... of a primitive religion. Only, out of the sameness of experience and out of the impersonality of the knowledge received, there arise a fixed body of conceptions constantly repeated and a fixed symbolic language which, perhaps, in that early human speech, was the inevitable form of these conceptions because alone capable by its combined concreteness and power of mystic suggestion of expressing that which... which might be expressed in the formula, "the Veda for the priests, the Vedanta for the sages." The second tendency of the Vedantic movement was to disencumber itself progressively of the symbolic language, the veil of concrete myth and poetic figure, in which the Mystics had shrouded their thought and to substitute a clearer statement and more philosophical language. The complete evolution of this... the inspired verses of Vasishtha and Vishwamitra. 3 The Vedas, becoming less and less the in dispensable basis of education, were no longer studied with the same zeal and intelligence; their symbolic language, ceasing to be used, lost the remnant of its inner sense to new generations whose whole manner of thought was different from that of the Vedic forefathers. The Ages of Intuition were passing away ...
... subtlised that it was often expressed in symbolic language, and this symbolism was shared by numerous initiates and practitioners of yoga. This symbolic language was also used in assemblies of seekers of yogic knowledge, and many could benefit from the exchange of the funds of yogic knowledge that seekers were developing through dialogues in which the symbolic language was commonly used. .3. The Rishis ...
... on the other side the idea or force that the image or sign is meant to signify. "The condition for the valid use of symbolic language is", writes W. T. Stace, "that both terms should be in some sense present to the mind...It is not necessary that the meaning of the symbolic language, or symbolizandum, should be clearly before the mind. It may be only dimly and faintly apprehended in the borderlands ...
... and the power of its evocative Word. Usage of symbols forms the most important element of Savitri's poetic technique. Indeed, it brings nearer to us the presence of the Divine. Through symbolic language the poet gives rapturous expression to things inaccessible to our immediate experience. Symbols in Savitri come with their truth-revealing power. There are several categories of images in the ...
... into pure mastery; it is the gate of union with the supreme state of Sachchidananda out of which all the activities of the world are born. But here we must take care to avoid the pitfalls of symbolic language. The use of the words dream and sleep for these higher states is nothing but an image drawn from the experience of the normal physical mind with regard to planes in which it is not at home. It ...
... But it must be an integral exaltation. All the joys that the human being seeks with his desire, all the active energies of his waking consciousness,—his days, as it is expressed in the brief symbolic language of the Veda,—must be uplifted to that higher plane. By vanāni are meant the receptive sensations seeking in all objectivities the Ananda whose quest is their reason for existence. These, too ...
... ground. They cast no shadow. But Nala's feet stand on the ground, he has a shadow, his garland is fading, one can see sweat on his forehead and dust on his body, and his eyes blink. What does this symbolic language signify? Page 17 Gods are stable, immobile, always luminous, invariably harmonious. Time does not change them, struggle does not affect them. In a word, these gods belong to a static ...
... quoting Sri Aurobindo to himself. (Laughter) SRI AUROBINDO: The Upanishads came after the Vedas and they put in more plain language the same truth that was in the Veda. In the Veda it is in symbolic language. But the Upanishads, of course, are equally great. Even in the Veda there are passages which clearly show that the Vedantic or Upanishadic truth was contained in it. It is surprising that scholars ...
... everything else an intense mental concentration which ruthlessly eliminates all idle wandering of mind. A peu pr è s is banished for ever from the kingdom of mathematics, and the very nature of the symbolic language used in this realm forces one to practise an arduous intellectual gymnastic. Here, all scope for self-illusion is immediately rooted out. In fact, an absolute intellectual integrity and a dis ...
... not any departure from the Vedic mind but a continuation and development and to a certain extent an enlarging transformation. They bring out into open expression what was held covered in the symbolic language of the Veda as a mystery and a secret. Ajataśatru's explanation of sleep and dream, passages of the Praśna Upanishad on the vital being and its motion are some of the examples of Upanishadic symbolism ...
... place. By way of comment, we may say that there is no doubt that both in the Veda and in the Upanishads, the spiritual experiences on which the Sankhya philosophy was based was stated in symbolic language. We may refer to an important verse in this connection which occurs in Rig Veda, 17 and this verse is repeated in the Mundaka Upanishad with two more verses. 18 These verses are also to be ...
... which is the profoundest of the Upanishads; it is subtle and extraordinarily rich in rare philosophical suggestions and delicate psychology; its ideas are formulated in a highly figurative and symbolic language, which is for us an obscuring veil. The very first part of the Upanishad is a description of the Horse of the ashwamedha, and it sets the key to the Upanishad. The Horse-sacrifice, ashwamedha ...
... Only a rough outline can be attempted here. Veda speaks of "knowledge", "consciousness", " unconsciousness ", "will "thought", "understanding", "truth", "right" etc. It expresses its vision in symbolic language which is a puzzle to the modern mind. The use of terms bearing psychological significance shows that the Vedic age was far from primitive. For example, words such as Dhi, Manas, Buddha. Chetana ...
... vast Truth Brihaspati and Indra lead upward the shining Herds. With these conceptions clearly fixed in our minds we shall be able to understand the verses of Vamadeva which only repeat in symbolic language the substance of the thought expressed more openly by Parashara. It is to Agni the Seer-Will that Vamadeva's opening hymns are addressed. He is hymned as the friend or builder of man's sacrifice ...
... he says that Hades and Dionysus are the same, is he simply discouraging the drinking of wine as fatal to the health! Evidently he employs here, as always, a figurative Page 218 and symbolic language because he has to convey a deeper thought for which he finds ordinary language too poor and superficial. Heraclitus is using the old language of the Mysteries, though in his own new way and ...
... towards a mystical world-view: all depends on the implications of the mathematical structure it regards as final. The terms employed are not abstract symbols as in pure mathematics: they are a symbolic language interrelating, at the end of a long or short process of deduction, actualities of observation and experience. In physics, unless the contrary is proved, every formula of Page 23 ...
... the ancient tale of Savitri is charged with the contents of physical transformation; but then we also see that many details it has given in its swift narrative are only in a suggestive or symbolic language. Let us take an example. This pertains to Savitri's winning the singular boon of Satyavan's life from Yama. Now if we remember that the Vedic Yama is an immortal who drinks ambrosia under the ...
... into pure mastery; it is the gate of union with the supreme state of Sachchidananda out of which all the activities of the world are born. But here we must take care to avoid the pitfalls of symbolic language. The use of the words dream and sleep for these higher states is nothing but an image drawn from the experience of the normal physical mind with regard to planes in which it is not at home. ...
... therefore, that the wise ones living in the company of the primitive people, wishing to keep a safe line of communication with them, were led to express the results of their profound quests in a symbolic language. This would happen more imperatively, if the wise mystics knew that there was no fundamental contradiction between the real truth of the universe and the apparent manifestations of these truths ...
... towards asceticism and renunciation. The Vedic Rishis had developed a symbolical language which abounded with the veil of concrete myth and poetic figure; the Upanishadic Rishis adopted less symbolic language and arrived at a clearer statement and more philosophical Page 21 language. In due course, Upanishads became a fountainhead of the highest Indian thought and replaced the inspired ...
... the divine; it gives it a strange charm which partakes of the body and of the spirit. Shiva's well-known marks, such as his blue throat, his moon-crescent, his third eye, which are part of a symbolic language and normally pertain to mythological stories or religious discourse, here are evoked by Parvati as things of physical beauty for which she pines, which she desires to see, to touch, to caress ...
... the opening canto, "...rapid transitions from one image to another are a constant feature in Savitri as in most mystic poetry." 145 Besides the 'thematic content' and the symbolic language, there is the third element in overhead (indeed, all) poetry, namely the rhythm. The poetic line is really the miraculous fusion of idea, language and rhythm, and while we may no doubt desperately ...
... and a name', so that it ceases to be airy nothing." 189 A poet like Sri Aurobindo who is engaged in communicating spiritual experiences and truths has a special need for metaphorical and symbolic language, for it is through such language alone that he can sting us into excitement and expectancy, and induce a condition that may prove responsive to the impact of 'news' from God, messages from the ...
... speaking, so you know what he says and what to make of it. In other cases of ancient scriptures like the Vedas and the Upanishads also, the difficulty is that they have expressed themselves in symbolic language, and now the explanation of the symbol is so difficult that somebody is required to explain the symbol. And there are differences in the explanations. But the Gita is an exception. The Gita is ...
... subliminal sense can be confusing or misleading, especially if it is interpreted by the outer mind to which the secret of its operations is unknown and its principles of sign-construction and symbolic figure-languages foreign; a greater inner power of intuition, tact, discrimination is needed to judge and interpret rightly its images and experiences. It is still the fact that they add immensely to our... very constant, vast and vivid, of their impacts, suggestions, communications to our inner thought and conscious being and a capacity of reaction upon them there, partly also through many kinds of symbolic, transcriptive or representative images presented to the different psychical senses. But also there is the possibility of a more direct, concretely sensible, almost material, sometimes actively... vibrations of things beyond the restricted range of the physical senses or belonging to other planes or spheres of existence. This inner sense can create or present images, scenes, sounds that are symbolic rather than actual or that represent possibilities in formation, suggestions, thoughts, ideas, intentions of other beings, image-forms also of powers or potentialities in universal Nature; there ...
... Upanishads, offers peculiar difficulties to the modern mind. If its ideas are remote from us, its language is still more remote. Profound, subtle, extraordinarily rich in rare philosophical suggestions and delicate psychology, it has preferred to couch its ideas in a highly figurative and symbolical language, which to its contemporaries, accustomed to this suggestive dialect, must have seemed a noble frame... material symbol, medium & basis of all activities of knowledge, sarvani vijnanavijrimbhitani. He will recognise also the meghadhwani, one of the characteristic sounds heard in the concentration of Yoga, symbolical of kshatratejas and physically indicative of force gathering itself for action. The first image is therefore an image of knowledge expressing itself in matter, the second is an image of power expressing... frame for its riches, but meets us rather as an obscuring veil. To draw aside this curtain, to translate the old Vedic language and figures into the form contemporary thought prefers to give to its ideas is the sole object of this commentary. The task is necessarily a little hazardous. It would have been easy merely to reproduce the thoughts & interpretations of Shankara in the modern tongue—if there ...
... confusing or mis-leading, especially if it is interpreted by the outer mind to which the secret of its operations is unknown and its principle of sign construction Page 20 and symbolic figure languages is foreign. Advanced occultists and wise mystics, therefore, counsel the need to develop a greater inner power of intuition, tact and discrimination. As pointed out above, subliminal ...
... the human sadhaka in the fresh spiritual position or abiding place he has gained in the progress of his yoga. क्षय is frequently turned in Page 391 this sense by the figurative & symbolical language of the Vedas. Or else it may be that Dakshina seeks certainty of knowledge (compare विचिकित्सा) for the firm establishment of the mind in its gettings. [11] [RV I.176] I. 176 यस्य... offering of” would be a forced and indeed impossible construction in Sanscrit. To interpret “a libation consisting of them” would be to contradict the spirit of the Sanscrit language which does not admit such a loose form of language. A cup of gold is possible in English, स्वर्णस्य पात्रम् is not possible in Sanscrit. On the other hand the other two senses are both of them perfectly straightforward & sensible... of enlightenment. It would be perfectly legitimate to assign this sense to the word and we may even say that it must, in the origins of the Sanscrit language, have borne it for a time; but it is a question of fact whether it still bore it in the language of the Veda. It is, I think, necessary to take it so here, because of yasya. If vipra meant the seer, we should have yam & not yasya. As it is, vipram ...
... or modified condition and arrangement, the difference effected constituting result. Oxygen & hydrogen as separately manifest gases, the atmosphere, the ether,—or to put it in the old concrete symbolical language of Indian philosophy, the combined presence of Agni, Vayu and Akasha, form in their arranged shapes & relations the preexistent condition; contact & mixture of the two forces with the new vibrations... its possession in being of cosmic self-knowledge and effects in force of self-knowledge figures of Its own concealed & unknowable reality. We see, then, that all becoming in universe is a formal or symbolic manifestation of unknowable God or Brahman effected by Tapas, by the dwelling of self-knowledge on latent truth of being & the consequent forcing it out of its latency in figure of truth for the joy... it dwells cavern-housed, guhahita, we Page 541 imply,—Chaitanya & Ananda, Consciousness & Bliss being one entity,—that Brahman as Ananda, as Self-Delight, fixes on that figure for Its symbolic self-expression. What God delights in, that is His will-to-be in cosmos, that becomes. In the more ancient Vedic terminology this divine principle of Ananda was designated sometimes as mayas, a word ...
... subliminal sense can be confusing or misleading, especially if it is interpreted by the outer mind to which the secret of its operations is unknown and its principles of sign construction and symbolic figure-languages foreign; a greater inner power of intuition, tact, discrimination is needed to judge and interpret rightly its images and experiences. It is still the fact that they add immensely to our possible... vibrations of things beyond the restricted range of the physical senses or belonging to other planes or spheres of existence. This inner sense can create or present images, scenes, sounds that are symbolic rather than actual or that represent possibilities in formation, suggestions, thoughts, ideas, intentions of other beings, image forms also of powers or potentialities in universal Nature; there is ...
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