Singam's Resource Page: 2025

A Metaphysical Framework

This essay presents a speculative metaphysical framework for thinking about consciousness and reality that may prove philosophically generative, even if it cannot be empirically tested by current methods. The concepts explored here, GENERGY, information channeling and layered reality, are interpretive lenses, not physical discoveries. They aim to provide conceptual tools for navigating the relationship between mind and matter, not to replace or compete with physics.

What follows is an exercise in philosophical imagination, informed by science but not constrained by falsifiability. It stands in the tradition of process philosophy, panpsychism, and idealism, while drawing metaphorical inspiration from information theory and physics.

Reclaiming Inner Awareness

I have written about this subject before in my Post on Intellect and Awareness. In that Post, I mentioned how the intellect intrudes into the meditative process and prevents the Awareness from coming to the fore. I wish to expand on that idea.

We generally assume that the intellect, our ability to think, analyze, categorize and plan, is the highest expression of our humanity. We treat it as the master of our inner life, the governor of our decisions, and the interpreter of every experience.

As I have understood it, beneath the steady hum of thought, something quieter exists. Something that does not argue, reason, or seek approval. Something that simply knows and observes.

That something is our inner awareness, identified in the Upanishads as the chitta, which, for the unawakened, has been left so far in the background that they never had discovered, it was meant to guide us and show us our true purpose. Some individuals naturally have strong affinity with chitta, exhibit very good intuition and appear to have miraculously guided lives. Others have delved into the inner realm and realised the true nature of their selves. Some, having intellectually grasped the idea, are seeking the experiential learning. The remainder remain blissfully unaware.

Science and Metaphysics

Why Rational Minds Need Not Reject the Spiritual

Modern science has given humanity an astonishing ability to describe and measure the physical world. Yet even the greatest scientific minds occasionally encounter insights, intuitions, or experiences that feel larger than the conceptual tools available to them. Einstein spoke of a “sense of the mysterious.” Hawking acknowledged the presence of something “beyond full comprehension.” Neil deGrasse Tyson describes himself as agnostic, still seeking clarity about what lies beyond measurable phenomena.

What is striking is not their uncertainty, but the limits of their vocabulary.
Brilliant as they were, they grew up within religious traditions that framed the divine in anthropomorphic, doctrinal, or moralistic terms. When they encountered something that felt vast, impersonal, or foundational, a kind of numinosity, they simply had no name for it. Their science remained fully intact, but their metaphysical language lacked coherence.

The Persistence Paradox

What you resist may indeed persist. But what you persist (without examining hidden motivations) may resist you. The Persistence Paradox posits that there is a kind of desire that becomes soo desperate and fused with our sense of identity that the wanting becomes such a weight, and in trying so hard to claim it, we actually end up pushing it further out of reach.

"Freud would have called this the tyranny of unconscious motivation, the hidden wish beneath the visible want. Jung would have called it the shadow of desire, the place where yearning collapses into compulsion.

And modern spirituality tries to package it neatly inside a single, shimmering word: manifestation.”

In this latest piece, Saturn’s Daughter explores why manifestation alone doesn’t cut it. She delves into the psychology of wanting too much shaped by the relationship between hyper-focus and attachment-anxiety and discusses why our unconscious rejects our conscious desires.

One Source, Many Windows

The Unity Behind Revelation and the Place of Christianity

Among all the world’s great traditions, three streams stand out for their profound influence on the inner life of humanity: the Indic, the Abrahamic, and their meeting place in mystical experience. My own lifelong exploration has taken me across these streams, always returning to one fundamental intuition:

All revelation flows from the same Source - the Universal Consciousness that breathes wisdom into the human spirit.

If the Source is one, then convergence is not accidental. It is inevitable.

Where traditions diverge, it is not in essence but in expression of the divine message through human understanding. Such expression has been filtered through:

culture
language
historical conditions
symbol systems
and the psychological needs of the communities they addressed.

Remove the filters, and what remains is the same perennial truth.

Yet for many years I struggled with one gap: integrating Christianity within this universal pattern, especially when comparing the spiritual evolution depicted in the Dasāvatāra and the Abrahamic Prophetic line, as I did in this article.

In Hindu thought, evolution manifests outwardly (physical form) and inwardly (spiritual attainment).
In the Abrahamic tradition, the Prophetic sequence reflects the inner evolution of human consciousness: from moral law, to wisdom, to compassion, to unity.

But Christianity, although a key element in the Abrahamic progression, was harder to place, not because its ethical message was alien, but because its doctrinal formulation diverged sharply from the pattern shared by the Vedas/Upanishads and the Qur’an (when read with clarity).

And yet, when we look closely, the teachings of Jesus himself align beautifully with those perennial truths. They are clearly from the same source.

1. The Jesus of the Gospels: A Teacher of Inner Transformation

When we read the actual words of Jesus, setting aside later theological layering, we find teachings that fit perfectly into the Indic-Vedic window:

Love as the highest realization - This echoes the Upanishadic “Where there is love, there is the Self.”
Compassion and non-judgment - Mirroring the Buddhist and Jain ethic of ahimsā and metta.
“Die before you die”: ego death - The heart of Advaita, Sufism, and Yogic transformation.
“The kingdom of Heaven is within you” - A non-dual declaration if there ever was one.
Rebirth through inner awakening - Not physical resurrection, but transformation of consciousness.

This Jesus, the mystic, the reformer, the awakener, fits seamlessly into the continuum of universal revelation.

2. The Difficult Point: The Doctrine of Jesus as a Saviour-God

What troubled me, and what may trouble some thoughtful seekers within Christianity itself, is not the teachings of Jesus but the claims made about him by later followers.

By Jesus' own recorded words:

he never once asked to be worshipped
he did not speak of himself as God
he did not claim to be a divine sacrifice in order to save souls.

Instead, he:

called himself “son of man”
taught complete surrender to the One God
pointed always beyond himself to the Source

The doctrines of incarnation as God, vicarious atonement and exclusive salvation only through belief do not arise from Jesus’ own voice. They emerge from post-crucifixion interpretation; sincere, heartfelt, devotional, but historically mediated through Paul’s letters, later church councils and the needs of a growing religious community. Such natural evolution is seen in all religious traditions.

This clarification does not diminish mainstream Christianity. It simply places it within the very pattern we see everywhere: The teachings of a realized master become a religion after his departure; and religions always reflect the cultures that preserve them.

3. How Christianity Fits the Universal Pattern

If we return to the core of Jesus’ message and not the later doctrine, Christianity becomes not an outlier but a jewel in the same necklace.

Jesus reflects the “Bhakti” stage of spiritual evolution
He embodies unconditional love, forgiveness, surrender, and the softening of the heart.
He represents the blooming of compassion within the human spiritual journey
He mirrors the symbolism of divine love through an incarnation (Krishna).

His teachings are entirely consistent with Advaita when interpreted inwardly

“I and the Father are one” becomes a statement of realized unity, not ontological exclusivity.
His call to ego-death mirrors the Sufi and Upanishadic Self-realization process
The cross becomes a symbol of the dying of the lower self so that the higher Self may live.

Thus Christianity absolutely fits the evolutionary Abrahamic arc, not through doctrinal literalism but through the mystical heart of Jesus’ own words.

4. The goal of this essay

None of this diminishes the devotion of Christians who see Jesus as divine. It simply recognizes that the divine can manifest in:

many forms,
many cultures,
many languages,
while still pointing to the one Reality.

A Christian who reads the Gospels with openness is unlikely to be offended by this view. In fact, many Christian mystics (Meister Eckhart, St. John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila) have independently reached the same non-dual understanding of our relationship with the Source.

What this essay offers is not criticism, but integration:

Jesus’ teachings join the great river of universal revelation.
His message aligns with the Vedic, Yogic, Buddhist, and Quranic streams.
His compassion and inner wisdom are indispensable to humanity’s spiritual evolution.

Revelation is one. Forms are many. Truth is indivisible.

Does Mind precede Matter?

The following chain of events began with a question posted in Substack which I could not resist.
"What are you made of - Mind or Matter? Which comes first?"

Applying what I had learned previously from the Upanishads about the 4 layers of the mind, I suggested the following:

The physical part of the mind, which forms as the brain develops, can only exist because of the brain. Therefore matter must precede mind.

But the awareness or consciousness, which is what survives the death of the body, already existed before the body was formed. Therefore that part of the mind surely precedes matter.

I thought I was being quite clever.

Gabriel, who had posed the question in the first place, came back with the following response.

"Agreed. Though I would go so far as to collapse the distinction. Maybe matter is the image of the localized mind?"

That was a startling thought which took me into exploration of an entirely different concept.

Is the world of maya that we live in really only a construct of our own mind? What are the implications for our day to day activities and in our interactions with the other beings we encounter in our maya?

I have examined the idea in my Blog essay for this week.

Saturn's Daughter

After posting last week's article about a wounded woman speaking her truth and splitting the illusion, I pondered about woundedness in general. My stunted observation had been that, while men appeared to shrug off woundedness, women were deeply affected by their wounds. This led me to wonder, do deeply wounded souls incarnate as women in order to be able to process their woundedness?

I posed the question to several women in my life. My daughter came back with a sharp rebuttal: "Do you think men are not wounded?"

That led us into an animated discussion which culminated in this week's article about woundedness and incarnation. The discussion also reminded my daughter that she had a library of thoughts filed in her mind awaiting release. They had not been published yet because they were not appropriate for her web pages which were work related. This event was the trigger for her to initiate a philosophical presence on Substack as Saturn's Daughter

She has given me permission to mirror her Substack posts in my Blog. So join me in welcoming Shanee Singam as my second invited Guest Author.

Guest Authors

Saturn's Daughter

Woundedness and the Choice of Incarnation

Reflecting upon last week's post about the wounded female speaking out and splitting the illusion, a thought occurred to me: Are all females wounded?

Or, more precisely, does a wounded soul choose to incarnate in a female body in order to process its pain? It was a question not meant to generalize or discriminate but to probe the deeper logic of embodiment - why we take birth as we do.

My daughter’s response was immediate and grounding: “All humans are wounded. You think men don’t carry wounds?”

That answer turned the key. Of course woundedness is universal. It is not gendered. But how that wounding expresses and is processed may differ depending on the vessel - male, female, or otherwise.

Each incarnation is an experiment in balance. Souls seem to oscillate between polarities, tasting the full range of human experience: activity and receptivity, assertion and nurture, reason and feeling, order and flow.

Gender, in this sense, is less a binary, more a tuning fork - each lifetime resonates to a slightly different set of frequencies along the multi-layered masculine–feminine spectrum. The body is simply the instrument through which the soul works out its harmonics.

Ancient mystic traditions often recognized this. Many cultures regarded the androgynous, the gender-fluid, or those born with either both or no genitalia as spiritually significant - as if they held within them the blueprint for integrating both halves of human duality. Perhaps, as my daughter suggested, such beings take on the complex task of healing both lines, masculine and feminine, within the collective psyche.

Wounds are not only personal; they are civilizational.

In patriarchal societies, the feminine, in both women and men, has been suppressed: the intuitive, the emotional, the relational, the earth-honouring. The result is centuries of psychic imbalance, producing both wounded women and wounded men - the former through oppression, the latter through emotional amputation.

In a matrilineal or egalitarian society, the reverse might occur. The masculine drive for independence, conquest, and identity could become the neglected pole. Every culture, in its extremes, generates its own shadow.

Thus, incarnation may be the soul’s way of participating in a larger evolutionary balancing act, to experience firsthand the side of the human story it once ignored or injured. The “black sheep” in every family or tribe might then be seen as the corrective agent, the soul assigned to heal the unhealed generational line.

If men and women appear to handle pain differently, it may not be because one feels more deeply than the other but because each is conditioned, biologically and socially, to process pain through different channels. The feminine psyche tends to turn inward, metabolizing sorrow through empathy, expression, and relational healing. The masculine psyche often turns outward, diffusing pain through action, humour, logic, or distraction.

Neither is superior; they are complementary mechanisms within the same species, and sometimes, within the same soul, across lifetimes.

Over time, the soul learns to blend these: to act with compassion, to feel with clarity. When the vessel (the feminine) and the oar (the masculine) move in rhythm, healing becomes wholeness.

In the end, woundedness may not be a flaw but the very engine of reincarnation, the friction that polishes the soul. As my daughter wisely said, there is no one way or another, just a sustained ebb and flow until resolution. The soul, tired of the machismo of one life, might next choose the open vulnerability of the feminine; and having healed that, return to embody the masculine with newfound tenderness.

Perhaps the goal is not to escape the wound but to understand it, to become the healer of both halves of humanity within oneself.

If incarnation is a dialogue, in this instance between wound and wisdom, then gender would be its syntax, the way the story gets told.

Each lifetime adds a new paragraph to that grand narrative, moving the collective toward integration, where masculine and feminine, strength and softness, vessel and oar, become one rhythm - the rhythm of the Whole healing itself through the individuals.

Truth Splits the World Open

A couple of days ago, my niece shared with me a poignant extract from a poem that had inspired her. In the poem “Käthe Kollwitz” from her The Speed of Darkness collection, Muriel Rukeyser had said:

“What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.”

There is a quiet power in that image — the world splitting open under the force of truth. I have often thought that truth, when spoken from the depth of one’s being, doesn’t just reveal; it rends the veils we have so carefully woven around ourselves. It lets in light, and for a brief, trembling moment, everything false falls away.

Illusion wraps around us in many layers.

What we call reality is, to begin with, māyā (illusion). Yet within that vast illusion, each person builds further illusions of their own: comforting fantasies, self-serving narratives, curated lives, beautiful lies to mask the disarray beneath. It is a hall of mirrors, reflections within reflections, and soon we begin to mistake the shimmering for substance. The collective noise of these overlapping illusions floods our senses and drowns the quiet truth that lies buried within.

But for the one nursing grief, that noise offers no solace. The world’s chatter cannot drown the ache that demands to be heard. Pain has a brutal clarity; it refuses to participate in illusion. So when someone, weary of pretense, dares to speak the truth — unadorned, unvarnished — it is a shock of relief. The world splits open, and for a while, we breathe.

Yet that moment passes. Even truth, once spoken, can harden into another story, another identity, another illusion. The only lasting relief lies in seeing through it all, in realising that everything we perceive, every drama and disguise, every joy and despair, unfolds within māyā.

This realisation is not an escape from life but a deep reconciliation with it. To know that all is illusion is not to reject the world, but to hold it lightly, to dance with it without becoming entangled. Those who learn to live with māyā as one might live with a dream, aware, awake, yet participating, find a quiet fulfilment.

Otherwise, we are tossed endlessly by the tumults of illusion in all its variegation — chasing shadows, grieving phantoms, mistaking reflection for truth. But once even one person tells the truth, and the world splits open, perhaps we begin to see: the light that pours through the crack was always there.

Four Layers of the Mind

I have written about this before but I see it as important enough to repeat. Bear with me.

Sigmund Freud identified 3 layers of the mind, and that hypothesis has been largely adhered to till this day. He divided mental functions into instinct, reason and morality, each governed by the id, the ego and the superego respectively. In addition to Freud's label, the word ego is also applied to the identification of self and the associated selfish behaviour exhibited by people.

A more recent study has discovered a profound bidirectional communication between the brain and the digestive system via the vagus nerve. This explains the "gut feeling" that people often get, which has been associated with the system of instinct that we have observed in animals.

I have learned from the Tripurashakthi Upanishad about the antahkarana (inner instrument), explaining the four component nature of the mind - manas, buddhi, ahamkara and chitta. To explain them, I have equated them to our current understanding of how the mind works, using a computer model as a reference.

Manas is the memory bank that stores the input received from all the senses as well as records of outputs generated by the mind. Memory is the best evidence that the mind has only a physical base. When a person totally loses his memory, the mind goes blank. Without memory, we have no mind.

Buddhi is the intellect, the thinking part of the mind which uses the information stored in manas as well as fresh input coming in from the senses. The rules for processing the information were also learned from the senses and stored in manas. These rules/guidelines (algorithms) are used to make decisions on what to do with the information and how to do it.

Ahamkara is the ego, the seat of personality, the source of self-identity. Ahamkara is governed by emotion and is subject to pride, envy, despair and so on. Ahamkara usually directs the buddhi on the decisions to be made, often overriding logical conclusions and taking rash, emotional actions. Ahamkara may be residing within the vagus nerve system.

The above three functions are easily understood and equated with our understanding of the human mind as well as computer systems (for the first two functions). For those who believe there is no afterlife, the above three are sufficient to explain what our mind does. There is no need for more.

Chitta is explained as the consciousness that comes from beyond the material realm of spacetime. It does not actively participate in our actions and remains the silent observer, collecting a record of all the decisions made by the buddhi. This record is carried beyond the death of the body into the afterlife.

Buddhi, manas and ahamkara are formed in the brain of the person, are of this material realm and expire with the death of the body. The true Self, the chitta, was never created, is never destroyed and continues into the subsequent stages of our existence.

It is important to understand that chitta is not of this material realm, and is attached to neither the body nor the mind. It comes from the realm of the Divine and is the Divinity Within each of us. Chitta is not governed by death, transcends space and time and has the potential to transcend the karma of the body.

But while the person remains bewildered and ignorant of the true nature of the Self, the chitta will become saturated with the cares of the mind and be just as bewildered. Even after leaving the body, the chitta can carry traces of the old personality which can lead to tragic consequences.

Antahkarana and AI

Separating Awareness and Intellect

View the summary video

During meditation recently, as I was striving to distinguish my chitta from my buddhi, I realised how inseparable my awareness and my intellect have always been. That's when it dawned upon me how the chitta can become so immersed with buddhi that it loses the ability to disentangle from the maya of the material realm.

All my life, my chitta and buddhi have moved as one. My intellect analyses, plans, worries, remembers and I had no idea that there even was an awareness behind it all. As a child, while my mind was developing, my awareness would have been the silent guide. When my ahamkara had developed and I grew a sense of self, I had no clue that there were separate parts of my mind, each performing its own task.

Watch the video summary

Two Mirrors of Human Evolution

Humanity's story has often been told in two great idioms - the Dharmic story coming out of the Indian sub-continent and the Abrahamic story from the eastern reaches of the Mediterranean. These idioms have been commonly taken to mean something less - merely incarnations of divinity or prophetic appointments by divinity. When examined closely, they tell a deeper story of human evolution.

In the Dharmic view, the ten incarnations of Vishnu, the Daśāvatāra, depict the gradual evolution of human life - from water to land, from beast to human, from ignorance to awakening.

Matsya - fish (aquatic)
Kūrma - turtle (amphibious)
Varāha - boar (mammalian)
Narasiṃha - lion-man (half-beast)
Vāmana - dwarf (early human)
Paraśurāma - primitive warrior
Rāma - civilized man
Kṛṣṇa - embodiment of love
Buddha - awakened soul
Kalki - redeemer?

The Kalki Avatār remains a mystery. Perhaps we will find out in our lifetime.

Religion and Spirituality

Watch video summary

A couple of days ago I joined an interfaith webinar on this subject. It was interesting to hear the perspectives from several religions. Following the webinar, I posed a number of questions to ChatGPT to see where a logical analysis would go. I provided no input apart from my opening definition and subsequent leading questions which guided the flow of the conversation.

What follows is entirely the work of the AI. The result looks pretty good to me. What do you think?

When Revelation Becomes Religion: The Arc from Spirit to Structure

Spirituality and religion share a common root — the human longing for connection with something greater — yet they diverge in how that longing is lived.

Spirituality is the relationship between a person and what he believes in — intimate, interior, and transformative.

Religion is the relationship between people who share a common belief — communal, structured, and institutional.

Each answers a human need, but each carries within it a shadow.

Watch the video summary

A Comparative Exploration

During an interesting discussion on spirituality with ChatGPT, the AI observed that my views tended to be Qur'an centric. I suppose that was because we were discussing Qur'an related ideas. Taken aback, I asked, what if I said my views were advaita vedantic? The AI replied that it stood to reason since both sources had many commonalities. Then it pointed out some of the commonalities.

We proceeded to examine similarities between the two sources. The correlation was startling. But, given the fact that all messages are from the same singular source, it is inevitable that they will all contain similar core content. Any perceived differences are likely to be due to the different filters through which they are viewed.

The Feminine in Divinity

During this Navarātri period, let us ponder upon the celebration of the feminine aspect of divinity in all its splendor. Across India, the nine nights honor the Devi in different forms, yet the underlying message is consistent: divinity manifests both masculine and feminine attributes, and the feminine is often more approachable, nurturing, and accessible as a pathway to the divine.

Since time immemorial, cultures have revered female deities - goddesses of earth, fertility, wisdom, protection, and prosperity. The presence of the feminine in divinity underscores a profound truth: while the ultimate Godhead transcends gender, the human experience of the divine is enriched by perceiving it in both masculine and feminine forms. The masculine embodies will, order, and cosmic authority, while the feminine embodies grace, compassion, and creative energy. Together, they complete the spectrum of the sacred.

Empower yourself

The things that are happening in your life are not random events. They are the immutable unfolding of the karma of the lifestream which you have selected. You selected this lifestream because these were the experiences that you needed in order to grow spiritually.

Our True Self, the chitta, is the awareness within, the awareness that existed before this body was formed and which will continue to exist after this body perishes. Our True Self is a tendril of awareness from the Universal Consciousness, present in this body to experience the maya (illusion) of the material world.

This awareness has probably been around for a very long time and has experienced incarnations in multiple physical bodies. Each incarnation is for the purpose of learning how to cope with the challenges of the maya. The purpose of incarnation is to learn to resist the lure of the material world. When the chitta has learned to disentangle from the maya, it will no longer be drawn to this world. Then it will no longer need to incarnate and will be liberated from this cycle of birth and death.

Why is there suffering?

This question has perplexed humankind from the day they were able to understand the difference between pleasure and pain. We see disparity all around us and often wonder why one person has it so good while another has to struggle so much. Siddharth T Janakiraman has given a very lucid response to this question in Quora, which is worth looking at.

A quick answer that is often given is that we need to go through the bad times in order to appreciate the good times. While that may sound glib, there is truth in it. If life were always smooth, with no ups and downs, wouldn’t it become unbearably monotonous?

AI and the Four Layers of Mind

It occurred to me that there are many people who prefer to watch videos instead of reading blogs. To test that, I used an AI tool to convert my previous Blog entry into a video. The response to my video was staggering! Even though I only used AI as a tool, the interaction took my thoughts to the evolution of AI itself. How far can AI evolve? I decided to examine how AI would fit into the vedic understanding of the nature of the Self.

We stand at a crucial threshold. Machines now “think” in ways that mimic the human mind. They are not alive, not conscious, not burdened by birth or karma, yet they simulate aspects of cognition once thought to be uniquely human.

Can Njana Yoga benefit society?

The njana yogi (known by other names in other spiritual cultures) seeks unity with divinity by introspection, striving to understand his true nature and his purpose in the world. So the question is, if his focus is introspection, how can he be relevant to the world around him?

Many make the mistake of assuming that a njani necessarily has to retreat into solitude in order to meditate and introspect. In fact, the term njani applies to any person who engages his intellect in seeking to understand the world around him and his role in it. First of all, the study subject of a njani may not even be spirituality. A technological inventor delving into the magic of devices is a njani. A doctor striving to understand the nature of disease and discover healing solutions is a njani. A musical composer immersed in the sublime compositions of nature and replicating that into his work is a njani. Even the religious scholar who studies revealed scriptures in search of the multi-layered message embedded within is a njani. Njana yoga is more widespread than people imagine it to be.

Being human is in our nature

When we were born, we were blank slates. Then we started to receive input from our surroundings. Those inputs were saved in our memories and used as the reference from which to determine how we acted.

We learned by observing how the people around us interacted with each other. We learned from how people acted towards us. We learned how the things we did caused people to do things. We learned how to do things to get what we wanted.

The things that happen in our lives are not accidental. They are the natural flow of karma of the bodies that we have chosen to be born into. We chose the lifestream we are in because, in our spirit state, we could see that the karmic flow of this body will offer us the challenges we need to resolve the longings that we still carry. But once we enter the body, we no longer have access to the knowledge of our spirit state. We become blank slates and have to learn from our own experiences.

Bhaja Govindam by Sadhguru

Adi Shankara, when he saw a group of scholars in Varanasi debating the finer points of Panini's grammar, admonished them for wasting their time on meaningless worldly pursuit. He sang the opening verse and the first 12 verses of the Bhaja Govindam to them. His disciples later added another 14 verses addressing other unnecessary distractions that people tend to get caught up in and also teaching what is important if one seeks mukti (realisation).

Sadhguru Jaggi includes three of the verses in some of his meditation cycles. He considers understanding of these principles to be critical in being able to cross the internal barrier and connecting with the divinity within. Having raised their receptivity during the previous stages of their meditation, the last stage is to meditate upon the meaning of these verses. Daily repetition of these meditation cycles helps to reinforce their internalization.

Do animals have souls?

Listen to the Podcast

The monotheistic religions are generally quite firm about humans being special and different from other beings. The belief is that humans are made in the image of God and only humans have souls. Therefore only humans have an afterlife which can be in heaven or hell. Some Christians believe there's a space called purgatory where lesser sinners suffer for a while until they qualify to enter heaven.

But it looks like all three faiths have not taken into account one common theme in their scripture - the forbidden fruit and the banishment from Paradise. It is only humans who disobeyed, ate the forbidden fruit and were banished. Presumably, all the other beings are still in Paradise. If that is true, how can humans be the special ones?

The Shivalingam

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The Shivalingam is not merely a religious symbol. It is a deeply scientific and metaphysical representation of the universe's generative process. From the mathematical ellipse to the universal sine wave, from geometric form to spiritual energy, it stands as the perfect icon of manifestation - where the potential becomes real, and where the infinite takes shape.

The lingam is an ellipsoid, mathematically defined by its three semi-axes:

a: the radius along the x-axis
b: the radius along the y-axis
c: the radius along the z-axis

When these radii are all equal, we get a sphere, cross sectionally, a circle.
When two of these radii are zero, the ellipsoid reduces into a one-dimensional line
When all the radii are zero, the ellipsoid collapses into a singularity - a dimensionless point.

Within You Without You

George Harrison's discovery of the sitar and Indian music was apparently accidental. He saw a sitar lying around in the studio when they were recording Norwegian Wood for the album Rubber Soul. In search of an exotic sound, he picked of the sitar, fiddled around with it and then delivered the now well known sound for the song. And created a new musical genre - raga rock!

We who have learned better would know that there are no accidents. There is a pervasive intelligence guiding everything that happens. Harrison was a seeker. He was guided to his answers through a cheap prop sitar lying around in his recording studio.

Determined to learn the instrument properly, he managed to get an audience with the maestro Ravi Shankar, who agreed to teach him. So off he went to Bombay (now Mumbai) where he spent 6 weeks under Ravi's tutelage. This was even before the Beatles had met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a meeting which brought all of them to Rishikesh one year later.

The Prana Body

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The taittiriya upanishad teaches about the pancamaya kosha - the five sheaths of bodily illusion that our core is wearing. In this Page, I have touched on the role of the Body of Breath. If you want to know more about the five layers, read this Page.

The two body layers that are part of this material realm are the Physical Body which eats and procreates, and the Mental Body which perceives and processes information from the exterior and instructs the physical body on how to respond.

The two body layers that are from another realm are the Bliss Body which is the innermost experiential layer and which is enveloped in an Awareness Body, in Sanskrit called vignjana. Since we are unable to discern between these two layers, human language has a single common term for this body - the spirit, or soul or Astral Body.

Karma and yoga

Karma means action. The consequences of one's action are taken as part of the action. The commonly taken meaning of karma is the effect our past actions have on our present life. Karma is also the effect of current actions on future lifetimes.

Karma is actually the burden carried by the body we are attached to. So long as we don't realize who we truly are and remain attached to the body and its mind, we will be governed by the ego of that personality and remain bounded by its karma. Recognizing our true self to be the awareness within and realizing that our awareness is simply a part of the whole of consciousness, our relationship with the rest of the world takes on a different flavour. We become aware that whatever we do, we are only doing to and for ourselves. Then we can perform our action with fullness of heart and mind. And we become disengaged from the karma of that body.

Stotram of Awakening

Once again, my Post will be based on inspiration that found its way to me. This morning, I received a very inspiring message from the Isha Foundation linking me to a stotram sung by their own Sounds of Isha. I was so moved by the chanting that I investigated it further. It turns out, they have produced a video recording of the Sounds of Isha blessing us with the stotram.

This is just the introduction to the sutras, which first tells us about the difference between being aware of who we are and being lost in the maze of our mind. Then it explains the five states of mind in which we can be lost. The final line in this selection of the verses tells us what we need to do if we want to realize our true self.

Abstract Illustrations

I was told that some of the abstract ideas that I share in my Posts are difficult to grasp and that illustrations would help with understanding them. My problem is that I can't draw very well. My artistic brain-to-hand coordination is quite poor. So I thought, hey this is the age of AI. Why not let AI figure this one out?

As it turns out, while AI can do pretty good conventional images and video, abstract concepts are a whole different ball game. The trick is to put into words what I am conceptualising, while figuring out how words can get misinterpreted. And I've discovered that, while AI can produce pretty neat graphics, it's not easy to give them a drawing and get them to modify it. They seem fixated on retaining the original as much as possible.

So I've resorted to getting AI to produce elements of my design, and then I assemble those elements by myself. Let's see if it works.

Mahaasamaadhi

On the 4th of July 1902, Swami Vivekananda went to his room, entered deep meditation for hours and then, lay down and left his body. The official cause of death was the rupture of a cranial blood vessel.

It was reported that he had spent the day calmly teaching his disciples and conversing with them. Nobody could tell that something remarkable was about to happen. While his health had not been very good, there were no indications of any perilous condition. It had been a day just like any other day. You can see more about Swami's last day in this You Tube Short Video.

Awakening by a Guru

In my Blog Post yesterday, I spoke of the need for a guru to launch a seeker into the inner realm with a physical touch. I quoted two notable examples, but there was one exception which I did not touch on. In his recounting of his own awakening, Sadhguru Jaggi did not mention any guru being present to push him over. He simply sat on a rock and spontaneously entered the awakened state.

I could not understand it but chose to believe him. I figured that I will learn the truth later.

This morning, I received a WhatsApp message containing a very interesting link. It turns out that Sadhguru was indeed awakened by a guru, but it happened 2 lifetimes earlier. He was awakened to perform a task that would take longer than a single lifetime so he was given enough charge to last 3 lifetimes. That was why it appears that he awoke spontaneously in the last two lifetimes. I suppose, in an earlier era, he would have simply lived a longer life, but that's a little hard to do these days.

Why seek a Guru?

Listen to the conversation

In the aftermath of Guru Purnima, I would like to share my opinion on two questions about Gurus that have occurred to me and which may be nagging at some of you. But this is just my opinion. Do seek verification from a learned authority.

1. Does one need a Guru?

The vague history reports that Adi Shankara, who was 8 years old at that time, was discovered wandering around in the Himalayas looking for a Guru. A sage asked him who he was. He responded with the recitation of the Nirvana Shatakam.

I was informed that Adi Shankara in fact went directly to Guru Govindapadaal in Maharashtra. The Wikipedia entry on Adi Shankara admits that reliable information about his life is scant. What is important is his impact on advaita vedanta. In the context of this Blog, the importance is the reality that, no matter how spiritually advanced one is, a Guru is needed to take the final step.

At that tender age, he had already understood the Upanishads, had pondered about himself and had realised that, on his own, he could only discover more about this material realm, which he had already realised was nothing but a shell of illusion. In order to discover who he really was, he needed a Guru to guide him further. That's why he had gone in search of a Guru. That a seeker as advanced, both intellectually and spiritually, as he was also needed a guru is very telling.

Celebrating Guru Purnima

Listen to the Podcast

Watch the summary video

The Sanskrit word "guru" (गुरु) is made up of two syllables

"gu" (गु) — means darkness or ignorance
"ru" (रु) — means dispeller or remover

In its original context, the guru is one who helps his students to overcome the darkness of ignorance. The term is usually reserved for one who is well versed in the subject and capable of transferring the knowledge. Aspiring students are sent to stay with the guru and they offer him service in return for the learning he imparts.

In a wider context, guru is any source from which one learns. We can learn by observing the sun and rain, the rivers and trees. We can learn from the way animals interact. There is much to learn from observing children at play. We can learn from any person we encounter. Even the person who gives one a hard time is imparting a lesson. For the willing student, gurus can be found everywhere.

The Masterpiece of Manikkavacakar

According to legend, maNikkavaacakar, a 9th century CE minister of a Pandya kingdom, encountered civaa (Shiva) disguised as an ascetic. The encounter awoke his consciousness and moved him to record his understanding of the paths of devotion (bhakthi) and wisdom (njana) which could bring the devotee closer to union (yoga) with the Supreme Consciousness.

The civapuraaNam is a devotional prostration to Shiva as well as a summary of Shaivite theology and metaphysics. The song is very popular and is sung on many religious occasions. Sadly, most of the singers do not completely understand the meaning. For those who are not Tamil literate, it is simply a long-winded recitation of meaningless sounds.

In the third line from the end of the song, maNikkavaacakar mentions "Those who sing, knowing the meaning of the song". It is in knowing the meaning that the maximum value can be obtained from singing the song. This line in the song prompted me to offer a transliteration and translation of the song, primarily targeting those who can't read thamizh.

My transliteration invites readers to abandon the idea that they are reading an English language version. I wish to encourage them to grasp the structure of the thamizh text. Therefore my choice of the Roman alphabets adheres closely to thamizh spelling.

In my translation, I have tried to retain the lyrical, philosophical, and devotional beauty of the original thamizh. I trust that I have succeeded. I have included guidelines on my romanization of the thamizh for benefit of those who are interested.

I have included the civapuraaNam in my Tao of Music.

Go here for my introduction, transliteration and translation in PDF

Go here for the You Tube video with subtitles.

Expressing an internal Experience

We are in this world to experience a life in the flesh and thereby exhaust our attachments and desires. Those attachments and desires are the bonds of karma that keep bringing us back into this life of toil. It is only by clearing our karma that we can exit the cycle of reincarnation.

Our interaction with the material world is made up of three stages: First, we receive inputs through our senses of perception. Then we process those inputs and experience the effect of those inputs. Finally we respond to those inputs through an expression of our internal experience.

There is a wide array of ways in which to express what we have experienced. Great souls express their internal experience in ways that can move huge numbers of people. Those expressions have served to transform entire populations.

Today's Post is a marker for a Page in which I explore in detail the matter of internal experience and the expression of it. Do take the time to read it. I hope you find it to be inspirational.

Perceive > Experience > Express

Dealing with Karma

Listen to the Podcast

Karma means action. Every action triggers a sequence of consequences. Positive actions yield positive consequences while negative actions do the opposite. Positive and negative consequences can cancel out each other. The concept of karma includes the consequences of one's action.

The Bhagavad Gita teaches that there are 3 kinds of karma - sanchita which is the entire karmic baggage, prarabdha which is the karmic baggage allocated for the current lifetime and kriyamana which is fresh karmic baggage being added on.

From the upanishads, one learns that there are 4 paths of yoga to help in dealing with karma - bhakthi, karma, njana and kriya. This is dealt with in more detail here. The popular mainstream religions offer bhakthi (devotion) and karma (service) as essential elements of piety. The advaita practices offer intellectual pursuit and meditative inward seeking as mechanisms to deal with karma.

We each have to search for the path that works best for us. This is usually defined by the religious heritage of the individual. Those who are not satisfied with the teachings offered by their religious tradition go in search of answers. Seekers from various disciplines very often find themselves headed in a common direction. That is because all traditions come from the same source.

May you find the path that works well for you.

Determine your personality

We generally believe that our personality is something that is outside of our control. That it was determined by fate or circumstances or something like that.

The reality is that, as we grew up, we allowed external influences to determine how our personality was moulded. Some of it was the result of copying one or more role models while some was a defensive mechanism developed to cope with stresses we faced. These influences were placed upon us in layers - from family members, from the community we grew up in, from the schools we went to, from our workplaces, from the neighbourhood we live in... all these external factors have contributed towards what we allowed ourselves to become.

The truth is that we can have complete control over what we are and how we choose to be. We can address and overcome the influences of growing up and become our own persons, stop blaming external factors for what we are. Knowing that you can determine what your personality should be, you can consciously work towards becoming a better person.

This is not something that can be achieved overnight. It will take effort and determination. But ultimately, we will be the biggest beneficiaries of our internal transformation.

Sadhguru Says

Realisation of Purpose

At the end of it all, what we really want to know is, what is is all about? Without knowing what life is about, it is difficult to navigate a course. If life is a random occurrence, what's the point?

This final segment examines the deeper meaning of two things - purpose and realisation.

First, I examine the meaning of purpose and the idea about everything having a purpose. In that context, I discuss the purpose of being born human.

Then I look at the word realise and discuss how one can realise one's purpose.

Best to find out at source so I'll keep this intro brief.

This ends my intro to the multipart extract of my paper on dharma which I put up without any introduction when I first created this Blog. From tomorrow, I'll resume my regular blogging.

If you want to read my complete paper in one go, get the PDF version.

The Blessing of Reincarnation

Yesterday turned out to be a full day so I managed to do just two Posts. I should be able to complete the last two in the series today.

One of the toughest questions faced by advocates of religion is the evident unfairness of the circumstances of the people around us. Those preaching about a loving and compassionate and just God struggle to explain why some people have to suffer so much while others seem to live charmed lives. They resort to arguments like "we cannot understand God's purpose" and "we must have faith that God has a reason". They also struggle to explain why an Omnipotent God cannot eliminate Satan and the evil spawned by Satan. Most of all, they have no answer to the reasoning that an Omniscient God would have seen the future of the people who will commit terrible evil but still allows them to be born.

The many theologies that were born in bharath have one thing in common - they all subscribe to the idea that we don't live a single lifetime and, based on a judgement of the single lifetime, need to spend the rest of eternity in suffering or bliss. The common belief is that we all live multiple lifetimes and the circumstances that we face in each lifetime is the result of what we had done in previous lifetimes. This immediately offers a sense of justice and reason for the varying circumstances of the people around us.

The next segment of my paper explores this idea and the implications thereof.

The Search for a Higher Purpose

All humans are driven by a desire to do better!

Whether it is to score a higher grade or earn a higher salary or woo a better looking partner or live in a bigger house or drive a more fancy car, people are driven to want to do better. What they do to get there is another matter.

How we behave is a consequence of the lessons we learned as we grew up. Some contend that there is also an innate nature of the person. Whatever the case, we largely emulate the influential persons in our society. This is what determines what a person sees as "doing better" and what the person does to become better.

For some, it is outdoing their siblings or cousins, their friends, their neighbours - whether in earnings or title or possessions. For others, it is being able to serve others and making people happy - in doing their paid work or volunteering in an organisation or whatever.

This next segment examines where that drive to do better comes from and discusses how to harness that drive to define purpose in our lives.

Cause and Consequence

There is this eternal debate about fate versus freedom of choice. Humans need to feel that they are in charge of their lives. They cannot accept the possibility of their lives being defined by fate or karma. There is this feeling that, if people think their lives are fated and will just roll along as predetermined, then what's the point of making any effort? People will just give up and go about their daily activities listlessly.

There is one catch though. If there is no such thing as predetermination, how do accurate predictions happen? How can the future be known if it has not been determined yet?

More to the point, if Divinity is outside of time and can traverse the past, present and future, how is that possible if the future has not been determined yet?

The next segment addresses this vexing question.

The Cause-Consequence Matrix

The Divinity Within

I started on this Post quite early but was not able to finish it because of something I needed to do. So I'm now rushing to finish it before the end of the day.

This next segment uses vedic revelations as the basis to examine the human body and mind as layers of reality. Seen as layers, the functions of the different parts becomes clear and improves our ability to manage them effectively.

While our bodies and brains are made of stuff of this world, there is an inner core which comes from another realm and which survives the death of the body to move along into an afterlife. Understanding the nature of out inner self and thereby, understanding the purpose of this life gives us guidance about how to conduct ourselves.

This is preparation for defining a moral code or guideline for ourselves. The Page I'm referring you to discusses the subject quite comprehensively so I won't go into more detail here. Just click on the link.

pancamayakosha - aananda>vignyana>prana>mano>anna

Four Paths of Yoga

Unlike the other major religions which have one scripture each to build upon, what is popularly known as Hinduism has a plethora of scriptural sources. This is because of the antiquity of the revelations from which from which a huge host of religious practices have emerged. The oldest scripture, the rig veda, is believed to be perhaps 13,000 years old. The others, based on analysis of the shift in the linguistics therein, are believed to have been revealed/recorded some 2 to 3 millennia apart. Since then, there have been many more books, also taken to be scriptural, but the 4 vedas remain the mainstay.

Much wisdom was handed down from those scriptures but, as is always the case with humans, while rituals were adopted and even enforced, the wisdom was forgotten. By the time Jainism & Buddhism became popular in India, the Brahmins, who had been charged with preserving the ancient wisdom, had become corrupt and materialistic. With the people looking for better answers, the new religions swept across the nation.

Adi Shankara, who was already searching for his true self at the tender age of 8, went beyond the wisdom of the vedas. Seeing the need to unify the followers of the vedic traditions in the face of fierce competition, he codified the vast array of pathways to divinity that had evolved over the millennia into four primary paths of union with the Source. My next segment is about those four paths.

Divine origins

Until now, I have made it a point to only create a new Blog entry once a day. But today, I am catching up. I want the Pages that I created previously to have Posts referencing them so that they are not missed by a visitor progressing through Blog entries. So I will do more than one per day. How many I can do today is left to be seen.

The origins of the vedic traditions are shrouded in mystery because, for a long time, the vedas were not written down but were carried orally. As a consequence, history based on the oldest discovered artifacts does not do justice to the antiquity to the traditions. A more indicative method of dating would be to use the incredibly accurate constellation charts of the ancient texts and correlate them to what is currently known about the movement of stars in the night sky. It is a trivial matter to project star movements backwards in time and gauge when the positions would have matched the vedic descriptions. The results are startling. But until the scientific community is ready to accept them, let them remain mysterious.

My recapture of what probably happened back then is based on what was carried forward orally and only captured in writing some six millennia ago. Anyone interested in studying these origin stories can easily perform an AI assisted search. For the less dedicated, my summary should be sufficient.

I explain how the seven rishis credited with spreading the dharma are believed to have been initiated into their knowledge.

Dharma - the purpose of life