An emotional Re-union with our New RS Sir! (Part-III)
I wrote in my previous posts reminiscing that view of the personality of our New RS Sir as a trailblazer, a paladin of English language teaching, who continued to enthral every student of TAHS those days. It is still green in the memory of every student of his how his repertoire of theatrical excursions into Wordsworth and T.S. Elliot mesmerized the entire student and teaching community at TAHS those days. The sedate and sober anecdote recollected by Sri Raghuraman from Delhi last week in our TDR Times about New RS Sir presents yet another view of his personality as a very sympathetic and compassionate Soul! This week I propose to share the spiritual side of his colourful personality and the rare insights into the domain of religious and vedantic perceptions and experiences that showcase the acumen and aptitude of our great master.
Spiritual and aesthetic experience is in the very nature of human beings. Even early man must have enjoyed the beauty of the star spangled firmament, the sun rise, the sea or the flowering forest trees. When homosapiens began to think and contemplate on the reality of the existence, they experienced the spiritual bliss too. They evolved progressively and proleptically, conceptualizing pyromantic postulates with the expectation of an imminent cosmic cataclysm in which a Super Power destroys the ruling powers of evil and raises the righteous to life.
Bharata varsha being the cradle of the ancient civilization of the world had produced an innumerable number of seers and sages who were Mantra Drashtas and had the powers to inquire beyond the transient existence in this world. The Upanishadic sayings and their illuminating and authentic exposition by our savants which were conducive to the delineation of the true realm of transcendental and spiritual concomitance with the supreme self emphatically elevates even the crusty, irascible and cantankerous agnostic with an esemplastic power that bewilders the most rational and iconoclastic minds!
These irrepressible and irrefutable waves of thoughts about our antiquity were immanent in my mind when our New RS Sir, pardon my memory loss, our New RS Acharya, with an argosy of insight into our scriptural pronouncements started expounding on the holistic view of the universe with its stress on the Divine permeating or controlling every aspect of Creation, helping us to elevate our mind from the microcosm to the macrocosm, from the mundane to the mystic levels. His expatiation of the upanishadic doctrines displayed great sanity of judgement, maintaining a high level of brilliant polemics and acuteness and was generally couched in a soft courteous language. True to his image as an English Teacher par excellence!
Exactitude and preciseness that are needed in such modern citations which give vent to expressions and meanings metaphorically were not lost in the course of his periphrastic but prosilient declamations. He went on to dwell deeper into Indian philosophical thought, giving a crystalline view of different standpoints and differing views at different time periods covering a host of Vedantic and Nyaya schools, Darshanas, and related scriptures. He explained how Man is often described as a rational animal, and once the animal in him gets satisfied with its basic biological needs like food, shelter and security, the rational mind starts looking at higher aspects of the evolutionary process, the result of such enquiry leading him to the analysis of human origin and evolution, nature of man and other living beings, the physical world and its attributes, existence of a Super Power we call us GOD and the goal of human life and the ways to accomplish it.
The entire edifice of Advaita metaphysics as built assiduously by Gaudapada and AdiSankara was capsulated in a compendium of spiritual synopsis lasting a couple of ten minutes in his mellifluos voice echoing 'cantus firmus' of sorts ! His small discourse condensed and covered related topics like Brahman, Maya, Ajnana or Avdya, Jeevatma, Paramatma, Sadhanas and Mukti !Talking about Sadhanas and Mukti he digressed into Bhakti marga, Upasanas, SriVidya, SoundaryaLahiri, LalithaSahasranamam, Devi Bhagavatam, and finally onto his favourite AbhiramiAndati. He elucidated as to how Pranava originated with the unison of Siva and Shakti! He expanded on the concept of AkaraUkaraMakara taken from RikYajusSamavedas culminating in the Omkara! He spoke emotionally on Tripurasundari, Samashti and Vyashtitatvas, the Tanmatras and explained the philosophical and Vedanta aspects of AbhiramiAndati. His transition from Saktham to Vedanta doctrines may appear a bit of transilient overshoot to a non-discerning listener but on a more careful scrutiny would enlighten an avid mumukshu of the benefits of Bhakti yoga to develop vairagya through sadhana and cleanse his upadhis so that he qualifies to comprehend the Ultimate Truth !
The short time I was privileged to be in his presence and tried to grasp the significance, implications, or importance ofthe Advaitic and Shaktam philosophy opened new vistas of inspirational spiritualism in my mind. I could see clearly the transformation of the pragmatic and prosaic to a preponderant Purusharta seeker!
The Advaitic concepts that he enunciated for a while that day reminded me of an outwardly innocuous conversation between Napoleon and the Pope that I read sometime back :
When Napoleon asked the Pope to have him crowned emperor, the Pope questioned him: I thought you did not believe in God?
"I don't," replied Napoleon, "but I believe in religion."
Thinking of this one would certainly comprehend the undercurrent of Faith as the ultimate guide to Destiny and the immortality of the Soul!
I am attracted very much by this small note of Reason that some literate and enlightened soul had posted on the Net :
“PURE practical reason postulates the immortality of the soul, for reason in the pure and practical sense aims at the perfect good (summumbonum), and this perfect good is only possible on the supposition of the soul's immortality. It is the moral law which determines the will, and in his will the perfect harmony of the mind with the moral law is the supreme condition of the summumbonum.”
Well, I feel happy and blessed to be a student of New RS Sir, who embodies this ‘summumbonum’ !
Kalivaradhan
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