Arunagiri

Johnny Be Good

In the Tamil language … the word Parvee … meaning sinner … connotes a particular reference to sin … that implies a consuming nature of wrong … in which the individual is bereft of any hope of salvation … and is simply condemned into damnation. On occasion … it points to the derelict … lying down drunk on the pavement … oblivious to all … that goes on around him.

 

In the peculiar relation to meaning … the individual figures that he knows … the cause of the blight … he is experiencing … and he is not without some personal pride … in the way he thinks he knows. He is convinced however that no one can help him … granted the fact that his intelligent nature … is way above anybody he knows. He seeks to restore himself … by his own astonishing quality of intelligence … for if he reaches out to say … he doesn't know … he's gonna be sunk for sure.

 

And that certainly happens … when he first raises himself to ask for help. He is thereafter brought to review all the literature of the prophets … of all the major faiths of the world. Thereafter he picks the one message that he figures is relevant for him. And he returns to the study … of the views of others … in respect of life and the world. It appears strange to him that he should rely on another … for a view of his life … that he had always expressed as his sole right … but there it is.

 

He feels that he has lost the will to deny … castrate … castigate … the mere whims … expressed by others … while he has always been the rock of ages. He feels then that … that ability to deny has been taken away from him … and he is like a babe in the arms … looking at life again for the first time. Indic traditions defined that position … as the life of the Indic ascetic Arunagiri … 15thC bce … and forms a useful basis of relation to the experience … of resurrecting from a fall.

 

Arunagiri defines humility … in attitude … particularly in relation to the experience of knowing. He found a way of climbing back up to a position of knowing by a technique he practiced … that can only be described as … ' starting a sentence.' He counselled people facing a situation of not knowing with the simple dictum … to begin a sentence … but leave it unfinished. Thereafter he advised the individual to observe … how the instruments of mind and body … finished the sentence for him.

 

In that the individual comes to realize the relation between mind and the passions … man and woman … knowing and not-knowing … man and society and eventually man and God. It affirms the nature of duality in our lives … and relates that to the experience of monotheism … that the Parvee … experiences in a dark moment … as eternal damnation. Of significance in the experience … is the reminder … not to forget the duality.

 

In the recovery from the experience … the individual realizes the complete common sense … with which life guides itself … through our highs and lows … and like the seasons … comes to renew itself at some point. In the growing familiarity of its precepts … the individual feels like a visit to his old school. We continue to be familiar with the fun nature of the monotheism experience … but in growing up we are obliged to subscribe … to the duality of being.

 

Eventually the individual understands the life experience as being completely self-sustaining … but is making an effort to induce the individual to learn of it. Nor is the understanding we gain … a way of always doing the right things … and never anything wrong. Our circumstances … in the experience of duality … creates many switches in position … often introducing something entirely new … that makes us dig in for an improvisation of will … or a dependency on another … for life and limb.

 

In a new season of life … that's expected to last about two thousand years … what the Buddhist calls … the wheel of samsara … to live life in all its diversity.  Historically … the last end of season is expected to have re-commenced with the advent of the Christ. At this time … one expects that a new start will begin … with man himself … through the commencement of learning about life.

 

On a normal day … a man applies himself with what he knows … and for better or worse … brings himself to maintain the experience of social continuity in our experiences. But he may draw the line somewhere … if innocents are getting hurt … if the law is being broken … or if it involves killing someone. In walking away … his choices are not that many. He may consider a change in lifestyle … move to a new town … get a new job … join a support group … and start all over.

 

He realizes then that his past relations … loves … and dreams continue to stay with him … and in a final stand-off … he turns against them with all the will of Armageddon … to destroy it completely. Its possibly here … that he returns to the arms of Arunagiri … for a true start all over. What he had considered as a small thing … appears to him now as … a branch of something as big as the world.

 

In the movie version of the life of Arunagiri … the ascetic meets with the Lord of the realm … in a strange twist of experience in his mind. He bursts into song at that spot … and sings of the glories of the creator … in verses that … speak of only the first syllable … of each word. Set to music … the song is a delightful sensation of abruptness in sound and meaning. Perhaps it says … a person cannot put into words all the glories of the Lord … or perhaps it says … leave it to him to finish. The story is that he found the proverbial fountain of youth.