#nalin: 2011

Monday, July 18, 2011

A little-known Maori philosophy

The concepts of higher philosophy is generally claimed as the domain of more ancient civilisations like Hinduism, Shintoism, Daosim, Judaism and Zoroastrianism, or of their off-shoots like Buddhism, Christianity or Islam. .

These concepts range from a supreme god, the lord of the universe, an all powerful entity for a chosen people to having created the world, being the material cause of the universe and (in monism) everything being God.

Cosmological concepts range from the seven heavens, the three worlds, the hells or netherworlds, creation, sustenance and destruction. The concept of the soul and the spirit, along with reincarnation, karma, judgement day, purgatory and cleansing are elements in most, if not all, of these religions.

On the other hand, generally, the world sees the belief systems of ‘minority’ races as primitive, nature-based, unable to stand up to the scrutiny of the higher concepts of the more forceful strains of religion like Christianity or Islam.

A classic case is the belief system of the ancient Greeks – adopted with variations by the Romans – which fell to the onslaught of Christianity. This belief system was then turned in mythology of legends and accepted as a cultural innovation that these people had to ensure until supplanted by a ‘better, more acceptable’ system of beliefs.

The Pacific Island nations, particularly the Polynesians, endured a similar supplanting of their beliefs, mostly after missionaries took Christianity to the islands during European empire-building era.

In New Zealand, the present-day Maori mythology is largely focused around Rangi and Papa, Hine-nui-te-po and Maui.

“Rangi and Papa are the primordial parents, the sky father and the earth mother who lie locked together in a tight embrace. They have many children all of which are male, who are forced to live in the cramped darkness between them.

These children grow and discuss among themselves what it would be like to live in the light. Tumatauenga, the fiercest of the children, proposes that the best solution to their predicament is to kill their parents.” (Grey 1956:2).

Traditions on migrations name Kupe as the discoverer of New Zealand, or Toi as the first important origin ancestor, or place special emphasis on descent from a particular canoe migration.

But it is the little-known, and rather controversial, philosophy of Io Matua Kore that puts the lie to the Maori belief system lacking high philosophy. It is controversial because some scholars still refuse to accept it as integral to the Maori, saying it was made up in response to the Christian missionaries’ relentless move to convert the people.

But Io has been known to Polynesians for millennia with oral tradition in Hawaii referring to Io, and the place-name Ur (very Abrahamanic), or Uru and the heroic figure Nu'u. Polynesians call their homeland Hawaiki, a legendary place that sank beneath the waves in calamity still remembered by these island dwellers and migration specialists.

Maori elders say the knowledge of Io was with the people for eons, but as a path of higher aspiration in which only the chosen could tread. It was not for all and sundry and thus not well-known outside of its rather-secretive circle.

On the face of being overwhelmed by the missionaries, the elders had little choice but to bring out the knowledge of Io into the mainstream to combat the missionary zeal.

Io Matua Kore (Maori for "Io the Parentless who was always existent without beginning or end") is in many ancient Polynesian traditions the supreme god. Io is the absolute principle of being, of reality, of being eternal and unknowable.

Io is: “both Being-itself and absolute Nothingness. That is, He is truly infinite, encompassing within himself both the absolutely Positive and absolutely Negative."

Such a refined concept is similar to the concept of Brahmam in Vedanta in its aspect of ajar, amar (beyond birth and death), Nirakaar (formless), nirguna (attributeless) and its aspects of Sat (Being), Chith (Consciousness), Ananda (Unalloyed joy).

A good piece on the concepts of Io can be found at this site: http://teiranaahi.auturoaartists.com/2010/08/02/the-science-of-io/

More intriguingly, and compounding the belief that the Maori have in their grasp one of the highest philosophies, is a poem written by a Maori ancestor, Tieme Ranapiri. When I came across this poem I was much taken by its depth and its exposition.

To my limited knowledge, there are indeed very few pieces in Western literature (religious and secular) that can come close to the concepts this poem portrays so concisely, despite the fact that some of its grandeur and nuances may have been lost in the translating of it.

"My Law"
Written by Tieme Ranapiri (1700AD/CE?)
and translated from Maori by Kere Graham.

The sun may be clouded, yet ever the sun
Will sweep on its course till the Cycle is run.
And when into chaos the system is hurled
again shall the Builder reshape a new world.

Your path may be clouded, uncertain your goal:
Move on - for your orbit is fixed to your soul.
And though it may lead into darkness of night
The torch of the Builder shall give it new light.

You were. You will be! Know this while you are:
Your spirit has traveled both long and afar.
It came from the Source, to the Source it returns
The Spark which was lighted eternally burns.

It slept in a jewel. It lept in a wave.
It roamed in the forest. It rose from the grave.
It took on strange garbs for long eons of years
and now in the soul of yourself it appears.

From body to body your spirit speeds on
It seeks a new form when the old one has gone
and the form that it finds is the fabric you wrought
On the loom of the Mind from the fibre of Thought.
As dew is drawn upwards, in rain to descend
Your thoughts drift away and in Destiny blend.
You cannot escape them, for petty or great,
Or evil or noble, they fashion your Fate.

Somewhere on some planet, sometime and somehow
Your life will reflect your thoughts of your Now.
My law is unerring, no blood can atone
The structure you build you will live in alone.
From cycle to cycle, through time and through space
Your lives with your longings will ever keep pace
And all that you ask for, and all you desire
Must come at your bidding, as flame out of fire.

Once list' to that Voice and all tumult is done
Your life is the Life of the Infinite One.
In the hurrying race you are conscious of pause
With love for the purpose, and love for the Cause.

You are your own Devil, you are your own God
You fashioned the paths your footsteps have trod.
And no one can save you from Error or Sin
Until you have hark'd to the Spirit within.

Here we have concepts that Hindus and Buddhists (and even mystical Judaism, Islam and Christianity) are very familiar with:

1. Karma –
your orbit is fixed to your soul;
Somewhere on some planet, sometime and somehow
Your life will reflect your thoughts of your Now
2. Reincarnation of the soul –
You were. You will be! Know this while you are:
Your spirit has travelled both long and afar. It came from the Source,
to the Source it returns
From body to body your spirit speeds on
It seeks a new form when the old one has gone
and the form that it finds is the fabric you wrought
3. The Soul –
The Spark which was lighted eternally burns.
It slept in a jewel. It leapt in a wave.
It roamed in the forest. It rose from the grave.
It took on strange garbs for long eons of years
and now in the soul of yourself it appears.

Cultures deemed a more ‘primitive’ culture do have some of the highest philosophies – philosophies wrapped up as riddles of a mythology, understandable only to the initiated.

And outsiders see the most obvious traits of a culture, and miss out on the beauty and the basis of that culture. Or plainly refuse to accept that anything outside of their culture can carry the truth.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Beautiful synopsis

"My Law"
Written by Tieme Ranapiri
and translated from Maori by Kere Graham.
The sun may be clouded, yet ever the sun
Will sweep on its course till the Cycle is run.
And when into chaos the system is hurled
again shall the Builder reshape a new world.

Your path may be clouded, uncertain your goal:
Move on - for your orbit is fixed to your soul.
And though it may lead into darkness of night
The torch of the Builder shall give it new light.

You were. You will be! Know this while you are:
Your spirit has traveled both long and afar.
It came from the Source, to the Source it returns
The Spark which was lighted eternally burns.

It slept in a jewel. It lept in a wave.
It roamed in the forest. It rose from the grave.
It took on strange garbs for long eons of years
and now in the soul of yourself it appears.

From body to body your spirit speeds on
It seeks a new form when the old one has gone
and the form that it finds is the fabric you wrought
On the loom of the Mind from the fibre of Thought.
As dew is drawn upwards, in rain to descend
Your thoughts drift away and in Destiny blend.
You cannot escape them, for petty or great,
Or evil or noble, they fashion your Fate.

Somewhere on some planet, sometime and somehow
Your life will reflect your thoughts of your Now.
My law is unerring, no blood can atone
The structure you build you will live in alone.
From cycle to cycle, through time and through space
Your lives with your longings will ever keep pace
And all that you ask for, and all you desire
Must come at your bidding, as flame out of fire.

Once list' to that Voice and all tumult is done
Your life is the Life of the Infinite One.
In the hurrying race you are conscious of pause
With love for the purpose, and love for the Cause.

You are your own Devil, you are your own God
You fashioned the paths your footsteps have trod.
And no one can save you from Error or Sin
Until you have hark'd to the Spirit within.

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

End of an era, beginning of another

Sai Baba’s passing mark the end of one era, the beginning of another

It is the passing of an era. Sathya Sai Baba, the focus of millions of devotees around the world, has left His body. Sai Baba died at 7.40am local time on Sunday at the Super Speciality Hospital which he had built for the poor. He had been on life support for a few weeks.

It is the passing of an era and the making way for a new one. For devotees, history has marked its path. We devotees need to look forward to the coming of the next sad guru, Prema Sai within eight years of this time in history.

The passing away of Sai Baba falls short of the time frame we devotees have been told of – He was supposed to leave his body in 2020 at the age of 96. But recently Sai Baba has been talking of leaving earlier as he felt his mission was nearing completion. This he has been saying for the past few year so it does not come as a surprise that he has left his mortal coil now.

The message of Sai Baba far superseded the many social works he was involved in. The unity that he proclaimed inspired millions around the world to work towards free education (with character); free medical and health services (with compassion); and commerce with conscience.

Working off the blueprint of free schools, free hospitals and free water supply that Sai Baba has in India, ardent devotees around the world put together similar programmes in the country of their origin. Even a small nation like Fiji has a free Sai school in Lautoka, passing many benefits to a nearby Fijian village.

Class, creed. colour did not matter to Sai Baba. I have celebrated Christmas with over 20,000 Christian followers at Puttaparthi, and enjoyed Eid, celebrated the Chinese New Year and Buddhist festivals there also. Sai Baba’s message of universal brotherhood/sisterhood remains true and has remained true for the past 60 plus years.

In many ways Prashanti Nilayam, in the village of Puttaparthi, was a United Nation of sorts. It is a place of which mixes humanity, almost like a cauldron in which gold is purified. Prashanti Nilayam teems with such a cross-section of people, of so many languages and so much culture it is hard to think of another similar place elsewhere.

While many will remember him for his miracles, Sai Baba himself paid little heed to that. His greatest achievement, he said, was the transformation of the human psyche, the real mission he said he was here for.

His lessons are well documented, in almost all languages. The scope of these lessons is what makes Sai Baba truly awesome – he had a true grasp of all the scriptures and made these easily available to all, including women.

Women, it is apparent, have a place of importance in Sai Baba’s teachings. His first school was for girls as he felt women needed that education to be able to make the right decisions. Women, he said time and again, were ready to lead the world. But he also demanded a lot of the women who followed his teachings – fortitude, compassion and understanding.

Sai Baba placed his faith in children for a better world. His organisation has a special wing where child development was taught. This wing is integral to the mission of service, devotion and education that he proclaimed around the world. The students from his various schools are making an impact worldwide, in various organisations, both commercial and social.

In the end his messages of Help Ever, Hurt Never; Love All, Serve All will be legacy he leaves behind.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Archive of Indian Weekender articles by yours truly

The Earth Owns Us II

Earthquakes are fearsome to a different level – they come without any warning and rip the ground from under our feet. Unlike hurricanes, flooding and other ‘predictable’ natural disasters, an earthquake rattles us to the bone because we have no answer to the fury of that sudden ground shake.

Adding to the fearsomeness of earthquakes is its concomitant disaster, the dread tsunami if the earthquake is epicentred at sea.

Science can only step in after the quake to say how big the quake was in comparison to atomic bombs, why it happened on this fault line, whether some plate was subducting, and so on. There is little science can do, no matter how advanced we get.

Some scientists have realised the idea of how the skin of the earth works and are able to correctly say where earthquakes could possibly strike, but they are rare. Some people, probably mathematicians, observe planet orbits, pull of gravity of celestial bodies and sometimes correctly predict an earthquake happening. These, of course, are pooh pahed by mainstream science and its followers.

There is evidence of both the ‘capability’ of what an earthquake/tsunami (and other natural disasters) can do at its most fearsome, as well as evidence of the inability of science in stopping this from happening.

For this we have to shake off some prevailing scientific thoughts and see with different eyes what was happening on earth many, many years ago. In the first part of this article ‘The Earth Owns Us’, I dwelt on the earth as a continually changing entity with an inherent ability to balance itself as it circuits the Milky Way.

This balancing act of Mother Earth is the cause of much of our natural disasters. There are forces in play here that are largely beyond the comprehension of much of mankind – all we see is isolated events of natural destruction and think of them as a one-off (or in the case of Christchurch, two-off) event.

Many mainstream scientists shy away from the fact that each and every natural disaster on Planet Earth is inter-connected. It may be an intellectual exercise for us to admit that inter-connectedness but very hard to accept as a reality. The reality remains that we in this part of the world were visited by a natural disaster, that Japan was visited by another natural disaster, that Myanmar had its own disaster. We tend to own these disasters and work on ways to get around them.

No real effort is made to see the inter-connectedness that leads to these disasters. Yet, history provides ample proof (if we approach history with an open mind) that ‘natural disasters’ were the cause of major massive changes to the planet, enough to wipe out whole species. Enough to wipe out whole civilisations.

Science says a ‘non-natural disaster’ like a comet or asteroid hitting Earth 65 million years ago wiped out the dinosaurs. For many, the jury is still out on this theory. In the past 65 million years the changes to Earth has been of its own volition – the poles engorged with ice throwing the planet off balance and thus leading to pole shift. Pole shift is when the north and south poles switch, or when the poles end up at the equator and the equator becomes the poles.

In The Earth's Shifting Crust, and two successive books, Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings (1966) and The Path of the Pole (1970), Charles Hapgood proposed the radical theory that the Earth's axis has shifted numerous times during geological history. The Earth's crust had undergone repeated displacements and that the geological concepts of continental drift, and sea-floor spreading, owed their secondary livelihoods to the primary nature of crustal shift. According to Hapgood, crustal shift was made possible by a layer of liquid rock situated about 100 miles beneath the surface of the planet.
In The Path of the Pole he wrote:
Polar wandering is based on the idea that the outer shell of the Earth shifts about from time to time, moving some continents toward and other continents away from the poles. Continental drift is based on the idea that the continents move individually. A few writers have suggested that perhaps continental drift causes polar wandering. This book advances the notion that polar wandering is primary and causes the displacement of continents. My book will present evidence that the last shift of the Earth's crust (the lithosphere) took place in recent time, at the close of the last ice age, and that it was the cause of the improvement in climate. – from the Internet.

However much science says that man only evolved into a civilised being in the past 10,000 or so years, evidence all over the world show that civilisation is more ancient than that. I have already talked of the underwater cities discovered around Japan and Taiwan and India and off the coast of Bimini Atoll in the Bahamas. The pyramids of Egypt (presently in a desert) show water marks on their sides dating back to 9600 BCE.

A major cataclysm caused these sunken cities, some stretching for miles outward from its centres with roads comparable to modern day highways, to be covered by the sea. In some cases, the sinking was gradual, in others sudden and disastrous.

One event supersedes every other natural disaster to come up with a solution for these sunken cities – the universal Flood or Deluge. Whether from the Bible, the Puranas, the Chinese scriptures, or Tibetan scriptures or the myths and legends of the natives of the continents – the Incas, the Mayans, Indians of North America or the islanders of Hawaii or Easter Islands, one fact stands out. There was a massive flood – whether from a tsunami or a rising of the sea level or the sinking of the landmass or a mixture of all three. And it happened some 10,000 plus years ago.

The Incas and Mayans as well as the Hopi Indians of North America also ‘tell’ of the foreigners who came to them, as either bringers of knowledge or as conquerors. In some case, the foreigners were then turned into gods and worshipped, others were prophets who told of things that were to come in the future.

They told the people that they were the remnants of a great people whose cities had been destroyed in floods, that they, the survivors, wanted to pass on the knowledge they had accrued so that they wouldn’t be lost altogether. It is theorised that the pyramids of South America are works of these survivors rather then the works of the natives of that place. Some see the Olmecs, a civilisation superseding the Mayans, as the survivors of the global catastrophe, who then died out and whose pyramids and other artefacts were taken over by the natives.

There are many who believe in this theory, and not only that, this as well as other theories of ancient civilisation that go back to pre-10,000 BCE, is substantiated by the digging up of OOParts: out of place artefacts – archaeological artefacts that make no sense in the present understanding of history.

Some examples below:

• There are prehistoric copper mines on Lake Superior, in California, Arkansas, New Mexico, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Georgia, New Jersey and Ohio, where prehistoric iron smelting furnaces have also been found.

• Manganese was mined near Broken Hill in Zambia. Carbon dating of charcoal on the site indicates these mines were being worked 28,130 years ago.

• Ancient 8,000-year-old shoes found in a Missouri cave – mainstream science says no one was living in the region at that time.

• BBC News Online science editor Dr David Whitehouse: Woven clothing was being produced on looms 27,000 years ago, far earlier than had been thought, scientists say.

• The famous Ice Age statuettes known as the Venus of Willendorf and of Brassempouy show clear evidence of stylised hair – that is, at the time of so-called caveman, the Neanderthal people.

• Ancient ornaments of platinum found in Ecuador. This poses a provoking question--how could the American Indian produce the temperature of over 1,770 degrees Celsius necessary to melt it? It should be borne in mind here that the melting of platinum in Europe was achieved only two centuries ago.

• The tomb of the Chinese general Chow Chu (A.D. 265-316) presents a mystery. When analyzed by the spectroscope, a metal girdle showed 10 percent copper, 5 percent manganese, and 85 percent aluminium. But according to the history of science aluminium was obtained for the first time by Oersted in 1825 by a chemical method.

• An iron pillar in Delhi which weighs 6 tons and is about 7.5 meters high has, for fifteen centuries (it could be more, according to some experts), withstood the tropical heat of India plus the heavy downpours during the monsoons. It does not show any signs of rust formation and provides proof of the superior metallurgical skill of ancient India.

Despite these OOParts, mainstream science refuses to acknowledge the existence of civilisations pre-3000 BCE. Or maybe they haven’t gotten around to changing the textbooks yet.

Yet, millions accept that there were civilisations before the so-called ancient civilisations of Sumer, Babylon, Egypt, Harappa and Mohenjo Daro. These millions accept it through their scriptures: whether the Bible, or the Hindu texts, or the Islamic scriptures, or the Buddhist annals.

Whether it be Noah’s Ark or Manu’s boat pulled by the Matsaya avatar, the deluge at the melting of the last Ice Age has been put into folk history. The history of an entire era, a civilisation, no less, have been put down in these ancient books. Granted over time, it has been added to, subtracted from and hyperbolised to become almost meaningless in a modern world but the fact remains that for all its over-the-top legends, the scriptures may be the best representation of the ancient civilisations that pre-dated us, for science as well as for religion.

And as we move in situation with global warming, polar ice cap meltdowns, increasing earthquake activity and a slow pole shift (the north pole has a south-bound shift by over 12 degrees in the past 25 years), what are we to make of these myths and legends?

There a lot of people out there on the fringe who believe that a major crust displacement could happen soon. And that the increasing number of earthquakes are signs that this could happen. What is a crustal displacement?: “The theory of Crustal Displacement states that the entire crust of the Earth can shift in one piece like the lose skin on an orange.”

It is hard to believe that a great flood or a massive tsunami could be the cause of a global catastrophe but add in the crustal displacement theory and it becomes almost viable.

Could this be what happened to the ancient civilisations? Could it be that, in one of its balancing acts, the Earth saw a crustal displacement happen where the ice caps (over-weight and cumbersome) moved into warmer parts and were melted? Scriptural stories tell of a quick deluge, but not a sudden one. In the Bible, it is said that it ‘rained for 40 days and 40 nights’ (could it mean something else than a literal rain flood?); in the Puranas, the flood was unstoppable but gradual. In other myths and legends, the flooding was accompanied by earthquakes, erupting volcanoes and subsiding land masses. Different things happened in different parts of the globe although, apparently, each of them was connected to the main event – the crustal displacement.

What could those ancient civilisations do on the face of a massive flooding? Nothing. That civilisation was not prepared for a global phenomenon of this magnitude.

Our scriptures tells of the high technology that these civilisations had – of flying vehicles, of weapons on par with nuclear bombs, of weapons with missile-like features. Here was a civilisation of conquests and empire-building, using weapons of a high technology and infrastructure that equalled any modern present-day country.

Yet, they had no answer to nature’s adjustment of itself. Entire cities were flooded, those who could leave did, those who couldn’t….

The survivors took to higher grounds, met with ‘lesser civilised’ people, erected monuments to their lost civilisations and tried to pass on as much of their accrued knowledge as they could. (Ever wondered why the gods of most mythology choose a mountain for their abode? Higher grounds would be a natural when the world was under water around you.)

But it is hard to pass on a few thousand years of knowledge to people who could barely read or had no idea what a wheel was. What was passed on as knowledge was effectively for daily use, some astronomical calculation and better agricultural practices while ‘higher knowledge’ was reserved for a selected few (and apparently jealously guarded by those few).

And how does a survivor pass on the wonders of a high civilisation to people who have been hunters and gatherers all their lives, who believe him to be a god? He tells them of the wonders at a level of understanding that they can comprehend and thus these stories become part of their mythology, of their religion.

Finally, what does a survivor do to leave behind a sign of the passing of such a civilisation for future generations? He builds monuments – like the pyramids, maybe Stonehenge, great etchings in the ground, so that his people do not pass out of the memory of mankind.

Iron, steel and glass are pretty fragile because the elements decomposes them quickly within a few hundred years, as the survivors would have known. So they resorted to stone, massive stones to create monuments to their vanished civilisation. These stone monuments, peppered around the world, is all that remains of this proud global civilisation.

And, they say, history repeats itself.

NOTES
In 1958 Hapgood published his first book, The Earth's Shifting Crust in collaboration with James H. Campbell, a mathematician and engineer. Here we find a foreword by Albert Einstein shortly before his death.
I frequently receive communications from people who wish to consult me concerning their unpublished ideas. It goes without saying that these ideas are very seldom possessed of scientific validity. The very first communication, however, that I received from Mr. Hapgood electrified me. His idea is original, of great simplicity, and if it continues to prove itself of great importance to everything that is related to the history of the earth's surface. I think that this rather astonishing, even fascinating, idea deserves the serious attention of anyone who concerns himself with the theory of the Earth's development.

The Pleistocene has been dated from 2.588 million (±5,000 years) to 12,000 years before present (BP), with the end date expressed in radiocarbon years as 10,000 carbon-14 years BP.[2] It covers most of the latest period of repeated glaciation, up to and including the Younger Dryas cold spell. The end of the Younger Dryas has been dated to about 9640 BC (11,590 calendar years BP).

What NASA says of the fears associated with 2012.

NASA has already stated:

Nothing bad will happen to the Earth in 2012. Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012.

Nibiru and other stories about wayward planets are an Internet hoax. There is no factual basis for these claims. If Nibiru or Planet X were real and headed for an encounter with the Earth in 2012, astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye. Obviously, it does not exist. Eris is real, but it is a dwarf planet similar to Pluto that will remain in the outer solar system; the closest it can come to Earth is about 4 billion miles.

The Earth has always been subject to impacts by comets and asteroids, although big hits are very rare. The last big impact was 65 million years ago, and that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Today NASA astronomers are carrying out a survey called the Spaceguard Survey to find any large near-Earth asteroids long before they hit. We have already determined that there are no threatening asteroids as large as the one that killed the dinosaurs. All this work is done openly with the discoveries posted every day on the NASA NEO Program Office website, so you can see for yourself that nothing is predicted to hit in 2012.

Q: How do NASA scientists feel about claims of pending doomsday?
A: For any claims of disaster or dramatic changes in 2012, where is the science? Where is the evidence? There is none, and for all the fictional assertions, whether they are made in books, movies, documentaries or over the Internet, we cannot change that simple fact. There is no credible evidence for any of the assertions made in support of unusual events taking place in December 2012.

Q: Is there a danger from giant solar storms predicted for 2012?
A: Solar activity has a regular cycle, with peaks approximately every 11 years. Near these activity peaks, solar flares can cause some interruption of satellite communications, although engineers are learning how to build electronics that are protected against most solar storms. But there is no special risk associated with 2012. The next solar maximum will occur in the 2012-2014 time frame and is predicted to be an average solar cycle, no different than previous cycles throughout history.

Re: Crustal displacement and a sudden Ice Age - Thousands of animals have been found to be frozen in a brief moment of geological time. Ancient maps of Antarctica suggests that it too was 'frozen over' in a brief moment in time.
By studying the carcasses of the woolly mammoth and rhino found in the northern regions of Siberia and Canada one can see the land these animals grazed on was suddenly shoved into a much colder climate. Their stomachs reveal food found in warm climates where they grazed just prior to their deaths. This was found frozen along with them suddenly.

Very little is known about the Precambrian, despite it making up roughly seven-eighths of the Earth's history, and what little is known has largely been discovered in the past fifty years. The Precambrian fossil record is poor, and those fossils present (e.g. stromatolites) are of limited biostratigraphic use.[5] Many Precambrian rocks are heavily metamorphosed, obscuring their origins, while others have either been destroyed by erosion, or remain deeply buried beneath Phanerozoic strata.[6][7]
It is thought that the Earth itself coalesced from material in orbit around the Sun roughly 4500 Ma and may have been struck by a very large (Mars-sized) planetesimal shortly after it formed, splitting off material that came together to form the Moon (see Giant impact theory). A stable crust was apparently in place by 4400 Ma, since zircon crystals from Western Australia have been dated at 4404 Ma.[8]
The term Precambrian is somewhat out-moded, but is still in common use among geologists and paleontologists. It was briefly also called the Cryptozoic eon.

Friday, March 18, 2011

He is Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram

He is Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram

He is Everyman
And thing and thought.

Every action is His,
History is HIS STORY,
His is the making, the breaking and the mending,
His is the thinking, the thought and the imagining.

He is Everyman
And will and wont.

Every decisions is His,
Resolution is HIS SOLUTION
His is the assessing, the selecting and the judging
His is the custom, the tendency and the disposition.

He is Everyman
And passion and poise.

Every enjoyment is His,
Transport is HIS SPORT
His is the joy, the bliss and the rapture
His is the pride, the nobility and the aplomb

He is Everyman
And valour and veracity.

Every authority is His,
Rectitude is HIS ATTITUDE
His is the courage, the determination and the morality
His is the reality, the truth and the certainty

He is Everyman
And mercy and might.

Every outcome is His,
Efficacy is HIS ECSTASY
His is the compassion, the magnanimity and the deliverance
His is the power, the potency and the fulfilment

He is Everyman
And perfect and pure.

Every virtue is His,
Decency is HIS POTENCY
His is the ideal, the excellence and the magnificence
His is the innocence, the simplicity and the incorruptible

He is Everyman
And one and all

He is everything
Diverse is HIS UNIVERSE
His is the singularity, the particular, and the specific
His is the entirety, the inclusive and the whole

CIA – Constant Integrated Awareness

I move within, tethered to everything,
everything responding to me.

The flow is constant, un-abating.
Shockingly understandable, manageable.

Everything I know, is known to me,
The beginning and the end are only
words, drenched in meaning if we only
allow it to be.

Constant is the knowledge of IS, being and becoming, constantly.
Unvarying is the tempo, the movement of the knowledge,
Neither fast nor slow, just a flow
And I flow with it.

The message is integrated, related, included,
Nothing amiss, nothing missing
Melding into a oneness of knowing.

Who speaks, who hears, who says, who listens?
I do and I do and I do and I do.
What is said anew, a fresh – nothing.
Yet, I listen to it afresh, and then I listen again.
Each time in bliss, revelling in its novelty.

All in one and one in all, who to tell the message to?
Yet, the message is relayed, integrated into everything
Flowing, not flowing, there, and everywhere.

From every point, every dimension the message reverberates,
I AM, being, becoming, beckoning,
calling to all and calling to itself only.
What call is it?

The call to be LOVE,
to be all in LOVE,
to become LOVE,
to become all in LOVE.

The Universe

I expand, evolving into
the Universe,
Changing into IT, the divine.

My mind teeters, tottering in
the vastness, into the miniscule,
unable to comprehend,
constitute itself.

There is no anchor: freewheeling,
flying, the mind tries to grab
the debris of its existence.
A last dab at its being, its frothy
life of vicissitudes and vanity
just flimsy elements of film
that it cannot hold on to.

Brightness incomprehensible, beyond
anything the senses can grasp
has the mind reeling in a vortex.

Yet, something holds its all together.

What is it that gives me the firma
on which to see all these?

To see it in its oneness, in its
completeness, in its entirety.

What am I? to be able to experience
the interaction, the woven play,
the mesh of life and energy that is.

The I is not me, yet me, and all of me.
The I is everything, everyone, every and all.

What is is, what was is no longer
And what will be doesn’t exist.
Everything is now, the point, the dot,
the bindu sanyuktam, the origin.

Are we made anew every moment?
What is a moment in the place of no time,
in the space of a blink of an eye?

Expanding, the universe marks its own time,
its own rhythm. How miniscule our frames
of time and space, of past and future.
The mind, beset with its own parameters
cannot bring to bear the vastness into any confine.

Nor can it adjust to the minuteness of everything in it,
every tiny detail perfect in its place, deliberated to finest particularity
every facet sought out to its own brilliance.
Each fitting flawlessly into a lattice of life.

Beyond alpha and omega, beyond the finest calculation,
the universe expands in dimensions unknown,
writing its story, relaying its message, listening to it itself

Thursday, March 17, 2011

God's Name and Natural Disasters

God’s name and Natural Disasters

The 22 February earthquake in Christchurch once again brought to me how great is God’s name. We lost many lives this time around, the damage to the city is horrendous and it will be long time before anyone can be ‘normal’, if ever.

I was at work when the quake struck. At first I though it was just another of the hundreds of aftershocks we had experienced since last September. But no, this was going to be different as people started screaming and things started falling down off the desks and from the ceiling as the building swayed back and forth and the ceiling-height unbreakable glass window shattered.

When anything out of the ordinary happens I mentally say my name mantra “Sairam”. This is something that is ingrained me, something that I have been doing for the past 20 years. I found that the violence of the quake was so much that my mind was going blank. It took an effort to say “Sairam”. But when I finally did say it, a sense of calm descended on me. All this took place in less than five seconds – which is a lot of time in an earthquake.

The calm allowed me to carry out my duties as a fire warden for the floor I work in. It allowed me to herd out those people who were not out for lunch. As I waited on the fourth floor stair landing to allow people from the fifth and sixth floors to file past (we have well over a thousand people in one single building), I worried about my daughter who was in the central city and my son who was at home. That one single ‘Sairam” was all I had said but I knew, deep in my heart, it was enough to keep them safe.

But the mind plays its own games and as we wardens came out of the building last, my thoughts turned to my kids again. Had they said “Sairam”, were they alright? Was my son lying under the rubble of our house? How would I ever find my daughter in the city? People were trapped under rubble of buildings that just down the street from us, the Christ Church Cathedral, two blocks down, had crumbled. All communications were down.

To remember God in your direst need is enough, I found out. My son was okay, the house was still standing but almost everything inside had been damaged. My daughter had been in Cathedral Square with a friend, right in the thick of things (she took a picture as the Cathedral spire crumbled). Yes, she had said “Sairam” and yes, it did make her calm. And no, she had very little fear although people around her screaming. My son had also resorted to “Sairam”, and then started calling his sister on his mobile, to no avail. Being alone when a natural disaster strikes is not a situation anyone would want to be in. But then you are really never alone, are you?

The name of God is a very powerful weapon against adversity. Religion is as simple as this. To remember God’s name when you are in trouble, and when you are not. But as I had found out, it is very hard to remember God’s name when a force like a bomb blast is going off under the ground below. The mind starts going blank as the sensory receptors try to make sense of the overload of information coming in: the floor bucking, the lights and fittings swaying out to incredible angles, the sound of glass shattering, computer monitors flying off desks, people screaming, and the grinding, awful sound of the earthquake itself.

For me the five second lapse before I could force my mind to say “Sairam” was worrying. Thankfully God does protect people “as the eyelid protects the eyes” – instinctively and without thought. To go about your daily business knowing God is looking after you is a beautiful thing; to know God will look after you come what may is a thing of wonder.

I have found religion to be simple – it is a one-to-one with God. Identify one Isht Devata and stick to Him/Her. Posit everything on that one name, be it father, mother, guru, friend or kin. Make that relationship a living one, putting as much into it as you would with a relationship with your mother, your father, or your friend. Get rid of anything that hinders this relationship.

For me, God is Sathya Sai Baba, in his aspect of Sai Shiva. As a Hindu, you can choose from the hundreds of names and forms that we have given the One God over the past few millennia - just make it yours, as truly as you would give a name to a child when it is born and make it yours. Imagine all the time, effort and love you pour into a child and do the same for God.

Remembering God’s name comes from practice, so that it forms an unbreakable habit. There are two ways to do this: constantly reciting the name or the mantra mentally and, as some people find it easier to do, substituting everyday things with the name or mantra. What we as a family do is an example (it may right, it may be wrong but it works for us): we say “Sairam” to virtually everything when we are together. We have replaced our good mornings, hello, exclamations, etc with “Sairam”. Uttering “Sairam” with different nuances gives it different meanings – it can replace ‘Oh my God’, ‘excuse me’, ‘please’ just in the way it is said. It took years of practice but it is now a family habit.

Another thing we do as a family is the reverence we offer to Mother Earth. I have talked much about Mother Earth in the article “The Earth Owns Us” in this site. Bhu Devi/Bhoomi Devi is our mother. We say this a lot at our religious gatherings but we must mean it, not just pay lip-service to this hoary adage. It should not just be a thing understood at an intellectual level but be an integral part of our lives.

When I say pay reverence I don’t mean doing pooja. Mother Earth does not need special rites and rituals to be respected. There are everyday things we can – give thanks for the food we eat, respect trees by not cutting them down unless we have to and loving the animals around. In an urban environment, it could the birds that we complain about making a mess of our compounds. It is better to keep your environment clean, and thereby pest free, than whipping out the canister of poison for the flies, mosquitoes, rodents and cockroaches.

Sometimes we just have to kill them. In that case, do as the so-called primitive people do when hunting: they thanked the animal they killed for giving up their lives to feed the hunters. When you kill pests, take a moment to apologise. They are pests because of their nature, their Karma, if you will have it. They are not out to get you.

Keeping with older traditions, I will not shorten the life of a flower by plucking it; I will pass a tree and touch it if I can, seeking its blessing. It could a simple thing like brushing my head against the leaves and saying a mental ‘hello’, caressing the trunk, or actually hugging it when no one is around.

One of the most important thing is actually asking the tree/plant its permission when picking its fruit. You can pooh pah it as an old wives tale but science has established plants have a consciousness of their own and will react to response, positive and negative.

Modern life has divorced us from Mother Earth. We no longer really appreciate the bounty Mother Earth has in store for us, nor the life She has created for us. Instead we see our food coming from supermarket shelves. To hear a child say milk comes from the supermarket shelf and not knowing it comes from a cow is disheartening in that we are so separated from the natural things around us.

Too many young people in urban centres don’t know or don’t care of the primary industries that is the fuel of our lives. They see products coming from factories into stores and that is a fact for them. By unhinging ourselves from the lifeline of the earth, we have divorced ourselves from nature. For too many, nature has now become walking tracks, the beaches, the ‘wildlife’ in zoos, the camping in hi-tech vehicles, something we see on TV - a subset of life apart from the “reality of everyday life”.

And then when nature strikes we can’t believe what is happening. It is unacceptable. Yet, it is but a fact of life that natural disasters will happen. There appears to be no ‘cure’ or prevention for natural disasters. But hopefully this article is clear in saying there is a way of ensuring safety.

These ‘random’ acts of violence will happen, again and again. I have lost count of the number of cyclones I have been through in Fiji, and then these two earthquakes in Christchurch have had a major impact on my life. All through this, the name of God and the reverence for Mother Earth have been the only stability to rely on in making it through unscathed. It is a humbling aspect as well as wondrous phenomenon – that a power exists that can look after you because you have established a relationship with it.

It is a loving relationship, with all its concomitants: including the tiffs, the exasperation, the uncertainty, the withdrawals. Even with the anger and frustration, I have noticed that God will come through to protect you, anywhere, anytime. This protection is a verified aspect of God in all our scriptures, in Hinduism, in Christianity, in Buddhism, in any faith that posits a loving and caring God.

All these scriptures clearly show the way of establishing this one-to-one relationship with God. It behoves us as human beings to look for these ways of establishing the relationship for it may be the only way to be stable in an increasing unstable environment.

It is time for the Hindu to become a better Hindu, the Muslim a better Muslim, the Christian a better Christian. Don’t believe that your faith is the only right one – if it was there would not be any other faith at all. See any particular faith as a path denoted by the forefathers to show a people the best way designed for their temperament. Religions are designed as paths to godhead through processes that worked before and continue to work today. Only much of the real message is lost among the multitude of processes and God has become hidden in mechanical routine. Seek and ye shall find. Call His/Her name and you will be answered.

What kind of times did the Ramayana exist in?

Science, at its worst, is a rigid institution, unwilling to consider anything outside the venue of acceptable orthodoxy, which brings about stagnation in learning and quenches the fires of research; at its best, however, during those times its willing to acknowledge it has still much to learn about our world, science can be a beacon of enlightenment. - J Allan Danelek

Modern human have been around for over 100,000 years. Science would have us believe that in the first 90,000 years humans foraged like animals, hunting and gathering things to survive on, made rudimentary tools and did nothing much else.

And that it is only in the past 10,000 years that we, as a species, have been able to grow our food and to domestic animals - for food, as beasts of burden, as labour-saving devices and for companionship.

Science wants us to desperately to believe myths like mankind was stuck in the Stone Age for most of its 100,000 years on the earth; that our so-called ape-like ancestors had to develop at ‘its own pace’ to bring about the modern man; that finally we grew a brain good enough to be considered a human only the past 4000 years or so.

Why is this so? Only because science is unable to go beyond that 10,000 year mark. It is a matter of technicality. 10,000 BCE or thereabouts a major planetary event took place that has confounded science since it began a mere 150 years ago.

A mini Ice Age, called the Pleistocene Age, ended at that time, thought to be sometime between 10,000 BCE to 9600 BCE, with latter figure finding more favour with the scientists. In this mini-Ice Age much of present-day North America and Europe were under a cover of thick ice. Very little else is known of this age, although the bank of knowledge is steadily growing larger.

The breakdown of the topography of the earth during that Ice Age (below) is from writer J. Allan Danelek, who I believe has got closest ever by anyone in understanding events that happened pre-10,000 BCE, including scientists. The quote at the start of this article is also Danelek’s.

Says Danelek (edited for style only):
* The topography of the earth would have been different – the Baltic, the North Seas and the water around the British Isles would be dry land;

* The region around the Bahamas and Florida would be dry land. The Bering Strait would not exist – there would be a land bridge joining the two continents and it would provide easy access from Asia into the Americas;

* The south western Pacific and the Indian Ocean would have been much different than today – think of a massive section of land stretching from India to the shores of Australia, which would contain in itself the present day island nations of Java, Sumatra, Indonesia, and the numerous islands there.

* Keeping in mind the topography, this land mass would have broad fertile plains often for thousands of miles in area, criss-crossed by broad rivers. It would be a tropical paradise of about five hundred miles wide and two thousand miles long – about the size of western Europe.

* The Yellow Sea and parts of the East China Sea would be the extended coastline of China, with present day Taiwan and Hainan just mountain ranges in this landmass.

* Following the end of the ice age, the peaks of these plains would survive the flooding by becoming the isolated islands of Borneo, Sumatra, Java, etc.
Philippines would have been as large as Madagascar, while Papua New Guinea and Australia would be one landmass, separated by a small sea from mainland Indonesia. Japan would be linked to the Korean Peninsula by a land bridge.

* India’s western coastline would have extended further into the sea by a hundred miles. And the Persian Gulf would not have existed – it would have been a delta of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

* The rest of the planet was ice-locked –only the area between the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer was warm.

* A third of North America and half of Europe were buried under a thick layer of ice. The same situation was in Patagonia in South America. Three of the seven continents were inhabitable. Central and South America were one huge rainforest with some agriculture being undertaken.

The reason I chose to use Danelek’s analysis of the topography of earth during the Ice Age is because he has come closest to what we as Hindus believe – civilisations come in cycles and that we have had many civilisations other than what we are in the present. Danelek is a proponent of a global civilisation existing pre-10,000 BCE which was wiped out in the global catastrophe that took place when the Ice Age ended.

If we believe in what science would have us believe than we, as Hindus, would have to believe that Lord Rama, the glory of Ayodhya and high science environment of Ravana’s Lanka did not exist. For the story (history) of Rama is set some 20,000 years before the story of Krishna. And, according to science, civilisation could not have existed in that time.

The Ramayana (meaning the Journeys of Rama) tells of two civilisations in contention - that of Ayodhya and Lanka. It is as much Ravana’s story as it is Rama’s, for Ravana represents what many of us can relate to in modern life – a superpower nation based on high technology, arrogant in the face of everything because of its superiority in arms and finance.

It is said that Ravana, the powerful great administrator and Emperor, ruled over seven continents from Lanka. They were the modern South America, Southern Europe; the Himalayas including the Hindukush mountain range and continents up to Madagascar.

The kingdom of Ayodhya is said to have extended from present day India well in South East Asia, including the Indochina peninsula and probably beyond. Many believe it was not just a city but an empire. These two close neighbours contended constantly - with legends saying that it was Dashratha’s martial superiority that kept Ravana from launching an all-out war of supremacy in the region.

One particular legend has Ravana sending a message asking Ayodhya to kowtow to the superiority of Lanka, to become his vassal or be besieged. Dashratha replied by shooting a missile to Lanka that permanently sealed the main gates of the city, demonstrating what faced Ravana if he ever chose to attack. Ravana stayed put, biding his time to get back at Dashratha.

Of course, over the course of time, the missile became an arrow shot by a bow, leading to much incredulity in modern times as to whether this could have happened.

Let’s look at Ravana’s Lanka to show what kind of technology existed at that time, if only through conjecture.

According to some scholars, Ravana’s capital, Lanka had 25 Palaces and over 400,000 streets and it was a continent south of India of which the present day Sri Lanka is the only remnant. (We have to keep in mind there are several versions of the Ramayana, both in India and in South Asia as well as in South East Asia.)

In most versions, Lanka is described as a huge continent, a mega world power with Ravana having dominion over a large part of the earth including Africa and Western Europe (that which was not under ice). Flying vehicles abound (including Ravana’s personal Pushpak Vimana) and weapons of mass destruction were common enough and were readily demonstrated during wars of conquest and when Rama besieged the city.

The final battle/s of the Ramayana are epic, any way you look at it. On the face of lack of evidence of weapons of high technology being used in the Ramayana – evidence that disappeared in the deluge that first covered/washed away everything and which, after subsiding, still left massive chucks of land under water – translators chose to make it easier on their readers by replacing missiles with bows and arrows (the weapons that existed in the time after the deluge). A whole host of replacements must have taken place because it is hard to get your head around the anomaly of bows and arrows, spears and swords having the devastating result that is described in the Ramayana. For that matter, in the Mahabharata, too.

To counter this anomaly, translator talked in their interpretations of weapons which took on destructive powers after its powers were evoked/unleashed through a mantra. Just as a nuclear device will need a very complicated series of processes for its activation and detonation, so do the weapons of the Ramayana need a complicated process to be activated – now we just think of them as mantras that evoke supernatural powers in handheld weapons.

Vishwamitra is said to have taught these mantras, these activation codes to Rama and Lakshmana during their sojourn with him in his ashram. We are asked to suspend our beliefs in accepting that these mantras unleashed massive destruction from a puny bow and arrow. Now that we moderns are aware of nuclear devices and weapons of mass destruction, maybe it is time to accept that the Rama civilisation may well have had weapon as advanced and maybe more advanced than this civilisation?

There is some justification for this belief that a forgotten race of man attained not only the knowledge that we have so recently won, but also a power that is not yet ours. Apart from our ‘myths and legends’ other cultures also talk of gods with extraordinary abilities. Most of them have been supplanted by other, ‘more believable’ beliefs but not so with Hinduism.

There are many books in India that talk of the superhuman exploits of the ‘gods’, of extraordinary vehicles and vessels they used, of the weapons with destructive powers similar to our weapons of mass destructions. (see notes below of a description of the weapons’ effect and compare with what nuclear weapons nowadays can do).

Some scholars believe the story of the Ramayana is the actual history of a people living in a time of great technological advancement. Passed down through generations despite the catastrophe of a near-wipe out of the human species, the story has taken particular and peculiar turns in its narration depending on regional and cultural influences over the centuries/millennia.

The basic construct of this ‘history’, though, remains constant - the contention between Ayodhya and Lanka. Ayodhya was no slouch in the ways of the empire: Rama concluded the Ashwamedha yagna (the empire-building process after he is crowned king). If he was just a tribal chief, as western interpretations would have us believe, how is it is that his story so widespread in Asia? And why do each of the cultures that revere him as god choose to do so as someone who belonged to them (not an outsider) – a person who lived among them in ancient times, who interacted with them and left behind a legacy that they, as people of Rama’s descent, still hold true to this day?

Rama must have been an iconic figure in his time to command such love, respect and reverence throughout South Asia – from India to Thailand to Cambodia.

So, did the disaster of global proportion circa 9600 BCE wipe out all evidence of such a civilisation?

Not really. Mysterious ancient ruins keep turning up – from the lofty Andes (a seaport high in the mountains) to beneath fathoms of water in Japan (the 8000-year-old Yonaguni-Jima which has pyramids).

Ruins of underwater cities dot the coasts of India, Japan and Taiwan and more ruins are being found around Bimini Atoll in the Bahamas (these ruins have fluted columns!).

Dating of water marks around the base of the great pyramid bring up time frames several thousands years prior to the circa 3000 BCE that is generally accepted by mainstream science. Some readings are coming back with dates going back to 10,000 BC – a time when mainstream science says homo sapiens had not even domesticated animals or learnt to cultivate grains.

Why are all these ruins popping out now, and what do they tell us of our past – our true past?

Notes:

Some underwater cities:

Havana, Cuba: A team of scientists continues to explore megalithic ruins found in the Yucatan Channel near Cuba. They have found evidence of an extensive urban environment stretching for miles along the ocean shore. Some believe that the civilization that inhabited these predates all known ancient American cultures.

Bay of Cambay, India: A few years back divers discovered the remains of a vast 9500 year old city. This submerged ruin has intact architecture and human remains. More significantly, this find predates all finds in the area by over 5,000 years, forcing historians to re-evaluate their understanding of the history of civilazation in the region. The find has been termed Dwarka, or the ‘Golden City,’ after an ancient city-in-the sea said to belong to the Hindu god Krishna.

Yonaguni-Jima: Discovered by a dive tour guide some t20 years ago, controversies have arisen around a mysterious pyramids found off the coast of Japan. These structures seem to have been carved right out of bedrock in a teraforming process using tools previously thought unavailable to ancient cultures of the region.

Description of weapons of mass destruction in the Ramayana and the Mahabharatha:
"Gurkha, flying a swift and powerful vimana (fast aircraft)
hurled a single projectile charged with the power
of the Universe. An incandescent column of
smoke and flame, as bright as ten thousand suns, rose with
all its splendor.

It was an unknown weapon, an iron thunderbolt, a gigantic
messenger of death, which reduced to ashes the entire race
of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas.

The corpses were so burned as to be unrecognizable.
Hair and nails fell out; Pottery broke without apparent cause,
and the birds turned white.

...After a few hours all foodstuffs were infected...
...to escape from this fire the soldiers threw
themselves in streams to wash themselves and their
equipment."
- The Mahabharata

"(It was a weapon) so powerful that it could destroy the earth
in an instant. A great soaring sound in smoke and flames:
And on its sits death..."
- The Ramayana

"Dense arrows of flame, like a great shower, issued
forth upon creation, encompassing the enemy...
A thick gloom swiftly settled upon the Pandava hosts.
All points of the compass were lost in darkness.
Fierce wind began to blow upward, showering dust and gravel.

Birds croaked madly... the very elements seemed disturbed.
The earth shook, scorched by the terrible violent heat of this
weapon.
Elephants burst into flame and ran to and fro in a frenzy...
over a vast area, other animals crumpled to the ground and died.
From all points of the compass the arrows of flame rained
continuously and fiercely.
- The Mahabharata

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

The cosmology of Hinduism

In the Vahara avatar of Lord Vishnu, one wonders how the rescue of earth was affected?

Where was Vishnu? Was he reclining on Sesha, and creation was in abeyance? If so, earth would not have been created at all and would not be in need of rescuing.

If creation was already in progress, one needs to know where dwelt Lord Vishnu. And why take the form of a boar to facilitate the rescue?

And what was the Samudra Manthan? What Samudra (Ocean) was churned? Why was it giving up such goodies as the amrita, the celestial elephant Airavat, the unequalled equine Uchachaihsravah, and even the goddess Lakshmi. More than that, why, and how, is the moon one of the goodies that came out the churning?

Why would the devas and the asura work together to something like this, especially the asuras who already had the upper hand in their ongoing battle with the devas?

Who are Madhu and Kaitabh? And why did they rampage across the universe, undefeated by even the mighty Vishnu, only to succumb to the boon he asked of them to die when they could not defeat him either? Why Vishnu with a horse head – Hyagriva?

Why a half-man, half-lion incarnation? Only to give a messy death to some evil king? The questions can be endless, and some answers are hard to make sense of. Nevertheless, there must be some basis for these myths, maybe one lost in antiquity, or suffocated in interpretations over the generations that have rendered them so unlike what they should be.

Let’s start with an overview of the Das Avatars, the 10 incarnations of Lord Vishnu that practically forms the basis of Hinduism in our age. Why does the Lord need to take a fish form, one may ask? And ask this with some validity. There are many answers given to this, and most are based on interpretations of a holy man, which itself is based on what that holy man has understood of that particular scripture he is interpreting.

Yes, the raison d’être of our mythologies change from scripture to scripture, interpretation to interpretation, depending on what one wants to make of it. While the avatars of Vishnu is largely accepted to be 10, there are groups who believe in 22 avatars, or more. We will stick to Das Avatars for practical purposes.

Some say the first few avatars of Vishnu is the Hindu way of depicting human evolution.

Science says life was first formed in the waters of the earth, and then that life learned to live on the land (water creature to amphibian to land animal). The first avatar of Vishnu - Matsya, the fish - is said to depict the first step of evolution through from water to land.

The background to the Matsya Avatar is the great flood that makes up the starting point of present times in virtually every religion/mythology in the world. Lord Vishnu takes the form of a fast-growing horned fish to save Manu, who builds a ship and hooks it onto the horn of the fish to be towed to safety when the flood comes.

Over time, the facts associated with these events kept changing to suit the mentality of that generation. The evolutionary fish turned into the fish that saved Manu and his family for repopulating Earth after the devastating flood.

The second avatar of Kurma, the tortoise/turtle is the amphibian intermediary before life of the purely land-based creatures. That has turned into Lord Vishnu taking the shape of a turtle to base Mount Mandara while the devas and asura churned Kshirsagar (the Ocean of Milk, or Buttermilk Ocean) using the serpent Vasuki has the churn rope.

And the first land animal as per Hindu evolution is represented by the boar, which in the Dash Avatar tales is Lord Vishnu taking that anthropomorphic form to save the Earth from the evil grasp of the demon Hiranyaksha. Hiranyaksha is, of course, the brother of Hiranyakashyap, the father of Prahlad who was torn apart by the Narsimha (Nar Singh) avatar.

In between (or before all these) is the fascinating myth of Madhu and Kaitabha, the demons inadvertently spawned by Vishnu, and as strong as him, for which Vishnu had to take on an incarnation of horse-headed man to make these demons succumb. More on this later in the article.

Then comes the half man, half lion Narasimha (Nar Singh) showing our pre-evolution into the human cycle, followed by the dwarf avatar Vamana depicting the first man, small and cunning, relying on its intellect to survive in an environment where claws, fangs and brute strength ruled.

The next few avatars are all humans (Parasurama, Rama, Krishna and Buddha) until the last one, the yet-to-come Kalki avatar who/which is either going to be a white horse or be seen as riding a white horse. Again we have the fascinating horse amalgamation in an avatar. What is it with the horse and our celestial stories?

The Hindu cosmology does provide some different/better answers to understanding our mythology but we have to shift the arena somewhere else to make sense of the ‘myths’.

The Das Avatar of Vishnu is the history of the cosmos wrapped, or rather lost, in the dumbing down of its true origins – the story of the formation of the Milky Way galaxy.

The obvious link to the Milky Way is the creation mythology – Vishnu reclines/sleeps/is in yoganidra on Sesha/Anantha Naag in Kshirsagar (Ocean of Milk) until creation is to start. The kshirsagar is the Milky Way (thus named for its milk-like appearance in the sky above us), Sesha represents the spiral formation of this particular galaxy and Vishnu is the universal that governs/sustain this galaxy.

When creation is ready to start, a lotus comes out of Vishnu’s navel (the centre of the Galaxy) and Brahma is enthroned upon it. Brahma then sets forth the basis of all creation.

Before we can go into the Das Avatars and how they relate to our galaxy, let’s deal with the Madhu and Kaitabha phenomenon that has baffled Hindus for generations.

There is a lot of talk - among astronomers, astrologers and people of science - that the sun has a double - a planet or star that shadows it – and which affects the progress of our sun as well as its very temperament. Some say the double is an opposite of the sun, either in opposite orbit or in the opposite side of the sun in relation to their orbits.

The story of Madhu and Kaitabha is the story of the sun and its double (doppelganger?) in their initial days of rampaging around the galaxy. It is the story of how the force of the galactic centre finally curbed their wild orbits into a semblance of order around itself.

When they finally settled in their orbits around the galactic centre or Vishnu Naabhi, Madhu and Kaitabha are said to have succumbed to the Lord. That is why Vishnu is called Madhusudhana (the forceful pacifier of Madhu), rather than Madhu Mardhan (the destroyer of Madhu).

Pretty much the same cosmological concept applies to the Varaha avatar. The mythology says the Earth is lost among the disorder and chaos of the galaxy, and was rescued by Vishnu in his boar form.

This could very well be from the time when the moon was formed from a collision between two planets – one of which lost a chunk of itself and then was formed into what we call the earth. The collision takes place in time immemorial – the planet orbiting the sun is then called Tiamen.

Another planet, in another elliptical orbit (but not around our sun) crosses Tiamen’s orbit with disastrous effect. A chunk is blown off to become the moon later on, the debris from the collision form the asteroid belt and Tiamen is thrown off course by the impact.

Lost among the debris of the solar system (the asteroid belt) and buffeted and banged about, the former Tiamen has to be rescued and restored to its orbit around the sun.

Was Hiranyaksha the rogue planet that slammed into Tiamen, later to be called the Earth? It is said that Vishnu battled a 1000 years to restore the earth. Was the gravitational pull of the rogue planet so great that a major effort had to be made by the galactic centre to pull the earth back on course?

Thus we come to the story of the Samudra Manthan. One of the goodies that came out of the manthan was the moon itself. It is one of the several things that came out of the churning (some versions also say the Sun came out of the churning too).

The Samudra manthan is the story of the formation of the galaxy, of the diverse and disparate elements coming together to form various other elements, some good (the nectar of life, the celestial toys, medicine, apsaras,etc). And some bad - the halahal poison that endangered everyone and which Shiva is said to have sucked in and kept in his throat.

Substitute the halahal poison for the initial calamitous antimatter-like substances that could have destroyed the galaxy, substitute Shiva for the blackhole at the centre of the galaxy (Vishnu Naabhi) that had to come in help quell and isolate the production of this antimatter-like substance, and the story starts making sense, somewhat.

Once the destructive elements are subdued, the goodies can come into being. Each of the elements represents some thing of the beauty (see notes below for a list of what was produced in the churning).

The Moon (and in some versions, the Sun) was, in another age, churned like butter out of the primordial ocean by the “gods” and “demons.” And that could be the basis of the Samudra manthan myth.

As before, ‘clarifying’ additions were made to this observation by the ancients (or their descendents) and we ended up with the ‘understandable and acceptable’ version of today. Which is that the devas went to Lord Vishnu and asked for his intercession in the drubbing they were taking from the asuras. Lord Vishnu came up with the plan to whip up some amrita (nectar of immortality) by churning the ‘ocean’, invited the asuras to partake on the basis they would share in the bounty but cunningly only allowed the devas to become immortal. (It’s your choice what you want to believe as a Hindu, but it is good to open your mind to other explanations.)

Many believe that the ancients intimately knew the workings of the universe, but focussed more on the workings of the Milky Way as it was the galaxy in which they resided.

When the ancients wrote of the early days of the galaxy when things were falling into place around the centre, they would have had either akashik records to fall back on or would have had direct knowledge (supra-knowledge) of the phenomenon that was the beginnings of our galaxy.

How could they pass on the knowledge of this phenomenon to the people? Maybe they related it as they saw it and it was later changed to more palatable rendering so that more people could ‘understand’ the story of creation? Who knows? But one thing is clear – there were records of what happened in our skies and these records were either wilfully or inadvertently changed to suit some people.

Today they are available to us as metaphors, allegories, parables – of the celestial battles in the sky between devas and asuras, or Shiva’s contention with Prajapati, or any of the many stories out of our Puranas.

Sadly the observation of the ancient into the workings of the universe appears to have changed into the power struggle between the devas and the asuras, of greed and violation of trust and cunning and betrayal – all the things that make humans human. In ‘humanifying’ the information, we lost the true knowledge of the heavens.

Notes:
Creation in Hinduism is cyclic – it will happen again and again. Many says each cycle will have its own set of avatars, repeating the avatars as required again and again. Sounds like premises of the Matrix movie.

Yet the universe is an expanding entity, and each cycle must have some difference to the preceding one.

Each cycle or age is denoted by an astrological sign. The Age of Pisces is variously said to have either begun in 330 BCE or AD1 (Year One) and it is the age that we are in presently.

Does the Matsya avatar mythology denote the beginning of this age? Is Jesus Christ’s symbol of the fish (as the fisher of man) another allegory of the start of the Age of Pisces?

And does this mean that when the next cycle starts, will it start with a different incarnation? Say if the age starts of with the astronomical positioning in the Leo quadrant, will the first incarnation be that of the lion or lion-man?

These are the questions few can answer, and I look forward to the day when I do come across someone who can provide valid answers. It will be an honour to know someone like that.

Ages exactly 2000 years each
Many astrologers find ages too erratic based on either the vernal point moving through the randomly sized zodiacal constellations or sidereal zodiac and, instead, round all astrological ages to exactly 2000 years each. In this approach the ages are usually neatly aligned so that the Aries age is found from 2000 BC to 1 AD, Pisces age 1 AD to 2000 AD, the Aquarian age 2000 AD - 4000 AD, and so on. This approach is not consistent with the precession of the equinoxes. Based on precession of the equinoxes, there is a one degree shift approximately every 72 years, so a 30 degree movement requires 2160 years to complete.

The list of products from the Samudra Manthan (Other lists have additional products):
Lakshmi, the Goddess of Fortune and Wealth -Vishnu's consort
Kaustubha, the most valuable jewel in the world
Parijat, the divine flowering tree with blossoms that never fade or wilt
Varuni, goddess and creator of alcohol
Dhanvantari, the doctor
Chandra, the moon
Kamadhenu, the wish-granting divine cow
Kalpavriksha, the wish-granting tree
Airavata, the elephant of Indra
Apsaras, various divine nymphs like Rambha, Menaka, Punjikasthala, etc.
Uchhaishravas, the divine 7-headed horse
Sharanga, the bow of Vishnu
Shankha Vishnu's conch
Amrita the nectar of immortality.

The symbolism of samudra manathan
The story represents the spiritual endeavor of a person to achieve self-realisation through concentration of mind, withdrawal of senses, control of desires and practice of austerities and asceticism.

The Devas and Asuras represent the positives and negatives respectively of one's personality. The participation of both the Devas and the Asuras signifies that when one is seeking bliss through spiritual practice, one has to integrate and harmonise both the positive and negative aspects and put both the energies to work for the common goal.

The ocean of milk is the mind or the human consciousness. The mind is like an ocean while the thoughts and emotions are the waves in the ocean.

The Avatars and Yugas
The Avatar concept is the very cornerstone of Hindu theology. According to it, the Supreme Power manifests itself in animal or human forms on earth, with the divine mission of cleansing it of the periodically increasing evil. The Avatar concept is closely related to the measurement of time in Hindu theology which has its basis on one working day of brahma. According to the Bhagwat Purana, Brahma, the creator, is the causal effect of the predetermined periodic creation and dissolutin of the universe.

Each creation of Kalpa is equal to one day and each dissolution or Pralaya is equal to one night in the life of Brahma. A Kalpa and a Pralaya last for 4,320 million human years each. Every Kalpa has 1000 cycles of 4 Yugas (ages). Each cycle of 4 yugas is completed in 4,320,000 human years.

The Yugas are called Satya, Treta, Dwapara and Kali. The Avataras which are considered most significant are ten in number and they form the "Dasha Avatar" these ten start with the form of a lowly fish and work up to the noble man, cast in the image of God.

The fanciful find a parallel to Darwin's theory of evolution in the progression of these Avatars. The Avatars enable the common folk to speak of or listen to stories of divine doings which is a simple way of proceeding towards Godhead; particularly in our Kali Yuga with its 'sick hurry and divided aims'.

- Nalinesh Arun is a former Fiji journalist who lived in India for many years. He is now based in Christchurch