Transcript of Eco-Aesthetics and the Poetry of Longing, with Rick Jarow

You’ll be able to hearken to the unique podcast right here

Michael Taft: Welcome to Deconstructing Your self, the podcast for metamodern mutants thinking about meditation, neuroscience, Dzogchen, jazz, Tantra, philosophy, awakening, and far, far more. My identify is Michael Taft, your host on the podcast, and on this episode, I’m pleased to be talking with my good good friend, Rick Jarow.

Rick Jarow Ph.D. is an writer, instructor, and scholar of Indian languages and literature. Not too long ago retired from his place as a Non secular Research professor at Vassar Faculty in New York, Rick leads workshops and retreats worldwide. His books embody: In Search of the Sacred, Tales for the Dying, and a brand new work: The Cloud of Longing: A New Translation and Eco-Aesthetic Research of Kalidasa’s Meghaduta. And now with out additional ado, I provide the episode that I name “Eco-Aesthetics and the Poetry of Longing, with Rick Jarow.”

Michael Taft: Rick, welcome to the Deconstructing Your self podcast.

Rick Jarow: Thanks. Thanks. Nice to be right here.

MT: It’s nice to have you ever right here. I’ve been eager to have you ever on the present for years, actually for the reason that very first one. And so in the end, I’ve reached out with my cosmic microphone and captured you right here in audio format. 

RJ: Alright. 

MT: In order you nicely know, and as listeners know, this isn’t like a e-book interview podcast. We simply don’t actually try this. Nevertheless, the nominal excuse for having you on the present is your new e-book referred to as The Cloud of Longing: A New Translation and Eco-aesthetic Research of Kalidasa’s Meghaduta. And that’s printed by Oxford College Press. So simply because this can be a fascinating subject what’s Kalidasa’s Meghaduta?

RJ: Kalidasa’s Meghaduta interprets actually as The Cloud Messenger. Meghaduta, or cloud messenger, is a couple of yaksha, who’s a semi-divine being.

MT: So, like an earth spirit, proper? 

RJ: It’s not clear really, they’re tree spirits. A few of them are impishly enjoyable, and a few of them are positively evil. They’ve been stated to eat youngsters. So (laughter) there’s a complete type of custom of yakshas.

MT: So, it’s type of like fairies the place they’re naughty and good.

RJ: Yeah, yeah. This specific one is exiled on a mountain by his Lord Kubera, the Lord of Wealth. The explanation for the exile isn’t fairly clear. However the yaksha is deeply pining for his beloved who’s again house, and sees a cloud within the sky and begins telling the cloud, please ship a message to my beloved, and right here’s the route it’s best to take. And the substance of the poem is the yaksha detailing, very particularly, the route that the cloud ought to take by means of the landscapes of India. In order that’s the body.

MT: And so it’s obtained this very conventional setting of Sanskrit poetry which is separated lovers.

RJ: Sure, this specific poem is known as a Khandakavya or a shortened epic poem, or shortened lyric poem. And the theme of separation in love is all around the custom. And instantly, on the first verse, the poem invokes Rama and Sita who’re the divine separated lovers. So it’s on this context.

MT: However as I perceive it, it’s odd in that context, as a result of virtually not one of the poem is in regards to the separated lovers. As a substitute, it’s all in regards to the panorama of India.

RJ: Nicely, it’s each and that’s the genius to me that the panorama is just not completely different from the emotion, is just not completely different from the story. It’s an animated panorama, which is reflecting the anguish and the craving of this yaksha and permitting him to see issues in a really animated means.

MT: Now, this poem has been well-known since like 400 AD.

RJ:  Sure, yeah. 

MT: And what’s so fantastic about it that it stood out in all of the literature?

RJ: There are some things. One is: Kalidasa is like Shakespeare; he has that type of model energy. But it surely’s additionally hauntingly lovely poetry; the mix of sound and sense. The meter it’s written in is known as mandākrāntā, which implies gently stepping and is reserved for issues of pathos and love and separation. And I might additionally enterprise to say that it has retained recognition as a result of it gives such a novel imaginative and prescient of the pure world, that’s what attracted me. It’s an interfacing of language, love, and nature.

MT: And is that what you imply within the subtitle with this phrase, eco-aesthetic?

RJ: Sure, as a result of the panorama which incorporates birds, and animals, and people, and mountains, and rivers, is a part of the aesthetic venture. And to grasp that you must return to the roots of Sanskrit custom, significantly the Aitareya Upanishad which says, Raso Vai Saḥ, that he or God is Ras, or is the ebullient move of feeling. And so the Meghaduta is Ras par excellence. In truth, after I was engaged on this poem in India, there have been individuals who informed me a couple of professor who used to show the Meghaduta at Banaras Hindu College and was by no means capable of get previous the primary verse as a result of he’d go into ecstasy. (laughter) And that was thought-about an excellent factor by my colleagues in India. So it’s the aesthetic darshan, if you’ll, that I feel provides it its juice and enduring energy.

MT: Now, I’m curious, since you’ve talked about the meter and the way in which it sounds and so forth, do you are feeling any of that comes by means of in English? Or is that totally misplaced? And whether it is, then what stays?

RJ: That’s a very good query. And after I was a scholar of William Theodore de Bary at Columbia, he used to make this be aware with the Bible, he stated, “Look, the Bible is written in Aramaic. We learn it in English, however we’re nonetheless affected by it.” So it’s not essentially the language, though understanding the language definitely provides you one other dimension. However I feel it really works in English as a result of what he’s talking about is common. All of us have expertise of timber and birds and the daybreak and the mountains. So it gives you a method to see the pure world, and I simply do my finest to convey it in a means that makes some sense in English with out dishonoring the unique. It’s not mantra. Mantra relies upon the precise syllables and pronunciation, kavya is one thing else.

MT: And after we’re listening or studying kavya, how are we meant to strategy a poem like this?

RJ: Nicely, that’s one other thorny query as a result of one factor: the Western observe of studying in non-public, didn’t exist. At this level, poems and songs had been all communal, recited in teams, and kavya is believed to be early courtroom poetry. So it was recited on the courtroom, that’s as a lot as we all know of its so-called unique context.

MT: So it’d be learn aloud in entrance of all of the lords and women, basically.

RJ: Sure, sure.

MT: So provided that we’re not lords and women, and we’re most likely not going to even learn it aloud to one another very a lot anyway, once you translate a poem like this, how are you imagining the reader participating it?

RJ: I don’t, I might be within the College of Jack Kerouac, who mainly says, for those who simply write spontaneously from what’s inside you, it’ll talk. And so I really feel if I can translate this Saharidaya–with coronary heart–which is what the custom says how it’s best to learn, then it’ll talk. And that’s the entire level of the aesthetic custom is that no person ever requested, What does this poem imply? Nobody ever requested that query. In classical Indian aesthetics it’s, What does it style like? And that style, which is rasa, or ras in Hindi, is what’s essential.

MT: So we’re not within the economics of fourth-century, India. 

RJ: Precisely. 

MT: Yeah. And so what does this poem style like?

RJ: Ahhh. It’s stated by the custom to be karuna, which interprets as compassion. But it surely’s extra like an ongoing vibration of a extremely magnified heartache, which magnifies the world round you to such a level that it turns into only a pageant of bliss. And this mixture of blissfulness and anguish is deeply encoded inside what’s referred to as Sambogha and Vipralambha Shringara, the rasa of affection.

MT: Are you able to inform us extra about that? 

RJ: Hmmm. Nicely, in line with the aesthetic custom, there are 9 particular rasas, or tastes, that come by means of not simply poetry, however any murals. They usually can mix. Nevertheless, it’s not simply an emotional style, it’s one thing deeper, it’s the concept rarefied, refined, emotional connection is Brahma Swada–provides you the style of absolutely the, Raso Vai Saha, Taittiriya. Upanishad. Sahadic Divine is rasa, is the move of feeling. So the style is claimed to be considered one of akshipta, it’s overwhelming. When the guts is overwhelmed, then there are tears, then you definitely get goosebumps, then you definitely roll on the ground. That’s the type of means individuals learn this. In truth, after I learn this a couple of occasions in India, they noticed like how I used to be studying, was I studying clinically? Or was I studying from the guts? That was like the massive factor that they had been in search of. Not, did he translate that accurately? Does he perceive the ras?

MT: Yeah, so in our personal tradition in comparatively considerably current occasions, it jogs my memory of one thing like bebop horn gamers. Or as you introduced up the Beats, or one thing, the place it’s primarily in regards to the feeling.

RJ: Sure, it’s all in regards to the feeling. But it surely’s not merely feeling, like if Plato made a sandwich of feeling and being, it’s one thing like this. And one of the simplest ways I might describe it’s: think about {that a} horrible factor occurs in your neighborhood, a automobile runs over a child, that’s horrible. We’re all upset, we write within the newspaper, we go to the funerals, we’ve obtained to vary the visitors legal guidelines, all this. However, for those who see a film a couple of automobile working over a child, it abstracts it from the concrete exterior and brings it into the purity of that feeling itself. And that’s what rasa is meant to do. And what’s actually fascinating is that the issues that assist create rasa are issues just like the springtime, the clouds, the flowers, the pure world is about to be of Vyabhicāri, an adjunct that helps create this divine temper.

MT: It’s so fascinating, as a result of we might run into stuff like this, maybe in a Judeo-Christian context, there will be a few of it. However within the trendy West, in Hindu or Buddhist traditions, significantly Buddhist traditions, there’s not quite a lot of this sense tone sort of labor occurring, you realize, it tends to be barely, or possibly not so barely, extra psychological and scientific and considerably chilly, proper? Even when it’s meant to be emotional, like one thing like a metta observe or a Brahma Vihara observe can come off as somewhat bit rote and somewhat bit sterile.

RJ: Yeah. The one place I do know of the place there was a mix of the Buddhist custom and aesthetic coming collectively was in Japan, not solely Zen however the Tantric practices in Japan, which contain all types of paintings and template constructing, and haiku poetry. 

MT: Nicely, and we get the identical factor in Vajrayana in Bengal, and in addition Vajrayana in Tibet, the place each male or feminine grasp is writing a track of awakening or a joyous celebration of liberation poem, or no matter. The poetry custom is admittedly reasonably huge. 

RJ: Yeah. 

MT: And it’s meant to be a part of observe and but, doesn’t appear to be used fairly that means. I imply, even after we’re studying these poems had been slogging by means of the literal translation, and there doesn’t appear to be a lot of an try and typically, a minimum of that I’ve seen, to actually faucet the barrel of ras there and begin to really feel it. Actually let your coronary heart swell with it.

RJ: Yeah, nicely, the place does it come from? The Sanskrit aesthetic custom goes again to the Vedic custom, which was all poems. I imply, all of the Vedic mantras are additionally poems, they usually’re not simply private poems, however they’re poems of providing to the divinities of nature. And I might see Kavya as an offspring of that. So you’ve gotten a younger 11-year-old Ramakrishna, who sees a cloud within the sky and faints in ecstasy. That will be thought-about possibly irresponsible in sure Western establishments. However within the aesthetic traditions of India, he’s thought-about a Rasika, somebody who was actually capable of style the ras.

MT: And this can be a Meghavarnam context? Like he’s seeing the cloud because the limbs of–or the colour–of Krishna.

RJ: He by no means says, he by no means says. Earlier, there was one other saint Madhavendra Puri, who did see the cloud as Krishna as a result of his physique is claimed to be the colour of a darkish rain cloud. 

MT: Yeah. Identical as Vishnu. 

RJ: In Zen, these could be seen because the inciters to ras, the blossoms in spring, and the wind blowing by means of the timber, and the birds within the sky. These are all serving to to create the ras. And so nature turns into a companion in the way in which of the guts, which I feel is admittedly highly effective, as a result of nonetheless within the West, when individuals take into consideration the way in which of the guts, they’re typically both desirous about romantic love, or some type of sentimental relationship with the world, versus the depth of it, that goes past preferences, or likes, or dislikes and integrates the world. That’s what’s so highly effective for me. It’s not an enlightenment. That’s why I name it a Tantric sensibility. It’s not a state that’s past the pure world. It’s a state that’s a part of the incorporation of the pure world. 

We do have, within the Western custom, a minimum of one story that type of reveals what’s occurring, in that, when Rabbi Akiva and his three of 4 mystical companions went on this journey to the Holy of Holies. After which they got here out and one killed himself, one gave up the religion, one went insane. And Akiva is the one one who stayed, quote, usually alive. 

So for lots of of years, the rabbis requested what did they see what occurred? What was the massive deal? And what they got here up with was that when Akiva went to the Holy of Holies, what he noticed was this grass, timber, clouds, everybody else was anticipating one thing. However Akiva realized that that is it, you realize, and that was past the comprehension of the non-poetic world. 

And curiously, Akiva was the one who insisted on holding the Music of Solomon, the Music of Songs within the Bible, whereas the opposite editors had been stated to say, Oh, what’s this doing right here? What are these love songs doing in a religious and spiritual textual content? So, the place is the house of the aesthetic? Is it one thing decrease that you just come out of? Is it one thing that may take you increased? One thing like that’s occurring for me. 

MT: How would you are feeling about studying a few your favourite verses of this in Sanskrit and simply giving us their English that means?

RJ: One factor, although, that I’ll point out is, why did I need to do that? How did this occur? Barbara Stoler Miller, who was the premier translator of Sanskrit poetry for her technology, and I first noticed her she was giving a speak about Kalidasa. And when she talked about Kalidasa’s identify, I noticed a superb royal blue gentle throughout her. And I simply thought to myself, holy shit, she is receiving transmission. She’s not simply an instructional; they’re coming by means of her. And certainly, when she translated any textual content, she would at all times gentle a candle to the writer of that textual content, simply to acknowledge the place it’s coming from. In order that was type of my introduction to it. And thru her, I obtained within the Meghaduta, and he or she was the one who charged me with translating it. So it comes by means of a lineage of types. I’ll learn the primary couple of verses sounds. 

MT: Nice.

RJ: Sanskrit: 

kaścit kāntā virahaguruṇā svadhikārāt pramattaḥ
śāpenastaṃgamitamahimā varṣabhogyeṇa bartuḥ
yakṣaś cakra janakatanayāsnạna puṇyodakeṣu
snigdhacāyātarusuṣu vasatiṃ rāmagiryāshrameṣu

That’s the primary verse which I translate as, “A yaksha banished in grievous exile from his beloved for a yr, his energy eclipsed by the curse of his Lord, for having swerved from his obligation, made his dwelling among the many Hermitages of Rāmagiri, whose waters had been hollowed by the ablutions of Janaka’s daughter, and whose timber had been wealthy with shade.”

Now as a way to perceive what the Sanskrit aesthetic custom calls the Divani or the resonance of this verse, it helps to know that Rama Giri means mountain of Rama, who’s God, and Janaka’s daughter is Sita, who’s the female side of the divinity. 

So within the very first verse, the Meghaduta casts the yaksha’s exile throughout the larger context of Rama being separated from Sita. So it takes on all the ability of this story, which all people in India has recognized for 1000’s of years. So, in some ways, it’s commenting on this Ramayana, the theme.

I’ll do yet another, okay?

MT: Sure. 

RJ: Sanskrit:

tasminnadrau katicidabalā-viprayuktah sa kāmī
niītvā māsān-kanakavalayabhraṃśarikta-prakostaḥ
āṣaḍāsya prathana-divase meghāślṣsṭa-sānuṃ
vaprakrīḍa-pariṇata-gaja-preksaṇīyam dadarśa

English:  “On that hill, Adrau lovelorn, and months from his mate, his wrist so wasted that it had shed its golden bracelet, he noticed through the first full moon of the season of Ashadha, a cloud nuzzling a mountain ridge, like a good-looking elephant, playfully butting the facet of a hill. 

Now right here Sanskrit will help you and a data of the gathering of myths, as a result of it’s stated in numerous texts that the elephants used to fly till Indra along with his thunderbolt, being threatened by them, type of knocked them down and their ears–the clouds–separated. So the clouds are what’s left to them. So the cloud is seen as an elephant. And never solely an elephant, however Preksheni, a gorgeous elephant. After which this phrase, nuzzling the facet of a hill, pariṇata gaja prekṣanỉyaṃ. That phrase, parinatmi, can be a phrase within the lexicon of the aesthetic custom for the transformation that occurs, from the mundane to the divine. So it’s engaged on many ranges.

MT: Yeah. And instantly, we’re going into what for me is fascinating: Sanskrit deconstruction, and etymology, and so forth. And but for us, after all, now we have now left the guts realm, proper, and we’re absolutely within the psychological. 

RJ: Nicely, let’s keep in psychological for a second, as a result of I’m curious what you consider this fifth verse, which I’ll simply learn in English, as a result of it brings out the philosophical query, “What does a cloud, mix of smoke, flame, water, and wind, need to do with significant messages meant to be conveyed by the match senses of the residing? Heedless of this from ardent fervor, the yaksha made his request, for lovers troubled by ardour, can not inform the conscious from the inert.”

So within the trendy problems with deconstruction–and the query is: Can language ever imply something? Language is a fabric assemble. It’s product of smoke, flame, wind, water, like a cloud. How can that carry a residing message? And sure colleges say, it might probably’t, that phrases can by no means level to a fact. They’re simply issues that you must cope with to get by means of them or go into utter silence. 

However right here the aesthetic means is one thing completely different. It says that those that are inciters to ras, who’re deeply troubled by love, by ardour; they don’t see a distinction between the inert world and the residing world, it turns into one world. So at this level–and you’ll take your decide–the yaksha is insane, or he’s seeing one thing in a deeper and extra profound means.

MT: And so he mainly beseeches this cloud to hold his message.

RJ:  Sure. 

MT: And naturally, we might are likely to suppose that that’s insane. A cloud can’t carry a message. 

RJ: Precisely.

MT: And but, as you’re saying, his coronary heart is so cracked open, he’s so broad open that there’s one thing deeper than mundane scientific logic occurring right here.

RJ: Yeah, within the Islamic custom, it’s stated that Mohammed, Mohammed had a caravan. And in that caravan, there was this one 16-year-old who is awfully lovely, 16-year-old boy, really. And most of the people thought he’s a handsome younger man. However Muhammad noticed this particular person because the Archangel Gabriel, and that adjustments all the things. Was Mohammed hallucinating? Or was he seeing extra deeply into the fact of issues? That, I feel, is the query that the Meghaduta asks about language? Can language; can imaginative and prescient; can magnificence additionally take you into that absolute place? Or do you must depart it behind?

MT: And it looks as if the reply is firmly: Sure, it might probably take you into that place, a minimum of in line with the custom.

RJ: Sure. As a “Buddhist meditator,” how do you are feeling about that? With language, any worth in it in addition to being extra psychological?

MT: Nicely, after all, there’s many ranges of worth to language; for us to study the teachings in any respect; for us to study the practices in any respect, we’d like language; for us to speak with our fellows, our Sangha members, our caravan of co-religionists, or co-meditators, or co-spiritual journeyists, we’d like all that. However extra deeply, the place the place you’re asking the query, yeah, I feel it jogs my memory of Yukio Mishima. And I’m remembering this from like, 30 years in the past, so I may be barely misremembering it, however he and Kafka speak about the way in which that language will be damaging and get in the way in which, however moreover, used correctly they usually do imply it, I feel, in a poetic sense, language isn’t the factor, it’s not carrying the reality, however it may be the finger on the moon that basically really does level at this nonverbal, nonlinguistic, irrational deep fact. 

RJ: Okay, 

MT: And so it might probably take you there, it might probably transport you there, even when you must depart the language behind once you get there.

RJ: Okay, to me, that will be the distinction between, let’s say, a extra jñana path, you allow the language behind, and an aesthetic path the place the language, just like the cloud, it jumps past itself, and it communicates to the guts. 

However behind that is one other query, a very fascinating one, that completely different practitioners have a look at in another way, which is what’s language? If you happen to’re a Buddhist or Western deconstructive thinker, language is only standard. If you happen to’re a Kabbalist or Abhinavagupta within the Sanskrit custom, language is popping out of the physique of Lord Shiva, it’s the emergence of the physique of God. So language has the flexibility to take you again to that divinity. 

If you happen to don’t resonate with the Rama/Sita story, the Meghaduta turns into only a good poem about nature. But when from the primary verse, the writer is pushing you to resonate, that is in regards to the final assembly and separation, it takes on a bigger context. 

MT: I simply have to leap in and say, after all, Vajrayana Buddhism says one thing fairly much like what Abhinavagupta says. So it’s not someway un-Buddhist to say that. I need to return to the story of Rama and Sita as a result of that’s an enormous a part of my background and coaching is working with that story. Essentially the most intense second for me personally of all the story is true within the center. It’s not on the finish with the massive finale and all that. Essentially the most intense second is when Hanuman flies alone to Lanka and shrinks himself right down to be somewhat monkey so he’s not terrifying, and hides in a tree within the backyard of Ravana in order that he can secretly communicate with Sita.

RJ: Proper 

MT: And provides her a message of hope. It’s even referred to as The Lovely Chapter.

RJ: Sundara Kanda. Yeah.

MT: It’s simply beautiful and heartbreaking and cracks you open, cracks me open, anyway, to one thing unbelievably deep, however on the identical time type of inexpressible. A minimum of I can’t categorical it. However the level being that, I see that within the Meghaduta they’re referring to that second very often. Are you able to inform us somewhat bit extra about that?

RJ: One factor actually fascinating about that voyage of Hanuman is, within the textual content of Hanuman’s journey, he’s continuously in comparison with a cloud as a result of he’s a shapeshifter. And one other actually fascinating factor about that verse, it reads, Hanumāna manasa jagāma, which Hanuman went along with his thoughts. It was a shamanic journey, though it’s described as a bodily journey. So the cloud is collaborating on this archetype of Duta of the messenger.

MT: And naturally, Hanuman is known as Rama Duta. 

RJ: Yeah, a messenger of Rama. Once you had been a child in junior highschool and also you preferred a woman or a woman preferred you, they might ship a messenger to let you realize that someone likes you. The messenger is an intimate a part of the Shringara custom, of the custom of affection and separation, they bridge the hole. So the Meghaduta refers to that verse twice, as a result of Hanuman jumps over the mountain and finds Sita after which reveals her Rama’s ring; that he’s true. And, after all, the yaksha is asking the cloud to be like Hanuman, however that is the place the Western tutorial and Indian practitioner traditions diverge, and we name them epic narratives. However from the standpoint of people that reside this, it’s not simply that it actually occurred, it’s that it’s at all times taking place. 

So Hanuman has Rama’s ring to show his veracity. Afterward, it’s stated that when Rama is on the point of depart the earth, he drops his ring, and he says, Hanuman, Are you able to please get my ring and Hanuman says, Certain, and he appears to be like down, he can’t discover it. He goes down deeper and deeper and deeper. And eventually, he lands in Patala Lokah which is the very backside of the universe. And the Lord of Patala Lokah says, Hanumanji, what are you doing right here? And he says, My Lord Rama misplaced his ring, I’m right here to seek out it. And the Lord of Patala Lokah says nicely, which one? and he reveals him a subject and there are lots of of 1000’s of rings. And he says, Each time Rama’s Lila is completed, and he’s prepared to depart the earth, he drops his ring. So from the attitude of the custom, this story is alive–is at all times occurring. It’s taking place now. And we’re all a part of it.

MT: Leveraging off that concept of we’re all a part of it, how do you see this poem tying into a contemporary sensibility of nature, ecology, the function of person-in-world, and so forth?

RJ: That is another excuse I wished to work with this poem and translate it as a result of I see it as a… nicely, the phrase that’s coming to my thoughts is corrective to the isolation of the anthropos, that all the things relies on human consciousness and nothing else issues. After we broaden into what Buddhists may name Sambhogakaya or the Anima Mundi, then all the things is alive and talking, and all the things is manifesting all over the place. So what we are likely to name surroundings wouldn’t be exterior, but it surely’s the tapestry of actuality. And a method I’ve labored this–considered one of my lecturers, Hilda Charlton as soon as stated, she remembered the day in her life, when she realized that she didn’t need to search for love as a result of, quote, “I’m love.” And I might flip that on the opposite facet and say that, from the aesthetic standpoint, it’s not I’m love, or you might be love, however that is love, or because the Upanishads put it Sarva khalvidam brahma–all of this certainly is the reality. 

So I feel it’s increasing the notion of what it means to be in contact actually, and Abhinavagupta used this phrase in his Tantric texts that the aim was Spṛṣṭa–means to contact, contact, to be touched by the world past ideas. And so I really feel that that is actually useful. 

And I can relate a narrative that I do point out in The Cloud of Longing. I used to be in Vrindavan which is the bhakti, house of Sri Krishna. And what was I doing in Vrindavan? Studying Krishnamurti, and going into matches as a result of on one hand, there’s his bhakti and, you realize, the murti and everyone seems to be chanting, and however, right here comes Krishnamurti saying it’s all simply–it’s all of your thoughts and don’t, you realize, get out of it. So Śripada Baba got here alongside sooner or later, this Avhadut, an inexplicably charismatic and strange Sadhu, and I requested him, I stated, What do you make of this? And, to my shock, initially, he had learn Krishnamurti. After which he stated to me, When Krishnamurti speaks in regards to the timber and the clouds, and the air, he stated, that’s murti as a result of murti merely means type. In order that type of obliterated this dichotomy between vitality and energetic between you realize, phenomena and an unmoved mover he simply stated it’s all murti.

MT: And naturally, he’s making somewhat pun with Krishnamurti’s identify, as nicely. 

RJ: Precisely, sure. You realize, James Hillman used to make the purpose that the phrase surroundings is already a creation of separation. Why can we name it surroundings? Why don’t we name it place? And as an alternative of considering of it our place, that we’re a part of the place, you realize, the place predominates, not the me. And I discover that the Meghaduta, and the way in which it views nature, can supply a corrective to this concept that’s been bred into us that the pure world is a Monopoly board that we simply stroll on.

MT: We’re taught that the world is simply one thing that we journey by means of, hopefully as rapidly as potential, and may exploit in numerous methods.

RJ: Yeah. And we get so hung up on this query, Who am I? I imply, it may be a Koan, for those who’re Ramana Maharshi. It may be a misapprehension for those who’re an excellent ideological, Buddhist. Bhakti would see it you realize, you’re a Das, you’re a servant of God. However the aesthetic custom–it type of takes you thru the backdoor. It’s not who’re you? It’s what’s all this? And you might be a part of all this. And that’s what I really like about Akiva. He noticed all this and it was sufficient. May or not it’s that we are able to’t see nature as a result of we’re too busy? And I’ve discovered that studying Meghaduta has helped me see–not simply clouds, however timber and the earth that I’m strolling on, and that I’m a part of this. It’s not only a portray that I’m taking a look at.

MT: The concept of surroundings is nearly like reverse the concept of in-context.

RJ: Yeah, keep in mind the outdated Seth Speaks books? 

MT: I by no means learn them. However sure.

RJ: Nicely, there’s one factor in there, which has at all times stayed with me the place whoever Seth could also be, says that the climate is non-different from feelings, just like the climate, it’s the emotional physique of the planet. And the one factor we didn’t point out–that the Meghaduta takes place within the wet season, the primary day of month of Oshaja, as a result of within the rain, you might be typically separated out of your lover. It was a time once you couldn’t flip house. In order that’s once you write poetry.

MT: The wet season the monsoon is so intense in India, you’ll be able to’t journey as a result of the roads all flip to knee-deep mud, yeah.

RJ: Mush with miles of lifeless bugs and all that. Sure.

MT: And so this cloud is the primary cloud of the monsoon coming in.

RJ: Precisely. The opposite factor, the brilliance of Meghaduta, is the entire poem he’s speaking to the cloud, he’s giving beautiful particulars of the voyage and only one instance, when the cloud involves Kailash within the Himalayas, the cloud is instructed to do puja to Shiva, worship Shiva, along with his drum, nicely, The place is Shiva? The place’s the drum? Nicely, the upraised arms of the timber are Shiva’s arms, and the sunshine of the night twilight coming by means of his arms is Shiva’s pink drum, and the thunder is the beating of the drum. And what I obtained from studying Meghaduta is that that is greater than metaphor, that for those who will be with nature, you’ll be able to hear the track of nature, you’ll be able to see the ceremony occurring. It’s taking place on a regular basis. We’re simply too busy to see it.

MT: Yeah, too busy to see it, and too dissociated from it.

RJ:  Dissociated. Sure.

MT: Proper? One thing that touches me every single day, I’m going for lengthy walks within the park or within the woods, virtually every day. And one thing that’s so poignant is simply there are numerous birds, and one of many locations I stroll massive jackrabbits, and quite a lot of animal beings on the market. And it’s so apparent to me that they’re sentient and engaged and that they aren’t someway completely different, or lower than us. And nothing about our tradition desires you to suppose that means. 

RJ: Proper.

MT:  And it’s excruciating, to be so objectifying of nature as a result of it turns us into some type of bizarre object as nicely. And by denigrating an animal’s consciousness, it equally denigrates our personal.

RJ: Animals and water and earth.

MT: You’re proper. It’s not simply animals. It’s the water and the timber and the sky.

RJ: Once I witnessed a local lady pray for an hour and a half over a pail of water, I can by no means have a look at water the identical means. And within the Bhagavad Gita, no much less of being than Krishna says, Raso’ham apsu kaunteya, I’m the style of water. So yeah, it’s the re-ensouling of the pure world. That’s what I’m after.

MT: So you realize, this poem comes from a practice that’s all about love poetry. And it’s set in this sort of body of the lovers being separated like we had been speaking about. However do you suppose that he simply used that–Kalidasa used that as simply type of a fast body? Or is there some deep connection between this sort of nature aesthetic and love?

RJ: To me, it’s so deep that it’s scary as a result of Kalidasa is exquisitely conscious of the contradiction that he’s coping with. How can a cloud carry a message? How can language lead you to pure love or any love? The beautiful half is that the cloud within the poem by no means goes wherever, the assembly by no means occurs. Kalidasa could be very clear that that is all a fantasy within the thoughts of the yaksha. We’ve all had the expertise, or possibly not everybody, however many people, the place you’ve gotten a complete fantasy about being in love with someone. After which it seems that the opposite particular person is just not sharing that fantasy in any respect.

MT: It’s definitely a standard expertise for all of us. Sure.

RJ: And I see the aesthetic custom as one of many antidotes to the romantic fallacy that the love we’re searching for is just not this one different particular person, who’s the one-person-in-the-world-who’s-going-to-make-me-whole type of factor. However reasonably Kalidasa is utilizing that separation to incite the imaginative and prescient of the pure world, the place you understand in some unspecified time in the future that that is–all of it’s not I really like you, and even I’m liked, actually, as Dante says, on the finish of the Divine Comedy, love is popping the celebrities, the ocean is love. And quite a lot of indigenous traditions discuss this and speak about this. And may we get again to being re-enchanted by the world we reside in? As a substitute of attempting to get out of it? 

Yeah, all of us fall in love. And all of us have this, and all of us have heartbreak, and all of us have fantastic moments. However on that journey, what number of issues did you discover? Proper and your circle? And did you’re keen on the sparrow that got here up in your porch this morning? Or did you recognize the exquisiteness of the daylight at this time, and that turns into an overwhelm of appreciation. And the Sanskrit phrase for that is among the 9 precept rasa’s is known as adbhuta, which implies surprise. And there are locations–and also you and I’ve  each been there–literal bodily locations on the planet, Vrindaban, the place individuals stroll round all day utilizing the mudra of surprise, like we’re residing surprise. That’s the place I feel it’s invaluable in re-directing our like to the surprise round us, to not the exclusion of anyone, however to the inclusion of all people.

MT: This side of surprise is admittedly pointed to in among the nondual traditions whether or not it’s referred to as a nondual Shiava Tantra sort stuff or Dzogchen, now we have our practices that we are able to do in our meditations, and all our very intense sadhanas, and so forth. And/or you’ll be able to merely stroll round in a state of surprise. And that’s seen as virtually like an equal path or an finish run that takes you to the identical place of pristine consciousness, seeing the entire world as this divine expression of both; consciousness as deity, or the Buddha nature or Samatha Bhadra or no matter, however that temper of surprise seems to be like the key key.

RJ: In order that’s superior. You realize, there’s an fascinating observe with this. If you happen to had been a Sanskrit scholar in India, you’d learn the Meghaduta over and over and it might open the guts. What Hilda Charlton used to ask us to do generally is return to your favourite songs, pop songs, and only a slight tweak, simply see that it’s all about god, and it’ll open your coronary heart in a brand new means.

MT: Did you discover that labored for you?

RJ: It did. All of the songs that I used–Oh, I can’t reside with out you, you realize, after I put absolutely the within the heart, all of them made much more sense. 

MT: There’s the fantastic second, or horrible second when one is a young person and the hormones hit good and the scenario comes collectively the place you instantly perceive what love songs are about. 

RJ: Sure. 

MT: And Hilda anyway, is suggesting a second tier of that.

RJ: And you realize, extra singing and dancing. Not present. One factor that basically pained me and possibly I’m only a religious snob however I as soon as went to a retreat heart and there was going to be a kirtan and somebody was speaking to me at this kirtan congregational chanting. They usually requested me, Have you learnt who the performers are? And I stated, What? It’s not a efficiency. It’s completely not a efficiency. And I’ve been within the temples in India the place singing is a part of–you’ve been there too–the every day observe. They usually’re very clear that what makes the singing invaluable is the intention and who you’re singing it for, and so forth and so forth.

MT: Yeah, precisely. Lots of the locations I’ve been in India, there was fantastic, unbelievably, virtuoso musicality taking place. However there have been additionally many villages the place the singing was painfully out of tune, and simply non-musical in each potential means. And but, the temper was there, proper? The bhav, the ras was really there, and you can really feel it. 

RJ: Bhav means the deep feeling. Ras is when that deep feeling will get so sturdy that it transcends time and house. And that’s, you realize, Raso Vai Saha. The Divine is the Ras, which I really like. And I’ve good motive to need to keep on the planet somewhat bit longer as a result of I requested Shrivatsa Goswami–who’s my colleague, good friend, mentor, and runs the Radha Raman Temple in Vrindavan–if he thinks that there would ever be a risk if I might chant within the temple, simply as soon as? He wrote me again, he stated, Radha Raman could be delighted. So I see that because the apotheosis of this lifetime; if I can get there.

MT: Sure. And also you’ve taken me to that temple earlier than what an incredible place. Yeah. So now that journey restrictions are lifted, and so forth, are you desirous about going there?

RJ: Truly desirous about this summer time going to Badrinath, the place I’ve by no means been. That’s like my first pilgrimage.

MT: I’ve been there. It’s superb. Rick, you train faith at Vassar. And so forth. 

RJ: Used to.

MT: You simply retired. That’s proper. Congratulations. However that’s very current, extraordinarily current, so long as I’ve recognized you, which is greater than 20 years now, you’ve been a professor of faith. So how have you ever tried to speak or share this feast of each heart-opening poetry and connection to nature and all these themes along with your college students? And the way profitable or unsuccessful has that been?

RJ: That’s actually fascinating. I created a course only a few years in the past, referred to as “Spirituality, Surroundings, and Ecology.” And my rationale for creating this course was: Vassar has a giant environmental research program and lots of people giving programs on so-called the surroundings they usually’re all science-based. And I’ve no drawback with that if in case you have the opposite facet to the aesthetic facet. So for the ultimate examination, college students needed to stroll from Vassar Faculty right down to the river, the Mahicantuck or Hudson River, the river that flows each methods. It’s a 2.5-mile stroll, and the project was to stroll to the river and see what you observe alongside the way in which.

MT: Now, you gave one other identify for the Hudson River. What was that?

RJ: That’s the native identify, which I at all times mispronounce, but it surely means the river that flows each methods Mahicantuck or Mahikannituck, which is the Lennape/Wappinger identify for the river. And it flows each methods as a result of it’s an estuary, the water flows up from the Atlantic and down from the St. Lawrence within the mountains.

MT: So it has interplay with the tides. 

RJ: Sure. 

MT: And so right here’s the scholars strolling from Vassar right down to the Hudson.

RJ: And what was superb to me was how little individuals noticed. It simply highlighted our poverty of listening to something outdoors of our personal thoughts. There’s a gorgeous poem about this by the late Lew Welch. You realize, Gary Snyder’s good friend, the Beat poet. 

MT: Yeah.

RJ: Step out onto the planet. 

Draw a circle 100 toes spherical. 

Contained in the circle are 300 issues no person understands,

and possibly no person’s ever seen. 

What number of can you discover?

MT: Oh, good observe there.

RJ: Yeah. So within the course, we learn stuff by Gary Snyder, and Robin Kimmerer,  Braiding Sweetgrass, which is a gorgeous e-book about modern indigenous practices with the earth. We took individuals out. We spent as a lot time as we might out of the classroom. So all of this has led me within the final 10 years, my tenure at Vassar to give attention to issues like embodiment and so forth and so forth. That’s type of how I’ve achieved my finest to do it. 

It’s been very troublesome as a result of it has led me to query all the tradition of studying itself. And thankfully, or possibly not, for those who’re a literary particular person, The Gutenberg Galaxy is gone. You realize, all the things is interwoven in a synesthesia of sound, picture, and sense. But when you consider the act of studying, as we are likely to do it; silently inside ourselves, you’re sitting right here and your thoughts is someplace else. It’s virtually just like the antithesis of mindfulness.

MT: Yeah, you’re producing a complete psychological realm, that’s not the place you’re at.

RJ: Precisely. So these are among the issues I attempted to do at Vassar. 

Taking a clue from the way in which studying is practiced in a liturgical setting. In India, for those who go to an ashram, for instance, you learn with others, you don’t learn for quantity, you learn one verse, and then you definitely sit down and let it wash over you, and what does it do to you? That’s one factor. 

And the following factor is what I’m doing now at house, as you realize, I’m engaged on a e-book about being at house, simply taking the time to pay as beautiful consideration as potential to each merchandise that you just “personal,” that has constellated itself in your life. And what’s your relationship to it–getting out of the concept now we have issues and into the concept we’re with the issues?

MT: And so how does that observe start to have an effect on you?

RJ: Nicely, initially, you want much less issues since you’re paying extra consideration to the issues that you’ve got. Second of all, you want much less leisure, as a result of the issues that you’ve got are so lovely and deep and nuanced, type of like on the finish of Walden, the place Thoreau has this woodcarver carving a stick and it goes on for eons. So I really feel that re-constellating our consideration away from the middleman of thoughts and going again into direct contact with no matter’s there. In poetry, it’s phrases, as beings, not phrases is one thing I exploit. The phrases are a present, we’re like a chalice, and the phrases are available in. So what can I do? It’s type of an aesthetic type of mindfulness. And the way in which I do it’s by means of the consciousness of providing. Cooking is an providing. Writing is an providing. And so is strolling down the road. And that’s my very own observe, not a proper providing, I’m not constructing a temple and following a selected scripture, however I’m honoring no matter’s in that 100-foot radius of my little life, and actually honoring it. 

One factor that Kalidasa reveals me and also you get this in Apache tradition is also that each place has a narrative. There isn’t a such factor as an goal world. Each place has these narratives round them, you’ll be able to name them track traces, or no matter. So for those who don’t know the story of your ring, or the story of your watch, or the story of your shirt, you’re type of impoverished as a result of these tales need to be expressed. And once you reward one thing, you’re gifting, not simply an object, however all of the tales which can be imbued in that object. 

Now quite a lot of us have been skilled to say, Oh, that’s only a story, transcend story to pure consciousness. But when Rūpaṃ śūnyatā śunyataiva rūpam – if type and vacancy are inter-distinguishable, or because the Sanskrit individuals stated, inconceivably and concurrently one and completely different, then the cloud, the tree is as essential as the sensation within the coronary heart, they aren’t completely different. That for me is the work or re-ensouling the objects in your world. 

And other people do that. Typically individuals give their automobile a reputation, they actually have a relationship with the automobile. It’s not only a machine that I’m driving round until it breaks. The best way now we have individuals desirous about the Earth proper now. We’re going to drive it round until it breaks after which we’ll go to Mars. That story doesn’t encourage me in any respect. What conjures up me is, what occurred on this avenue is essential. And the lineage of tales. It’s very fascinating. Within the yoga sutra, reminiscence is claimed to be a klasha or an impediment. 

When TS Eliot wrote The Wasteland, he was considering of each Chaucer and the Buddha, “April is the cruelest month, lilacs within the lifeless land, mixing reminiscence and want.” The phrase for reminiscence in Sanskrit smarta is phrase for Cupid, for want. If we make this the enemy, we’re again within the ascetic modality of attempting to depart the Earth, attempting to raise ourselves. Whereas there are options. And considered one of them is seeing reminiscence in its capability for opening, reasonably than closing. And the quintessential to me, essentially the most lovely verse in all 

ramyāṇi vikṣya madhurāṃśca niṣamya śabdān

paryutsuki bhavati yat sukhino ‘pi jantuḥ

yaccetasā smarati nūnam abodha pūrvaṃ

bhāvasthirāṇi jananātarasauhṛdāni

Listening to one thing lovely, and seeing lovely sights, even perhaps a cheerful particular person turns into uneasy, as a result of they keep in mind loves from one other life buried deep of their being. That’s a special type of reminiscence. Meghaduta awakens a reminiscence, a special type of reminiscence, on the time after we had been flying with the clouds, after we had been at house on the planet. And that’s the worth, I feel, in reminiscence and language when it’s used poetically and excuse the phrase however spiritually.

MT: And isn’t it ironic how the very phrase for mindfulness and Sanskrit Smriti means to recollect.

RJ: That’s so superb. Sure, that’s actually superb. As you realize, Gurdjieff used the phrase remembrance, self-remembrance. So identical to there’s completely different sorts of language. Possibly there’s completely different sorts of reminiscence of remembering.

MT: Rick, thanks a lot for becoming a member of me on the Deconstructing Your self podcast at this time.

RJ: Oh, it’s my pleasure to hang around with you. 

MT: Discuss to you quickly. 

RJ: Thanks, Michael. Thanks a lot. Thanks

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