A Cranky Wheel

I had that problem for a while with my car. The valve on the front right tire … was starting to act up … and each time I was at the gas station … I'll top up on air as well. I've been encountering something similar … with my thesis on the universe … its design and the way it breaks down something … and then rebuilds it. I was looking at a picture of the milky way galaxy … from NASA … and going over the caption that its about unborn stars. Try … stars broken down and waiting to be reformed … is what I find myself thinking.

 

The universe relies on breaking down parts of itself on different occasions … and rebuilding them again. And its much the same with specie life that lives in it. Its the way life evolves around a circle of creation … moving from simple organisms to more complex … and starting all over again. And then there's the knowledge we come to have of it. It appears to me the creator didn't trust anyone … to leave all the knowledge of itself in one person.

 

Its the experience we encounter with tyrants … dictators … man-gods … monsters and demons … who resist the ever occurring experience of change in specie life. There is no evil in the world … greater than man's resistance to change. We become too fortified with what we know … and we figure that's all there is to it. An Indic swamiji presents the same view with the remark … ' we scoop a handful of water from the Ganges … and think we are that. The truth is we are the entire river.'

 

The I-Ching … a treatise on managing change … advises man on the nature of change … and counsels him on staying true to its tenets. Such a man … is obviously trained on the precepts of change … and does the noble thing by his ego … to merge seamlessly with the changes that occur … and create no resistance to it. A reed in the river that doesn't bend to the current … is broken and washed away … it says.

 

And then on occasion … a man so inculcated on change … encounters something he has not been prepared for. And here is the great test of the man's understanding … that he has been brought to. Does he on his own … create a cognition of issues … that he hasn't been trained on? And at that point he encounters … the specie that his training has given birth to. It is himself … the product of careful nurturing and learning. What has it produced as the life in the individual? A man ought to come to understand that.

 

In all such matters … especially as it relates to our grand institutions of faith … the academic tradition … and the social university … it produces a mind based view … that we hold as intelligence … and we bring that to great adulation in our lives. We swear by it … we live by it … and sometimes … bear the cross on it. And very quickly … we tell ourselves … something has changed … and we need to keep up.

 

A man of faith places God … before man … and considers the man subject to the will of God … that he defines as the creator of the world and universe. The social man … defines the human condition as essentially limited … and subject to what he knows at any one time. The extent of his responsibility on the issue is also limited … and will not bring himself to concern himself with issues … that he finds irrelevant to his life. Economics defines man … as having unlimited wants … and he seeks to satisfy as many of them as possible.

 

And then there's Gad. The dictionary defines Gad … as someone who wanders aimlessly looking for pleasure. Gad brings a curious outlook to what he does with words like … ' surely we know what we are doing ' … ' yeah … we may not know much today … but someday it'll be clearer ' … ' I'm not perfect … some good … some bad … but overall I'm okay.' And he does something … as initiative in its affairs … that catches the social net … as the spur. Gad is also the spur on the wheel of life … that moves things one way or another … even if it means … he's just tossed his girlfriend aside for being imperfect … railroaded his son into a career … because its good for him …or put pressure on his assemblyman for a new law to allow gay marriages.

 

And then of course … he has to live the life that he had created for himself … amidst the heart breaks … the missed opportunities … and the grievances that arise. Has he also learnt to cope with the outcome of his own creation … that is the question we are brought to address in these times … of the opulent mind. And what are the answers that we find?

 

The Indics drew on an inspiration for the creation of the universe … that introduced … Vishnu as the source of creation … lying on the waters … as Brahma the creator God … sat at his navel … to commence creation. My view of it at this time persuades me … that its a borrowed vision. The vision they experienced of creation … is the life of the ultimate being of the universe … living in a planetary system in the universe … who re-enacted the creation and life of the universe … world … and man.

 

Such a source of their inspiration came from women … because women as a gender … did not exist separately … in the habitat of the ultimate perfect being. But here on earth … the feminine qualities … re-enacted their knowledge … stored in their cittas … of the time from long ago. With that Indic literature hoped that man may have a guide … on his origins … in relation to the Gods. And if there arose any problems … in the borrowed nature of the visions … he has to simply look into himself … and find the wherewithal … of the issues.

 

Whether she is the Jezebel eaten by dogs … or the Delilah who beguiled Samson … or the witches who guided the career of a MacBeth … women have always played a mysterious part in the life of the world. Indic Saivite traditions … brings the man to a hint of it … pushes him into a practice of cleansing himself of bias … and then brings him into the embrace of the feminine qualities … to learn of the secrets of creation. They did the same thing at the Elysium … at the beginning of Western civilization.

 

In intimating the knowledge of it … Indic bards referred to creation … as the feminine force of desire … that arose early in the dawn of the first light. It referred to man as the inactive principle. In taking the stories of these puranas … and translating it into lived experience in our societies … the Indics have virtually proven the correctness of the view. For the man … in the life today … it forms a strong support for his mind and intelligence … is consistent with what science is coming to discover … and is the basis of our hopes for the future.

 

The feminine dream is a fact … that is the basis of knowledge and understanding in the world. But its going to take a man … a long … long … time … before he sees her that way … away from the sex object that she has always represented. Each of us … finds the start in this direction … his own way. In the Indic … they call it … ' mother's blessing ' … or in other words … an invitation to the knowledge of life. And its there … in the man.