by Dr. Sushil Fotedar

I saw this old lady today. Coming to me as an in-patient, she was Age itself personified. Or was she Suffering in person ? Well, with so many years behind her, it hardly made any difference. Perhaps, with advancing years, age and suffering become confluent-- synonymous, so to speak.

So there she was lying helplessly on the trolley. Pain was writ large on her face and she begged me to relieve her of the agony it was causing her. It was as if she was beseeching me to relieve her of life itself; those long, very long years of treacherous living seemed to be weighing heavily on her stooping, frail shoulders. She appeared to want that final peace, that ultimate rest which comes with death itself. But then, as a doctor, as a surgeon to be precise, I have been taught to fight till the last. This is my Hippocratic oath. Life is precious. It is a gift from the Lord God Himself, I have been told. Suicide or abetment of the same is a sin.

Her looks told me that in some distant, misty past she must have been young and beautiful. She must have been bubbling with lots of hope and enthusiasm with many a young man wooing her. But this is what all that had come to. This is what her wonderful life had boiled down to– smelly flesh wrapped around a bunch of bones, holding the entity precariously with the delicate ribbon of life which was going to snap any moment.”Oh God, this is what you do to your most beautiful creation”, I wondered,” what a waste, how utterly meaningless !”

So then, I have the same old questions drilling big, bleeding holes in my soul:

How to solve the riddle of Suffering?

With age,  disease and death all around, how can I say it is unreal,  a “Mithya”?

O God, do you exist? If yes, where are you ?

And I do not want to sink into the convenient lassitude of mediocre answers.

I want to understand everything in a flash of profound understanding that sears me through—a zen moment, as it were. No short-cuts. No half-truths.

... And yes, no mediocre answers !!

by Dr. Sushil Fotedar

Did Krishna exist ?

As a historical person, the answer would, perhaps, be yes.

There is a reasonable wealth of evidence, both archaeological and historical, suggesting that there did exist a prince of the Vrishni clan known by this name who participated in a war in and around Kurukshetra. This guy is supposed to have achieved a popularity of sorts for his good deeds and that is why he has stayed in the collective memory of our race. Beyond this nothing very significant is known about the man and whatever happened to his progeny and clan (Majumdar, Bimanbihari. Krishna in the History and Legend. University of Calcutta. 1969, pp. 5; Majumdar, R. C. The History and Culture of the Indian people, vol. I, pp. 303; Wilson, Horace H. The Visnu Purana. Nag Publishers. 1989, pp. ii). But then our curious, rational minds automatically ask the next question :

Did “Bhagvan” Krishna exist ?

He was the eighth “Avatar” of Vishnu, the killer of evil “Asuras” like Kansa, Pootna, Bakasur—the list is endless; the ultimate idol of love who is supposed to have danced with umpteen number of Gopis simultaneously, filling their hearts with intense bliss alternating with excruciatingly painful bouts of “virah”, of spiritual separation; He is the one who gave the knowledge of the Bhagvad Gita to Arjuna in the battlefield of Kurukshetra and also blessed him with the “darshan” of his divine “Virat” form. We can go on and on with the endless exploits of this beloved God. But then did this “Giridhar” Gopal actually exist and perform all His miracles the way they are mentioned in our Puranas?

The theologians, our respectable priests, would like us to accept all of this literally. Yes, Krishna, the Avatar of Love, the performer of innumerable miracles did exist and do all that is mentioned, very, very literally. He still resides in “Go-loka” with His bhaktas all around. If we are His true devotees, we may be lucky to be despatched by Lord Yama to this beautiful Loka of His abounding in wonderful milk-yielding cows and buildings studded with gems in whichever direction you see—the ultimate paradise where we will then live happily ever after. We may also have the good fortune of participating in the highly secretive, “gopneeya” group dance called the “Maha-raasa” which is supposed to be the ultimate form of spiritual realization, understood by the lucky few, the “Gopas” and the “Gopis” only..All this happens literally of course, to the last minutest detail in the spiritual Vrindavan in some province of Go-loka. Well, well… ??!!

With the advent of the scientific age, it became more and more difficult for believers to defend their understanding of this phenomenon. The intellectually sophisticated among them now started to interpret this metaphorically. So, the Kauravas and the Pandavas are nothing but your own evil and good tendencies deep inside the recesses of your consciousness, ever at war with each other. Spiritual progress occurs when the Parmatman, Krishna, the spiritual light residing in the cavern of your heart, guides you through this war; ultimately the good vasanas are victorious over the evil ones and you live happily ever after.

This interpretation does sound effective up to a certain point. It does definitely do away with the apparent irrationality of the theologian’s view but then at certain points it becomes too tedious and one has to stretch his imagination to lend credibility to such expositions. More importantly, it does not explain the tremendous hold these so-called metaphorical stories have on the collective psyche. If they were simply feel-good stories, they would stay that way, in libraries and homes, to be brought out once in a while, read like good novels and kept back on the shelves. Obviously, it is not that way. So,this brings me to the last query of mine:

DOES Krishna exist?

What happens when a Surdas is held by Balkrishna and guided to his home on a dark wintry night after having been deserted on the wayside by the heartless trader who earlier in the day had ironically beseeched him to be a guest at his home--and moved immensely by the intensity of the experience writes one of the most beautiful poems of his life?

What happens when an Aandal or a Meera sees, plays with, and ultimately "marries" a Giridhar Naagar?

What happens when a Tukaram runs after a dog who has snatched his only piece of bread, imploring Him,” Dear Vitthal,  the bread is dry; let me at least apply some butter on it.” ?

Are they mad, hallucinating psychotics?

Or does the “Metaphor” which resides as an archetype in the collective unconscious become an actual entity in the world of select individuals ?

Does the intensity of longing for the Ultimate Unknown Transubstantiate the world ?

Does a Myth get transmuted into "Reality" ?

The Mythic Origins and a Brief History of Kashmir Shaivism

by Dr. Sushil Fotedar

Beyond the infinity of Eternity when Time was not and Being was immersed in the fullness of Nothingness, Lord Shiva was content to be by Himself, for Himself and in Himself. His nature was coextensive with the Silence Supreme, the Para-vaak, brimming with the absolute Freedom of Svatantrya Shakti. A movement of Vimarsha then occurred in the stillness of His Prakaash and Time, Space and the Universes came tumbling out of Him ; from the One He became the Many while staying by Himself, for Himself and in Himself.

Looking around He found that Satyuga had begun and so, in order to enlighten the worlds through the Tantras, the Shaiva Shastras, He sent down a manifestation of His, a magnificent Being with eighteen arms and five heads of Chit-shakti, Jnana-shakti, Ananda-shakti, Iccha-shakti and Kriya-shakti --, the greatest of them all, the dearest of the dear, Lord Svacchandanatha. By the Anugraha of Lord Shiva these five energies decided to manifest through the five mouths of Svacchandanatha as Eeshan, Vaamdeva, Tatpurusha, Aghora and Sadyojaata respectively and pour out the Tantras.

Initially, in a rather sleepy casual manner, the mouths spoke about the ten dualistic, Dvaita Tantras,  the Shiva Tantras. Not being really satisfied with the results,  Svacchandanatha shook His five massive heads, giving the Ultimate Reality one massive, divine thought, and thereby came into existence the eighteen monist-cum-dualist, Bhedaabheda Tantras, the Rudra Tantras. The outcome was a definite improvement over the initial phase of the Shiva Tantras but then something more needed to be done. Now, with the power of Svatantrya Shakti behind them, the five mouths attained gigantic proportions. Each mouth became filled with the other four mouths and simultaneously through all of them, the Lord roared the roar of the sixty-four monist, Abheda Tantras, the Bhairava Tantras—the most beautiful, the most complete, expositions of Anuttara, the Ultimate Beyond.

Initially, Svacchandanatha had no problems in disseminating the knowledge. The times of Satyuga, Tretayuga and Dwaparyuga were such that masters and disciples had profound intelligence and memory and so initiation took place verbally, there being no need to put down anything on paper; but when the unfortunate age of Kaliyuga dawned with the tragic passing away of Lord Krishna, the true masters were totally disappointed with humanity and, therefore, decided to go into hiding. The Bhairava Tantras were lost and the universe was immersed in an overwhelming darkness .

But then Lord Shiva is full of kindness. He does not allow His Bhaktas to wander in the wilderness of Samsara for long. So now He reappeared on Mount Kailash in the form of Shrikanthanatha who though not possessing the five mouths of Lord Svacchandanatha, was filled with the knowledge of the Tantras which He taught to the angry sage Durvasa because he was the one who had preserved his energies through brahmacharya and was, therefore, an ‘urdhvaretah’. It was the turn of the sage thus to pass the knowledge on but, unfortunately, in keeping with the nature of Kaliyuga there were no fit disciples around. So, he created three mind-born sons and one daughter to whom he passed on the traditions. He initiated one son, Amardakanatha in the dualist Shiv Tantras and the other, Shrinatha, in the mysteries of the monodualistic Rudra Tantras. He, however, reserved the profundity of the Bhairava Tantras for his beloved son, the intelligent and modest Tryambakanatha. At the same time Rishi Durvasa was far ahead of his contemporaries, the Vedantists. He did not believe that women were any inferior to men .Being beyond caste, creed and gender, he initiated his beautiful and wise daughter, Ardhatryambaka also into the knowledge of the Bhairava Shastras. With her started the Ardhatryambaka school whose tenets were passed on secretly from woman to woman and, therefore, its status is not clear now.

The Bhairava Tantras were passed down from Tryambakanatha to his mind-born son Tryambakaditya and so the tradition of this knowledge continued from one mind-born son to another, the so-called ‘Siddhas’, for fifteen generations. The fifteenth Siddha failed to produce a mind-born son because, though knowledgable, he was afflicted with traces of ‘anava- mala’, the incipient disease of worldliness. He therefore decided to marry a woman of pious qualities and through her had a son named Samgamaditya who then settled in the beautiful vale of Kashmir to carry on his meditations after his initiation. The tradition was now carried on from son to son conceived through marriages, from Samgamaditya to Varshaditya and then to Arunaditya and his son Ananda.

It is here that the rivers of myth decided to merge with those of history. The valley of Satisar which the sage Kashyap had populated with his men was now the beautiful vale of Kashmir with the grand Vyeth flowing through its heart. This sage Ananda, residing somewhere along the banks of this life-giving river, was fully versed with the theory and practice of the Bhairava Shastras,  a true Shaiva Siddha. He was the father of Somananda, the originator of the Pratyabhijna School of Shaivism and the author of ‘Shiva Drishti’,  documented to have lived in the late 9th and early 10th century of the CE. After Somananda the initiation was not from father to son but from master to disciple. Utpaldeva, the celebrated author of one of the most poetic of Bhakti literature, the ‘Shivastotravali’, was the disciple of Somananda; his disciple was Laxmangupta who was the master of the Shaiva genius, Abhinavaguptacharya. Around the same time as that of Somananda, there lived in Harwan this saint Vasugupta, who had a dream in which Lord Shiva asked him to go to the Mahadev Mountain. There, he was told, he would find a rock on which he would find inscribed all the knowledge he had been seeking lifelong. Tradition goes that when he touched the rock, the ‘Shankar pal’, it suddenly turned upside down and he found the ‘Shiva Sutras’ inscribed on it. Once he memorized the Sutras the rock went back to its original position. The said rock is still supposed to exist on the mountain with a small spring nearby and is a place of pilgrimage even now. Of course, the inscriptions are nowhere to be seen, hidden from the gross sight of lesser mortals like us! Vasugupta is also supposed to have written the ‘Spanda Karika’ which was commentated upon by his disciple, Kallata Pandit.

Abhinavaguptacharya was a multi-faceted genius who in addition to his mastery of the Shaiva Shastras, was a prolific writer delving into many other subjects like dramaturgy, aesthetics and linguistics. This ‘Mahamaheshvara’ reached the pinnacle of greatness with the monumental ‘Tantraloka’, his magnum opus in twelve volumes, and is supposed to have gone into the Beyond with his body, taking hundreds of disciples along with him. Abhinavaguptacharya’s most famous disciple was Kshemaraja who wrote many vrittis and vartikas on the works of his master and other Shaivacharyas. His shishya in turn was Yograj who carried the tradition of Trika Shastra forward.

And then came the greatest hit,  the hardest blow of them all, the aggressive religion from beyond the borders of India riding on the zeal for conversion and destroying everything and anything that tried to challenge its supremacy, for it was proclaimed by the great Allah Himself through his beloved prophet, Mohammed (PBUH). Islam changed the face of Kashmir forever .

Trika Shaivism went into hiding once more. It had not witnessed anything so violent and destructive in the past even during the difficult Buddhist times when it had almost vanished from the Kashmiri homes. Conversions to the alien religion were taking place at a rapid pace and during the times of Sikander ‘butshikan’, achieved the most painful and destructive phase. People were being killed at random, temples razed to the ground and those beautiful and rare manuscripts and books burnt and thereby lost forever to humanity. Even during these difficult times, we find some sparks manifesting here and there. So we find a Jayaratha here, a Lalla-ded and a Rupabhawani there, somehow keeping the tradition alive till the arrival of Swami Ram who was born during the relatively peaceful reign of the Dogras. His disciple was Swami Mahtab Kak who was the master of the famous Swami Laxman Joo, our ‘Ishwar-swaroop’ of Ishber.

Bad times are hovering on the Kashmiri community once more. The Muslim onslaught has returned with renewed vigour. The community is on the verge of extinction. Our last saint-scholar, Swami Laxman Joo is gone and we stand at the edge of a precipice ready to vanish into the abyss of history. There is nobody to guide us. We are afraid, construing many theories about our plight but unable to find any lasting solutions. On the top of that, the country that is supposed to safeguard the concerns of its citizens, is acting against our interests due to the compulsions of electoral politics.

So, where do we go ?

Can we be saved ?

Lord God, I know Kalki Avatar is going to come. But that is too far away in the future for my cursed community to survive. I cannot wait. Time for me is running out fast .

So dear Lord Shiva, let the dance of myth begin once again!

Start the story of Svacchandanatha once more!!

by Dr. Sushil Fotedar

Long time back, when we had not yet been forced to leave our dear Kashmir, I used to visit the ashram of the beloved Swami Laxman Joo, situated at the foothills of the majestic Zabarwan mountain,  in Ishber, on a very regular basis. I was young and brash then, full of worldly desires and a bubbling, nameless kind of hope characteristic of youth, but all the same, there was also this incipient spiritual curiosity which used to pull me forcefully towards this great saint. He invariably used to be surrounded by various scholars of Shaivism, both Indian and foreign, who with great humility would sit at his feet to learn about Trika Shastra. There were also present, usually in the background, these two great lady saints, the late Sharika ji, a veritable human form of the Mother Goddess and Prabha ji who fortunately is still with us.

I was in awe of this saint. We would be waiting in his beautiful garden on those lazy Sunday afternoons and then at the time of his choosing he would come walking down to meet all of us, wearing his long trademark phiran. What a majestic gait he had and what a glowing face ! He would be overflowing with a kind of grace that perhaps, was the result of not years, but janmas and janmas of tapasya, of intense austerities ! Even in the foolishness of my youth, I could feel the aura, the profundity of his being and try to imbibe whatever little I could understand. Unfortunately, there was also a certain number of people, who, I believe, due to an underlying sense of insecurity often tried to ‘possess’ him and many a times pushed inferior persons like me away from him. I could see the seeds of cultism taking root in their hearts and souls. Well, he himself was obviously beyond all this, for who can possess a realized being, who can ever own the insubstantiality of Space ?! Anyway, I would watch him for long periods wondering as to what lay inside that body of his, what his inner being was like and what the state of his mind was! Invariably getting utterly confused, I would discover that it was time for me to come out of my reverie, pay my respects and leave after receiving his blessings. Those were the days… .

The question still haunts me though I have grown much older; I still feel very intensely about it and age has not dimmed any of my desire to find answers to this query. Sadly for me the great saint is no more; there are no more guiding lights around (except Nirmal Babas with their ‘third eyes’!!!) and groping in the dark, I am trying to find my own answers.

Well then, what is the realized state of Being like? When an individual gets spiritually illumined how does he feel like ? What does he think and how does he interact with the rest of us lesser mortals?

Let me begin by trying to understand myself, the person I am apparently most intimate with. Here is the envelope of my body, of solid flesh and bones with warm, red blood flowing through the vessels and a heart beating ceaselessly till the day I die. There are various other important organs which are nourished by this blood with the topmost evolutionary prize, the brain, lying within the safe confines of my cranium. But then a dead body, which I encounter rather frequently in my profession, possesses all these and yet is found wanting in something apparently insubstantial yet making all the difference—the life force. What is this life force which so long as it permeates the body, electrifies it with its presence and apparently makes use of its various components in accordance with its own whims and desires ? Well, if we are to believe the biologists, life is nothing other than a collateral excrescence of the various complex chemical reactions going on within the body, and consciousness, which has reached its pinnacle in the human being, is also just the manifestation of the functioning of the brain, nothing more, nothing less. When these complex reactions cease for whatever reasons-- they would like us to accept-- life ceases to be and the concerned being can safely be pronounced dead. Of course, that is how we doctors declare a patient clinically lifeless—‘no pulse, no BP, heart not beating, pupils fixed and dilated, and that ultimate test of brain function, the EEG, showing a flat line; yes, the patient is safely dead and gone forever!!’ This is the boring, mediocre conclusion of Objective Science based on its smug assumptions and analytical reasoning.

There is a dramatically opposite line of thinking, experienced and expressed by the great saints and mentioned in the scriptures. The life force comes first and creates, so to speak, a body according to its needs and tendencies, the vasanas. So, here I am, a product of innumerable janmas, having a set of vasanas, creating a body suited to the expression of my karma and going on and on till in one particular janma, I decide to break ranks with the rest of my ilk and merge with the source. This ‘inner’ bundle of vasanas with its memories, emotions, feelings etc., is grossly perceived as the ‘I’, doing its daily business with the ‘outside’ world. And it is this ‘I’ which,  when the fruit ripens, feels the angst of individuality . Whatever way you look at it --the objective scientific way, or the subjective spiritual way-- it is this ‘I’ which at some stage tries to, so to speak, leap outside itself and go beyond. It is this ‘I’ which cries out, ”Enough is enough ! I want Peace. I want to experience Silence. I want God.” And then we call this person a sadhaka who eventually through various austerities realizes the ultimate in this or some future janma and thereby experiences ineffable bliss, some kind of permanent and complete happiness—the saint’s experience,  so I believe-- or dies wondering whatever happened to him while the rest of the world continues—the scientific theory.I find the so-called scientific notion which equates the brain and the EEG pattern with the mind, and emotions with hormones, infantile, to say the least. But then going with the scriptures too, is this journey of the ‘I’ that simple ? Does in the course of sadhana it realize the Ultimate and then ‘live’ happily ever after in perfect peace and unalloyed happiness.

Does the ‘I’ live AT ALL in Realization?

Who am ‘I’, I ask once again ? What is the nature of this ‘life force’ ? And Why do ‘I’ want to realize the Ultimate?

Coursing through various lives, this bundle of vasanas goes on and on in new bodies, in new worlds trying unsuccessfully to fulfill itself. With each new life it creates an identity for itself, the ‘I’, and then,  seeing itself painfully lacking in substance, always thirsting for something or the other, tends to appropriate things around in order to quench this thirst. So at the sexual level, I run after the ultimate, total orgasmic experience wherein I feel I will get what I want, the sense of completeness. I run from woman to woman, but each new experience unfortunately leaves me poorer. I then want to pursue power, I desire to appropriate the other being,  the country, the world and then perhaps, the universe itself. I become an Alexander, a Jenghiz Khan, a Hitler,a Hiranyakashyapu but again,I fail miserably. Then, after stumbling through janmas, I start a new apparently ‘noble’ pursuit—I want Peace. The world cannot give me anything, I have understood; my mind is restless with innumerable thoughts proliferating like a malignant tumour within-- that is why I want Silence .I want nothing short of God. How elevating ! How pure !But that is the trick the mind plays. This ‘I’ of mine is a magician; it conjures up new goals in order to perpetuate itself. However noble a pursuit, howsoever pure a goal, it is based on the premise of a want, a desire, and that strengthens the ‘I’ by giving it one more toy to play with. Hungrily it consumes everything that is thrown into it and still remains unsatisfied and empty like a bottomless pit.

So then is there no way out ? Am I eternally condemned ?

Therein starts the true sadhana. The focus has to be shifted from this ‘I, Me and Myself’, to the spark within, barely visible to my untrained eyes— the ethereal, pulsating bit of Being, the ‘ghat-aakasha’,  the part of that infinite 'Maha-aakasha' permeating every atom of me and my world. And when the shift is complete, the older ‘I’ not being able to sustain its phantasmagoric existence, vanishes into thin air—that beloved moment of realization. This moment is perceived as akin to death, nay, it is actually death of the ‘I’ and many a sadhaka with some remnant vasanas have returned back, shaking with fear, not able to accept this loss of the long loved ‘self’. One of the Vaishnava saints whom I used to visit some time back called this divine moment 'Maha-mrityu' and he used to say that only ‘Mahaveeras’, the great heroes, can venture there. It actually is 'Maha-mrityu'—a total death of the ‘I’, a total annihilation of the bundle of vasanas forever and ever.

Where do we stand now ? What is the state of a realized being then ? What lies inside the body of a saint ? What is his inner being like ? What is the state of his mind ?

Well,  the apparently funny answer is—NOTHING ! It is not the way we understand ourselves. There is no ‘I’ there the way we know it. No vasanas exist there. Though he talks, walks and behaves like us,  make no mistake, he is not one of us. He is just a chink of empty space in the opacity of our hapless existence through which we can have a glimpse of the unknowable, a window through which the infinite Being pours in the form of streams of divine Grace. He is that one bridge that can take us across. He is the one who through His Nothingness beckons us to die to ourselves and in that very ‘death’, be a part of Eternity. No search for Peace, no pursuit of Silence, no ‘vision’ of God is going to help us out. These are the games our minds play. Nothing short of ‘Maha-mrityu’ is going to be of any value. So, let us be ‘Maha-veeras’ and boldly cross- over. There and there only lies our redemption. There and there alone can fulfillment be.

… And never ever take your saint lightly. Do not build cults around him—that will only strengthen your ego and take you farther away from the Truth—but hold his hand in all humility and enter the abode of Blissful Eternity !!!

by Dr. Sushil Fotedar

Whenever I am in a relatively neutral state,  with nothing to be happy or sad about, I become conscious of a baseline but constant feeling of angst, appearing as bursts of anguished awareness and thereby defining me as an individual. The feeling is, of course, an unpleasant one, welling up like saliva in my mouth, a low-grade nausea of sorts. Probing deeper, I find that it is related to my being limited to my body, there being a despair at not being able to concretize this existence of mine and living it ‘inside out’, as it were, combined with a sense of being incomplete and, therefore, not in command of anything. When I look back in time, I come to the conclusion that I have already secreted my past out and it is no longer within me and gazing into the future also, I encounter the same inaccessibility, the same exteriority, the same opacity multiplied infinite times owing to the infinite possibilities out there . I see myself reduced to the infinitesimal present moment, converting the future into the past feverishly through a nihilating movement in a sort of total but painful freedom—a ‘liberum arbitrium’ of sorts.

Sartre has defined this anguish as arising out of the gratuitous facticity of the ‘being-for itself’, i.e., the utter meaninglessness of my own self . Everything is ‘de trop’, just there, for nothing. There are similar beings ‘out there’, outside of myself, the ‘beings-for-others’ who in the solitary confines of their existence encounter a similar feeling yet cannot reach out to me. Additionally, according to Sartre, there is this ‘being-in-itself’, the world of objects, that exists completely in itself, impenetrable to the other two states of being, yet defining their existence. This is curiously similar to the Samkhya Philosophy of Kapil at least to a certain extent. Kapil believes in a multitude of ‘Purushas’, supremely isolated like the being-for-itself and the beings-for-others, and the opaque ‘Prakriti’, of course the being-in-itself. However, further on the two philosophies become totally divergent. Sartre, Camus and others of their school of thought, believe in an atheist existentialism wherein there is no escape from this gratuitousness whatsoever. Kapil's philosophy though also atheistic at least offers some relief for these poor purushas in the form of 'Kaivalya'!

I,  however, make a ‘leap of faith’ here as Kierkegaard puts it. ‘Being’ is only one, at once immanent and transcendent, permeating, and coextensive with everything out there and yet beyond-- call it Para-Brahmn, Shunyata, Para-Bhairava, or whatever. Multiple ‘moments’ in this Being get coloured by certain groups of tendencies, the ‘Vasanas’, and thereby arise various individuals in their own worlds of objects, conscious because of the underlying life-giving ‘drops’ of Being yet painfully inadequate due to their misplaced identities, not aware of this underlying Unity .I perceive myself separate from other individual consciousnesses and, therefore, in constant dread of the ‘other’; totally incomplete yet trying to fill my emptiness with something or the other knowing deep down that I am bound to fail. The angst continues… .

… Till the ‘I’ bursts and loses itself into the infinite Being!!

by Dr. Sushil Fotedar 

Whenever I talk about my own Being, the reference loosely, more often than not, is to a dynamic,  pervasive ‘presence’ confined more or less to the limits of the body. Further analysis of this state of dynamic pervasiveness yields that it seems to be of the nature of infinitesimal quanta of Awareness which arise outside of Time but in their rapid ‘succession’ provide a kind of flow apparent as Time. This Awareness is apparently nothing in itself being only a negation of that which Is, which Exists--the world of Objects-- and which is thereby perceived in that very negation through the senses, the instruments of the body. That is why Awareness is always about something outside of itself, something that is not itself. This is true even when I become aware of my own body—I stand, as it were, outside of my body, ‘push’ it away and thereby become aware of it.

However, it is here that one has to tread cautiously. Is Being the same as Awareness and Consciousness or are they different though closely knit together under usual circumstances; and who am ‘I’ who is talking about all these? The older terminologies of the ‘Subject’ and the ‘Object’ may be of some help here. Being, Awareness,  Consciousness and the ‘I’, all very clearly belong to the realm of the ‘Subject’ whereas whatever exists outside of these, is the domain of the ‘Object’. But then some more clarity is needed regarding this poor Subject! With so many terms used loosely, sometimes interchangeably, the whole issue becomes confusing. Whenever I refer to ‘Being’, it is in the context of pure ethereality stripped of everything and anything belonging to the Object--a pure,  dynamic state. Under normal conditions, this Being is understood only indirectly through a pointed Awareness of an object or as a stream of Consciousness of objects in general. Therein lies the definition of Awareness and Consciousness also, the former being pointed and the latter, a stream. More often than not,  or rather almost always, the ‘I’ refers to these two modes of Being--Consciousness and Awareness; it is only in very exceptional and extraordinary ‘moments’, in the so-called mystical communion,that the ‘I’ becomes synonymous with pure Being.

That brings us to the real issue at hand : What is the nature of Being ? In Ishavasya Upanishad it is said,” Purnamadah purnamidam, purnaat purnamudachyate, purnasya purrnamaadaya, purnameva vashishyate”—fullness, fullness and fullness. Nothing but fullness. Being is a Plenum bursting at the seams, as it were. On the other hand, the Buddhists, particularly those of the Madhyamaka school of Nagarjuna, would like us to believe in the other extreme . Being is a void,  a ‘Nothingness’ that ‘defines’ the world, the way the insubstantiality of space ‘defines’ and thereby provides dimensions to things within itself. By its very power of negation, this ‘Shunyata’ creates the ‘illusion’ of the world by standing apart from apparent objects which are paradoxically within itself. That is the immanent aspect of Being,  the Shakti of Trika Shaivism or the Yin of Taoism .In its transcendental aspect, nothing can be said about Being because it is beyond language—‘Neti, Neti’—not this, not this; that is the Para-Bhairava for you, if names could help!!

Well then, where do the boundaries of Being lie ?

I began my essay with my own being, not general Being as such, and therefore wanted to know its boundaries as to whether it is confined to the limits of my body or not. It is by now clear that Being is never individual; it provides the soil in which individual Consciousnesses with their accompanying worlds flower. It is at once transcendent and immanent, permeating every bit of existence and at the same time synonymous with the ‘Para-Brahmn’ of the Advaitists and the ‘Shunyata’ of the Madhyamakas--the limitless Beyond . It is that from which the universes emerge and into which they ultimately merge. This is what we are supposed to realize in our state of Moksha or that of Nirvana, depending upon which end we stand at—the one of Fullness or that of Nothingness!!

Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti.

by Dr. Sushil Fotedar 

Sometime back, while carrying on a conversation about Mata Rupa Bhavani with a friend of mine, something very well-known about her life struck me as rather worthy of analysis. Her initial life was quite tragic and after intense tapasya, she realised the Ultimate, at least that is what most of us believe. This theme of suffering is a common thread seen in the lives of most, if not all,  saints around the world be it Lalla Ded, St Augustine or Swami Vivekananda. Even in the case of those who did not apparently undergo personal sufferings,  the capacity to intensely feel,  through the “ Collective Subconscious”, the common human tragedy of an imperfect state of being-- followed at first by visions of old age, disease and death around and then within themselves --is immense, to say the least. The likes of Buddha and our own inimitable Swami Laxman Joo would fall in this category. The mythology of Suffering and Bliss and their close co-existence as two sides of the same coin, would therefore, be an interesting matter for study.

James Joyce defines tragedy as “ whatsoever is grave and constant in human sufferings”( James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man) and it is, I feel, from this “grave and constant” that the imprints common to the mythology of Suffering and its counterpoise, Bliss, are derived. My proposition is that tragedy transmutes suffering into bliss by altering the focus of the mind. Through intense contemplation thereafter, through sadhana, a saint mercilessly strips his self of mortal dirt, thereby “spiritually cleansing” himself and one day with a cry of rapture, leaves humanity behind,  leaping into the “unknowable” beyond. I would love scholars of our traditions to delve into this theme and come out with their interpretations so that we are better able to understand this transmutation!

And what is the symbol of this blissful, “unknowable” beyond ? In many mythologies including that of the Shakta, it is the Mother’s womb represented in the chakras as an inverted triangle, the “yoni”! Why so? Perhaps because the state of the child in the womb is conceived of as full of bliss which may be compared to the beatitude of realization. Additionally, as night and day cannot be differentiated in the confines of the womb, there is no sense of temporality ;not surprising that metaphors used to suggest Eternity also retreat to the womb. Abhinavaguptacharya has used these “sexual” metaphors of “yoni” and “bindu” quite profusely in his highly abstruse book, “the Shri Shri Paratrimshika”. Another matter open for assessments and interpretations!

May the Mother bless us all in one single, massive downpour of Shaktipata!!!

by Dr. Sushil Fotedar 

Yes, there he was! After so many years of fervent sms-ing and skyping he had decided to pay his prodigal great-grandson a visit. Yes, there he was, my great-grandfather, the muni of munis, the rishi of rishis, the great Kashyap Muni, knocking at the door of my modest two-room apartment. There was no mistaking his demeanour—the same glowingface, the flowing beard, the Chandan Tilak, the spotless white dastaar and the long Phiran with its trademark laadh. I looked sheepishly at my own dress. I was wearing bermudas and a T-shirt with an intellectual-sounding—“Hell is Other People”—printed across the chest. Cursing myself between the teeth, I thought, ”Today at least I could have worn a Kurta-Pyjama .Why for God’s sake did I not remember?”But then it was one of those hot, sultry summer evenings of Delhi and I felt he would forgive this minor transgression of mine.”O, Hi Dadaji! Please come in,” I tried to sound informal, ”do make yourself comfortable.”Without uttering a single word, he looked across my drawing room and straightaway went ahead and sat on the Tsangij, that prized possession of mine which I had retrieved somehow from my since abandoned house in Srinagar and had brought out for this very special occasion.

“So, how is Bhagvan Shankar? And how is my dear Sharika Ma doing, ”trying to strike a conversation, I cleared my throat, ”She must be missing me a lot. And yes, how is the weather there in Kailash?” And then, I suddenly saw it all. He was sweating from head to toe. Having come in this attire, that too from the cold climes of Kailash Parbat, he obviously had not acclimatized to the hot conditions of Delhi as yet. Turning on the A/C I said, “I am really sorry Pitaji! But it will soon get better. This time in Delhi it is real hell, to say the least,” I tried to make him feel good.”Yes,” and he began to speak weakly,” It must surely be some corner of Raurav Narak, no doubt about that. In fact,  before reaching this place,  I saw other Narakas too, which, if my memory serve me right, are not mentioned in our Puranas anywhere. There, I saw men raping women in automatic Rathas. I saw grisly scenes of bombs being blasted for no reason whatsoever and human limbs and flesh being strewn across these metalled paths,” he mumbled in obvious discomfort, ”But then what heinous sins have you committed to deserve all this? Surely, you must have forgotten what pains I undertook to settle you in my beloved Kashmir and whiled away your time in sinful orgies. This deserves an explanation dear son. What do you have to say?”

This was the occasion I was waiting for. This is why I had called him in my efforts to seek answers for my predicament.” Well dad,” I began in right earnest, keeping myself as clear-headed as possible,” it all began in the late nineteen-eighties and early nineteen-nineties. I was thrown out of Kashmir for no fault of mine or rather, for the fault of being a Hindu in a Muslim-majority area and thereby being a suspect in their eyes. I am despondent, nobody and nothing to look forward to, in an alien place and climate waiting for death to supervene.”Continuing in the same vein and trying to look as pitiable as possible, I added, ”My culture has been raped, my language has been destroyed and to add insult to injury, my history is being distorted to suit vested interests. Even my own countrymen, at least a good number of them,  have sided with these anti-nationals for their own partisan interests. Under these circumstances, what am I supposed to do? What is my future? Pray, guide me in this dark hour of mine.”Having put forth my case as rationally as possible, I sat back looking at his face while waiting for an answer.

Grand dad kept quiet for a long time, gazing deep into empty space. He was sitting motionless with his spine absolutely erect, a result of thousands of years of Tapasya. And then, he began slowly,” Well, it is not that simple dear son. Let me start by saying that all great people, all great communities, are basically cursed. That may sound paradoxical, but that is the way it is. Don’t forget the Jews, the most cursed of them all and arguably one of the most gifted ones. Son, it needs the dialectical push of suffering to propel you to great heights. You are not one of those innocent, ignorant tribes of some forlorn island who wallow in the shallowness of their stagnation. Have you forgotten what one of the greatest sons of India, Swami Vivekananda said—‘Arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached’. Draw inspiration from such people instead of pleading for crumbs before powers that be. Do also remember what he said in the same context—‘Faith, faith in yourself. Faith, faith in God. That and that alone is the secret of greatness.’ O, come on, don’t be a weepy-sleepy little boy lost in the woods.”

But, I was not particularly convinced. Moreover, I was conversant with this subterfuge of the so-called ‘positive thinking’, the panacea for all evils according to its proponents. “That is all fine on paper grand-dad,” I protested, “but what did I do that this tragedy should have befallen me ? I led and continue to lead a peaceful life without hurting anyone. Why am I being persecuted?” Trying to add fire to my arguments, I thundered,” Are my Gods dead? Like Nietzsche, should I be searching for their graves in broad daylight with a lantern in my hands? Nobody came forward when I prayed and prayed, shedding profuse tears of’ virah’ while my brothers were being murdered and my sisters raped.” Now I felt I had delivered the right, powerful punch in my strongly argued case and with a smug satisfaction waited for Pitaji to answer.

Pitaji now looked distinctly uncomfortable with my line of argument. But keeping his cool, he replied,” Do you call this fearful paralysis peace? Is laziness synonymous with Shanti? No dearest, no! Look back and you will find people who wanted ‘peace’ but were basically cowards. Have you forgotten king Sahadeva, that lazy,despicable lump who simply ran away at the first sign of trouble, shaking in his underpants, leaving his beautiful,  intelligent wife Kota Rani and his poor subjects to the mercy of Rakshasas like Rinchin and Shah Mir ? Do not forget his hopeless brother Udyanadeva too. It is one of those sad chapters of your history how that courageous lady fought back before she was ultimately murdered. On the cultural front, read Kshemendra, who in his own unique style of satire describes the decadence that had set in our community centuries back. In a grotesque distortion of the esoteric Kaula practices, people had started to pass off their drunken sexual orgies as some sort of Sadhana. Ah, what a shame! Remember also that in not so distant past, you held the most learned people of your community, the Gurujis, in utter contempt and called them ‘gores’ with derision. I believe, the practice still continues in a covert form. Well, I am not here to point out your flaws, but I think some introspection is definitely needed. Even now, you deride your language, your own mother tongue, the Matrika of Koshur,a divine manifestation of Ma Sharika Herself, and are unfortunately ashamed of conversing in the same within the confines of your home even. Language is the hallmark of all cultural revivals and you have abandoned that almost altogether. Where are the great writers and linguists? Where are the original thinkers? Where are your leaders who can inspire? And, last but not the least, where are your saints? Sunny, they are the ones who are dead, not your Gods.”

The evening was slowly tapering into night and I was now feeling genuinely despondent . Pleading one last time with my great-grandfather, I asked him with great humility,” Yes sir, I am to blame a lot for whatever is happening to me at the moment, but being my loved ancestor, I beseech you to guide me in this rather darkest hour of mine. My Ma Sharika is mad at me, my dear Shankar is in some angry, introverted Samadhi, feigning ignorance about my misery, and my last beloved saint passed away with Laxman Joo . I feel like a motherless child. Please help me.” I was at the verge of tears now and dropping silent with folded hands, I looked up to him.

A long time, an eternity, passed off. And then rising gradually from his asana, he said cryptically,” Udhyamo Bhairavah,” and vanished suddenly into the elements. For a moment, I was dazed. Distant but clear voices were singing—‘Shaktisandhane Sharirotapattih’-- and filled with a new zest, I got up and looked around .The night was getting deeper and a new morning was not far off.

by Dr. Sushil Fotedar

Does a Metaphor ever become Real? Well,  all metaphors are real in the metaphorical sense,  but do they ever become real in the actual sense?

To begin with, for example, Lord Shiva is a mythological figure with many stories attributed to Him in our Puranas. Some people interpret those stories literally wherein He exists in some parallel world, the Shiva-loka, intermittently making some essential trips to the Mrityu-loka of ours on the furtive call of His Bhaktas. Others, who apparently are intellectually sophisticated, read a more symbolic meaning into these stories and then describe their importance in the human context--moral or spiritual. This is similarly true of quasi-historical personages like Krishna and Rama etc. 

But then, does a Metaphor ever become Real?

What happens when a Surdas is held by Balkrishna and guided to his home on a dark wintry night when he is deserted on the wayside by the heartless trader who earlier in the day had ironically beseeched him to be a guest at his home--and moved immensely by the intensity of the experience writes one of the most beautiful poems of his life?

What happens when an Andal or a Meera sees, plays with and ultimately "marries" a Giridhar Naagar ?

What happens when a Ramkrishna Paramhans sees his "Mother", sits in Her lap and asks Her innocent childlike questions?

Are they mad, hallucinating psychotics?

Or does a Metaphor become Real in the actual sense?

by Dr.  Sushil Fotedar

Time and Space ("Kaala" and "Desh"--or in certain other contexts, "Aakasha"--in Sanskrit) have fascinated thinkers from times immemorial. Whether it is the western philosophers and scientists-or rather physicists- on the one hand, and eastern thinkers and mystics,  on the other,  people have tried to unravel these "categories" of existence and their impact on understanding the human condition. 

I would not venture deep into the scientific concept of Time and Space as that is best left to the experts. Suffice it to say that the scientific explanation has progressed rapidly from the mechanistic notions of Newton to the complexity of Einstein wherein Time and Space are no more perceived as absolutes but as relative extensions of "n" number of flexible dimensions (how boring!!)With the advent of Quantum Physics things have now started to border dangerously on the mystical with the "Schrodinger's cat" and other such related concepts being the most mind-boggling. 

Among western philosophers,  it was Immanuel Kant who tried to interpret these categories with the clear logic of the highest order. His magnum opus, the "Critique of Pure Reason" stands tall as one of the greatest achievements of the human mind. In this beautifully argued critique, Kant proposes that Both Time and Space are "a Priori" modes of knowledge,  i. e.,  they exist in the human mind independent of any empirical, i. e.,  sensory,  experience.Just imagine the beauty of this explanation at the practical level (this is my own interpretation, of course, and therefore, not scholarly)--Time and Space and thus, the worlds,  "arise" and "set" with the mind, with human consciousness. When I am born, the world is born and when I die, the world too dies. The world,  with Time and Space as it building blocks, is therefore Maya, i. e.,  a concoction of a group of "vasanas", which is called the "I", the "Me" or the "Myself". 

Eastern mysticism, in particular Trika Shastra,  has dealt with the concepts of Time and Space extensively. In His divine descent through His Svatantrya Shakti, Bhairava "creates" the limiting Tattvas of Kaala and Desh and thereby conjures up the world with its opposing poles of "Aham" and "Idam", i. e.,  "I" and "This"-- thereby creating so many suffering beings like me who then again want to return to the source!!! Ah, what a Leela!!! (of course, again this is my own puny interpretation!!). The "jagat"(Idam) and the "I" (Aham) arise and set with the opening (Unmesha) and closing(Nimesha) of the Divine Eye. 

So brothers,  who are but an extension of "Myself", let us awaken from this divine Yognidra and shake off the shackles of Time and Space and go beyond suffering into the realm of the "Turiya", the "fourth" state,  the "Anirvachaniya" Bhairavahood. There is no "mann" there,  no "buddhi", no "chitta", no "ahankara",  (and no politics,  of course!!) just "Chidananda rupah Shivoham, Shivoham". 

God bless us all. 

by Dr.  Sushil Fotedar

Yes, Somnath is a very painful chapter in the history of Hindu India. You just have to read Professor Rawlinson's excellent, unbiased and vivid commentary of the event to feel the agony seeping through and through. I quote the relevant passage verbatim:

“… a massive stone lingam, five cubits in height, which was regarded as being of special sanctity and attracted thousands of pilgrims. It was bathed everyday in water brought all the way from the Ganges, and garlanded with flowers from Kashmir. The revenue of ten thousand villages was assigned for its support, and a thousand Brahmins performed the daily ritual of the temple. The original shrine, like so many in ancient India, was built of wood: it was supported by fifty-six teak-wood pillars, coated with lead and inlaid with jewels. A chain of massive golden bells hung over the idol: jewelled chandeliers, images of pure gold and veils embroidered with precious stones were stored in the treasury. The temple, together with the buildings to accommodate the ministrants, formed a regular town, surrounded by a wall and strongly fortified.

Mahmud left Ghazni in December 1023 with 30,000 picked horsemen. He appeared suddenly before Multan, which surrendered. Here he obtained the necessary camels for the desert-crossing, and both Bikaner and Ajmir opened their gates to him. Six weeks’ arduous march brought him to Anhilvad and the raja, Bhima by name, fled at his approach. Mahmud probably marched against Somnath by the route running along the southern coast of Kathiawar. On Thursday, January 30^th, he broke through the enceinte of fortresses surrounding the town and approached the walls of the sacred city. The inhabitants, confident in the power of the god, jeered at the invaders from the battlements. Next day the assault began. The Muslims after a severe struggle, succeeded in gaining a footing on the ramparts, but were too exhausted to do more. And now the Hindus began to realize their peril. All night long the temple was thronged with wailing crowds, beating their breasts and calling upon the deity to come to the help of his own. But there was neither voice nor answer. At dawn the attack was renewed, and step by step the defenders were forced back through the narrow winding streets to the walls of the shrine itself. Here a last despairing stand was made until at length the Muslims, planting their scaling ladders against the walls, stormed them with loud cries of Din! Din ! Fifty-thousand Hindus were put to the sword ; others tried to escape by the sea and were drowned. The treasure taken exceeded two million dinars in value. According to one story, the Brahmins who had submitted begged to be allowed to ransom the lingam, but Mahmud would not listen. He refused, he said, to appear before the Judgement Seat as one who had taken money to spare the idol. The stone was broken in pieces and a portion of it buried in the threshold of the mosque of Ghazni, to be trodden under foot by true believers…”

But who says the laziness of those fat Brahmins indulging in meaningless yagnas can be equated with Dharma ? They were no different from the Pandas you find at Benaras, Haridwar, Puri and at most of the Hindu shrines around the country even now, moving around like hungry vultures ready to gulp down everything and anything in your pockets. In a grotesque distortion of our beautiful religion, they have misinterpreted the theory of Karma to suit their own selfish ends. Haven’t we read in the Gita that when Arjun wanted to give up, Krishna rebuked him in the strongest possible language calling him a eunuch even, and coaxed him to fight for that was his Dharma ? Kashmir Shaivism also tells us the same. What surrounds us is not an ‘illusion’ and when faced with injustice we are supposed to rise like true heroes and fight it out till the bitter end only that we keep the larger picture in mind, that is all.

Stories from the Nilmata Purana

- The Birth of Jalodbhava

by Dr.  Sushil Fotedar

It had been a very tough year for Lord Indra. The Asuras as usual had been breathing down his neck most of the time with random, fierce attacks on his kingdom, the Swarga-loka, from all the sides. But with God’s grace, or rather Bhagvan Vishnu’s kripa, he had been saved all the time and had been able to thwart their evil attempts to annex his kingdom. Now that there was relative peace, he had decided to take a break and go on a holiday with his dear wife, the ever beautiful madam Shachi. Many places came to his mind. He had, for example, a standing invitation from Lord Krishna himself to visit Go-loka, a beautiful place with its capital at the Spiritual Vrindavan  famous for its Maha-raasa parties which actually very few people really knew about but were considered to be the pinnacle of blissful experience by the lucky ones who had attended. However, after the hectic schedule back home, he was not game for a rather tiring kind of an experience. Even Bhagvan Shiva who normally is an unsocial kind of a guy, had opened the doors of Kailash Parbat for him and he was free to roam its snowy peaks the way he liked in the company of the ever lovable Lord Ganesha who was very eager to show him places riding on his beloved mouse. Ma Parvati had additionally promised to cook the most delicious, mouth-watering dishes for him and his dear wife; even a naive person could make out that She was a wonderful cook, looking at the excellent state of Ganesha’s health!  But then the place was cold and rather too grim to put him in a relaxed frame of mind which was what he needed the most at the moment. “So what about a cruise in dear Prabhu’s territory?”, he thought.  The Kshir-Saagar with its milky waters is a very tempting proposition any time of the year and additionally he would be able to pay obeisance to his mentor and savior, Bhagvan Vishnu, forever-relaxing on Shesha-Naaga in the company of mother Laxmi  with that beatific smile on that  lovable face of His.

“So dear Shachi, let us pack our bags and move. It is time to enjoy”, he said. “But where are we going?”, Shachi enquired. Lord Indra tried to look surprised. ” Oh, where else but the beautiful Kshir-Saagar, the most wonderful place in this universe. With our dear Bhagvan Vishnu and Ma Laxmi around, it will be a most pleasant experience. C’mon let us hurry,” he tried to rush things with a sweep of his hands.

But madam Shachi was not impressed. ”Oh no, not once again! We have been to Kshir-Saagar two times in the last two years. Please, let us go to some other place,” she said with a look of exasperation on her face,” Why can’t we explore some new, uncharted territory for a change?” And then she exclaimed in an excited tone, suddenly remembering something, ”What about Satidesha? My friends tell me that it is an exquisitely beautiful, virgin territory, as yet unexplored by even the most adventurous of the devatas. Some of them claim that in many respects it is even more charming than our own Swarga-loka.” Like a child now she became insistent,” Listen to me please, let us go to Satidesha. You will  feel rejuvenated, I assure you, and I will also feel happy.”

“Wait a minute,” Indra said and rushed to his study as something flashed through his mind.”What a coincidence!”, he wondered. It was only a few days back that the intrepid adventurer, the Muni of Munis, Rishi Kashyap, had given him a travelogue penned by him after his extensive tour of the Mother Earth and in the same he had mentioned something about this Satidesha. He found the book lying on the table and started going through its pages and lo, there it was, Satidesha, the place Shachi was talking about! He went back to the room Shachi was waiting in and both of them started to read the book together.

There are four Yugas, the book began, Krita, Treta, Dwapar and Kali. Seventy-one of such Chaturyugas constitute one Manvantara. After the completion of each Manvantara, the world comes to an end being drowned in a huge deluge. It is the Lord Mahadeva Himself who takes the form of this endless ocean. After some time, out of mercy for bound souls, the Goddess Sati assumes the form of a boat and the future Manu places all the seeds of creation in the boat which is then towed by Vishnu in the form of a fish. He then fastens it to the top of the mountain peak called Naubandhana and then vanishes from the scene. The Goddess Sati in the form of the boat now becomes the Mother Earth and on this earth, at its most beautiful spot a lake of clear, limpid waters comes into being. This is the Satidesha, six yojanas long and half of that in breadth, heart-enrapturing and  a wonderful sporting place fit for the gods.

In this Kalpa, the book continued, six such Manvantaras have already passed and the seventh one, the Vaivasvata Manvantara, has  started some time back. The Satidesha continues to be beautiful as ever, inhabited by the Nagas, a gentle tribe ruled by its king, the venerable Nila. Though it is arguably the most lovely place on earth, it is due to undergo some tremendous, cataclysmic changes in near future which will change its face forever. This chapter on the Satidesha ended rather cryptically, advising Lord Indra to visit the place at the earliest.“That is interesting”, Indra laughed and said to Shachi,” Okay then, let us fly down to Satidesha as soon as possible.” 

The flight to Satidesha, though a long one, was very comfortable and as they neared the place ,they were greeted by the sweet smell of roses ; when they looked around, a beautiful dawn had already set in  and then  they saw the lake itself, deep like the sky and bright with pink lotuses and clear water. It was definitely a treat for not only the eyes but all the senses. Quickly choosing one isolated spot on the banks of the lake, they decided to rest for some time before indulging in their sporting activities. Lord Indra simply could not resist falling asleep immediately surrounded as the place was, by the majestic Deodar trees.. The beautiful cool wind calmed his frayed nerves and feeling completely relaxed he went into deep sleep full of beautiful dreams.

When he got up from this refreshing nap, he found that Shachi had already gone into the lake and was having a bath. How beautiful she looked! Her thousand lotus-shaped eyes were looking all the more beautiful surrounded as she was by the pink lotuses in the lake water. He remembered how he had retrieved her from the clutches of her ruthless Asura father Puloman after killing him in mortal combat long time back and how thankful he was feeling for that. Desirous of jumping into the water himself now, he got up when he heard a rustling of leaves followed by some dirty grunting sounds behind in the woods. “ Who is that?” he shouted and looking back  was aghast to find an ugly-looking Daitya with red, fierce eyes looking passionately at Paulomi while drooling a large amount of spittle from the corners of his badly smelling mouth. “What the hell? Get lost before I kill you,” Lord Indra shouted, anger building up in his otherwise cool mind. He immediately recognized Sangraha the “durjaya”, difficult-to-conquer Asura, who had somehow managed to escape the last time he had killed and almost destroyed all the demons. But blinded as he was by Kama, the Daitya laughed an uproarious, raucous laughter and without caring for the king of devatas, jumped into the water and started swimming towards Aindri in a bid to kidnap her. Indra jumped after him and catching him by the scruff of his neck, dragged him back to the banks of the lake and hit him hard on the face. Meanwhile the devatas had collected in the skies as a fight-to-death ensued between the two. Oh, what a fierce fight it was! The earth shook and the skies trembled as the fight continued for days and then months. Nobody seemed to emerge victorious in this fight between equals. They fought with whatever was at hand, rocks, trees and what-have-you. As time passed, Indra started to feel the pinch of fatigue. Victory was nowhere in sight as the year neared its end when he suddenly remembered his dear Vajra. Collecting the remains of his fast-sapping energy, he called out for his beloved bolt and lo and behold, there it was! Holding it strongly in his hand he hit the Asura hard on his head and there he dropped dead on the ground at once with just one stroke. Relieved, the devatas showered flower petals on their beloved king who now was visibly tired and drained of all energy. Looking at his dear wife Mahendri, he felt happy that he was able to safeguard her honour. The lady meanwhile was sitting under a Deodar tree weeping silently and remembering her six children, Jayanta, Midhusa, Nilambara, Rbhus, Rshaba and Sitragupta. The holiday was totally marred and she now beseeched her husband to take her back because the longing for her children was overwhelming her totally. “So be it,” Lord Indra thought, feeling sad that he was not able to give his wife what she wanted . Calling forth his magical powers he closed his eyes and in a wink willed his and Indrani’s flight back to Swarga-loka.

Dear folks, our story does not end here; it rather begins from this point on!

For unknown to everybody except Lord Hari himself, the Daitya Sangraha at the height of his passion while he was pursuing Shachi had ejaculated into the waters of the lake itself. The semen was now growing silently in the  lake and developing into a baby boy. What nasty, dark powers of attraction this growing life had! From the depths of Paatala it pulled out the dirtiest, wildest seeds of demonic flesh that formed its body. From the darkest interiors of Aakasha it sucked in the “shad-ripus”, the six enemies of “Kama”, ”Krodha”,”Lobha”, “Moha”, “Mada” and “Matsar” , that formed the foundation of his venomous mind and then on one of those cursed but apparently innocuous looking mornings, the child was delivered on the banks of the lake Satisar.

King Nila, the venerable, kind-hearted king of the Nagas was having his usual morning walk with his retinue following him at a respectable distance when he heard the cries of a baby in the distance. Rushing towards the waters, he located the naked but robust-looking child crying inconsolably. The soft heart of the gentle king melted and picking up the child he said,”Oh, who is the cruel mother of this unfortunate child ? How can one abandon one’s flesh and soul like that?” Seeing nobody around, he called his beloved queen and told her,”Now that nobody seems to own this child, as a king  I am duty-bound to adopt it and you being my beloved wife, I request you to take it with you and bring it up as our own.”

And as if out of some divinely-guided impulse, he added instinctively,” And let him be called Jalodbhava, the one born of the waters, for nothing else suits this unfortunate baby.”

Thus, ever so innocuously, started the turbulent journey of Jalodbhava who was destined to change the face of the beautiful Satidesha forever. …

The king of the Nagas, Kadruputra Nila was worried. On a tour of various places of pilgrimage with his father, Muni Kashyapa, he had avoided talking on this subject for long but it was no longer possible to side-track the issue, now that they were passing through Madradesha. The whole of the place, once teeming with Nagas, was a shadow of its old self. A centre of excellence, famous in the world for its artisans, it was now almost totally deserted. Houses were either half- burnt or dilapidated and there was no soul in sight for miles at length.

“Dear son”, Rishi Kashyapa said, looking surprised,” What has happened to Madradesha? What calamity has befallen the poor people of this state of yours? It seems as if a great tsunami has come and gone, killing all the people, as it were. Don’t you take care of your own subjects? This is absolutely unacceptable.”

Nila protested weakly, “But dad, it is not like that. I love my subjects immensely”, and then added in a rather meek manner, ”It is all about this foster son of mine, Jalodbhava, who has unfortunately become totally uncontrollable. He simply refuses to listen to me and does all kinds of horrible things the way he pleases.”

Rishi Kashyapa said, “But when I saw him ten years back, he was such a cute boy, so obedient and well-mannered. What happened since then?”

“Oh father, what shall I tell you?” Looking rather annoyed, he continued,” It has all to do with my venerable grand-dad, Brahma ji who dispenses boons ever so carelessly without considering the consequences.”

Muni Kashyap interrupted,” Wait a minute! Wait a minute! Please start from the beginning. I am getting rather confused.”

“Okay dad”, Nila began slowly, ”some years back. Jalodbhava decided to do tapasya standing in Satisar to please Brahma ji. Initially, I thought it was some kind of a teenage obsession but dad, what an intense tapasya it turned out to be! He continued for years standing in water through hot summers and cold winters, muttering mantras from some unknown tantras, and, believe me, Brahma ji had to appear.”

“So what happened after that”, Kashyap Muni had started getting interested.

King Nila continued,” Father, he asked for three boons from Brahma ji; firstly, that nobody should be able to kill him in water, second, that he should have magical powers and thirdly, that he should be endowed with immense prowess. And can you believe dad, dear grandpa granted him all the wishes and retired immediately to the comforts of Kshir-sagar without for a moment thinking as to what consequences it will have? Since then, Jalodbhava has run berserk, killing and eating hapless people as and when he pleases and when I protested, he ran away from home and now resides permanently in the Satisar lake itself. Though Madradesha has borne the brunt of his attacks, other places like Darvabhisara, Gandhara, Juhundara, Antargiri and Bahirgiri have also been rendered desolate due to his nefarious activities. Even the states of Shakas, the Khashas, the Tanganas and the Mandavas have seen his fierce attacks. I am at a loss to understand as to how this menace can be got rid of.” Beseeching his father, he then added in a rather pitiable tone,” Please Pitaji, help me to come out of this mess which, I confess, is partly of my own making.”

“No, this cannot be allowed to continue,” Kashyap Muni muttered to himself and then speaking loudly with a sense of urgency, waved his hand,” Come on, let us fly up to Kshir-sagar without wasting any further time and talk to my dear father Brahma ji. Narayana will also be there and, I assure you, we will find some way out.”

So the father-son duo flew past infinite universes and black holes in a wink, piercing the heart of the Time-Space continuum and reached Kshir-sagar. Narayana was as usual relaxing on Shesh Nag with that beatific smile on that beautiful face of His while Brahma ji with all his four heads was busy contemplating something. Ma Laxmi was attending to household chores because, incidentally, Ananta with his huge plough and Ishvara Himself had come to pay them a courtesy call.

“Nice to see you, dear Kashyap,” Narayana said, laughing uproariously and waking up Lord Brahma from his reverie, “Long time, no see! What is the matter? ‘Everything fine?”

“ Yes dear son, is everything fine?” Brahma ji added, looking rather worried as Kashyap Muni was not one to trouble anybody if the issue was not serious.

After bowing in courtesy with king Nila standing at a respectable distance, Rishi Kashyap came to the point straightaway and narrated the whole story to all of them.

Getting very angry, Vishnu ji got up from His seat quickly and told the Creator,” Dear friend, I saw it coming long time back. Anyway, send a word to Shankar Bhagvan for I will need His help and let us move to Satidesha immediately. It is going to be a hell of a fight. Please call all the Devatas and Devis too for they shall not see such a wonderful sight for a long time to come.”

So, in no time Narayana and Brahma ji, Ishvara and Ananta with his plough, and, of course, Kashyap Muni and king Nila reached Satidesha.

The sun and the moon were already eagerly waiting in the skies.

Shankar ji along with Parvati Maiyya came on Nandi, the divine bull.

Indra on hearing this and conscious of his role in the whole story, came there in the company of hosts of devatas.

Yama, Varuna, Kubera, Agni, Vayu, Vasus, Rudras, and the hosts of Maruts also came.

The holy rivers of Ganga mounted on a crocodile, Yamuna on a tortoise and Sarasvati on a buffalo also came rushing down from the heavens.

Other rivers like Narmada, Gandaki, Kaveri, etc. also came riding their respective vehicles.

Having entered Satidesha, Mahesh occupied the Naubandhana peak, Brahma took His stand on the Northern peak with all the devatas and Asuras whereas the Venerable Hari with his ever beatific smile stood at the vantage point, the southern peak, and with a booming voice which sends shivers down the spines of sinners, thundered,” O Jalodbhava, come here. Let us fight like true heroes and decide the fate of this Satidesha once for all. Come on, if you have the guts.”

But Jalodbhava was not one to be taken in by these exhortations and he did what he thought was best under the circumstances. He simply did not come out of the lake! For he knew that even Lord Hari was utterly helpless so long as he stayed under water because of the boon he had been given by the Creator Brahma Himself. Scratching his head, Lord Vishnu turned towards Ananta and ordered him, “Dear Balaram, this is the time for you to show your valour. Please lift your plough and break forth the Himalaya at once.”

Dressed in blue and wearing a diadem fastened with gold, worthy of worship, Ananta, possessing the lustre of full moon, expanded himself covering the earth and the heavens and terrifying the numerous demons around. With one stroke of his massive plough, he broke forth the Himalaya. Water gushed out of the lake at a tremendous pace creating a deafening noise which shook the hearts of all the beings in the universe and for once, the terrible demon, Jalodbhava, stood totally exposed.

But he was not one to be easily cowed down. Before Lord Hari could strike, Jalodbhava practised his magic and created darkness all around. The whole world was now immersed in pitch-black darkness. It was impossible for anybody to do anything under these circumstances. Shouting from the mountain-top, Bhagvan Vishnu said,” Dear friend Shankar, it is your turn now. Do something to save the situation.” The ever-serious Shambu smiled a little and with a flourish of His hands brought forth the sun and the moon. In a twinkling of the eye, the world was again filled with light and all the darkness destroyed.

Now, it was Lord Hari’s turn. By the power of Yoga, He assumed a second body and witnessed the fight from the other body. Oh, what a fierce fight it was! They fought bare-handed. They fought with trees and mountains in their massive hands and the fight continued and continued, and when it appeared that it was never going to end either way, Lord Vishnu pulled out His Sudarshana Chakra from nowhere and in the flash of a moment cut off the demon’s head with its help. The severed head rolled on to one side and the blood flowed towards what was left of the Satisar. Giving out a cry of victory, dear Narayana said, looking towards Lord Brahma and Shambu ji as the devatas started to shower flower petals from the heavens,” O best among beings, whoever shall see you after taking bath in this lake ,now called Kramasaara, shall without any delay go to heaven. I also order all the devatas and devis to leave their footprints on this beautiful piece of land so that it is made holy for all times to come.”

Now it was time to move back to Kshir-sagar. Packing His divine bags, He suddenly discovered that Sudarshan was missing. When calling out for him several times did not help, He wondered as to where His beloved weapon had gone and decided to wait for some more time. Suddenly, His eyes fell on Lord Shiva, His old friend. Sitting in Padma-asana on the Naubandhana peak, He had a mischievous smile on His face and then Prabhu understood it all. With an expression of mock irritation, He said,” Now, come on Shiva! Don’t try to act funny. Where have you hidden my dear Sudarshana? Please hand him over to me quickly. Laxmi is waiting back home very eagerly and I don’t want to be late for dinner. Come on dear, be quick!”

“Ha, Ha Ha!” Bhagvan Shambu laughed loudly as Parvati Ma looked on with amusement at this friendly exchange.” Your dear Sudarshana Chakra was so drunk on Jalodbhava’s blood that he had totally lost control over his senses and was wandering in all the three worlds without knowing what he was doing. It is with great difficulty that I caught hold of him and I am not going to part with him without receiving a gift from you. So come on, what do you have to offer ?”, Shiva continued the friendly banter.

Now, Lord Vishnu, who is an epitome of Divine Love, just could not resist this Nectar from overflowing His heart. In one swift motion, He pulled Bhagvan Shambu towards Himself and embraced Him. Smiling His eternally Divine Smile that fills His Bhaktas with bliss, He called Ma Parvati also to the same spot and then standing on the head of Jalodbhava erected a memorial in which all the three are represented and this became the holiest of the holy spots on that blessed earth.

Having established peace, the Trinity left for their respective abodes leaving Kashyap Muni in charge of the closing ceremonies. 

“So then”, the Muni of Munis pronounced, “ Dear Nagas, from now onwards, you will live peacefully with men whom I have ordered to come to this Desha.”

“But that can’t be! This is our land and we will not allow men to live here”, the Nagas protested.

“Yes, yes, this is our country, and we will not allow anybody else to settle here”, the shouts of rebellion grew louder,” Naga land is only for Nagas. No one else has a right here.”

Looking at this growing dissent, the otherwise calm Muni Kashyap became angry and shouted back,” Okay then, as you speak so audaciously without paying regard to my words so you shall have to dwell with the Pishachas now. You have yourselves brought this curse on you.” The wise king Nila who till then was busy with other formalities heard these angry words from afar and rushing towards his father fell on his feet beseeching him with humility,” Dear father, these subjects of mine are a bunch of incorrigible fools. They don’t understand who you are. Please forgive us, otherwise we will stand condemned till eternity.”

Having heard these modest words of the king, his son Nila, Kashyap Muni calmed down and said,” Fine then. As I cannot take my words totally back, I grant you that the terrible Pishachas will live only for six months a year with you and for the other six months you will live in the company of men. I will tell Kubera to send the respectable Nikumbha to keep these Pishachas under control during this period, as you know, they are otherwise a very violent people. This make-shift arrangement will continue for four Yugas and afterwards you will live only with men.”

Having said this, he continued, “This beautiful country which has been formed by draining the Satisar now needs to be named.” Calling Lord Narayana back one last time, he requested Him to bring down the curtains by naming the country according to what He felt best. Lord Narayana, who by now was feeling refreshed after taking a sumptuous dinner, readily complied and addressing the tribe of Nagas said,” This beautiful land is the result of the hard work and immense concern of my dear Prajapati Kashyap Muni and so, as he is also called “Ka”, the country shall be named Kashmir. Additionally, as water, also called “Ka” in the granthas, was drained by Balarama from this country, it is appropriate to call it Kashmir.”

“So be it! So be it!” everybody shouted in unison. The Gods left and the celebrations began.

Celebrations began and celebrations continued as Janardana had ordained. This is the land of happiness. This is the sporting- ground of the Gods. This is our dear Kashmir.

Yes, this is the sporting-ground of the Gods. This is our dear Kashmir. But then Lord Hari, why this new invasion of the Pishachas?

Why this pain and suffering once more?

Why this violence and dance of death once more?

Has an invisible Jalodbhava returned?

Where are you dear Hari?

Come and redeem us once more. We are waiting.

A Poet’s World

by Dr.  Sushil Fotedar

The present day world with all its shimmering charms and loud noises has made most of us such hopeless extroverts that we fail to recognize even the possibility of gazing inwards and seeing the beauty of exploring utterly new vistas deep inside the realms of consciousness. At best, we accept such an introversion as a possible but meaningless exercise and at worst, as some manifestation of schizophrenia or endogenous depression. When some time back I told one of my colleagues at work that the single most important thing that needs to be contemplated is the mystery of death, he was frightened and taken aback at the same time, and when I added that such a contemplation about the transience of life makes it more beautiful and worth going through with intense sensitivity, he looked at me with disgust and told me that I needed the services of a psychiatrist at the earliest! All said and done, most of us or rather, almost all of us, avoid such ‘boring’ and ‘meaningless’ exercises and would like to run around in more ‘exciting’ pastures of the glamorous external world. Some of my very sensitive and intelligent friends have even come to the conclusion that it is needless to pursue such futile mirages because they obstruct the genuine flowering of our worldly talents and turn us into frustrated failures.

But then, how poor would our lives be if there was no Walter de la Mare to see the surreal beauty of moonlight and perceive ‘silver fruit upon silver trees’ or if we could not sing along with the die-hard romantic John Keats—‘ I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections, and the truth of imagination’? All these gems come from the depths of the ocean of consciousness which is common to all of us with the only difference that a poet has the capacity to dive, and dive deep, to retrieve such beauties. In this very context, T S Eliot used to talk about the ‘Objective Correlative’ which in his hands assumed an almost mystical connotation. According to him, when a poet expresses a complex thought he joins together different trains of events and objects which then, viewed in this new light, assume the magical capacity to evoke the same feeling in other receptive minds; it is as if he ‘cuts and pastes’ varied events and objects from day-to-day life into one pulsating expression of emotion which all of us can immediately intuit and appreciate. Otherwise, why should Pablo Neruda’s love poems hit you ‘deep down there’ even though he belongs to the distant Chile in some other time frame? Since I was a teenager, I have always been filled with an overwhelming feeling of despair and the futile longings of an unfortunate lover’s heart when I read the following lines of his:
“I can write the saddest lines tonight.
Write for example: ‘The night is fractured
and they shiver, blue, those stars, in the distance’… .”

Or for that matter when Shelley expounds the ‘Philosophy of Love’:

“The fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean;
The winds of heaven mix forever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In another's being mingle--
Why not I with thine?... .”

Ah, what a divine emotion!

And who can forget the ‘elementary feeling and simple impression’ of a wandering cloud in the rightfully famous Wordsworth poem ‘The Daffodils’:

“I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze… !”

For God’s sake, tell me where would we be, where would humanity be, if there weren’t these ‘madmen’ pursuing those ‘useless’ lanes and bylanes of awareness overflowing with all kinds of apparently unnameable emotions and feelings?

What beauty!

What joy!

What a wonderful articulation of the infinite waves of consciousness!!

... To be continued... .

by Dr. Sushil Fotedar 

Many times I wonder as to whether a Personal God exists or not. I do not subscribe to the views of a committed atheist beyond a certain point for he fails to see the limits of his powerful weapon-- logic, to be precise—and tends to assume that the poor bird can fly in empty space as well! At the same time, if God is an article of faith, I do not have anything further to say, nor do I want to get into argument with vehement people of the faithful kind, for it then becomes a free-for-all wherein rationality is the first unfortunate victim. So, where do I stand? Am I a wishy-washy fence-sitter too confused to make up his mind or, rather, a weak thinker who cannot see the clarity of a solid conclusion? Hopefully, I do not feel I belong to any of these categories and, therefore, I need to go further and come out with my point of view.

Richard Dawkins, the celebrated atheist of modern times, opines, and I agree, that belief or otherwise in God is not an all-or-none phenomenon, but rather a spectrum of probabilities and human judgments about the existence of a personal God can be placed alongside between two extremes of certainty. The spectrum is a continuous one and, according to Dawkins, can be represented by the following seven milestones along the way:

1. ”Strong Theist”. 100 percent probability of God. In the words of Carl Jung,’ I do not believe, I know.’

2. ”De Facto Theist”. Very high probability but short of 100 percent.’ I cannot know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption that He is there.’

3. “Technically Agnostic but leaning towards Theism”. Higher than 50 percent but not very high.’ I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God.’

4. “Completely impartial Agnostic”. Exactly 50 percent. ‘God’s existence and non-existence are both equiprobable.’

5. ”Technically Agnostic but leaning towards Atheism.” Lower than 50 percent but not very low.’ I do not know whether God exists but I am inclined to be skeptical.’

6. "De Facto Atheist”. Very low probability, but short of zero.’ I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable and I live my life on the assumption that He is not there.’

7. “Strong Atheist”.’ I know that there is no God with the same conviction that Jung “knows” there is one.’

So where do I stand?

Where do YOU stand?

Of course, be honest, and…

… And unafraid!!

by Dr. Sushil Fotedar

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by Dr. Sushil Fotedar

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by Dr. Sushil Fotedar

RAMANA MAHARISHI:

"If the enquiry is made whether mind exists, it will be found that mind does not exist. That is control of mind (Bhagavan speaking in Talk 43)."

Yes, that is the DEATH of mind and LIBERATION of the Jeeva !!

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by Dr. Sushil Fotedar

An? l-Haqq,  An? l-Haqq ;??? ????,  ??? ????

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"Kill me, my faithful friends,
For in my being killed is my life.

Love is that you remain standing
In front of your Beloved
When you are stripped of all your attributes;
Then His attributes become your qualities.

Between me and You, there is only me.
Take away the me, so only You remain."

__ Mansur al- Hallaj

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Tawheed, Tawheed, nothing but Tawheed !!

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Advaita, Advaita, nothing but Advaita !!

Monism, Monism, nothing but Monism !!

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by Dr. Sushil Fotedar

One more death around me today. The same lifeless body. The same wailing and moaning. The same helplessness. I see many people dying ; that is my professional hazard. But I have never gotten used to death. Nobody ever gets used to death. With each vanishing act, one feels a part of his being ruthlessly chopped away; so, by the end of the day-- it is anybody’s guess -- there are big, gaping holes in our souls.

Nothing ever gets repaired.
Nothing ever gets filled in.
Nothing ever gets well.
But then,perhaps, one has to die in order to be.

Let me recite a little poem for you:

"So Death
Let me paint you
And then eyeball you
In mock helpless anger

There you are
The colour of emptiness
Holes for eyes
A smelly vulture's beak
Rotten flesh dripping from every limb

Yes there you are
Hovering perilously overhead
Like the sword of Damocles
Hanging around
Some innocent corner
Ready to gulp down
The next unsuspecting victim

Are you
As Jobs said
The most important invention of Life
May be
May be not
But yes
I have recognized you now
My Mother
Ma
You are the one I always missed
I love you
But I am afraid
Hold me lightly
Let me enter you
With the peace of nothingness
In the hollow of my heart
And be one with you."

by Dr. Sushil Fotedar

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An Elegy to Myself

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by Dr. Sushil Fotedar

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by Dr. Sushil Fotedar

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