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Words define our reality.
We use words to translate
the split-second images in our minds into describing our experiences for others.
William Shakespeare
invented 25,000 words, which are now part of our regular vocabulary, thus
broadening our abilities to perceive our world in a unique and much broader way.
For the most part,
language has been used as a means of communication between people.
However, it has also been
used as a way to converse with God, or the great mystery of causation and
origination, the pervasive pure consciousness that informs all experiences.
In some cultures, certain
words, like those Sanskrit words used in the Ancient India, were used to connect
a person with ultimate reality. This unique language appears in the earliest
Upanishads (7th-8th century b.c.e.). But exactly how and when it evolved by the
seers of that time remains a mystery.
These sacred words were
called mantras and sutras.
A mantra is a sound that
does not mean anything but which helps you transcend the limitations of thought
and move to a state of ascending awareness. An example is "Om" which is used to
represent the sound of creation, the primeval vibration that is believed to have
created all the other vibratory phenomena we call a universe. By sitting still
and repeating this word with full attention, you transcend the limitations of
the senses, the limitations of your identifications, and the limitations of your
sequential thought processes. You attain stillness, poise, and equanimity over
time because the word comes to inform your awareness.
A sutra is a sound as
well, but it is also a word; it is something that has meaning. The word "sutra"
itself means a stitch; it stitches the finite being with its infinite capacity.
The word "suture" that is used in English to describe a stitch by a surgeon
comes from this word.
Sutras abound in Sanskrit,
and in fact the entire language of Sanskrit can be said to have been invented as
a way for a person to communicate with the divine. It is even believed that
saying the word has an impact on the chakras, energy vortexes in the each of the
subtle bodies, and the nadis, the subtle nerves. Their purpose is to
conduct prana or vital force through the subtle bodies.
Many cryptic traditions
refer to a number of discrete planes of existence, each with its own parallel
"vehicle" of consciousness. Instead of a single physical body housing the soul,
we have a series of "bodies" or "vehicles of consciousness". All these planes
and bodies are connected by a pervasive consciousness. Thus by using a sacred
language, we not only connect with divinity, but with our own subtle powers that
exist in an invisible way.
Here are a few examples of
sutras.
Tat Tvam Asi (that tvam
AH-see) which means "I am that." That, of course, refers to our spiritual
essence.
Aham Brahmasmi (a-HUM-brah-MAHS-mee)
which means "the core of my being is the ultimate reality and the source of all
that exists."
Namaste (nah-mah-STAY)
which means "my divine nature acknowledges the divine in you."
Sutras, however, are not
merely brief statements. They can also be woven into complete dialogues that
invoke the potentiality of the non-local mind.
The most famous is the
Gayatri Mantra:
Om Bhoor Bhuwah Swaha, Tat
Savitur Varenyam, Bhargo Devasya Dhimahi, Dhiyo Yo Naha Prachodayat.
A rough translation might
be: "Oh God! Thou art the giver of life, remover of pain and sorrow. The
bestower of happiness. Oh! Creator of the universe, may we receive they supreme
light. May thou guide our intellect in the right direction."
The purpose of this
invocation is to make the devotee more intelligent, more capable of insight,
ingenuity and inspiration. This wisdom will then create a life of balance and
harmony, truth and meaning, purpose and fulfillment, and ultimately a life of
transcendental joy.
This mantra is said to be
so potent that some people consider it their only form of devotion. There are
numerous anecdotal reports of people who have miraculously resolved complex
situation by using this mantra. They range from resolution of court cases,
relief from debt, and escape from life-threatening circumstances, ranging from
potential violence to a critical illness.
Over eons, the concept of
God has changed to represent the idea of a physical being of sorts, but in the
time the language of Sanskrit was evolving to connect with God, divinity was
considered more along the lines of Baruch Spinoza, as an intelligence that
informed all of creation, an abstract, energetic, and effortless organizing
principle.
Baruch de Spinoza
(1632-1677), a Dutch philosopher, was considered one of the great rationalists
of 17th-century philosophy. He created a sharp separation from the medieval
approach, especially scholasticism, which considered God as a being that was
separate and distinct from its creation, an authoritative figure, not unlike the
Grecian God, Zeus, or the Nordic God, Odin, that demanded a servile obedience
that reflected the relationship between a Medieval lord and his serf.
Today Quantum Mechanics
finds that the entire universe is intimately inter-related at a subatomic level.
This leads to the speculation that the idea of separation itself may be the
ultimate illusion.
Everything may, in fact,
be stitched together by consciousness, what has been referred to as "the
non-local mind." Thus, through the use of the sacred language, the spiritual
aspirant hoped to suture the relationship between individual, conditioned
consciousness with universal, pure consciousness, to suture the linear with the
synchronistic, and to suture the time-bound and limited with the timeless and
infinite. He sought to find the rhythm in the universe that would bless his life
with a stream of well-being, and that would heal the schism of separation and
seal the wound of fear with the balm of love.
The ultimate purpose of
sentience appears to be to embrace the mystery, and for this it has evolved
beings capable of creating sounds to penetrate the veils of existence in an
attempt to suture the visible and the invisible worlds, the realm of effort with
the effortless experience, the algorithmic with the non-algorithmic, and the
conscious with the supra-conscious.
Language has been used to
connect us with each other, to share our experience with one another, but once
upon a time, in a world now almost completely forgotten, language was used to
try to connect all the worlds together and to experience the bliss of
transcendental harmony.
About the author:
Saleem Rana would love to share his inspiring ideas His book Never Ever Give Up
tells you how. It is offered at no cost as a way to help YOU succeed.
The
Empowered Soul
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