POEMS AND POETS
35. Mantra as Poetry
We Indians are familiar with mantra, or so we fancy. But most of us think of it as nothing more than some mumbo-jumbo, used in religious rites or on special occasions. All mantras are in Sanskrit, but this language is as good as Greek to us now. We do not know the meaning, nor do we care to learn. The idea that mantra can be poetry, or poetry can be in the form of mantra does not occur to us.
The poetic mind is a medium for interpretation and creation. But what does he create or interpret? It is the vision of a Truth that hides behind phenomena. Any one can see the sun rise; but only a poet can see our consciousness awakening , in the symbol of the sunrise. And the greatest poet will see that both the sun rising in the sky and the man apprehending it here are pervaded by the same Spirit. "Asavadityo brahma: brahmaiva Ahamasmi",he declares. This is not a mere assertion of a mental conviction, but a truth realised and expressed in a verbal formula. This is mantra. It takes us beyond the merely physical phenomenon.
Says Sri Aurobindo:
"......all art worth the name must go beyond the visible, must reveal, must show, us something that is hidden, and in its total effect not reproduce but create....... the artist....throws into significant form a truth he has seen, which may be truth of hell or truth of heaven.....but is never merely the external truth of earth."
"the mantra in poetry, that rhythmic speech which, as the Veda puts it, rises at once from the heart of the seer and from the distant home of the Truth,- the discovery of the word, the divine movement, the form of thought proper to the reality"The more authentic the vision, the grander the expression!
This truth, in the words of James Cousins,
" lies in the apprehension of a something stable behind the instability of word and deed, something that is the reflection of the fundamental passion of humanity for something beyond itself, something that is a dim shadowing of the divine urge which is prompting all creation to unfold itself and to rise out of its limitations towards its Godlike possibilities."
( All these quotations are from Sri Aurobindo: The Future Poetry. Chap.1; Sri Aurobindo Ashram,2000)
In short, our reach should exceed our grasp, in the words of Browning! Mantra is the highest poetic expression! Our Upanishads are the highest mantras we have!
We perceive the world with our senses, but it is our mind which makes sense of our perception. If our mind is not at attention, the eye may see but it is not registered.What makes the mind 'mind' its object? So wonders a Sage.
In the Katha Upanishad, Yama reveals a basic truth about man's perception:
Paranchi knani vyatrunaath Svayambhu:
Tasmaat paran pasyati.
The Self-Created One has made our sense faculties outgoing; that is why they only see things outside.
Man is always attracted or engaged by the world outside. Even so, unless he pays attention, ie engages his mind on the things for eg which his eyes look at,, he does not really "see". So the Sage asks:
Keneshitam patati preshitam mana:?
Kena prana prathama praiti? etc
Under whose will, directed by whom does the mind fall on (drawn towards) its object? By whom willed or ordered does the breath first proceed on its path?
This is a very momentous question that is being raised.
Come to think of it: is it only for man that the senses have this outgoing tendency? It is shared by the entire animal world. But man alone can raise this question. The animals are limited by this tendency; man can question it and so, there is the possibility of conquering it. Animals are limited by their animality; man can exceed his humanness. This possibility of self-exceeding opens up for man the prospect of Immortality.
It is not the purpose or method of the Upanishadic Seer to teach a doctrine or impose a faith. It is to raise a question, and set us up on the quest, each one to follow his own method, at his own pace. They only give hints. For instance, here, the Sage says this quest has to be undertaken here: iha:
Iha chedavedeedatha satyamasti
Na chedihavedeen mahati vinashta:
If one has known That ( the Self, Brahman) in this life, one then knows the supreme truth. Without this knowledge, one is doomed to much suffering.
The Brhadaranyaka is even more explicit. There Yajnavalkya tells Gargi,the Brahmavadidni:
Yo va etad aksharam Gargi aviditvasmallokat
praiti, sa krupana:
O Gargi, he who departs from this world without knowing this Immutable, is miserable.
The Sage is thus not only raising a basic question, but is also suggesting the importance of finding an answer in this very life. This is not to be postponed for a post-mortem condition.
It is made clear in the Upanishad that the ultimate Truth or Immortality cannot be attained by any amount of yajna or karma whose results are only transient. Yama tells Nachiketas:
Na hyadruvai: prapyate hi druvam tat
Katha, 1.2.10
You cannot attain the Eternal by using transitory things ( like engaging in external sacrifice).
But we can take up the quest, by engaging in the Inquiry about Truth, " which begins by a sort of the reflection of the true existence in the awakened mental understanding" (Sri Aurobindo). To know the Truth, we have to get behind the phenomena of the world. And to do that, we have to get back behind our own sense faculties and mind! A deeper Truth lies behind both! Asavadityo brahma: Brahmaiva ahamasmi!
What is proposed as a spiritual quest is made a basic dogma in later theology. For instance the Bhagavatam records:
Esha buddhimatam buddhi:
Manisha cha manishinaam
Yat Satyam anrateneha
martyenaapnoti ma amrutam. 11.29.22
This is the intelligence of the intelligent,
the wisdom of the wise- that a man attains Me,
the Immortal One here ( in this very life)
by means of the unreal and the mortal-
his psycho-physical organisation.
Thus we can study the Upanishads and other 'scriptures' as sheer poetry, for the intellectul stimulation and aesthetic pleasure it provides. If they contain any truth or enlightenment, it will infect us!
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