February 5, 2009
I thought some more and realized that I am actually afraid to make any kind of committment, like to join another committee, seek a grant, etc., because I just don’t know how I’ll feel. I went the first two years on the assumption that I would be able to do anything I wanted or set my mind to do, and look what happened. I ended up letting down so many people, over and over, and causing disruptions to their schedules and plans. So I am shy of just planning my life. It isn’t as if it were just flare-ups of PHN. My entire body seems so out of whack . . . one never knows what is going to break down next. It could be absolutely anything. It seems likely to be something I‘ve never heard of or had problems with before.
The solution is still the same – yoga and meditation. Only by incorporating my body in the healing will I have a chance at a different future. At avoiding cervical cancer, maybe.
I’m not going to write about the part of the CU I read yesterday and the day before. The fun story of Indran and Virocana going to Prajapati to learn about atman. The demon satisfied with the easy answer, Indra going back again and again. That ends the CU and we move on the TU.
“The Taittiriya Upanishad constitutes chapters 7, 8 and 9 of the Taittiriya Aranyaka which is a supplement to the Taittirya Brahmana of the Black Yajurveda” P.177. They are named Chapter on Instruction, Chapter on Bliss and Chapter on Bhigu. Oh boy. This is going to be some deep, maybe impenetrable stuff.
The first part is all about phonetics. And unlike in English, it matters how long one stresses or sounds the vowels. The text says it will illuminate the “combinations.” A footnote explains that in Sanskrit and Hindi the first syllable of the first word affects the last syllable of the second word – sometimes? In some paired words? Or always? There are these secret connections that allow one to build innuendo and double meanings into what you are saying. No – the first syllable of the second word modifies the meaning of the last syllable of the previous word. That makes a lot more sense.
Okay, so the TU1 is an invocation and blessing. In 2, it describes the field of phonetics: phoneme, accent, quantity, strength, articulation and connection. The latter I’ve just explained, and quantity refers to the length of the vowel. 1=short, 2= long, 3=prolate. Articulation = speed of recitation of Veda: madhya-medium, druta=fast, vilambita=slow, teacher for pupil.
When a text is “connected” in that secret way, it is called samhita, which is also just a general record used to refer to the Vedic texts.
So in TU3 we are ready to learn how those texts reveal secrets. Unfortunately, it doesn’t point us to a specific text, or Veda. Maybe because that knowledge would be so obvious? The “large scale combinations” refer to the world, light, knowledge, progeny and the body. “The preceeding word is the earth, the following word is the sky, their union is space, and their link is the wind.” So by using the syllables to modify one another and put them together to create new words, they get these linkages. I’ve seen this elsewhere in the Bu and CU. It is very much like the Kabbalistic study of Torah, too. Its fun, an dkind of cool to see what correspondances you can get, but is this really, ultimately, what we should spend our time doing?
This whole Upanishad has a different feel. I’d guess it is much later, was explicitly written for use in an ashram or monastery/temple, and reflects the life there. Maybe it was meant to be a guide for those who would start their own? Olivelle says probably later than the BU and CU, but still pre-Buddhist and so still 6-5th century BC.
My idea that it is for a community of students is not exactly brilliant. The opening prayer adds a blessing on the teacher. The prayer in 1.4 begs for prosperity and that “students will rush to me.” I just read through the whole first chapter on Instruction, and I don’t think there is much in it for me at this time. Perhaps the next, on Bliss, will be more accessible.
BTW – had two very productive days at work, and good meetings. I am grateful that I don’t wear misery on my face, but what am I supposed to say when people say, “You look great!” when I feel like shit? Am I supposed to say, “Thank you, but in fact I am this close to keeling over?” For most it doesn’t matter, but for those in supervisory positions, those who need to know why I am missing work or bailing on my responsibilities . . . I guess it just isn’t doing me any favors that I don’t look as ill as I feel. How do I say, with grace, that just getting through the day is a struggle?
February 6
This is the Chapter on Bliss, and like so many parts of the B and CU, it is a reflection on how to think about brahman, how to grasp it. So it goes through all the things brahman is. It begins by recounting where the physical body came from. Atman the Self generates space, from space comes air, then fire, water, earth, plants, food, bodies. Then there is this lovely verse that reflects reality – the Great Chain of Being – and makes one wonder how so many Hindus came to be vegetarian:
From food, surely, are they born;
All creatures that live on earth.
On food alone, once born, they live;
And into food in the end they pass.
For fodd is the foremost of all beings
So it is called ‘all herbs’
All the food they’ll secure for themselves,
When they worship brahman as food;
For food is the foremost of beings
So it is called ‘all herbs.’
From food beings come into being;
By food, once born, they grow.
It is eaten and it eats beings.
Therefore, it is called ‘food.’
You can’t really put it more plainly, can you? I think this would make a good pre-meal blessing. Then the scripture goes on to acknowledge that we are more than just eater and eaten. “Different from and lying within the man formed from the essence of food is the self (atman) consisting of lifebreath, which suffuses that man completely.” 2.2.1
The physical shell, the meat-man . . . I was about to say is not the real man, and I was going to attribute mind/body, Cartesian dualism to these ancient Indian sages. But that is NOT correct. Because look: First, we were just told that body is brahman, too. Worship food as brahman! Next, the following text shows us multiple more layers. The self is more like an onion. We can keep peeling off layers, each layer contributing another flavor, more richness, complexity, subtelty, depth, etc. But when we’ve peeled the last layer away, there’ll be no core, no pit, and no “real” self. The whole thing together is the real thing.
After the lifebreath, which is always so important, comes the mind, and then perception. About the mind it says, “Before they reach it, words turn back, together with the mind; One who knows the bliss of brahman, he is never afraid.” In terms of the correspondences (all of them are related to parts of the human body), the mind is connected to the Vedas. For perception, the head is faith, the right side truth, left side the real, torso (atman), performance, the bottom celebration.
Hmm, applied to my health, am I having trouble perceiving the truth, performance and celebration? Just a thought. Let’s check out the others. Inside perception is bliss, of course. The head is pleasure; right is delight, left is thrill, torso is bliss, and the bottom is brahman.
In 2.6.1 we have the alternate version – brahman coming out of nothing. Here’s the whole quote that I love:
“He had this desire: ‘Let me multiply myself. Let me produce offspring.’ So he heated himself up. When he had heated himself up, he emitted the whole world, everything that is here. After emitting it, he entered that very world. And after entering it, he became in turn sat and tyat, the distinct and the indistinct, the resting and the never-resting, the perceived and the non-perceived, the real (satya) and the unreal (anita). He became the real, everything that is here; that is why people call this sat.
In the beginning this world was the non-existent,
And from it rose the existent.
By itself it made a body for itself;
Therefore it is called ‘well-made.’”
I guess that verse, which is actually much older than this Upanishad, is really only referring to the world, not to brahman itself coming out of nothing. I do find a lot to love in this chapter. It isn’t saying anything radically new and different, but it seems very straightforward and helpful. And continues to be so, though 2.8 doesn’t do too much for me, as it attempts to describe blisss simply b comparison – the Ghandavas have so much, Indra has so much, other gods so much, etc. What is important, and the radical teaching of these “secret doctrines” is that you, I, can have excatly equal bliss to the very highest of the high. A person who knows brahman – who travels through her own food, breath, perception, mind – will share in a bliss – “a hundred times greater than this of Prajapati”. He who is here and he who is in the sun is the same.”
So actually it was chapter 3, the Chapter of Bhigu, which I read while out smoking, that I was continuing to find so practical and down-to-earth. It continues the themes from chapter 2 regarding the path to brahman through the onion-of-self and the importance of food, which it really stresses. Need to remember that as fodder for anti-omnivore arguments. I don’t typically argue with people about their eating choices. But if they start preaching at me, especially if they assume they know something about Hinduism and accuse me of hypocrisy, well, it’ll be handy to have more than a few verses handy.
Chapter 3 begins with the story of Bhigu, who went to his father Varuna and asked to learn about brahman. “Food, lifebreath, sight, hearing, mind, speech.” Then, “That from which these things are born; on which, once born, they live; and into which they pass upon death – see to perceive that. That is brahman!”
So Bhigu goes off and “practiced austerities.” Footnote says tapo ‘tapyata is the term, which also can mean “heated” or “incubated” so it is unclear exactly what he did, but he went and pondered – where do all these things Father mentioned come from, on what do they subsis, and where do they go upon death? After awhile he figured out, “Food!” He came back and told Dad his answer, then asked for more and Dad said, “Seek to perceive brahman through austerity. Brahman is austerity.” Eventually Bhigu recreates – or maybe creates? – the whole path – food, breath, mind, perception, bliss.
So 3.7-10 are basically a rant against austerites, especially food austerities. 3.7 begins, “One should not belittle food.” 3.8 “One should not reject food.” 3.9 “One should prepare a lot of food.” 3.10 “One should never turn anyone away from one’s home.” And all of it is backed up with connections and correspondances that basically say, “Hey! Brahman created things this way! We ARE food. We are part of this chain, and animals and plants are too, and we are all one, and it’s all beautiful, and let’s get down and enjoy it until we become food again!” I love it!
2:30 I did it! Yoga for an hour. In addition to the first three breathing exercises – all supine. I did the Dvipada Pitham – two-legged platform, another supine pose, and then switched to prone – the Chakravakasana (sunlord/cat stretch) and Balasana (Child’s Pose). They all felt pretty good except that with the Dvipada Pitham I couldn’t feel each vertebra the way you are supposed to. I think tomorrow I will do the same thing but add the Bridge Pose. It grows right out of the two-legged platform. Setu Buhdhasana it’s called. And maybe the Apanasana, knee-to-chest pose, which is inbetween them in difficulty. And I’d like to add one or two fo the seated poses from the other book.
This book presents yoga as if it were a matter of learning the movements so that you can master them quickly. Do multiple repetitions of them, over and over, in various orders to get your heart pumping and burn fat, as in aerobics. I’m sorry, but I will never believe that was the purpose of hatha yoga, and it is not a method with which I feel comfortable. Since the Yoga Center downtown – the only yoga center for miles – is Astanga, I’m afraid that is how it will be, too. Power yoga, for Krishna’s sake! I suppose some of the fitness centers and health clubs might have yoga classes. Maybe even on campus? But I fear it’ll be the same thing. I need someone who teaches Integral or even Ananda or Kripalu. Viniyoga would be a middle way that I could live with. For now I’ll just muddle on by myself.
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