Kamakhya - Reliving the Kalikapurana, Questioning the Essence of Human Love

I have been careful about the Goddess kamakhya, not regarding the kind of worship that is offered to her (Kaulachara/Vamamarga) but the circumstances under which I was granted her audience. I tried twice before, and didn't make it (let's just say life came in the way), and finally it was on the eve of the pandemic that the Goddess granted me my wish. 

The first visit to Kamakhya was that of an ignorant fool, bound by some strange mysticism, who wanted to visit the temple more out of curiosity, something about her attracted me a lot. Kamakhya turned out to be the center of the plot of my 2nd book in the making, and yet I knew nothing about her. I tried hunting document libraries, picked up a lot of theory but something was still missing. I had finished the first draft of my book, and I thought I was ready to publish. I made it to her temple twice, it was rather smooth with a 1 hour wait, and very uneventful... or so I thought. But what struck me the most about this rather small temple was the depth and the darkness we go into to see her divine form in just the light of the lamp. Kamakhya blanks the mind out and we come out bewildered, and it takes some time to tune back into Samsara. It happened to me too, with a slight difference. I had just one thought in my head...read the Kalikapurana before publishing.

I took me the next 7 years to source the original transliteration and start the long journey of canvasing through 1300 pages, taking notes from an endless treatise that meticulously documents the mythological story of Sati, Parvati in her many forms, Durga, Kali, Tripurasundari and Kamakhya. An intoxicating journey to learn about the Goddess, her idiosyncrasies, the truth behind the manobhava cave, the power of her presence on the sacred mythical peak of Kamarupa. This is divine intoxication, when it takes root it doesn't go away easy. It upsets the bias, massacres past learning, challenges societal norms, decimates logic and celebrates sexual love, and showcases it pure in its original purpose... not for procreation, but for bliss, bliss from the perspective of a goddess. 

Kalikapurana is a treatise not for the weak hearted, it challenges everything that is defined as Hinduism today. It echoes the deviation we have made from the past in terms of convenience and cowardice. It demands respect and at the same time, we need to change in our minds to accept it. Kalikapurana celebrates the Vamachara path of Devi worship and it gives details that praise the Ghora form of the Goddess, and probably that adds to its perception of being infamous or being subjected to false judgement... all because the sexuality of the goddess is out on display and that is unacceptable to our current wiring. I had my moments of conflict, I still do though am a lot more accepting of it. 

I stepped into Kamakhya again, with a lot more on my agenda - theory to be validated, practices to be initiated, beliefs to be energized and love to be redefined. I was a lot more educated, driven and ready to accept as I waited through claustrophobic chambers for aprox 4.5 hours till we were granted her audience. While on one side I saw the ignorance of the many people who waited in line with me probably driven by blind faith if I may dare, I really wondered how many would have the nerve to read through the treatise and come back here humbly, after accepting its word, whether they agreed with it or not. Maybe they were better off ignorant! That is a blissful state too. 

I walked through the pillared corridor of the mandapa before we descended into the dark chamber. The temple has this haunting exterior to it, similar to that of Baital Deul in Bhubaneshwar, which hosts the Goddess Chamunda. Yes, all our instincts, our intuition tune into the heavy doses of tantric practices. Nothing wrong about it, nothing negative... of course all of this brutally driven by our limited perception, but we cannot ignore the powerful sense of tantric ideology, not just in belief but in action as well. Kamakhya, like Tarapith and Kalighat, boast of ritual animal sacrifice, which by the way are poor substitutes to the original human sacrifice, that of the self in the state of utmost devotion to the Goddess. I observed the head of two lambs and that of a healthy buffalo arranged in offerings for naivedyam with fruits for her daily meal, eyes half open. They expressed no fear in death, this after-state seemed so permanently blissful, they had passed the worst and I wondered, wasn't that supposed to be me?

The dark chamber echoed every verse of the Kalikapurana, not the ritualistic approach anymore but the very presence of the Goddess herself in her aniconic form. Oh! the poetry in the treatise is alive here, and every word  comes trues to the initiated. The secrecy of this cave is revealed to those who know and the power of the Goddess is felt in everything. I had the luck to spend a few good minutes in the chamber, the only challenge I was fighting was my mind numbing into bewilderment, while my eyes stayed wide absorbing all that they could see. Yes, the 5 senses had been propelled into action, the mind was dying its death and an overwhelming sense of divine love was taking over to feel the grace within the room. Logic succumbed, divine vision kicked in and I just gave myself up to her, I guess I did get beheaded after all!

The dim lighting, the oozing spring waters bubbling up, the quiet, mild echoes of voices, the complete darkness of the chamber, and the warm moist interior... the Manobhava Guha equivalent in the material world has as much promise to offer as its mystical counterpart. I covered her modesty with a saree that I had brought as an offering, oh! she looked so beautiful. The redness of the chamber, the asymmetrical placement of her fossilized shrine, I couldn't make the difference between blood and sindhoor mixed with water. Her ideology is alive, and brimming with life. 

I walked out into the daylight, a different person and far more educated, I had relived the Kalikapurana in all its essence. I hunted for the other shrines, that of the dasamahaviyas, as the panda pointed them out to me. I visited them to get a view of the map that made up the mystical Kamarupa to realize all the Goddess who resided here were rock formations embedded on some kind of a spring oozing water across the Nilanchal hill. If I had to remove all the hideous architecture and look at the hill in isolation, we would be presented with the unadulterated earthly Kalikapurana variant. Wow!

My trip concluded very well with a visit to the Vashishta Dham, the sacred spot where Sage Vashishta did his penance. He plays a very important part in the whole Purana, it is his curse that gave birth to the cult of Vamachara, Kaula Tantra. The ritualistic practices of Kamarupa today, which lock horns with the Samayachara way of worship, documented extensively in the Sri Vidya Tantra, make me stare at the irony - Why did Adishankara fail so miserably when he tried to undo the curse of Vashishta? Was it never meant to happen? Irony is, he expresses his deepest desire towards the Goddess describing her physical form in the Soundarya Lahari to a point that would embarrass you and me, well after he rejects the Kaula path of worship and expression of female love and refused to use his own body to understand the deeper meaning of Kamasutra, when challenged by Ubhaya Bharati (Believed to be Saraswati herself).

What a lovely puzzle to solve, in belief, in ideology, with predefined biases that stick their ugly heads out and challenge us to question... why are we so scared of expressing love, why is there so much secrecy to it, and when expressed is it really the right way or was it just human behavior that expresses carnal desire exposing human incapability to rise above animal instinct?

Do we not know any other way at all? Hmm...something to think about!

Maha Kumbh - Where the Ocean of Humanity meets the Waves of Divinity

There have been several reasons why I wanted to go for the Maha Kumbh, from wanting to see the Naga Babas upfront and experiencing their display of spiritual evolution to being a part of this grandeur that comes once in 144 years. I suppose it had caught everyone’s imagination. This was not marketing or the desperation to be seen on a social media post that says “I did it” … no, this was just a deep calling, to brave the mass of humanity and set my foot on divine earth and be a part of this spectacular astronomical event. 

There was a difference between this journey and the others I made in the past; while I would normally be excited about a trip, this time for some reason, my stomach churned. We planned every day meticulously and booked our tickets, which by the way was surprisingly cheaper given we decided to enter the holy city of Prayagraj from Lucknow, and not the usual direct flight or from Varanasi, as the prices were way past budget. Our brief stay at Lucknow was uneventful, gearing us up for what lay ahead. I immersed myself in the splendid architecture of Bada Imambada (another check on my bucket list), built by Nawab Asaf-ud-Daula, literally getting lost in the labyrinth and subsequently discovering a step well which isn’t a regular feature in Islamic architecture specially in Uttar Pradesh. To give you a brief, Bada Imambada is a mausoleum that host one of the grandest labyrinths on its roof, the only other one apart from the labyrinth at Dualatabad Fort, Aurangabad, more commonly called the Bhool Bhulaiya. India boasts of 2 labyrinths in architecture and interestingly both are in the realm of Indo-Islamic architecture with Persian design. With 1024 passages leading into each other out of which only 24 are right and with 4 passages at every intersection, where only one is right, it was a marvel of Indo-Islamic architecture to experience the darkness of a labyrinth and practically get lost, till we were “found” and taken back to the terrace of the mausoleum to see the setting sun before the big day ahead. 

We exited Lucknow at 3:30 am to catch the highway to Prayagraj, as the news on the ground indicated that private vehicles wouldn’t be allowed to enter the city, given it was a weekend. Our meticulously planned “Plan A” was very quickly dysfunctional and “Plan B” was formulated and improvised upon as we went along. I still remember the driver telling me, “You won’t be the only one with this plan”, and sure enough we had driven 6 hours straight into the ocean of humanity that headed towards the holy city, inch by inch. With the mercury rising and sweltering heat taking over the day, and clouds of fine dust coming to rest on the packed roads with vehicles of all sizes, there was a single agenda that took everyone to the holy city - the blessings of the sacred dip at the confluence of the rivers. It was close to noon when we reached the highway just outside Prayagraj and the traffic was at standstill, the city was closed and barricaded and we knew, we had to go by foot from here. Packing out backpacks with essentials to last us a couple of days, and leaving our roller boards behind in the car, we asked the police the way and started our long trek into the city. Google maps indicated that the river was 7-8 kms away, the Sangam was 12 kms and our hotel was another 12 in a different direction. With practically no plan in mind, but possibly get to the hotel first, we decided to make our next move on foot. 

It wasn’t very long, when we were interrupted by 3 bikers eagerly wanting to know if we wanted a ride to the Ganga Ghat. It seemed to be the easiest thing to do, given, we didn’t have any other plan in mind. Having negotiated the price, we hopped on, and drove past the mad traffic, through by-lanes, till we came to the vast shores of what promised to be the long stretch of land leading up to the river. We walked for approximately 6 kms, following the direction of the crowd, everybody walked, young and old, rich and poor, small and big, thin and fat, urban and rural, men, women and children, north Indians and south Indians, dhoties and shorts, ghoonghats and jeans, caps and pagdis, slippers and bare feet, groups and loners, all of humanity braving the rising clouds of dust that led up to the river. Some were even more interesting, groups that walked with ropes held between the first and last person, fortifying their families within their mobile boundaries, and lone young women who braved the winds leading the way for their aged parents with the thin lifeline of a rope not to separate them… as the mass of humanity purposefully moved towards the river. The occasional doubt of losing our way was put to rest frequently by the pure logic of “follow the crowd” to get to our destination. 

And there she was, the sacred Goddess, Ma Ganga, in all her splendor, washing the shores with her gentle silted waters. We had finally reached the Ghats. We couldn’t hear the hunger pounding in our stomach, we couldn’t feel the dust gently resting on our faces, we couldn’t hear the crowd in the silence, we couldn’t feel the prick of stones on her soft sands, no… the mind had come to rest, silence overpowered us as we came to find our spot in the hay covered banks of the Ganges river, which by the way was a great idea, our feet were not muddy at all! 

We took turns to take our dip, 7 dips for our past karmas, our ancestors, our many births, for our sacred cleansing, and to connect to the divine as her gentle cold waters gracefully brushed over us, covering us completely as we immersed ourselves in her world. The beauty of the sacred dip is to close all orifices of the human body and immerse oneself in the sacred waters that flows by. It is a state of near death that we achieve when we do this, detaching from all that exists around us, staying in the silence of her depths, eyes closed into darkness, to feel the void, and be there, covering for all our births, to finally merge with the Goddess spiritually, losing the physical body in which our soul has travelled miles to get here. It is also the strong belief system that has lasted many centuries fortified by undying faith, that this mass of humanity is driven by when we reach her shores, where we discard our bias towards each other, our discrimination, our ego, our sorrows, our difference… it doesn’t matter, I am you, you are me, we are one with the supreme. 

Stepping out of the water and watching the sun’s reflection dance across her waves, was a brilliant experience with no people to see in her vast expanse that flowed in front of me. The waters were clean, no floating plastic, no coke bottles or chips packets, no paper or garbage, but just an occasional Diya with divine light bobbing in her waves before it got consumed. The riverbed was soft with silt, and her shores were shallow to a great distance, to enable us to walk deeper into her depths while a rope drew the boundaries that we shouldn’t cross, though two boats with lifeguards kept vigil on the oncoming crowds. I had kept a bag of sacred sand from the shores of Dhanushkodi, Rameshwaram which I had worshipped at the southern tip of India in the form of a Shiva linga, way back 10+ years ago. The sacred sands finally found their way into the waters of the Ganges at Prayagraj, at the Sangam, merging with her waters. No one told us to move on, no one asked for space, to each his own, and I made my way back to the shore, at peace, satisfied with the first successful outcome of the “planned” journey as we made our way back on a long trek to get to the hotel. 

We walked up a few kilometers, watching traffic at standstill, thanking the Gods that we were on foot, till we got another group of bikes who were willing to take us through the inner quiet localities of Prayagraj. The evening was largely quiet in contemplation of what had unfolded through the day as we planned for what lay ahead. Early in the morning, Prayagraj continued to burst with the river of people relentlessly making their way into the city. We were discouraged to walk up to the Sangam given the lack of local transport to take us there as well as the distances to be covered. Taking an e-Rickshaw to the “Boat Club”, we drove past really narrow lanes, avoiding all the traffic, but to the ire of local people whose peace was constantly disturbed by an occasional vehicle whizzing past their doorstep to only get stuck within their narrow streets. None-the-less, getting a view of the inner lanes of Prayagraj felt a little like Alice in Wonderland. 

We finally reached the shores of the Yamuna River, walking right into the hands of boat men who offered us a ride. It felt like a miracle, to be able to get this far, to reach the shores of the great river Yamuna. My apprehensions were quickly put to rest when they didn’t overload the boat and each of us was given a life jacket. We rode into the blue waters of the swelling river, viewing the many others who were jostling by, everyone headed in the same direction or returning. The mela showcased its flamboyance on both sides of its banks with temples, people, tents, lifeguards, floating medical centers, historical forts et all. The grandeur of the mela was on display, its immense size was a visual treat, the impossible exhibited itself. This was the Maha Kumbh, brimming with energy, an ocean of people, single purpose of millions, reviving the sanctity of Hinduism, the power behind this faith that still stands as a testament that this faith still has its very strong roots in its people despite time, despite hate, despite attempts at anarchy, despite the changing mindset of generations.

The rivers flowed, in the vast expanse of water the currents could be felt in the ripples of the Yamuna, a far more agile river compared to the Ganges who displayed grace along her shores while the mystical Saraswati remained concealed deep within. The noon sunlight was welcoming, the heart was excited in anticipation, as we bounced on the waves towards the celebrated Sangam, the sacred nose, where both the divine rivers converge. The blue Yamuna meets the silt loaded Ganges, in a vast expanse of water, dotted with a million boats with orange flags signifying Hindu spirituality fluttering in the wind as the boats raced towards the Sangam. We parked by the land mass, hopping over boats to descend into the shallow waters of the Sangam. 7 more dips to paradise, and another accomplishment achieved while we played around in the water. Back in our fresh clothes after few more dips in the chilling water, with a very contented heart filled with reverence for the Gods, thanking fate and breathing a sigh of relief, we gratefully sailed back to shore. We moved past the swirl at the Sangam, the point where Ganges merges into Yamuna, where the currents shift ever more forcefully tossing boats away into calmer waters. It was a quiet ride back, with silence across the boat, contemplative and overwhelmed, we just watched the grandeur of Prayagraj go by, in silence and in awe.

The Kumbh Mela, is the display of the throbbing culture of Hindu faith and belief, it is an overwhelming moment that gives something back to every seeker who comes to take a dip in the sacred waters. It is a congregation of spiritual masters, an ocean of spiritual knowledge that brings even the non-believer to her shores. The Kumbh Mela is a treasure trove of the past on display, to be experienced individually in vibrant manifestations of spiritual grace.

What a spectacular Shivaratri with Jal from the Triveni Sangam!!!

Har Har Mahadev!

A Sweet Smile of Sublime Beauty

It was the first glimpse I caught of her, she appeared settled on the sacred seat within the sanctum of the Kanchi temple. Kamakshi Amman smiled back at me in quiet demeanor. My thoughts flew off my mind as my eyes rolled over every aspect of the sanctum, taking her form in. Her face smeared with sandal wood housed the most beautiful smile and her eyes gazed straight back at me.

My heart welled up with emotions, my mind rested blankly in a void, and I just gazed back at her. We have known each other for a while now, our relationship has evolved in quiet silence. She is everything to me and she had called me back to Kanchipuram again unexpectedly, as I drove down the geriatric folks of my family to her doorstep. I wasn’t going to miss this for anything. The corporate world could wait a day for me, for when she called, every body would wait. It was a crazy day, with a customer visit lined up in the afternoon, I had taken the chance. She had called and I found myself hitting the highway to Kanchipuram with an eye on the time to reach my workplace by lunch. It was a crazy schedule but the heart clearly ruled the mind as I sped up the road to reach her world.

I stared back at those divine eyes, they spoke to me in their silence. I observed her chamber, she was warm even in the distance that separated her from me. I was simply speechless feeling every moment of the void in my head. With emotions welling up in my heart I just took every bit of her into myself. I had been blessed to witness her “vishwaroopa darshanam”, a glorious view of her I had never seen before, a form she blesses us with once every year. She oozed with charm, beauty flowed through every part of her being as she stared back at me, I recollected the sweet verses of the Soundarya Lahari. Oh yes, she was every bit an ocean of beauty, of compassion, and of warmth and unconditional love.

The emotions I feel towards her, are those I would never be able to feel towards anybody else. There is so much love for her that wells up when I see her. I know she is there, welcoming in the warmth of the lamp light that brightens her face. She had called me, and I had dashed to her door step, quite literally to learn what it is to love her again, to feel the divine grace envelop me as I stood there mesmerized by her beauty. The chamber was different today for a cow stood at the ardha mandapa with her calf cozy at her feet. The cow stared back at me quite comfortable with strangers around her. There was no one in the chamber, just the divine mother and me, and we connected in silence, in emotions, in strange love that left me detached from the rest of the world. Nothing mattered, expect her. Nothing was important except her. Nothing existed except her. Nothing drove me to such a level of intense love except her. Nothing was more powerful than the void that hung inside my head. Was this what I felt, unconditional love, sweet surrender, a crazy sense of freedom from every aspect of my life. I felt freedom for those few minutes, when no one mattered, because no one existed, I was and she was and nothing else was.

I looked at her feeling a deep sense of bliss. The state of overpowering intense love and a blank mind was hard to come by, I was there at this moment, a tremendous sense of peace draped my being. This is what I called freedom, I belonged no where, I belonged to no one, and yet I was hers to own. I knew no time for she was all that stood. I felt no desire or attachment for she was all the truth I knew. Such depth of freedom and detachment from the bonded world around me made me realize just how much no one owned me. I was alone here, without rules, without any sense of connection to what I thought was the universe around me. I knew then that I am a potent drop of intense love in her ocean of beauty reflected in that divine smile on her sacred face, in pure sublime union with the Goddess.

I am her, she is me and that is the only truth I behold.

Kamakshi or Kamakhya - It is the power of the Goddess that matters

In the dark environs of Tantrik supremacy, every step into a physical temple is a leap into once own divine self. Kamakshi, as she is called, gives a deep flavour of the nature of Sati, that of Parvati, that of the consort of the great Lord Rudra. Kamakhya beholds a shrine, Kanchipuram displays her feminine beauty. Great poets like Adi Shankara have sung her praise, outlined her potential physical form, not just as a Goddess, but as that element of power that adorns the features of what we experience as a “woman”.

The Kalika Purana describes the beauty of Sati, the essence of womanhood, the one who all the Gods believe is the right consort to Lord Shiva. Kamakshi, the essence of love, describes her form as the powerful lover, with sweetness that can intoxicate, and potency that can blind the senses of any Bhakta. Saktaism is not for the weak, when it comes to the Goddess, Bhakti alone speaks. This state of heightened emotions leaves us aspiring for more of that divine love. What is that state of love, what is that state of emotion that makes the physical, spiritual and mental states come together. Surrendering oneself to the divine force brings that sacred numbness to our thoughts. All that matters is the Goddess within. 

The din of the surroundings are no longer heard, the jostling crowds no longer bother us, the darkness of the cave brings us closer to what is the potency of the goddess. Love isn’t just about sexuality, love is about intellect, love is about unpredictability, love is about miracles and love is about fearlessness. These emotions rule us and guide us, making us ever aware that a career in spiritualism is not a joke, it demands way more diligence from us … the question is are we ready to give it, are we capable of such love.

The poetry of Adi Shankar in the Soundarya Lahari can be taken as a sensual reproduction of the Goddess’s physical form. But what the Soundarya Lahari actually wants to convey is the power of the mystical beauty of the Goddess. It is not just about how she looks, it is about the nature of her power. The sacred SriChakra is her mystical embodiment, mixed with the essence of sacred syllables and offered to the fire. She is the one who glows in the heat of divine love, the one who raises the potency of sacred juices, the one who rules the mystical sciences of tantra, and the one who extracts the abstraction of divinity in miracles. 

Miracles are not a one of experience, they can be a regularity which means that life is transforming from within and people in the mundane don’t matter anymore. Worshipping her sacred feet delivers the power of the mystical arrows that adorn her toes. She is a throbbing energy that is within me, one that people can feel but cannot describe. The prescribed existence of human behaviour is questioned by the unpredictability of the spiritual universe, yes, these two worlds are not the same and when the rules of the spiritual world start to apply in the Maya  that we live in, the outcome is baffling, even to the Bhakta. Transformation in spiritualism is the maturity one achieves in the mind, in the body and in the soul after complete surrender. The meaning of surrender here is the complete acceptance and consciousness that the divine parent is her, and not our earthly parent, that we are here temporarily and we shall go, that the people we call family are lost souls brought together into a bond with rules that apply only in earthy relationship and in no other realm and finally that we are alone, we came here alone and we will leave alone. A long as this reality is achieved and all attachments broken, the essence of life, and death, and the soaring love between the understanding of these two events brings the much needed enlightenment into our otherwise insipid lives. 

Ritual worship is an outward expression of an inner desire to seek the supreme, the depth of one’s own emotion (if we are ever capable) stitched together with the bringing together of all our senses. 5 senses offer 5 elements to the Gods, fusing what is material with what is spiritual in the presence of sacred white fire. Miracles are the outcome of such worship, events that are unpredictable leaving us asking for more of such sacred occurrences. But to get here, one needs to give up fear, and the familiar. The question is - are we capable?

The Art of Information Architecture in Temple Architecture.

We have been told that Information Architecture tries to map the mental model of the end users. What is this mental model and are they really users? 

First let’s define whether they are “users” or “be-ers”. The idea of information architecture is to dive into the universe of what makes these people “BE” themselves rather than discover what they would “DO”, since they are what they are and they are not expected to do anything except just be themselves. 

Is information architecture about finding one’s way around a temple discovering its various parts or is it about understanding the underlying impact of one’s own psychology during this physical journey? Nothing explains this experience better than a trip down into the darkness of the ancient temple. The purpose of a temple served multiple needs, not only was it a place of social interaction in later years, its primary purpose was to unite the human side of a person with their God side! 

Let’s first probably agree we have a God side to us, the ancient structure re-enforced this inherent thought back to us. 

The basic actionable Information Architecture in temple architecture is the path of circumambulation around the main sanctum of the temple. The emblem of the supreme resides at the center and is visible in lamp light, a sacred fire that illuminates the little chamber, and the path around it is the single dedicated effort a person makes in all sincerity to worship the power of the supreme within. Is this enough to trigger the basic need of unconditional love towards the supreme - Bhakti! The ancients devised a far more complex strategy to ensure such emotion flowed as the user walked through the walls. 

Not only was the path defined as clockwise in all temples, but it was the basic need to demonstrate one’s sacred emotion of love to respect the power within in addition by circumambulating it. The combination of darkness and the rays of sunlight that decorated the inner chamber added to this experience, bringing a certain mysticism towards it. Small gaps in the ceiling of the temples enhanced the inner WOW experience within the mind of the be-er as they took the journey towards the self within these walls. 

Now, Information architecture was not just restricted to the path between the pillars, as the darkness grew and the sunlight reduced, the lamp lights lit up the interior into a make-belief heavenly world where the deities in their various exploits revealed themselves through the niches. These sculptures were not just about anybody, there was a whole science behind who stood within which niche and throughout the temples across the geography of India, these rules applied. 

If a Bhakta walked through the inner passage around the sanctum of a Shiva temple, they would see the forms of Ganesha, Devi, Nataraja, Lingodhbhava Shiva, Dakshinamurthy Shiva, Bhairava along the passage. These avatars are a must, and in addition to this, in the south the Bhakta silently associates with greater devotees like the Nayanars, 63 saintly poets in all who sang the praise of the Lord during their lifetimes. The idea of this experience being, they just didn’t walk through plain walls into darkness, their minds associate with the principle forms, connect with the undercurrent of the cult, understand its principle reasons for existence, its teachings, the core philosophy and relate to it at a far more powerful subtle level than just “doing” a walk around the sanctum. 

My understanding is that the essence of Information Architecture was far more resonant in the early ages of our ancients than what we apply today for the time to think and derive a method was that much more potent, essential and spot on. They didn’t focus on what people did, they focused on what people wanted to be and that is probably why best practices of Information Architecture during their time was far more effective that what we are building today, in the medium of digital. 

Strangely, rock brought home an in-depth feeling of comfort zone compared to digital of the present age and the resulting ROI was far more effective as it crossed centuries withstanding the test of time.

The Art of Wow Factors in Ancient India

While going through sacred texts I can’t but help draw a parallel between the works of Adi Shankaracharya in the Soundarya Lahari and the poetry of Bharavi in the Kiratarjuniya Mahakavya, both poets were contemporaries of each other ranging between the 6th century and 8th century. There was a flurry of activity in the world of literature and poetry at the time. Bharavi was the Pallava court poet with affluence even in the Chalukyan courts of the time. Adi Shankaracharya in comparison was an ascetic and yet both personalities dived into literature and poetry to showcase the depth of their devotion. Adi Shankara sang his poetry in the name of Kamakshi Amman of Kanchipuram while Bharavi cleverly combined the story of Arjuna and the hunter in the forest with Bhagirathi’s penance in the Descent of the Ganges, attributing his deep devotion in both stories to Lord Shiva. 

The panel of Mahabalipuram describes the story of Arjuna as the hunter who fights Lord Shiva and finally gains his confidence and is blessed with the Pasupatrastra to fight the Kauravas in war. In the same breath, Bhagirathi is also potentially inscribed on the same panel worshipping Lord Shiva (shown with the ganas) seeking his intervention to break Ganga's force when she descends to earth from the heavens. While there is a lot of politics sculpted on one side on this panel, there is a narrative that shows a hunter doing chores in the forest in a sculptured comic strip. They main focus though is Shiva, the largest overwhelming being on the sculptural panel.

Kiratarjuniya Panel, Mahabalipuram

So where is the wow factor in this elaborately carved out canvas in rock? The beauty in the panel is on display when it rains. The water collects at the top of the rocky panel (now blocked and filled with rubble!!) and flows down through the “river” carved into the rock right at the centre depicting the beautiful descent of the Ganges, reliving the poetry of the great Bharavi. The water falls into the pool below bring the large elephants back to life as they drink water from the pool. This experience is not just about viewing a panel coming to life but packed with a lot of spiritual and political meanings within the depictions of the panel. One can keep staring at the panel to just relive the moment as seen through the eyes of Bharavi. 

Let's move to the poetry of Adi Shankara in the Soundarya Lahari. He describes the sensuous beauty of the Goddess through his lines and at the same time prescribes the way to higher spiritual progress through the activation of the Kundalini Shakti. In the same breath he elaborates the various swarupas on the Goddess’s face as she blesses her devotees. The experience of shanta swarupa (peace), ghora swarupa (terrific), sounmya swarupa(happy) and most importantly, the movement of her eyes in her side glance has been greatly described in Adi Shankara’s poetry. The poetry itself comes with its rhythm and mystical flavour that brings devotion and power through the sounds embedded in individual verses. Here too there is a hidden wow factor, not in the poetry itself but in the experience of its knowledge while viewing the sacred Abhishekam of the deity at the temple of Kanchi. 

In the early hours of the morning, at the time of sunrise, the Goddess is given the sacred bath - Abhishekam. It is not just a sacred bath, it comes packed with an experience of pure bewilderment for the eyes to behold. And if you are well versed with the work of the great poet Shankara, you have signed up for an amazing experience of reliving the poet’s artistic work. Through a devotional experience of two hours at the temple, as the priests meticulously bathe the Goddess, she expresses her features. Pure water pouring over her form reveals her ghora rupa, the milk abhishekam reveals her shanta swarupam, and the sandalwood paste on her face reveals her Soumya swarupam. And just as we imbibe this magic of discovery, the priest takes the flame up to her face in Arti to reveal the side glance of her eyes, with a slight smile on her face. 

Is it the play of light or the genius of the sculptor to make such a ravishing form and almost brings her to life when light moves over her divine face. Its not just the breath taking beauty of her form and the symbolism of her love, but the very experience that she sits there alive and breathing in front of us, giving us the grace of this wonderful experience of her side glance.  

In both examples, the poets sang in praise producing great literary works and the sculptors brought their works to life in stone. Water was used as an essential ingredient to bring up the wow factor seasonally or daily in each case. And the experience was left in the hands of the viewer to imbibe and relive every time they looked at these phenomenal works of art that drove devotion, touching the emotions of the onlooker. Now this is pure user experience at play, when art, literature, mythology and lifestyle work hand in hand to bring an emotional experience embedded deep within the onlooker’s heart to life. 

Photo courtesy: www.holidify.com, Remote Traveler.

Time - A Concept apparently Understood but not Realised

They say the only constant is change.

Spiritually speaking there is a big flaw in this statement. On the face of it, it is as true as it can get but if we chose to deep dive, it will have a degree of inadequacy that we failed to see. 

Change starts with the knowledge of time, and in our world time governs every thing. It is in our nature to accept time as a part of our life so much that we have taken it for granted. We have never attempted to question what life would be like without it. That question is so difficult to answer. The idea of time is ingrained within us, as a part of our nature. On the surface it appears as a clock, but deep inside it far more vicious than that. If we could attempt to eliminate the concept of time from our ideology, we would see the world in a lot different way. 

Our very growth, from childhood to adolescence to youth to old age is a journey bound by time. But if you dig deeper into the concept, it is limited to the physical body. The physical body has an expiry date. It will last only that long and if we abuse it constantly it may not last as long as wished. And hence if we had to reduce the attachment we had to this physical body, bring down the importance of it, and run it like a sheath the notion of time as an overpowering reality ceases to exist as I am no longer the body. 

We can actually dig even deeper into this idea. Our relationships are equally time bound, not by death but by the nature of perception of the relationship. We are social yes, but each relationship has a flavour. Those who we thought we knew since childhood are potential strangers today. We don’t relate to some of them. And those with whom we build relationships, have their own lives to lead, hence the relationship itself can move from stranger > acquaintance > best friend > contempt (familiarity) > disagreement > distance > stranger. This journey that we do with people brings in an ageing of the relationship. It doesn’t always have to be negative as in the case of the previous example, but if it is positive and if we want to push the boundaries of the relationship itself, it can lead to bigger miracles unexplored by humans. Most relationships of (pure) love (not lust), where the love is a definition between a man and a woman, potentially move in the direction of unity as we are wired that way. It is in the nature of a human to love, and it is in the nature of a human to express that love physically, mentally, ideologically. But there too, the love has its age. The familiarity brings in the change. It is time bound, the relationship has a maturity - defined by time, whether it lasts or not is not the concern. The point is, the relationship goes through a journey, time bound journey with growth and maturity of the individual players and depending on each one’s capability to evolve, it teaches them new things or it enables them to tolerate each other. The bottom line is, what the relationship started out as and what it ended as are not the same thing. There is a journey and hence the relationship too is heavily dependent on time. 

The very nature of our existence needs questioning. The scriptures talk about 4 states, Brahmacharya, Grihasta, Vanaprastha, Sanyasa. These are essential states to go through before death, to enable us to reach the maturity to accept death. At birth we are alone, helpless and bewildered and at death too we have the same state. The in-between, is a time bound affair that is a set pattern handed down to us as the way of “optimal living” to evolve as human beings. While Sanyasa is given up as a practice unfortunately, old age is starting to look like a horrible monster that needs to be tamed. Each state has a significant learning to add to our maturity. 

I am actually going to apply the 4 D methodology of User Experience to define this. The first stage of life is Barhmacharya which is all about Discovery - of the self, of the others, of the world, of the tantalising nature of the opposite sex. It is overpowering and we succumb, we remain bewildered for a while. In fact we are not even taught how to question it or fight it, we are tuned to go right into it with great "pomp and show". 

The state of Grihasta is all about Defining - Who we are, what we want from life, what our dreams are, who we want to procreate with and take the seed of immortality further. Note, people may not find a purpose to life, but they definitely find purpose in a family. Our core animalistic purpose is to procreate and there is excitement to fulfil. We are incomplete without it, our potency is defined by it, it is a matter of pride. 

The third state is Vanaprastha, a state where we need to Design our path towards the inevitable. It is cyclic, mundane, every day looks the same. It borders on boredom as we are slaves of time. We start to fail here, because the core purpose of this state is to understand the purpose of the previous state and move on. To let the offspring fly off from the nest. To emotionally disconnect from owning the offspring. This stage is to bring the maturity that we need to move on, on our own, into silence, into the self. 

The last stage is Sanyasa, to Deliver oneself fully mature and ready to exit. There is no point fighting to keep the body running, there is no point fighting to stay in the family and there is no point to want to be relevant. We simply are not, not physically, not ideologically, we are not relevant and to come to terms with that truth is an art to be pursued in this stage. We are ready to be delivered to the next stage of existence, what ever it is for the body now is going to fall, the mind is going to cease and the soul will leave. 

This degree of maturity needs be arrived at and we are built to use the mind and the heart to do the right kind of evolving. Logic and emotion if controlled can surpass the illusion created by time because it is so subtle, it is difficult to work with. The true meaning of detachment is to look at time from a distance, to look at relationship from a distance and to look at the body from a distance as if none of these three aspects ever belonged to us. 

It is therefore possible to dive into the inner meaning of the self. The actual constant, is within us and it is not change or time. It is that state of mind which is NOT bound by time. That which is perennial. The Vigyana Bhairava Tantra tries to explain this state. The time we have from now to death, is to practice this way of life, to make death understandable. The outer bodily sheath has to be discarded, that is the rule of life. It is the evolution of the self to want to leave it and conquer the illusion of time that really matters. 

Conversations with the Dead

With every passing day of life and despite the integral presence of the mundane, (which is nice but I don’t always appreciate it) the thought that I am here for a limited period of time has not failed to cross my mind several times. I am still trying to grapple with the purpose of life, the basic reason for my existence and of course where am I headed from here. 

I have been immersed in the sacred scriptures, they are the source of all wisdom that has percolated into my mind. They are extremely enlightening in their poetic realm and yet I feel the lacuna, that I am not doing enough to answer this very deep and pertinent question. It has been even louder ever since two individuals left their earthly states, one who I loved dearly and one who I didn’t. They both affected me, in good and not so good ways. One ensured she remained relevant emotionally to me and the other ensured she messed with me completely, not intentionally though. They have left without a trace, owing nothing to the world and probably never to be remembered again. They had little to share materially and yet they had a significant impact on my mind.. the living mind. To keep it simple, let me refer to them as the good one and the lost one. 

What intrigues me is not just their exit, but the way they left their earthly sheath. The good one led a life of authority, keeping her herd together, ensuring the “family” didn’t break into nucleus bits. She guarded her fort ensuring no trouble from the outside and ensuring no trouble from the inside though she did come with a bus load of bias. She made rules and we toed the line. For all her autocracy which did get to her children at some point as they took pleasure in letting her know she needed to withdraw rather than govern, she did what she had to despite the inner opposition. Blamed, defamed and shot at almost every day, she ensured her pack stayed close to her taking all the brickbats in her stride. What mattered to her was a homogeneous family though that rule had started to fade quite a bit. What may have looked like an old age of turmoil, culminated into the most peaceful death within half an hour. She suffered no disease, she simply gave in to the call of death when it came… yes she had been waiting, we all had been waiting. She had not been super spiritual, she had deep attachments and she ensured she fed that desire well. She had outlived her time and yet it was the most peaceful exit that unfolded in front of our eyes. I held her hand one last time before she turned cold, she had left but her body remained plugged in at the hospital… just the mass of flesh breathing, the consciousness that was her had found its way out of her earthly sheath already.

In contrast, the lost one had been nothing but a trouble maker and maybe she didn’t even know how much of a trouble maker she was. She had given sleepless nights to many, created chaos in households and believed she wasn’t wrong at all. Spinster till death, she proclaimed to be the mystical one, the spiritual one and yes, we have crossed swords in the past. She defined her life differently, scoffed at the institution of marriage and the fall out that are children. Men were still her prey, and she craved for that attention. And yet, spiritualism for what ever reason was her definition of who she was. A master at communication with a charm that I could die for, yes she had a presence that couldn’t be ignored no matter how much I tried to push her out of my world. She came to haunt me in the weirdest of ways. For the spiritually inclined and one who had dedicated her life to Arunachala, apparently, her passing was a hell only she would have known how much she was subjected to. Lonely, misguided and with a host of physical ailments she fought her last war with the God of death, screaming her way through uncontrollable pain before she succumbed. She left me even more baffled, as the news of her last days trickled into my world. How or why was a person so mesmerised by the spiritual given such a torturous death? 

It has been a while since the passing of these two women, and yet their last days remains etched in my mind, keeps me speechless and makes me wonder about what impact the nature of the passing has with respect to the life we have chosen to lead. I wouldn’t believe it if we said, we have no control… we have all the control, we just need to define how we want to use it. It would be naive to believe that the one who was seeped in attachment of the family should have been granted a more painful death than the one seeped in spiritualism. And yet the reverse logic made me sit up and think, what exactly is the purpose of life and does it have an impact in the method of what death is inflicted on us. Death has intrigued me a lot more than life, and I have contemplated endless hours on the connect between these two realities. The life I live is incidental, what I make of my death is more important. And if I have to ensure the peaceful exit that I crave for, what would it take to fix the remaining of my life while the clock ticks on. 

I am still thinking, while the loud mundane shows its glamorous self to me I am trying very hard not to be enamoured by its presence. The silence that beats within my mind while I watch the chaos outside, is something I want to explore more… the answer lies there. I am here, you are here, we have a relationship undefined. Is there more to this connect or are we just spending our time coping with the mundane around us… its a decision we need to take, now, seriously to ensure a little that we have some answer to our earthly presence before we let go this sheath. The question really is do we fight the Lord of death, or embrace him. 

The Dilution in the Institution of Marriage

Originally, when this ideology was formulated there were 4 stages to living that were tuned towards the overall development of a person from Birth to Death. These 4 stages were conditioned to enable comfortable exit from life once a person had led it “to the fullest”. It started with Gurukula, Grihasta, Vanaprasta and Sanyasa as a broad classification that covered a range of years in the person’s lifetime. Along the way, gurukula was a must have for men and a nice to have for women but Grihasta dominated the whole social landscape so much so that Vanaprastha and Sanyasa are unheard of in today’s lifestyle, in fact they may be ridiculed. 

Its unfortunate, but the need to live with one's own self has been overshadowed by the need for companionship. Grihasta is integral to the social system for it ensures procreation, immortality in some form by the extension of the genes. It doesn’t focus on the inner development of each individual in the relationship and the outcome on the relationship there after. Following a set of rules for comfortable living isn’t exactly living life to the fullest. Knowing one's own nature, coming to terms with it and attempting to live with one’s own self is far more challenging that just leading a mundane existence by following a set of rules. In fact, it may just get restrictive. Everyone is growing old, a day less towards their exit with every rising sun. Self discovery, self stress, self love, and self preservation do take precedence but it doesn’t appear as if we are getting any wiser with age. Yes, the metamorphosis from youth to old age happens anyway without our consent, and we are left coping with it, trying to appear young and acceptable to the world around us, in an inner desperation for acceptance in the familiar world.  

Why is it so difficult to acknowledge old age? Why is it a larger nightmare to face than death itself. I have seen people struggle to be wanted, to be of “use”, escapists from the dignity of isolated living. We eventually are thrown there anyway by the younger less respecting folk in the family. In a changing universe of fewer human principles of good living and larger tilt towards greed, how can we claim to be superior when we are tumbling down into the very marsh of inferior thinking. 

Two people meet and decide to join forces to lead a life, procreation ensures a bond and progeny. The deed is done, stability largely has been achieved on the exterior. What about self growth, what about the challenges of dealing with one’s own self, the inner aspirations that haunt us while the outer social rules prove challenging to accept our way of thinking or being. I have seen a lot of people go through stress post 40, when they take on the baton of responsibility, when the older and the younger are dependent on them emotionally or financially. Added to that is the compatibility quotient between the pair. Even if it strikes a full 100% is that called complete living or is it convenient and are people missing a larger point altogether? Any one of the pair will quit sooner than the other, what happens then? Why is the mind so stitched into heavy emotional dependency outside of oneself when the hard truth at the end of the road is - you die alone, you can’t quite take your companion with you!

People change as they grow up, they may not remain the same for too long. As they discover themselves through the call of fate, they realise deeper aspects of living along the way. The same companion may not have done that distance hence that maturity to understand the change is not achieved. What degree of hypocrisy does the relationship face when one can’t share one’s own learning curve with the companion who apparently started out as a soul mate. This puts a lot of question on the permanence of marriage as an ideology. Clearly it was not meant to be a permanent affair as self growth and realisation at some point overshadows procreation which is done and dusted. Is the mundane the only way to lead life? I don’t think so, there is a lot more to discover about oneself beyond stability and procreation which unfortunately will not be achieved if inner contemplation isn’t exercised, given the looming presence of old age. 

Vanaprastha has unfortunately taken a turn for the worse. While there are old age homes cropping up everywhere the intent appears extremely negative as discarding of the older folk because of their lack of usefulness and greater irritable presence. Compare that to a decision taken by the elderly to lead a dignified old age in isolation, on their own. Vanaprastha is not as much a physical shift from the family but an emotional and mental shift of disconnection. The larger nightmare of old age sees quite a bit of uncertainty in one’s life. In the ancient times, Vanaprastha was meant to solve this very discord in the mind, but it has been done away with by society for all the wrong reasons. So is society right when things change for the worse and none of us can individually control it. Be it heightened interest in materialism or abysmal interest in goodwill, this society has done nothing right to enable itself to get wiser. So how do we claim to be superior except by feeding our egoistic nature within the same pool of crabs? Are we just not ridiculous as a species?

Sanyasa, a state of non expectation, a state of wisdom with detachment towards the madness around us is the perfect place to reach before death. Unfortunately neither the environment nor the self drive enables us to reach there. With the given landscape a peaceful death will only remain a far fetched dream… leave alone the need for accomplishment. No wonder… there are no Sages in our times…. 

Faith - A Subtle Lesson in the Spiritual World.

I wonder sometimes why spiritualism has not active takers, true seekers I mean. I realise one has to be as close as sage like, confronting every thought or concept around oneself. It takes a combination of intellect and emotional unconditional love to want to even understand the other side, leave alone getting there. I am trying to understand what about it makes it so inaccessible and gives us a feeling of always falling short. 

When I look at the world around me I see people just going about their lives not realising half it's potential. Is there something more than what is visible? I would say - actually Yes! But it is so subtle that it can't even be put in words leave alone being proven. Somethings about human life are greater than proving, they don't need proof to support their presence. They are, and it is our luck if we choose to experience their potential. It's like having a beautiful plant in our backyard. Chances are we never took notice of it, we have never seen it's beauty up close, experienced it's fragrance or realised it's magic but when we do, we tend to appreciate it's presence and come to understand how much we missed it all along. Well, it was always there, we just wasted time not noticing it because we considered something else way more important... for what ever reason. 

But is that really the problem? The fact that ignorance stems from not realising that we got stuck way too deep in the mundane. Yes, we can bring spice to our lives by questioning the mundane every now and then but when we start living that life, things start to change. Let’s take the same beautiful flower in the backyard. We now know it exists and it blooms every now and then but we haven’t found the time to go and spend with it. If we dedicated time to the plant, spent time with it, tended it and spoke to it and most important of all, loved it… the garden starts to look a lot more different. There is magic in there, magic we didn’t think even existed until we chose to be a part of it. This little paradise, is an extension of what our mind can do, and how it can transform the world around it, if it chose to. 

Similarly, with a mix of discipline, strong belief system and love for the divine, a lot can change. The Gods may not respond like a flower feeding our senses openly but they certainly ensure we got the point, subtly. When this change occurs it looks like a coincidence, but when they come one after the other it becomes a way of life. Miracles happen in succession and realising that change brings a host of possibilities around human potential. 

The quote "when you want something, the universe conspires to get it for you", actually starts to work here. It is a combination of our change in tune with the universe around us and that we affect it is a big deal... But it also brings with it a certain departure from the familiar world and that tends to instil fear till we are really comfortable with it. The idea is to see truth in the face, to accept everything - good and bad - as a way of life with not an ounce of discrimination (like looking at a rose and a dead body in the same light, we will mostly find them together but our mind will make the difference), thereby eliminating dualism altogether. This is when the real questioning starts to happen and we have to be really ready for the answers. We have questioned - yes, but do we have the courage to face the answer, most likely - no. 

This is where I was originally wrong, I believed people would jump to have such an experience. Apparently I was wrong, very wrong! For one, most people don’t seem to realise what they are missing, the few who do are grappling with “what just happened” and trying to seek explanation. While there are none within the purview of our limited language, it is subtle and that acceptance over a period of time starts to work on the fear we have. It is this fear that becomes our greatest enemy. It took me ages to get here, while I believed largely that I was considerably fearless, I wasn’t completely there. Its a deep sense of inadequacy and fear that we need to get over to even qualify to go to the other side, leave alone achieving things. And while most of the world around us hasn’t even reached this realm of understanding, those who have managed are struggling with self incompetence. There is the other crowd that is waiting endlessly for the magical guru to show up not realising that when we are potentially ready, they will come, but to get there, there is only one way forward - self help. 

I have had the luck of divine intervention in strange ways, when ever I was losing my focus, something would always bring me back to this. And yet that fear lurks. When the great saints say - look within - they are essentially telling us, unleash that unconditional love with you for it is the only answer to the fear we harbour. Unfortunately, the fear shouts out louder and the unconditional love is quite lost in this din. This is hoping that we have already put the noise of the mundane to rest. The inner fear of the unfamiliar, is a great place to start the investment on practicing courage, to face anything that comes through the world of contemplation. The only trump card we hold is Bhakti/faith/devotion, to want to be with the Gods no matter what hell should come in the way. Are we ready for that kind of a commitment… its continues to remain an unfortunate struggle and even a Guru may not be able to bail us out of this... because metamorphosis is a lonely journey.