Tag Archives: Vedanta

LJ Interests Meme Results

Borrowed from Ed Book. After reading his results, I was intringued, but did not imagine that my own results would prove equally as insightful. I’m really quite surprised at how closely this set of ten selected interests REALLY sums up a good part of who I am.

  1. bukowski:
    Poetry, in a world that discounts art, that praises mediocrity, that devalues beauty by worshipping youth, is not pretty. That to me is the lesson of Bukowski. Combine that with his general philosophy that great writers are born, not made, and I’m hooked.
  2. dictionaries:
    Words, words and more words. For a time, I used to read the dictionary for relaxation. Words have power; to know the name of a thing is to control it. Likewise, to know the origin of a word is to understand your own history. I’ve always been fascinated with learning new words, new ideas, new facts.
  3. gil scott-heron:
    The power of the word to fuel a revolution. The tangible strength of the spoken voice to connect the earth to the sky and rumble the foundations of power. I remember the first time I listened to “Small Talk at 125th and Lenox” all the way through; it was not just the stuff of revolution, it was revelation. This was what poetry, when harnessed to will and a microphone, was capable of doing. This was slam without competition; this was performance.
  4. india:
    Apparently, my first word was “elephant”. I have always been drawn to India: her people, her languages, her diversity, her religions, her extremes, her history.

    Om namah shivaya

  5. lefty frizzell:
    Wow. So far, this interests grabber is right on the money. Lefty Frizzell represents the clarity, phrasing, intelligence, humor and lyricism of traditional country. He is one of my all-time country music idols, and paved the way for many others – Willie, Merle, George Jones, Roger Miller, and me.
  6. perennial philosophy:
    This phrase, used but probably not first coined by Aldous Huxley in his book, sums up my life’s spiritual quest: to find the common threads that run through all religious traditions; to seek the truth that does not fade although its names change from generation to generation; to learn to appreciate the journey spent along the shore communing with the ocean, rather than grasping for a single grain of sand to call the answer.
  7. revolution:
    To change the world by changing oneself; to call for a reinforcement of evolution; to participate in the world at the speed of now, moving with the spheres as they revolve. To constantly challenge the status quo; to resist the urge to stay self-satisfied; to never be satisfied with “because it’s always been that way” or “you can’t fight City Hall” or “no fish ever got caught, ‘cept it opened its mouth”.
  8. sonnets:
    So short, so simple, so compact, those fourteen little lines. Ah, you can take your Milton, Steven Vincent Benet, Longfellow, Poe, Pope and other such longwinded fellows; and give it to me sweet and intricate. To master the sonnet is to understand what it means to call poetry an art form. It is to appreciate the limitations of language, and at the same time, comprehend its infinity. That’s not an easy lesson to learn, absorb or accept.
  9. vedanta:
    Two of the most influential books in my life have been “The Gospel According to Sri Ramakrishna” and “The Complete Writings of Vivekananda”. It’s my understanding that these two sources form the basis for much of what is called “modern” Hinduism. Certainly, this was the form that reached the West, and has influenced so many of the writers and thinkers that I love and respect.
  10. zen:
    The first Eastern religion that I attempted to practice was Zen Buddhism. It represents, to me, cutting through illusion and simply living in each moment; applying the principle of Occam’s Razor to each and every act, each breath, each word.

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Pranayama and the Celtic-Vedic Connection

After pondering Peter Beresford Ellis’ introduction to Celtic Myths and Legends, where he postulates an affinity between the Celtic and Vedic cultures, based on their shared common root language, proto-Indo-European, I pulled this earlier poem out and thought of it in a purely Celtic mythos-mindset, as opposed to its original casting as a meditation on Hindu reality.

It seems to me that it can be read as if it were a Druidic meditation without violating any Celto-religious principles. There are definite resonances in my mind, which gives me insight into why the Vedas and Upanishads have always seemed such connecting threads to me, as someone of Celtic descent. I have always been drawn to what I would call Brahma/Dagda, as well as Shiva/Kernunnos (and I think it no accident that both are associated with, and familiar with, venomous snakes). And then there is the Morrigan/Kali connection – nurturing mother up close, but destroying black maelstrom from afar. Add to that the concept of sacred rivers (the Ganges versus the Danube, or River of Danu). Well, I was struck by this notion, particularly the similarity of some of the words between the two languages. And then, this evening, as I was doing a bit of meditation, I realized that “Awen” (pronounced ah-oo-en) and “Om” (pronounced ah-oo-em) are just too similar, in both purpose for recitation and pronunciation, for coincidence.

My questions are these:

Has there been any linguistic study that explores this connection?

Given the number of Celtic-oriented writers who also have an affinity for Vedic (and Upanishadic) literature (Yeats immediately springs to mind), and the similarity of the concepts contained in both Celtic mythology and Hindu mythology (take Kali and the Morrigan, for example), has there been any attempt in the Celtic pagan community to explore the commonalities in a more formal sense?

And three, just as it is complementary to study Japanese and Korean at the same time (the basic differences being vocabulary only), is there any identified benefit in studying Sanskrit as an aid to learning Gaelic, or visa versa?

Much food for thought.

Pranayama

Where am I in all of this confusion?
If I pause and take a moment to breathe,
letting go of this veil of illusion
[that separates (like two different leaves

along two slim branches that stretch their way
in opposite directions, yet never
touch, except through the trunk from which they splay)
with a soft touch easily severing

one’s sense of unity with all living]
just listening to the low, quiet breath
of an opened flower or an old tree,

I recognize myself; my misgivings
about my life’s purpose that make me fear death
fade away. I am at peace, at last free.

Am I just motion in some great chaos?
If I release this cloud from deep inside,
letting the soft flow of air slip across
my tongue and pursed lips, it does not collide

with the not-me of the universe, but
instead melts back into a single stream
of boundless energy that we each cut
and divide into our separate dreams,

imagining that these walls we construct
are so solid, so real, unbreakable.
Yet in a single breath these veils shatter,

our isolation seems to self-destruct,
and those beliefs once so unshakeable
crumble in the still space beyond matter.

04 APR 2003

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