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.