The Ocean of Milk

Splish ... splash!

It was no doubt … the product of man's perception. It depicted a large python … coiled and floating on … what was described … as an ocean of milk. On top of its coils … a man appeared to be asleep … and next to him … sat a lady.  She appears awake … and by the depiction … seemed to be his companion. The Indics called it … ' Vishnu reclined on the serpent Sesha.' But what does it depict?

 

Indic pundits … and the fervent men of faith … have over the ages … created a reliance on the picture … as symbolizing … the state of mind in creation. It has alternatively … been ascribed to the Gods … and as the Vasudeva pointed out in the Gita … also of man. It has endured … and is today … the sustaining factor of support … assurance … and self-defense by Indics … on the perception of their faith.

 

As an Indic myself … I was led to the adoration of such a picture … in my upbringing … and today … I might point to a certain … cross of belief and acquiescence … in my individual association … with that concept. But to a man … keen to discover its meaning … its a journey of self -discovery … that is as much a lived experience of the world … as it is … the involvement in mankind. It is the thought … the source of the thought … its expression in words … and the impact … that the communication creates on the mind and the passions.

 

The Python is a common symbol in myths … all over the world. The oft repeated term … of the expression associates it with Dionysus … as the snake that swallows its own tail. Apollo was reported to have killed python … and released man from the subjugation … to the will of the sexual energies … that led him by the nose. Alternatively … its also viewed as the release of man … from a state of dreams … that subjugated his will … and thereafter … freed him … to pursue his own way of life.

 

The Indics referred to … two forms of the python. One they called … Ananta  … of the eternally happy and joyful natures. The other as … Sesha … which is the serpent Vishnu reclines upon … as the state of all knowing … whether that takes place unconsciously in the passions … or consciously as knowledge. Obviously the Indics never made a critical assessment of the difference … between being unconscious or conscious. But man's experience … in the world … certainly brings great stress on the issue.

 

In viewing the map of the universe … its not hard to see … what they referred to as the ocean of milk. And in making contact with a certain part of the human passions … one encounters such a place … of loving forgiveness … enduring natures … and forgetfulness. Its disorderly … and seeks a happy organization of its self -expression … that is often experienced by children … teens … and women. But in the adult … its a place of whim … he moved away from … and thereafter relied on the women and children … to bring it to him … in small doses.

 

To my observation … its the Oriental who brings the study of Zen Buddhism … to this place of the milk puddle … and simply refers to it as … ' just so.' What else would anyone say about the personalities of women and children. Its a personality … that skims on the surface of life … states its comments nonchalantly … but makes no further commitment to it. It is the culture of the Logos … that relies on symbols … marks and signs … as the pointing scholarship of life … in constant physical activity.

 

Egyptian hieroglyphics … demonstrate the early development of language and expression in much the same way. And in the frame of such a suggestion … man has over time … lived his life of feverish activity … as the seeing creature … who moves within the environment of physical forms … that he converts to … in his view … as so much architectural design.  Small wonder that the nature of man … was viewed as sleeping … on the coils of time.

 

The woman on the other hand … brings the pathos of passion to life's experience … and in connection with it … man fashions a manner of ethos … or social manners … in the way we relate to each other as a society. Man and woman … the mind and the passion … we wonder when the twain shall meet? And in the … if … and the … when … of that happening … we must wonder about the quality of life … that it makes possible … in the life of an individual.

 

I was over at Youtube … and caught the interview of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward … about 50 years of marriage. It was one of the last interviews he gave. In a strange way … I had formed ideas on the validity of marriage … on theirs. I managed 18 years myself. But in allowing my milk puddle to carry me away on thoughts … I figured it must have been what the Indics … portrayed as life … one part conscious and the other unconscious. A marriage can't work any other way.

 

And in the great ocean of milk … the ethical mind of the universe … must have perceived itself perfect … the day it emerges from its own genius of activity … to live that life of beauty and brains … in one person. We might … at this stage … be in that part of life … that first came to view such a possibility. But like a yacht … on the high seas … we dart from side to side … in the mighty winds … in order to move in a line … from here to eternal there.