How beautifully written, Cheeni. Thank you. I am still pondering over division and unison as seemingly-irreconcilable concepts, with regard to taxonomy...You often crystallize my amorphous, hard-to-pen thoughts.
Only, I am not sure I agree with "division is violence"....let me think about that. Deepa. On Wed, Jun 21, 2017 at 3:14 PM, Srini RamaKrishnan <che...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Jun 21, 2017 12:13 PM, "Thaths" <tha...@gmail.com> wrote: > > This book seems to be the one I am looking for: > > A Storm of Songs: India and the Idea of the Bhakti Movement > <https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674187466/> by John Stratton Hawley. > > > I'm glad you found a book to your looking. > > Judging by the Amazon "product description", I suspect this is the kind of > book I was trying to not recommend. Religion pertains to men, and > spirituality to the spirit. No doubt the Bhakti movement can be dubbed a > twentieth century religion as this book does, and located within the > egotistical world of man, his politics, aspirations and ambitions, but the > spiritual foundations of Bhakti harken back to the beginning of time. This > is why I led with a recommendation for the book, The Spiritual heritage of > India. It charts the course of the same essential idea being moulded and > remoulded to fit the times. > > The Rig Veda famously affirms the idea of unity with "ekam sad vipra > bahudha vadanti agnim yamam matariswanam ahuh" (meaning Truth is one, but > the learned refer to it in different names like agni, yama, matariswan). > > The idea even back then was as old as time itself, not merely because the > Vedas as a disparate set of ideas that has existed for a few thousand years > already. > > Shamanic and animistic values had called for unity with nature and all > things since time began. > > This is how it has always been. Yoga literally and ideologically means > unity. Unity lies at the heart of any spiritual tradition. > > Division is violence and the way of the spirit is non violence. > > Whenever one sincerely enquires into the way of the spirit, the same > original ideas come forth, almost as if they are born in a space in the > knowing before the intellect. These ideas sound radically different when > translated through the individual intellect, but they are really the same. > > The mystics like to say, "Listen to the space between the words, for there > is the truth."
