Indian
Philosphy
by
Brahmasrii
Dr K C Varadachari
MYTHOLOGY
AND MODERNISM
It is usual to deride
mythology in modern times. It is considered to be the hand-maid of superstition
which like its comrade mysticism invades only primitive minds. It is declared
to belong to the ‘Tribal Horizon’ that preceded the ‘Prophetic Horizon’
according to Dr. John Murphy, the Professor of Comparative Religion, Manchester University. The Tribal horizon is given
to strong imagination; it is mythopoetic and given to dramatization; using
images it aims at wish-fulfillment through dramatic imitation rather than
prolonged thought. Indeed professor Bergson has also stated that since
imagination is one of those strong traits of the primitive man by which he
conjures up perhaps more fears than joys, raises up more spirits than ever can
people the globe, it must be considered to be different in kind from the
imagination which we call scientific and logical, involving abstract thought
and concepts and an
awareness
of the ethical principles involved in abstract justice, love and law. He calls
this the myth-making function which is a virtual instinct. This
myth-making function which is considered to be the primitive method of
response, instinctive and not intelligent, hangs round the edge of intelligence
as fringe. We must also know that instinct strives to preserve the social
fabric or solidarity whereas intelligence, seeking individuality, almost seeks
to break up this solidarity. But as Nature is more concerned with society, than
with the individual, we find that in advanced societies wherein intelligence
has assumed the prominent and dominant role, the solidarity of society is
sought to be achieved in two ways; through the virtuality of the instinct as
myth-making function, or through intelligent planning. But more often than not
the more elemental force gathers strength and the residue of instinct which
survives on the fringe of intelligence, which cannot exercise direct action
however, informs intelligence and side-tracks and defeats the intelligence
itself. There is strength in this manifestation, but it is a strength that
diverts or deviates the course of ascent of élan. As such it is something to be
carefully guarded against. Mythology
is
a substitute for action, even as drama or poetry may be considered to be. This
is the general thesis of Bergson.
We
must note in this connection, that intelligence is as much social as instinct,
but its methodology of integration of social life is radically distinguished
from the animal organization – which works on the principle of an invisible anastomosis,
especially amongst the bees, white ants and ants. But what intelligence seeks
is the free intercourse of minds based on intelligence. Another act of the
matter that has to be noted about mythology, or rather when one takes up the
mythological as real, is what has not been considered. We know that the best
example of mythology which has developed at great and prolific length after
having reached the horizon prophetic is Hinduism. Other mythologies have
undoubtedly been prior to the proliferation of thought which discovered the One
Unity of the Divine in the abstract concepts of Rta, Brahman, Vak, as what in
Greek philosophy the Being, the Nous, the principle of love, repulsion,
attraction, and cause. The Hindu thought, it is said, fell down to the ritual
mysticism during the period of the Brahmanas but
resuscitated itself during the period of the Upanisads which again underwent a
development in Buddhism on the one side and degradation in popular Hinduism in
the other. Later however it again lifted itself up in the pure philosophy of
Sankara, where the concepts of mythology were completely ruled out and thought
in its sheer conceptuality was enthroned. Thus true mysticism – conceptual
mysticism of intelligence became the pinnacle of our philosophy.
We
must ask ourselves whether this is religion also, for it is constantly stated
that ‘a religion without God’ and mythology would be beyond human mind and
intelligence. Religion when it is merely the struggle for liberation from all
bonds of perception and practical conduct undoubtedly does not need a God for
its attainment. Thought in its rigid self-introspection and attaining the
supreme concept thorough negation of all that it is not, will have arrived at
that final concept through supreme effort of thought itself. As Plato stated it
‘Religion is the consummation of wisdom in self-knowledge’. Philosophy ends in
the vision of the
eternal Ideas or Idea. But theology looks to the
Knowledge of God. Religion should embrace both. Thus wrote Paul Elmer more
interpreting the Religion of Plato.
Thus
we find that philosophical thought finally realizes the highest concept. It is
the business of Religion in a sense to make that concept the guiding star of
our conduct in relation to ourselves and in relation to others. This involves
the belief in the possibility of the application of that High Concept into
practical life which in social. The universal dispersal of this concept into
each and everything, or what is known as the sense of pervasion of all
creatures by the Divine which makes them our own selves, one with us, is
possible only through theology. How has the One become the Many? The problems
of philosophy are the realizations of the impossibilities of conceptual
solutions. It would perhaps not do to say that ‘All things are full of mystery
(enigmation), both in poets and in philosophers. And for my part, I like
rather their spirit of reverence towards the truth than the boldness of the
moderns. For of matters dimly perceived by human
weakness the more becoming interpreter is Mythology’ said
Maximus of Tyre.
Theology
without mythology leads to a strange production. But have we no criterion by
which we could understand mythology? It is not likely that there are two kinds
of mythologies as I have hinted, the mythology that proceeds from the height of
intellectual Understanding and the mythologies which are fancies and fantasies
of minds seeking the satisfaction, through day-dreaming and dramatization,
which are substitutes for action and thought in its rigid logical spin? The
failure of most thinkers later on to understand the mythological references in
the Vedic and Brahmanic literature (for even at the stage of the Brahmanas we
find the lack of a sure understanding of the original figures, resulting in
numerological mysticism, ritual mysticism, ritual mysticism, and sacrificial
mysticism, must be considered tragic. The Upanisads, especially the smaller
ones, gave up the pursuit of mythology whilst the Puranas involved themselves
in continuous mazes. There is a tragedy in the myth-making function, which
whilst it seeks to illustrate a profound experience,
and where it is not merely for the sake of story-weaving
or mere dramatization, and is didactic, different, from the kind even there
from the stories known to us as Pancatantra it proceeds from a level altogether
different from the ‘fringe’ of instinct that hangs to the intelligence.
We
should proceed on certain assured lines in respect of mythology. It would not
be wrong to deny that, after all, language seeks to represent experience of the
physical objects. The interrelationships, which are observe, between objects
give rise in intellectual beings of lower order just the realization of that
particular relationship between two similar objects and nothing more. He is
particular-minded. But a higher intelligence would be able to deal with any two
objects provided the relationship is perceived. The intelligence focuses itself
not on objects but on the relationships. It is possible that the myth-making
function seizes upon this aspect of intelligence, and at once encloses it in
its dramatization and novel-constructions, constructiveness being also as
instinct. This is to particularize the relationships. Escaping from this
particularizing of the relationships intelligence seeks to
discover the rationale of all relationships and seeking
to minimize its multitude. This the myth-making function finds it difficult to
follow up. But it has also its substitute simulacrum, the mana, the
Numinous of Rudolf Otto; but as will be seen this is a power not a concept, and
not a relationship. But thought also attains a virtual abandonment of all
relationships in the totally Absolute Relationless Existence, within or without
according to some mystical thinkers like Sankara and Bradley, but some
philosophers hold that it is the internally related to Absolute. Thus we are
pressed to accept the mythological or instinctively mythological figure of a
universal power on the one hand, and on the other, a concept of highest value
to thought or intelligence. Religion as Theology had to solve the riddle, and
it tried it by reducing power to the level of Avidya, subordinate to the
concept, which is the Vidya.
Philosophy
may be forced to evaluate and super-evaluate the conceptual understanding of
reality, where the concepts may have an essential existence or more properly
non-existence; but it is true that theology or the science of God has either to
transvalue the concepts by
revealing these concepts as intrinsic to experience or
else discover a host of other concepts which will reveal the laws of the
consciousness known as religious, which is persistent and elemental, to which
man reverts after each defeat of thought, and from which he escapes only to be
reminded of the reality fundamental to experience. It is in mythology that this
elemental structure of reality is retained and acts as the powerful lever to
conduct. But the dangers of an unenlightened mythology or an escape-mythology
are great, and would profoundly affect our ascent into rational existence and
through it to a spiritualised and divinized consciousness. It is the business
of a philosophy of religion to rescue the discrimination, never wanting in the
ancients, but which has been cut adrift and lost in the movement of history
that has but preserved that which was as near aboriginal as possible. The value
of a critical analysis of mythology which would sift the true from the mass of
untrue and instinctive rationalizations would be enormous. But what shall we be
guided by in this effort? It may be asked. Our answer is that the apparatus we
shall construct shall not be merely the ‘consensus of opinion’ or
agreed-similarities of the
manifestations of the mystico-mythological fancy all over
the world. Indeed the solar mythologism that prevailed in all periods and in
all stages of mankind will point to the grave dangers of linking up the
advanced with the primitive manifestations of the Solar Myth. Nor should there
be the obsession that all the Puranas in the East and higher religions are true
and have to be accepted till disproved. Rather it should be the other way
about. In the name of super-spiritual experience the ancient fancies come in
and are spread by the followers with a zeal and pseudo-rationality that
imperils the fuller and finer under standing of pure mysticism. The ‘Education’
or drawing out of the rational and casual principles and morphological
principles from the structure of spiritual experiences of every order to which
eminently belong the mythologies of higher religion, is the desideratum. The
concept of Avatar for instance, is a crucial example of the grace of the Divine
illustrated in a variety of ways as the incarnation of the Divine as Son, as
Lord Saviour, or Teacher and Prophet, in almost all the Higher Religions. The
mythical stories woven round these figures, conceptualized or otherwise, and
the creation of
personas about them bearing names strongly reminiscent of
the part they play in the eternal drama of individual life are palpably patent.
The
truth is that the human mind is, as intelligence, rational; it will revert to
reason provided it is given the chance. But it is also willing to experiment
with truth and learn from the errors of its ways, and be stronger and more
vigorous for every renewed adventure. It also probes and learns. Mythology of
the higher order always whets its explorative fantasy; and the business of a
philosopher may be, as M. Bergson has come to see in his last work, forced to
clear the path of torrential mystic force of all the weeds of ‘closing mythos’,
not indeed of all mythology, for his story reads like a Modern Myth of the Elan
Vital with its threefold vyuhas of instinct, intelligence and intuition, but of
all that have the inherent power of enclosing and stepping down the energy of
growth of more and more widening consciousness.
A
Science and philosophy of mythology thus seems to be necessary.
RABINDRA
NATH’S PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION
Rabindranath
is one of the most seminal thinkers of the modern age. His traditional roots
are in the Upanishads and this is amply testified in his works Personality,
Religion of Man and Sadhana. His poetry stems out of the deep and
abiding inspiration that the Upanishads had on him. Unlike the Vedantins who
had endeavoured to reach the Ultimate through Jnana (textual and scriptural
knowledge) which has been the dogma of the Advaitins of the Mayavada school
mainly, his approach has been from the Vaishnava view as he has himself stated
of Rasa or bliss. This is not the ordinary poetic view which seeks to
discover tastes (rasa) either in Nature or in Man or in technique or in
expression. His notable aim was to make rasa a means to realization,
bliss as a pramana towards infinite accomplishment and attainment. The
intuitive realization that aesthetic intuition goes beyond the
intellectual institution itself has been about the most
important discovery of Rabindranath.
It
did not come to him all at once but it did gather up because of the growing
intensity of aesthetic enjoyment in Nature and Man which was stimulated along
with the profound contemplation of the wisdom of the Upanishads, One of the
Upanishads indeed had revealed that the highest is Ananda-Bliss, and
that it was a status of reality higher than vijnana and manas and
prana and annam. In other words, the ultimate reality was of the
Order of Bliss, a term that was the Ultimate of Saccidananda and synonymous
with the anantam(infinity). The means to realize this ultimate nature of
Reality is not something to be sought outside of itself: not through reasoning
but by means of bliss itself should this be known. How to make bliss the means
to Bliss is the problem of problems.
Bliss
as a means to Bliss as the end is through the realization of beauty, a growing
perception of the beautiful in nature and all. Philosophers of science may use
perception as the sensory means to know the nature of a thing outside. This
sensory perception is
invaluable for science. But beauty is a perception of the
beautiful in the sensory and the perceptual activity of the bliss-activity or
the beauty is what penetrates underneath the superficial form and grasps the
symbolic or the suggestion of the Infinite in each percept. This requires a
moulding of oneself in the intuitive change towards perception or of perception
so as to release the symbolic and the Ultimate out of the sensory.
Once
this dynamic nature of the bliss-governed perceptual activity was seized upon
for interpreting Reality the whole world became a changed or transformed world
or transfigured world. The meaningless world of philosophic intellectuals
(maya) became a bliss world of meaningfulness (lila). The
world-negational philosophy found its refusal in the world affirmation of
Rabindranath. It is not the negational aesthesis of the bhakti schools of
certain kinds but the affirmative aesthesis of the New World of mystics. The
world regained its own meaningfulness as the field of Godly activity, existing
for the Godly activity.
Rabindranath applying the method of aesthetic intuition,
amply supported by the Upanishadic, in his Hibbert Lectures, entitled ‘Religion
of Man’, as also his Andhra University Lectures on Man, has
projected a poetic speculation of the creative process. It is highly suggestive
through it cannot be considered to be a real account of the creative process;
indeed it is neither a creative evolution nor an emergent one. It is, however,
a most suggestive methodology of approach towards a constructive appraisal of
the evolutionary or creative process. The ordinary Vedantin hardly realizes
that by his theory of deterministic or rather planned and formulated creativity
all that happens is but the manifestation of the already prefigured. A true
creative act would rather bring into being novelties and every instant of
creativity will be a miracle of self and thus give meaning to infinity.
Rabindranath rather considers the creator to be a great experimentalist, first
experimenting with quantitative extensities of infinity, and thus having
produced the gigantic monsters and creatures of the early epochs of evolution
in Nature and then having found that quantity cannot be truly representative of
Infinity, experimented with and is
perhaps experimenting with quality. The qualitative
infinity that has resulted in the discovery of evolution of man has led to the
freer manifestation of delight that is the secret of all existence, sustaining
both. Matter and mind thus have evolved when these two were organized into
being one being and for One being. This is the secret evolution of the Organic
Man who has not merely the characteristics of the creature but also the more
significant nature of creator as well.
This
genuine discovery of the twofold nature of man reveals a new dimension in
ontology viz., the concept of personality, as a twofold character
creator-creature, the universal-particular tensions operating towards a dynamic
creative synthesis known as beauty or Ananda.
The
discovery of this magnitude was hardly developed purely in the religious on inn
the philosophic fields. Indeed it is strange that it rather found expression in
the usual idealistic and aesthetic jargon quite prevalent about the period,
that is to say, the first thirties of the 20th century. In the modes of
poetic expression and sadhana preparatory to this aesthetic
valuation and creativity, we find Rabindranath
experimenting with all that makes this distillation and expression of Ultimate
beauty possible. Undoubtedly, the chief strength and genius of Rabindranath did
not take up the epic mode of expression which demands a universal vision and an
altogether universal creativity like that of Sri Aurobindo. Grand though the
manner of life of Rabindranath, this grand epic mode of expression was not his
natural ground. His is a more spontaneous homeliness in the Iyrical moment and
the fragment in which was revealed the symbol and meaning and message of the
eternal. His operative vision was circumscribed to the excellence of the
insignificant significant or universal-to behold eternity in an hour and
infinity in a flower. The Isavasyopanisad, which Rabindranath so much loved,
had suggested beholding the Divine in every thing and everything in the Divine;
it had also insisted that one should behold the Divine as having become each
and every single thing in the Universe. To this truth Rabindranath dedicated
himself, and every little thing was verily the womb of infinity. This
extraordinary perception it is that has begun to work with such subtle
refinement in his consciousness,
so much so, he could behold the beauty secret and occult
in everything.
That
this supreme Infinity is a personality is the doctrine of the Mystical
Vaishnavas all over. The All-pervading divinity in so far as he could be
discovered and enjoyed in each and everything reveals a personality-nature that
is of course different from the concept of person in western thought. The aesthetic
approach of creative personality is unlike the theological and the dogmatic. It
is learnt that Rabindranath did not so much relish the cast-iron rigidity of
the dogmatic and speculative intellectual monists and dualists and so on. The
dynamic reactivity of the personality (of the Divine as the human) demands an
organic conception which will reveal the dynamic unity of the supreme Divine
(Universal) working through the individual or particular infinity of Beauty
granting the undiminishing experience of Ananda. This is the auspicious,
Shivam, and harmonious, sundaram. Rabindranath more and more inclined to
the Visistadvaita conception of the relation between the Divine Personality or
God and the
individual according to one of the philosophers of
Visvabharati.
Indeed
the philosophical system of Visistadvaita garnered upon the bhakti-mysticism of
the Alvars was truer to the bliss-conception of Reality than the intellectual
mysticism of Advaita that exalted the impersonal. Personality is focal to
reality in Aesthetic mysticism whereas the impersonal is the reality for the
monistic. The concept of the Purusha, later modified into Purushottama
when the individuals were being realized as purushas, and the triple type
of purusha was formulated by the Gita as Kshara, Akshara and Purushottama,
happened to be the all-absorbing concern of the theism of Brahmoism to which
Rabindranath belonged.
The
Supreme Purusha is the ever-present presence in everything which sustains
everything by bliss Ananda, and this is the highest truth which can liberate
all that is best in each and everything, subjective or objective. Know that
everything is sustained by the Bliss, Ananda that is higher than
intelligence and higher than truth: - Anandam, Brahmeti
Vyajanat says the
Upanishad. Anando vai rasah: it reiterates. By this double emphasis is
realized the unity of the Ultimate as the one that has to be attained-the
parama purushartha. Rabindranath’s liberation is not through renunciation of
the anandanubhava but by acceptance that all these verily are Brahman.
Freedom or moksa is not restricted to the liberation from the cycle of births
and deaths which is more of the order of escape; it is the creative activity
that releases the Divine in the Nature and in man and manifests the unique
union of the eternal and the immortal in the mortal and the fragment. It is not
to see the whole steadily and as whole: it is rather the freeing of the
ignorance that blinds us to the actual manifestation of the infinity in each
and every thing in the manifested world. This freedom for creative being in
each individual is verily moksa for it grants bliss, refined pleasure and
happiness.
It
is more easily through art that one releases one’s identity with the Divine:
for it is at the basis, creativity, that is common to the Divine and the human
artist. To utilize this granted freedom, ultimately in every other area of
life, is one of the profoundest techniques
discovered by man. Freedom cannot suffer abridgment in
the process of true creativity. To suffer any abridgment in this regard is to
annihilate the very nucleus of being of the individual. Thus artists are in a
true sense liberators. Rabindranath was thus a strenuous worker for liberation
of man from the thraldom of life to all unliberating influences; to expand the
area of freedom for true creative advance had been on of his great aspirations.
But, as in every thing, it demands the education towards creativity. Men must
have faith in their inward creative freedom in all sectors of human activity.
Moksha
which has been the aim of all religious thought was
surely to be attained by practicing this liberty of expression in art, not in
the sense that one could create as one likes but one who could create the
infinite in each one of his works. This may not strictly take on to that
freedom from the samsara and cycle of rebirths and ignorance. However it
gave a new meaning to moksa: what it should do and could do.
Rabindranath’s
philosophy thus centres round the basic discovery of man not only as the bearer
of
value but as the creative-creature of the Universe in and
through whom the Ultimate Creator or Man realises the continuous revelation of
free freedom through Art. Illusionism is not the meaning of the universe nor
bare freedom: the universe is the lila, play of bliss, which is the one
essence or Rasa of Existence. Realisation of the artistic life is the
fulfillment of the philosophic life as well. In this creativity of Art there is
detachment from the purely physical perspective and apprehension and awareness
of an integral organic enjoyment of the Divine and the human. Though it is not
humanism yet in Rabindranath there is the incorporation of the human in the
Divine Man, which makes man attain the sense of perfection as well as freedom
and bliss.
In
India, philosophy and religion have commingled even as theory and practice; one
sustains the other. The philosophical thought of Rabindranath proceeding as it
did from the aesthetic Ultimate and aesthetic intuition, developed a religion
of beauty, of creative worship of the One Divine at the back of all creation.
“Let me assert my faith by saying that this world, consisting of what we call
animate and inanimate things, has found its culmination in man, its best
expression, Man, as a creation, representing the Creator,
and this is why of all creatures in has been possible for him to comprehend
this world in his knowledge and in his feeling and imagination, to realize in
his individual spirit a union with a spirit that is every where. (Religion
of Man, p. 103) ‘My religion is a poet’s religion. All that I feel about it
is from vision and not from knowledge” (ibid, 107) “The man whose inner vision
is bathed in illumination of his consciousness at once realizes the spiritual
unity reigning supreme over all differences. His mind no longer awkwardly
stumbles over individual facts of separateness in the human world, accepting
them as final. He realizes that peace is in the inner harmony that dwells in
truth and not in any outer adjustments. He knows that beauty carries an eternal
assurance of our spiritual relationship of reality, which waits for its
perfection in the response of our love” (ibid. 108)
Thus
the religion of the poet-artist achieves a union with reality that profoundly
makes reality near to man-a man’s reality so to speak. It is to the nearness of
Man that the religion of Rabindranath leads and to harmony that is dear to the
heart of man. What a
religion of the intellect achieves as a deistic Creator,
the religion of the poet brings into the heart of man for adoration and love,
service and worship. Thus it becomes possible for the poet to claim that the
answer to the Vedic poet’s query ‘Which God shall I adore? to Whom offer our
oblations that one offers to the God in man, in every thing and fragment. Thus
a deep wonder and love well up towards all that is God’s. To serve God in man
through the realization that in all is God Himself possessing and enveloping
all-Isavasyam idam sarvam yat kinca jagatyam jagat.
Thus
the Religion we need is the Religion of Man (God in man) according to
Rabindranath Tagore, the great creative artist of India during the beginnings
of this Twentieth Century, whose Centenary of Birth we are celebrating this
Year.
KABIR
The
Philosophy of Kabir follows the path of devotion enunciated in the earlier
scriptures. The central feature of this path is the realization that God is the
self of all creatures. The universe is the body of God, the souls are the
temples of the Absolute Spirit. God is accessible, adorable, is nearer than
anything else to man, is capable of being known, enjoyed and entered into. The
path of devotion comprises two divisions, bhakti and prapatti. The distinctive
feature of the prapatti, which is taught by the Gita, is that it means seeker’s
refuge in the Divine Godhead by means of integral surrender. It is the way of
unselfing which entails the act of making God the sole enjoyer (Bhokta) and
controller and sovereign of oneself. It combines the path of devotion with the
reign of Grace. Whilst bhakti, like other yogas namely jnana and karma, lays
stress on the fitness of the individual (adhikara), a fitness
is for all practical purposes determined by his birth and
status, in prapatti there is no such restriction. The only fitness is the
possession of the ardent unquenchable desire for release, for being saved. It
is for all those without any distinctions of caste or creed or faith, whose
hearts are sore and bleeding, who have nothing at all, akincana, who are
weak, weary and poor. Ramanuja taught both the paths as paths that lead to
deliverance.
Kabir
is the direct inheritor of this prapatti tradition through Swami Ramananda, who
was well-known as a devout and scholarly teacher of the doctrines of Sri
Ramanuja, who settle down at Kashi (Banares). Kabir was born in1398 A.D. He
lived for 120 years. Kabir was born of a poor Mohammedan weaver’s family, but
was very early inclined to the worship of Sri Rama. Kabir could not got
initiated directly by Ramananda, and it was by means of a ruse that he got
initiated. Kabir placed himself on the steps of the ghat that Ramananda used to
frequent for his bath in the early hours of the morning, and Ramananda
unwittingly treading on Kabir muttered thrice the holy
name of Rama, as was his habit and lifted up Kabir, who in
exultation announced himself initiated as disciple, Ramananda was glad. This
appears to be almost the first real conversion of any one of another faith into
the Hindu-fold. Kabir however used to say that both Rama and Allah meant the
same Absolute Personality of god.
Kabir’s
acquaintance with Hindu scriptures is much more close than with Islamic
thought. Not even Sufism seems to have influenced him much. Kabir practiced the
trade of the weaver and lived simply. He also travelled much over North India.
He performed miracles too. His life was one constant watch against all types of
restrictions and superstitions, whether Hindu or Mohammedan, He had to undergo
the usual trials incidental to realization of the Absolute, ridicule,
repression and finally respect was gained. Kabir composed and perhaps sang his
hymns and poems. Kabir was a poet of beauty. His poetic compositions are called
Bijak and comprise Ad-mangal, Ramainis, Sabads, and others. Tagore, our Nobel
Laureate, has translated some of his most beautiful pieces.
Kabir’s philosophy of Reality comprises two important
features. First and foremost like the other mystics he stresses the importance
of the conception of God as the benevolent transcendent Godhead, the Para, and
Isvara, who is the true releaser of man from samsara. This godhead could
be contacted by means of sincere dhyana on the sacred name learnt form
the Guru. This Sacred name leads to the realization of the Godhead within and
one finds oneself as coming from the Unconditioned, Para transcendent
Being Himself. Kabir says “Now have I come from the Unconditioned; I was
bodiless, I took body and I came; In this body I am called Kabir. The Swan1 which
has been separated from birth to birth I came to raise him up. I was called the
unseen Purusa, Maker, Immortal. With all my body I belong to the sat-lok. I
dwell in every heart. Kabir says Hear “O brother sadhus! I have manifested the
true name”. these words said to have been spoken by Kabir even as an infant,
reveal that the Divine who was Para incarnates in the individual soul and even
assumes the name of the soul, and if the individual understands that he is
indeed different from his body and has Isvara’s
1 The swan is the discriminating Soul i.e.
himself. RELIGION –
KABIR 261
grace his salvation is sure. The constant repetition of
the Lord’s name is the means to the realization of the unity with Brahman, who
is Hari and who is indwelling in all forms and things, and keeps them as His
temple. The realized soul is indeed the temple of God.
Om Tat Sat
(Continued...)
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