Journey to the Real
• October 1, 1974
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Nammalvar's journey to Reality begins, as such journeys generally do, with a restlessness of the spirit that tests and for the time being, rejects the here and now. The shortness and the instability of earthly life are vividly present to him:
A number of crowns at their feet, They rule, these kings of kings, The thunderous drum in the court Proclaiming loud their might. In the end, They, even they crumble to dust... So it has been since the world began. From that day to this day, Pomp and glory pass away, Die like a cloud fragment, reduced to nothing. 1
Human relationships, he feels, are accidental and unreliable. It is a dark, unsatisfying world that is around us:
The world brings us, And they smile in derision, those who keep away from us While the good near us lament and waste away. Oh, what a world... To die, to perish With those, one's kith and kin, Crying disillusioned... Take me Thus comes wealth and turns to fire. Take me says dark ignorance and covers us entire... They, the wicked men, catch and crush others in their toils, They torture, kill and eat,
They know not what is virtue... Oh, what a world! 2
From out of all this, the Alvar tries to turn to God, the Absolute Good, that will satisfy the yearning of his spirit. Let us hear him:
The body that Thou gavest me, I whirl. When will the disease Of this burning time die? When will I uproot Karma? When, when will I become One with Thee? 3 I cry and cry From within the thicket of cruel Karma, Sinner that I am, I wander bewildered in an endless maze. Where, where can I reach Him? 4
The thicket that is the earth and the endless maze from which the Alvar tries to extricate himself are not easy to discard. His body and his senses bind him to them; not merely that; the senses revel in this bondage and tend to perpetuate it. He complains of it bitterly and lays the blame on the very Reality that he is seeking:
Day and night, they beat me about, And crush me. Thou hast sent them. Thus Thou hast gone Thy way, preventing me From beholding Thee. There is no medicine, no cure For these five diseases That torment me.
These five senses Into a press that grinds and crushes me, Front, back and every side Beating me to pulp. Who will bring me relief Except Thee, Lord of the Immortals ? 6
How did it come about, this cruel play of the senses?
A web of deceit around me, Without my knowing it, Throwing me at the mercy of these five, Thou hast barred me, Lord, From nearing the flowers of Thy feet. 7
The conquest of the senses and the mind ever bent earthward is the first step. But could it be achieved through starving them? Nammalvar was aware of the ascetic way, the way of mortification and stifling of the bodily faculties and the mind. But he also knew that the non-attachment to the earth (that the ascetic aims at and that seems so essential for spiritual attainment), is possible only through attachment to God. 8 We do not find in Nammalvar the idea that mortification may lead, not to God, but rather to self-glorification, narrowness and pride. He believed that the bodily faculties and the earth to which they are bound, can be overcome not by the void that one can create (if that were possible) through their negation but through allowing attachment to God to engage them and thereby to nullify their material bent. In this, he is at one with the great Tamil aphorist, Tiruvalluvar.
Is this possible? How could one achieve it when one does not know anything about God and as Nammalvar says, is like a blind cow that knows not that the cattle-shed is near but lows joyously because other cows do it ? 9 This is the third stage of the journey where the Alvar, though recognising the indefinable nature of God, still turns to Him as the way and the goal. He is struck by the infinitude of Reality and his own inadequacy to approach or apprehend it. He speaks of God as unknowable :
However you try, This depth unplumbable, This breadth and this height immeasurable, This state transcending form, How can you know, you living creatures, You will never know. 10
I do not know what to call Him, I do not know how to conceive of Him... My knowledge is ever so little... But He is all things, He is everyone, He transcends the calculations of those Who have resolved the tangles of the six religions. He is beyond the reach of any one, No one can define Him. But He is in the heart of life and the self. And He can be reached Through absolute non-attachment. 11
Here is a curious position. To reach God, there should be no attachment to anything else, and to give up attachment, one has to turn to Him whom one does not know. The Alvar is all too conscious of his own littleness and his being a prey to the senses and the earth-bound mind :
Yet I cry For beholding Him Who is beyond any one's reach Is there anything More wearying and futile? 12 I have no virtue, no merit, No good in me.
Though my Karma is infinite. 13 I keep on calling to Thee all the time Hands on head, clamouring, But Thou dost not call me to Thee, Nor dost Thou reveal Thy beauty to my eyes. 14 Within my body and my soul And beyond, Thou art everywhere, all the time, Endless, allowing no interspace. And I, ignorant, blind, Seek and seek within my soul, Lengthening my little tongue, And yearn to behold you, To know, still to know Thee. 15
‘I may not know’ says the Alvar. But this I know, that He is and that He knows. So I call to Him to come and true to His nature, however unworthy I may be, make Himself known to me.'
These five fiercely evil ones That stand not still for a time. Unless it be through Thy Grace? 16 May Thou in Thy Grace Destroy to the root The five who throw me Into the deep evil treacherous pit, Shattering the fount of life... 17 Come as ambrosia to me And root out the dark mystery
By which Thou sent afore The five heady senses. 18
The Reality on which Nammalvar relies to free him from the shackles of the senses and the earth is not an intellectual abstraction but a personal God of an infinite beauty that could hold and satisfy not the spirit alone but all his faculties. 19 It is by dwelling on the Beauty and Grace that God is that Nammalvar tries at first to shake off the earth. 'If I were to speak of it' he says, 'How can I? The lotus for all its loveliness is poor in comparison with Thy eyes, Thy feet, Thy hands. Gold purified by fire comes nowhere near the glory of Thy form. All that this world brings in as comparable pale into nothing before Thee.' 20 The Alvar exercises all his senses and faculties at this stage in trying to get in touch with this Beauty that is God, thereby changing their direction by yoking them to the Absolute and thus securing control over them.
Dwelling on Thee, cloud-hued, On Thy feet worshipped by the three worlds, 21 O, wearer of the crown. My words turn ever to Thee, my refuge, To whom my heart is a city vast to dwell... My hands, ever groping, seek only Thee, Lord of the Immortals... My eyes yearn To behold Thee in Thy entirety For ever and ever Without a moment's respite... My ears lie open To catch the sound Of the wings of Thy bird. While my ears are filled With the honey-sweet praise of Thee That time weaves...
My spirit turns to Thee, Lord of the golden discus... Oh, Beauty, Dark blue, lotus-eyed, O Grace that draws my spirit... 22
At this stage of the Alvar's search for the ultimate, this earth and the universe around it on which the senses feed and grow, become to him the dwelling of the lord. The earth for all its imperfections turns now into a passage to the supernal. The senses may now be allowed their free play on it; only, they are no longer chained to the physical, they reach, from the material and through it, to God. The beauty of the world is the image of the world invisible, it is more than that, it is a segment of the Real and if rightly experienced could reveal the whole of it. The Alvar no longer turns away from the earth as at the beginning of his spiritual quest. On the contrary, he dwells lovingly on its sights and sounds, on the sun and rain and flowers, the hills and the sea, the cool, green fields and groves, for all of them are the Lord's and reflect His beauty. Every natural object is now a reminder to him of the transcendent glory of God and often, of his being separated from the whole of it.
At the next stage of his journey, Nammalvar experiences a momentary glimpse of God. In the course of one particular Tiruvoimozhi (4.7.), the first six stanzas are a complaint that God has not come. They express a mood of hopelessness. The seventh stanza is a sudden and joyous affirmation by the Alvar: 'I have found Thee, My Lord, Thou who wearest a chaplet of tulasi.' The following three stanzas strike the old note bordering on despair:
Where, where can I see Him My lord of the discus?... I cry and with tears in my eyes I look around everywhere. It is a vain quest.
Sinner that I am I do not see Him... 23
These momentary glimpses of God are accompanied by a vivid realisation of what the Alvar believed in the events of the various avataras or God's descent to the earth. A note of joy, almost of jubilation, breaks out from the Alvar. 'The Lord worked out the great Bharata war' he cries 'to relieve the earth of its heavy burden. He wove many a mystery and destroyed the armed hosts that battled. And then, He turned back to His place in Heaven. I have neared the glory that He is and worshipped at His feet. Who else can be my Lord?... What else do I need?...Who is my equal on this wide earth ?' 24
He the lotus-eyed, dark as the kavi flower Wearing the battling discus and the conch...... He, the Immaculate, the Mystery, He, who is beyond human thought, Behold, He is on my shoulders, I bear Him along'. 25
Then again:
Caught Thee firm and fast, in a trice. 26
But the exhilaration vanishes as the vision fades as suddenly as it came. The darkness gathers round, more intense and unbearable. The wild seeking begins again but now fiercer, more passionate than ever. Love of God breaks out now in an agony under which words struggle and reach out to a meaning beyond meaning:
My emerald, Ambrosia to my life, Make me see Thee, Lord who churned the wave-tossed sea! Make me see Thee. Thus I cry, confused and in tears.
In all ways possible, in a thousand ways, Cherishing them Make me see Thee, Lord who lifted up the earth Girt by the cold waters. O life, life of life, That created, lifted, took in And spat out all the wide worlds. Where, where can I see Thee?' Where can I reach Thee, where? All the seven worlds are Thee. Their gods are but Thee And Thou art all that they do. If there is anything beyond, Thou art that, And also whatever is subtle, Faint to the eye, pure spirit, That which transcends the field of Heaven. Where, where can I reach Thee?' Still, I know not how to worship Thee. How can I? My mind and word and deed Are from Thee, only Thee. And I too am Thee. Thou being everything Thou art hell too. So what does it matter Whether I reach high Heaven Or remain here in this hell? Still, I fear greatly, Lord. Thou mayst sit ever in Heaven unmindful. Grant me in Thy grace The refuge of Thy feet. 27
Thought and feeling get wildly mixed up and words move towards the wordless :
With you, parrots that I have petted, Koels and peacocks and poovais, I have nothing more to do with you. He has taken away my bangles, My brightness and my heart And gone to Vaikunta, Perhaps to the Sea of Milk Or to the dark hill of Vaikunta. They are near no doubt But He will not allow me to reach them Unless I give all of you up, Give up all, all attachment for ever, Give up everything but Him 28 What am I to do? Here is the sound of His flute, How can I bear, how speak of it? Before I try, His lovely eyes speak to me of one thing, His words glance at another. And His song tosses my poor heart And makes it cease to be. I do not know, I know nothing. Only this, evening has come- He has not. 29
'Come', the Alvar cries, 'Come, cool and fragrant as the wide lotus pool, come like a rain-cloud that has acquired four arms and coral lips and shapely ear-rings. Come as a deep green emerald hill over which the dark glory of the sun is rising, come, my Lord of the effulgent crown, come one day that these eyes may behold Thee.' 30
From this stage, there is only one step towards realization. Nammalvar's 'Tiruvoimozhi' records in its final decad, that he took that step and reached the Absolute. Here is a tiruvoimozhi, the last but one, describing how the lovers of God reach their final home:
Blew loud their trumpet. The deep sea lifted up its wave-hands And danced in joy When they who loved the Lord- Sustainer of the seven worlds He whose praise endures, - Turned home to Him 31
Yes, and reached it; and Nammalvar, the end of 'Tiruvoi-mozhi' tells us, is among them. But where are the words to express it? They whirl, thresh wildly stretching to catch the ineffable. Fulfilment? Is it a void enveloping one, high, wide and deep? Is it a soft flowery glory transcending it? Is it an ecstasy of light and realization beyond it? Who can say? Of this I am certain. Thou hast encircled me and my yearning is at an end' 32.
That is journey's end too.
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1 Tiruvoimozhi: 4.1.3,6. (↑)
2 Tiruvoimozhi: 4.9. 1,2,4,6 (↑)
3 ibid. 3.2.1. (↑)
4 ibid. 3.2.9. (↑)
5 The sense of sight, of hearing, of smell, of taste and of touch----these are the five senses traditionally accepted and here spoken of as the five tyrants. (↑)
6 Tiruvoimozhi: 7.1.5. (↑)
7 ibid. 7.1.4. (↑)
8 ibid. 1.2.1. (↑)
9 Tiruviruttam: 94 (↑)
10 Tiruvoimozhi: 1.3.6. (↑)
11 ibid. 1.5.6, 7; 1.3. (↑)
12 ibid. 1.5.7. (↑)
13 Nampillai in his great commentary on Tiruvoimozhi rightly interprets 'Karma' (Nammalvar uses the Tamil word 'Vinai') as sin and points out that Nammalvar here feels that his sins are far greater than even God's infinite grace. 'Karma' may also be interpretted as worldly action, the result of the play of the senses and the mind. (↑)
14 Tiruvoimozhi: 4.7.1. (↑)
15 ibid. 4.7.6. (↑)
16 ibid. 7.1.7. (↑)
17 ibid. 7.1.9. (↑)
18 ibid. 7.1.8. (↑)
19 See the chapter on 'Nammalvar's Philosophy'. (↑)
20 Tiruvoimozhi: 3.1.2. (↑)
21 Of earth and heaven according to Nampillai. (↑)
22 Tiruvoimozhi: 3.8. (↑)
23 Tiruvoimozhi: 4.7. 9,10. (↑)
24 Tiruvoimozhi: 6.4. (↑)
25 ibid. 1.9. (↑)
26 ibid. 2.6.1. (↑)
27 Tiruvoimozhi: 8.1. (↑)
28 Tiruvoimozhi: 8.2.8. (↑)
29 ibid. 9.9.9. (↑)
30 ibid. 8.5. (↑)
31 Tiruvoimozhi: 10.9.1. (↑)
32 ibid. 10.10. (↑)
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