In the previous lecture I endeavoured to give a picture of the Yoga of Devotion. I am aware that what I presented as Devotional Yoga  is not much related to what goes by that name. The attainment of liberation is one of the goals of man and yogas said to do this. But the Yoga f attainment of Reality though synchronizing with this moksa purusartha is different in respect of direction. The Narada Bhakti Sūtras and others only hold that he attainment of God is bhakti and that means  that  bhakti itself is an end s the devotion to God is the very svabhava and svadharma of the soul. Other concepts such as the feminity of the soul, the sarirtva (bodyness) and sattva (dependenceness) of the soul center round this devotion as the devotion is the only means to express those ontological natures of the souls.

 

            The Aesthetic approach of Yoga of Śrī Aurobindo gives as the nature of the Ongological Reality as the Supreme Saccidānanda expressed through the basic principle of eternal oneness and eternal manyness. Briefly we can state al temporal creation has happened by the gradually manifestation of the manyness whilst veiling the oneness more and more. At the level of human mind or mentality itself this separation into manyness the one becomes manifest and this is the beginning of the ignorance (of oneness in all manynesses).  This becomes still more great in the manifold of life and matter. In the evolution which is underway the manynesses are more and more organized into elements and plants, animals and man which are developing and growing units and united organisms. The emergence o the consciousness through feeling and cognition and conations at each level reveals the aesthetic fulfillment  got at by each organism but also revealing a striving towards the Oneness. The organisms tend to group themselves into cells and human beings aggregated themselves into families, clans and tribes and nations which are all greater and greater units. The next rung of the ladder of evolution is undoubtedly the world state or one World. This is not today as utopian an ideal as I appeared a few decades ago. The Mystic dream of all humanity s one vast brotherhood and family of God has indeed a great chance of being realized now than ever before. The harmony of nations and men is undoubtedly he culmination of the wish of ages. The  Reality of the One is now being realized and is attainment necessary if not inevitable. But  this requires  a different kind of mind, a mind not given to separative analysis and assimilation, disjunctive  dialectic and abstraction. A mind capable of concrete construction even as an artist endowed with inward intuition  is needed.

 

            A person who sees in discords and differences and separations enriched treasures craving for unity and organization and organisms is one who has a mind differently constituted. This is a concrete mind which discerns in fact a great possibility and presence. But this mind also has to discern the Ultimate Reality not in the minute or in the vast scale but as correnpondentially  related to each other by a radical identity of essence or Oneness of spirit which does not  undergo diminution of its energy or force of being or awareness or bliss or facility in activity (lila) at any scale and at any level. Such a mind concretely endowed with Vision of Identity and Oneness is almost beyond  all poets even and even craftsmen unless they use themes of higher mythology. Such a mind may discern the mythology. Such organization and existence supernally. But when  these are sought to be translated into  human language  and culture and aspiration we may well consider that there might happen distortions, which might however not be serious if these help urge the higher ascent on the part of the seers and readers of these great works of divine supramental art of over mental art and poetry.

 

            A Yājñavalkya had the vision of the One who contained a.3300 and all as if they were His body. The Whole of Reality was a body of the Supreme Reality pulsating with all life and manyness. A Ramanuja beheld the whole as the Body of God, prakrti and souls together and severally as sustained by the One Being. Thus each particle and soul had God for its self. Aurobindo envisioned the Whole as an eternal Oneness in eternal multiplicity which was realizing itself in and through the evolution of each one of the multiplicity in the infinite gamut of Divine Evolution. All these visions of the Reality re true, even as the vision of all being transcended Human nature cannot contemplate the total absorption of all into Oneness leaving an indescribable Nihil. This may be called the Transcendent as in itself –that which goes beyond God himself and all that God signifies s Saccidānanda. If there is such an entity is it possible to express it? Should it be also beyond experience? Expression ceases at this point for there is no other existence; but is experience also annihilated? Does experience involve a duality? Is Anubhava possible at all at this culmination of the aesthetic search?

 

            Some seers hold that it is just self experience without expression. This is the supreme Rasa Atisāra. Some others hold that it is not possible to hold that it is an experience t all. In fact it is blank, a Zero. For the ordinary aesthetic consciousness the duality of experience and experiencer is difficult to transcend. The world and the souls and God are all absolutely necessary to render experience possible. This trinity is absolute and eternal.

 

            But when the search for reality enters the aesthetic approach tends to realize that reality absorbs the individual in a grip of love which he cannot escape from. He is as it were drawn into the ocean of love of Reality, as individual object person, and whole reality s such, and finds a new way of seeing  the reality. This lover’s vision or sight is deeper though it may not be free from blindness or ignorance at all. However sooner or later he wriggles out of the blindness and discerns values which yet keep on his pursuit.

           

            He discerns the meaning of oneness in the concrete way of experience and now he gets a sense of liberation from the restrictions of his own sensate being.

 

            The next step is indeed a vital one. He seeks an analysis of his own experiences and those of others a psychological discernment awakens in him and his own multitudinous personalities emerge and play their parts. P.E.N (poets, essayists and novelists) are people engrossed in this excavation of the inner mounds of man’s minds.

 

            But there are indeed penetrative insights into the nature of life itself and the mind I its lower and higher reaches. We have inexhaustible resources of the mind for proving it. The world’s greatest writers have altogether been  able to reveal the higher levels of the human mind. But they have not gone beyond the universal appeals of the human consciousness. The humanistic approach even through aesthetics limits itself to the human nature itself. Beyond it, it does not feel the utility of knowing or enjoying.

            Therefore the poets of ht higher mind and seers of the Eternal have other themes for their experience and expression. Compelled  by the experience itself they reveal the austere beyondness of the transcendental which may well appeal as meaningless to man. No wonder today we have quite a lot of persons who have almost said that all philosophical language is meaningless  for man. Well my it be till the demand for understanding it arises, as it will when the very existence of man is sought to be made meaningless in this mild race of armaments and industrialism that robotizes man and regiments his every action every moment of his life.

 

            Such is the demand for peace today every where; no long – alleviates and assuages the daily thirst for it. Life is robed in colour – but the colours are gloomy and frightening and fearful indeed. Life seems to lose meaning in these robes.

 

            The Aurobindonian saga of creative divine evolution is a splendid exposition aesthetically satisfying. Its poetic fervour immaculate supramental divination of the occult paths of ascent and descent, its comprehensive sweep of vision are admirable. The ornate descriptions of the future of man and the birth of the gnosis and supermen are unmatched in the literary form. His Savitri represents a high peak of poetry even in the annals o epic writing in any language. Stirred by the ancient myth of Savitri Satyavan Śrī Aurobindo has given it a symbolic assurance of Reality eternally played on the stream of duration (canvass) of the evolution which would culminate in the total realization of the Divine qua Divine in all planes of being or existence. The Delight at the back of all involution and evolution, emergence and transcendence concretely available to Vision is the truth and grandeur of Existence. The one Existent spoken of variously by seers becomes  Vision of Reality to one and all. Freedom that is the escape for lesser seers becomes for him the concrete menifestation of harmonious and harmonizing Delight everywhere. In him seervision finds seer expression.

 

            But His vision is of the Lila the manifestative truth in terms of lower planes of being. The higher peeks of Reality beyond the Saccidānanda are not gathered into the Vision. The universes of variant delights beyond the known terms of sac-cid-ānanda are obviously incommunicable even by a seerpoet of radiant expression.

 

            There is already one who points out to the Beyond and the Transcendent which alone can grant meaning to all that is. Experience started with that height of Being – the Transcendent itself can be the guide to this. That Reality is essentially beyond all predications of our vision and knowledge. It appears to be the same sometimes like the Absolute of Sankara whose only nature is Saccidānanda. They are not attributes but substance of the Ultimate Reality for Sankara as for Śrī Aurobindo. But the utter transient void of all these attributes or natures or Substance is capable of being experienced – as bare or rather full Being – void of all attributes  - a Zero or Nihil. But it is  not the Nihil of Buddhism, which is but the reflection of that Ultimate at the level of mind in all its aspects of will (non-will or non-egoism and non-thought abuddhi). This is of the level of the level of the Supra mental or beyond that also. Our thought hardly reaches it for it arises from it alone, our existence and delight arise from it alone but are not it. This is of the level of experience of the Self and God who discern a status higher than themselves. It is said to lie beyond the realms of creation and destruction (srsti and pralaya). Śrī Ramchandraji (of Shahjahnpur) calls this the center, apparently a zero. This might also be the experience of some mystics like Jacob Boehme. But it appears that this center which cannot be experienced as such but which must be assume as the cause of experience and experienced as such is the Infinite quiet – the ground of all. It is the Silence whose reflections all other silences lower down in the organic scale is experienced – the peace, the silence, the sleep of the senses and so on.

 

            The experience of this supreme quiet is not a. logical assumption but the very spiritual condition whose infinity is unfathomable as it is unending.

 

            On this supreme central experience we discover a movement – an awareness so similar to cit but it also in movement (ksobha). This ksobha has an aksobha basis as it were. It forms an aura of being an ocean of bliss-sources from which all that we all, truth, light (consciousness) and bliss arise. They could be called the Ocean of the Central Region. Further movement of this central regional force so similar to thought (cit-śakti) form the great diversity of individual cit-centre which weave round themselves the rings of being – they are splendours so to speak which give the glamour of being. Racing still further outward one enters the several regions of the Brahmanda of brahmic worlds which however are also differentiated into higher and lower. The higher worlds of light grant power and strength to lower worlds and the individual maintains a continuous connection with all these and the central region and the ocean of the center itself.

 

            The individual egos then plunging into individual bodies and worlds become aware of the regions of water, fire, and earth and centers of being in the organism also develop. The organism goes further down in farming the grosser organs and centers of being in the organism also develop. The organism goes further down in farming the grosser organs and centers. These are experienced centers in intuitional consciousness. What appears to be barrier for ascent and utilizing consciously to the individual ego is seen to yield to the higher level of consciousness and in greater and greater measure to the Central awareness which is beyond all consciousness because consciousness itself becomes heavy even as light becomes heavy at rarefied regions of spiritual being. The attainment of the highest superfine state is necessary for having a correct apprehension of Reality. And all through the process of Yoga one is asked to study the experience which is subtle. It is the approach that takes its very course connecting itself through the heart – the most gross organ by which the individual is recognized as living being with the Ultimate Reality.

 

            The heart is the seat of love and it is awakened to know, to read and interpret reality. Not however by it but by the significant power of the highest Consciousness itself with which it is connected inseparably. Though it is connected  with al the centers of the manifestation, all the rings and circles it has traversed towards grossness or the material nature, it is with the heart, the seat of living being that it is most intimately connected. This is important for all yoga, of devotion, to feel with the heart, and soul which has its seat therein, to lean from the voice of the heart, to abide by its conscience of knowledge, to sympathize and move by its inner direction. Thus one grows through the heart, enlarging its range of but also including all who come into the sphere of gross experience. One feels love for all and gets the peace of the which has quenched is fires so to speak. Such an experience of the quiet mind – the silent mind – the conscious mind is available. Along with this also happens the quiet of the subconscious and unconscious mind. They are the factors that erupt into the conscious and the vital life and disturb sleep too.  An awareness of them in and thought has suggested that karma works through the unconscious and the physical; and the environmental disturbances seem to get a quiet un-thought of solution. On this path one does not encounter the promised glamour of powers and attainments-siddhis-which are all inspiring faith. Such  are got through other means and for other purposes. The seeker after Reality  does not deny them but does not turn towards them in eagerness to fulfill some desire to use them. However the seeker delights in them only in so far as they reveal the possibilities – the passes them by for the highest consummation in Vision of Reality.

 

            That this Reality is invaluable and absolute freedom from all the bonds that it has created or projected is clear: that it also means the experience of the  very structure of thought as it circles into all the many manifestations and in the process introduces twists and inversions is also clear; and these produce all the phenomena of our experience. Misery, frustration, and other evils follow from these projections themselves forming obstructions to the flow of the highest level ksobic force or thought or spiritual awareness. To restore the flow of these subtlest forces by making it flow through them is one of the techniques demanding help of the aesthetic granter of the power – the Guru – the Giver.

 

            The transmission of this highest superfine consciousness or awareness of anubhava is very necessary. Bhakti is that which leads to the meeting of the Guru – the Go in reality who can do this training process, for it is through this descent of his superfine condition into one that makes these transform themselves into the instruments of that highest force. The higher the consciousness the more fully do the lower centers and centers working out their own individual destiny yield and become organic with the higher. Since the highest consciousness of all individuals is One only and that of the Centre it follows that the Guru’s consciousness and the disciple’s consciousness are one and the same. Mingled and merged in each the harmony of the central consciousness with the gross consciousness becomes possible and actual. This harmony is the attainment of the triple conditions of existence(sat) and consciousness and bliss. The highest state of Being or attainment  of Reality is the utter transcendence of all the sensate and other gross visions and to see all with the superfine condition of Being which includes all. The central being includes all and frees all. Undoubtedly the Experience of this Reality includes the power over them and mastery over them. One who realizes this central state and lives in it perpetually is indeed aware of all of reality without remainder for he is in tough with all from the central Being, For the experience of reality is to be one with it all the time and even the gross levels of being are not necessary for him either to act or enjoy or know. Thus is realized the liberation (moksa) in the most complete manner-a liberation from which there is no return to the condition of a bond and deprived man – deprived of all light, life and love.

 

            The transmission of this highest superfine consciousness or awareness of anubhava is very necessary. Bhakti is that which leads to the meeting  of the guru – the God in reality who can do this training process, for it is through this descent of his superfine condition into one that makes these transform themselves into the instruments of  that highest force. The higher the consciousness the more fully do the lower centers and centers working out their own individual destiny yield and become organic with the higher. Since the highest consciousness of all individuals is One only and that of the Centre it follows that the Guru’s consciousness and he disciple’s consciousness are one and the same. Mingled an merged in each the harmony of the central consciousness with the gross consciousness becomes possible and actual. This harmony is the attainment of the triple conditions of existence(sat) and consciousness and bliss. The highest state of Being or attainment of Reality is the utter transcendence of all the sensate and other gross visions and to see all with the superfine condition of Being which includes all. The central being includes all the frees all. Undoubtedly the Experience of this Reality includes the power over them and mastery over them. One who realizes this central state and lives in it perpetually in indeed aware of all of reality without remainder for he is in touch with all from the central Being, For the experience of Reality is to be one with it all the time and even the gross levels of being are not necessary for his either to act or enjoy or know. Thus is realized the liberation (moksa) in the most complete manner-a liberation from which there is no return to the condition of a bond and deprived man – deprived of all light, life and love.

 

            All these attainments are possible only through-that love for Reality – the true philosophy – not the simulacrum that is being palmed off as philosophy or lover of wisdom.

 

            The Yoga of Reality is the attainment of living Reality in all nature and  living according to the Reality in its highest essential form. This is the Rasa  of freedom in Reality. Once this condition is attained one is forever beyond the twistings and inversions that pervert and limit and confuse awareness or consciousness. I is then discovered that it is not consciousness that is responsible- as most persons spending sleepless night deem it – but the twists and turns and inversions produced in it by the very process of descent- what Śrī Aurobindo calls the operation of multiplicity. The ancient Yogis of the heart-way to Reality undoubtedly knew of this and therefore counseled the operation of Grace of the Guru as the easiest way of preventing this to happen. This is the bliss that passeth beyond all that we know  as bliss and beauty.

 

            The coursing of the highest spiritual super consciousness in its invisible dynamism creates all the several planes of bliss (ānanda) from the subtlest to the grossest and the interweaving of those has led to the creative mechanism of organism in evolution. As it was remarked when one realizes the peak of spirituality in this Beyond, one discovers that it is not the mere beyond nor merely  beacon for the transcendence but the All. The mystery of the Zero being all, the Nirguna delivering the Saguna, the Para, revealing or pouring itself forth in the forms of Cosmic diffusion and infinite manyness is something that our human language  can hardly imagine.

 

            Art has been the attempt to formulate for guidance and inspiration and remembrance the lower in terms of the higher. True art has this quality of immanent transcendence of the immediate and the momentary but only when the higher light illumines invisibly the lower planes. The attempt to imagine the higher form the lower is also possible and perhaps been attempted by most natural poets and humanistic poets.

 

            There is as pointed out by Mystics and Śrī Ramchandraji the correspondence between the highest  and the lowest, a correspondence which has been pointed out in their writings; this correspondence is represented in terms of analogies, myths, similarities of word constructions and names. Swadenberg long ago showed that this correspondence is vital to the study of mystic literature, IN our ancient Mīmāmsās this correspondence was represented as Upamāna though the philosophers and logicians have thoroughly metamorphosed the same conception and incidentally we lost all touch with it. Except for the poets who found alliterative uses for sounds and profound sound suggestions none almost ever thought of the basic truth behind Panini’s dictum that all sounds should have a relation to action and a name follows the action, and should suggest it. But the theory of correspondence goes deeper to the formulation of thought, word and deed, manovakkaya, it links them up in its theory of illuminative suggestibility (called dhvani or sound-effect).  If the Vedas have been called sruti (sound or heard, sabda) it  is very near to consider that they are not contentless sound, mere suggestibility except through correspondence. The basic art of sound-meaning (vāk-artha) interrelation and correspondential suggestibility of consciousness-action are about the most significant in the communication of higher level the Reality that is omnipervasive. The twists and turns of descent or relational correspondence lead to such construction of words which are revered or inverted sounds of corresponding realities. The play of inversions of sounds and letters in words to produce opposite meanings is life turning a thing around in order to see it better. The poets take a delight in this art of inversion of sounds is play – though even play can unconsciously produce effects the most unexpected in the mind -  new meaning or illumination, a new relationship or meaning arises in consciousness.

 

            The Vedic seer used the metres chandas for this purpose. It was to expand the sound length so to speak to see whether it leads to a different kind or level of consciousness. The sevenfold Vedic metres said to correspond to the seven levels of consciousness in man itself reveals the artistic or aesthetic effect sought to be cultivated through sound by lengthening the syllabic form so as to produce  harmonics. All life is shewn to be a Universal Harmony and the various levels of consciousness are said to be in the relation of harmonics. The unconscious Harmony is  sought to be  realized through knowledge and love and action in and by every individual. The Universal contains all harmonics which are sustaining all or rather each an every individual thing, atom, plant and man. But this Supracosmic consciusness  is got only when one is released form every bit of egoism which attaches itself for the enjoyment of the part as if it is all.

 

            Aesthetic studies today are in bad shape for they hardly see the necessity for a Cosmic Vision or the supermental Vision for either artistic fullness or splendour. Fragmdnts please and the Vastness in unbearable – man surely today is living in fragments of being and does not seek, as the Vedic Rsis lived, for the All.

 

            After all men seem to delight in pursuing shadows – illusions rather than reality that makes illusions delightful. Our search for meaning and delight or unmixed bliss is shattered at the alter of search for little mixed pleasure which alone today forms the ideal menu – the dualities of life are the ecstasy of all being, drama, literature, and conversation. Dvandva. (dualities) and dialectics are the source of knowledge and meaning. The search  for meaning of meaning is riddled with this basic dichotomy in consciousness and thought.

 

            Reality is the One Whole which permeates wholly so to speak in its essence and subtle correspondence all and each is forever beyond these who seek to reconstruct the Whole through these correspondences of sound, letter, rites and symbols also. One must plunge into the One – the Reality at once and by its light and movement, vibration and harmony discern the significance of all those manifestations.

 

            The  Vedic seer has reflected on this mysterious power of the One Reality to be that Fullness which is not only inexhaustible but also wholly present in each and every one of is manyness or manifestation, Purnmdah purnam idam purnat purnam udacyate purnasya purnam adaya purnam evavasisyate. The Yonder is full (integral not a void). From Purnam, Purnam is come into being; that which remains when from Purna is taken out or manifested from Purna in also Purnam.

 

            The experience of this supreme kind is undoubtedly a result of sheer dedication to the Ultimate for in and through that dedication the individual who appears to be a fragment or residue or a limb become suffused with that fullness which makes him perceive fullness everywhere. The word purnam is significant experience, for it, is the completeness which grants completeness in every manner to one who is dedicated to total realization.

 

            The Mystics have always striven after the  completion of their hopes and desires in this Peace and Fullness. Though it may appear to be contentless void yet its realization tends to dissipate this illusion, and makes all the voids of the human nature full with the ecstasy of Ānanda. Being the source all existence, consciousness and bliss it is seen to fill all with these experiences of existence, consciousness and bliss. The most significant experience of this kind is expressed in the threefold formula of the Upanisads: Sarvam Khalvidam Brahma (All verily is Brahman): Aham Brahmasmi (the individual Soul is Brahman – there is fullness in both) ad So’ aham asmi (that verily has become me or I). The Bhuman concept of the Upanisads also illustrates the significant experience of Cod as all Reality and that Reality it is that is all this.

 

            The aesthetic approach is thus culminated in the Absolute Experience of the All inclusive Reality which as the Super personal and Self of all things and to each of them it  grants it sown Super-personal Beauty (structure of integral experience that refutes nothing but fills all with its own unique Wholeness). That is why the Upanisads also state that there is no difference in the Bliss experience of the Supreme Divine and the self in freedom. This parama-samya or supreme  equality is about the highest limit of aesthetic experience—but it is clear that the same cannot be expressed at all in the language of the mental being s which we are.

 

            The experience of integral beauty or the realization of beauty as rasa(essence or sap) proceeds on two lines which re mutually reinforcing. The divinised senses and mind experience the outer form and frame of reality as all beauty in nature and in man or life. The divine soul experiences the inwardness of all things in their essence s supported by the everlasting immortal   splendour or bliss. The outer becomes the symbol of the inner and the inner becomes represented in terms of expression through these symbolic forms of beauty There happens no disjunction between form and essence, or expression and experience. All becomes an adequate experience-expression. This total integral relationship between the expression (form) and experience for oneself is atma-rati: but when it is transmitted to others through communicable media, such as poem, lyrical or epic or through drama and dance and sculpture and painting which involve the motor organs and their perfect management and facility then there is the experience of felicity or skill or harmony.

            The harmony of the Reality is an experience of the harmony between the inner experience and outer expression – the adequacy of form to experience or of medium to expression and expression, the inward depths of infinite suggestion and radiating excellence are all parts of the experience that flows into expression. Reality  as dynamic Experience even in the most sublime periods of peace or atiśānti or atyantum śānti  reveals an infinity of expression that one is aware of the greatness of Reality that transcends the expressions and  even experiences of the finite or infinitised  mind of the individual.

 

            The experience of all as Brahman (Sarvam Khalvidam Brahma), and that One is Brahman (So’aham asmi) is something that can be grasped by the inward intuition that has flowed out and embraced the total reality in an integral apprehension that exceeds the individual and in one sense includes and dissolves his private expression and attempts to represent the same either to himself or to others.

 

            The poetic epic vision of the Reality as represented by Śrī Aurobindo in his Savitri which the calls as the legend and the symbol of  the Reality as it bodies for the itself in Divine Evolution is exceedingly superb-its suggestiveness of an inward Reality which it tries to awaken to consciousness in each and all is truly marvelous.

 

            But the poetic suggests the metaphysical Reality—ultimate that is infinite—infinite is suggested by the poetic but realized in the metaphysical intuition. Its reality consists in its going beyond the poetic vision of suggestions (dhvani) and one should almost exclaim that with poetry the representation of Reality has come to its limit (alam—enough krta; done). More it cannot do. The limit of upamāna reached there remains only anubhava or bhava simply—the birth of the Reality.

 

            The study of the aesthetic experience of Reality has led to the conception  that there is an underlying sap(rasa) of all beings by which they are sustained and supported and by which they exist. This sapness of all being is called the atman when individualized and Brahman when it is transcendent. The atman is immanent in all beings ( Jivas-living things) and transcendent to all beings as the descending sap. This is the figure that  is presented to us in the conception of the Asvatthatree  - the tree in which is resident firmly the power (asva) of all creation. ¹The tree has its roots above and its branches are all descending downwards supporting all creation.

 

            Ūrdhvamūlam adhahsakhom asvattham prahur avyamham l

 

            Cchandmasi yasya parnani yas tam Veda sa Vedvit XV.1. (B.G)

           

The supreme Divine is supporting all creation by this descending force. One must therefore seek to know this root of being  and learn that any devotion to the expressions without discovering the source is futile.

 

            This truth was enunciated in a peculiar way by one of the wisest madmen of eternity – Alvar known as Mad Alvar (Pey-Alvar). He met with a great scholar who was worshipper of the creation lost in rapture over the beauties of creation and the creatures.  Ho was also a great siddha. Seeing this, overcome by pity for this great scholar the said Alvar wanted to change his mind. The great scholar was so very self-conscious of his own wisdom and would no deign to speak to any one less capable than himself. Therefore the mad-saint struck upon a device. Just before his residence he got a piece of land. He made a small flowerbed. Then he got some saplings and planted them in it with the roots above and the leaves below. (The Inner significance was to remind the scholar of the passage above-Ūrdhvamūlam). Then he took a vessel full of holes and brought water in it to water this inverted plant. But this is clearly a funny business as all the water dripped out   and   nothing   reached    the   flowerbed. On    seeing this

_________

¹ Asvattham: asva-stham – asva  as divine power (horse) energy of sap.

 

 

Procedure all through the day, the scholar laughed loud  and exclaimed what a mad man. Immediately seizing this opportunity the mad-saint went to the scholar and asked who is the mad man, you or I? Nonplussed the scholar was told that it is surely only a madiman who would worship the effect and not the cause, the expression or creation if not primal; the creator is primal – God is the creator and the worship of the created. This also reminded the scholar that one must in order to understand and experience or realize Reality in its essence (rasa) must seek to discover the roots and sap of things, and not lose oneself in the diverse manifoldness of trees and rivers, men and gods and animals and so on. All is beautiful because of the Root and Rasa; by themselves they are just possibilities  and measures. One should in order to know as well as enter the Ultimate Reality devote oneself to that vision alone (darsana) and not to the  skilful exercise of all knowledges about the creation. Creation may lead to the creator but the knowledge and realization of the Creator is necessary in order to appreciate fully the living truth of all things.                                                                                                                                                               

 

            The scholar immediately understood that it was he who was mad but not the saint teacher¹.

____________

¹This is symbolic presentation of a story of the meeting of Pey-Alvar and Bhaktisara (of Tirumalisai): the orthodox is a sectarian version o the conversion of the latter to Vaisnavism from Śaivism, by referring to the fact that Siva is born from Brahma who was created by visnu. I have brought this symbol out of its sectarian dress in  order to show the difference between experience (creator) and expression (art).

 

            The creative expression of the experience is the art of bringing the experience to that condition of communication or repetition. Art is the skill of representation or reproduction of the nature not only of the creation but also of the creator experience.

 

            The mystic experience of the Ultimate is of the creator order whereas the impulse to express the same experience  is the dynamic unity of the creator with the creation. Art as the  urge to expression, even a compulsion to expression in whatever or in all mediums is a fact of the greatest significance.

 

            The experience without expression is said to be a kind of arrested being- or a self absorbed trance of existence. But there is also the other kinds of art  that have never arrived at this seminal experience or seed- - experience and have more often created abortions in art which are monstrosities of the worst kind. Most human art belongs to this aborted variety of not merely exercises in indulgence with the creation or modifications by wish of the created patterns.  Those give rise to abnormal tastes, as in the case of little learning and experience cloaking itself under pedantry and other such devices.

 

            True art must  experience the Ultimate: but as there are levels of experience, the experience of the creatures and creation does sometimes overflow into expressions which are recognized as halfway houses to ultimate beauty.