Invisible Realms Revealed in the Rig Veda
In my effort to understand the layered meanings in the Rig Veda, I am in the
process of transcribing and interpreting a number of the 10,552
verses/mantras of the 1028 hymns (sűktâs). One verse can lead to many others
in other hymns, for ideas are interconnected and repeated in subtle
variation throughout the ten Mandalas (books). There are primary Rishis
Seers and their families, disciples, and successors who composed the Rig
Veda, along with around one hundred others whose names are known and given,
including twenty-seven women. There are many diverse subjects and while
there are verses/mantras that to me are simply the Seers praising the forces
that have created the universe, there are also an abundance of verses that
in my understanding reflect profound, exciting, and enlightening
metaphysical truth. My recent conclusion is that the Rig Veda was composed
in the Treta Yuga, which is the Silver Age, the Age of Ritual and Sacrifice
(Yajńa) - and follows the Golden Age, the Satya Yuga. Composed in the
consciousness of the Treta Yuga, the mantras in the Rig Veda describe the
metaphysical 'mechanics' that in that cycle of time produced the appearances
of form for our enjoyment (bhoga
in Sanskrit).
There are many Indian scholars and writers who have found evidence of our
modern sciences in the Rig Veda. Their works have inspired me and liberated
my mind from the ridiculous western translations that imprisoned the text in
the conceptual parameters of cow-worshipping tribals — which instinctively I
knew to be wrong! In appreciation, I have previously written articles about
these wonderful books by for example Shyam Ghosh, Raja Ram Mohan Roy, B.G.
Tilak, S.S. Gupta, B.G. Sidharth, and others. I recommend all of these to
anyone studying the Rig Veda because their ideas shine light on the
mysteries of this ancient sacred text.
Yet after serious consideration, I am coming to the realization that all the
translators of the Rig Veda have made a primary error. Our current Kali Yuga
way of thinking has so permanently separated the material world from the
'spiritual' realms, that any perception of the Rig Veda as seen through the
lens of current science is sadly lacking — be it quantum physics or whatever
the latest discoveries may theorize. We cannot hope to understand the verses
in the Rig Veda without a profoundly deep understanding and acceptance of
the metaphysical principles that are the interwoven substratum and support
within all 'appearances' perceived by the five-senses.
R.L. Kashyap has, in my view, come the closest to a metaphysical
understanding of the Rig Veda. In an inspired and masterful effort, he has
astutely forced every verse to conform to an inner esoteric meaning based on
the ideas of Sri Aurobindo. I cannot help but imagine that now and again he
must have realized he was stretching a meaning here and there. Never mind. I
salute his brilliant mind, tenacity and courage. Reading his translations
and explanations has greatly expanded my understanding. Thank you!
However, for me - and I believe R.L. Kashyap would agree - the esoteric may
be the most valuable interpretation, but nevertheless is only one layer of
the multiple meanings I find in the Rig Veda. If you consider the idea that
the consciousness of the Rishis, the Seers who composed the Rig Veda was not
anything like our consciousness, then the idea that multiple meanings are
contained in one word is quite natural, perhaps a given. In the Treta Yuga,
the physical sciences would not have been separate from metaphysics. There
would be no wall of division imposed by school-men intellectuals — but
rather an interconnected, inter-woven whole. In the realms of temporal
appearances and the solidification of matter (Rene Guenon's term), the
mechanics of differentiated five-sense perception would have been understood
as the 'effects' that reflect the underlying Truth.
This underlying Truth, which later became known as SATYA, is termed RITA in
the Rig Veda. This RITA is the underlying primordial metaphysical structural
substratum upon which the entire universe rests and is supported by. RITA is
eternal, only the 'effects' that lay upon RITA are ever-changing and subject
to the temporal shifts that alter the display of forms moving through the
cycles of time, yugas, manvantaras, and kalpas. External appearances are
woven into the holographic universe through this underlying substratum. As
we descend through the yugas within the cycles of time, our awareness of the
Truth that supports the universe is diminished. By the Kali Yuga most have
no memory of primordial metaphysical Truth — and if you allow your mind to
journey into that acceptance, I believe the meaning in the Rig Veda becomes
far more accessible. It has a
vastly higher consciousness.
The Treta Yuga (the Silver Age) is called the Age of Ritual and Sacrifice (Yajńa).
Many years ago as I was studying the cycles of time, I came to understand
that this Treta Yuga was an era during which we had already lost the power
to simply manifest directly from our mind whatever we 'thought' into the
space-time continuum as we could in the Satya Yuga. In other words, it
became more difficult to bring forms into the hologram we were creating. We
had to rely on something more 'mechanical' and thus conceived rituals to
bridge the potential un-formed realms into our world of form (Sanskrit
rűpa).
Rituals allowed the beings that had taken incarnations into human bodies to
access power, the raw potential from the formless realms. Although ritual is
already a weakened means of focused conscious thought, ritual worked and
became the intermediary mechanistic tool used to manipulate creative power
for those who were playing in density, the 'form' side of creation.
The sciences of the ancient Rishis, the Seers who composed the Rig Veda —
and likewise the beings who colonized our planet Earth — was not mere
physics, not Newtonian or quantum, and although the concepts of plasma may
be getting closer, not even plasma physics as currently understood. The
science and physics of our progenitors, the Pitaram as they are known in
Sanskrit, was and is based within primordial metaphysics.
The ‘Pitaram’ are the progenitors of mankind and are said to inhabit the
Bhuvas region of the air and orbit the Moon as regents of the Naksatras
Maghâ (29˚Sagittarius to 9˚Capricorn) and Műla (29˚Leo - 9˚Virgo) in the
heavens above us.
— M.
Monier-Williams Sanskrit to English Dictionary, Vol. 1, page 911-12.
I am convinced that we cannot understand the Rig Veda if we separate
metaphysics from science, the esoteric from the exoteric, which is the
mistake many researchers naturally make. The science of the Rishis
transcended five-sense perception and was founded within their knowledge of
primordial metaphysics. Of course, the writers who are trying to legitimize
the Rig Veda by finding resonances with current science are naturally loath
to be thrown into a puddle of the occult, ritual turned into superstition,
and worse magic. I understand.
The unsolved puzzle of the Rig Veda often resembles a battleground. People
at amazon have attacked me for posting a review on a recent translation of
the Rig Veda. My review includes an observation by a professor at Cambridge
University, Dilip K. Chakrabati, that western Vedic scholars are
interpreting the Rig Veda only as Indo-European linguistics and grammar. Quote
from ‘The Battle for Ancient India’ by Dilip K. Chakrabarti:
“…the determination of some ruling academics of the day to throttle the
dissenting voice is distressingly unpalatable. …In the Western universities
interest in Sanskrit derives from the general and widespread interest in
Indo-European linguistics. It is doubtful if it has much to do with anything
else except grammar and sundry linguistic matters.”
Slaves to Matter
While you may still have faith in technology, I see this technology as
deeply flawed — and our current transition to an Era of Technology as
hardcore evidence of the decay of the Kali Yuga. Rene Guenon wrote "The
Crisis of the Modern World" in 1946, when I was not even a year old, and his
words are even more true today than back then. Guenon says that our western
sciences are only interested in industrial (and now technological)
applications. "These lower forms of knowledge" are worthless to anyone
possessing knowledge of a higher order and could not have occurred "except
at a stage where true intelligence had disappeared." True intelligence is
intuitive,
buddhi
in Sanskrit; it is not intellectual.
Guenon: "Such research, exclusively practical in the narrowest sense of the
word...could only be carried out in an age at the opposite pole to
primordial spirituality, and by men so embedded in material things as to be
incapable of conceiving anything beyond them." I would add — a world where
all that is given any value is the accumulation of money. "The more they
have sought to exploit matter, the more they have become its slaves, thus
dooming themselves to an ever increasing agitation without rule or
objective, to a dispersion in pure multiplicity leading to final dissolution
[pralaya]."
As for the Digital Era we are being sold and sold out to, the word
'enslaved' begins to make ever more sense as we see our children mesmerized
and deformed by the shallow gizmos they have become addicted to which are
forming their brains in ways we can't even imagine. What will their world be
like? What kind of leaders can we hope for in the coming generations? None
of us can avoid the Internet these days and with all the identity theft
hacking, what once promised greater freedom lately feels more like walking
down a dark alley. We have been reduced to digits, numbers, quantity over
the qualitative — and as Guenon states "spiritual power is in no way based
on numbers, whose law is that of matter."
The French philosopher Jacques Ellul wrote “The Technological Society” in
1954. According to him "There is no doubt that the norms of our civilization
have changed for reasons which are not 'human'...(we) have been transformed
without men knowing what was happening...The disequilibrium between the
traditional affirmation and the new criterion has produced the climate of
anxiety and insecurity characteristic of our epoch and of our neurosis..."
Ellul observes that we are being
entrained to a mass consciousness, the herd, and I would say this
entrainment in increasing in intensity and velocity. Ellul states that
leisure, which should be a time of contemplation in which "decisions might
be matured" has become "literally stuffed with technical mechanisms of
compensation" — an excellent description of today's obsessions with handheld
devices. Ellul says that technology encircles and represses all elements of
human life. The sphere of the unconscious is expanded. In fact technology
and its propaganda are a "fundamental appeal to the unconscious." To exploit
the masses, advertising creates "a psychological collectivism."
Ellul: "...propaganda is based on the manipulation of the subconscious by
technical means. So are those hypermodern police methods which have as their
end the establishment of a 'neurotic complex' based on feelings of
insecurity. Our technical (technological) world not only creates these
feeling spontaneously, it develops them with malice of forethought...which
in their action on the human being, reinforce the structures of the
technical world...(and) the integration of all men into a brutally
technicized environment."
In my view, our current 'religious' reverence for, unquestioned faith in,
and addiction to science is leading to an abyss — and this coming abyss and
inevitable collapse of a technology that in fact confines human
consciousness in an invisible prison is heralding the end of the Kali Yuga,
a Dissolution indeed. It is well known that the kind of superficial
attentiveness required to move quickly around the Internet activates and
cultivates only the more shallow part of the human brain [The Shallows: What
the Internet is Doing to Our Brain; Nicholas Carr]. This repeated daily
relationship between mind and digital access leaves most with no power to
focus in any form of concentrated contemplation. Thus I find the Rishis
Seers' science founded in primordial metaphysics a hopeful adventure.
Svarga Loka 'uncovered'
Even in the west there are traditions of heavenly realms that are now
invisible to us and are called by different names in various cultures. In
the Judaic tradition it is called Luz: Abode of Immortality. Other versions
of the same idea are Hyperborea and Agartha. In Sanskrit the word SVAR, the
Svarga Loka, a world of light and delight, refers to the heavenly realms.
Rene Guenon says that the Svargas represent different states and I would add
'states of consciousness' which "interpenetrate, but only one of which is
presently accessible to the senses while others are in a latent state and
can only be perceived exceptionally and under certain special conditions.
[Traditional Forms & Cosmic Cycles]"
Situated in SVARGA is the mountain MERU, also known as Sumeru. "The fabulous
mountain which is said to be in the center of Jambu-dvipa, which is
brilliant and taintless, and which supports heaven itself. [Dictionary/John
Grimes]"
Mt. Meru and the Dvîpas
The doors of eternal states made to open...
Rig Veda II.24.3, 4 & 5 describe the SVAR world being made visible to the
Rishis. When the Seers attain a similar resonant frequency consciousness to
the Svarga Loka, it is perceived and is no longer 'covered' as many of the
symbolic words in the verse suggest. I have used the exact R.L. Kashyap
translation as I feel it stands on its own as evidence of worlds that appear
and disappear, become visible and invisible according to the cycles of time,
and the state of consciousness of the Seer.
II.24.3
This is the work to be done for the most divine gods.
The firm places were cast down; the forts were made weak;
He pushed up the (hidden) knowledge (Ray-Cows).
He broke Vala by the hymn [brahmana].
He concealed [aguhat] the darkness, made the SVAR world visible.
II.24.4
Brahmannaspati broke open by perfect might
the well having the rock for its face,
and honey in its streams.
(The honey) is drunk by all who can see the SVAR [svardrishah] world.
Their billowing fountain of sweetness flow out,
in manifold streams together.
II.24.5
Certain eternal states of existence have come into being.
Their doors are shut to you by the months and years.
Without effort, one (world) moves into the other;
Brahmanaspati has made knowledge to manifest there.
- translation by R.L. Kashyap
R.L. Kashyap: "Veda speaks sometimes of the world SVAR being made visible
here (vyachakshyat svah)...it speaks of these secret world which have come
into being (bhuvanâ bhavîtva). According to the Rishi, these secret worlds
have been closed to us by the movement of time, by the months and the
years..."
Brahma as Mantra
In Rig Veda X.109 the word BRAHMA, which is normally taken to mean 'ever
expanding fullness' actually means mantra or the verse hymns. This is a more
complete understanding of the Sanskrit word Brahma. Until a Dissolution
(Pralaya) the universe is ever expanding through sound, the un-struck sound,
meaning the sacred sound waveform frequencies that are not perceptible to
the five senses. Thus the mantras in the Rig Veda are powerful tools, which
can bring form into being and alter matter.
Here the Sanskrit word BRAHMA has nothing to do with a creator deity with
four-faces as is frequently mentioned in the Puranas [R.L. Kashyap]. Here
the word BRAHMA is the sacred word, VAC, sound as the metaphysical principle
that brings form into being from non-form, the unmanifest. Brahma is sound
as mantra, precise frequencies of un-struck sound that have power to create,
manifest and generate the holographic universe in the Treta Yuga. The
science of today has not the capacity to conceive this mechanism because it
is now 'invisible' to our current diminished state of the five-senses.
The colonizing beings who came to this planet in their SVAR-mountain
were and are masters of BRAHMA, meaning the mantras of sound frequency.
Thus we understand that Brahma was never a kindly old man seated on a pink
lotus floating in the air as he is depicted in the Puranas, the Sanskrit
texts written during the middles ages of the Kali Yuga. The Sanskrit word
'brahma' refers to the power of sound, the un-struck sound, and sound in
mantra. This explains why mantras work and why the theories of Mîmâmsâ, one
of six schools of philosophy, places emphasis on the precise recitation of
the Vedic mantras over their meaning. When the meaning of the Rig Veda was
lost and many objected to it being held is high esteem, the founder of
Mîmâmsâ, Jaimini reclaimed the mantras as pure sound. One may argue the
theories in Jaimini's aphorisms, and I don't agree that sound without
meaning is sufficient — however in my view this school did understand that
the eternal sound encoded in the Vedic mantras still held great power.
"According to Mîmâmsâ, the Eternal Word exists only as the external text of
the Veda...the relationship of word (shabda) and meaning (artha) is
aprioristic...words, meanings, and their relations are described as timeless
by the sages." [Guy L. Beck]
It is interesting and perhaps ironic that the most important scholar in the
middle ages who interpreted the Rig Veda, Sayana (1315-1387) was a
Mîmâmsaka. The Mîmâmsâ school sought an inquiry into the importance of the
Vedas through the "employment of reason and logic...and if knowledge is to
be of any value, it should be knowledge of the ritual action, its purpose,
its deity, its procedure and the materials involved in it. [S.K. Ramachandra
Rao]" Mîmâmsâ did not "bother" about MOKSHA, meaning liberation. Historians
wonder that Sayana wrote his commentaries on the Rig Veda at all. However
because Sayana's work survived, he is still considered a primary source.
Scholars may disagree with his interpretations and translations, but they do
agree that without him we would know little of the meaning. Most translators
begin with Sayana.
Mt. Meru & the North Pole
Of even greater interest to me is the idea that the mountain Meru, which is
in the Svarga Loka and is said (by Rene Guenon and others) to be identified
with the North Pole. Consider B.G. Tilak's meticulous interpretation of the
Rig Veda's hymns as a text that describes a civilization that could have
only been in or near the North Pole.
It is my visionary intuition that Meru is the 'mothership' of the beings who
colonized this planet and are now invisible to us, covered in cloaking-form
to allow us earthlings the opportunity to evolve on our own. Which may imply
that when the ship is once again revealed, our fate will have already been
decided. Are we ready to take our place in the Galaxy as equals?
Rig Veda II.24.6
They (the Seers) travel [going in search of],
and attain that supreme treasure of Ray-cows,
hidden in the secret cave [guhâ] by the Panis [guardians of the SVAR].
They having the knowledge and perceiving the falsehood,
(the Seers) rise up again there from which place they come,
and enter into that world.
Guhâ
The Sanskrit word guhâ is very important even in the later sacred texts, in
the Bhagavad Gita and others, and in Kashmir Shaivism. Guhâ is defined as a
'secret cave' and regarded as the Heart, not the physical heart — but the
Heart that is the Anâhata chakra, the twelve-petal lotus located in our
heart. This secret cave symbolizes that idea that the One dwells within each
& everyone of us, and simultaneously pervades the All. The story is told
that when the great Kashmir Shaivite master Abhinavagupta was ready to leave
his body, he took his chosen disciples and disappeared into a cave. To me
this expresses the idea that the sacred exit-door from our self-created
holographic matrix is through this secret cave, the guhâ in our own Heart.
The enlightened gain the power to collapse the hologram and return to the
Home we never left.
V. Susan Ferguson
2015
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