
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05.12 - The Soul and its Journey, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 03, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The higher Gods, like those, for example, envisaged in the Veda, may be considered each as an emanation of one or other of these Divine Aspects. They are dwellers of Swar or the Overmind. Varuna seems to be an emanation of Mahavira, a son of Maheshwari: for he is pre-eminently the god of the pure and vast consciousness who releases us from the triple bonds and shows us the winding way into the embrace of the infinite Mother. His associate, Mitra, is the lord of love and harmony, evidently an emanation of Pradyumna (or Mahalakshmi). Other gods of the same category are Bhaga and Soma. The Balarama or Mahakali aspect is manifested in Aryaman: Rudra being another form of the same. And Mahasaraswati (or Aniruddha) must have given birth to and inspired the Ribhus, who are artisans of divinity. The Puranic trinityBrahma, Vishnu and Shivawith lndra as the fourth member forms a parallel system embodying a similar conception.
Another tradition gives the Four Supernals as (1) Light or Consciousness, (2) Truth or Knowledge, (3) Life and (4) Love. The tradition also says that the beings representing these four fundamental principles of creation were the first and earliest gods that emanated from the Supreme Divine, and that as they separated themselves from their source and from each other, each followed his own independent line of fulfilment, they lost their divinity and turned into their oppositesLight became obscurity, Consciousness unconsciousness or the inconscient, Truth became falsehood and Knowledge ignorance, Life became death and finally Love and Delight became suffering and hatred. These are the fallen angels, the Asuras that deny their divine essence and now rule the world. They have possessed mankind and are controlling earthly existence. They too have their emanations, forces and beings that are born out of them and serve them in their various degrees of power. Men talk and act inspired and impelled by these beings and when they do so, they lose their humanity and become worse than animals.
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06.01 - The Word of Fate, #Savitri, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
He sang the name of Vishnu and the birth
And joy and passion of the mystic world,
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08.36 - Buddha and Shankara, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
To use the names as known in India, I think it is the Avataras of Vishnu (the aspect of the Divine that builds and preserves), who come to prove that the Divine can live upon earth; whereas, each time that Shiva has manifested (the aspect that works to transform and destroy), it was in persons who have tried to fight against illusion and demolish what existed.
I have reasons to think that 'the Buddha manifested something of the Shiva power. It was the same compassion and comprehension of all misery and it was the same force that destroys, evidently with the intention of transforming, but destroying more than constructing.
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10.02 - Beyond Vedanta, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The relation between the Supreme (over and above the creation) and the individual in the creation representing the creation is sometimes described in human terms to give it a concrete and graphic form. This relationship characteristically indicates the fundamental nature of the Reality it deals with. Thus in the Vedantic tradition the Supreme is worshipped as the Father (pit no asi). It is also a relation of Master and disciple, the leader and the led. Ii brings out into prominence the Purusha aspect of the Reality. In the Tantra the relation is as between Mother and child. The supreme Reality is the Divine Mother holding the universe in her arms. The individual worships and adores the Supreme Prakriti as a human child does. The Vaishnava makes the relation as between the lover and the beloved, and the love depicted is intensely vital and even physical, as intense and poignant as the ordinary ignorant human passion. It is to show that the Love Divine can beat the human love on its own ground, that is to say, it can be or it is as passionately sweet and as intensely intimate as any human love. It is why Bhakta Prahlad said to his beloved Vishnu "O Lord, what ordinary men feel and enjoy in and through their physical senses, may I have the same enjoyment in and through Thee."
Still the Vaishnava love in its concrete reality is a manifestation in a subtle world, the world of an inner physical consciousness.
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10.03 - Life in and Through Death, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The soul carries the body even like a corpse, says a scripture. It is a dead inert mass of inconscience weighing upon the conscious being that is behind. Such is the burden of life that the soul bears through its earthly existence. The image is beautifully delineated in the Indian legend of Shiva and Sati. Sati is dead, the bereaved Shiva goes about in anguish with the dead body of Sati flung upon his shoulder. Shiva is to be relieved of this burden, otherwise the creation will go to rack and ruin. The prayer went to Vishnu and Vishnu hurled his discus that cut to pieces the corpse of Sati the pieces were fifty-two in number and each spot where a piece, a limb of Sati, fell became a great place of pilgrimage. Even so, the world in its inconscience lies heavy on the secret Consciousness that is behind. It lies almost smothered under the dead weight of the inconscient and the unconsciousness. But the Divine Grace has entered into the inertial mass and split it up, entered into each particle as a spark of consciousness to turn gradually the dead matter into a rising and evolving tier of consciousness.
Creation started originally with an absolutely inconscient existence. It is the pressure of an indwelling spirit the Grace descending into matter that has forced matter to burst into, to flower into forms of light and consciousness. The pressure is ever-present and the flowering continues into higher and higher modes of the Divine Consciousness. The figure '52' of the mythological legend denotes perhaps the integral multiplicity of the manifested universe. We may suggest an interpretation just to satisfy a mental curiosity: 52=50+2; and 50 is 5 X 10. The number 5 is very well-known as representing the five planes of consciousness, and as there is a descending and an ascending movement in each level that gives the number 10. And 5 times 10 is 50. This makes up the manifested creation. The remaining two are the Supreme Divine and his Shakti, or two unities at each end the one above, the one below. This however may be considered as a playful calculation meaning to represent, as I said, a multiple integrality of existence.
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1.00e - DIVISION E - MOTION ON THE PHYSICAL AND ASTRAL PLANES, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
The Second Logos. The second Logos, Vishnu, the divine Wisdom Ray, the great principle of Buddhi seeking to blend with the principle of Intelligence, is characterised by Love. His motion is that which we might term spiral cyclic. Availing Himself of the rotary motion of all atoms, He adds to that His own form of motion or of spiralling periodical movement, and by circulation along an orbit or spheroidal path (which circles around a central focal point in an ever ascending spiral) two results are brought about:
a. He gathers the atoms into forms.
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All lesser spheres ranging downward from these major spheres, include all grades of manifestation down to the elemental essence on the arc of involution. [lxvi]64 We need to remember that on the Path of Involution, the action of Brahma is primarily felt, seeking the line of least resistance. On the Path of Evolution the work of the second Logos is felt, beginning at a point in time and space which hides the mystery of the second chain, but finding its point of accelerated vibration or the unification of the two modes of manifestationrotary-spiral-cyclicin the middle part of what we call the third chain. This is after all the blending of the activity of Brahma with the onward progress of Vishnu. We have the correspondence to this in the sumtotal of the effects brought about in the second and third root races.
The activity of the second Logos is carried on under the cosmic Law of Attraction. The Law of Economy has for one of its branches a subsidiary Law of marked development called the Law of Repulsion. The cosmic Laws of Attraction and Economy are therefore the raison d'tre (viewed from one angle) of the eternal repulsion that goes on as Spirit seeks ever to liberate itself from form. The matter aspect always follows the line of least resistance, and repulses all tendency to group formation, while Spirit, governed by the Law of Attraction, seeks ever to separate itself from matter by the method of attracting an ever more adequate type of matter in the process of distinguishing the real from the unreal, and passing from one illusion to another until the resources of matter are fully utilised.
--
The First Logos. The first Logos is the Ray of Cosmic Will. His mode of action is a literal driving forward of the solar ring-pass-not through space, and until the end of this mahamanvantara or day of Brahma (the logoic [146] cycle) we shall not be able to conceive of the first aspect of will or power as it really is. We know it now as the will to exist, manifesting through the matter of the forms (the Primordial Ray and the Divine Ray), and we know it as that which in some occult manner links the system up with its cosmic centre. In a manner inconceivable to us the first Logos brings in the influence of other constellations. When this first aspect is better understood (in the next mahamanvantara) the work of the seven Rishis of the Great Bear, [lxvii]65 and the supreme influence of Sirius will be comprehended; in this present manifestation of the Son, or of the Vishnu aspect, we are concerned more closely with the Pleiades and their influence via the Sun, and, in relation to our planet, via Venus.
This subject of the first Logos, manifesting only in connection with the other two in the system, is a profound mystery, which is not fully understood by even those who have taken the sixth Initiation.
--
The first period is by far the longest, and covers the vast progression of the centuries wherein the activity aspect of the threefold self is being developed. Life after life slips away during which the aspect of manas or mind is being slowly wrought out, and the human being comes more and more under the control of his intellect, operating through his physical brain. This might be looked upon as corresponding to the period of the first solar system, wherein the third aspect logoic, that of Brahma, Mind, or Intelligence, was being brought to the point of achievement. [lxxvi]74 Then the second aspect began in [175] this present solar system to be blended with, and wrought out through it. Centuries go by and the man becomes ever more actively intelligent, and the field of his life more suitable for the coming in of this second aspect. The correspondence lies in similitude and not in detail as seen in time and space. It covers the period of the first three triangles dealt with earlier. We must not forget that, for the sake of clarity, we are here differentiating between the different aspects, and considering their separated development, a thing only permissible in time and space or during the evolutionary process, but not permissible from the standpoint of the Eternal Now, and from the Unity of the All-Self. The Vishnu or the Love-Wisdom aspect is latent in the Self, and is part of the monadic content, but the Brahma aspect, the Activity-Intelligence aspect precedes its manifestation in time. The Tabernacle in the Wilderness preceded the building of the Temple of Solomon; the kernel of wheat has to lie in the darkness of mother Earth before the golden perfected ear can be seen, and the Lotus has to cast its roots down into the mud before the beauty of the blossom can be produced.
The second period, wherein the egoic ray holds sway, is not so long comparatively; it covers the period wherein the fourth and fifth triangles are being vivified, and marks the lives wherein the man throws his forces on the side of evolution, disciplines his life, steps upon the Probationary Path, and continues up to the third Initiation. Under the regime of the Personality Ray, the man proceeds upon the five Rays to work consciously with Mind, the sixth sense, passing first upon the four minor Rays and eventually upon the third. He works [176] upon the third Ray, or that of active Intelligence, and from thence proceeds to one of the subrays of the two other major Rays, if the third is not his egoic Ray.
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The answer lies here: The egoic ray can always be one of the seven, but we need to remember that, in this astral-buddhic solar system, wherein love and wisdom are being brought into objectivity, the bulk of the monads are on the love-wisdom ray. The fact, therefore, of its being the synthetic ray has a vast significance. This is the system of the SON, whose name is Love. This is the divine incarnation of Vishnu. The Dragon of Wisdom is in manifestation, and He brings into incarnation those cosmic Entities who are in essence identical with Himself. After the third Initiation all human beings find themselves on their monadic ray, on one of the three major rays, and the fact that Masters and Initiates are found on all the rays is due to the following two factors:
First. Each major ray has its subrays, which correspond to all the seven.
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1.00f - DIVISION F - THE LAW OF ECONOMY, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
The second Aspect, the building, or Vishnu aspect, is governed by the Law of Attraction; the activities of the entities who embody this aspect are directed to the attracting of matter to Spirit, and the gradual approximation of the two poles. It results in cohesion, in the production of congeries of atoms in various formations, and this attraction is brought about by the attractive power of Spirit itself. It shows itself in:
1. Association,
--
Another phrase, this time of seven letters, or a letter for each of the seven Heavenly Men, embodies the sound or note of the Vishnu aspect, the second aspect logoic, the form-building aspect. By its correct or partial sounding, by its complete or incomplete reverberation, are the forms built and adapted. The Law of Attraction finds expression in the manipulation of matter and its welding into form for the use of Spirit.
Then a third Word or phrase is added to the other two, completing the entire Word logoic and producing consummation. It is a Word of nine letters, making therefore the twenty-one sounds (5 + 7 + 9) of this solar system. The final nine sounds produce spiritual synthesis, and the dissociation of the spirit from the form. We have a correspondence in the nine Initiations, each initiation marking a more perfect union of the Self with the All-Self, and a further liberation from the trammels of matter.
When the sense of hearing on all planes is perfected (which is brought about by the Law of Economy rightly understood) these three great Words or phrases will be known. The Knower will utter them in his own true key, thus blending his own sound with the entire volume of vibration, and thereby achieving sudden realisation of his essential identity with Those Who utter the words. As the sound of matter or of Brahma peals forth in his ears on all the planes, he will see all forms as illusion and will be freed, knowing himself as omnipresent. As the sound of Vishnu reverberates within himself, he knows himself as perfected wisdom, and distinguishes [219] the note of his being (or that of the Heavenly Man in whose Body he finds place) from the group notes, and knows himself as omniscient. As the note of the first or Mahadeva aspect, follows upon the other two, he realises himself as pure Spirit and on the consummation of the chord is merged in the Self, or the source from which he came. Mind is not, matter is not, and nought is left but the Self merged in the ocean of the Self. At each stage of relative attainment, one of the laws comes into sway,first the law of matter, then the law of groups, to be succeeded by the law of Spirit and of liberation.
II. THE SUBSIDIARY LAWS
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1.00 - INTRODUCTORY REMARKS, #A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, #Alice Bailey, #Occultism
First, we have the animating fires of the solar system, which are the fires of the primordial ray of active intelligent matter; these constitute the energy of Brahma, the third aspect of the Logos. Next are to be found the fires of the divine Ray of Love-Wisdom, the ray of intelligent love, which constitutes the energy of the Vishnu aspect, the second aspect logoic. [iv] 4 Finally are to be found [39] the fires of the cosmic mental plane, which are the fires of the cosmic ray of will. They might be described as the rays of intelligent will and are the manifestation of the first aspect logoic, the Mahadeva aspect. [v]5 Therefore we have three cosmic rays manifesting:
The Ray of intelligent activity. This is a ray of a very demonstrable glory, and of a higher point of development than the other two, being the product of an earlier mahakalpa, or a previous solar system.: [vi]6 It embodies [40] the basic vibration of this solar system, and is its great internal fire, animating and vitalising the whole, and penetrating from the centre to the periphery. It is the cause of rotary motion, and therefore of the spheroidal form of all that exists.
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1.00 - Preliminary Remarks, #Liber ABA, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
In the Bhagavadgita a vision of this class is naturally attributed to the apparition of Vishnu, who was the local god of the period. Anna Kingsford, who had dabbled in Hebrew mysticism, and was a feminist, got an almost identical vision; but called the divine figure which she saw alternately Adonai and Maria.
Now this woman, though handicapped by a brain that was a mass of putrid pulp, and a complete lack of social status, education, and moral character, did more in the religious world than any other person had done for generations. She, and she alone, made Theosophy possible, and without Theosophy the world-wide interest in similar matters could never have been aroused. This interest is to the Law of Thelema what the preaching of John the Baptist was to Christianity.
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1.01 - Foreward, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
That was the general aspect of the ancient worship in Greece, Rome, India and among other ancient peoples. But in all these countries these gods began to assume a higher, a psychological function; Pallas Athene who may have been originally a Dawn-Goddess springing in flames from the head of Zeus, the Sky-God, Dyaus of the Veda, has in classical Greece a higher function and was identified by the Romans with their Minerva, the Goddess of learning and wisdom; similarly, Saraswati, a river Goddess, becomes in India the goddess of wisdom, learning and the arts and crafts: all the Greek deities have undergone a change in this direction - Apollo, the Sun-God, has become a god of poetry and prophecy, Hephaestus the Fire-God a divine smith, god of labour. In India the process was arrested half-way, and the Vedic Gods developed their psychological functions but retained more fixedly their external character and for higher purposes gave place to a new pantheon. They had to give precedence to Puranic deities who developed out of the early company but assumed larger cosmic functions, Vishnu, Rudra, Brahma - developing from the Vedic Brihaspati, or Brahmanaspati, - Shiva, Lakshmi, Durga. Thus in India the change in the gods was less complete, the earlier deities became the inferior divinities of the Puranic pantheon and this was largely due to the survival of the Rig Veda in which their psychological and their external functions co-existed and are both given a powerful emphasis; there was no such early literary record to maintain the original features of the Gods of Greece and Rome.
This change was evidently due to a cultural development in these early peoples who became progressively more mentalised and less engrossed in the physical life as they advanced in civilisation and needed to read into their religion and their deities finer and subtler aspects which would support their more highly mentalised concepts and interests and find for them a true spiritual being or some celestial figure as their support and sanction.
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1.01 - Our Demand and Need from the Gita, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Sankhya although it explains the created world by the double principle of Purusha and Prakriti; nor is it Vaishnava Theism although it presents to us Krishna, who is the Avatara of Vishnu according to the Puranas, as the supreme Deity and allows no essential difference nor any actual superiority of the status of the indefinable relationless Brahman over that of this Lord of beings who is the Master of the universe and the Friend of all creatures. Like the earlier spiritual synthesis of the Upanishads this later synthesis at once spiritual and intellectual avoids naturally every such rigid determination as would injure its universal
Our Demand and Need from the Gita
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1.02 - Prayer of Parashara to Vishnu, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
object:1.02 - Prayer of Parashara to Vishnu
author class:Vyasa
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1.02 - The Development of Sri Aurobindos Thought, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
year he met the yogi Vishnu Bhaskar Lele and had with
him his first great spiritual experience, the realization of
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1.02 - The Doctrine of the Mystics, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Brahmanaspati is the Creator; by the word, by his cry he creates - that is to say he expresses, he brings out all existence and conscious knowledge and movement of life and eventual forms from the darkness of the Inconscient. Rudra, the Violent and Merciful, the Mighty One, presides over the struggle of life to affirm itself; he is the armed, wrathful and beneficent Power of God who lifts forcibly the creation upward, smites all that opposes, scourges all that errs and resists, heals all that is wounded and suffers and complains and submits. Vishnu of the vast pervading motion holds in his triple stride all these worlds; it is he that makes a wide room for the action of Indra in our limited mortality; it is by him and with him that we rise into his highest seats where we find waiting for us the Friend, the Beloved, the Beatific Godhead.
Our earth shaped out of the dark inconscient ocean of existence lifts its high formations and ascending peaks heavenward; heaven of mind has its own formations, clouds that give out their lightnings and their waters of life; the streams of the clarity and the honey ascend out of the subconscient ocean below and seek the superconscient ocean above; and from above that ocean sends downward its rivers of the light and truth and bliss even into our physical being. Thus in images of physical Nature the Vedic poets sing the hymn of our spiritual ascension.
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1.037 - Preventing the Fall in Yoga, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
We may doubt the existence of God Himself this is something that is not unexpected. "After all, is there such a thing called God? Buddha does not believe in God. Perhaps Buddha may be right. He never uttered a word about God. So why am I crying for Brahma, Vishnu, Siva and all that? They may not be there at all." These doubts also will arise. "If they are not there, why am I praying to them? And if they are there, why didn't Buddha mention them? Buddha was not a fool. And there are other religious teachers who do not mention these things. They have other methods, such as upasana meditation, vipasana meditation, and are all sorts of things.
So we change the technique, and this change of technique, this change of initiation and Guru can be compared to digging a well a foot deep, in one thousand places, for water. We have dug only one foot, and we do not find water anywhere, and so we go on digging for a lifetime. In the same way, one thousand Gurus will bring us nothing. This is what will happen. This has happened to many people, and nobody can be exempted from this possibility, because doubts do not come like extraneous factors. They are internal illnesses that are conditions of the mind itself.
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1.03 - Hymns of Gritsamada, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
3. O Fire, thou art Indra the Bull of all that are and thou art wide-moving2 Vishnu, one to be worshipped with obeisance. O Master of the Word, thou art Brahma, the finder of the Riches: O Fire who sustainest each and all, closely thou companionest the Goddess of the many thoughts.3
1 Or, thou art the priest of the pilgrim-rite:
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1.03 - Japa Yoga, #Amrita Gita, #Swami Sivananda Saraswati, #Hinduism
29. A devotee of Lord Vishnu should repeat Om Namo Narayanaya; a devotee of Lord Siva, Om Namah Sivaya; a devotee of Lord Krishna, Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya; a devotee of Lord Rama, Om Sri Ramaya Namah or Om Sri Ram Jaya Ram Jaya Jaya Ram; a devotee of Devi, Gayatri Mantra or Durga Mantra.
30. It is better to stick to one Mantra alone. See Lord Krishna in Rama, Siva, Durga, Gayatri.
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1.03 - The Sephiros, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
Shi Yin ; Vishnu and Ishvara with the Hindus. Chokmah is the Word, the Greek Logos, and the Memrah of the Tar- gum. The Sepher Yetsirah names it " The Illuminating
Intelligence " ; its planet is Uranus - although tradi- tionally the Sphere of the Zodiac is allocated thereto.
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1.04 - Magic and Religion, #The Golden Bough, #James George Frazer, #Occultism
trinity itself of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva is subject to the
sorcerers, who, by means of their spells, exercise such an
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1.04 - THE APPEARANCE OF ANOMALY - CHALLENGE TO THE SHARED MAP, #Maps of Meaning, #Jordan Peterson, #Psychology
metamorphoses of Vishnu, and provided she could get get some of the sacred water of the Ganges in
which to make her ablutions, she thought herself the happiest of women. Struck with the happiness of
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1.04 - The Gods of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
(7) In his progress man is helped by the gods, resisted by the Asuras & Rakshasas. For the worlds behind have their own inhabitants, who, the whole universe being inextricably one, affect & are affected by the activities of mankind. The Bhuvar is the great place of struggle in which forces work behind the visible movements we see here and determine all our actions & fortunes. Swar is mans resting place but not his final or highest habitation which is Vishnus highest footing, Vishnoh paramam padam, high in the supreme parardha.
(8) The 33 great gods belong to the higher worlds but rest in Swar & work at once in all the strata of consciousness, for the world is always one in its complexity. They are masters of the mental functions, masters also of the vital & material. Agni, for instance, governs the actions of the fiery elements in Nature & in man, but is also the vehicle of pure tapas, tu, tuvis or divine force. They are therefore mankinds greatest helpers.
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What is Mah or Mahas?The word means great, embracing, full, comprehensive. The Earth, also, because of its wideness & containing faculty is called mahi,just as it is called prithivi, dhara, medini, dharani, etc. In various forms, the root itself, mahi, mahitwam, maha, magha, etc, it recurs with remarkable profusion and persistence throughout the Veda. Evidently it expressed some leading thought of the Rishis, was some term of the highest importance in their system of psychology. Turning to the Purana we find the term mahat applied to some comprehensive principle which is supposed itself to be near to the unmanifest, avyaktam but to supply the material of all that is manifest and always to surround, embrace and uphold it. Mahat seems here to be an objective principle; but this need not trouble us; for in the old Hindu system all that is objective had something subjective corresponding to it and constituting its real nature. We find it explicitly declared in the Vishnu Purana that all things here are manifestations of vijnana, pure ideal knowledge, sarvani vijnanavijrimbhitaniideal knowledge vibrating out into intensity of various phenomenal existences each with its subjective reason for existence and objective case & form of existence. Is ideal knowledge then the subjective principle of mahat? If so, vijnanam and the Vedic mahas are likely to be terms identical in their philosophical content and psychological significance. We turn to the Upanishads and find mention made more than once of a certain subjective state of the soul, which is called Mahan Atma, a state into which the mind and senses have to be drawn up as we rise by samadhi of the instruments of knowledge into the supreme state of Brahman and which is superior therefore to these instruments. The Mahan Atma is the state of the pure Brahman out of which the vijnana or ideal truth (sattwa or beness of things) emerges and it is higher than the vijnana but nearer us than the Unmanifest or Avyaktam (Katha: III.10, 11,13 & VI.7). If we understand by the Mahan Atma that status of soul existence (Purusha) which is the basis of the objective mahat or mahati prakriti and which develops the vijnanam or ideal knowledge as its subjective instrument, then we shall have farther light on the nature of Mahas in the ancient conceptions. We shall see that it is ideal knowledge, vijnanam, or is connected with ideal knowledge.
But we have first one more step in our evidence to notice,the final & conclusive link. In the Taittiriya Upanishad we are told that there are three vyahritis, Bhur, Bhuvar, Swar, but the Rishi Mahachamasya insisted on a fourth, Mahas. What is this fourth vyahriti? It is evidently some old Vedic idea and can hardly fail to be our maho arnas. I have already, in my introduction, outlined briefly the Vedic, Vedantic & Puranic system of the seven worlds and the five bodies. In this system the three vyahritis constitute the lower half of existence which is in bondage to Avidya. Bhurloka is the material world, our dwelling place, in which Annam predominates, in which everything is subject to or limited by the laws of matter & material consciousness. Bhuvar are the middle worlds, antariksha, between Swar & Bhur, vital worlds in which Prana, the vital principle predominates and everything is subject to or limited by the laws of vitality & vital consciousness. Swarloka is the supreme world of the triple system, the pure mental kingdom in which manasei ther in itself or, as one goes higher, uplifted & enlightened by buddhipredominates & by the laws of mind determines the life & movements of the existences which inhabit it. The three Puranic worlds Jana, Tapas, Satya,not unknown to the Vedaconstitute the Parardha; they are the higher ranges of existence in which Sat, Chit, Ananda, the three mighty elements of the divine nature predominate respectively, creative Ananda or divine bliss in Jana, the power of Chit (Chich-chhakti) or divine Energy in Tapas, the extension [of] Sat or divine being in Satya. But these worlds are hidden from us, avyaktalost for us in the sushupti to which only great Yogins easily attain & only with the Anandaloka have we by means of the anandakosha some difficult chance of direct access. We are too joyless to bear the surging waves of that divine bliss, too weak or limited to move in those higher ranges of divine strength & being. Between the upper hemisphere & the lower is Maharloka, the seat of ideal knowledge & pure Truth, which links the free spirits to the bound, the gods who deliver to the gods who are in chains, the wide & immutable realms to these petty provinces where all shifts, all passes, all changes. We see therefore that Mahas is still vijnanam and we can no longer hesitate to identify our subjective principle of mahas, source of truth & right thinking awakened by Saraswati through the perceptive intelligence, with the Vedantic principle of vijnana or pure buddhi, instrument of pure Truth & ideal knowledge.
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1.04 - The Paths, #A Garden of Pomegranates - An Outline of the Qabalah, #Israel Regardie, #Occultism
This Path is a very difficult one to describe, as it un- doubtedly refers to some aspect of the Astral Plane ; and it is, also, a phallic symbol, the fish referring to the spermatozoa swimming in the foundations of one's being. Its Hindu attri bution is Vishnu as the Matsu or Fish Avatara.
Neptune and Poseidon, insofar as their realm of govern- ment includes the dominion wherein fish dwell ; and
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1.04 - Yoga and Human Evolution, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The whole burden of our human progress has been an attempt to escape from the bondage to the body and the vital impulses. According to the scientific theory, the human being began as the animal, developed through the savage and consummated in the modern civilised man. The Indian theory is different. God created the world by developing the many out of the One and the material out of the spiritual. From the beginning, the objects which compose the physical world were arranged by Him in their causes, developed under the law of their being in the subtle or psychical world and then manifested in the gross or material world. From kraa to skma, from skma to sthla, and back again, that is the formula. Once manifested in matter the world proceeds by laws which do not change, from age to age, by a regular succession, until it is all withdrawn back again into the source from which it came. The material goes back into the psychical and the psychical is involved in its cause or seed. It is again put out when the period of expansion recurs and runs its course on similar lines but with different details till the period of contraction is due. Hinduism regards the world as a recurrent series of phenomena of which the terms vary but the general formula abides the same. The theory is only acceptable if we recognise the truth of the conception formulated in the Vishnu Purana of the world as vijna-vijmbhitni, developments of ideas in the Universal Intelligence which lies at the root of all material phenomena and by its indwelling force shapes the growth of the tree and the evolution of the clod as well as the development of living creatures and the progress of mankind. Whichever theory we take, the laws of the material world are not affected. From aeon to aeon, from kalpa to kalpa Narayan manifests himself in an ever-evolving humanity which grows in experience by a series of expansions and contractions towards its destined self-realisation in God. That evolution is not denied by the Hindu theory of yugas. Each age in the Hindu system has its own line of moral and spiritual evolution and the decline of the dharma or established law of conduct from the Satya to the Kaliyuga is not in reality a deterioration but a detrition of the outward forms and props of spirituality in order to prepare a deeper spiritual intensity within the heart. In each Kaliyuga mankind gains something in essential spirituality. Whether we take the modern scientific or the ancient Hindu standpoint the progress of humanity is a fact. The wheel of Brahma rotates for ever but it does not turn in the same place; its rotations carry it forward.
The animal is distinguished from man by its enslavement to the body and the vital impulses. Aany mtyu, Hunger who is Death, evolved the material world from of old, and it is the physical hunger and desire and the vital sensations and primary emotions connected with the pra that seek to feed upon the world in the beast and in the savage man who approximates to the condition of the beast. Out of this animal state, according to European Science, man rises working out the tiger and the ape by intellectual and moral development in the social condition. If the beast has to be worked out, it is obvious that the body and the pra must be conquered, and as that conquest is more or less complete, the man is more or less evolved. The progress of mankind has been placed by many predominatingly in the development of the human intellect, and intellectual development is no doubt essential to self-conquest. The animal and the savage are bound by the body because the ideas of the animal or the ideas of the savage are mostly limited to those sensations and associations which are connected with the body. The development of intellect enables a man to find the deeper self within and partially replace what our philosophy calls the dehtmaka-buddhi, the sum of ideas and sensations which make us think of the body as ourself, by another set of ideas which reach beyond the body, and, existing for their own delight and substituting intellectual and moral satisfaction as the chief objects of life, master, if they cannot entirely silence, the clamour of the lower sensual desires. That animal ignorance which is engrossed with the cares and the pleasures of the body and the vital impulses, emotions and sensations is tamasic, the result of the predominance of the third principle of nature which leads to ignorance and inertia. That is the state of the animal and the lower forms of humanity which are called in the Purana the first or tamasic creation. This animal ignorance the development of the intellect tends to dispel and it assumes therefore an all-important place in human evolution.
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1.053 - A Very Important Sadhana, #The Study and Practice of Yoga, #Swami Krishnananda, #Yoga
There are various other methods of svadhyaya. It depends upon the state of ones mind how far it is concentrated, how far it is distracted, what these desires are that have remained frustrated inside, what the desires are that have been overcome, and so on. The quality of the mind will determine the type of svadhyaya that one has to practise. If nothing else is possible, do parayana of holy scriptures the Sundara Kanda, the Valmiki Ramayana or any other Ramayana, the Srimad Bhagavata Mahapurana, the Srimad Bhagavadgita, the Moksha Dharma Parva of the Mahabharata, the Vishnu Purana, or any other suitable spiritual text. It has to be recited again and again, every day at a specific time, in a prescribed manner, so that this sadhana itself becomes a sort of meditation because what is meditation but hammering the mind, again and again, into a single idea? Inasmuch as abstract meditations are difficult for beginners, these more concrete forms of it are suggested. There are people who recite the Ramayana or the Srimad Bhagavata 108 times. They conduct Bhagvat Saptaha. The purpose is to bring the mind around to a circumscribed form of function and not allow it to roam about on the objects of sense.
The mind needs variety, no doubt, and it cannot exist without variety. It always wants change. Monotonous food will not be appreciated by the mind, and so the scriptures, especially the larger ones like the Epics, the Puranas, the Agamas, the Tantras, etc., provide a large area of movement for the mind wherein it leisurely roams about to its deep satisfaction, finds variety in plenty, reads stories of great saints and sages, and feels very much thrilled by the anecdotes of Incarnations, etc. But at the same time, with all its variety, we will find that it is a variety with a unity behind it. There is a unity of pattern, structure and aim in the presentation of variety in such scriptures as the Srimad Bhagavata, for instance. There are 18,000 verses giving all kinds of detail everything about the cosmic creation and the processes of the manifestation of different things in their gross form, subtle form, causal form, etc. Every type of story is found there. It is very interesting to read it. The mind rejoices with delight when going through such a large variety of detail with beautiful comparisons, etc. But all this variety is like a medical treatment by which we may give varieties of medicine with a single aim. We may give one tablet, one capsule, one injection, and all sorts of things at different times in a day to treat a single disease. The purpose is the continued assertion that God is All, and the whole of creation is a play of the glory of God.
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1.05 - Bhakti Yoga, #Amrita Gita, #Swami Sivananda Saraswati, #Hinduism
18. Bhishma had Santa Bhava; Hanuman had Dasya Bhava; Jayadeva and Gauranga had Madhurya Bhava; the Gopis had Sakhya-Bhava; Arjuna and Guha had Sakhya Bhava; Yasoda and Vishnuchitta had Vatsalya Bhava.
19. Have any kind of Bhava that suits your temperament. Develop it again and again.
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1.05 - The Universe The 0 = 2 Equation, #Magick Without Tears, #Aleister Crowley, #Philosophy
A word on this. Vulgar minds, such as are happy with a personal God, Vishnu, Jesus, Melcarth, Mithras, or another, often excite themselves call it "Energized Enthusiasm" if you want to be sarcastic! to the point of experiencing actual Visions of the objects of their devotion. But these people have not so much as asked themselves the original question of "How come?" which is our present subject. Sweep them into the discard!
M. Beyond Vishvarupadarshana, the vision of the Form of Vishnu, beyond that yet loftier vision which corresponds in Hindu classification to our "Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel", is that called Atmadarshana, the vision (or apprehension, a much better word) of the Universe as a single_phenomenon, outside all limitations, whether of time, space, causality, or what not.
Very good, then! Here we are with direct realization of the Advaitist theory of the Universe. Everything fits perfectly. Also, when I say "realization," I want you to understand that I mean what I say in a sense so intense and so absolute that it is impossible to convey my meaning to anyone who has not undergone that experience.[AC9]
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1.05 - Vishnu as Brahma creates the world, #Vishnu Purana, #Vyasa, #Hinduism
object:1.05 - Vishnu as Brahma creates the world
author class:Vyasa
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1.06 - Man in the Universe, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
2:That luminous Emergence is the dawn which the Aryan forefa thers worshipped. Its fulfilled perfection is that highest step of the world-pervading Vishnu which they beheld as if an eye of vision extended in the purest heavens of the Mind. For it exists already as an all-revealing and all-guiding Truth of things which watches over the world and attracts mortal man, first without the knowledge of his conscious mind, by the general march of Nature, but at last consciously by a progressive awakening and self-enlargement, to his divine ascension. The ascent to the divine Life is the human journey, the Work of works, the acceptable Sacrifice. This alone is man's real business in the world and the justification of his existence, without which he would be only an insect crawling among other ephemeral insects on a speck of surface mud and water which has managed to form itself amid the appalling immensities of the physical universe.
3:This Truth of things that has to emerge out of the phenomenal world's contradictions is declared to be an infinite Bliss and self-conscious Existence, the same everywhere, in all things, in all times and beyond Time, and aware of itself behind all these phenomena by whose intensest vibrations of activity or by whose largest totality it can never be entirely expressed or in any way limited; for it is self-existent and does not depend for its being upon its manifestations. They represent it, but do not exhaust it; point to it, but do not reveal it. It is revealed only to itself within their forms. The conscious existence involved in the form comes, as it evolves, to know itself by intuition, by self-vision, by self-experience. It becomes itself in the world by knowing itself; it knows itself by becoming itself. Thus possessed of itself inwardly, it imparts also to its forms and modes the conscious delight of Sachchidananda. This becoming of the infinite Bliss-Existence-Consciousness in mind and life and body, - for independent of them it exists eternally, - is the transfiguration intended and the utility of individual existence. Through the individual it manifests in relation even as of itself it exists in identity.
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1.06 - THE MASTER WITH THE BRAHMO DEVOTEES, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
And Vishnu loses consciousness,
What hope is left for men?
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1.07 - THE MASTER AND VIJAY GOSWAMI, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
A boy named Vishnu, living in Ariadaha, had recently committed suicide by cutting his throat with a razor. The talk turned to him.
MASTER: "I felt very badly when I heard of the boy's passing away. He was a pupil in a school and he used to come here. He would often say to me that he couldn't enjoy worldly life. He had lived with some relatives in the western provinces and at that time used to meditate in solitude, in the meadows, hills, and forests. He told me he had visions of many divine forms.
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1.08 - The Gods of the Veda - The Secret of the Veda, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
But in the last century a new scholarship has invaded the country, the scholarship of aggressive & victorious Europe, which for the first time denies the intimate connection and the substantial identity of the Vedas & the later Scriptures. We ourselves have made distinctions of Jnanakanda & Karmakanda, Sruti & Smriti, but we have never doubted that all these are branches of a single stock. But our new Western Pandits & authorities tell us that we are in error. All of us from ancient Yajnavalkya to the modern Vaidika have been making a huge millennial mistake. European scholarship applying for the first time the test of a correct philology to these obscure writings has corrected the mistake. It has discovered that the Vedas are of an entirely different character from the rest of our Hindu development. For our development has been Pantheistic or transcendental, philosophical, mystic, devotional, sombre, secretive, centred in the giant names of the Indian Trinity, disengaging itself from sacrifice, moving towards asceticism. The Vedas are naturalistic, realistic, ritualistic, semi-barbarous, a sacrificial worship of material Nature-powers, henotheistic at their highest, Pagan, joyous and self-indulgent. Brahma & Shiva do not exist for the Veda; Vishnu & Rudra are minor, younger & unimportant deities. Many more discoveries of a startling nature, but now familiar to the most ignorant, have been successfully imposed on our intellects. The Vedas, it seems, were not revealed to great & ancient Rishis, but composed by the priests of a small invading Aryan race of agriculturists & warriors, akin to the Greeks & Persians, who encamped, some fifteen hundred years before Christ, in the Panjab.
With the acceptance of these modern opinions Hinduism ought by this time to have been as dead among educated men as the religion of the Greeks & Romans. It should at best have become a religio Pagana, a superstition of ignorant villagers. Itis, on the contrary, stronger & more alive, fecund & creative than it had been for the previous three centuries. To a certain extent this unexpected result may be traced to the high opinion in which even European opinion has been compelled to hold the Vedanta philosophy, the Bhagavat Gita and some of the speculationsas the Europeans think themor, as we hold, the revealed truths of the Upanishads. But although intellectually we are accustomed in obedience to Western criticism to base ourselves on the Upanishads & Gita and put aside Purana and Veda as mere mythology & mere ritual, yet in practice we live by the religion of the Puranas & Tantras even more profoundly & intimately than we live by & realise the truths of the Upanishads. In heart & soul we still worship Krishna and Kali and believe in the truth of their existence. Nevertheless this divorce between the heart & the intellect, this illicit compromise between faith & reason cannot be enduring. If Purana & Veda cannot be rehabilitated, it is yet possible that our religion driven out of the soul into the intellect may wither away into the dry intellectuality of European philosophy or the dead formality & lifeless clarity of European Theism. It behoves us therefore to test our faith by a careful examination into the meaning of Purana & Veda and into the foundation of that truth which our intellect seeks to deny [but] our living spiritual experience continues to find in their conceptions. We must discover why it is that while our intellects accept only the truth of Vedanta, our spiritual experiences confirm equally or even more powerfully the truth of Purana. A revival of Hindu intellectual faith in the totality of the spiritual aspects of our religion, whether Vedic, Vedantic, Tantric or Puranic, I believe to be an inevitable movement of the near future.
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1.08 - The Historical Significance of the Fish, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
of Vishnu. 48 ibid., pp. 2 iff.
49 Origen (De oratione, cap. 27): ". . . as the last month is the end of the year,
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1.08 - THE MASTERS BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION AT DAKSHINESWAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Women perform a ritualistic worship known as the 'Ananta-vrata', the object of worship being the Infinite. But actually the Deity worshipped is Vishnu. In Him are the 'infinite'
forms of God.
--
After finishing the worship in his own way, he asked Bhavanath to carry the green coconut that had been offered to the Mother. He also visited the images of Radha and Krishna in the Vishnu temple.
When the Master returned to his room, he found that other devotees had arrived, among them Ram, Nityagopal, and Kedr. They all saluted the Master, who greeted them cordially.
--
MASTER: "Beware, holy man! Go there once in a great while, but not frequently; otherwise you will slip from the ideal. Maya is nothing but 'woman and gold'. A holy man must live away from woman. All sink there. 'Even Brahma and Vishnu struggle for life in that whirlpool.' "
Nityagopal listened to these words attentively.
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1.08 - Worship of Substitutes and Images, #Bhakti-Yoga, #Swami Vivekananda, #Hinduism
"Here in this way does Brahman become the object of worship, because He, as Brahman, is superimposed on the Pratikas, just as Vishnu etc. are superimposed upon images etc."
The same ideas apply to the worship of the Pratimas as to that of the Pratikas; that is to say, if the image stands for a god or a saint, the worship is not the result of Bhakti, and does not lead lo liberation; but if it stands for the one God, the worship thereof will bring both Bhakti and Mukti. Of the principal religions of the world we see Vedantism, Buddhism, and certain forms of Christianity freely using images; only two religions, Mohammedanism and Protestantism, refuse such help. Yet the Mohammedans use the grave of their saints and martyrs almost in the place of images; and the Protestants, in rejecting all concrete helps to religion, are drifting away every year farther and farther from spirituality till at present there is scarcely any difference between the advanced Protestants and the followers of August Comte, or agnostics who preach ethics alone. Again, in Christianity and Mohammedanism whatever exists of image worship is made to fall under that category in which the Pratika or the Pratima is worshipped in itself, but not as a "help to the vision" (Drishtisaukaryam) of God; therefore it is at best only of the nature of ritualistic Karmas and cannot produce either Bhakti or Mukti. In this form of image-worship, the allegiance of the soul is given to other things than Ishvara, and, therefore, such use of images, or graves, or temples, or tombs, is real idolatry; it is in itself neither sinful nor wicked it is a rite a Karma, and worshippers must and will get the fruit thereof.
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1.10 - Laughter Of The Gods, #Twelve Years With Sri Aurobindo, #Nirodbaran, #Integral Yoga
Sri Aurobindo: Oh, so it was Vishnu's Ananda that descended!
Later on, Champaklal said, "My eyes always remain watery."
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1.10 - The Image of the Oceans and the Rivers, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This Vedic imagery throws a clear light on the similar symbolic images of the Puranas, especially on the famous symbol of Vishnu sleeping after the pralaya on the folds of the snake
Ananta upon the ocean of sweet milk. It may perhaps be objected that the Puranas were written by superstitious Hindu priests or poets who believed that eclipses were caused by a dragon eating the sun and moon and could easily believe that during the periods of non-creation the supreme Deity in a physical body went to sleep on a physical snake upon a material ocean of real milk and that therefore it is a vain ingenuity to seek for a spiritual meaning in these fables. My reply would be that there is in fact no need to seek for such meanings; for these very superstitious poets have put them there plainly on the very surface of the fable for everybody to see who does not choose to be blind. For they have given a name to Vishnu's snake, the name Ananta, and
Ananta means the Infinite; therefore they have told us plainly enough that the image is an allegory and that Vishnu, the allpervading Deity, sleeps in the periods of non-creation on the coils of the Infinite. As for the ocean, the Vedic imagery shows us that it must be the ocean of eternal existence and this ocean of eternal existence is an ocean of absolute sweetness, in other words, of pure Bliss. For the sweet milk (itself a Vedic image) has, evidently, a sense not essentially different from the madhu, honey or sweetness, of Vamadeva's hymn.
108
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1.10 - THE MASTER WITH THE BRAHMO DEVOTEES (II), #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
" Vishnu incarnated Himself as a sow in order to kill the demon Hiranyaksha. After killing the demon, the sow remained quite happy with her young ones. Forgetting her real nature, she was suckling them very contentedly. The gods in heaven could not persuade Vishnu to relinquish His sow's body and return to the celestial regions. He was absorbed in the happiness of His beast form. After consulting among themselves, the gods sent iva to the sow. iva asked the sow, 'Why have you forgotten yourself?' Vishnu replied through the sow's body, 'Why, I am quite happy here.' Thereupon with a stroke of his trident iva destroyed the sow's body, and Vishnu went back to heaven."
Ramchandra Dutta
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1.10 - The Revolutionary Yogi, #Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Consciousness, #Satprem, #Integral Yoga
But it would be wrong to imagine Sri Aurobindo as a fanatic; all his contemporaries were struck by this "calm young man who with a single word could silence a tumultuous meeting." It was in the midst of this external turmoil, between political meetings and the newspaper to get out every morning (and under constant threat from the secret police) that, on December 30, 1907, Sri Aurobindo met a yogi by the name of Vishnu Bhaskar Lele, who was to bring a paradoxical experience into his already paradoxical life.
It was the first time, after thirteen years in India, that Sri Aurobindo voluntarily met a yogi! It shows how much he distrusted asceticism and spiritualists. His first question to Lele was typical: I
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11.15 - Sri Aurobindo, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 04, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
"Family, nationality, humanity are Vishnu's three strides from an isolated to a collective unity. The first has been fulfilled, we yet strive for the perfection of the second, towards the third we are reaching out our hands and the pioneer work is already attempted".
But the supreme secret lies in Vishnu's fourth stride, from humanity to divinity. That is the goal of the evolution and that furnishes also the key to the solution of the problem. Whether in the matter of the family or the nationality or humanity in general there has been a stalemate, a stagnation, even a frustration; an effort towards progress seemed to lead more towards conflict, disharmony, away from what is beautiful and good and happy. That is bound to be. Man must reach his very highest and deepest, his absolute itself before he can arrive at perfection in the lower and the relative. Man must exceed himself if he is to fulfil himself. A new connotation has to be found for family and nationality and even humanity. That connotation, Sri Aurobindo says, is divinity.
We must understand however that there is divinity and divinity. There is a divinity that suffers, supports and transcends all that is existent. For it is the all-reality, all-consciousness, the ever-present and omnipresent Immutable behind the mutabilities of creation. That does not take part in the cosmic struggle, the universal urge of progress forward. Apart from the divinity that suffers, there is a divinity that shapesand is shaped at the same time, shapes from behind and is shaped itself in front. This dynamic Divine Sri Aurobindo calls the supramental Divine or the incarnate Divine Mother.
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1.11 - The Kalki Avatar, #Preparing for the Miraculous, #George Van Vrekhem, #Integral Yoga
same order. Lord Vishnu mounted on a white horse, with
a drawn scimitar, blazing like a comet will come to end
--
21 V. Ashok: Dasavatar The Ten Incarnations of Vishnu, p. 292.242
ele v e n talks
--
some would interpret the ten incarnations of Vishnu, first
in animal forms, then in the animal man, then in the dwarf
--
In Essays on the Gita, Sri Aurobindo wrote: Vishnu, in-
carnated as Krishna, delivered the oppressed Pandavas and
--
of the descent of the previous Vishnu Avatars, of Rama
to destroy the unrighteous oppression of Ravana, of Par-
--
In his book Dasavatara The Ten Incarnations of Vishnu,
V. Ashok, for instance, writes: Lord Vishnu mounted on
a white horse, with a drawn scimitar, blazing like a comet
--
upon the earth. He will be born in the family of Vishnu-
yasas, an eminent brahmin of Sambal village, as Kalki. He
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1.11 - The Seven Rivers, #The Secret Of The Veda, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
(padani, sadamsi) of Agni, of Vishnu, those supreme Names of the Mother, the cow, Aditi. The Vast or Truth is declared to be
The Seven Rivers
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1.11 - WITH THE DEVOTEES AT DAKSHINEWAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Trailokya gave a suitable reply and went on his way. After a while Ram Chatterji, the priest of the Vishnu temple, came up to Sri Ramakrishna.
MASTER: "Well, Ram, I told Trailokya that the yatra performance should not be omitted again. Was I right in saying that?".
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1.1.2 - Commentary, #Kena and Other Upanishads, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
movement of Vishnu which, the Veda tells us, the seers behold
like an eye extended in heaven. It is that by which the soul sees
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1.13 - Reason and Religion, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Therefore it is said that Vishnu is the King in the Treta, but in the Dwapara the arranger and codifier of the knowledge and the law.
***
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1.13 - THE MASTER AND M., #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"Once I went to Vishnupur. The raja of that place has several fine temples. In one of them there is an image of the Divine Mother, called Mrinmayi. There are several lakes near the temple, known as the Lalbandh, Krishnabandh, and so on. In the water of one of the lakes I could smell the ointments that women use for their hair. How do you explain that? I didn't know at that time that the woman devotees offer ointments to the Goddess Mrinmayi while visiting Her temple. Near the lake I went into samdhi, though I had not yet seen the image in the temple. In that state I saw the divine form from the waist up, rising from the water."
In the mean time other devotees had arrived. Someone referred to the political revolution and civil war in Kabul. A devotee said that Yakub Khan, the Amir of Afghanistan, had been deposed. He told the Master that the Amir was a great devotee of God.
--
ISHAN: "This earth is the largest thing we see anywhere around us. But larger than the earth is the ocean, and larger than the ocean is the sky. But Vishnu, the Godhead, has covered earth, sky, and the nether world with one of His feet. And that foot of Vishnu is enshrined in the sdhu's heart. Therefore the heart of a holy man is the greatest of all."
The devotees were delighted with Ishan's words.
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1.14 - INSTRUCTION TO VAISHNAVS AND BRHMOS, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
A scholar says one thing and does another. But it is quite a different matter with a sdhu. The words and actions of a man who has given his mind to the Lotus Feet of God are altogether different. In Benares I saw a young sannyasi who belonged to the sect of Nanak.. He was the same age as you. He used to refer to me as the 'loving monk'. His sect has a monastery in Benares. I was invited there one day. I found that the mohant was like a housewife. I asked him, 'What is the way?' 'For the Kaliyuga', he said, 'the path of devotion as enjoined by Nrada.' He was reading a book. When the reading was over, he recited: ' Vishnu is in water, Vishnu is on land, Vishnu is on the mountain top; the whole world is pervaded by Vishnu.' At the end he said, 'Peace! Peace! Abiding Peace!'
Path of love suited to modern times
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1.14 - The Supermind as Creator, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
0:All things are self-deployings of the Divine Knowledge. Vishnu Purana.1
1:A PRINCIPLE of active Will and Knowledge superior to Mind and creatrix of the worlds is then the intermediary power and state of being between that self-possession of the One and this flux of the Many. This principle is not entirely alien to us; it does not belong solely and incommunicably to a Being who is entirely other than ourselves or to a state of existence from which we are mysteriously projected into birth, but also rejected and unable to return. If it seems to us to be seated on heights far above us, yet are they the heights of our own being and accessible to our tread. We can not only infer and glimpse that Truth, but we are capable of realising it. We may by a progressive expanding or a sudden luminous self-transcendence mount up to these summits in unforgettable moments or dwell on them during hours or days of greatest superhuman experience. When we descend again, there are doors of communication which we can keep always open or reopen even though they should constantly shut. But to dwell there permanently on this last and highest summit of the created and creative being is in the end the supreme ideal for our evolving human consciousness when it seeks not self-annulment but self-perfection. For, as we have seen, this is the original Idea and the final harmony and truth to which our gradual self-expression in the world returns and which it is meant to achieve.
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1.15 - Index, #Aion, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
avatar of Vishnu, 176; childhood
of, 103; common symbols with
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1.15 - LAST VISIT TO KESHAB, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"Once a thief broke into the temple of Vishnu and robbed the image of its jewels.
Mathur Babu and I went to the temple to see what was the matter. Addressing the image, Mathur said bitterly: 'What a shame, Lord! You are so worthless! The thief took all the ornaments from Your body, and You couldn't do a thing about it.' Thereupon I said to Mathur: 'Shame on you! How improper your words are! To God, the jewels you talk so much about are only lumps of clay. Lakshmi, the Goddess of Fortune, is His Consort. Do you mean to say that He should spend sleepless nights because a thief has taken your few rupees? You mustn't say such things.'
--
And Vishnu loses consciousness,
What hope is left for men? . .
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1.16 - The Process of Avatarhood, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It is this truth which lies behind the natural human tendency to the deification of great minds and heroic characters; it comes out clearly enough in the Indian habit of mind which easily sees a partial (amsa) Avatar in great saints, teachers, founders, or most significantly in the belief of southern Vaishnavas that some of their saints were incarnations of the symbolic living weapons of Vishnu, - for that is what all great spirits are, living powers and weapons of the Divine in the upward march and battle. This idea is innate and inevitable in any mystic or spiritual view of life which does not draw an inexorable line between the being and nature of the Divine and our human being and nature; it is the sense of the divine in humanity. But still the Vibhuti is not the Avatar; otherwise Arjuna, Vyasa, Ushanas would be Avatars as well as Krishna, even if in a less degree of the power of
Avatarhood. The divine quality is not enough; there must be the inner consciousness of the Lord and Self governing the human nature by his divine presence. The heightening of the power of the qualities is part of the becoming, bhutagrama, an ascent in the ordinary manifestation; in the Avatar there is the special manifestation, the divine birth from above, the eternal and universal Godhead descended into a form of individual humanity, atmanam sr.jami, and conscious not only behind the veil but in the outward nature.
--
Gita in this very passage applies the doctrine of reincarnation, boldly enough, to the Avatar himself, and in the usual theory of reincarnation the reincarnating soul by its past spiritual and psychological evolution itself determines and in a way prepares its own mental and physical body. The soul prepares its own body, the body is not prepared for it without any reference to the soul. Are we then to suppose an eternal or continual Avatar himself evolving, we might say, his own fit mental and physical body according to the needs and pace of the human evolution and so appearing from age to age, yuge yuge? In some such spirit some would interpret the ten incarnations of Vishnu, first in animal forms, then in the animal man, then in the dwarf mansoul, Vamana, the violent Asuric man, Rama of the axe, the divinely-natured man, a greater Rama, the awakened spiritual man, Buddha, and, preceding him in time, but final in place, the complete divine manhood, Krishna, - for the last Avatar,
Kalki, only accomplishes the work Krishna began, - he fulfils in power the great struggle which the previous Avatars prepared in all its potentialities. It is a difficult assumption to our modern mentality, but the language of the Gita seems to demand it. Or, since the Gita does not expressly solve the problem, we may solve it in some other way of our own, as that the body is prepared by the Jiva but assumed from birth by the Godhead or that it is prepared by one of the four Manus, catvaro manavah., of the
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1.17 - The Divine Birth and Divine Works, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
in Duryodhana and his brothers became so great a burden to the earth that she had to call upon God to descend and lighten her load; accordingly Vishnu incarnated as Krishna, delivered the oppressed Pandavas and destroyed the unjust Kauravas. A similar account is given of the descent of the previous Vishnu avatars, of Rama to destroy the unrighteous oppression of Ravana, of Parashurama to destroy the unrighteous license of the military and princely caste, the Kshatriyas, of the dwarf Vamana to destroy the rule of the Titan Bali. But obviously the purely practical, ethical or social and political mission of the Avatar which is thus thrown into popular and mythical form, does not give a right account of the phenomenon of Avatarhood. It does not cover its spiritual sense, and if this outward utility were all, we should have to exclude Buddha and Christ whose mission was not at all to destroy evil-doers and deliver the good, but to bring to all men a new spiritual message and a new law of divine growth and spiritual realisation. On the other hand, if we give to the word dharma only its religious sense, in which it means a law of religious and spiritual life, we shall indeed get to the kernel of the matter, but we shall be in danger of excluding a most important part of the work done by the Avatar. Always we see in the history of the divine incarnations the double work, and inevitably, because the Avatar takes up the workings of God in human life, the way of the divine Will and Wisdom in the world, and that always fulfils itself externally as well as internally, by inner progress in the soul and by an outer change in the life.
The Avatar may descend as a great spiritual teacher and saviour, the Christ, the Buddha, but always his work leads, after he has finished his earthly manifestation, to a profound and powerful change not only in the ethical, but in the social and outward life and ideals of the race. He may, on the other hand, descend as an incarnation of the divine life, the divine personality and power in its characteristic action, for a mission ostensibly social, ethical and political, as is represented in the story of Rama or Krishna; but always then this descent becomes in the soul of the race a permanent power for the inner living and the spiritual rebirth. It is indeed curious to note that the
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1.18 - M. AT DAKSHINESWAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
MASTER: "The worshippers of Vishnu and the worshippers of akti will all ultimately reach one and the same goal; the ways may be different. The true Vaishnavas do not criticize the Saktas."
GOSWAMI (smiling): "iva and Parvati are our Father and Mother." Sri Ramakrishna, out of his stock of a dozen English words, said sweetly, "Thank you!" Then he added, "Yes, Father and Mother!"
--
Day and night he used to study the Upanishads, the Adhytma Rmyana, and similar books on Vednta. He would turn up his nose at the mention of the forms of God. Once I ate from the leaf-plates of the beggars. At this Haladhri said to me, 'How will you be able to marry your children?' I said: 'You rascal! Shall I ever have children? May your mouth that repeats words from the Git and the Vednta be blighted!' Just fancy! He declared that the world was illusory and, again, would meditate in the temple of Vishnu with turned-up nose."
In the evening Balarm and the other devotees returned to Calcutta. The Master remained in his room, absorbed in contemplation of the Divine Mother: After a while the sweet music of the evening worship in the temples was heard.
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1.200-1.224 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
Thus - you see - Devotion is nothing more than knowing oneself. The school of Qualified Monism also admits it. Still, adhering to their traditional doctrine, they persist in affirming that the individuals are part of the Supreme - his limbs as it were. Their traditional doctrine says also that the individual soul should be made pure and then surrendered to the Supreme; then the ego is lost and one goes to the regions of Vishnu after ones death; then finally there is the enjoyment of the Supreme (or the Infinite)!
To say that one is apart from the Primal Source is itself a pretension; to add that one divested of the ego becomes pure and yet retains individuality only to enjoy or serve the Supreme, is a deceitful stratagem. What duplicity is this - first to appropriate what is really
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1.21 - The Ascent of Life, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Thrice Vishnu paced and set his step uplifted out of the primal dust; three steps he has paced, the Guardian, the Invincible, and from beyond he upholds their laws. Scan the workings of Vishnu and see from whence he has manifested their laws. That is his highest pace which is seen ever by the seers like an eye extended in heaven; that the illumined, the awakened kindle into a blaze, even Vishnu's step supreme. . . .4 Rig Veda.
1:WE HAVE seen that as the divided mortal Mind, parent of limitation and ignorance and the dualities, is only a dark figure of the supermind, of the self-luminous divine Consciousness in its first dealings with the apparent negation of itself from which our cosmos commences, so also Life as it emerges in our material universe, an energy of the dividing Mind subconscious, submerged, imprisoned in Matter, Life as the parent of death, hunger and incapacity, is only a dark figure of the divine superconscient Force whose highest terms are immortality, satisfied delight and omnipotence. This relation fixes the nature of that great cosmic processus of which we are a part; it determines the first, the middle and the ultimate terms of our evolution. The first terms of Life are division, a forcedriven subconscient will, apparent not as will but as dumb urge of physical energy, and the impotence of an inert subjection to the mechanical forces that govern the interchange between the form and its environment. This inconscience and this blind but potent action of Energy are the type of the material universe as the physical scientist sees it and this his view of things extends and turns into the whole of basic existence; it is the consciousness of Matter and the accomplished type of material living. But there comes a new equipoise, there intervenes a new set of terms which increase in proportion as Life delivers itself out of this form and begins to evolve towards conscious Mind; for the middle terms of Life are death and mutual devouring, hunger and conscious desire, the sense of a limited room and capacity and the struggle to increase, to expand, to conquer and to possess. These three terms are the basis of that status of evolution which the Darwinian theory first made plain to human knowledge. For the phenomenon of death involves in itself a struggle to survive, since death is only the negative term in which Life hides from itself and tempts its own positive being to seek for immortality. The phenomenon of hunger and desire involves a struggle towards a status of satisfaction and security, since desire is only the stimulus by which Life tempts its own positive being to rise out of the negation of unfulfilled hunger towards the full possession of the delight of existence. The phenomenon of limited capacity involves a struggle towards expansion, mastery and possession, the possession of the self and the conquest of the environment, since limitation and defect are only the negation by which Life tempts its own positive being to seek for the perfection of which it is eternally capable. The struggle for life is not only a struggle to survive, it is also a struggle for possession and perfection, since only by taking hold of the environment whether more or less, whether by self-adaptation to it or by adapting it to oneself either by accepting and conciliating it or by conquering and changing it, can survival be secured, and equally is it true that only a greater and greater perfection can assure a continuous permanence, a lasting survival. It is this truth that Darwinism sought to express in the formula of the survival of the fittest.
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1.23 - Conditions for the Coming of a Spiritual Age, #The Human Cycle, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
A spiritualised society would live like its spiritual individuals, not in the ego, but in the spirit, not as the collective ego, but as the collective soul. This freedom from the egoistic standpoint would be its first and most prominent characteristic. But the elimination of egoism would not be brought about, as it is now proposed to bring it about, by persuading or forcing the individual to immolate his personal will and aspirations and his precious and hard-won individuality to the collective will, aims and egoism of the society, driving him like a victim of ancient sacrifice to slay his soul on the altar of that huge and shapeless idol. For that would be only the sacrifice of the smaller to the larger egoism, larger only in bulk, not necessarily greater in quality or wider or nobler, since a collective egoism, result of the united egoisms of all, is as little a god to be worshipped, as flawed and often an uglier and more barbarous fetish than the egoism of the individual. What the spiritual man seeks is to find by the loss of the ego the self which is one in all and perfect and complete in each and by living in that to grow into the image of its perfection,individually, be it noted, though with an all-embracing universality of his nature and its conscious circumference. It is said in the old Indian writings that while in the second age, the age of Power, Vishnu descends as the King, and in the third, the age of compromise and balance, as the legislator or codifier, in the age of the Truth he descends as Yajna, that is to say, as the Master of works and sacrifice manifest in the heart of his creatures. It is this kingdom of God within, the result of the finding of God not in a distant heaven but within ourselves, of which the state of society in an age of the Truth, a spiritual age, would be the result and the external figure.
Therefore a society which was even initially spiritualised would make the revealing and finding of the divine Self in man the supreme, even the guiding aim of all its activities, its education, its knowledge, its science, its ethics, its art, its economical and political structure. As it was to some imperfect extent in the ancient Vedic times with the cultural education of the higher classes, so it would be then with all education. It would embrace all knowledge in its scope, but would make the whole trend and aim and the permeating spirit not mere worldly efficiency, though that efficiency would not be neglected, but this self-developing and self-finding and all else as its powers. It would pursue the physical and psychic sciences not in order merely to know the world and Nature in her processes and to use them for material human ends, but still more to know through and in and under and over all things the Divine in the world and the ways of the Spirit in its masks and behind them. It would make it the aim of ethics not to establish a rule of action whether supplementary to the social law or partially corrective of it, the social law that is after all only the rule, often clumsy and ignorant, of the biped pack, the human herd, but to develop the divine nature in the human being. It would make it the aim of Art not merely to present images of the subjective and objective world, but to see them with the significant and creative vision that goes behind their appearances and to reveal the Truth and Beauty of which things visible to us and invisible are the forms, the masks or the symbols and significant figures.
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1.240 - Talks 2, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
A question was asked regarding the avatars of Vishnu.
M.: Let us know our own avatara; the knowledge of the other avataras will follow.
--
When Prahlada was in samadhi, Vishnu thought within Himself:
This asura being in samadhi, all the asuras are in peace. There is no fight, no trial of strength, no search for power, nor the means for gaining power. In the absence of such means for power - yaga, yajna, etc., i.e., the gods are not thriving; there is no new creation; nor even is any existence justified. So I will wake him up; then the asuras will rise up; their original nature will manifest itself; the gods will challenge them: the asuras and others will then seek strength and adopt the means for its acquisition.
--
So Vishnu awakened Prahlada, blessing him with eternal life and jivanmukti. Deva-asura fight was resumed and the old order of things was restored so that the universe continues in its eternal nature.
D.: How could God Himself wake up the asura element and bring about constant warfare? Is not Pure Goodness the nature of God?
--
D.: Siva, Vishnu, and Gayatri are said to be equally efficacious. Which should I meditate upon?
M.: Any one you like best. They are all equal in their effect. But you should stick to one.
--
M.: How does the world appear? How are we? Knowing this, you know God. You will know if He is Siva, or Vishnu or any other or all put together.
D.: Is Vaikuntha in Paramapada, i.e., in the transcendent Self?
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1.25 - ADVICE TO PUNDIT SHASHADHAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"Besides, how vain people are about their own sects! There are weavers in the villages near Kamarpukur. Many of them are Vaishnavas and like to talk big. They say: 'Which Vishnu does he worship? The Preserver? Oh, we wouldn't touch him!' Or: 'Which iva are you talking about? We accept the Atmaramasiva.' Or again, 'Please explain to us which Hari you worship'. They spin their yarn and indulge in talk like that.
"Rati's mother, Rani Katyayani's favourite confidante, is a follower of Vaishnavcharan.
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1.27 - AT DAKSHINESWAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Therefore I salute both. It is written in the Chandi: 'The Divine Mother is the good fortune of the blessed and the ill fortune of the unlucky.' (To Bhavanath) Is that mentioned in the Vishnu Purana?"
BHAVANATH (smiling): "I don't know, sir. The devotees from Konnagar did not understand your samdhi and were about to leave the room."
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1.2 - Katha Upanishads, #Kena and Other Upanishads, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
of Vishnu.
iE d1y
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1.300 - 1.400 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
A question was asked regarding the avatars of Vishnu.
M.: Let us know our own avatara; the knowledge of the other avataras will follow.
--
When Prahlada was in samadhi, Vishnu thought within Himself:
"This asura being in samadhi, all the asuras are in peace. There is no fight, no trial of strength, no search for power, nor the means for gaining power. In the absence of such means for power - yaga, yajna, etc., i.e., the gods are not thriving; there is no new creation; nor even is any existence justified. So I will wake him up; then the asuras will rise up; their original nature will manifest itself; the gods will challenge them: the asuras and others will then seek strength and adopt the means for its acquisition.
--
So Vishnu awakened Prahlada, blessing him with eternal life and jivanmukti. Deva-asura fight was resumed and the old order of things was restored so that the universe continues in its eternal nature.
D.: How could God Himself wake up the asura element and bring about constant warfare? Is not Pure Goodness the nature of God?
--
D.: Siva, Vishnu, and Gayatri are said to be equally efficacious. Which should I meditate upon?
M.: Any one you like best. They are all equal in their effect. But you should stick to one.
--
M.: How does the world appear? How are we? Knowing this, you know God. You will know if He is Siva, or Vishnu or any other or all put together.
D.: Is Vaikuntha in Paramapada, i.e., in the transcendent Self?
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1.439, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
Soon after he found himself dead and the soul taken to Vaikunta where God Vishnu was surrounded by other gods and devotees with prominent Vaishnavite marks on their foreheads. Vishnu said, This man should be brought here at 2 oclock tomorrow. Why has he been brought here now? The boy then woke up and related his experience.
The next day at 2 oclock he passed away.
--
Annamalai asked: Namadev, Tukaram, Tulsidas and others are said to have seen Maha Vishnu. How did they see Him?
M.: In what manner? Just in the same manner as you see me now and I see you here. They would also have seen Vishnu in this way only.
(He records that, on hearing it, his hairs stood on end and an intense joy overpowered him.)
--
by the letter A and presided over by the deity Vishnu. The swapna
is the dream state in which the jiva in the Taijasa aspect and the
--
tenth man was such all along. Rama was Vishnu all the time. Such
is jnanam. It is being aware of That which always is.
--
When recovered by Vishnu she felt that she had papasparsa by that
Rakshasa. As an expiation of that impure touch she worshipped Siva
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1.450 - 1.500 Talks, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
Soon after he found himself dead and the soul taken to Vaikunta where God Vishnu was surrounded by other gods and devotees with prominent Vaishnavite marks on their foreheads. Vishnu said, "This man should be brought here at 2 o'clock tomorrow. Why has he been brought here now? "The boy then woke up and related his experience.
The next day at 2 o'clock he passed away.
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1956-07-18 - Unlived dreams - Radha-consciousness - Separation and identification - Ananda of identity and Ananda of union - Sincerity, meditation and prayer - Enemies of the Divine - The universe is progressive, #Questions And Answers 1956, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
In Indian mythology Prahlad is the son of King Hiranyakashipu, an ardent enemy of the god Vishnu. The king had banned the worship of Vishnu in his kingdom, and when he learnt that his son Prahlad was worshipping this god in his own palace, he delivered him to serpents, but they did not bite him. Then he had him thrown down from the top of a hill into the sea, but the child was miraculously carried by the waters. When the enraged king asked his son, "Who has saved you?", the child replied, " Vishnu is everywhere, in the serpents and in the sea." It is interesting to note that the king himself had been a soul temporarily driven out from the heaven of Vishnu due to the curse of some rishis who had given him the choice between three lives on earth as the enemy of Vishnu and ten lives on earth as the worshipper of Vishnu the king had chosen the shorter way back.
Later, someone asked Mother: "What is this 'it'? the universe?" To which Mother replied, "I said 'it' deliberately, so as not to make it precise. I don't like the word 'creation'; it immediately gives the impression of a special creation as though it were made out of nothing but it is He Himself! And it is not the universe 'which begins': the universe 'is begun'. How to put it? It is not the universe which takes the initiative of the movement! And if one says that the Lord began the universe, it becomes false. All these are such fixed ideas! If I say: 'The Lord began the universe,' one sees at once a personal God deciding to begin the universeit is not that!
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1969 09 23, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
158What was Ramakrishna? God manifest in a human being; but behind there is God in His infinite impersonality and His universal Personality. And what was Vivekananda? A radiant glance from the eye of Shiva; but behind him is the divine gaze from which he came and Shiva himself and Brahma and Vishnu and OM all-exceeding.
Will the Avatars still need to take birth on earth once the supramental consciousness is firmly established?
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1969 12 11, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
224If I cannot be Rama, then I would be Ravana; for he is the dark side of Vishnu.1
This means that sweetness without strength and goodness without power are incomplete and cannot totally express the Divine.
--
Rama was an avatar or incarnation of Vishnu; Ravana was a Titan (Asura), mortal enemy of Rama.
***
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1970 02 12, #On Thoughts And Aphorisms, #The Mother, #Integral Yoga
335Family, nationality, humanity are Vishnus three strides from an isolated to a collective unity. The first has been fulfilled, we yet strive for the perfection of the second, towards the third we are reaching out our hands and the pioneer work is already attempted.
336With the present morality of the human race a sound and durable human unity is not yet possible; but there is no reason why a temporary approximation to it should not be the reward of strenuous aspiration and untiring effort. By constant approximations and by partial realisations and temporary successes Nature advances.
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1.kbr - I Burst Into Laughter, #Songs of Kabir, #Kabir, #Sufism
and even Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh,
really resides within one's self.
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1.kbr - I burst into laughter, #Songs of Kabir, #Kabir, #Sufism
English version by Sunil Uniyal Original Language Hindi I burst into laughter whenever I hear that the fish is thirsty in water. Without the knowledge of Self people just wander to Mathura or to Kashi like the musk-deer unaware of the scent in his navel, goes on running forest to forest. In water is the lotus plant and the plant bears flowers and on the flowers are the bees buzzing. Likewise all yogis and mendicants and all those who have renounced comforts, are on here and hereafter and the nether world -- contemplating. Friend, the Supreme Indestructible Being, on whom thousands of sages meditate and even Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh, really resides within one's self. Though He is near, He appears far away -- and that is what makes one disturbed; says Kabir, listen, O wise one, by Guru alone is the confusion curbed. <
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1.kbr - Poem 9, #Songs of Kabir, #Kabir, #Sufism
Where millions of Vishnus bow their heads,
Where millions of Brahmas are reading the Vedas,
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1.rb - Waring, #Browning - Poems, #Robert Browning, #Poetry
In Vishnu-land what Avatar?
Or who in Moscow, toward the Czar,
--
In Vishnu-land what Avatar?
[Mr. Alfred Domett, C.M.G., author of
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1.rt - Brahm, Viu, iva, #Tagore - Poems, #Rabindranath Tagore, #Poetry
Vishnu spreads wide
His four-handed blessing.
--
Vishnu watches -
Beauties arise
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1.rt - Gitanjali, #Tagore - Poems, #Rabindranath Tagore, #Poetry
Beautiful is thy wristlet, decked with stars and cunningly wrought in myriad-coloured jewels. But more beautiful to me thy sword with its curve of lightning like the outspread wings of the divine bird of Vishnu, perfectly poised in the angry red light of the sunset.
It quivers like the one last response of life in ecstasy of pain at the final stroke of death; it shines like the pure flame of being burning up earty sense with one fierce flash.
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2.01 - AT THE STAR THEATRE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
After death the soul of the first was taken to Vaikuntha by the messenger of Vishnu, while that of the second was taken to the nether world of Yama."
PRIYA: "But the mind is not under my control."
--
It was about nine o'clock in the evening. The Mukherji brothers were ready to return to Calcutta. The Master left his seat and began to pace the room and the porch. He could hear the kirtan sung in the Vishnu temple. A devotee said that Harish and Ltu were in the singing party.
Sri Ramakrishna and the devotees went to the Vishnu temple and saluted the Deity. The brahmins belonging to the staff of the temple garden, and also the priests, the cooks, and the servants, were singing the kirtan. He stood there a few minutes and encouraged the singers. On the way back to his room he remarked to the devotees, "You see, some of them polish the metal utensils and some go to houses of prostitution."
The Master returned to his room and took his seat. Presently the singers came and bowed low before him. The Master said to them: "One should perspire, dancing and singing the name of God, as people do earning money. I had thought of joining you in the dancing; but I found that you did everything very well. You had flavoured the curry with all the seasoning. What could I add? It will be nice if you sing devotional songs that way now and then."
--
The next scene is at Navadvip on the bank of the Ganges. After bathing in the holy water, the brahmin men and women engage in worship by the riverside. As they close their eyes, Nimai steals their food offerings and begins to eat them. A brahmin loses his temper and says: "You scapegrace! You rascal! You are taking away my offering for Vishnu. Ruin will seize you." Nimai holds on to the offering and is about to run away.
Many of the women love him dearly and cannot bear to have him go away. They call to him: "Return, O Nimai! Come back, O Nimai!" Nimai turns a deaf ear to them.
--
Nimai has opened a school, but he cannot teach the students any longer. Gangadas, his former teacher, comes to persuade him to direct his attention to his worldly duties. He says to Srivas: "Listen, Srivas! We are brahmins, too, and devoted to the worship of Vishnu. But you people are ruining Nimai's worldly prospects."
MASTER (to M.): "That is the advice of the worldly-wise: Do 'this' as well as 'that'. When the worldly man teaches spirituality he always advises a compromise between the world and God."
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2.01 - Mandala One, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
(7) His, his, this great builders, was the sacrifice of the wine in which Vishnu drank the draught, the delicious food. Vishnu in his mighty violence took by force all that was made ready and shooting his arrows pierced the Boar across the mountain.
(8) To him, to him, to Indra, the Women, the wives of the gods, have woven a song of light in the slaying of the Serpent. He put on for his robe the wide earth and heaven, but they could not encircle his greatness.
--
(5) Yea and ye, O Pushan, Vishnu and thou who movest in all motions, make for us our thoughts such as are led by the rays of illumination and full of happiness.
(6) Sweetness in the winds of life to him who grows in the Truth, sweet for him the rivers of being; sweet for us be its growths.
--
(9) O Mitra, be peace in us, peace Varuna, peace in us Aryaman; peace Indra and Brihaspati, peace Vishnu wide-striding.
***
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2.01 - On Books, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
The Vishnu Purana
Disciple: Are the incidents related in the Purana about Krishna's life psychic representations created by the poet, or do they correspond to facts that had occurred in his life on earth?
--
Disciple: I find the Vishnu Purana very fine.
Sri Aurobindo: In the Vishnu Purana all the aspects of a Purana are nicely described. It is one of the Puranas I have gone through carefully. I wonder how it has escaped the general notice: it is magnificent poetry.
There is a very fine and humourous passage in which a disciple asks the Guru whether the king is riding the elephant, or the elephant the king?
--
Sri Aurobindo: Most probably. In the Vishnu Purana, Buddha is regarded as an Avatar of Vishnu who came to deceive the Asuras. He is not referred to by name but is called Mayamoha. The reference to Buddha is very clear; it repeats "Buddhyaswa! Buddhyaswa." This Purana is a fine work.
18 JANUARY 1939
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2.01 - The Two Natures, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
sattwic, rajasic and tamasic. It is a cosmic veil which the Godhead has spun around our understanding; Brahma, Vishnu and
Rudra have woven its complex threads; the Shakti, the Supreme
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2.02 - The Ishavasyopanishad with a commentary in English, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
forms, Prajna, Hiranyagarbha & Virat, or Vishnu, Brahma and
Maheshwara. This is what the Puranas represent as Vishnu on
the Serpent of Time & Space in the Causal Ocean & Brahma
--
says that it was told by him to Vivasvan, the Vishnu of the
solar system and by him to Manou, the original Thinker in
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2.02 - The Synthesis of Devotion and Knowledge, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
It may be asked how is that devotion high and noble, udara, which seeks God only for the worldly boons he can give or as a refuge in sorrow and suffering, and not the Divine for its own sake? Do not egoism, weakness, desire reign in such an adoration and does it not belong to the lower nature? Moreover, where there is not knowledge, the devotee does not approach the Divine in his integral all-embracing truth, vasudevah. sarvam iti, but constructs imperfect names and images of the Godhead which are only reflections of his own need, temperament and nature, and he worships them to help or appease his natural longings. He constructs for the Godhead the name and form of Indra or Agni, of Vishnu or Shiva, of a divinised Christ or
Buddha, or else some composite of natural qualities, an indulgent God of love and mercy, or a severe God of righteousness and justice, or an awe-inspiring God of wrath and terror and flaming punishments, or some amalgam of any of these, and to that he raises his altars without and in his heart and mind and falls down before it to demand from it worldly good and joy or healing of his wounds or a sectarian sanction for an erring, dogmatic, intellectual, intolerent knowledge. All this up to a certain point is true enough. Very rare is the great soul who knows that Vasudeva the omnipresent Being is all that is, vasudevah. sarvam iti sa mahatma sudurlabhah.. Men are led away by various outer desires which take from them the working
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2.03 - Karmayogin A Commentary on the Isha Upanishad, #Isha Upanishad, #unset, #Zen
highest home of Vishnu towards which it is the one object of
the Upanishad to turn and guide us. The Isha Upanishad is the
--
shaped. He is triple again as Shiva, Brahma, Vishnu; Shiva, the
destroyer, the Yogin, the Lord of brute or inert life; the Master
--
hand for a moment; Vishnu, the Preserver & Saviour, the Master
of Power & Love and Life and Light and Sweetness. With all
--
expressed in the Puranic image of Vishnu, the eternal Purusha,
asleep on the waveless causal ocean with the endless coils of
--
matter is then motionless and it is only when Vishnu awakes, the
snake Ananta stirs and the first ever widening ripples are created
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2.03 - THE MASTER IN VARIOUS MOODS, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"A man becomes very mean if he has lips that are thick, like a dome's. A brahmin was here for a few months acting as priest of the Vishnu temple. I couldn't eat the food he touched. One day I suddenly exclaimed, 'He is a dome!' Afterwards he said to me: 'Yes, sir. We live in the dome quarters. I know how to make wicker baskets and such things, Just like a dome.'
"There are other bad physical signs: one eye and squint eyes. It is rather better to have one eye, but never squint eyes. Squint-eyed people are wicked and deceitful.
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2.06 - WITH VARIOUS DEVOTEES, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"A man born with an element of iva becomes a Jnni; his mind is always inclined to the feeling that the world is unreal and Brahman alone is real. But when a man is born with an element of Vishnu he. develops ecstatic love of God. That love can never be destroyed. It may wane a little now and then, when he indulges in philosophical reasoning, but it ultimately returns to him increased a thousandfold."
After the devotees had left the Master, Mahimacharan brought Hazra to the room. M.
--
At dusk incense was burnt in Sri Ramakrishna's room, and, as usual, he bowed before the pictures of gods and goddesses on the walls and chanted their names softly. From outside one could hear the murmuring of the Ganges and the music of the evening worship in the temples of Kli, Vishnu, and iva. Through the door one could see the priest at a distance moving from one temple to another, a bell in his left hand and a light in his right, an attendant carrying the gong. The evening melody was in harmony with the spirit of the hour and place and with the innermost thoughts of the worshippers. For the time being the sordid things of daily life were forgotten.
Later Sri Ramakrishna was seated in his room in his usual blissful mood. Ishan had come from Calcutta. He had burning faith in God. He used to say, "If a man leaves the house with the hallowed name of Durga on his lips, then iva Himself protects him with His celestial weapons."
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2.07 - The Knowledge and the Ignorance, #The Life Divine, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
featureless Absolute; if the soul or mind of the illusion-driven individual has dreamed of a divine realisation in this ephemeral world of the Ignorance, it must in the end recognise its mistake and renounce its vain endeavour. But still, since there are these two sides of existence, the ignorance of Nature and the light of the Spirit, and since there is behind them the One Reality, the reconciliation or at any rate the bridging of the gulf forecast in the mystic parables of the Veda ought to be possible. It is a keen sense of this possibility which has taken different shapes and persisted through the centuries, - the perfectibility of man, the perfectibility of society, the Alwar's vision of the descent of Vishnu and the Gods upon earth, the reign of the saints, sadhunam rajyam, the city of God, the millennium, the new heaven and earth of the Apocalypse. But these intuitions have lacked a basis of assured knowledge and the mind of man has remained swinging between a bright future hope and a grey present certitude. But the grey certitude is not so certain as it looks and a divine life evolving or preparing in earth Nature need not be a chimera. All acceptations of our defeat or our limitation start from the implied or explicit recognition, first, of an essential dualism and, then, of an irreconcilable opposition between the dual principles, between the Conscient and the
Inconscient, between Heaven and Earth, between God and the
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2.08 - AT THE STAR THEATRE (II), #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"You partake of the nature of him on whom you meditate. By worshipping iva you acquire the nature of iva. A devotee of Rma meditated on Hanuman day and night. He used to think he had become Hanuman. In the end he was firmly convinced that he had even grown a little tail. Jnna is the characteristic of iva, and bhakti of Vishnu. One who partakes of iva's nature becomes a Jnni, and one who partakes of Vishnu's nature becomes a bhakta."
Chaitanya & The Divine Incarnation and the ordinary man M: "But what about Chaitanyadeva? You said he had both knowledge and devotion."
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2.08 - God in Power of Becoming, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Godhead. I am, says the Godhead, Vishnu among the Adityas,
Shiva among the Rudras, Indra among the gods, Prahlada among the Titans, Brihaspati the chief of the high priests of the world,
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2.1.02 - Nature The World-Manifestation, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Krishna, these are the eternal Four, the quadruple Infinite.
Brahma is the Eternal's Personality of Existence; from him all is created, by his presence, by his power, by his impulse.
--
Brahma is Immortality, Vishnu is Eternity, Shiva is Infinity; Krishna is the Supreme's eternal, infinite, immortal selfpossession, self-issuing, self-manifestation, self-finding.
Manifestation, Not Illusion
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2.10 - The Vision of the World-Spirit - Time the Destroyer, #Essays On The Gita, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
has been sown and a harvest that must be reaped. They who have sown the wind, must reap the whirlwind. Nor indeed will his own nature allow him any real abstention, prakr.tis tvam niyoks.yati. This the Teacher tells Arjuna at the close, "That which in thy egoism thou thinkest saying, I will not fight, vain is this thy resolve: Nature shall yoke thee to thy work. Bound by thy own action which is born of the law of thy being, what from delusion thou desirest not to do, that thou shalt do even perforce." Then to give another turn, to use some kind of soul force, spiritual method and power, not physical weapons? But that is only another form of the same action; the destruction will still take place, and the turn given too will be not what the individual ego, but what the World-Spirit wills. Even, the force of destruction may feed on this new power, may get a more formidable impetus and Kali arise filling the world with a more terrible sound of her laughters. No real peace can be till the heart of man deserves peace; the law of Vishnu cannot prevail till the debt to Rudra is paid. To turn aside then and preach to a still unevolved mankind the law of love and oneness? Teachers of the law of love and oneness there must be, for by that way must come the ultimate salvation. But not till the Time-Spirit in man is ready, can the inner and ultimate prevail over the outer and immediate reality. Christ and Buddha have come and gone, but it is Rudra who still holds the world in the hollow of his hand.
And meanwhile the fierce forward labour of mankind tormented and oppressed by the Powers that are profiteers of egoistic force and their servants cries for the sword of the Hero of the struggle and the word of its prophet.
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2.11 - The Modes of the Self, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The distinction between the Personal and the Impersonal is substantially the same as the Indian distinction, but the associations of the English words carry within them a certain limitation which is foreign to Indian thought. The personal God of the European religions is a Person in the human sense of the word, limited by His qualities though otherwise possessed of omnipotence and omniscience; it answers to the Indian special conceptions of Shiva or Vishnu or Brahma or of the Divine Mother of all, Durga or Kali. Each religion really erects a different personal Deity according to its own heart and thought to adore and serve. The fierce and inexorable God of Calvin is a different being from the sweet and loving God of St. Francis, as the gracious Vishnu is different from the terrible though always loving and beneficent Kali who has pity even in her slaying and saves by her destructions. Shiva, the God of ascetic renunciation who destroys all things seems to be a different being from Vishnu and Brahma, who act by grace, love, preservation of the creature or for life and creation. It is obvious that such conceptions can be only in a very partial and relative sense true descriptions of the infinite and omnipresent Creator and Ruler of the universe. Nor does Indian religious thought affirm them as adequate descriptions. The Personal God is not limited by His qualities. He is Ananta-guna, capable of infinite qualities and beyond them and lord of them to use them as He will, and He manifests Himself in various names and forms of His infinite godhead to satisfy the desire and need of the individual soul according to its own nature and personality. It is for this reason that the normal European mind finds it so difficult to understand Indian religion as distinct from Vedantic or Sankhya philosophy, because it cannot easily conceive of a personal God with infinite qualities, a personal God who is not a Person, but the sole real Person and the source of all personality. Yet that is the only valid and complete truth of the divine Personality.
The place of the divine Personality in our synthesis will best be considered when we come to speak of the Yoga of devotion; it is enough here to indicate that it has its place and keeps it in the integral Yoga even when liberation has been attained. There are practically three grades of the approach to the personal Deity; the first in which He is conceived with a particular form or particular qualities as the name and form of the Godhead which our nature and personality prefers365; a second in which He is the one real Person, the All-Personality, the Ananta-guna; a third in which we get back to the ultimate source of all idea and fact of personality in that which the Upanishad indicates by the single word Lie without fixing any attributes. It is there that our realisations of the personal and the impersonal Divine meet and become one in the utter Godhead. For the impersonal Divine is not ultimately an abstraction or a mere principle or a mere state or power and degree of being any more than we ourselves are really such abstractions. The intellect first approaches it through such conceptions, but realisation ends by exceeding them. Through the realisation of higher and higher principles of being and states of conscious existence we arrive not at the annullation of all in a sort of positive zero or even an inexpressible state of existence, but at the transcendent Existence itself which is also the Existent who transcends all definition by personality and yet is always that which is the essence of personality.
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2.13 - On Psychology, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Disciple: Does the Christian Trinity correspond to Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva?
Sri Aurobindo: No. The Indian trinity refers to cosmic powers which preside over certain movements in the universe. The 'Son' in the Christian Trinity means perhaps the Divine in man. The 'Holy Ghost' symbolises the Divine Consciousness.
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2.14 - AT RAMS HOUSE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
MASTER: "It can't be said that bhaktas need Nirvna. According to some schools there is an eternal Krishna and there are also His eternal devotees. Krishna is Spirit embodied, and His Abode also is Spirit embodied. Krishna is eternal and the devotees also are eternal. Krishna and the devotees are like the moon and the stars-always near each other. You yourself repeat: 'what need is there of penance if God is seen within and without?' Further, I have told you that the devotee who is born with an element of Vishnu cannot altogether get rid of bhakti.
Once I fell into the clutches of a Jnni, who made me listen to Vednta for eleven months. But he couldn't altogether destroy the seed of bhakti in me. No matter where my mind wandered, it would come back to the Divine Mother. Whenever I sang of Her, Nangta would weep and say, 'Ah! What is this?' You see, he was such a great Jnni and still he wept. (To the younger Naren and the others) Remember the popular saying that if a man drinks the juice of the lekh creeper, a plant grows inside his stomach. Once the seed of bhakti is sown, the effect is inevitable: it will gradually grow into a tree with flowers and fruits.
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2.15 - CAR FESTIVAL AT BALARMS HOUSE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
"Purna was born with an element of Vishnu. I worshipped him mentally with bel-leaves; but the offering was not accepted. Then I worshipped him with tulsi-leaves and sandal-paste. That proved to be all right. God reveals Himself in many ways: sometimes as man, sometimes in other divine forms made of Spirit. One must believe in divine forms.
What do you say?"
--
He was born with an element of Vishnu. Ah, what yearning he has!
(To M.) "Didn't you notice that he looked at you as if you were his spiritual brother, his very own? He said he would visit me again, at Captain's house.
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2.15 - On the Gods and Asuras, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Then comes the world of the Gods, below the Supermind and behind the manifestation. The Gods of the Hindu culture Shiva, Vishnu, etc. are names and representations in the mind, but they point to the Gods who represent the Divine Principles governing the manifestation of the universe. There is a hierarchy of these beings.
Below this is the manifested universe. The purpose of this manifestation is to go back to the Ananda.
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2.16 - VISIT TO NANDA BOSES HOUSE, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
The first picture was of Vishnu with four arms. At the very sight of it Sri Ramakrishna was overwhelmed with ecstasy; he sat down on the floor and remained a few minutes in that spiritual mood.
In the second picture Rma was blessing Hanuman, with His hand on the devotee's head. Hanuman's gaze was fixed on Rma's Lotus Feet. The Master looked at the picture a long time and exclaimed with great fervour, "Ah me! Ah me!"
--
The fourth was of Vmana, the Dwarf, who was an Incarnation of Vishnu. The Master looked intently at this picture.
Next the Master looked at a picture of Nrisimha, and then at one of Krishna with a herd of cows. Krishna was tending the cows with His cowherd friends on the bank of the Jamuna at Vrindvan. M. said, "A lovely picture!"
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2.17 - December 1938, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo: Oh, it was the descent of Vishnu's Ananda!
Disciple: It is very peculiar how I break out into uncontrolled laughter so easily. Formerly, I used to weep at the slightest provocation. I think it is because I live in the external consciousness only that I laugh so easily. Is it not?
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2.18 - January 1939, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Sri Aurobindo: Yes. They regard Bala Gopal as the Delight aspect or the Delight-Consciousness; but there are older schools of Vaishnavism that regarded Krishna as an Avatar of Vishnu.
Disciple: Krishna of Kurukshetra is, I suppose, the one who gave the Gita.
Sri Aurobindo: The one who spoke the Gita is the Vishnu aspect.
Disciple: Arjuna could not bear his sight and had to ask him to resume his human form.
Sri Aurobindo: In the Vishnu Purna all the aspects of Vishnu are nicely described. It is one of the Puranas I have read through carefully. I wonder how it has escaped general notice because it is magnificent poetry.
There is a humorous passage in it, where a disciple asks the Guru whether the king is on the elephant or the elephant on the king. (Laughter)
--
Sri Aurobindo: Most probably. In the Vishnu Purna, Buddha is regarded an Avatar of Vishnu who came to deceive the Asuras. He is not referred to by that name but is called Mayamoha. The reference to Buddha is very clear; it repeats, "Budhyaswa! Budhyaswa!" It is a fine work.
Disciple: It is said that the Tantras are derived from the Vedas.
--
Sri** Aurobindo:** I don't know. He is very kind to the demons also. He gives them very inconvenient boons and finds it difficult to wriggle out afterwards. He is a God who does not care for consequences. Generally Vishnu or somebody else has to come in to save the situation.
Disciple: Krishna is hard to please, they say.
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2.19 - THE MASTER AND DR. SARKAR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
A few days before, at Girish's invitation, Doctor Sarkar had seen his play about Buddha's life. He said to M.: "It would have been better to speak of Buddha as the Incarnation of Compassion. Why did he speak of him as an Incarnation of Vishnu?"
The doctor set M. down at the corner of Cornwallis Square.
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2.21 - 1940, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
Disciple: That makes the conflict between the Devas and the Asuras as represented in the Puranas very realistic even for our times. Because generally the Devas used to get beaten by the Asuras and run for protection to Mahakali or Rudra or Vishnu.
Sri Aurobindo: It is only the intervention of the Divine that can become effective, for in this Hitler and Stalin affair it is the descent of the whole vital world on this earth. That is what has puzzled most people, especially the intellectuals who were thinking in terms of idealism. They never expected such a thing; and now when it has come they don't understand how it has come and what is to be done. They deny the existence of the worlds beyond the physical and so they are bound to be perplexed.
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2.21 - IN THE COMPANY OF DEVOTEES AT SYAMPUKUR, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
A few minutes afterwards Narendra entered the room with a friend, whom he introduced to the Master as an author. Sri Ramakrishna talked with him about the metaphysical significance of Radha and Krishna. The author said that Radha and Krishna were the Supreme Brahman. Vishnu, iva, Durga, and the other deities had sprung from them.
Different aspects of Radha
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2.2.4 - Taittiriya Upanishad, #Kena and Other Upanishads, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
far-striding Vishnu be peace to us. Adoration to the Eternal.
Adoration to thee, O Vaiou. Thou, thou art the visible Eternal
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2.25 - AFTER THE PASSING AWAY, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Brahma Vishnu Sadasiva.
Hara Hara Hara Mahadeva!
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2.25 - List of Topics in Each Talk, #Evening Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
| 17-01-39 | Vishnu Purna: Krishna, Buddha |
| 18-01-39 | Huxley's Ends and Means: Napoleon, Caesar, Kamal Pasha, Gandhi; avatars and religions |
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| 17-01-39 | Shakti; Bhakti; Impersonal and Personal God; Vishnu Purna; Veda, Tantra, Vedanta |
| 19-01-39 | Problems of society, communes; propaganda, morality; psychic and evolution; saints and yogis; boons of Krishna and Shiva; Bhakti, Jnana, Buddhism |
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2.3.02 - The Supermind or Supramental, #Letters On Yoga I, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
(5) If we regard Vaikuntha or Goloka each as the world of a Divinity, Vishnu or Krishna, we would be naturally led to seek its place or its origin in the Overmind plane. The Overmind is the plane of the highest worlds of the Gods. But Vaikuntha and Goloka are human conceptions of states of being that are beyond humanity. Goloka is evidently a world of Love, Beauty and Ananda full of spiritual radiances (the cow is the symbol of spiritual light) of which the souls there are the keepers or possessors, Gopas and Gopis. It is not necessary to assign any single plane to this manifestation - in fact there can be a reflection or possession of it or of its conditions on any plane of consciousness - the mental, vital or even the subtle physical plane. The explanation of it which you mention is not therefore excluded, it is quite feasible.
(6) It is not possible to situate Nirvana as a world or plane, for the Nirvana push is to a withdrawal from world and worldvalues; it is therefore a state of consciousness or rather of superconsciousness without habitation or level. There is more than one kind of Nirvana (extinction or dissolution) possible. Man being a mental being in a body, manomaya purus.a, makes this attempt at retreat from the cosmos through the spiritualised mind, he cannot do otherwise and it is this that gives it the appearance of an extinction or dissolution, laya, nirvan.a; for extinction of the mind and all that depends on it including the separative ego in something Beyond is the natural way, almost the indispensable way for such a withdrawal. In a more affirmative Yoga seeking transcendence but not withdrawal there would not be this indispensability, for there would be the way already alluded to of self-exceeding or transformation of the mental being. But it is possible also to pass to that through a certain experience of Nirvana, an absolute silence of mind and cessation of its activities, constructions, representations which can be so complete that not only to the silent mind but also to the passive senses the whole world is emptied of its solidity and reality and things appear only as unsubstantial forms without
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2.4.02 - Bhakti, Devotion, Worship, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
3) Ravana, Hiranyakashipu, Shishupala were the greatest devotees of the Divine because they were capable of hostility to the Divine and so were liberated in a few livescompared with them the great Rishis and Bhaktas were very poor spiritual vessels. I am aware of the paradox about Ravana in the Purana, but let me point out that these Asuras and Rakshasas did not pretend to be disciples or worshippers of Rama or Krishna or Vishnu or use their position as disciples to get moksha by revolt they got it by being enemies and getting killed and absorbed into the Godhead.
4) Obedience to the Guru, worship of the Divine are all tommy rot and fit only for sheep, not men. To turn round furiously on the Guru or the Divine, abuse him, express contempt, challenge his sincerity, declare his actions to be wrong, foolish or a trickto assert oneself as right at every point and his judgment as mistaken, prejudiced, absurd, false, a support of devils etc. etc. is the best way of devotion and the true relation between Guru and Shishya. Disobedience is the highest respect to the Guru, anger and revolt are the noblest worship one can give to the Divine.
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24.02 - Notes on Savitri I, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
Remember Vishnu's Garuda
Durga's lion
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24.05 - Vision of Dante, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 06, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
The Heaven is composed of many circles or regions, tier upon tier, a hierarchy of worlds. They are inhabited by saints and holy persons of various degrees of merit; the greater the merit the higher the status of their dwelling. Dante describes the first Heaven, it is the moon; and then follow one by one many of the planets. He saw the habitat of saints and holy persons each busy with his own occupation, some studying, some meditating, some assembled in a group engaged in conversation and so on. We too, we have in India many heavenly lokas,Brahmaloka, Shivaloka, Vishnuloka, Janaloka, Goloka, inhabited by various types of gods and spiritual siddhas. We have Hell too in India, an underworld Patala or Rasatala - they are supposed to be seven in number! Our Heavens too are seven. Dante became very curious to know more of the mind of the holy persons - their thoughts and experiences. When they reached one of these worlds, he told Beatrice: "I would like to talk to one of these saints." "Yes, you can." Then he approached one and asked him: "You are happy here?" - "Yes" - "You do not feel monotonous and bored?" The answer was, "No, not at all." "You do not long to rise higher and higher upward in your ascent to greater heavens? You have no impulse to progress in this way?" Answer: "No, I am content with what I have and where I am. I rely on God's will, whatever He has decided I accept without question. As long as 'He wishes me to be in a particular place or in a particular condition I obey unquestioningly. All things and happenings are equal to me. This is what I have learnt. In His will lies our peace. E'n la sua volontade nostra pace.3
Apart from the saints and sages and wise men (theologians) of Christendom, the higher Heavens sheltered also non-human, that is to say, godly or divine beings - angels and archangels, cherubs and seraphs - powers of Love, powers of Knowledge - Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Principalities, as Dante names them - various grades and modes of the divine force and energy - or, as we say, Personalities and Emanations.
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2 - Other Hymns to Agni, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
4. Aryaman for them and Mitra and Varuna, Indra, Vishnu
and the Maruts and the Ashwins do thou well-horsed, wellcharioted, great in the joy of achievement, bring now, O
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offering? What seed of things to wide-striding Vishnu, or
what, O Fire, to vast doom?
--
step3 of Vishnu is founded within, thou guardest by it the
secret name of the Ray-Cows.
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3. Vishnu knowing rightly the supreme plane of this Fire, born
in his vastness, guards the third (plane); when in his mouth
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30.09 - Lines of Tantra (Charyapada), #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
It is said that the Way of Knowledge follows the Way of Works, Vedanta comes after Veda. This is as true from the outward, historical point of view as it is true of the lines of inner change. As I have already explained, man begins his career as a vital-physical being, becomes a mental being at a later stage. But the trouble is that when he goes beyond his vital being into the mental, he tends to pass beyond mind into the gnosis and forgets his life and body; this is what is known as Nihilism or the Vedantic Illusionism. But as a social being, man has remained what he was, a being of the physical and vital planes, and these cannot be ignored, nor is it proper to do so. It is here that Tantra steps in. That is why I have said that Tantricism has found a ready acceptance among those who are concerned particularly with the physical life, the "natural men". These men have been derided and despised by orthodox Vedantists and by men at the top of the social hierarchy. That is why the Tantrics have had to form esoteric groups and often remain for ages hidden like an underground stream; they have been submerged in the lower reaches of society. They have taken as their chosen deity, not Durga or Lakshmi, nor Brahma or Vishnu, but Kali and Karali, Chandi and Baguli. In the words of one of these poets: .
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3.05 - The Divine Personality, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
He is Vishnu, Krishna, Kali; he reveals himself to us in humanity as the Christ personality or the Buddha personality. When we look beyond our first exclusively concentrated vision, we see behind Vishnu all the personality of Shiva and behind Shiva all the personality of Vishnu. He is the Ananta-guna, infinite quality and the infinite divine Personality which manifests itself through it. Again he seems to withdraw into a pure spiritual impersonality or beyond all idea even of impersonal Self and to justify a spiritualised atheism or agnosticism; he becomes to the mind of man an indefinable, anirdesyam. But out of this unknowable the conscious Being, the divine Person, who has manifested himself here, still speaks, ''This too is I; even here beyond the view of mind, I am He, the Purushottama.''
For beyond the divisions and contradictions of the intellect there is another light and there the vision of a truth reveals itself which we may thus try to express to ourselves intellectually. There all is one truth of all these truths; for there each is present and justified in all the rest. In that light our spiritual experience becomes united and integralised; no least hair's breadth of real division is left, no shade of superiority and inferiority remains between the seeking of the Impersonal and the adoration of the divine Personality, between the way of knowledge and the way of devotion.
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3.08 - The Mystery of Love, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
This is what is called in Yoga the is.t.a-devata, the name and form elected by our nature for its worship. In order that the human being may embrace this Godhead with every part of himself, it is represented with a form that answers to its aspects and qualities and which becomes the living body of God to the adorer. These are those forms of Vishnu, Shiva, Krishna, Kali, Durga, Christ,
Buddha, which the mind of man seizes on for adoration. Even the monotheist who worships a formless Godhead, yet gives to him some form of quality, some mental form or form of Nature by which he envisages and approaches him. But to be able to see a living form, a mental body, as it were, of the Divine gives to the approach a greater closeness and sweetness.
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3.1.02 - Who, #Collected Poems, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Is He Brahma or Vishnu? a man or a woman?
Bodied or bodiless? twin or alone?
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31.03 - The Trinity of Bengal, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
RAMMOHAN, Bankimchandra, Vivekananda - these three personalities represent the three steps in the process of evolution in modern Bengal. Like the three strides of Vishnu these three great souls have occupied three stages of the evolving consciousness of Bengal. The soul of modern Bengal awoke in Rammohan, and then its mind blossomed in Bankim, subsequently its life-energy burst forth in Vivekananda.
In fact we may generalise that all disciplines and ways of creation proceed in the same order. The truth that is to manifest in the material world in a concrete physical form appears at first in an apperception of the inner heart, hrdi pratisya.The mind then seizes upon it and gives a manifest more distinct and secures vitality and leaving the core it starts revealing itself without. Finally, it incarnates in a body, possesses a gross physical form, becomes concrete and real.
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3.1.23 - The Rishi, #Collected Poems, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In Vishnu's house where wide Love builds his nest,
My feet have stood.
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3.1.24 - In the Moonlight, #Collected Poems, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Of Vishnu speeds down to enring the earth.
The old shall perish; it shall pass away,
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3.2.03 - Conservation and Progress, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
If we consider carefully we shall see that the past is indeed a huge force of conservation, but of conservation that is not immobile, but on the contrary offers itself as material for change and new realisation; that the present is the constant change and new actual realisation which the past desires and compels; and that the future is that force of new realisation not yet actual towards which the past was moving and for the sake of which it lived. Then we perceive that there is no real opposition between these three; we see that they are parts of a single movement, a sort of Trinity of Vishnu-Brahma-Maheshwara fulfilling by an inseparable action the one Deity. Yet the human mind in its mania of division and opposition seeks to set them at strife and ranges humanity into various camps, the partisans of the past, the partisans of the present, the partisans of the future, the partisans of all sorts of compromises between the three forces. Nature makes good use of the struggle between these partisans and her method is necessary in our present state of passionate ignorance and egoistic obstinacy; but none the less is it from the point of view of a higher knowledge a pitiably ignorant struggle.
The partisans of the future call themselves the party of progress, the children of light and denounce the past as ignorant, evil, a mass of errors and abuses; their view alone has the monopoly of the light, the truth, the gooda light, good and truth which will equally be denounced as error and evil by succeeding generations. The partisans of the present look with horror upon all progress as an impious and abominable plunge into error and evil and degeneration and ruin; for them the present is the culmination of humanity,as previous present times were for all the preceding generations and as the future which they abhor will be for these unprogressive souls if they should then reincarnate; they will then defend it with the same passion and asperity against another future as they now attack it in the interests of the present. The partisans of the past are of two kinds. The first admit the defects of the present but support it in so far as it still cherishes the principles of the high, perfect, faultless, adorable past, that golden age of the race or community, and because even if somewhat degenerate, its forms are a bulwark against the impiety of progress; if they admit any change, it is in the direction of the past that they seek it. A second kind condemn the present root and branch as degenerate, hateful, horrible, vicious, accursed; they erect a past form as the hope of a humanity returning to the wisdom of its forefa thers. And to such quarrels of children the intellectuals and the leaders of thought and faith lend the power of the specious or moving word and the striking idea and the emotional fervour or religious ardour which they conceive to be the very voice and light and force of Truth itself in its utter self-revelation.
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32.06 - The Novel Alchemy, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
What is this world that is to be the fruit of the new spiritual realisation? Where will it be? It would appear to be a supraphysical and transcendent realisation. Chardin has clearly suggested that the new earth will not be anything like a planet renovated into a "sidereal" body illumined by its own light and not that of another. It will not be a thing of the gross material world at all. It would rather come into being as if by rending through the old earth and destroying it, almost as a result of a universal catastrophe, pralaya.Would it then be something non-material? If it were to be made up of pure consciousness, then it might be termed the realisation of Brahman,the Brahmic status. Is then evolution of the manifested universe moving towards this final destruction or dissolution? Or else is the new world to be conceived as something belonging to the supra-physical? But the supra-physical world too has its planes, and this new world may be the field of a spiritual realisation somewhere among these planes beyond life, mind and the above-mind. The Vedantins speak of the world of Brahman, they aim at realising the grand status of Brahman, brahma-loke mahiyate.But theirs is. something outside the created universe, beyond manifestation. The Vaishnavas have spoken of a highest spiritual world, go-taka,which is within the manifestation. The Christians too speak of their Heaven. We also hear of the world of Shiva, the world of Vishnu; these too are not entirely outside the manifestation or created universe. Does then Chardin aim at something overmental, utterly beyond and above the mind?
In the vision of Sri Aurobindo, the process of creation is not merely an ascent and upward movement, it has a movement of descent too. There is not merely a crossing of levels upon levels, not merely a progressive purification, enlargement, deepening, intensification and sharpening of the consciousness and status; the aim is to transfigure all in the image of the divine being. This process involves a going upward and a, descent with a view to reshape the lower reaches anew in the mould of the heights, not a final extinction, nirvana,in the world of Brahmanby a rejection of all individuality and collectivity. No level of the created universe has to be bypassed or abolished, not even the lowest material plane. On the contrary, the aim is to take one's stand on this material plane itself and transmute it into a new matter, even as the secret aim of the old alchemists had been to transmute the base metal into gold.
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3.2.08 - Bhakti Yoga and Vaishnavism, #Letters On Yoga II, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
At any rate Ramakrishna told the story of Narada and the ascetic Yogi and the Vaishnava Bhakta with approval of its moral. I put it in my own language but keep the substance. Narada on his way to Vaikuntha met a Yogi practising hard tapasya on the hills. O Narada, cried the Yogi, you are going to Vaikuntha and will see Vishnu. I have been practising terrific austerities all my life and yet I have not even now attained to Him. Ask Him at least for me when I shall reach Him. Then Narada met a Vaishnava, a Bhakta who was singing songs to Hari and dancing to his own singing, and he cried also, O Narada, you will see my Lord, Hari. Ask my Lord when I shall reach Him and see His face. On his way back Narada came first to the Yogi. I have asked Vishnu; you will realise Him after six more lives. The Yogi raised a cry of loud lamentation, What, so many austerities! such gigantic endeavours! and my reward is realisation after six long lives! O how hard to me is the Lord Vishnu. Next Narada met again the Bhakta and said to him, I have no good news for you. You will see the Lord, but only after a lakh of lives. But the Bhakta leapt up with a great cry of rapture, Oh, I shall see my Lord Hari! after a lakh of lives I shall see my Lord Hari! How great is the grace of the Lord. And he began dancing and singing in a renewed ecstasy. Then Narada said, Thou hast attained. Today thou shalt see the Lord! Well, you may say, What an extravagant story and how contrary to human nature! Not so contrary as all that and in any case hardly more extravagant than the stories of Harishchandra and Shivi. Still I do not hold up the Bhakta as an example, for I myself insist on the realisation in this life and not after six or a lakh of births more. But the point of these stories is in the moral and surely when Ramakrishna told it, he was not ignorant that there was a sunlit path of Yoga! He even seems to say that it is the quicker way as well as the better! You are quite mistaken in thinking that the possibility of the sunlit path is a discovery or original invention of mine. The very first books on Yoga I read more than thirty years ago spoke of the dark and sunlit way and emphasised the superiority of the second over the other.
It is not either because I have myself trod the sunlit way or flinched from difficulty and suffering and danger. I have had my full share of these things and the Mother has had ten times her full share. But that was because the finders of the Way had to face these things in order to conquer. No difficulty that can come on the sadhak but has faced us on the path; against many we have had to struggle hundreds of times (in fact that is an understatement) before we could overcome; many still remain protesting that they have a right until the perfect perfection is there. But we have never consented to admit their inevitable necessity for others. It is in fact to ensure an easier path to others hereafter that we have borne that burden. It was with that object that the Mother once prayed to the Divine that whatever difficulties, dangers, sufferings were necessary for the path might be laid on her rather than on others. It has been so far heard that as a result of daily and terrible struggles for years those who put an entire and sincere confidence in her are able to follow the sunlit path and even those who cannot, yet when they do put the trust find their path suddenly easy and, if it becomes difficult again, it is only when distrust, revolt, abhiman, or other darknesses come upon them. The sunlit path is not altogether a fable.
--
The difference of view between Shankara and Ramanuja and on the other side Chaitanya about Krishna arises from the turn of their experience. Krishna was only an aspect of Vishnu to the others because that ecstatic form of love and bhakti which had become associated with Krishna was not for them the whole. The Gita, like Chaitanya, but from a different viewpoint, regarded Krishna as the Divine himself. To Chaitanya he was Love and Ananda, and Love and Ananda being for him the highest transcendental experience, so Krishna too must be the Supreme. For the writer of the Gita, Krishna was the source of Knowledge and Power as well as Love, the Destroyer, Preserver, Creator in one, so necessarily Vishnu was only an aspect of this universal Divine. In the Mahabharat indeed Krishna comes as an incarnation of Vishnu, but that can be turned by taking it that it was through the Vishnu aspect as his frontal appearance that he manifested, for that the greater Godhead can manifest later than others is logical if we consider the manifestation as progressive,just as Vishnu is in the Veda a younger Indra, Upendra, but gains upon his elder and subsequently takes place above him in the Trimurti.
I cannot say much about the Vaishnava idea of the form of Krishna. Form is the basic means of manifestation and without it it may be said that the manifestation of anything is not complete. Even if the Formless logically precedes Form, yet it is not illogical to assume that in the Formless, Form is inherent and already existent in a mystic latency, otherwise how could it be manifested? For any other process would be the creation of the non-existent, not manifestation. If so, it would be equally logical to assume that there is an eternal form of Krishna, a spirit body. As for the highest Reality, it is no doubt absolute Existence, but is it only that? Absolute Existence as an abstraction may exclude everything else from itself and amount to a sort of very positive zero; but Absolute Existence as a realitywho shall define and say what is or is not in its inconceivable depths, its illimitable Mystery? Mind can ordinarily conceive of the Absolute Existence only as a negation of its own concepts spatial, temporal or other. But it cannot tell what is at the basis of manifestation or what manifestation is or why there is any manifestation at all out of its positive zero and the Vaishnavas, we must remember, do not admit this conception as the absolute and original truth of the Divine. It is therefore not rigidly impossible that what we conceive and perceive as spatial form may correspond to some mysterious power of the spaceless Absolute. I do not say all that as a definite statement of Truth, I am only pointing out that the Vaishnava position on its own ground is far from being logically or metaphysically untenable.
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3.3.01 - The Superman, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Deva and the Asura laboured together to churn the ocean of life for the supreme draught of immortality, but, once it had been won, Vishnu kept it for the God and defrauded the fiercer and more violent worker. And this seems unjust; for the Asura has the heavier and less grateful portion of the burden. He begins and leads; he goes his way hewing, shaping, planting: the God follows, amends, concludes, reaps. He prepares fiercely and with anguish against a thousand obstacles the force that we shall use: the other enjoys the victory and the delight. And therefore to the great God Shiva the stained and stormy Titan is very dear,
- Shiva who took for himself the fierce, dark and bitter poison first churned up from the sea of life and left to others the nectar.
--
Therefore the award of Vishnu stands; to the God shall fall the crown and the immortality and not, unless he divinise himself, to the proud and strenuous Asura.
The Superman
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33.07 - Alipore Jail, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 07, #Nolini Kanta Gupta, #Integral Yoga
This first phase of our life was over by the end of a month and a half. The scene now opened to still brighter prospects. As the authorities discovered that we meant no harm and were perfectly good boys, they offered us a much nicer place for our stay. It was a spacious hall divided into three compartments, with a verandah and a courtyard in front. And our daily ablutions were now to be performed outside. This second phase of our life became something truly remarkable. Outside, in court, we met everybody. Back home, in the jail, we could meet anyone we chose at any hour of the day or night. Gradually, the company began to take a particular form and shape. We formed ourselves into groups according to each one's taste and predilection. Thus the three compartments of the hall came to be divided into three distinct groups. Sri Aurobindo occupied a corner in a particular room. Hitherto he had been kept quite separate from us and this was the first time he came in our midst. In his room gathered all those who were interested in the spiritual life, in sadhana and meditation. Barin joined here. To the central section of the apartments came those who looked for some kind of mental culture, they were the more "intellectual" types. Here Upen took the lead and I too spent most of my time here because of him, The third compartment belonged to the atheists and rationalists, the so-called "practical" men, Hem Das and his chief disciple young Krishnajiban ruled here. The groups exchanged banter freely among themselves, but there was never any dearth of good feeling and friendship. It was again during this period itself that we got permission to read books, and a few volumes reached our hands. My people sent me Bacon's Essays,Shakespeare's King John- I still remember these titles - and several other titles of the type used in my college as textbooks. Some works of Vivekananda came and also the Brahmavaivarta and the Vishnu Puranas in the Basumati edition. All of these books we went through over and over again, times without number, for new books could not be had for the asking.
But questionings too began to arise: and what next? Must we rot in jail for the rest of our lives, say for ten years or perhaps twenty? And supposing some of us were to be hanged, that too did not seem to be a particularly desirable end. Barin got an idea: we must break out of jail. Our lives, he argued, were going to be wasted in any case, so why not do something worthwhile before we lost all? He consulted some of the others and began to form his plans. Even maps and charts got ready and contacts were established with co-workers outside, such as the Chandernagore group with men like Srish Ghosh at the top. The idea was to carry out the coup sometime in the evening when we were usually left at large in the pen compound of our ward. With pistols in hand, we were to rush to the compound wall. Our friends would be posted outside with their arms. From there they would throw in ropes and ladders. We would keep on shooting as we climbed up the wall and then jump on to the other side. From there we would make good our escape in carriages - there were no cars then - along a route fixed in advance and straight to the river-side. There the boats would be waiting. We would sail down the river and on to the Sunderbans and the deep jungle, as in the story of Debi Chowdhuraniof Bankim.
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34.10 - Hymn To Earth, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
The twin Aswins have measured her out; upon her Vishnu strode wide. Indra, the Lord of the Lights, for his own sake, has freed her of enemies.
That wide material earth of ours as a mother to her son pours out her sweet drink for us.
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34.11 - Hymn to Peace and Power, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
May Mitra be Peace and Grace to us. May Varuna be Peace and Grace to us. May Aryaman be Peace and Grace to us. May lndra be Peace and Grace to us. May Brihaspati be Peace and Grace to us. May the vast-ranging Vishnu be Peace and Grace to us.
(10)
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35.05 - Hymn To Saraswati, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
She is ever adored by Brahma and Vishnu and Shiva
and all the Gods.
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3.6.01 - Heraclitus, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
In the Veda, in the early language of the Mystics generally, the names of the elements or primary principles of Substance were used with a clearly symbolic significance. The symbol of water is thus used constantly in the Rig Veda. It is said that in the beginning was the inconscient Ocean out of which the One was born by the vastness of His energy; but it is clear from the language of the hymn that no physical ocean is meant, but rather the unformed chaos of inconscient being in which the Divine, the Godhead lay concealed in a darkness enveloped by greater darkness. The seven active principles of existence are similarly spoken of as rivers or waters; we hear of the seven rivers, the great water, the four superior rivers, in a context which shows their symbolic significance. We see this image fixed in the Puranic mythus of Vishnu sleeping on the serpent Infinite in the milky ocean. But even as early as the Rig Veda, ether is the highest symbol of the Infinite, the apeiron of the Greeks; water is that of the same Infinite in its aspect as the original substance; fire is the creative power, the active energy of the Infinite; air, the life-principle, is spoken of as that which brings down fire out of the ethereal heavens into the earth. Yet these were not merely symbols. The Vedic Mystics held, it is clear, a close connection and effective parallelism to exist between psychical and physical activities, between the action of Light, for instance, and the phenomena of mental illumination; fire was to them at once the luminous divine energy, the Seer-Will of the universal Godhead active and creative of all things, and the physical principle creative of the substantial forms of the universe, burning secretly in all life.
It is doubtful how far the earlier Greek philosophic thinkers preserved any of these complex conceptions in their generalisations about the original principle. But Heraclitus has clearly an idea of something more than a physical substance or energy in his concept of the ever-living Fire. Fire is to him the physical aspect, as it were, of a great burning creative, formative and destructive force, the sum of all whose processes is a constant and unceasing change. The idea of the One which is eternally becoming Many and the Many which is eternally becoming One and of that One therefore not so much as stable substance or essence as active Force, a sort of substantial Will-to-become, is the foundation of Heraclitus' philosophy.
--
Because of this insistence on the relativity of good and evil, Heraclitus is thought to have enunciated some kind of supermoralism; but it is well to see carefully to what this supermoralism of Heraclitus really amounts. Heraclitus does not deny the existence of an absolute; but for him the absolute is to be found in the One, in the Divine,-not the gods, but the one supreme Divinity, the Fire. It has been objected that he attributes relativity to God, because he says that the first principle is willing and yet not willing to be called by the name of Zeus. But surely this is to misunderstand him altogether. The name Zeus expresses only the relative human idea of the Godhead; therefore while God accepts the name, He is not bound or limited by it. All our concepts of Him are partial and relative; "He is named according to the pleasure of each." This is nothing more nor less than the truth proclaimed by the Vedas, "One existent the sages call by many names." Brahman is willing to be called Vishnu, and yet he is not willing, because he is also Brahma and Maheshwara and all the gods and the world and all principles and all that is, and yet not any of these things, neti neti. As men approach him, so he accepts them. But the One to Heraclitus as to the Vedantin is absolute.
This is quite clear from all his sayings; day and night, good and evil are one, because they are the One in their essence and in the One the distinctions we make between them disappear. There is a Word, a Reason in all things, a Logos, and that Reason is one; only men by the relativeness of their mentality turn it each into his personal thought and way of looking at things and live according to this variable relativity. It follows that there is an absolute, a divine way of looking at things. "To God all things are good and just, but men hold some things to be good, others unjust." There is then an absolute good, an absolute beauty, an absolute justice of which all things are the relative expression. There is a divine order in the world; each thing fulfils its nature according to its place in the order and in its place and symmetry in the one Reason of things is good, just and beautiful precisely because it fulfils that Reason according to the eternal measures. To take an example, the world war may be regarded as an evil by some, a sheer horror of carnage, to others because of the new possibilities it opens to mankind, it may seem a good. It is at once good and evil. But that is the relative view; in its entirety, in its fulfilment in each and all of its circumstances of a divine purpose, a divine justice, a divine force executing itself in the large reason of things, it is from the absolute point of view good and just-to God, not to man.
--
But when we seek among Heraclitus' sayings for the human application of his great fundamental thoughts, we are disappointed. He gives us little direct guidance and on the whole leaves us to draw our own profit from the packed opulence of his first ideas. What may be called his aristocratic view of life, we might regard possibly as a moral result of his philosophical conception of Power as the nature of the original principle. He tells us that the many are bad, the few good and that one is to him equal to thousands, if he be the best. Power of knowledge, power of character,-character, he says, is man's divine force,-power and excellence generally are the things that prevail in human life and are supremely valuable, and these things in their high and pure degree are rare among men, they are the difficult attainment of the few. From that, true enough so far as it goes, we might deduce a social and political philosophy. But the democrat might well answer that if there is an eminent and concentrated virtue, knowledge and force in the one or the few, so too there is a diffused virtue, knowledge and force in the many which acting collectively may outweigh and exceed isolated or rare excellences. If the king, the sage, the best are Vishnu himself, as old Indian thought also affirmed, to a degree to which the ordinary man, prākṛto janaḥ, cannot pretend, so also are "the five", the group, the people. The Divine is samaṣṭi as well as vyaṣṭi, manifested in the collectivity as well as in the individual, and the justice on which Heraclitus insists demands that both should have their effect and their value; they depend indeed and draw on each other for the effectuation of their excellences.
Other sayings of Heraclitus are interesting enough, as when he affirms the divine element in human laws,-and that is also a profound and fruitful sentence. His views on the popular religion are interesting, but move on the surface and do not carry us very far even on the surface. He rejects with a violent contempt the current degradation of the old mystic formulas and turns from them to the true mysteries, those of Nature and of our being, that Nature which, as he says, loves to be hidden, is full of mysteries, ever occult. It is a sign that the lore of the early Mystics had been lost, the spiritual sense had departed out of their symbols, even as in Vedic India; but there took place in Greece no new and powerful movement which could, as in India, replace them by new symbols, new and more philosophic restatements of their hidden truths, new disciplines, schools of Yoga. Attempts, such as that of Pythagoras, were made; but Greece at large followed the turn given by Heraclitus, developed the cult of the reason and left the remnants of the old occult religion to become a solemn superstition and a conventional pomp.
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36.07 - An Introduction To The Vedas, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
However, to be at home in the central theme of the Vedas, the method that we should follow is: to proceed from the known to the unknown. In the Vedic texts we often come across some important words that admit of no ambiguity. With the help of the obvious meanings of these words we have to find out the implications of the words partly obscure or totally obscure. In the Vedas there are such mantras (incantations), sentences and words in abundance which reflect modern ideas and appear quite familiar to the present-day intellect. It is at once advisable and reasonable to accept such self-evident meanings. It is of no avail to leave aside such clear meanings and seek out roundabout abstruse meanings on the ground that what we are dealing with are the Vedas, the writings of hoary antiquity. Ekam sad vipra bahudha vadanti (The one Truth is expressed differently by the men of knowledge) or, tat Visno param padam...diviva cakuratatam (That is the supreme Status of Vishnu, as if an Eye wide open in the heavens) or, Brhaspatih prathamam jayama mano jyotisah parame Vyoman (Brihaspati being born first as a great Light in the supreme Heaven)-the meanings of these words are by no means obscure or ambiguous. The meanings as well as the ideas with which these words are infused are quite plain and clear enough. These expressions convey no indication of the lisping of the babe or an aborigine or an uncultured mind or even a ritualistic mind. Here we find expressions of a mature mind enlightened with knowledge flowing from a profound realisation of Truth. Neither the befitting rhythm nor rhyme is missing. Further,
Codayitri sunrtanam cetanti sumatinam
--
Not to speak of the Upanishads, even in the Puranas, the Mahabharata and such other scriptures we come across many peculiarities worth noticing. If we just carefully study these religious books of ours, we do learn that there are many names, places, stories and legends which are but outer garments or transfigurations of some truth-principles. One or two instances will serve our purpose. According to the Puranas the name of Surya's wife samja - "consciousness". If we accept the Vedic meaning of Surra as the source of truth, then it does not become difficult for us to understand the significance of this word. Again, let us take the word "Goloka". Goloka is the dwelling-place of Vishnu. If we take the word "go" for light, the light of supernal knowledge, then devanamuparistacca gavah prativasanti vai ("The Ray-Cows dwell even above the gods") of the Mahabharata can no longer remain abstruse or ambiguous to us.
Now the legend of Savitri-Satyavan arrests our attention. The very names Savitri and Satyavan are immediately inspiring truths. In the Vedas the Truth-Sun is synonymous with Savitr. As Purusha he is Satyavan, and Savitri is his Shakti. Every aspirant is aware of the fact that it is the Truth's own faith and power that can free the Truth from the grip of Matter, Ignorance and Death. However, one may not believe that whatsoever the Puranas say must be based on some truth or other. Nevertheless, we do not hesitate to assert that at the core of the teaching of the Puranas there lies a truth-secret - a Vedic or Upanishadic realisation. The Puranas too have an esoteric meaning based on the truth of the Vedic and Upanishadic realizations which have been colourfully related in the form of stories and legends for the easy comprehension of the masses.
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38.06 - Ravana Vanquished, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
I could also understand if the great Vishnu spread
His net of duplicity, cast his spell of darkness
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38.07 - A Poem, #Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol 08, #unset, #Zen
But Vishnu and Rudra are one body, they are only different limbs
Have you forgotten it? Have you forgotten that the very fount of kindness
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3.8.1.05 - Occult Knowledge and the Hindu Scriptures, #Essays In Philosophy And Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
worlds, - invisible, that is to say, to our physical senses, - in the Vishnu Purana, but it is picturesque rather than precise. We do not think he will find much about the constituents of the worlds or the size of subtle bodies.
The form of the third question lends itself to misconception.
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3 - Commentaries and Annotated Translations, #Hymns to the Mystic Fire, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
is an echo of this use in the Vishnu Purana when it is said that
Vishnu is born in the Satya Yuga as Yajna, in the Treta as the
--
- although the God of the vaidyuta energy is Vishnu himself
who is the Lord of the ananda, the vaidyuto manavah, electrical
Man, of the Upanishads. In the vijnana, Surya as well as Vishnu
is greater than Agni, but here he and Vishnu both work under
the dominant energy of Agni and for the satisfaction of Indra,
- Vishnu in the Upanishads being younger than Indra, - Upendra. Translated into the language of physics, this means that
Agni, commanding as he does heat and cold, is the fundamental
--
will naturally arise, how Vishnu, the supreme Lord, can be the
Upendra of the Vedas. The answer is that, whatever energy is
--
taken up by Vishnu-Virat as his especial care. We have seen that
the Ananda is now highest in the developed evolution. Vishnu is
therefore now preeminently the Lord of the Ananda and when
--
plane of Vishnu's manifestation, the param dhama; rather it is
a special function here in the lowest dhama. Upendratwa is not
--
reality y. is the name of the Supreme Lord Vishnu himself;
it also means Dm or yog, and by a later preference of meaning it
--
y. is Vishnu, in the sense of the Almighty Ruler, the Master of
man's action, body, thought, the supreme Lord ruling from the
--
of Vishnu it meant, predominantly, the Master who directs,
compels and governs; but the idea of the Lover and Beloved,
--
The Vishnu Purana tells us that Vishnu in the Satya Yuga
incarnates as Yajna, in the Treta as the conqueror and king, in the
--
preventing its collapse. Vishnu incarnates as the Kshatriya, the
incarnate centre of viryam and tapas. In the Dwapara, the
--
bhogaishwaryagatim prati. Vishnu incarnates as the lawgiver,
ritualist and Shastrakara to preserve the knowledge and practice
--
again incarnate as Yajna, the supreme Vishnu in the full manifestation of the chatuspad dharma, knowledge, power, enjoyment
and love.
It has been said that Vishnu in our present stage of evolution is preeminently the Lord of the Ananda, but he is also the
Sanmay Brahman and the Tapomay. It is as the Sanmay that He
--
fourth of the seven bhumis, - that Vishnu as Yajna supports the
dharma and yoga in the Satya Yuga. He is the Sad Brahma in
--
intelligence in the Sad Brahman, Yajna or Vishnu. The Shakti
begins creation by kshobha or ecstatic vibration in the calm Sad
--
seen, is Vishnu, Vasudeva or Brahman, in the Sacchidananda
or Parardha on the intellectual plane, which is all man in the
--
the Almighty, the Lord, Vishnu, Ishwara; or, action, or yoga; or,
sacrifice. All three senses have to be taken into consideration in
--
y.-y. y. is acknowledged to be a name for Vishnu, for
the Supreme Lord, and the Supreme is not a sacrifice. We must
--
established for y., by the application to Vishnu and Agni, continued at a time when the etymological justification had been
lost; the sense of sacrifice is established by the universal later
--
Aryaman, Varuna & Mitra of these, Indra & Vishnu, the Maruts
and the Aswins, do thou, O Agni, good in thy steeds, good in
--
good sacrificer, the giver of the oblation? what offence to Vishnu
wide-striding hast thou told? what to Sri of the Vastness (or Sri
--
or Force, the Energy of Vishnu.
8. kTA fDAy mztAmtAy
--
Maruts, Rudra, Vishnu, Saraswati, with the object of provoking
by the sacrifice the gifts of the gods, - cows, horses, gold and
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4.14 - The Power of the Instruments, #The Synthesis Of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The next instrument which needs perfection is the citta, and within the complete meaning of this expression we may include the emotional and the pure psychical being. This heart and psychic being of man shot through with the threads of the life-instincts is a thing of mixed inconstant colours of emotion and soul vibrations, bad and good, happy and unhappy, satisfied and unsatisfied, troubled and calm, intense and dull. Thus agitated and invaded it is unacquainted with any real peace, incapable of a steady perfection of all its powers. By purification, by equality, by the light of knowledge, by a harmonising of the will it can be brought to a tranquil intensity and perfection. The first two elements of this perfection are on one side a high and large sweetness, openness, gentleness, calm, clarity, on the other side a strong and ardent force and intensity. In the divine no less than in ordinary human character and action there are always two strands, sweetness and strength, mildness and force, saumya and ramdra, the force that bears and harmonises, the force that imposes itself and compels, Vishnu and Ishana, Shiva and Rudra. The two are equally necessary to a perfect world-action. The perversions of the Rudra power in the heart are stormy passion, wrath and fierceness and harshness, hardness, brutality, cruelty, egoistic ambition and love of violence and domination. These and other human perversions have to be got rid of by the flowering of a calm, clear and sweet psychical being.
But on the other hand incapacity of force is also an imperfection. Laxity and weakness, self-indulgence, a certain flabbiness and limpness or inert passivity of the psychical being are the last result of an emotional and psychic life in which energy and power of assertion have been quelled, discouraged or killed. Nor is it a total perfection to have only the strength that endures or to cultivate only a heart of love, charity, tolerance, mildness, meekness and forbearance. The other side of perfection is a self-contained and calm and unegoistic Rudra-power armed with psychic force, the energy of the strong heart which is capable of supporting without shrinking an insistent, an outwardly austere or even, where need is, a violent action. An unlimited light of energy, force, puissance harmonised with sweetness of heart and clarity, capable of being one with it in action, the lightning of Indra starting from the orb of the nectarous moon-rays of Soma is the double perfection. And these two things saumyatva, tejas, must base their presence and action on a firm equality of the temperament and of the psychical soul delivered from all crudity and all excess or defect of the heart's light or the heart's power.
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4.1 - Jnana, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
from which he came and Shiva himself and Brahma and Vishnu and OM all-exceeding.
159. He who recognises not Krishna, the God in man, knows not God entirely; he who knows Krishna only, knows not even
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4.2 - Karma, #Essays Divine And Human, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
223. If I cannot be Rama, then I would be Ravana; for he is the dark side of Vishnu.
224. Sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice always, but for the sake of God and humanity, not for the sake of sacrifice.
--
334. Family, nationality, humanity are Vishnu's three strides from an isolated to a collective unity. The first has been fulfilled, we yet strive for the perfection of the second, towards the third we are reaching out our hands and the pioneer work is already attempted.
335. With the present morality of the human race a sound and durable human unity is not yet possible; but there is no reason why a temporary approximation to it should not be the reward of strenuous aspiration and untiring effort. By constant approximations and by partial realisations and temporary successes
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5.1.02 - The Gods, #Letters On Yoga I, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva are only three Powers and Personalities of the One Cosmic Godhead.
Brahma is the Power of the Divine that stands behind formation and creation.
As for Vishnu being the creator, all the three Gods are often spoken of as creating the universe - even Shiva who is by tradition the Destroyer.
There is no particular connection between Shiva and the Overmind - the Overmind is the higher station of all the Gods.
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5.2.03 - The An Family, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Vishnu (cf Isha Up.
divine Life)
--
, soul, spirit (cf anala and anila as names of Vishnu); nevertheless, the trend of the significance is towards physical or substantial existence,
, to live,
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5.3.04 - Roots in M, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
From the same idea of limitation we get another shade of significance, the sense of confinement, control, containing or contents,or embrace.We find as a name of Shiva, Brahma & Vishnu who embrace & control all things, , contents, substance, wealth, welfare. The cases of
, , etc spring from the same idea of I as the containing self. The mother who bears or contains the child in her womb is , . means too the Goddess of Wealth. This root also gives us , continent, contents, substance, wealth, limit. itself means to be in, contained. From we have , that which we embrace, a friend, lover and who in the Veda, is the God of the emotions, containing, comprising, made of, to comprehend, know. From , meaning bondage, confinement, to bind or fasten, anything bound, collected, woven together. From , , a pot, vessel, cavity, hollow. From this sense of depth, hollowness we get the idea of a deep sound, murmur, roar, bellow; to roar, sound, Latin mugire, to bellow; from , rustle, murmur, the wind-haunted, rustling pine-tree.
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5.4.01 - Notes on Root-Sounds, #Vedic and Philological Studies, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Name of Vishnu (Virat-purusha
in ).
--
in the sense of Vishnu had in its origin any connection of dependence with
, the first letter of the sacred syllable; both rather proceed from a single & common origin,
to be, in the widest sense of the idea, being primal, all pervading, vague and indefinable. Hence it is applicable to any of the three great deities who occupy & represent infinite & universal being, Vishnu, Shiva or Brahma; by a natural figure emphatic of the sense of it became applicable to Vaiswanara or Virat Purusha. By transference to the idea of pervasive life & movement to Vayu, the god of wind, breath & the life principle. Cf
, .
--
fifth Vasu .. N of Vasudevasoul.. Vishnu..Supreme spirit
Vedic thus, hereby, indeed
--
wind .. Vishnu
a man
--
Vishnu Shiva
thus, then. Cf etc.
--
teacher, Brihaspati .. Pushya .. God .. Vishnu.
worship, reverence .. image
--
Brahman, Vishnu
the soul
--
Vishnu Play?
a turners la the curve.
--
Vishnu , ? play, please
the Southern elephant.
--
, Vishnus mace.
+ youthful.. maidenly..
--
Son of Indra; Shiva, Vishnu.
daughter of Indra .. Durga .. flag, banner .. Dasera barley.
--
a syllabic foot (three longs) .. Name of Br., Vishnu, Siva or Yama .. the fifth note in music ()
Water; happiness, welfare.
--
death, decease.. Yama .. Brahma, Vishnu, Kali, Maya.. god of love.
to hurt, kill.
--
Vishnu; quicksilver; a precious stone; a kind of drum; one of the nine treasures.
a kind of grain; onion.
--
district in west Bengal; a mountain tribe; name of Vishnu.
field; high ground; wood near village; fraud, deceit.
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6.0 - Conscious, Unconscious, and Individuation, #The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, #Carl Jung, #Psychology
73 Vishnu is described as damodara, 'bound about the body with a rope.' I am
not sure whether this symbol should be considered here; I mention it only for
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9.99 - Glossary, #The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
Brahma: The Creator God; the First Person of the Hindu Trinity, the other two being Vishnu and Siva.
brahmachari: A religious student devoted to the practice of spiritual discipline; a celibate belonging to the first stage of life. See four stages of life.
--
Goloka: The Celestial Abode of Vishnu.
Gopala: The Baby Krishna.
--
Hari: God; a name of Vishnu, the Ideal Deity of the Vaishnavas.
Haridas: A disciple of Sri Chaitanya.
--
Jagannath: The Lord of the Universe; a name of Vishnu.
Jagannath: temple The celebrated temple at Puri.
--
Lakshmi: The Consort of Vishnu and Goddess of Fortune.
lila: The divine play; the Relative.The creation is often explained by the Vaishnavas as the lila of God, a conception that introduces elements of spontaneity and freedom into the universe. As a philosophical term, the Lila (the Relative) is the correlative of the Nitya (the Absolute).
--
Narayana: A name of Vishnu.
Narayani: The Consort of Narayana; a name of the Divine Mother.
--
Prahlada: A great devotee of Vishnu, whose life is described in the Purana. While a boy, he was tortured for his piety by his father, the demon King Hiranyakasipu. The Lord, in His Incarnation as Man-lion, slew the father.
Prakriti: Primordial Nature, which, in association with Purusha, creates the universe. It is one of the categories of the Samkhya philosophy.
--
Siva: The Destroyer God; the Third Person of the Hindu Trinity, the other two being Brahma and Vishnu.
six passions: Namely, lust, anger, avarice, delusion, pride, and envy.
--
tulsi: A plant sacred to Vishnu.
Tulsi(das): A great devotee of Rama and the writer of a life of Rama.
--
Vaishnava: (Lit., follower of Vishnu) A member of the well-known dualistic sect of that name, generally the followers of Sri Chaitanya in Bengal and of Ramanuja and Madhva in south India.
vaisya: The third or merchant caste in Hindu society.
--
Vishnu: The Preserver God; the Second Person of the Hindu Trinity, the other two being Brahma and Siva; the Personal God of the Vaishnavas.
Visishtadvaita: The philosophy of Qualified Non-dualism.
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BOOK II. -- PART I. ANTHROPOGENESIS., #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
* In the Purana it is identified with Vishnu's or Brahma's Sveta Dwipa of Mount Meru.
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 367 HERMES IN ASTRONOMY AND ELSEWHERE.
--
** In Vishnu-Purana, Book II., chap. 3, 4, et seq., may be found many corroborations of the same, if
one reads carefully. The reigns of gods, lower gods, and men are all enumerated in the descriptions of
--
had detected him in his theft, denounced him to Vishnu, who placed him in the stellar spheres, the
upper portion of his body representing the Dragon's head and the lower (Ketu) the Dragon's tail; the
--
the thousand-headed Serpent, on which Vishnu rests, down to Python, the dragon serpent oracle, all
point to the secret meaning of the myth. In India we find the fact mentioned in the earliest Puranas.
The children of Surasa are the "mighty Dragons." The Vayu Purana replacing "Surasa" (of Vishnu
Purana) by Danayas or Danavas -- the descendants of Danu by the sage Kasyapa -- and those Danavas
--
land in which "the day of the mortal lasts six months and his night another six months." As the Vishnu
Purana has it: "for the North of Meru there is, therefore, always night during day in other regions; for
--
region) and Atlantis. Now the former is the abode of Vishnu, exoterically, and Atala is a hell. He also
places it in the Euxine or Icshu (Black) Sea, and then seems to connect it, in another place, with Africa
--
Ocean, or Ocean of milk (the ever-frozen white region) in the Vishnu (and other) Puranas (Book II ch.
iv.). And Pushkara, with its two Varshas, lies directly at the foot of Meru. For it is said that "the two
--
and again in a mountain quite different from the others (in Western Africa). Jambu-dwipa is Vishnu's
dominion -- the world, limited in the Puranas to our globe, the region which contains Meru only, and
--
of Brahma, of Vishnu, and the Olympus of Indian exoteric religions, is described geographically as
"passing through the middle of the earth-globe, and protruding on either side" (Surya Siddhanta, v. 5,
--
Avatars of Vishnu are said to come originally from the White Island. According to Tibetan tradition
the White Island is the only locality which escapes the general fate of other dwipas and can be
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BOOK II. -- PART III. ADDENDA. SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
view of the statement in the Vishnu Purana, quoted by us elsewhere, that Daksha "established sexual
intercourse as the means of multiplication," only after a series of other "modes," which are all
--
symbolized their deity as the Hindus do their Vishnu, as the Egyptians did their Mystery God, and as
the builders of the Ohio Great-Serpent mound worshipped theirs -- namely under the form of the
--
Poseidonis, or the (last) island of Atlantis "the third step of Idaspati" (or Vishnu) in the mystic
language of the secret books -- lasted till about 12,000 years ago.** The Atlantes of Diodorus were
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BOOK II. -- PART II. THE ARCHAIC SYMBOLISM OF THE WORLD-RELIGIONS, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
especially when considered with symbol marks on sacr,** 'Chakra,' or Circle of Vishnu.
"But let me carry your description a step further: -- You say 'The One from
--
use of a circular relation taken from the Chakra (or Vishnu) and, as stated above, the
Divine manifestation takes the form of life and the first born."
--
Universe, is shown growing out of Vishnu's navel, the Central point in the Waters of Infinite Space,
and whereas Horus springs from the lotus of the Celestial Nile -- all these abstract pantheistic ideas are
--
but, in its turn, a copy of some scripture of a prehistoric religion. . . . . "In the Krita age, Vishnu, in the
form of Kapila and other (inspired sages) . . . imparts to the world true wisdom as Enoch did. In the
--
And at the end of the Kali, our present age, Vishnu, or the "Everlasting King" will appear as Kalki,
and re-establish righteousness upon earth. The minds of those who live at that time shall be awakened,
--
found in the Vishnu Purana, Book II., ch. xii., where, describing [[continued on following page]]
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 489 THE ONE PASSIVE DEITY.
--
left hand. When Vishnu Purana narrates that "the world was overrun with trees," while the Prachetasas - who "passed 10,000 years of austerity in the vast ocean" -- were absorbed in their devotions, the
allegory relates to the Atlanteans and the adepts of the early Fifth Race -- the Aryans. Other "trees
--
* Vishnu Purana, Book I., ch. xv.
** This is pure allegory. The waters are a symbol of wisdom and of occult learning. Hermes
--
A commentary on the Puranas says: "Ananta-Sesha is a form of Vishnu, the Holy Spirit of
Preservation, and a symbol of the Universe, on which it is supposed to sleep during the intervals of the
--
interchangeable at times. For example, the Chakra, or Disk of Vishnu, is a circle. The names denote
the circling, wheeling round, periodicity, the wheel of time. This the god uses as a weapon to hurl at
--
the Healer and the Destroyer. In the Vishnu Purana, he is the god who springs from the forehead of
Brahma, who separates into male and female, and he is the parent of the Rudras or Maruts, half of
--
Sisumara, one of the Avatars of Vishnu), has the Cross placed on it by nature in its division and
localisation of stars, planets and constellations. Thus in Bhagavata Purana V., xxx., it is said that "at
--
Cross and Circle, into the formation of which enters the Deity (symbolized by Vishnu), the Eternal
Circle of Boundless Time, Kala, on whose plane lie crossways all the gods, creatures, and creations
--
in the Bhagavata Purana XII., II, 2, 6, 32, and Vishnu Purana. Says the latter: "When the splendour of
Vishnu (Krishna) departed for heaven, then did the Kali Yug, during which men delight in sin, invade
--
This is demonstrated by the Hindu Wittoba -- a form of Vishnu -- as said already. The figure of
Wittoba, even to the nail-marks on the feet,* is that of Jesus crucified, in all its details save the Cross;
--
which Vishnu (who is Kala, "time") is shown to ride -- is the origin of all other such allegories. He is
the Indian phoenix, the emblem of cyclic and periodical time, the "man-lion" Singha, of whose
--
Garuda* is that of the great cycle, the "Maha-Kalpa" co-eternal with Vishnu, and also, of course, the
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the translator of Vishnu Purana, declares in his Preface that in the Garuda Purana he found "no
account of the birth of Garuda." Considering that an account of "Creation" in general is given therein,
and that Garuda is co-eternal with Vishnu, the Maha Kalpa, or Great Life-Cyc Ie, beginning with and
ending with the manifesting Vishnu, what other account of Garuda's birth could be expected !
** Vide Revelation xvii., verses 2 and 10; and Leviticus xxiii., verses 15 to 18; the first passage
--
this day in India (Vide Wilson's Vishnu Purana, Vol. III. p. 309). Have geologists ever calculated the
number of millenniums it has taken the sea to recede to where it is now, from Hardwar, 1,024 feet
--
very fact of Bhagavata Purana calling that Kapila -- which it showed just before as a portion of Vishnu
-- the author of Sankhya philosophy, ought to have warned the reader of a blind containing an esoteric
--
when Vishnu is shown in the form of Kapila, "imparting to all creatures true Wisdom"; for this relates
to that primordial period when "the Sons of God" taught to the just created men the arts and sciences,
--
him who rests on the golden lotos (padma) floating on the water." In India it is Vishnu (one of whose
avatars was Budha, as claimed in days of old). The Prachetasas, the worshippers of Narayana (who,
--
connected with Oannes, the Babylonian Dag, and further also with the (fish) Avatar of Vishnu,
Matsya, both teaching mortals Wisdom. The Dolphin, as every mythologist knows, was placed for his
--
Kumaras who went to visit Vishnu on the "White Island" (Sveta-dwipa) the island inhabited by the
Maha Yogins -- they are connected with Sakadwipa and the Lemurians and Atlanteans of the Third
--
country the sign of Vishnu, yet in truth it is the symbol of the Triad (or the Trimurti). For, even in the
exoteric rendering, the lower triangle
with the apex downward, is the symbol of Vishnu, the god
of the moist principle and water ("Nara-yana," or the moving Principle in Nara, water;**) while the
--
** See the Mahabharata, e.g., III., 189, 3, where Vishnu says, "I called the name of water nara in
ancient times, and am hence called Narayana, for that was always the abode I moved in" (Ayana). It is
--
is entitled Vishnu, from the root Vis 'to enter' or 'pervade,' for all the gods, the Manus, the Seven
Rishis, the Sons of the Manu, the Indras, all are but the impersonated potencies (Vibhutayah) of
Vishnu" (Vish. Purana). Vishnu is the Universe; and the Universe itself is divided in the Rig Veda into
seven regions -- which ought to be sufficient authority, for the Brahmins, at all events.
--
Remembering that the Puranas insist on the identity of Vishnu with Time and Space*; and that even
the Rabbinical symbol for God is MAQOM, "Space," it becomes clear why, for purposes of a
--
* Vishnu is all -- the worlds, the stars, the seas, etc., etc. " Vishnu is all that is, all that is not . . . . but is
not Vastubhuta," "a substance" ( Vishnu Purana, Book II. ch. xii). "That which people call the highest
--
"presiding gods, the Rishis and Sons of the Manus" being identical. (See Book III. ch. 1 of Vishnu
Purana.) "Six" Manvantaras are given, the Seventh being our own in the Vishnu Purana. The Vayu
Purana furnishes the nomenclature of the Sons of the fourteen Manus in every Manvantara, and the
--
** In Vishnu Purana, Book II., chap. iv., it is stated that the EARTH, "with its continents, mountains,
oceans, and exterior shell, is fifty crores (500 millions) of yojanas in extent," to which the
--
three strides of Vishnu; his ascending higher step, being taken in the highest world (A. V., VII., 99, 1,
cf. I 155, 5). It is the divo rajah, or the "sky," as they take it. But it is something besides this in
--
Let the impartial critic compare the two accounts -- the Vishnu Purana and the Bible -- and he will
find that the "seven creations" of Brahma are at the foundation of the "week" of creation in Genesis i.
--
supernal creatures, i.e., made himself fourfold, or the manifest Quaternary (see Vishnu Purana, Book
I. ch. V.); and who, after that, is re-born in the seven Rishis, his Manasaputras, "mind-born sons," who
--
primal Progenitor -- Brahma (see Wilson's footnote in his Vishnu Purana, Vol. I., p. 102). Because
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* As Mahat (universal intelligence) is first born, or manifests, as Vishnu, and then, when it falls into
matter and develops self-consciousness, it becomes Egoism, Selfishness, so Manas is of a dual nature.
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BOOK I. -- PART I. COSMIC EVOLUTION, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
Hindus were even now almost Christians, because their Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesa were no other
than the Christian trinity."* It was a good lesson. It made the Oriental scholars doubly cautious; but
--
* The very names of the two chief deities, Brahma and Vishnu, ought to have long ago suggested their
esoteric meanings. For the root of one, Brahmam, or Brahm, is derived by some from the word Brih,
"to grow" or "to expand" (see Calcutta Review, vol. lxvi., p. 14); and of the other, Vishnu, from the
root Vis, "to pervade," to enter in the nature of the essence; Brahma- Vishnu being this infinite
--
found in Aryan philosophy personified by Visvakarman, Indra, Vishnu, etc., etc. Still they are
expressed very philosophically, and under many unusual aspects, in the work referred to.
--
hypostases of the manifesting "Spirit of the Supreme Spirit" (by which title Prithivi -- the Earth -greets Vishnu in his first Avatar) -- are the purely metaphysical abstract qualities of formation,
preservation, and destruction, and are the three divine Avasthas (lit. hypostases) of that which "does
--
not perish with created things" (or Achyuta, a name of Vishnu); whereas the orthodox Christian
separates his personal creative Deity into the three personages of the Trinity, and admits of no higher
--
(lower fifth principle). It is beautifully expressed in a new translation of Vishnu Purana. "That Brahma
in its totality has essentially the aspect of Prakriti, both evolved and unevolved (Mulaprakriti), and
--
* It is stated in Book II., ch. viii., of Vishnu Purana: "By immortality is meant existence to the end of
the Kalpa;" and Wilson, the translator, remarks in a footnote: "This, according to the Vedas, is all that
--
"Mother of the World," as translated by Wilson (see Book I., Vishnu Purana); for Jagad Yoni (as
shown by FitzEdward Hall) is scarcely so much "the Mother of the World" or "the Womb of the
--
is explained in Vishnu Purana as: "that which is the unevolved cause, is emphatically called by the
most eminent sages Pradhana, original base, which is subtile Prakriti, viz., that which is eternal, and
--
stated in Vishnu Purana, where elements are translated "Envelopes" and a secret one is added: "Ahamkara" (see Wilson's Vishnu Purana, Book I., p. 40). The original text has no "Aham-kara;" it mentions
seven Elements without specifying the last three (see Part II. on "The Mundane Egg").
--
WHICH IN ITSELF IS THREE (the triple hypostases of Brahma, or Vishnu, the three "Avasthas"),
CURDLES AND SPREADS IN MILK-WHITE CURDS THROUGHOUT THE DEPTHS OF
--
Creators. Hence, also, the Hindu serpent Sesha or Ananta, "the Infinite," a name of Vishnu, whose first
Vahan or vehicle on the primordial waters is this serpent.* Yet they all made a difference between the
--
from the other. Sesha or Ananta, "the couch of Vishnu," is an allegorical abstraction, symbolizing
infinite Time in Space, which contains the germ and throws off periodically the efflorescence of this
--
Mind, Thought, etc.), before it manifests itself as Brahma or Siva, appears as Vishnu, says Sankhya
Sara (p. 16); hence Mahat has several aspects, just as the logos has. Mahat is called the Lord, in the
--
Kumara in Vishnu Purana) will be explained in Book II. The "Sea of Fire" is then the Super-Astral
(i.e., noumenal) Light, the first radiation from the Root, the Mulaprakriti, the undifferentiated Cosmic
--
descended on the Apostles like "cloven tongues of fire," (Acts ii. v. 3); Vishnu will return on Kalki, the
White Horse, as the last Avatar amid fire and flames; and Sosiosh will be brought down equally on a
--
Vishnu and Surya in the early character of the (first) God; for Vishnu is not a high god in the Rig
Veda. The name Vishnu is from the root vish, "to pervade," and Fohat is called the "Pervader" and the
Manufacturer, because he shapes the atoms from crude material.* In the sacred texts of the Rig Veda,
--
Seven regions of the Universe in three steps, the Vedic God having little in common with the Vishnu
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students of old religions. The "three strides of Vishnu" through the "seven regions of the Universe," of
the Rig Veda, have been variously explained by commentators as meaning "fire, lightning and the Sun"
--
leader. Zero-ana, is the Chakra or circle of Vishnu, the mysterious emblem which is, according to the
definition of a mystic, "a curve of such a nature that as to any, the least possible part thereof, if the
--
This double Triangle is a sign of Vishnu, as it is Solomon's seal, and the Sri-Antara of the Brahmins.
------STANZA V. -- (Continued.)
--
Logos as the first emanation. It is that of Vishnu in India (the Chakra, or wheel), and the glyph of the
Tetragrammaton, the "He of the four letters" or -- metaphorically -- "the limbs of Microprosopos" in
--
the Pitris into seven classes, three of which are arupa (bodiless) and four with bodies. (See Vishnu
Purana, Book I.) They are in fact more truly our Pitris (ancestors) than the Pitris who projected the first
--
of the seven Kumaras who go to Sveta-Dvipa to worship Vishnu. We shall see further on, what
connection there is between the "celibate" and chaste sons of Brahma, who refuse "to multiply," and
--
Word or the Logos. This is easy to demonstrate; for it is shown in the following sentences in Vishnu
Purana: "In the beginning there was neither day nor night, nor sky, nor earth, nor darkness, nor light. . .
--
translation of the Vishnu Purana he is guilty of the most ludicrous contradictions and errors. So on this
identical subject of the seven Prakritis or the seven zones of Brahma's egg, the two accounts differ
--
texts); and in vol. v., p. 198, of the same Vishnu Purana it is written, "in this manner were the seven
forms of nature (Prakriti) reckoned from Mahat to Earth" (?). Between Mahat or Maha-Buddhi and
--
Avatar of Vishnu, the Chaldean Oannes -- the Man-Fish, recorded in the imperishable sign of the
Zodiac, Pisces, and running throughout the two Testaments in the personages of Joshua "Son of the
--
Compare this with Vishnu Purana.
"From Pradhana (primordial substance) presided over by Kshetrajna (embodied Spirit?) proceeds the
--
the Indian Asclepios, and calls upon Vishnu in his triple hypostasis.
"Glory to the unchangeable, holy, eternal Supreme Vishnu, of one universal nature, the mighty over
all; to him who is Hiranyagarbha, Hari, and Sankara (Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva), the creator, the
preserver, and the destroyer of the world; to Vasudeva, the liberator (of his worshippers); to him
--
to Vishnu the cause of final emancipation, the cause of the creation, existence, the
[[Vol. 1, Page]] 287 ALONE THE ETERNAL IS REST.
--
they spring into conscious existence in every Sun, is what some people call Vishnu (see foot-note
below), which is the Breath of the ABSOLUTENESS.
--
sevenfold Sun and distinct from it," says Vishnu Purana (Book II., Chap. 1 1).
*** "In the same manner as a man approaches a mirror placed upon a stand, beholds in it his own
image, so the energy or reflection of Vishnu (the Sun) is never disjoined but remains in the Sun as in a
mirror that is there stationed" (" Vishnu Purana").
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BOOK I. -- PART III. SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
the ancient Aryans for knowledge, that even such glaring passages as in Book I. chap. ii, Vishnu
Purana, are left without any notice. Nevertheless, what can this sentence mean? -- "Then Ether, air,
--
that substance the bodies of the inhabitants of Vaikuntaloka (the heaven of Vishnu), the gods, are
formed. That every particle or atom of Prakriti contains Jiva (divine life), and is the sarira (body) of
--
essentially prakriti (Nature) and Spirit. For the two aspects of Vishnu which are other than his
supreme essential aspect are prakriti and Spirit, and Brahman. When these two other ASPECTS of his
--
* Book I. ch. II. Vishnu Purana, Fitzedward Hall's Translation.
** Vide preceding Section IX., "Life, Force, and Gravity," quotation from Anugita.
--
elephants, as easily as it would a dead rat. It is allegorised in the Vishnu Purana, in the Ramayana and
other works, in the fable about the sage Kapila whose glance made a mountain of ashes of King
--
what of the further facts that Brahmins also connect their "Messiah," the eternal Avatar Vishnu, with a
fish and the Deluge, and that the Babylonians made of their Dag-On, equally a fish and a Messiah, the
--
In India, Fohat is the scientific aspect of both Vishnu and Indra, the latter older and more important in
the Rig Veda than his sectarian successor; while in Egypt Fohat was known as Toum issued of Noot,*
--
literature "Sveta-Dwipa," "Mount Meru," the abode of Vishnu, etc., etc.; and in the Secret Doctrine is
simply named the land of the "Gods" under their chiefs the "Spirits of this Planet."
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BOOK I. -- PART II. THE EVOLUTION OF SYMBOLISM IN ITS APPROXIMATE ORDER, #The Secret Doctrine, #H P Blavatsky, #Theosophy
therein' (like Vishnu and Dagon or Oannes), 'which (first) destroyed the great sea' . . . . . and he was
great and mighty and 'Ancient of Days,' until he swallowed all the other fishes in the (Great) Sea . . . R.
--
carries Vishnu through the Manvantara, from the original primordial Sesha, whose seven heads
become "one thousand heads" in the Puranic fancy, down to the seven-headed Akkadian Serpent. This
--
of Hrada. After that, owing to a device of Vishnu, to whom the conquered gods applied for help, the
latter defeated the Asuras. In the Vishnu Purana no interval is found between the two wars. In the
Esoteric Doctrine, one war takes place before the building of the Solar system; another, on earth, at
--
by the gods to Vishnu are curious as showing the ideas involved in an anthropomorphic deity. Having,
after their defeat, "fled to the Northern shore of the Milky Ocean (Atlantic Ocean),** the discomfited
--
the illusive form assumed by Vishnu Mayamoha, was attri buted in later rearrangements of old texts to
Buddha and the Daityas, in the Vishnu Purana, unless it was a fancy of Wilson himself. He also
fancied he found an allusion to Buddhism in Bhagavatgita, whereas, as proved by K. T. Telang, he
--
futile, fallacious, contradictory, or improbable." (See Vishnu Purana, trans. by Wilson, edit. by
Fitzedward Hall, Vol. V., Appendix.)
--
of beings, the divine Vishnu," and among others this one: "Glory to thee, who art one with the Saints,
whose perfect nature is ever blessed. . . . Glory to thee, who art one with the Serpent-race, doubletongued, impetuous, cruel, insatiate of enjoyment and abounding with wealth. . . . Glory to thee, . . . .
--
Satan, the great enemy of Vishnu, and the King of the three worlds -- into whose heart Vishnu
entered.
--
Vishnu by the defeated gods, the explanation is there, in the text of Vishnu Purana, if Orientalists
would only notice it.* There is Vishnu, as Brahma, and Vishnu in his two aspects, philosophy teaches.
There is but one Brahma, "essentially prakriti and Spirit," &c.
Therefore, it is not Vishnu -- "the inert cause of creation" -- which exercised the functions of an active
Providence, but the Universal Soul, that which E. Levi calls Astral Light in its material aspect. And
--
Wilson failed to see how Vishnu, in this character, closely resembles the Lord God of Israel,
"especially in his policy of deception, temptation, and cunning."
In the Vishnu Purana this is made as plain as can be. For it is said there, that "at the conclusion of their
prayers (stotra) the gods beheld the Sovereign Deity Hari ( Vishnu) armed with the conch, the discus,
--
place. Vishnu, therefore, is the deity in space and time; the peculiar God of the Vaishnavas (a tribal or
racial God, as they are called in esoteric philosophy): i.e., one of the many Dhyanis or Gods, or
--
judge by the dead-letter narratives, or to accept allegorically. If we compare the two -- Vishnu, as the
defender and champion of the defeated gods; and Jehovah, the defender and champion of the "chosen"
--
(Genesis xii., Exodus) -- Vishnu is made in his Purana to resort to a trick no less unworthy of any
respectable god.
--
"When the mighty Vishnu heard their request, he emitted from his body an illusory
form (Mayamoha, "the deluder by illusion") which he gave to the Gods and thus spake:
--
Deceiver (who was Vishnu) abandoned the entire system founded on the ordinances of
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sd/sd1-2-11.htm (10 von 12) [06.05.2003 03:32:30]
--
The Vishnu Purana,* like all other works of this kind, has passed at a later period into the hands of the
temple-Brahmins, and the old MSS. have, no doubt, been once more tampered with by sectarians. But
--
Christian races. For, as shown, Jehovah is not one whit the superior of Vishnu on the plane of ethics.
This is why the Occultists and even some Kabalists, whether they regard or not those creative Forces
--
Kala being one of the names of Vishnu. Hence we find Odin, the father of the gods and of the Ases, as
Brahma is the father of the gods and of the Asuras, and hence also the androgyne character of all the
--
* It is this trinity that is meant by the "three steps of Vishnu"; which means: ( Vishnu being considered
as the Infinite in exotericism) -- that from the Parabrahm issued Mulaprakriti, Purusha (the Logos), and
--
Siva and Vishnu are all crowned with, and connected with Nagas -- a sign of their cyclic and cosmic
character.
--
therein by Rudra and Vishnu, who became the powerful and great Gods, the "Infinites" of the exoteric
creeds, ages later. But even they, "Creators" as the three may be, are not the direct creators and
--
In Vishnu Purana, Parasara says to Maitreya, his pupil: -- "I have thus explained to you, excellent
Muni, six creations. . . . the creation of the Arvaksrotas beings was the seventh, and was that of man."
--
animals; (6) Urdhwasrotas, or that of divinities*** (?); (7) Arvaksrotas, was that of man. (See Vishnu
Purana.)
--
In the Vishnu Purana, the whole seven periods are given, and the progressive Evolution of "SpiritSoul," and of the seven forms of matter (or principles) are shown. It is impossible to enumerate them
in this work. The reader is asked to peruse one of the Puranas.
--
Only this "likeness" and the ogdoad itself is a blind, just as in the seven creations of the Vishnu
Puranas, to which two more are added of which the eighth, termed Anugraha, "possesses both the
--
intermediate agents which produce effects." The sentence in Vishnu Purana: "As fragrance affects the
mind from its proximity merely, and not from any immediate operation upon mind itself, so the
--
who is called the male (spirit) of Prakriti . . . that same divine Vishnu entered into Prakriti." This
"view" is certainly more akin to the plastic character of certain verses in the Bible concerning the
--
** Vishnu is both Bhutesa, "Lord of the Elements, and all things," and Viswarupa, "Universal
Substance or Soul."
--
Fitzedward Hall for the translation of Vishnu Purana and texts, to those used by Wilson. "Had
Professor Wilson enjoyed the advantages which are now at the comm and of the student of Indian
--
and secondary," says Vishnu Purana, the oldest of such texts.*** "The Kumaras," explains an esoteric
text,
--
* "Created beings" -- explains Vishnu Purana -- "although they are destroyed (in their individual
forms) at the periods of dissolution, yet being affected by the good or evil acts of former existences,
--
*** Parasara, the Vedic Rishi, who received the Vishnu Purana from Pulastya and taught it to
Maitreya, is placed by the Orientalists at various epochs. As correctly observed, in the Hindu Class.
--
Manu period, for the progress of mankind."* The commentator of the Vishnu Purana corroborates it,
by remarking that "these sages live as long as Brahma; and they are only created by him in the first
--
called the "Kumara." (Book I. chap. v., Vishnu Purana.) The Puranas, however, may afford a little
more light. "Being ever as he was born, he is here called a youth; and hence his name is well known as
--
* Siva-Rudra is the Destroyer, as Vishnu is the preserver; and both are the regenerators of spiritual as
well as of physical nature. To live as a plant, the seed must die. To live as a conscious entity in the
|
Book of Imaginary Beings (text), #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
the back of Garuda. Pictorially, Vishnu is represented as
blue and with four arms, holding in each hand the club, the
--
who became a follower of Vishnu.
In the Garuda Purana - one of the many Puranas, or traditions, of Hindu lore - Garuda expounds at length on
the beginnings of the universe, the solar essence of Vishnu,
the rites of his cult, the genealogies of the kings descended
|
Conversations with Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
You will feel them occurring somewhere in your widened consciousness, but without their disturbing you. Indeed everything will seem to you as though outside you. That's my experience. When I began yoga, I came to an impasse, unable to go any further. My brother then directed me to a yogi( Vishnu Bhaskar Lele, whom Sri Aurobindo met towards the end of 1907.) who had certain powers. I remained with him ten days. He told me to sit beside him and to drive away with deliberation any thought which would appear. I did it and after three days my mind was calm and peaceful, unchangeable. Thoughts floated before me, I saw them and was aware of them, but was no longer their toy. When I left, as I was the political leader I was asked to make a speech somewhere. I refused, saying I hadn't a single thought in my head. But the yogi told me to go, for the thoughts would come of themselves. And it was true. So too I had to write in the papers. And I went back home to Bengal; at several places I had to speak. And always the mental work was done of itself without my being its plaything, in detachment and peace.
This calm is at first mental; there are two parts in the mind, one which reflects the activity of Prakriti, the other which shares the calm of Purusha.
--
[1] Vishnu Bhaskar Lele, a "temporary guru" whom Sri Aurobindo met in December 1907 and with whom he spent three days in meditation. At the end of the third day Sri Aurobindo had the experience of Nirvana.
Pavitra (Philippe Barbier Saint-Hilaire)
|
Guru Granth Sahib first part, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
The Guru is Shiva, the Guru is Vishnu and Brahma; the Guru is Paarvati and Lakhshmi.
Even knowing God, I cannot describe Him; He cannot be described in words.
|
Liber 46 - The Key of the Mysteries, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
the marvellous fables of Vishnu, and we shall place upon the still
bleeding forehead of our well-beloved Christ the triple crown of pearls
|
r1912 02 08, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The flight of some score of butterflies & many birds foretold in their turns, only two or three errors due to speculation or tejasic action. Usually siddhi of power & siddhi of knowledge seem to be one. Future movement of animals in rest can now be told with some exactitude, but error is easier because of stronger habit of tejasic speculation. Aishwarya & trikaldrishti have not yet been harmonised. Drishti of an eye, prakasha-chhaya-tejas, in the akasha, perfect but momentary,an indication of the richer drishti (dense & developed) perfect but not yet capable of stability. This is already developing. The vani strongly anandamaya, first of the vijnanamaya ananda, then of the others, reappears full of the Vishnu or Pradyumna personality, taking into it Rudra (Balarama), Shiva (Mahavira) and Aniruddha (Kama). The definite personality of the Master in his personal relations to this Yoga and the Jiva in the Yoga has to develop out of the laya; for Vishnu is the Ishwara who incarnates. The present method of the Yoga is a progressive replacement of buddha bhavas by vijnana & ananda bhavas, and of the lower of these by the higher. The firmness and clearness of the stable rupas is much interfered with [ ]1 by unsteady floating waves of the subtle-gross etheric material of which it is formed; these waves mix with the clear form and blur it by excess of material in the attempt to reinforce its distinctness. Perfect satisfaction has now been given to the Aniruddha element in the Jiva, so far as the Yoga is concerned, by the revelation of the scientific means & steady progress used in the siddhi, but the Balarama element awaits satisfaction. The Mahavira element has also been satisfied by the floods of knowledge that are being poured down, but the Pradyumna element awaits satisfaction. In the Adeshasiddhi there has as yet been no perfect satisfaction even to the Aniruddha element. Lipi (on Sultans back, chitra formed by the hairs). Satisfaction to Brihaspati, not yet to the other deities. Satisfaction to Bala (due). N.B. Bala is the Titanic force from the Mahat which must eventually conquer & replace Rudra, though conquered by him in the Buddha, because descending into the Buddha he becomes a Daitya disturbing evolution by a premature effort towards perfection. The same is true of all the greater Daityas who are not Rakshasic in temper (Asurim Rakshasincaiva prakritim apaunah). Sahitya siddhi in ordinary poetical forms. Satiety of interest in what is old and familiar, staleness, is being overcome. Lipi zoology indicating a superior light on the science of life forms bringing zoology into harmony with the general satyam and getting rid of materialistic difficulties; immediately after while casually seeking a book to read, I picked up Haeckel, opened at the chapter on Worm forms ancestral to man and had the predicted illumination. Such detailed trikaldrishti is now becoming very frequent.
MS it
|
r1914 07 21, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
The other godsup to the present Surya, Varuna, Usha, Bhaga, Aryaman, Mitra, Aranyani are manifest in their forms & activities. They have now been followed rapidly by the others; Prithivi revealing herself as Aditi, Rudra manifest in the chanda form of all the gods etc. But these manifestations are not so close or so dominant as those of Indra, Agni & Vayu. It is the Vedic gods who so manifest. The others were known before. The gods of other systems also reveal themselves in a grand general unity & diversity with the Vedic & Puranic deities. All are manifestations of the one Vishnu who is Krishna & as Krishna, Rudra & Brahm.
***
|
r1914 11 30, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Devabhava manifest as Vishnu with Agni prominent & in Agni Vayu, in Agni-Vayu Aryaman & Bhaga, Indra concealed in Agni Vayu, Mitra & Varuna behind Aryaman-Bhaga. Vishnu & Brihaspati are one. Surya is Vishnu working as Pushan & Yama. Rudra is a bhava of Vishnu. The Maruts are the host of Agni Rudra.
***
|
r1914 12 21, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
5) The inner & the outer life of the person & the world the play of the consciously manifested balaka Krishna (Rudra Vishnu)
6) Madhuradasya the relation between the Prakriti-Jiva & the balaka Krishna.
|
r1915 05 22, #Record of Yoga, #Sri Aurobindo, #Integral Yoga
Krishnadarshana has for some time drawn back into a fuller Ananda Brahma Saguna-Nirguna with the Narayan & Vishnu bhavas contained & the Lilamaya without the all-pervading expressed Krishna Nama in the rupa.
The violent attack of the old Asiddhi has failed after producing a few fugitive vibrations,an effigies of incipient asamata & non-vijnana.
--
The Krishna-Kali-Darshana after a period of higher intensity has fallen back again into a lower degree of the Saguna-Nirguna dominated by Vishnu-Narayana with the Ananda in the background. The Asiddhi is still powerful.. Suddha & Prema Ananda have also become depressed, though not denied.
***
|
Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna (text), #Sayings of Sri Ramakrishna, #Sri Ramakrishna, #Hinduism
as God, Allah, Buddha, Siva, Vishnu, Brahman etc., in the different religions of the world. It is both
personal and impersonal, with attri butes and without attri butes. Impersonal does not mean less than
--
was the greater of the two Deities, Siva and Vishnu. Some of the courtiers said that Siva was the greater,
while the others gave the preference to Vishnu. When the dispute grew hot, a wise Pandit remarked,
"Sir, I have seen neither Siva nor Vishnu. How can I say who is the greater of the two?" Do not try to
compare one Deity with another. When you see one of the Deities, you will come to know that they are
--
which the images in the shrine of Vishnu were adorned were stolen. Mathur (the manager of the temple
and son-in-law of the Rani) and the Master went there to see what the matter was. Mathur cried out,
--
spirit of Vishnu, in him faith and devotion never fail. Even if, for a time, these virtues shrink by the strong
influx of reason or dialectic knowledge, in the fullness of time' they increase copiously like the Musala (a
--
world. By the strange will of God, the Sannyasin also died on the same day. The messengers of Vishnu
came down from Heaven and carried the spirit body of the contrite prostitute to the heavenly regions,
--
life was a whole record of sin, is going to Heaven!" Hearing this, the messengers of Vishnu said, "The
decrees of God are always just; as you think, so you reap. You passed your life in external show and
--
appeared as Hari-Haraa form, of which one half was Siva and the other Vishnu. At this the man was
half-pleased and half-displeased. He laid his offerings on the side representing Siva but laid nothing on
that representing Vishnu. When he offered the burning incense to Siva, his beloved form of the deity, he
was audacious enough to press the nostrils of Vishnu lest he should inhale the fragrance. Then Siva said,
"Your bigotry is ineradicable. By assuming this dual aspect, I tried to convince you that all Gods and
--
great hater of Vishnu. On coming to know this peculiarity of his, the children of the village began to
tease him by uttering the name of Vishnu within his hearing. Vexed at this, the man hung two bells on
his ears, and when the boys cried out, " Vishnu, Vishnu," he would ring the bells and make those names
inaudible to his ears. And thus he came to be known by the name of Ghantakarna or the Bell-eared.
--
absolutely necessary. Let me tell you a story: Once Vishnu, the Lord of Goloka, cursed Narada, saying
that he would be thrown into hell. At this Nrada, was greatly disturbed in mind; and he prayed to the
--
and exclaimed he had undergone all the sufferings of hell. Vishnu smilingly asked,"How is that?" and
Narada replied, "Why, Lord, are not heaven and hell Thy creation? When Thou didst draw the map of
--
hell." Narada said all this sincerely and so Vishnu was satisfied with the explanation.
1094. Pride once entered the heart of Arjuna, the beloved friend of Sri Krishna. Arjuna thought that
--
at once knew him to be a holy and pious devotee of Vishnu, one whose highest religious duty was to
injure no being. As even grass has life, he would not eat it green, and sustained his life by eating it dry
|
Talks 026-050, #Talks, #Sri Ramana Maharshi, #Hinduism
Mr. N. Natesa Iyer, the leader of the Bar in a South Indian town, an orthodox Brahmin, asked: Are the gods Iswara or Vishnu and their sacred regions Kailasa or Vaikuntha real?
M.: As real as you are in this body.
--
D.: But I can create pure fictions e.g., hares horn or only part truths, e.g. mirage, while there are also facts irrespective of my imagination. Do the gods Iswara or Vishnu exist like that?
M.: Yes.
|
Talks 225-239, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Siva made over all His own possessions to Vishnu and wandered away in the forests and wilderness and cemeteries and lived on food begged by Him. In His view non-possession is higher in the scale of happiness than possession of things.
D.: What is that higher happiness?
M.: To be free from anxieties. Possessions create anxieties such as their safeguarding, their utilisation, etc. Non-possession does not bring any anxieties in its train. Therefore Siva resigned everything in favour of Vishnu and He himself went away happy.
Divestment of possessions is the highest happiness.
|
Talks 500-550, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
Annamalai asked: Namadev, Tukaram, Tulsidas and others are said to have seen Maha Vishnu. How did they see Him?
M.: In what manner? Just in the same manner as you see me now and I see you here. They would also have seen Vishnu in this way only.
(He records that, on hearing it, his hairs stood on end and an intense joy overpowered him.)
|
Talks 600-652, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
In it the jiva in the Visva aspect and the Lord in the Virat aspect, abiding together in the eight petals of the Heart lotus, function through the eyes and enjoy novel pleasures from various objects by means of all the senses, organs, etc. The five gross elements which are widespread, the ten senses, the five vital airs, the four inner faculties, the twenty-four fundamentals - all these together form the gross body. The jagrat state is characterised by satva guna denoted by the letter A and presided over by the deity Vishnu. The swapna is the dream state in which the jiva in the Taijasa aspect and the
Lord in the Hiranyagarbha aspect, abiding together in the corolla of the Heart-Lotus, function in the neck and experience through the mind the results of the impressions collected in the waking state.
--
What happens in the end? Karna was ever the son of Kunti. The tenth man was such all along. Rama was Vishnu all the time. Such is jnanam. It is being aware of That which always is.
13th February, 1939
--
When recovered by Vishnu she felt that she had papasparsa by that
Rakshasa. As an expiation of that impure touch she worshipped Siva in that place. Hence, Bhumina thesvara Kshetra.
|
Talks With Sri Aurobindo 1, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
SRI AUROBINDO: Oh, then it was Vishnu's Ananda that descended!
As soon as he encouraged us by his voluntary question we flocked near his
--
an Avatar of Vishnu, and they were also Vaishnavas.
SATYENDRA: It is the Kurukshetra Krishna who spoke the Gita.
SRI AUROBINDO: The one who spoke the Gita is the Vishnu aspect. In the
Vishnu Purana all these aspects are very finely described. The Vishnu Purana is the only Purana I have carefully read through. I wonder how it has
escaped general notice that it is also magnificent poetry.
--
SRI AUROBINDO: Probably. In the Vishnu Purana Buddha is regarded as an
Avatar of Vishnu who came to deceive the Asuras. He is not referred to by
his own name but called Mayamoha. The Purana says, "Buddhasya, Buddhasya", which evidently refers to Buddha.
--
as the Tamil saint Nammalwar puts it: Vishnu comes down with all the Gods
and takes possession of the earth. My way is the other: to change the human
--
seem to care for consequences; Vishnu has to come afterwards to save the
situation.
--
SRI AUROBINDO: Possibly, or Vishnu's.
PURANI: Krishnamurti is giving some new principles now, but they are so
--
SATYENDRA: You said yesterday that the blue colour might be of Vishnu or of
Krishna. What is the difference between them?
SRI AUROBINDO: Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva manifest certain powers of cosmic consciousness. Krishna manifests the Ananda. Krishna is said to be the
Avatar of Vishnu, which means that he manifests the Vishnu aspect rather
than the Shiva aspect.
SATYENDRA: Are Vishnu and Krishna Gods of the overmind.?
SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, that is, they manifest through the Overmind.
--
SRI AUROBINDO: It is the story of the Vishnu Purana where we read that it is
difficult to say whether the king is on the elephant or the elephant is on the
--
SRI AUROBINDO: That is Vishnu. There is also Shiva
DR. MANILAL: Shiva is Bholanath.1
--
NIRODBARAN: Talking of visions, Sisir Mitra told me that Nandalal had a vision of Vishnu in an image. He was going some where and on the way he
saw an image of Vishnu in a temple. It was nothing beautiful but he kept on
gazing at it till suddenly he saw Vishnu come out from the image and enter
into him. When his pupil came to call him he replied in a sort of trance, "Do
--
first he had gained while meditation with the Maharashtrian Yogi Vishnu
Bhaskar Lele at Baroda in January 1908; it was the realisation of the silent,
|
Talks With Sri Aurobindo 2, #Talks With Sri Aurobindo, #unset, #Zen
of Vishnu. The wife of this magistrate, while passing beneath that tree, had
seen a parrot and after hearing about its religious character prayed that it
--
SRI AUROBINDO: Shiva is as concrete to Vishnu as you are to Nirod.
(Laughter)
|
the Eternal Wisdom, #unset, #Arthur C Clarke, #Fiction
35) I salute It, this supreme Deity, which is beyond the senses, which mind and speech cannot define and which can be discerned only by the mind of the true sage. ~ Vishnu Purana
The Threefold Life View Similar The Divine Essence
--
14) Victory to the Essence of all wisdom, to the unmoving, to the Imperishable! Victory to the Eternal, to the essence of visible and invisible beings, to Him who is at the same time the cause and the effect of the universe. ~ Vishnu Purana
15) He who contemplates the supreme Truth, contemplates the perfect Essence; only the vision of the spirit can see this nature of ineffable perfection. ~ Buddhist Mediations from the Japanese
--
14) Victory to the Essence of all wisdom, to the unmoving, to the Imperishable! Victory to the Eternal, to the essence of visible and invisible beings, to Him who is at the same time the cause and the effect of the universe. ~ Vishnu Purana
15) He who contemplates the supreme Truth, contemplates the perfect Essence; only the vision of the spirit can see this nature of ineffable perfection. ~ Buddhist Mediations from the Japanese
--
2) Hail to Thee, to Thee, Spirit of the Supreme Spirit, Soul of souls, to Thee, the visible and invisible, who art one with Time and with the elements. ~ Vishnu Purana
3) O obscurity of obscurity, O soul of the soul, Thou art more than all and before all. All is seen in Thee and Thou art seen in all. ~ Farid-uddin-attar
--
5) First of the elements, universal Being, Thou hast created all and preservest all and the universe is nothing but Thy form. ~ Vishnu Purana
6) Sole essence of the world, Thou createst it and thou dissolvest it. Thou makest and unmakest the universe which is born again unceasingly by Thee. ~ Harivansa
--
8) Thou art the sun, the stars, the planets, the entire world, all that is without form or endowed with form, all that is visible or invisible, Thou art all these. ~ Vishnu Purana
9) Thou art also in the trees and the plants; the earth bears Thee in its flanks and gives birth to Thee as its nursling, Thee, the Lord of beings, Thee, the essence of all that exists. ~ Harivansa
--
12) Thou who art the soul of all things, Thy universal diffusion witnesses to Thy power and goodness. It is in thee, in others, in all creatures, in all worlds. ~ Vishnu Purana
13) All that is contains Thee; I could not exist if Thou wert not in me. ~ St Augustine
|
Verses of Vemana, #is Book, #unset, #Zen
Without making distinctions of situations (lit, without saying there or here) as we behold all things, the god ( Vishnu) ever views and comprehends all things. The circumambient (God Vishnu) goes around the orbit of the world.
149
--
Every thing is called the act of deity. But there is a deity superior to this god. That god slew Vishnu and he destroyed the appearance of Siva (abhava) Surely this is the great God indeed if thou consider it well.
201
--
Slay Brahma, and mingle him with Vishnu. Slay Vishnu and resolve him into Siva. Slay Siva and become thyself the Siva yogee (or chief spirit).
206
--
Why all this grief. If with singleness of heart thou extinguish thy desires by immersing thy soul in (Hari, Hara and Aaja, Vishnu, Siva and Brahma) the three gods and maintain a subdued spirit, happiness shall be formed within thee.
208
--
If thou be thyself converted into those three Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, who created, saved and destroy the three worlds and praise them, this man shall be transformed into the deity.
215
He who hath reduced Brahma, Vishnu and Siva in one shall become a parama yogee and the divinity. How can we comprehend one who thus is equal to the divinity.
216
--
Go and say, I have cast a great shame upon Vemana himself who named Vishnu and disgraced Siva and even Brahma. Let the one God alone be honoured.
272
--
Surely a teacher is requisite in the Siva creed and a teacher is evidently requisite in the Vishnu faith. What can the wretch of a debased nature learn without a teacher?
280
--
Surya lover of the lotus, was born in the race of Vishnu, husb and of Lakshmi, the noble mother and as he duly goes his course, going about the lands and the earth; Vishnu nourisher of the elephant, travels as he does (for Surya is in reality but a form of Vishnu).
281
--
Seeing that Vishnu abhorred not himself to be born in ten incarnations, to grow in them as to delight in them; if then thou do away the lustre of the noble married state shall thou hereby become one of the excellent.
292
--
A woman dwells on the head of Siva and ever dues a woman dwell in the mouth of Brahma. Ir. the splendour of felicity does a woman dwell in tine noble breast of Vishnu. Thou alone Vema is able to put away women powerful as they be,
p. 82
--
The leaf of which cupid has delighted to eat the golden lace that Vishnu born from the lotus navel wears round his chest (Lakshmi), the little locket (box) which men ever delight to open and gaze into the hillock that is ever lovingly hidden, the cup from which Brahma daily drinks with thirst, the crystal vase that princes delight to light up, the fair diadem of Siva who seeks alms with a dish under his arm, the box of love powder with which even saints are charmed (or for which they long), it makes the mightiest sing and talk and dance like the fool and sports with them. Can there be any greater assembly of mischievous charms? (a beautiful and easy song)
p. 95
--
Whose son in this world is Brahma? If thou enquire whose son is Vishnu; if thou plainly enquire whose son is Siva? Men are ignorant of shame who dare call these persons gods.
417
--
Hari also means Vishnu
Siva
--
Brahma became a horse Siva (Bhava) became the saddle; Adi Vishnu became the stirrup. He that mounts on this stud is either female or male. I know not which.
p. 114
--
He who eats lime will be delivered from the ties of relationship which shall all be calcined; can it remain permanent? (lit. in the path) To Vishnu, Siva and Brahma never have any power over lime.
476
--
Say not he is there or here. Vishnu dwells through all places shining in splendour. Behind him does the serpent follow the course of his chacra.
555
--
He who after having been imprisoned in the ties of oxen, wealth, women and sons, is the agent in releasing himself, there from, can his glory on his virtue be comprehended even by (Sridhara) Vishnu? (Spurious)
651
--
When they behold their refuge Vishnu or wealth, or studies that have pleasing taste however great they be, all men feel desire.
672
--
He who after having been imprisoned in the ties of oxen, wealth, women and sons, is the agent in releasing himself, there from, can his glory on his virtue be comprehended even by (Sridhara) Vishnu? (Spurious)
651
--
When they behold their refuge Vishnu or wealth, or studies that have pleasing taste however great they be, all men feel desire.
672
--
They cannot understand that there is but one God in the Siva, the Vishnu and all other creeds! Though these differ, can any diversity exist in truth (tatwa)?
808
--
Those who believed in Siva have all become the share of the earth. Why then these disputes and discrimination of Gods. All the faithful to Vishnu have fallen to the shares of white ashes.
847
--
These heroes--the Brahmins, Kshatrias and Vaisyas and Brahma, Vishnu and Siva all these are beasts. Ignorant of the divinity have they adopted forms thus diversified,
870
--
All those who trust in Vishnu fall to the share of white earth; to what end are these disputes and sects (dissensions) in religion. The Lingadharies become the portion of earth,
888
--
He who can gainsay the writing of Brahma, he who can destroy the institutes of the Prime Vishnu, he who can stand in opposition to Him who has three eyes such shall never appear among men, save (excepting) thyself O! Vema!
p. 220
--
Fate continually awaiteth all men however great; is it a marvel when debasement comes? Did not Vishnu who bore the mountain Govardhan on his finger, afterwards float in peril on a banyan leaf?
912
--
Did the amorous Hara (Siva) fail of becoming mighty? Did not the amorous Vishnu become mighty? If Ganesa who hated love become great?
916
--
He, Vishnu, that lay down in the sea of milk, why should he have wished for the milk of the shepherd's village? How sweet is the property of our neighbour?
920
--
One Siva carried a woman Parvathi on his side; one Brahma held a woman, Saraswathi in his mouth. One Vishnu bore a woman, Lakshmi, on his breast; for woman they thus suffer great trouble.
926
--
Vishnu left the circle of skin, and would not come to the shore being entangled in the wiles of Lakshmi, daughter of the sea. Vishnu (Shargnee the Bowyer) being so mighty, what can men do?
929
--
In the belly of Vishnu the world shineth (see Bhagavat-geeta). In it existeth all the universe. All the millions of animated are hence evidently Vaishnavites.
939
--
Behold! Brahmins, Kshatrias, Vysyas, Soodras, even Brahma, Vishnu and Siva--these are beasts. In ignorance of the divinity have all these forms originated.
941
--
Hast thou not heard that Vishnu and the other god (Brahma) are dead? Hast not thou heard that Siva sports alone in varying forms through all religions. Hast thou not heard of those studies that have an aim. Reflect and know the season when thy day shall come, select the noblest and most stable pursuit.
p. 227
--
Using the terms mother and father they know not the truth being produced from the Yoni and Lingam. But know thou that the mother is Vishnu and the glorious Siva thy father.
946
--
Siva is the radical root in the world. (if thou consider it) What they call Vishnu shines as being Siva. Siva is Vishnu. O ye who wear the semblance of Siva and Vishnu.
952
--
When Brahma with all his reading was destroyed and when the original Vishnu was (ended) slain, then Vemana exposed their emptiness. (let sought their disgrace.)
955
--
Among the Gods Brahma, Siva, Vishnu and the rest and among the demi-Gods that roam the three worlds and among the excellent men and with in thyself O Vema he who acts up rightly is the eternal.
963
--
What is called Veda is in fact mere dispute. Vishnu and Siva are both combined in the Veda. That existeth every where. There is neither difference nor distinction; praise him.
976
--
If thou see him (the supreme being) who slew Brahma the lotus born who plunged Vishnu into the (ambudhi) sea, who sent Siva to remain fixed on the hill of Cailasa, if thou see him being thyself transformed into Siva, thou shalt attain the highest of joy.
982
--
Brahma is the writer of destiny, Vishnu is the Minister (counsellor). Siva is the original agent. View this distinctly. If thou understand the conduct of these three and likewise their original (i.e., the supreme spirit) then shalt thou become a worshipper of the chief of beings.
994
--
He that is unborn (Aja, Brahma) shines betwixt Vishnu and Siva, and in the midst of these does the yoni shine; It possesses a peculiar kala which however is unperceptible.
1008
--
Maya, that is, Vishnu--is there any other to whom the name applies? 'Cupid' is the dear son (son of kisses) of Maya; in Maya do his powers originate.
1019
--
Do not Siva (Shambhudu) slay and restore his son Viswamitra to life. Did not Vishnu revive his son Manmatha? The Vedas give numberless meanings of these stories.
1023
--
A thousand and thousands of the leaders of fishes who caused the Vedas (nigama) to float on the sea, to churn nectar beneath that hill did he place three thousand firm tortoises, a thousand tens of Krishnas to see the shepherdesses in the shepherds' hamlet, four thousands of Narasimha incarnations to tear the breast of the Rakshasas, to slay Ravanasura, ten thousand Ramas, Parasuramas, ten thousand--if thou ask where is Siva, He who in the form of Vishnu underwent the incarnations. He dwelleth in Kasi.
1024
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