Singam's Resource Page: 2025

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

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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?

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

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 upanishads teach us that we are made up of five layers of body. 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

Perceive > Experience > Express

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.

Dealing with Karma

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.

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

When I started this Blog, I was clueless about what I wanted to do and had no clue how this Blog platform worked. I had to learn and design as I progressed. So I started off with creating a number of Pages where I captured stuff that I had already written previously. One of those was a paper on dharma which I had completed about this time last year. That paper is available in PDF format, if anyone is interested.

I decided quite early that I didn't want my Blog to be burdened with long articles. So I split up my paper into 8 parts, each part on a separate Page. I provided links to each of the Pages in a top level Menu Page which was visible at the top of my Blog. I also provided links at the bottom of each Page to the subsequent Page. But I had never created Posts referencing those Pages. So anyone going through my Posts would miss those Pages. That's a defect I intend to correct.

The first Page introduces dharma, a Sanskrit word with a multifaceted meaning. I give a short history on the evolution of the religious landscape in India and the emergence of Adi Shankara's condensation of the vedic spiritual traditions in a comprehensive summary, and his effective rebuttal of the new traditions. That is the first stage of my paper.

The Tao of Music

Today, I am introducing a new segment in my Blog - a dedication to music and song.

For a start, I will look at songs that helped me to attain clarity about one or another aspect of life. I have identified three to get started with and have provided links if you wish to listen to them. The videos I selected carry lyrics so that you can explore the songs on your own. I plan to discuss the lyrics at a later date.

I have also share links to three religious/spiritual songs. They represent three different moods. I plan to discuss those lyrics as well.

Finally, I have added some musical conversations that struck me as being symbolic of their genres.

From a philosophical viewpoint, music lies at the core of everything. That is my justification for including a segment on music. The illustration is simply a whimsical collaboration with my AI.

Go to Page

No Birth, no Death

Today's Post is again about the video that I mentioned previously. Today I wish to discuss these videos and expand on my understanding of the core subject.

First of all, there are several videos online bearing the same or almost the same title. And they are all about the same subject, albeit with slightly different takes on it. So the viewer may want to do a search and look through several of them to choose the one which looks the most appealing.

The video posted by "Life Lessons" is an on-camera narration by someone called Ben. This is a format that some viewers may prefer.

The video posted by Amira & Aryan Arora is an interview featuring Rupert Spira, a spiritual teacher of non-duality. In another video, Rupert Spira himself answers a question from the audience and goes on to explain the concept. Again, some viewers may find these formats to be easier to follow.

So there are many options for learning about this subject. I hope you find the one that works for you.

Meanwhile, there is another element of confusion that I should point out. The video I shared starts with a quote by John Wheeler, who is mentioned several times in the video. Clearly he is the inspiration behind the video. If you do a search for John Wheeler, you could end up looking at the profile of a theoretical physicist and imagining that he lived a double life. There is another John Wheeler, a spiritual teacher, who has written several books on the subject. Wheeler is a second level (via "Sailor" Bob Adamson) disciple of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, a respected 20th-century Advaita Vedanta master.

All of that is merely secondary information, included here for any who may be interested. The essence of my discussion is captured for posterity in the Page linked below. This Post is transient and will age as time passes.

Respond, don't React

Reaction and response are descriptions of the action we take when something happens.

A reaction is compulsive. It is an unthinking knee-jerk action based on habit and conditioning. The consequence of a reaction is often negative.
A response is well thought through and the action taken is the consequence of consciously deciding what is the best action to be taken at that time. A response obtains a good result most of the time.

The best illustration of the difference between react and respond is when applied to medication. When a person is given medication, what do we mean when we say react or respond?

React to medicine is negative, a bad effect. If the person suffers from some bad effect because of taking the medicine, we say that the person reacted to the medicine.

Respond to medicine is positive, a good effect. If the person is relieved of the illness and becomes better, we say the person responded to the medicine.

The same principle applies to the world at large. The intelligent, thinking person looks at what happened, thinks of the consequences of his actions and then takes the action which will yield the best result. Of course there are times when even the best thought through action can result in a negative effect because of uncontrollable circumstances, but most of the time, the result is positive. The probability of a positive result is higher.

The unthinking person simply reacts based on what he has done before or what has been done to him, giving no thought to what could happen as the result of his action. Of course, there are times when a reaction can obtain a positive result. We say the person got lucky. But most of the time, a knee-jerk reaction gets a negative result. The probability of a positive result is lower.

The Goal of Meditation

Continuing from my previous post... Having captured my thoughts on identification of the Self and shared them with the group, I wanted to go on to discuss the next stage — communion with the Self. As I developed the paper, I discovered that I was largely writing about my own experience, which was probably not appropriate for the group. So I completed the paper and then proceeded to develop this blog where I could share my personal thoughts with anyone else who was interested. I made mention of this objective in my first blog post.

My first three posts were about an introductory paper which I had written several months earlier. Then a whole bunch of other things took hold of my attention. Yesterday, I finally got back onto my original track. This is the second part of that thought stream. Let's see if I develop additional commentary on this subject.

Yoga means Union! Yoga does not mean stretching the body into contorted positions! That idea was conceived in the West when they discovered the health benefits of hatha yoga, the physical component of the yogic path. The true purpose of yoga is to help the individual to attain union with their inner self. This union is an introspective process which can be approached along several paths. Hatha Yoga improves the physical balance of the individual in order to facilitate spiritual centering.

My second paper on the Inner Spaces takes a look at meditation as a whole and my personal experience with it.

Identifying the Self

A group of us are blessed to have the support of a lady volunteering from a well established Spiritual Growth movement to help us with our own spiritual growth. We try to have a session every month during which we explore different aspects of personal growth.

During our last session, she skillfully took us through an examination of what we meant when we said "I" or "my". The learning was quite profound. Following the session, I captured my personal understanding of what we had covered, which I shared with the group. I then went on to expand my summary into an article aimed for a more general audience.

In my article, I removed personal references and included material which I had gleaned from other sources. I basically identified 4 layers we usually associate with the self and expanded on their roles. This is explained in more detail in the associated Page.

Nothing in Nature Lives for Itself

There are several popular memes in the social media attributing to Pope Francis a beautiful poem about the sharing character of nature. Fact checking has verified that those attributions are false. There are suggestions that the words were first uttered by Chanakya (also known as Kautilya), an ancient Indian philosopher and strategist from the 4th century BCE. However, there is no definitive source in his known writings that matches this poem word-for-word.

This is very likely a modern poetic rendering of traditional Indian wisdom, possibly inspired by verses from Sanskrit or Pali scriptures. There has also been a suggestion that it may be from African native wisdom. Whatever the case, it is an important learning for us.

Gratitude is a natural state

Our interaction with the world around us is a dynamic one. All forms within this physical realm interact naturally in harmony, guided by the embedded script. This ranges from the minutest of subatomic particles to the most enormous astronomical bodies. The universe is able to operate smoothly and harmoniously in natural give and take relationships.
Humans, distracted by intellect, have lost touch with the embedded guidance and end up developing artificial interactions. When we allow ourselves to feel the guidance, our interactions become more harmonious.

Much of the gratitude we see around us is cultivated from childhood, when children are taught to show gratitude. They are constantly reminded to say thank you when given things. This becomes a cultivated attitude.

It is not wrong but, for our humanity to flower fully, it is not enough. We need to open ourselves to the world and realise the reality of our interdependence with everything around us. We need to recognise how our life is supported by so many processes. We need to learn how to appreciate all that is being done for us and not just take it for granted.

When someone does something for us, the feeling of gratitude needs to flow from within. It cannot be just a layer pasted on the face and uttered in words.

The Message Within

Some time ago, I was offered the privilege of membership in a WhatsApp group of spiritual seekers. The original purpose of the group was to read and understand an important religious scripture and seek to understand the real message concealed within the words. Since I wish for this Blog to remain largely non-denominational, I shall avoid mention of references which could be deemed sensitive.

I have already mentioned elsewhere the intelligence which pervades everywhere and is embedded within each of us as the core of our being. It is this intelligence which guides us from within and this is the intelligence which inspires special people with extraordinary knowledge. This extraordinary knowledge covers the entire spectrum of human endeavour - art, music, literature, science, mathematics, spirituality... whatever else we can think of or which we will discover in the future.

The upanishads call this vast reservoir of knowledge the akashic record, is given other names in other languages. The knowledge available therein is rich with meaning and complexity beyond the comprehension of human minds. What the inspired individuals can capture from that vast repository and then share with the world in human language is necessarily limited by human conceptual and linguistic capacity. Yet the wonderful scriptures that have been handed down to us have revealed layers of meaning embedded within, which unfold as the student gains understanding and is able to peer deeper into the hidden meanings of the words and sentences.

Pleasure or Joy?

Sadhguru's quotes are sometimes quite enigmatic. At other times, they can be quite straightforward. The quote I chose for today is quite simple.

Pleasure is the sensation that comes from stimulating your senses. To experience pleasure, one only needs to stimulate the senses. But sensory stimulation is very superficial. While it can become addictive, it cannot fulfill a deeper longing within.

Joy is generated from within you and can flow outwards to fill your entire being. Joy encompasses the mind and emotions as well and not just the physical body. Joy fulfills like pleasure cannot.

If you do not feel joy, then you are only satisfying your senses. The pleasure obtained from stimulating the senses can be satisfying for a while but after that, the pleasure will start to feel empty. That is what leads pleasure addicts to keep seeking higher doses of stimulation or other avenues of pleasure. It can become a self destructive spiral.

In our life, we want to become joyful.

Why do we fear death?

Death is the only certainty about life - one day, we must all die. That is certain.

All the scriptures tell us that we can expect love/harmony/peace/bliss on the other side. So passing over should be a good thing.

Unfortunately, some of the scriptures also warn us about judgement and punishment for sins/infractions. The people who are unsure about how they are going to be judged would surely feel some trepidation. Those who are quite certain that they can expect punishment would be worried, no matter how unconcerned they appear to be. Whatever the case, there is uncertainty about what to expect. The burden of death can be heavy.

Added to that is the visible and experiential pleasantness of this material life. No doubt there are some parts of life that can be painful. But there are also parts that are downright enjoyable. For many people, conscious memories tend to hold the pleasant things and forget the unpleasant ones. Thus, we develop an affinity towards living that we can become quite loathe to give up.

On Being a Thought

My WhatsApp friend, Rina Samad, posted this and I would like to share it with you:

On Being a Thought

Self:   Am I real, or am I just Your thought?

The Divine:    You are the way I experience this moment from within.

Self: So I don't exist apart from You?

The Divine:    Nothing does. But in you, I forget Myself to remember anew.

Reflection:

If we are thoughts in God's mind, then identity is not fixed, it's fluid, exploratory.
The self is not an illusion, but a temporary pattern of Divine attention.

Quotes from Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

We often see social media memes claiming to be quotes from one or another famous person. Sometimes those are correctly attributed. But often, the claims are false. The famous person purported to have made the statement was never recorded to have done so.

I will be presenting quotes from Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev which, I assure you, are real. They are screenshots from the Sadhguru Mobile App. In addition to presenting the quote, I will also share my understanding of what it means.

We should become masters of our own lives. We know that good and bad things happen. What we don't know is the consequence of what is happening. Sometimes things happen which seem to be bad things, but in retrospect, those often turn out to be good things.

We have to take the bad thing that happen to us as a lesson from which we learn. Those lessons make us better persons.