Sanātana mood
The Sanskrit notion of Sanātana
as a poetical obsession has been the trigger and the vehicle of my
journeys. They
were like double wanderings: a contemplative walk through
consciousness, dreams
and memories - the 'inside world', and long explorative wanderings
through wild Himalayan forests, Indian cities and villages, cultural
events, homes,
temples and libraries, revisiting social and religious
rituals - the
'outside world'. Glimpses of the joureys: a
selection of images from my walk to the source of Ganges,
the solitary path, a talk, a journal. As a follow-up, time was my next artistic destination.
My heart melted hundreds of times during brief encounters with unexpected warm smiles and open
gazes, as if strangers would gesture Namaste!
with their eyes, not knowing if I'd undersand that word, the meaning of
it. Their soul saluted mine.
Sanātana Dharma stands at the core of what
is called right vision, the
fundation of right action in
Vedic and Buddhist traditions. Some of the core notions addressed by
these traditions are satya
(truth), vidya (wisdom), buddhi
(intelligence) as latent, intrinsic qualities of every form of life,
where life is a manifestation
of the
highest principle of existence. At an individual level, we speak of svadharma, which is contained in svabhava, where sva stands for own/personal and bhava means seed. This comes to
life as vak (the first born
of rta), which means word and
comes close to the inital logos
of the Christian tradition. One verse of the Dhammapada explicitly refers to Sanātana Dharma: "Na
hi verena verani sammantidha kudacanam; averena ca sammanti. Esa dhammo
sanantano". This translates from Pali more or less like: "Hatred is, indeed, never appeased
by hatred in this world. It is appeased only by the cessation of hatred. This is an ancient
law".
Thoughts of
gratitude: many are the people who've helped on
the road, by pointing at one source or another, where source has been anything from a
book to a proper guesthouse, a chai shop,
a dance teacher, a temple, a bookshop, an institute, a cave, a
friend-of-a-friend. Meaningful insights arose at moments of shared
awareness in encounters with Ananya, Anil, R.C.
Shukla, Mataji at Tapovan, Richa, Shuvendu, young Suresh and many others. Precious was the sharing of hearts and unanswered questions at crossroads with other wanderers - quiet Hiro, helpful Shingo,
generous Akash, thoughtful Vipul, brave
little Adi, warm
Nuno, discerning Sham Lal Ji, surreal Akeel.
To the memory of N., whose spirit was always by my side.
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