The Picture Book of Eros

Naming is the Mother of Ten Thousand Things

Orion Star

The Original Creative Energy

Prakrit  Static

The Attractive Element

David  Ofran 

The Offer to Divide

Michael Femar

The male mind in the Female Experience

Millie Vase

The vessel for milk

Ice Couture

The daily routine

Yoni Chanda

The michief of the sensual

Naam Kudumba

Our Family

Iruk Riffa

The sitting reflection

Hamsa Manavalli

The heart of the swan

Status Sambor

The continuity of life

Adva Korda

The presumption of the absolute

Build Gates

Recognition of division

Sakun Gether

The first union

Mane Buyou

Reaching for the male initiative

Bret Prodi

Commencement of Training

* * * * * *

Sharon Stone

Practices in clay and marble

R. Tagore

To be tagged for a world's purpose

Maya

A familiarity with chaos

Tom Dick Harry

The commonality of experiences

Pictora

Cultivation the logos of possibilities

Fig Forman

Encounter with a former personality

Mary Boyd

Mother and child

Litar Glomar

Light in darkness

Patin Mughal

A melancholic castle

Matty Lux

A matrix

Hart Eaton

The family of the world

Myceen

A discovery of the dream

Yoni Lingga

One privacy shared with many. The Siva Perception.

The Towers of Rheims

The Towers of Rheims

The pillars of sensuousness on its sides,

Like the towers of Balram upholding light,

Touch the saffron robes of its covers,

And the bright appears in the eyes uncovered,

Squeeze harder and deepen its deliciousness,

Take your tongue to it and lick its hide,

Fair rheims that store the walking sensual,

Awake your masters desire, its pleasure bids,

Joy softly caresses its touch till lingga purrs.

The Buns of Glory

The Buns of Glory

The glory of life lies in the soul,

It may be taken up in the face,

Or it may be brought to the heart,

With knowledge, to the mind,

Where it has served all these needs,

It finds a quite place to serve beauty,

It finds it in the buns, smooth and fine,

There it stays for man to remember,

That the ideal is still self love.

Individualization & Self Awareness

 

Introduction


The human condition is defined by two principal characteristics. The first is our fall from grace, from a life of paradise we lived in sublime innocence. The second is our less than perfect actions to recover from the fall, sometimes leading us to even greater blight.

What is needed is a third and independent course of action that may overcome the double jeopardy of our recovery and at the same time avoid the dreams of innocence. Such a path would lead us to the definition and discovery of the human condition in us.

The endeavor is made more complicated by the values and norms that we have come to accept as abiding principles in society. We fear being the social outcast.

In traditional societies, steeped in historical significance, the social practices culminate in a culture that is an instrument for cohesion. Breaking a cultural norm is unethical but is not against the law. In modern societies, success substitutes for culture and the imperative to conform in order to survive is strong. Such influences accompany the individual from the cradle and quite often will go a long way.

A thinking individual has but one alternative; to reach for that difficult and often illusive sense of the self that defines his/her personality and thereby to commit to a lifetime of self learning and discovery. The effort is considerable and the individual will need to organize their life and career in order to achieve it. Quite often, it may be possible to tune in to one's growing life and discover that such is also the plan of the soul ( jiva ).

From the teen years, one gathers enough understanding of the promises of life through the workings of the body mind. From there, the individual is guided through to their conscious understanding of the possibilities. Thereafter, the individual will is recruited in the endeavor to make the hard decisions.

On average, every teen impulse takes a fall. However, teen energies are strong and such minor setbacks are often dismissed without a second glance. But when a scratch is joined later by a blister, we start to take notice. This would be called a start to the great adventure of self discovery.

To a smart fellow, he/she will come to realize very quickly that there are no ready answers and that our lives are lived between a rock and a hard place. This in turn means we have to apply ourselves with equanimity to solve the issues and to undertake the inquiry in peace. Any hastiness will rock the boat but it'll not get you to Avalon.

The old methods of practicing renunciation in a cave may not be the gripe water in today's times. In fact, they merely serve to isolate the individual from society. The individual today is a forthright, self-righteous person who has come to realize that the ' olde smooth-over ' no longer works with others or with himself and needs to find something that is tangible in terms of substance.

He needs to relate to the opposite gender, be a father to the kids, be good at the job and retain the social circle of which he is a part. At some point a break-away may be necessary but it may be possible to take that in stride with the job change or a sabbatical away from the family.

In the final analysis, he wants to do the right thing, say the right words and give a little back to the society that nurtured him. To strive to understand the world is a wondrous impulse and drive in all of us. It began with the way the world courted us as a young person, the way it showed a world brimming with enthusiasm. We rode that wave and it becomes incumbent upon us to finish it well by bringing to the individual experience, his relation to that world.

A soldier, after a period of service in the army becomes totally helpless in civilian life. A man, suddenly living apart from the family is incapable of tending to his needs. A career individual, cut loose from his job, is in despair. All these could do with a dose of understanding their individuality. In smaller or bigger ways, it comes to visit upon us.

The Hindus refer to the life force as ' Amara Thibum ' or ' loving life forward '. It seeks only to grow as it has done for billions of years. It seeks to fulfill itself and will do so with you as its partner or co-creator. We need to understand that about ourselves and who we are.

So we form a triangular partnership with it – the innocent, the reformer and the living human. In that we have created the possibilities for discovering ourselves as the human individual.

Sunlight

Take a guy who has been down and out for about ten years. It may have been for any number of reasons. The Gita says about five(1). Then watch him climb out of the hole towards the light. It's exquisite. His eyes open up like the stirring of young plants in the morning sun.

In much the same way, take a fella who has been closeted and in the service of propitiation of the divine. Then shine on him the light of physical understanding, like the study of organizational management, marketing or psychology and his mind starts to blaze in the glory of cognition. ' I know this,' he mutters. He saw it in himself, beyond the reaches of the ordinary ken of our perception.

Even better, take a teen who has just had his/her first sex; epiphany!

What just happened? The individual's body and mind came together in a place it has never done so before. It is a union of opposites, taking place for the first time in the life of the individual. For the one who fell in the hole, he probably had too much light. To the one who relearnt marketing principles, his body discovered commercialism. And to the teen with the sexual experience, the mind found out, that, less is sometimes more.

When ignorance comes into contact with light, it is magic. The individual swears that love makes the world go round. But there's another way. The individual can also lead the light to the ignorance. Here, they are likely to say that the universe was designed with intelligence. Shades of creationism vs evolution?

In time, one comes to a profound understanding of the presence of light in our lives. This may refer to the light of the sun that opens to us the role it plays in human understanding. Or, it may refer to a curious sort of light, lighted by the power of Eros, promising pleasure that steers our feet in the direction it ought to go. And then, there's fire; it was the initial passion of the vedas, now, as it sometimes happens, it is the color of rage in our feelings. But if you harnessed it, it is just another light, pointing to things not seen by other light.

All these put together, produce the power of vision in man. To see, is quite often, to believe, and one doesn't need much more; hence the popular saying ' all that glitters is not gold.' Go tell that to the man in the hole!

A child growing up sometimes wonders if his parents prepared him/her well for their life. From one generation to another, there's always a gap about what the parents experienced and what the children now see. So we exercise some censorship.

But later in life when we want to change something fundamental in the guides given to us by our parents, we find that we can't. We can't wade into generations of traditional teachings deeply embedded in our body mind and move things around this way and that. We can for a while, by the instruments of lust, greed, covetousness, jealousy and other such devices, but it doesn't last. To do it right, we have to, in our later years, refine these less than perfect instruments and substitute them with knowledge and love. Such an achievement is brought back to the child in us that learnt at the knee of the father and mother. In a curious touch of parental acquiescence to the child, a portal opens to create real change in us, be it written in stone, steel or fire.

Jesus said you'll have to be born again. Krishna, the eternal infant, said ' merge yourself with me.'

My parents had died, but somehow that didn't seem to matter very much for it is merely the Eros experience. My Jivan child made contact with Cybele and then Athi Parasakthi and before I knew it, was bringing it's relations to the attention of my Eros impulse. There's one catch though – my new family is the world.

Beyond this, I expect that the social and eros nature of my own family may help me convert the experience to the individual sensation of what I am. All these under the rays of the ever watchful sun! It's enough to make a person feel they never really knew anything to begin with.

In self analysis, we often accentuate the tragic and not the hope. We need to do both. The courage that we seek is to bring the light of the Eros to the new experience of the Jivan in the lifetime. In all our endeavors we seek to unite that which we ourselves tore asunder and we did them both for the right reasons.

In the entire scope of knowledge and Maya, man may not know a great deal and it is too large a burden of consciousness to carry. We may not know who god is or how to find him, but we can work on knowing the human in us better. Where we have come to define the human in his/her full scope of experience, by default, all else may be referred to as god or the creative impulse of the universe.

Too much light may also be blinding. We need to moderate the experience and shape it to our needs. But are we prepared to accept less, in the miniscule definition of the human experience? The oracle at Apollo counseled, ' Know Thyself.' That must have referred to our limiting human experience.

The Zen masters say, ' To find the world, you must first lose it.' That's an appropriate sentiment for our purpose. In agreeing to accept less of ourselves as merely the rational human, we ultimately gain even more, shared of course with a new partner in our lives – the Jivan.

Aurobindo referred to the reliance that the Jivan places on the human to report accurately on their physical experiences in the world and the way in which that may relate to the creative impulse of the Jivan. This is so that it may respond to your needs, like a father or mother. Talk to it, both in and outside of your prayer hours.

I would venture to say that no one, whether from the side of the Eros or the Jiva, has a need to deliberately hurt anyone else. One has to find the reason for the hurt and the way that we shut ourselves within. Krishna said, 'what goes against the will of man, goes against the will of nature!' It is important to understand the nature of the relationship we have with the self.

Then of course there's the glorious sun, illuminating everything around us and coaxing us to share with it, our light from within. Not a minute goes by when it is not persuading us to try something. Think you know it all? Think again!

(1) Love, Knowledge, Perfection, Work and Suffering

Further Sources :

Aurobindo                        : Part II,Ch. XI The Modes of the Self, Synthesis of Yog

Van Gogh                         : Sunflowers

Monet                              : Sunrise

Bloomberg Businessweek : The Issue – Hickory Farms' Smokin' Turnaround Plan,
                                                 Venessa Wong, Nov. 6,  2009

Newton                            : Autobiography

Sivan / Sakthi

In the matter of the union of opposites, a differentiation needs to be made between animate and non-animate objects. Clearly, in the case of the human experience, the union may well refer to the coming together of the male and female principle in a situation of being dissimilar but united in purpose. With inanimate matter, the situation of union may lead to a reaction that may cause to create a third element.

In viewing the relationship of the teens, one observes that it may lead to the cultivation of the father experience. Is the father therefore an inanimate experience, such as a thought or consciousness in the individual?

The Jivan experience is curiously referred to as the basic building block of life, such as dark matter. In association with the Eros impulse, it cultivates its form as the anima or the human. Would the Sivan/Sakthi experience also refer to the association between Jiva and Eros? Is this also the description of the Vaibhava-Prakasa?

In reference to form, the concept describes a mix of the male and female genders in one life experience, containing obviously, both reproductive organs. Is that possible? Has it happened?

A hermaphrodite that can impregnate itself is an experience we have yet witnessed in the world's affairs. Perhaps the Indians referred to the concept with regards to an esoteric experience. Perhaps it refers to the experience of the consciousness, where a man can experience himself as being united with the physical world, in which he experiences himself as the male and the world, female. This of course ignores the sexual yoni/lingga aspect of the experience.

Where Indian literature refers to creation as always itself, would it be possible to view our experiences as engaging a common gender experience at the start, then falling from the experience into a separate and opposite experience of the gender. That hereafter, we are working towards cultivating a recreation of the experience through the instruments of the world? This would raise other peculiar questions.

The narcissistic tendency in the human anima is that which brings the greatest joy to the experience of living. The concept of ' I am all ' is a very powerful draw on the mind of the individual as the epitome of perfection that we seek. As against this, is the carefully guided social behavior of humans in the way we relate, one to the other, in a clear understanding of our roles and human qualities. This has come to be defined as the hallmark of civilization.

If we did emanate out of creation as a common gender species and thereafter, separated the genders; it would account for the peculiar social and psychological difficulties we face as a human race. Our commitment to refine the experience and lead it back to the experience of the common gender would certainly appear as the fair prize to be achieved. Then psychological studies must apply themselves not to heal the sick but to help them regain the experience in a new and stable form.

In doing so, we would have to dismantle the former apparatus that kept us joint at the hips and substitute it for a physical relationship. In time, where the Jivan picks up on the initiative, we may well be cultivating a new species that is molded in the common gender experience. Is this the grand framework of our philosophical and religious zeal?

Vishnu, we are told, at the beginning of creation, envisioned the perfect ideal of created form and thereafter drove our energies in its pursuit. Certainly, the grand experience of the narcissus, minus the usual instability of experience, would be a prize. But it would also mean that one cannot achieve perfection in the human form. A new species would have to be cultivated that has overcome our bad karma associated with past perfect experiences and has the experience of both genders.

The tendency generated by artefactual evidence may have cultivated a trenchant view of Sivan/Sakthi in Indian literature, especially when such evidences are simply an artist's recreation of the concept. To be true to the idea, we must look at it fresh, without the obstacles of habituated thought.

Is there a real difference between the male and female with regards to intelligence and passions? That is the question we must give our attention to. Are men and women truly equals in the experience of life's activities? This is the solution we seek. An angry husband who has left the house and is sitting under a tree to achieve perfection in his own mind, cannot be the achievement described in the Puranas. That cultivates a powerful indifference that grows into a bias against women in society.

When Sakthi immolated herself in front of her father, her husband Siva, crashed the Prajapati's sacrifice and took his father-in-law's head. I think he did that because he loved her and couldn't live without her. That, would be Sivan/Sakthi.

Further Sources :

Saivite Philosophy : Sivan/Sakthi

                                   : Identities of Siva – Associative, Dissociative, Personal Initiative, Inquiry & Void.

Two Peacocks

The teenage experience is unmindful of gender; they are still in the process of establishing the nature of the identity. It is instead filled with the possibilities of all things being equal ( see earlier blog ). This explains the mother's preoccupation that eventually all things are viewed as one.

The adage as regards equality is not without some peculiar difficulties in its application. If all things are equal, there is no high and low, no good and bad and no rich and poor. Yet we see these differences everyday. In fact, they are the basis for our views about ourselves; for what is, is often defined by what is not. So how does one create acceptance of such a faith?

One way is to create a special avoidance of anything happening as being true, that it is in the nature of a play and not absolutely true. The Indians rely on the practice of the leelas for this purpose. Others rely on a social decorum that will not overtly admit to differences and plays at not drawing attention to success. It's called a play of manners. Still others, in the fiery force of religion, refer to all physical phenomenon as being false, that only the unseen is true.

Such has been our preoccupation of the issues over the past ages. The Indian practice of darma helps to prepare the society for an acceptance of less, in comparison to others, with the assertion that god is ultimately fair and his wisdom is what governs all actions. This, where it is followed steadfastly and with a stout heart, creates the pillars of our social architecture. But does it endure?

Our literature refers to the passing of seasons in our lives, in which things go up and down. When we have something, we sometimes admire others for their endurance, as observed in the retort ' I may be poor but I am honest.' Those who have, challenge the rights of those who don't, in a declaration of their cherished concerns for the equality of others. Our works of charity and philanthropy are also a big part of this experience.

So while we are engaged in the socially pleasing acts of charity and benevolence, we hide the fact that the issue of inequality exists. It becomes woven into the fabric of life as a challenge to be overcome, a gamble to be won, a measure of self worth and the test of one's faith in god. So is anything wrong with all these? Absolutely nothing or are the facts of our existence being twisted around some sense of the waiting hungry tiger?

James Whistler painted ' Two Peacocks, ' a portrayal of the dance of vanity between two such fowls. The reference is in no doubt to the self reflection we experience with regards to the cold facts in our mind of fair reason. We will not admit to differences, yet we have to constantly work at cultivating the equality always between two opposites. A popular joke refers to the pastor of a church saying that all of god's creation are equal. When confronted by a hunchback in the back row, he replied, ' Why son, you're the most perfect hunchback I've ever seen.'

The aim is to maintain a balance in us, in the deepest seat of our conscience. We all therefore need a way to do this. The young child growing up in the family, in particular, must be schooled in such a perception, not with deceit but with understanding.

To say that something is unequal in the world is to refer to a part of us as being less. This diminishes us. The practice of the balance is to ensure that we keep passion and the facts in proper relation to each other.

The Indian Saivite practice attempts the great task of uniting opposites in the grand accomplishment of Sivan / Sakthi. This is not for the faint-hearted or the immature in mind. It is a bone crunching process that reduces everything to its simplest and creates the acceptance for what is plainly true, without any embellishment. Such lack of embellishment sometimes involves food or the lack of it. The purpose is to convince the aspirant that what they perceive as logical and fair in our lives is not influenced by anything else, certainly not a full belly.

Such then, is the strange and mystical dance between the two peacocks. One lives on the logical and factual nature of experiences. It argues its points and will not give way. The other lives on the love of passion and gives vent to its righteous umbrage. Is it therefore a dance? Such a term was coined by the early Saivite followers, as being the smooth harmony between the opposites. Smooth? Harmonious? ' Why, there has never been a more smooth and harmonious two world wars this last century, not to mention several smaller skirmishes.' Does this suffice?

The peacocks I'm told don't care. Each is aware only of its own perfection and sees the other as the perfect fool. Amazing! Perhaps the fault lies with the observer; he ought to get a life!

Beyond the peacocks however, our character as human is called upon to stage such an act of equality. The one who accomplishes this, to the satisfaction of Sivan/Sakthi, is a father. The ladies do this with a whimsical dismissal of the obvious and pushing into the center, the apparent glamor of their bodies. The men do this with argument and push into the center, their willingness for trial by battle. Foolishness? Perhaps there is a little in both genders. Peacocks?

There, at least, is the semblance of equality we seek; that we are equally foolish. Thereafter, we learn to laugh at ourselves! Surely our laughter says something about ourselves; it completes us, as if to say, there's nothing more preposterous than a foolish man who is also humorous. It's probably the other guy anyway.

But is there a third? Such an individual will be the father. He, has apparently made the transition to the union, but there continues to be a mystery surrounding him. They say he might be god and it appears that he may be having the last laugh.

So what of his perception? It must be like mother's, that all things are ultimately one.

Further Reading:


Zen Buddhism

The Father

The father is referred to as the object of sacrifice very early in the creation process. This is expected to have been undertaken by the union of Sivan / Sakthi that offered itself for division into male and female halves. This separation of the gender experience is a significant aspect of the human experience.

The separation, however, takes away from the Sivan experience, its identity as the summum bonnum of the universe, the veritable all in itself. This causes the object of sacrifice incredible anguish and agony of loss at a very deep level in our consciousness. To alleviate the loss, man began the practice of praising and propitiating the gods. To the extent that we share in the consciousness, the experience of early Sivan, this act of propitiation goes a long way to ensure that we ourselves are kept in comfort.

However, the act of worship brings with it many experiences that exercise a profound effect on our understanding of ourselves and the world. By the act of worship, it fosters in us, the emphasis on acceptance and takes away our ability to reason. Long periods of such worship cultivates a faith that denies other instruments and exalts the act of deidification, reducing the role of man to mere service of the divine. Finally, one notices that the worship ultimately praises our own self and leads to the exercise of very unnatural egos in the performance of our daily activities in life.


The consequence of these are tremendous and has defined the color and character of human group and individual experiences. Acceptance cultivates the goat, the follower of ideals brought into focus by the act of faith. Every act is explained with deep passion as an act of the divine. Ultimately, the individual accepts even death in the service of the all and explains it as the act of consecration of the body to god.

In denying other instruments, the individual is kept caged in the practice of acceptance. Indian legends refer to the Krishna as being born in prison, being indicative of the position of man early in our civilization. Such a willful self-persecution and the promotion of the same becomes a self fulfilling prophecy in the mind of the individual and leads to a curious sense of affirmation experienced individually, in groups and in association with the physical world.

Certainly, nature is not without its irony. In the final act of worship, the individual begins to receive the praise himself. This alarms him at first and he often sets about creating penances for such arrogance. In subsequent lives however, he grows into an acceptance of the self idolatry and cultivates it with as much a rational perspective as is possible. It appears to the experience of the Jivan that the life has come full circle and is today the object of worship it undertook in past lives. This presents new inquiries and is the subject of our current experience in the world.

The key to our experiences today, in the times that we live, point to the need for a strong rationality in our matters. An individual growing up today, in the experience of such past worship, feels a profound sense of experience as regards selfless natures, sacrifice, the welfare of the world and other such experiences, considered most extraordinary in his affairs. It induces in him a similar mindset and encourages him to do the right thing. Much of these experiences today are deeply personal and engaged in a privacy of the self, removed from any sharing of the experience with others.

In a sense, the privacy is appropriate, as it engages the individuality of the person and conducts a gradual wearing away of his ignorance regarding the experiences of his lifetime. In a way, it makes everybody feel special about themselves. But where the individual has been schooled in clear rational thinking and the joys of a normal ordinary life, his attitude may well be to view such rising experiences in himself with a certain curiosity and bring such controls to it until he is better able to make sense of it all.

At heart is the issue of the identity of the individual and his relation to the world. The instruction to ' Know Thyself ' is still highly relevant to the understanding of the individual and is a crucial self guide in the process of self analysis. We do not as yet have a clear, step by step guide, to understand the nature of this experience. However what we have seen of the experience in the world is quite astounding.

What appears apparent in the world today is the growth of greed and wanton ambition. Strange that this should be the first sign of what lies beneath. Over the past thirty years, the expression of this experience in the world has been to cast aside all past anxieties about ourselves and introduce in its place an unearthly confidence.

Every man of good conscience has, even momentarily, lamented the emergence of the ' me generation ', seeing it as the fall of moral and ethical natures in man. Then there was the men of god, convinced in their bones that they are the new messenger of the age. Money politics and wealth generation brought itself to new heights and we have today institutionalized the practice of the ' consumer society.'

But together with all these, we are also experiencing something new that may have a powerful impact on our minds. Our new attitude to question everything is causing our minds to grow and to take stock of what we know and know not. To do that we have to look into ourselves and couple that with the historical timeline from whence we came.

The early family began with mother and child, the common gender teens and the relation to the father idea ( see earlier blog ). Today this family properly refers to the experience of the family around the world. The experience of mother is seen, way back in time, when Cybele ruled the world's nurseries. Similarly, the son and others are viewed in relation to the development of civilization and the emergence of the separate communal groupings.

The perspective so undertaken depersonalizes our experience of ourselves today. This may well be the right approach as early human experience lacked the personality nature we identify with today. This goes a long way towards understanding the nature of our experiences. At the same time however, it imposes on us the need to tolerate a greater impersonal nature in our experience of ourselves, without losing the experience of our conscience.

Such knowledge and understanding that we derive from the exercise comes from our bold initiative to bring experience to knowledge and create an association that is accurate. This would imply the collaboration of a father and mother in the process, where either one or both are identified as family. Accordingly, the exercise is undertaken best in relation to existing responsibilities in the home and not in a wooded forest retreat.

What we are about to discover will astound us and yet it is a simple explanation of the passage of time with regards to our emerging human civilization.

 

Further Reading :

Aurobindo    -     Synthesis of Yoga

The Ascendancy of the Son

It is hard to say when, or by whom, but sometime in the latter half of the previous century, the son has come to replace the father as the source of our passions on the issues. We no longer seek the true and the tested, instead, we exalt the new and untested as the defining experience of our times. It is the light that touches upon and nurtures the new sprouts, to lead it to a new height of iconic experience of ourselves as humans.

Such a thing would have been considered peculiar, previously. Certainly, to throw away the stereotypes of our past endeavors is an act of great courage. To substitute in its place, new thoughts that redefine man, brings us closer to our loves and passions for that which moves us. But where does it lead us to?

The son as the basic experience of ego in the individual, loved and supported the father, raising him to an experience beyond what the son, can in vain self consciousness, refer to as himself. The father was therefore a half-half of the pillar of strength and a mirror for us to dwell on. But along the way, we became engaged with other issues in regards to the experience. The pillar of strength grew to the size of the world, fully equipped with issues of life and death, survival, success and that which defines our rationality. The mirror was an object of relation to the opposite gender, which in time has become the possession of the beholder, not the craftsman of the art.

Our response? We have cast the father to the winds and let the breezes fill its sails with whatever justification for it to move on. Like a ghost ship, it today occupies our mindset like a napkin at the table; If we don't drop our food, we won't need one. In its place, we have begun a bold new experiment; to cast the net of innocent self righteousness and claim to ourselves what is ours. Curiously, this strange act of singular audacity, has caused the father not to become less but more than what our tentative natures permitted itself to feel.

Our father today is the universe, while we, the son, have come to be identified with the human experience. Early Indian writings referred to the relationship as the Vaibhava-Prakasa, the creativeimpulse; the play between the self and its potency for growth, cultivation, attachment and object creation in the mind.

What is new in the experience, is the fact that we no longer experience it as the inactive passion based instrument of our fathers, but as the active, driving force of the impulse. We are the creative impulse, the muse and the scientist rolled into one, redrawing by the hand of god, the map of human destiny.

What the son previously assented to, by the inherent nature of the individual in his vanity; today, he affirms his previous act of self-esteem and continues his acquiescence to the will of creation by his knowledge. Such a knowledge, he conveys as a partner to the creation process; as an equal to the father.

Where the father once viewed themselves as the misty, blurring of the will he shared with his son, is viewed today as a relationship he experienced in erogenous paint. In the West, such a perception is already expressing itself in a peculiar juxtaposition of common gender confusion. Elsewhere, the common head of unity rises above the usual commonplace, wearing a necklace of thorns. There's much to be worked at to refine the experience.

With all the hallmarks of a classical tragedy, our situation in the world today, calls for a subtlety we have not experienced, a knowledge yet to be learnt, a clandestine relation within, yet to be clear and a call to say things as we see it, yet to be said. The father, the epitome of the norm in society, the field commander of life, as unshakeable as unripe fruit on trees, views our situation with concern.

In the midst of knowledge that is undeniable, we are as yet unable to call it true. But we see in the future, the course of its trail; of a mother who was also the father, of the mind of a man in the body of a woman, of a father who thought himself entitled and a son who perceived himself the acquiescing friend.

In the days when ' girls were girls and men were men', there was no test of the sensation. The father, when he moved to test his son, must have shared the son's will to know. We spy such intentions in poetry but is carefully hidden in pun and rhythm. In the phenomenon, we view the father turning to look back at his son, whose confused mind of form and purpose is spinning like a wheel. But the son perceives a purpose in his father's actions, yet not in the free expression of communication. To say the father approves of his actions today is to say more than the father intends and yet it is in the general drift of things.

Where the mind of the father is in the man, it introduces a strong bond in their relationship. Where the mind of the father is in the woman, it tears at the son and scolds him for disloyalty. Did Herakles murder his family in such a fit of madness reigning in his times?

Is the mind of man in the mother a frantic ruler; In a sister, the forbidden lover; In the daughter, an ally sounding a warning; In the grandmother a conductor at the orchestra; and in the wife, a promise to be fulfilled? Strange questions. The son may not be alone as he ponders them. Others must share with him the same insatiable seeking of the truth.

So here we are, at the beginning of the 21st century with our journal filled with puzzles. The road ahead may be a long one, but it promises to challenge, to empower and to raise us to heights never traveled before. The son has risen and will not, in the foreseeable future, go back to sleep again.


Further Reading :

Hemingway - The Sun Also Rises
Mallory        -  La Morte de Arthur
Kalidasa       -  The War God

The Mother

 

An individual's perspective is seldom the view of one person, event or experience. Every perspective is a mix of several such factors and experiences. Overall, it is always possible to see in every perspective, a worldview.


Such is the view that each of us brings to our expression. This is the element in each of us that we would refer to as the mother. It is there in the formative years of our growth as children. But in the growing experience, we mean to outgrow her and bring into our experience our very own identity. In the process, the experience of the mother is smothered over with the child's need to discover itself. But peel away the layers of defenses we have created and there 'she' is, sweet as always and ever so curious about what we are doing with our lives.


In a woman, her identity may defy description, but in the experience of the male, it does lend itself to some understanding of what it is. That of course is curious, that the epitome of the mother is best understood by the mind of a man.


She starts every perspective with the view that eventually we would create a common agreement on the issue. So she begins a perspective with a certain angle; something whimsical, curious, seductive even and persuades the mind to pursue it. The mind is compelled into thinking that whatever it is pursuing is eventually a matter of interests to itself. Such is the experience of the growing child.


As the child engages in the experience, it draws the interests of other elements in its repertoire of experiences. There are the twin teenagers; not greatly concerned about their gender roles, but simply in terms of what they mean to one another. Their relationship divides the world into two halves, shared equally by the two of them, but always with an eye to being always equal in relation to each other.


It is a relationship that the child revels in. He likes the play, the vast orchestration of the passions but, as promised by the mother, it all leads to a common acceptance of ourselves and nobody need feel any alienation in the experience. The child approves of the impulse whole heartedly.


Then the passions start to grow stronger, especially when moved along by spontaneous activity; where there's no time to plan what you want to do. Suddenly it comes to a sense of great discernment between the genders, especially in the teen experience. Yet it is not viewed as being a contradiction. It gets driven on by the apparent contradiction, always thinking that it is such a curiousity in relation to the fact that it IS ALL ONE.


And then without warning, it happens. Feeling curiously alone, the male and female teen feel a sensation of themselves never experienced before. It is something seen only by their eyes alone and not by any other. When they return to each other, there's an awkward gap in what they used to be. The feeling is curious and hilarious at the same time. They see that same experience in each other and feel curious about that other. Then the great game begins.


The child starts to feel active and works to widen the gap between the genders. It creates a place for itself in the middle that it shares with the mother. All four play at being 'somebody' and the game has begun.


In a way, the relation between the two teens becomes the defining experience of the father. It is experienced by the mother as something that moves constantly but is always the same. The father at this point joins with the mother and with the child in tow, we have the makings of a beginning in the experiences of mankind; the sensation of a family in each of us.


In Indian legends, they describe how Siva created his son, Murugan, from his thought. In the relation between Siva and son, he gravitates in his identity to that of the mother, who with her son used to view the Siva experience as the two playful teens, unmindful of gender.


A man today, seeking to understand himself, will come into contact with mother's son, the little child who grew up on mother's strange sense of  'all things will stay the same'. The child wonders then how the excitation, lust, love, passion and strivings grew from his own wonderstruck notion of things. While he is still wondering about them, he meets the seeker coming up the road. The outcome can be both hilarious and sometimes quite deadly.


The advice from the mother is therefore very timely. As you seek to know yourself, bear in mind, the fact that, you never knew anything for certain. That would be called a great start.




Further Reading :

Teen Relations as Father :   Archilles and Cousin with Priam
Mother & Son                 :   Venus and Adonais
Teen Relations                         :    Two Peacocks; Art by Whistler
                                                                  Self Reflection - Zen
                                                                  Legends of Murugan