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.
Showing posts with label Islam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Islam. Show all posts
Monday, July 18, 2011
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.
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.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
The scriptures versus the interpretation of the scriptures.
Think of religious scriptures as a live thing, a thing with an awareness of its own, of being able to impart knowledge to one who wants it. On its own volition.
What this means is that scriptures have a power of their own – if given the chance by people to allow it to teach them, scriptures will do so without any fuss or prejudice. Unlike religious organisations or gurus or the like, scriptures don’t see class, creed, race or sex – but only the effort of an individual in the journey towards truth/god/absolute.
Let’s not think of scriptures as a collection of books, dusty from non use or falling apart from overuse. Do not think of them as pages containing ideas put together by someone ‘wise’. Or a set of ideas or creeds that one has to follow to ‘attain’ the grace of god.
The scriptures of any ancient religion never started out like this: that is, as a set of beliefs offering salvation to its followers. Initially, scriptures were nothing but sounds. Sounds as similar to the cosmic sounds as humanly possible that seers isolated and identified as conducive to spiritual growth. The scriptural sounds were designed to raise our own vibrations in concert with the vibrations of the universe.
These sounds were voiced (with the proper intonations, nuances and the like), and it was memorised and then it was given a form that today we call mantras or chants. For millennia these chants or mantras remained the basis of spiritual development for mankind. It formed the basis of language and other auditory interaction for mankind also.
Then man developed writing. With this began the dubious work of ‘translating’ sound and giving them arbitrary symbols. The sounds of the universe now could be put down in writing.
Few people know that Sanskrit has never been a ‘written’ language but one that is vocalised only. Only in the past thousand years or so has Sanskrit been encrypted into writing. Sanskrit in India is written in the Devnagri script, the Tamil script, the Telugu script, the Bengali script, the Gujrati script and any other script you can think of. The textual rendering of the sounds of Sanskrit is based on the vocal traditions that India had been passing on through the generational lines – from father to son – for millennia before it being written down.
In the past 100 years of so, it has been written in English as well. Each rendering of the sounds of Sanskrit in a different language loses some of the nuance of the vocalised language in its traslation.
Almost all religions agree that in the beginning was the Sound/Word and everything else emanated from it. Sound and resound, and reflection and vibration intermingling gives rise to this universe. The elements of this sound, its reflection and vibration, make up the universe, as we see it as well as what we can’t see.
For example the true intonation of Om or Aum is very long and drawn out, it is described as an all pervading sound. Science can also confirm that a radiation, called the cosmic background radiation or the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, also pervades the universe as a faint background glow in the darkness of space seen by a radio telescope.
So two things are established – sound vibrations do pervade the universe alongside a cosmic background radiation. We are dealing with sound here presently.
This Universal Sound, and the various forms it has taken over the past four billion years of so, appears to be the basis of almost all religious teaching in this world. As can be seen from the scripture selections below.
In the beginning was the Word, says the Bible. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Islam calls the Universal Sound Nada-e-Asmani, Celestial Sound or Awaz-i-Mustaqim. It is said of Prophet Mohammed that he heard the Eternal Sound, Awaz-i-Mustaqim, for fifteen years before receiving the Koran.
Hindus call it the unstruck, endless sound - Anhat Shabda. Or Naad, the sound which created the entire universe.
Anhat Shabda does not have a cause we humans can think of. Imagine it: a sound that is not produced by hitting something or without any cause behind it. It is impossible to imagine it – any example of a sound we have - whether it is speaking, music, crashing, grinding, anything - has a cause and beginning.
The Universal Sound does not have a beginning, it is endless and knows no limit.
So what does science say about all this? Scientists know that a vibration of sorts permeates the entire universe – a vibration that strums a rhythm through the length and breadth of space, forming a foundation of ‘music’ echoed by all things in the universe. Planets, stars and other celestial bodies emanate notes of music/sound and scientists are using these notes as identifying elements of particular heavenly bodies.
This from www.universetoday.com:
Astronomers have been able to monitor the sound waves of a star 100 light years away and found a magnetic cycle analogous to our Sun‘s solar cycle. “Essentially, the star is ringing like a bell,” says scientist Travis Metcalfe from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a co-author of a new study. “As it moves through its starspot cycle, the tone and volume of the ringing changes in a very specific pattern, moving to higher tones with lower volume at the peak of its magnetic cycle.”
Scientists recently also discovered that black holes emit a strong sound, one that modifies its gigantic appetite for nearby stars by offering a counter force of sound waves. This sound emanation from black holes stops the black hole from swallowing entire galaxies – it puts up a parameter of operations for black holes; to be active enough but not to too active that entire galaxies disappear into it.
How strong is the sound that comes from black holes? Sound waves can travel 100s of thousands of light years from a black hole, and remain constant for 2.5 billion years (see below).
This latest from the NASA website:
Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have found, for the first time, sound waves from a supermassive black hole. The "note" is the deepest ever detected from any object in our Universe. The tremendous amounts of energy carried by these sound waves may solve a longstanding problem in astrophysics.
The black hole resides in the Perseus cluster of galaxies located 250 million light years from Earth. In 2002, astronomers obtained a deep Chandra observation that shows ripples in the gas filling the cluster. These ripples are evidence for sound waves that have travelled hundreds of thousands of light years away from the cluster's central black hole.
In musical terms, the pitch of the sound generated by the black hole translates into the note of B flat. But, a human would have no chance of hearing this cosmic performance because the note is 57 octaves lower than middle-C. For comparison, a typical piano contains only about seven octaves. At a frequency over a million billion times deeper than the limits of human hearing.
If so, the B-flat pitch of the sound wave, 57 octaves below middle-C, would have remained roughly constant for about 2.5 billion years.
Far from being ‘dead’, the space element of the universe that take up 95 percent of the volume of the universe is a throbbing, filled-with-activity entity. It is filled with magnetism, electricity, radiation, sounds beyond our hearing, sights beyond our eyes. Only now is science starting to pick up these sounds while the ancients were aware of it, and its importance, for millennia.
Our ancients - Hindus, practitioners of Islam, Zoroastrians, practitioners of Judaism – all knew of this throbbing element of the universe based on sound. Every mystical approach to god is based on this sound – the endless, boundless sound of the universe. Call it what you may – anhat shabda, the Word, Nada-e-Asmani, Awaz-i-Mustaqim, 'Udgeet' (the song of the Heavenly Regions) or Pranav (OM) – it is the sound of the universe that science is now starting to hear.
The ancient Greek philosophers also mention this sound. Socrates states that he heard within him a sound which took him to indescribable spiritual regions. Pythagoras called it the "Music of the Spheres."
Musica universalis (lit. universal music, or music of the spheres) is an ancient philosophical concept that regards proportions in the movements of celestial bodies—the Sun, Moon, and planets—as a form of musica (the Medieval Latin name for music). This 'music' is not usually thought to be literally audible, but a harmonic and/or mathematical and/or religious concept. (Wikipedia)
In Buddhism and Hinduism it is believed that one can literally hear this music when one develops siddhis after extensive meditation practice. This siddhi is sometimes called clairaudience, the talent of receiving messages in thoughtform from another frequency or realm. It is considered a form of channelling.
* Clairaudience or clear hearing, is the psychic ability by which the psychic can hear sounds and voices that are not audible to common people.
All ‘scriptures’ or revelations in all religions are based on this universal sound. Thus, stating again, scriptures are not the books that we consider holy but the set of knowledge based on the Universal Sound. In some religions it may be the basis of all revelations, such as Hinduism and Buddhism; or be the basic process by which God can be reached (Sufism and Sikhism); or play only a part in the overall set-up, as in Christianity.
In Hinduism, the Universal Sound is the basis of every religious process – the pranav (Om recitation), the mantras, the naamasmaran. This sound is the basis of all our original ‘religious’ books, the shrutis. The name for revelation in Sanskrit is Shruti, which means hearing. The revelation of god is ‘heard’ in the sound of the universe.
All else is either cultural or historical or philosophical – a shown by The Laws of Manu, which are not a revelation; they are not Sruti, but only Smriti, which means recollection of tradition. As are the Puranas, the Brahmanas (not to be confused with Brahman, or the Brahmin caste), Agamas, etc.
Only the Vedas are considered shruti – the Vedas are apauruseya "not human compositions", being supposed to have been directly revealed, and thus are called shruti ("what is heard").
Even the Upanishads and Arayanaks (forest books) are considered philosophical speculation, not really revealed scriptures, although they are part of the Vedas.
For the earnest seeker, God provides a personalised Gita as good as what Krishna provided for Arjun. One has to prepare himself/herself for receiving this Gita – this sound of the universe – by recitation of Om, namasmarana, etc.
This personal Geet emanates from the Universal Sound, the Udgeet or Song of the heavenly regions. It another way of saying that a seeker of spirituality has to align or harmonise himself/herself to the Universal Sound first before ‘receiving’ enlightenment.
The Udgeet is divine energy, which regulates the entire functioning of the universe. It is the Pranav, the Om/Aum and, by reciting it with awe and reverence, you link yourself to this energy. Thus are you part of the geet of the universe, a part of the udgeet.
Endnotes
The Shastras (scriptural directives) direct and counsel everyone. People yield to delusion and become one with the darkness caused by false values and attachment to the unreal, the “me” and “mine”. But scripture is the mother; she does not give up. She persists and pursues; she reminds people of their goal in order to ensure that they will be saved. One need not drink the entire ocean to know its taste; placing just one drop on the tongue is enough. Similarly, it is impossible to understand all the contents of the scriptures. It is enough if one grasps the important lesson that is elaborated therein and puts that lesson into practice. The lesson is: Constant thought of God.
- Satya Sai Baba
Sound in general is an integral component of the universe/s – some of it can heard, a whole lot beyond the scope of our instruments of hearing - the ears. A good example is ultrasound, the cyclic sound pressure with a frequency greater than the upper limit of human hearing (which is approximately 20 kilohertz). The production of ultrasound is used in many different fields, typically to penetrate a medium and measure the reflection signature or supply focused energy, for example sonography which produces pictures of fetuses in the womb.
Within everyone there is a subtler force, an inner vibration named Vital Air (Prana). The mind (Manas) within is subtler still, and deeper and subtler than the mind is the intellect (Vijnana). Beyond the intellect, people have in them the subtlest sheath of spiritual bliss (Ananda).
What this means is that scriptures have a power of their own – if given the chance by people to allow it to teach them, scriptures will do so without any fuss or prejudice. Unlike religious organisations or gurus or the like, scriptures don’t see class, creed, race or sex – but only the effort of an individual in the journey towards truth/god/absolute.
Let’s not think of scriptures as a collection of books, dusty from non use or falling apart from overuse. Do not think of them as pages containing ideas put together by someone ‘wise’. Or a set of ideas or creeds that one has to follow to ‘attain’ the grace of god.
The scriptures of any ancient religion never started out like this: that is, as a set of beliefs offering salvation to its followers. Initially, scriptures were nothing but sounds. Sounds as similar to the cosmic sounds as humanly possible that seers isolated and identified as conducive to spiritual growth. The scriptural sounds were designed to raise our own vibrations in concert with the vibrations of the universe.
These sounds were voiced (with the proper intonations, nuances and the like), and it was memorised and then it was given a form that today we call mantras or chants. For millennia these chants or mantras remained the basis of spiritual development for mankind. It formed the basis of language and other auditory interaction for mankind also.
Then man developed writing. With this began the dubious work of ‘translating’ sound and giving them arbitrary symbols. The sounds of the universe now could be put down in writing.
Few people know that Sanskrit has never been a ‘written’ language but one that is vocalised only. Only in the past thousand years or so has Sanskrit been encrypted into writing. Sanskrit in India is written in the Devnagri script, the Tamil script, the Telugu script, the Bengali script, the Gujrati script and any other script you can think of. The textual rendering of the sounds of Sanskrit is based on the vocal traditions that India had been passing on through the generational lines – from father to son – for millennia before it being written down.
In the past 100 years of so, it has been written in English as well. Each rendering of the sounds of Sanskrit in a different language loses some of the nuance of the vocalised language in its traslation.
Almost all religions agree that in the beginning was the Sound/Word and everything else emanated from it. Sound and resound, and reflection and vibration intermingling gives rise to this universe. The elements of this sound, its reflection and vibration, make up the universe, as we see it as well as what we can’t see.
For example the true intonation of Om or Aum is very long and drawn out, it is described as an all pervading sound. Science can also confirm that a radiation, called the cosmic background radiation or the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, also pervades the universe as a faint background glow in the darkness of space seen by a radio telescope.
So two things are established – sound vibrations do pervade the universe alongside a cosmic background radiation. We are dealing with sound here presently.
This Universal Sound, and the various forms it has taken over the past four billion years of so, appears to be the basis of almost all religious teaching in this world. As can be seen from the scripture selections below.
In the beginning was the Word, says the Bible. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Islam calls the Universal Sound Nada-e-Asmani, Celestial Sound or Awaz-i-Mustaqim. It is said of Prophet Mohammed that he heard the Eternal Sound, Awaz-i-Mustaqim, for fifteen years before receiving the Koran.
Hindus call it the unstruck, endless sound - Anhat Shabda. Or Naad, the sound which created the entire universe.
Anhat Shabda does not have a cause we humans can think of. Imagine it: a sound that is not produced by hitting something or without any cause behind it. It is impossible to imagine it – any example of a sound we have - whether it is speaking, music, crashing, grinding, anything - has a cause and beginning.
The Universal Sound does not have a beginning, it is endless and knows no limit.
So what does science say about all this? Scientists know that a vibration of sorts permeates the entire universe – a vibration that strums a rhythm through the length and breadth of space, forming a foundation of ‘music’ echoed by all things in the universe. Planets, stars and other celestial bodies emanate notes of music/sound and scientists are using these notes as identifying elements of particular heavenly bodies.
This from www.universetoday.com:
Astronomers have been able to monitor the sound waves of a star 100 light years away and found a magnetic cycle analogous to our Sun‘s solar cycle. “Essentially, the star is ringing like a bell,” says scientist Travis Metcalfe from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a co-author of a new study. “As it moves through its starspot cycle, the tone and volume of the ringing changes in a very specific pattern, moving to higher tones with lower volume at the peak of its magnetic cycle.”
Scientists recently also discovered that black holes emit a strong sound, one that modifies its gigantic appetite for nearby stars by offering a counter force of sound waves. This sound emanation from black holes stops the black hole from swallowing entire galaxies – it puts up a parameter of operations for black holes; to be active enough but not to too active that entire galaxies disappear into it.
How strong is the sound that comes from black holes? Sound waves can travel 100s of thousands of light years from a black hole, and remain constant for 2.5 billion years (see below).
This latest from the NASA website:
Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have found, for the first time, sound waves from a supermassive black hole. The "note" is the deepest ever detected from any object in our Universe. The tremendous amounts of energy carried by these sound waves may solve a longstanding problem in astrophysics.
The black hole resides in the Perseus cluster of galaxies located 250 million light years from Earth. In 2002, astronomers obtained a deep Chandra observation that shows ripples in the gas filling the cluster. These ripples are evidence for sound waves that have travelled hundreds of thousands of light years away from the cluster's central black hole.
In musical terms, the pitch of the sound generated by the black hole translates into the note of B flat. But, a human would have no chance of hearing this cosmic performance because the note is 57 octaves lower than middle-C. For comparison, a typical piano contains only about seven octaves. At a frequency over a million billion times deeper than the limits of human hearing.
If so, the B-flat pitch of the sound wave, 57 octaves below middle-C, would have remained roughly constant for about 2.5 billion years.
Far from being ‘dead’, the space element of the universe that take up 95 percent of the volume of the universe is a throbbing, filled-with-activity entity. It is filled with magnetism, electricity, radiation, sounds beyond our hearing, sights beyond our eyes. Only now is science starting to pick up these sounds while the ancients were aware of it, and its importance, for millennia.
Our ancients - Hindus, practitioners of Islam, Zoroastrians, practitioners of Judaism – all knew of this throbbing element of the universe based on sound. Every mystical approach to god is based on this sound – the endless, boundless sound of the universe. Call it what you may – anhat shabda, the Word, Nada-e-Asmani, Awaz-i-Mustaqim, 'Udgeet' (the song of the Heavenly Regions) or Pranav (OM) – it is the sound of the universe that science is now starting to hear.
The ancient Greek philosophers also mention this sound. Socrates states that he heard within him a sound which took him to indescribable spiritual regions. Pythagoras called it the "Music of the Spheres."
Musica universalis (lit. universal music, or music of the spheres) is an ancient philosophical concept that regards proportions in the movements of celestial bodies—the Sun, Moon, and planets—as a form of musica (the Medieval Latin name for music). This 'music' is not usually thought to be literally audible, but a harmonic and/or mathematical and/or religious concept. (Wikipedia)
In Buddhism and Hinduism it is believed that one can literally hear this music when one develops siddhis after extensive meditation practice. This siddhi is sometimes called clairaudience, the talent of receiving messages in thoughtform from another frequency or realm. It is considered a form of channelling.
* Clairaudience or clear hearing, is the psychic ability by which the psychic can hear sounds and voices that are not audible to common people.
All ‘scriptures’ or revelations in all religions are based on this universal sound. Thus, stating again, scriptures are not the books that we consider holy but the set of knowledge based on the Universal Sound. In some religions it may be the basis of all revelations, such as Hinduism and Buddhism; or be the basic process by which God can be reached (Sufism and Sikhism); or play only a part in the overall set-up, as in Christianity.
In Hinduism, the Universal Sound is the basis of every religious process – the pranav (Om recitation), the mantras, the naamasmaran. This sound is the basis of all our original ‘religious’ books, the shrutis. The name for revelation in Sanskrit is Shruti, which means hearing. The revelation of god is ‘heard’ in the sound of the universe.
All else is either cultural or historical or philosophical – a shown by The Laws of Manu, which are not a revelation; they are not Sruti, but only Smriti, which means recollection of tradition. As are the Puranas, the Brahmanas (not to be confused with Brahman, or the Brahmin caste), Agamas, etc.
Only the Vedas are considered shruti – the Vedas are apauruseya "not human compositions", being supposed to have been directly revealed, and thus are called shruti ("what is heard").
Even the Upanishads and Arayanaks (forest books) are considered philosophical speculation, not really revealed scriptures, although they are part of the Vedas.
For the earnest seeker, God provides a personalised Gita as good as what Krishna provided for Arjun. One has to prepare himself/herself for receiving this Gita – this sound of the universe – by recitation of Om, namasmarana, etc.
This personal Geet emanates from the Universal Sound, the Udgeet or Song of the heavenly regions. It another way of saying that a seeker of spirituality has to align or harmonise himself/herself to the Universal Sound first before ‘receiving’ enlightenment.
The Udgeet is divine energy, which regulates the entire functioning of the universe. It is the Pranav, the Om/Aum and, by reciting it with awe and reverence, you link yourself to this energy. Thus are you part of the geet of the universe, a part of the udgeet.
Endnotes
The Shastras (scriptural directives) direct and counsel everyone. People yield to delusion and become one with the darkness caused by false values and attachment to the unreal, the “me” and “mine”. But scripture is the mother; she does not give up. She persists and pursues; she reminds people of their goal in order to ensure that they will be saved. One need not drink the entire ocean to know its taste; placing just one drop on the tongue is enough. Similarly, it is impossible to understand all the contents of the scriptures. It is enough if one grasps the important lesson that is elaborated therein and puts that lesson into practice. The lesson is: Constant thought of God.
- Satya Sai Baba
Sound in general is an integral component of the universe/s – some of it can heard, a whole lot beyond the scope of our instruments of hearing - the ears. A good example is ultrasound, the cyclic sound pressure with a frequency greater than the upper limit of human hearing (which is approximately 20 kilohertz). The production of ultrasound is used in many different fields, typically to penetrate a medium and measure the reflection signature or supply focused energy, for example sonography which produces pictures of fetuses in the womb.
Within everyone there is a subtler force, an inner vibration named Vital Air (Prana). The mind (Manas) within is subtler still, and deeper and subtler than the mind is the intellect (Vijnana). Beyond the intellect, people have in them the subtlest sheath of spiritual bliss (Ananda).
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