POEMS AND POETS
16. Words,Words!
While in College, I heard these lines:
Words are wise men's counters, they do but reckon by them;
but they are the money of fools!
This was said by Thomas Hobbes. It points to an inherent difficulty in determining the precise sense of words. Words acquire meaning according to the wisdom of the learner. Children study Blake's 'Tyger' in school. But a philosopher would see no physical tiger at all! Words are for the wise like the finger pointing at the moon; the finger is not the moon.
This was said by Thomas Hobbes. It points to an inherent difficulty in determining the precise sense of words. Words acquire meaning according to the wisdom of the learner. Children study Blake's 'Tyger' in school. But a philosopher would see no physical tiger at all! Words are for the wise like the finger pointing at the moon; the finger is not the moon.
With the explosion of information, and spread of literacy, huge books are routinely written. One wonders if the same things could not be said in fewer words. I wonder if the profusion of words does not hide poverty of thought,or clarity. Brevity is the essence of mastery of a subject, not just the soul of wit. This is also the real beauty of poetry, compared to prose!
When we take up scriptures, we find a few words to be of exceptional importance. Ramana Maharshi used to point out that in the whole of the Bible, only the words I AM THAT I AM was printed in capital letters! Lot of confusion is caused by translating words from one language to another. Bible, the largest selling book in the world, came from Hebrew (Aramaic) to Greek to Latin to King James to Modern English and meaning of words has changed. Msgr.R.A .Knox who like Chesterton ( and later Bede Griffiths) embraced Roman Catholicism translated the Bible from the Latin, closely comparing it to the Greek and Hebrew versions, and is reported to have pointed out the differences in meanings of many words. Even so, Knox was a theologian and scholar, not a spiritually realised person whose take might be different.
I find that in regard to ancient Hindu scriptures, scholars and academics who have no practical touch with a living tradition go off on their own on a fanciful journey putting their own interpretation on important words. There is always substantial difference between what they write and what is understood by the traditional followers and expounders. But since the latter do not write elegantly, and do not find international publishers, their work is neglected.
These foreign scholars do not understand some simple things, apart from lacking genuine sympathy for the subject. They almost always have a hidden agenda in attempting to translate Hindu works. If they observe the practical habits of orthodox Hindus, they will find that Hindus use certain things only for certain purposes or on specific occasions. The mug they use in the bathroom, they will not use in the kitchen. They will not draw water from the bathroom for use in the kitchen, though in the modern residential complexes, they have a common source in the same overhead tank. The utensils they use for the Sraddha ceremony will not be handled daily. It is the same with regard to words in the scriptures.
These foreign scholars do not understand some simple things, apart from lacking genuine sympathy for the subject. They almost always have a hidden agenda in attempting to translate Hindu works. If they observe the practical habits of orthodox Hindus, they will find that Hindus use certain things only for certain purposes or on specific occasions. The mug they use in the bathroom, they will not use in the kitchen. They will not draw water from the bathroom for use in the kitchen, though in the modern residential complexes, they have a common source in the same overhead tank. The utensils they use for the Sraddha ceremony will not be handled daily. It is the same with regard to words in the scriptures.
Sanskrit has not escaped the fate ancient languages have suffered in translation at alien hands.. Fundamental words like "Arya","Varna", are given fanciful interpretations. Arya means 'one of noble conduct'. Is there a one word English equivalent? Would 'gentleman' do? No. The Sanskrit original indicates a state of high self-culture, result of consciously chosen, self-imposed discipline, involving instinctive application of the highest standards of unimpeachable conduct. In the Ramayana, Sita calls Rama "Arya putra". In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna opens his dialogue, chiding Arjuna for his " anarya jushtam" ie non-Aryan like conduct. 2.2 It does not indicate social status at all. But the English word indicates a person of certain social status. So we have the verse:
"When Adam delved and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman?"
Westerners have made 'Aryan' stand for race!
Westerners have made 'Aryan' stand for race!
"Varna" means colour. But what colour? How come four colours? Why only four? It is clear that colour here has a psychological or symbolic significance. But the Portuguese rendered it as 'caste' and so it has stayed.
Our own scholars are not free from this influence. They habitually defer to the views of Western scholars. Marco Pallis once said that even Vivekananda was not entirely free from this.
I want to consider a few important words in the Gita which are interpreted rather superficially : Sreya:, Kripana; and Smritir labda. Of these, Shreya has been covered in an earlier post.(No.3, On Duty)
The whole Gita discourse is triggered by the following words of Arjuna:
"Karpanya doshopa hataswabhava prucchami tvam dharma
sammudha cheta:
Yat shreya: syan nischitam bruhi tanme
sishyasteham sadi mam tvam prapannam" (2.7)
Meaning: With my nature overpowered by weak commiseration, with my mind confused about duty, I supplicate You.Say decidedly what is good for me.I am Your disciple. I have taken refuge in You. Please instruct me.
Karpanya dosha is rendered here as 'weak commiseration'.
Later Arjuna also mentions his intense agony:"ucchoshanam indriyanam shokham"= intense sorrow blasting my senses.
I recall the words of Master Shakespeare:
'Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart? (Macbeth)
Kripana is the word we take up here. It is rendered as "mindless commiseration"
This word is also used in one other place in the Gita:2.49. Here, Krishna tells Arjuna: "kripana: phalahetava:". This is rendered as 'wretched or pitiable are those who work ( exclusively) desiring fruits'.At one level, this is apt: commiseration is the feeling of sympathy for someone when something unpleasant happens to them. But this does not exhaust all possibilities. Like in the case of Shreyas, we have to appeal to a higher authority- the Upanishad.
In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad occurs a passage, where Yajnavalkya, the doyen of Teachers, instructs Gargi:
" Yo va etad aksharam gargi aviditvasmallokat priiti sa krupana:
meaning : O Gargi, he who departs from this world without knowing ( ie realising) this Immutable, he is kripana.
Krupana is rendered here as miserable.
This too is apt; but if we reflect, we may find it inadequate to describe all that is meant.
The highest one may achieve in life is to know God, the Immutable. If after taking this human birth, one does not achieve this- he is not just miserable, but misses the whole purpose of life. It is a fall.
Arjuna has this kind of inner feeling or fear. He knows he is facing something momentous, extraordinary. Almost all the kings of India are ranged in battle array- on either side. Even the Tamil kings were there. It had not happened before. Arjuna is the hope of the Pandavas. He has to deliver. At such a time, he is overcome by some weakness. He is not new to war or violence- he is a Kshatriya by birth, temperament and training. So, he is expressing the inner apprehension that he is facing an event of mighty import, for whch all his life has been but a preparation, but he is about to miss that . In short, all that he stood and lived for is turning futile. His life is rendered meaningless. He has lived in vain.
All his conventional learning and training are of no avail. He wants fresh light and insight. So he turns to Krishna.
But this is extraordinary: Krishna has so far been a sakha- dear friend, comrade, a close relative. What makes him look up to him as his Teacher? What prompts him to seek refuge with Him?
It is both Arjuna's ripeness and Krishna's proximity- both together! It is this which makes him feel a kripana-someone about to miss a mighty fortune!
Such is the significance I read in the word Kripana- not just commiseration, wretchedness or pity.
We now come to the other word: Smriti. It occurs in verse 18.73, at the end. (It occurs in two more places: 10.34, and 15.15, but there the context is plain, as also the meaning). Here, after listening to all that Krishna said, Arjuna exclaims:
" nashto moha: smritir labda tvat prasadat" meaning: By Your Grace, my delusion is destroyed, I have regained my memory.
Memory of what?
Krishna began his instruction by reminding Arjuna of the immortal nature of the Atman- how it is not destroyed when the body is. The body has to go through its motions, but the Enlightened is not to confuse his Self with the body or the ego.. This kind of knowledge alone will provide a sure foundation for correct action in the world.The body takes many births; the Atman is never born,never dies. These are the first direct instructions of Krishna-from 2.11 to 2.25. There is a change of track from 2.26. Krishna leaves the lofty heights and comes down to Arjuna's level, probably prompted by some facial expression of Arjuna which indicates his inability to comprehend these highest thoughts, expounding the unmanifested, unthinkable, and unchangeable. (avyaktam, achintyam, avikaryam, 2.25) Krishna tells Arjuna at 4.5: 'Many are the births that you and I have passed through. I know them all; you do not'.
So at the end, when Arjuna exclaims, " I have regained my memory", it can only mean the memory of his own immortal nature, about which Krishna spoke first at the beginning. True spirituality is based on the immortality of the soul. Everything else is dogma and theology. It is also to be noted that in the Gita, the very first word used by Arjuna to address Krishna is "Achyuta"- one who does not change or resile from his real nature! (1.21)
It is indeed the function of any great teacher: he reminds us of our own innate greatness. Spiritual Realisation is not the attainment of anything new- it is recollection of the awareness of our eternal nature! This is the memory that Arjuna has regained!
We thus see how careful we have to be in dealing with the words in the scriptures. They have deep meaning and cannot be caught in a hurry. I suppose this applies to all scriptures.
All this seems to be religious stuff. Where does poetry come in?
Take this memory. If you observe an infant in the cradle, you will find frequent changes in its facial expressions , and it laughs on its own. Or suddenly cries aloud. What causes these? And why do children invariably cry at birth- a cry which for once makes every one else happy? The popular belief among Hindus is that the child remembers its past and sees sights too, which make it laugh or cry. And the crying at birth is due to its unwillingness to be pushed into this world-once again! But as it grows, the world catches up with it and the child forgets the past.
Memory and forgetting!
Let Wordsworth tell us about it.
William Wordsworth
From: Intimations of Immortality.
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,.......
But yet I know, where'er I go,
That there hast past away a glory from the earth.
.......
Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness
And not in utter nakedness
But trailing clouds of glory do we come,
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison house begin to close
Upon the growing boy.
But He
Beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy......
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of the common day.
Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might
Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height,
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
The years to bring the inevitable yoke
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?
.......
Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither..
Wordsworth has seen something, known something. But is it everything?
Child's happy state of innocence- is it a state of Knowledge or mere memory? Immortality embraces life in the whole of universe; our earthly existence is just one part of it. Once here, nature fills us with her pleasures and we forget our origin. We don many roles and our life becomes a vocation of endless imitation.
Mankind as a whole has forgotten its origins. Man has forgotten his true identity. Our souls have come from God, our home. That we have to find our way there, is our work here. That we can- is our hope. Does it happen only at death?
No. Life after death is not going to be different from life before it- in the level of enlightenment. Our leaving the body does not make us more enlightened, if we are not enlightened already> One has to strive for it, consciously. The effort has to be made now, here while we are alive: ihaiva.
Utthishtatha: Jagrata; prapyavaran nibodhata; calls the Upanishad. Get up,Wake up, approach the teacher who Knows and get enlightened. Death is not the end of existence, but it is also not the automatic entrance to the state of Knowing.
Psychologists like Jung have written that humanity as a whole has collective memories, submerged deep in their psyche. But modern man has forgotten his soul and is in search of it.Writes Jung:
( Quoted in : "Repacking Your Bags, p.128 )
Religious outlook does not of course mean joining a formal religion.
Poetry can lead us there no less than philosophy or theology!
In Hindu religious teaching, the highest level of teacher is one who can teach without words! We have conception of such a form of God in Dakshinamurti - usually rendered as the South-facing One.
(It has deeper connotations) He sits under the banyan tree. He is a youth, but the disciples are old! His explanation is by Silence and the disciples have all their doubts dispelled! Acharya Sankara sings :
Oh, what a strange sight, yonder under that banyan!
The disciples are old, the guru is youthful;
The language of the guru's explanation is silence!
And the disciples have no doubt at all!
The great Tamil mystic teachers like Tayumanavar. Arunagirinatha, etc also longed for, attained and praised such a state, recorded in immortal poetry.
Just as the best teacher communicates in silence, the best student is supposed to catch the hint from the teachers eye! This is celebrated in a brilliant song by Saint Tyagaraja, the poet-composer, illustrating an incident from the life of Rama. Rama the prince is led by his teacher Vishvamitra to the assembly of King Janaka. Janaka had announced that he would offer his daughter Sita in marriage to the prince who would lift the mighty bow of Shiva he had. Many had tried, and failed. Vishvamitra asks Rama to 'have a look' at the bow. Rama approaches it and looks at it. What next? He looks at his Guru and knows what he has to do! He just lifts it, and in the attempt to tie the string, the mighty bow is broken! He got his orders from the Guru's very look!
Another celebrated situation where words are unnecessary for communication is when old lovers meet! The mighty Tamil poet Kamban sings of this , again from the life of Rama! Rama and Sita are old lovers- the universal parents, who lived on the milky ocean. They came to the world and got separated. But when they looked at each other now, it was love at first sight! So Kamban exclaims: When old lovers reunite, do they need speech? Our modern celluloid poets are more down to earth. "Let us just keep looking at each other; make no sound", sings Rajinder Krishan. "Dekh hamen aawaz na dena". Who can say how right the poet is, unless one experiences it?
Another situation of wordless instruction was once recounted by a brilliant Hindustani classical musician. She was recalling her days with her Guru in his establishment, along with other students. It was monsoon time, moon-lit night. The teacher was expounding a Raga, our musical scale. Suddenly he said " let us go to the terrace" and thither they repaired. There they saw the moon; there were clouds about, moving over the moon. He pointed to it and said "Look". They had to understand! The clouds were moving- not stationery! So the note they were being taught should not be 'caught and held' but just 'touched and allowed to float or roll away'! Can words explain this beauty? Only those who have actually observed moon on such a night can really understand this!
A classic illustration comes from our Upanishads. There the gods, demons and men - all children of one God- approach their father and seek instruction. He points to the thundering cloud and says "Listen". "DA, DA, DA" sound the rolling clouds. The father says that is the instruction! The Devas (gods) who are always given to enjoyment, interpret DA as meaning "damyata"- moderation ; the demons who are by nature prone to cruelty , take it to mean "daya" or compassion; men, who are ever tight-fisted, think it means "dana"- charity! So be it , says the father-teacher!
Where exactly do we moderns figure in this?
Who can assert that words are indispensable for communication?
Mountains speak-we do not understand: did not someone say that?
There is another story of one who had 24 teachers- not one of them human! May be, another time!
The whole Gita discourse is triggered by the following words of Arjuna:
"Karpanya doshopa hataswabhava prucchami tvam dharma
sammudha cheta:
Yat shreya: syan nischitam bruhi tanme
sishyasteham sadi mam tvam prapannam" (2.7)
Meaning: With my nature overpowered by weak commiseration, with my mind confused about duty, I supplicate You.Say decidedly what is good for me.I am Your disciple. I have taken refuge in You. Please instruct me.
Karpanya dosha is rendered here as 'weak commiseration'.
Later Arjuna also mentions his intense agony:"ucchoshanam indriyanam shokham"= intense sorrow blasting my senses.
I recall the words of Master Shakespeare:
'Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart? (Macbeth)
Kripana is the word we take up here. It is rendered as "mindless commiseration"
This word is also used in one other place in the Gita:2.49. Here, Krishna tells Arjuna: "kripana: phalahetava:". This is rendered as 'wretched or pitiable are those who work ( exclusively) desiring fruits'.At one level, this is apt: commiseration is the feeling of sympathy for someone when something unpleasant happens to them. But this does not exhaust all possibilities. Like in the case of Shreyas, we have to appeal to a higher authority- the Upanishad.
In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad occurs a passage, where Yajnavalkya, the doyen of Teachers, instructs Gargi:
" Yo va etad aksharam gargi aviditvasmallokat priiti sa krupana:
meaning : O Gargi, he who departs from this world without knowing ( ie realising) this Immutable, he is kripana.
Krupana is rendered here as miserable.
This too is apt; but if we reflect, we may find it inadequate to describe all that is meant.
The highest one may achieve in life is to know God, the Immutable. If after taking this human birth, one does not achieve this- he is not just miserable, but misses the whole purpose of life. It is a fall.
Arjuna has this kind of inner feeling or fear. He knows he is facing something momentous, extraordinary. Almost all the kings of India are ranged in battle array- on either side. Even the Tamil kings were there. It had not happened before. Arjuna is the hope of the Pandavas. He has to deliver. At such a time, he is overcome by some weakness. He is not new to war or violence- he is a Kshatriya by birth, temperament and training. So, he is expressing the inner apprehension that he is facing an event of mighty import, for whch all his life has been but a preparation, but he is about to miss that . In short, all that he stood and lived for is turning futile. His life is rendered meaningless. He has lived in vain.
All his conventional learning and training are of no avail. He wants fresh light and insight. So he turns to Krishna.
But this is extraordinary: Krishna has so far been a sakha- dear friend, comrade, a close relative. What makes him look up to him as his Teacher? What prompts him to seek refuge with Him?
It is both Arjuna's ripeness and Krishna's proximity- both together! It is this which makes him feel a kripana-someone about to miss a mighty fortune!
Such is the significance I read in the word Kripana- not just commiseration, wretchedness or pity.
We now come to the other word: Smriti. It occurs in verse 18.73, at the end. (It occurs in two more places: 10.34, and 15.15, but there the context is plain, as also the meaning). Here, after listening to all that Krishna said, Arjuna exclaims:
" nashto moha: smritir labda tvat prasadat" meaning: By Your Grace, my delusion is destroyed, I have regained my memory.
Memory of what?
Krishna began his instruction by reminding Arjuna of the immortal nature of the Atman- how it is not destroyed when the body is. The body has to go through its motions, but the Enlightened is not to confuse his Self with the body or the ego.. This kind of knowledge alone will provide a sure foundation for correct action in the world.The body takes many births; the Atman is never born,never dies. These are the first direct instructions of Krishna-from 2.11 to 2.25. There is a change of track from 2.26. Krishna leaves the lofty heights and comes down to Arjuna's level, probably prompted by some facial expression of Arjuna which indicates his inability to comprehend these highest thoughts, expounding the unmanifested, unthinkable, and unchangeable. (avyaktam, achintyam, avikaryam, 2.25) Krishna tells Arjuna at 4.5: 'Many are the births that you and I have passed through. I know them all; you do not'.
So at the end, when Arjuna exclaims, " I have regained my memory", it can only mean the memory of his own immortal nature, about which Krishna spoke first at the beginning. True spirituality is based on the immortality of the soul. Everything else is dogma and theology. It is also to be noted that in the Gita, the very first word used by Arjuna to address Krishna is "Achyuta"- one who does not change or resile from his real nature! (1.21)
It is indeed the function of any great teacher: he reminds us of our own innate greatness. Spiritual Realisation is not the attainment of anything new- it is recollection of the awareness of our eternal nature! This is the memory that Arjuna has regained!
We thus see how careful we have to be in dealing with the words in the scriptures. They have deep meaning and cannot be caught in a hurry. I suppose this applies to all scriptures.
All this seems to be religious stuff. Where does poetry come in?
Take this memory. If you observe an infant in the cradle, you will find frequent changes in its facial expressions , and it laughs on its own. Or suddenly cries aloud. What causes these? And why do children invariably cry at birth- a cry which for once makes every one else happy? The popular belief among Hindus is that the child remembers its past and sees sights too, which make it laugh or cry. And the crying at birth is due to its unwillingness to be pushed into this world-once again! But as it grows, the world catches up with it and the child forgets the past.
Memory and forgetting!
Let Wordsworth tell us about it.
William Wordsworth
From: Intimations of Immortality.
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,.......
But yet I know, where'er I go,
That there hast past away a glory from the earth.
.......
Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness
And not in utter nakedness
But trailing clouds of glory do we come,
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison house begin to close
Upon the growing boy.
But He
Beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy......
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of the common day.
Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might
Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height,
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
The years to bring the inevitable yoke
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?
.......
Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither..
Wordsworth has seen something, known something. But is it everything?
Child's happy state of innocence- is it a state of Knowledge or mere memory? Immortality embraces life in the whole of universe; our earthly existence is just one part of it. Once here, nature fills us with her pleasures and we forget our origin. We don many roles and our life becomes a vocation of endless imitation.
Mankind as a whole has forgotten its origins. Man has forgotten his true identity. Our souls have come from God, our home. That we have to find our way there, is our work here. That we can- is our hope. Does it happen only at death?
No. Life after death is not going to be different from life before it- in the level of enlightenment. Our leaving the body does not make us more enlightened, if we are not enlightened already> One has to strive for it, consciously. The effort has to be made now, here while we are alive: ihaiva.
Utthishtatha: Jagrata; prapyavaran nibodhata; calls the Upanishad. Get up,Wake up, approach the teacher who Knows and get enlightened. Death is not the end of existence, but it is also not the automatic entrance to the state of Knowing.
Psychologists like Jung have written that humanity as a whole has collective memories, submerged deep in their psyche. But modern man has forgotten his soul and is in search of it.Writes Jung:
"Among all my patients in the second half of life-that is say over 35 years-there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. It is safe to say that every one of them fell ill because he had lost that which the living religions of every age had given to their followers, and none of them had been really healed who did not regain his religious outlook."
( Quoted in : "Repacking Your Bags, p.128 )
Religious outlook does not of course mean joining a formal religion.
Poetry can lead us there no less than philosophy or theology!
In Hindu religious teaching, the highest level of teacher is one who can teach without words! We have conception of such a form of God in Dakshinamurti - usually rendered as the South-facing One.
(It has deeper connotations) He sits under the banyan tree. He is a youth, but the disciples are old! His explanation is by Silence and the disciples have all their doubts dispelled! Acharya Sankara sings :
Oh, what a strange sight, yonder under that banyan!
The disciples are old, the guru is youthful;
The language of the guru's explanation is silence!
And the disciples have no doubt at all!
The great Tamil mystic teachers like Tayumanavar. Arunagirinatha, etc also longed for, attained and praised such a state, recorded in immortal poetry.
Just as the best teacher communicates in silence, the best student is supposed to catch the hint from the teachers eye! This is celebrated in a brilliant song by Saint Tyagaraja, the poet-composer, illustrating an incident from the life of Rama. Rama the prince is led by his teacher Vishvamitra to the assembly of King Janaka. Janaka had announced that he would offer his daughter Sita in marriage to the prince who would lift the mighty bow of Shiva he had. Many had tried, and failed. Vishvamitra asks Rama to 'have a look' at the bow. Rama approaches it and looks at it. What next? He looks at his Guru and knows what he has to do! He just lifts it, and in the attempt to tie the string, the mighty bow is broken! He got his orders from the Guru's very look!
Another celebrated situation where words are unnecessary for communication is when old lovers meet! The mighty Tamil poet Kamban sings of this , again from the life of Rama! Rama and Sita are old lovers- the universal parents, who lived on the milky ocean. They came to the world and got separated. But when they looked at each other now, it was love at first sight! So Kamban exclaims: When old lovers reunite, do they need speech? Our modern celluloid poets are more down to earth. "Let us just keep looking at each other; make no sound", sings Rajinder Krishan. "Dekh hamen aawaz na dena". Who can say how right the poet is, unless one experiences it?
Another situation of wordless instruction was once recounted by a brilliant Hindustani classical musician. She was recalling her days with her Guru in his establishment, along with other students. It was monsoon time, moon-lit night. The teacher was expounding a Raga, our musical scale. Suddenly he said " let us go to the terrace" and thither they repaired. There they saw the moon; there were clouds about, moving over the moon. He pointed to it and said "Look". They had to understand! The clouds were moving- not stationery! So the note they were being taught should not be 'caught and held' but just 'touched and allowed to float or roll away'! Can words explain this beauty? Only those who have actually observed moon on such a night can really understand this!
A classic illustration comes from our Upanishads. There the gods, demons and men - all children of one God- approach their father and seek instruction. He points to the thundering cloud and says "Listen". "DA, DA, DA" sound the rolling clouds. The father says that is the instruction! The Devas (gods) who are always given to enjoyment, interpret DA as meaning "damyata"- moderation ; the demons who are by nature prone to cruelty , take it to mean "daya" or compassion; men, who are ever tight-fisted, think it means "dana"- charity! So be it , says the father-teacher!
Where exactly do we moderns figure in this?
Who can assert that words are indispensable for communication?
Mountains speak-we do not understand: did not someone say that?
There is another story of one who had 24 teachers- not one of them human! May be, another time!
