Rig Veda: ‘div’ as packets of light-energy
“While the god [deva] is a presence in the mantra, he is neither visible nor
palpable in any other way. …the mantra…facilitates the god’s presence, form
and functions. There can be no god apart from the mantra.”
- S.K. Ramachandra Rao, Yaska’s Nirukta
“…neo-spiritualism resembles…materialism extended beyond the limits of the
corporeal world, this being clearly exemplified by the crude representations
of the subtle world, wrongly called spiritual…consisting almost entirely of
images borrowed from the corporeal domain..”
- Rene Guenon, The Reign of Quantity
The Rishis who composed the hymns in the Rig Veda were not worshipping
external deities in any form, astral or otherwise. The ancient Rishis were
great beings, man and women who had retained, held on to and owned the power
of vision. They were Seers, which is what the Sanskrit word Rishi means.
There were around 400 of these Rishis, such as Angiras, Agastya, Vasistha,
Vishvamitra, Bhrigu, Brihaspati, Dirghatamas, and at least 27 of them were
women, for example Vagambhrini and Dakshina Prajapatya. These Seers carried
within them the innate powers to manifest form in this universe from the
infinite multitude of potencies within the formless. This ability was not
unique or ‘special’ in the first cycle of time, the Satya Yuga. We all were
able to do this, which is how the manifested realms were brought into being
and became form — rûpa in Sanskrit.
As we moved from the first cycle of time, the Satya Yuga, down into the
denser second cycle of time, the Tretâ Yuga, the majority lost the natural
gift of pulling, plucking, gathering coagulations, packets of light-energies
through an intensely concentrated willed focus from the Mind of God, the
Oneness. Previously we all had a shared access to the Mind of God, because
the One dwells within us all. Therefore like the Rishis, we were able to
transpose those packets of light-energy into manifestation both as form and
ideas, seeds to build upon much as we envision fractals today endlessly
building. The Kashmir Shaivite Swami Lakshmanjoo has said that this is why
each of us feels that we can do anything, even though experience tells us
otherwise. We remember.
‘div’ = to shine!
The word for god in Sanskrit is ‘deva’ — and its root derivation ‘div’ means
to shine. The Rishis were invoking, creating, generating these packets of
light-energy pulsations, which were shinning in the sense that they were
intensely compacted encoded source energies from the Mind of God that could
be used to create and bring form into this world. This knowledge was lost.
The knowledge was most certainly lost by the time the ritualist Sayana (who
died in 1387 A.D.) wrote his interpretations of the Rig Veda and thus led
subsequent scholars astray into a distorted understanding, especially the
western world of scholars who first translated the Rig Veda as the work of
idol worshipping primitives.
The idea that “while the god is a presence in the mantra, he is neither
visible nor palpable in any other way,” thus so brilliantly expressed by
S.K. Ramachandra Rao, is further enhanced by Rene Guenon’s statement that
what today often passes for traditional wisdom, what Guenon calls
neo-spiritualism, is stuck in its conceptions of familiar corporeal form.
Guenon: “…neo-spiritualism resembles…materialism extended beyond the limits
of the corporeal world, this being clearly exemplified by the crude
representations of the subtle world, wrongly called spiritual…consisting
almost entirely of images borrowed from the corporeal domain.”
We are very far removed from our Origin and the states of consciousness,
actually God-consciousness, that were innate and natural to us in the early
yugas. In our present day state, trapped in and limited to five-sense
perception, we cannot easily think in what might be termed formless or the
abstract. However that formless unmanifest is what we emerge from and what
we will inevitably return to — when we are weary of this sukha-duhhka,
pleasure-pain polarity world.
We are not progressing towards anything except another cyclical Dissolution,
perhaps brought about by the release of millions of tons of methane
clathrates that have been hidden deep in our oceans, the release being a
reaction to cyclical solar emissions of radiation. We are not evolving. We
already are perfect as the One, our Source and Being. We are simply
‘playing’ here in Veils of Delusion, the plane of Forgetting. Therefore the
need to justify spirituality and metaphysical principles by being, as Guenon
says, “constantly preoccupied in adapting these ancient ideas, or what are
imagined to be such, to modern science” is absurd and a waste of time. Plus
because all scientific theories change with soul grinding rapidity, we are
forced to alter our adaptations continually!
The personification of metaphysical principles
The Rishis didn’t require pantheons of gods and goddesses. These realms of
astral visions are of our own making and formed as the cycles of time
devolved into density, meaning the Solidification of our world, during which
this temporal illusory hologram, our creation, closed and descended further
into our own projected belief systems, delusions and illusions.
The Rishis were chanting their mantras, which they composed as the Rig Veda,
to create. This wasn’t ritual magic in the modern sense — it was purely the
Seers plucking shining packets of light-energy ‘div’ from the Mind of God,
the imperishable immutable One, and using these pulsating packets for
manifestation. Even in the Tretâ Yuga, the Rishis still had the power to
connect to Source and make everything happen! Because most of us down though
time continued to lose our creative abilities, we were dependent on the
Rishis, just as today we depend on the creativity and genius of the few.
S.K. Ramachandra Rao on the Rig Veda: “The seer is merely an instrument for
the revelation of the mantra, and the poetic form is mechanically assumed by
revelation. It is the god (devata) for whom the mantra is meant that is
significant. The mantra is in fact distinguished by the god whose nature,
power, peculiarities, and relevance for the seer is enshrined in the mantra.
While the god is a presence in the mantra, he is neither visible nor
palpable in any other way. He does not exist apart from the mantra. It is
only through the mantra that he is visualized.”
What is useful in one phase of the expansion of our personal spiritual
Wisdom-Knowledge or the larger group expansion, often becomes a trap in
another phase. Thus we may understand how the Truth of one yuga is devolved
into the lens of multiplicity and confusion in another. As an artist, I love
the inspiring depictions of gods and goddess in stone, bronze, wood, and the
colourful graceful paintings. I often touch the feet of my statue of Krishna
playing the flute in my home. I do this to remind myself that the One dwells
in my Heart — and simultaneously in the Hearts of All. I am particularly
fond of Indian art because it symbolizes timeless primordial traditional
metaphysical principles. Thank you, India!
Equilibrium between two opposites
Alain Danielou in his ‘Gods of India’ offers a deeper insight on the
metaphysical meaning of the gods and explains Brahma not as an old man
perpetually seated in a pink lotus, but rather as the Space-Time or
Revolving Principle:
“The possibility of a form, of a perceptible reality, depends on the
existence of a ‘place’ where it can appear and expand, that is, on the
existence of an oriented medium (in our world space-time) which is the
result of an equilibrium between two opposites, between the centripetal and
the centrifugal principles. It is a balance between concentration and
dispersion, between a tendency toward existence and a tendency toward
annihilation, between light and darkness, between Vishnu and Shiva.”
The Rig Veda deities are not the more familiar ones that emerged later. For
example, there is Indra, Agni, Ushas, Surya, Soma, Mitra. Even though it may
be somewhat entertaining, I shall not even begin to tell you the many
explanations of what or who Indra might be. One scholar says, “Rishi
Angirasa is credited with the invention of Agni (S.S. Gupta).” Most agree
that Agni is some kind of fire, but exactly what kind is debated.
Consider that the name Brahma is not found in the Vedas. Vishnu has only
three complete mantras dedicated to him. The name Vishnu is derived from the
root ‘Vis’ which means to enter or pervade. His identity in the Rig Veda is
considered by some scholars to be the Sun, while others view the three
mantras dedicated to Vishnu as corresponding to the three spaces of the
universe. Shyam Ghosh opines that Vishnu “indicates the act of instilling
knowledge into human beings.”
The etymology of the Sanskrit word shiva is ‘auspicious’ and was used in the
Vedas as an epithet of Rudra. Scholars agree that Rudra in the Rig Veda
later became Shiva. Rudra is more of a destructive force than the beloved
wandering sage, garlanded with snakes and drinking from a human skull. Dr.
Raja R.M. Roy says that Rudra represents the radiation produced when matter
and anti-matter annihilate each other: “Rudra means what makes one cry,
which refers to penetrating brightness of radiation.” On a recorded
teaching, the Kashmir Shaivite Swami Lakshmanjoo joked with his disciples
saying, "Shiva is a great god residing on Mount
Kailasa
in the
Himalayas!”…pause…"Rubbish!”
I am reminded of a passage in the Bible that I now feel was speaking of
spiritual maturity when it said: "When I was a child, I spoke like a child,
I thought like a child, reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put
aside childish ways." [1st Corinthians 13:11]
Danielou states that “the source of the manifest world is neither Vishnu nor
Shiva, neither concentration nor dispersion, but the result of their
opposition, their equilibrium.” The gods symbolize physics in the sense of
forces interacting; but as these forces are the underlying source of all
manifestation, the term is more properly metaphysics. Brahma is rajasic,
Vishnu is considered sattvic, and Shiva tamasic.
According to Danielou, the
rajas
which has become personified by Brahma “manifests itself as a revolving,
space-creating, and time creating power. …Brahma is the balance of forces
from which measurable extension originates. He is the nature of all form, of
all perceptible existence, all of the spheres and their movements, of all
the rhythms that create the divisions of relative time. …(Brahma) represents
the boundless waste in which space and time originate.”
Space-Time
Guenon elucidates Time-Space: “Space cannot possibly extend beyond the world
in order to contain it…because emptiness cannot contain anything. On the
contrary, it is space that is in the world, that is to say,
manifestation…space is coextensive with this world, because it is one of its
conditions.” Thus Guenon makes it clear that we are wrongly attempting to
define the universe with our limited five-sense perception criteria and
standards. Space is one of the conditions for this world. Time is also a
condition in which this world is founded. Therefore neither time, nor space
and most especially not this world are infinite.
Guenon: “…this world is no more infinite than is space itself, for like
space, it does not contain every possibility, but only represents a certain
particular order of possibilities…time began in the world…the [manifest]
world is not therefore eternal.” The ancient Rishis would have known these
eternal Truths. Knowledge of the Cycles of Time was no mere theory to them.
They knew that Wisdom-Knowledge would descend into absurdity and left us the
enigmatic Rig Veda as a reminder of our earlier states of consciousness. We
can easily comprehend why no one can translate these mantras. I must say
that my meagre attempts were without a doubt the most arduous efforts of
focus and concentration I have ever experienced. Receiving multiple layers
of meaning from other realms requires uncharted discipline. I hope to return
to them one day, to honour them, and I sincerely hope others will do the
same.
As we moved deeper into the Kali Yuga, the later Seers who composed the
Upanishads knew that the real meaning of the Rig Veda was being lost.
Therefore they tried to rescue the meaning in the wonderful amazing
Upanishads. “By the time of the Brahmanas people started being skeptical
about the authenticity of the meaning (of the Rig Veda) as well as the
utility of the Veda.” Yâska, the 6th century BC Sanskrit grammarian said in
the Nirukta: "Seers had direct intuitive insight…by oral instruction, [they]
handed down hymns to later generations who were destitute of direct
intuitive knowledge.” [The Rigveda, Mandala III, Shukla & Shukla]
Gentle compassion
I would imagine that our Rishis would shake their heads in a gentle, perhaps
humorous compassion at our current human obsession with worshipping anything
external to our own being, when what we seek waits within our own Heart.
Western religions have cooked up their own array of up-on-the-pedestal
beings that are worshipped daily by supplicants around the planet. India is
not alone in this by any means. And let us not forget the new ‘gods’ of
consumption and mall-world, which the multinational corporations are
eulogizing, turning out endless propaganda, advertising promises of material
bliss in a brave new corporatocracy world — that turns out to be more of the
same old familiar tyranny in a designer suit!
In the Kali Yuga 'kings are thieves and thieves are kings'. In the past
tyrants have spilled only blood on the earth. Now technology allows these
who crave world domination, to poison the planet they seek to possess and
bring us ever closer to the final moments in this cycle of time.
V. Susan Ferguson
RGVEDA DARSHANA – Volume Sixteen, Yaska’s Nirukta, by S.K. Ramachandra Rao;
Kalpatharu Research Academy, Bangalore, 2005.
The Reign of Quantity & the Signs of the Times, by Rene Guenon; Sophia
Perennis, Hillsdale, NY, 1945, 2001.
Risikas of the Rigveda, by Swami Atmaprajnananda Saraswati; D.K. Printword,
New Delhi, 2013.
The Gods of India, Hindu Polytheism, by Alain Danielou, 1964; Inner
Traditions International Ltd., NYC, 1985.
RGVEDA for the Layman, A Critical Survey of One Hundred Hymns of the
Rigveda, with Samhita-patha, Pada-patha and word meaning and English
translation, by Shyam Ghosh; Munishiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd., New
Delhi, 2002, Nandi, Indira.
Vedic Physics, Scientific Origin of Hinduism, by Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Ph.D.,
foreword by Professor Subhash Kak; Golden Egg Publishing, Toronto, 1999.
VEDIC PHYSICS, Towards Unification of Quantum Mechanics & General
Relativity, by Keshav Dev Verma; Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, Delhi,
1991, 2008.
A Study of Deities of the RIG VEDA, With the help of Science, by S.S. Gupta;
Abhinav Publications, New Delhi, 2006.
The Celestial Key to the Vedas by B.G. Sidharth; Inner Traditions, 1999.
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