 |
Web Hosting by Netfirms | Free Domain Names by Netfirms |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Every sound in Sanskrit which emanates from the realm of possible phonetic formations and combinations has its own inquiry-based meaning and reality-based meaning; thereby, every sound signifies a certain aspect of reality. The entire language of Sanskrit is built upon the significance of sound to indicate some aspect of the nature of reality in its various attributes. Thus, the very sound of Sanskrit as it is uttered or heard is replete in the representation of truth as expressed in and through the relative, physical world. The truth after which the metaphysical inquiry reaches in Sanskrit is of course absolute or universal; that truth is known as sTym! satyam. sTym! satyam means universal truth and is defined as that truth which remains the same in all three periods of time. The conclusion will be henceforth demonstrated in this primer as valid that the language of Sanskrit enlightens at the level of sound perception -- through sound light is shed. That is why this primer on metaphysics is entitled, "Sound and Light: The Sanskrit Primer of Metaphysics." Consider that if each sound whether vowel or consonant has its own discrete meaning which sums up in its placement in a word with other sounds with their own discrete meanings, then the overall word has been formed in a most profound way of the meaning of truth; therefore, a simple word in Sanskrit is complete in its own meaning based upon sounds themselves. No sound is arbitrary, indeed, in this most ancient language of great resolve unto truth. Since sTym! satyam enlightens the Seeker after truth, then the sounds of Sanskrit give light towards sTym! satyam; even so, these sounds give light in a way which is individuated unto those sounds. The meanings of the sounds of the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet will be explicated herein as reflective of reality and as derived from absolute truth. Since the meanings of the sounds of the letters of the Devanagari alphabet are thus derived and so reflect reality, they should be understood as inquiry-based wherein the inquiry poses the ultimacy of truth known as sTym! satyam. Just as the words of a mantra or sloka are parsed and understood for their place and power to unravel in meaning the higher truth for the Seeker or the pundit, so do the letters which combine to comprise those words being parsed have the same place and power to point to that truth. Indeed, the words will have a richer meaning if they are understood hypostatically for the foundation of inquiry lent them by the letters of which they are made. For example, Aae< tTst! oà tatsat (om tat sat) is a standing mhavaKy mahäväkya whose terse reach of words belies the expanse of the vision it can lend to a sincere and qualified Seeker after sTym! satyam until the words are understood in view of the phonetic meanings of the letters of which they are composed. Like a teacher throwing fruit to a Seeker, even before the strict unfolding of the exact phonetic meanings to follow in this treatise allow me to at once pose a consideration of this mhavaKy mahäväkya from its comprise of letters in the way of introducing the quintessential meaning of sound in Sanskrit here at Sound and Light as per shining example. Let us begin with this preliminary exercise in truth, therefore. Now consider that Aae< om is comprised of 'a', 'u' and 'm'. 'a' is hereby introduced cursorily as that which indicates the first, the beginning; we will see more of why this is so later on. 'u' is indicative of dynamics which are marked by being bound to continuation. 'm' considers all that of the physical realm for its dual oppositeness as it ends or resolves somehow into such duality; for instance, the need for provision of a basic physical need such as food will come into mind in certain considerations of the nature of the world. Question: what is there about Aae< om which matches the nature of sound? What is the nature of sound in the first instance? Sound correlates to the relative world in the time-space continua in a way which is closer to us in a sense than light so correlates; we can hear an echo of sound upon yelling into a cavern where space can contain the sound emanating from the mouth. On the other hand, we have no such instantaneous sense of time when rays of light at the dawn of day bring warmth to the air about us -- we simply cannot logically connect by empirical power of an immediate perception that the sunlight took, say, eight minutes in its traverse from the sun to reach the surface of the earth where we stand. Although we observe that the sun gives the earth certain diurnal rhythms of light as per magnitude relating to temperature variations, the exact time-frame of the traverse of sun rays to our place in an immediate sense is not known to us except by what can be read in the world of scientific explanation through calculations. That means that light has a distance from time in the sense of perception as to source; sound, on the other hand, is of a grosser level of reality. Therefore, a sound can be made, heard to continue and then stop in three distinct points in time. In a thunder storm, this comparison of sound and light is elegantly demonstrated when lightning is observed before the thunder sounds; we say that light travels faster than sound. This is correct, of course. How nice it would be if we could gather up more rays of sunlight when needed by relating to light as we can relate to sound since sound is of a grosser level of reality; a musician can use the close timing of sound-making to actually speak in the language of music. Can a householder improve the warmth of his abode by manipulating rays of sunlight on an instantaneous basis through a direct manual interaction with that sunlight akin to beating on a drum or strumming a guitar? Obviously, the answer is no. Any solar heating would require several technological steps in a process. By inference Aae< om must therefore relate to the same three periods of time through its lettered comprise as sound: the beginning, the continuation and the termination. However, Aae< om may be a closer cousin to sound than light in the relative world since sound can be discerned empirically by our senses more acutely than light; nevertheless, just as sound travels through air so does light. Aae< om encompasses all that exists in all three periods of time no matter how distant our recognition of that phasic attribute of all that Aae< om concerns. When you lay down a flagstone to build a pathway to the garden, do you relate directly with its qualities in time which are ancient beyond ancient in the way of any manual relationship to the flagstone? Certainly not. You simply use the material as if there were no yesterday; you are only concerned with the future of your local project to beautify the grounds about your house and to end the tracking of mud into your kitchen. You are not consciously interacting with the timing of the creation in any way from a practical standpoint. This observation will point out succinctly that Aae< om does concern itself with both the age of rocks and the speed of light. Why is this so? It is so because that is the nature of metaphysical sound. Metaphysically understood sound reflects the primordial founding mode of the relative physical world; then that sound continues before it ends. The higher nature of reality, the absolute, beckons the rational mind to consider instead that there is no question of time at all in the scope of universal truth. In a sense of didactics, Aae< om serves to dip down into the plane of existence, describe in terms of its source in the absolute, and then by that description of truth and reality catapult the self-realized knower of truth back into the absolute with a refutation of the relative realm in ready reckoning. Yes, but can this be elaborated upon some more beyond Aae< om alone? In the mhavaKy mahäväkya Aae< tTst!! oà tatsat we see the introduction of tt! tat and st! sat where 't' is the inquirer's grand, omnipresent platform for all that is real and true to be considered and known. 'a' follows that 't' inexorably as the inquiry begins just after Aae< om has recited the unfathomable reach of all three periods of time only by invoking sound itself. Aae< om simultaneously flattens those three periods of time just by stating them as there; to wit, all opposites lead to Rome, to wax poetic, where Rome knows no opposites. Aae< om gathers in all opposites by implicitly sounding the nature of the relative world for its hypostatic matrix in time. It is that very all-collective summation of the power of Aae< om which allows all of the opposites it intends to be refuted by the power of contemplative ardor for truth, satyam; this is possible to realize. Now, after 't' and 'a' combine to pose that which must be determined as true there arrives another 't' straight away in the word tt! tat which means 'that' as much as the all-inclusive objective venue can itself mean. To translate the three letters of tt! tat accordingly becomes our quest if we place them in the construct of an inquiry after sTym! satyam; tt! tat means an inquiry will lead again to an inquiry. Aae< om had prepared the inquisitive mind for this. Aae< om had recited its voice in the matters of the universe now being considered from the paltry locale of the rough world with its jigs and jags, its starts and stops, its talls and shorts and all of its inherent polar, dual opposites. Now this applies to all inquiry, as well? Any 't' or point of inquiry will begin, 'ta', only to be regrouped back to the inquiry phase of mind, tt! tat ? Accept this from tt! tat and prosper in it. To aid your acceptance of this, imagine such an endless inquiry as rarefied. Imagine such a repetitive inquiry as continuous and flowing. Now does that kind of bottomless inquiry threaten you? s sa means that which flows and is rarefied in our intellectual stance to approach all of reality in quest. s sa gains its final stamp in meaning in the mhavaKy mahäväkya at hand when a 't' or t is added to make st! sat; indeed, the inquiry of 'om tat' has now been validated by the adjoined 'sat'. Apparently, by stating the grand truth of all-commanding inquiry after truth of a universal nature one can go no further since if that inquiry is complete enough such that it is seemingly circular and also rarefied all questions end. 'sat' means existence. Existence calls in the nature of the place where 'tat' is to be considered -- existence is where all of 'that' everywhere at all times inheres and occupies, occupies and inheres -- in fact, it just is. 'sat' caps the challenge to pose the oceanic inquiry whose answer must come out of the sky perhaps where sky and ocean meet. Two eyes can see a snake turn into a rope for what it really is. Can those same two eyes also see from the vantage of knowing past or above or beyond the three phases of time which are encompassed by the sound of om all of that in existence about us past its supposed form as formless? Om tat sat starts from om; om starts from that which has no start with the birth of sound for the sake of argument over the absolute to relative dichotomy. Therefore, tat and sat can relate back to om and prove that form can change from a snake to a rope to a piece of clay with no substance except the clay itself of self-realization. Indeed, if this leap from knowing the more real to the most real cannot express from form to formless in order to know God and the self, then perhaps God would appear in definite physical form if only to console the one who braves the endless inquiry of 'om' and 'tat' and 'sat' which connect together and challenge such endless inquiry succinctly as they do. Before concluding this precocious interlude herein at the beginning of Sound and Light, let us be reminded that any problem if seen most totally writes its own solution; similarly, it is said that if om tat sat is seen most totally, there is nothing else more replete to be seen ever by the one who realizes its truth -- om tat sat can be solved upon total self-realization. Indeed, its very letters do drive that point home succinctly, do they not, if one accepts the totality of inquiry posed by the metaphysics of the phonetics in the words of this venerated mahavakya, om tat sat? The language of Sanskrit is also known as devÉa;a devabhäñä, frequently translated as the language of the Shining Ones since the noun Éa;a bhäñä means language, and the deva> devas are the Shining Ones, the deities. As the reader studies this primer, the reader must be advised that this name for Sanskrit, devÉa;a devabhäñä, cannot be taken literally enough if the language is to be regarded as a means or tool to better understand the nature of truth and of the self, AaTma ätmä. Indeed, while studying here at "Sound and Light," it is beneficial to view the actual source of the delivery of this language to humankind for what it is; most importantly, that delivery of Sanskrit to mankind should best be realized by you, the reader, as a most ultimate delivery in the spiritual sense. In truth, the language Sanskrit in its beginning among us was handed as from higher source; this higher source was from such a cultural birth as can be conceptually embraced as that of Avtar avatära itself. Moreover, the reader should take this on faith. From faith can a vision of truth build as the mind expands into the very nature of Sanskrit as well as by its innate power. Once the mind is receptive to this fundamental attribute of the source of Sanskrit as it came from avatar, then my purpose as teacher here will have been greatly fulfilled; in fact, that purpose is to found an inquiry in the reader's mind. The truth will unfold if an inquiry in Sanskrit is formulated according to the premise of sound; from the sound and letter even behind the syntax and grammar in various prayers and writings of spiritual worth lies an ultimate key not only to a better, more exacting understanding of Sanskrit but also to a more profound inquiry. May the reader learn of this phonetically disposed fundamental mode that is comprised elementally of the sounds of Sanskrit, knowing that such a fundamental mode of sound itself is none other than the very root key of devÉa;a devabhäñä; therein will you come to know an inquiry of resolve which truthfully approaches the greatest potential which Sanskrit can offer you for its close resolution unto truth. May you, the reader here, become by study at Sound and Light: The Sanskrit Primer of Metaphysics such an in-depth Seeker whose inquiry can be so magnified as I can only at the outset of this primer first set forth as a stated description; you must discover that your inquiry can gain the leverage of the great resolution unto absolute truth, sTym! satyam, if you learn what each sound means as it breaks down into a constituent of word in an overall process and disposition unto metaphysical inquiry by the word, the word of a uniquely endowed language, Sanskrit. Those great i\;y> riñayaù (i\i;> as nominative singular, meaning seer) who also have become conveyors of spiritual wisdom as realized in Sanskrit had been so elevated unto its reception since their intense austerities and purity allowed the directness of message from the spiritual plane. Thus is Sanskrit so endowed for its spiritual birth and spiritual source; once again, may the reader be made more and more aware of this spiritual endowment of Sanskrit for the purpose of greater instruction herein. Those ancient seers had a belief in avatar; some of them also knew avatar through the physical presence of avatar. Even more specifically, upon the realization of the nature of Sanskrit as reality-based and as the language of Divinity one may conceptualize in Sanskrit as according to the most fundamental precept that the perception of truth and reality through this language will rarefy unto the way that the deva> devas think and perceive. Naturally, this leap of intellectual worth cannot be made in a single discrete feat or as in an event since all of the objective world and one's relationship to it are realized yet as completely as one's total vision might allow. In fact, such realization is born of deeper self-realization and is highly intuitive. This self-realization draws from the intellect, certainly; however, such self-realization is also beyond the intellect in the sense that sheer logical reasoning cannot accomplish the full metaphysical task at hand, that of total self-realization. Words, all words, in no matter what language serve as tools which may appoint the mind for the seeking of deeper self-realization and then also point the mind in both its emotional and rational aspects to the leap of faith which constitutes the fusing of self with an ultimate realization of also ultimate reality measure. Logic and reasoning are useful and necessary to a point beyond which a leap occurs, and the mind resolves into the full picture of sTym! satyam. Sanskrit is highly useful in accomplishing the preparation for this task of seeking after greater truth since it is synthesized from unitary sounds which carry the fullness of the meaning of such ultimate reality as that which remains the same in all three periods of time, inTy nitya. The task of the seeker who appeals to Sanskrit for such utility and beauty towards this goal of finding the truest nature of reality and self and how they interrelate becomes an inquiry, therefore. As we proceed to the descriptions of the sounds and their meanings in such an inquiry as this which is slated to reveal through self-realization the nature of sTym! satyam as it expresses in and through the relative context in which we live, we will see minutely how the the study at hand is indeed based upon inquiry. Yes, one has an inquiry after truth, an inquiry after reality in an ultimate sense. That same larger inquiry is reflected now upon the inquiry as it sounds phonetically in the ancient devÉa;a devabhäñä wherein each sound addresses the same inquiry to an extent. Thus, if one thinks of the deities as all-knowing, then to think that their language should be beyond inquiry as a reflection of that attribute of omniscience is in a sense erroneous to the purpose at hand for a Seeker. Once sound was born in the formation of a world, the relative sphere came about. The divine principle of description of the reality of a relative world where time works in three phases and can be perceived as such and where such description arises as devÉa;a devabhäñä will also include an unfolding of that reality as from the absolute into the relative now born, or as the relative once arisen out of the absolute. Either way, the algorithmic embrace of reality is constituted hypostatically as ikm! kim or ikmiSTa kimasti, "What is?" To a dev deva that might be, 'What is', in the non-interrogative context. Whichever way the reality is stated whether as outright inquiry stretching from nescience as in the case of a seeker or as a metaphysically apt statement arising from the perception of the knower such as a dev deva, the perception in and of itself of reality will inevitably and necessarily involve that which IS at the level of language utterance. Let us begin forthwith to explore the correlation between sound and reality or between sound and nature, àk«it prakåti, whilst realizing that our understanding of nature can by careful inquiry be elevated unto the question further of sTym! satyam, remembering that sTym! satyam is of the truest nature; remember that sTym! satyam is of reality of an ultimate sort. Accordingly, as we look at the world about us, we see the most obvious, and we see at least the very simple world of objective reality, of WHAT IS. What is the sound which would match this concept of the raw place in the physical before us? In terms of the simplest utterance available through our vocal equipment as beings, there is the vowel 'a', taken first as a short vowel. (The short vowel 'a' in Sanskrit sounds like the a in the adjective 'afoot', for instance, or like the e in the article 'the'.) This is the first sound in a sense since its articulation is comparatively effortless -- neither the tongue nor the lips are involved as its origin is guttural. The guttural sounds come out of the throat, and the throat represents reality. This may strike you intuitively as correct when you realize how the throat will tighten and constrict upon the realization of an extremely moving event or disclosure of vital news. However, that rarefied sense of beginning which the first vowel honors is just that metaphysically: 'a' is the first, the inception, the sheer beginning. As the seeker views the physical realm for what it is, that importance of sheer beginning does not supersede conceptually as much as the perception that it already is might supersede. There is a substance, a material basis to the world, which captivates and invites an understanding, a deeper understanding. That substance, that of which the world is comprised, simply WHAT IS, must be represented as well by sound. In terms of a Sanskrit word, s&iò> såñöhiù is known as the creation including its cause. In terms of a sound which can be used much as a building block to represent the material world about us we should find the most fundamental level of sound production, the guttural, and see what sound is produced to correlate with s&iò> såñöhiù.In terms of a sound which can be used much as a building block to represent the material world about us we should find the most fundamental level of sound production, the guttural, and see what sound is produced to correlate with (The soft sound so made is the consonant 'g'.) Thus, inexorably the sound uttered will be 'ka', which includes the short vowel 'a' by its own natural effort. If we look grammatically into the existence of the sound k 'ka' as a word, we will find it as the nominative singular feminine of the interrogative pronoun, ikm! kim, with the difference that the vowel has been lengthened to a long 'a', or Aa ä, like the 'a' in 'saw'. Thus, ka kä means literally, 'What is?' with the verb to be (As! as) understood since it is in the nominative case. Why is this lengthening of a to ä so? Why is this word ka kä found in the feminine? The short a, or A akära, is lengthened to the Aa äkära, or long a, so as to represent the basic continuation of the reality and of the inquiry into that reality before the seeker, the jivNmuKt jiivanmukta. However, this is not so much a total continuation as it is drawn from a resolve to go past the beginning, to make a determined picture in the mind of the inquirer. The vowel u represents the grosser idea of continuation. As to the feminine gender being used to form the basic word which means, 'What is?' -- the feminine gender represents the material realm, the mother of the creation, as it were. This word formation taken in its grammatical context matches now the founding inquiry as to the nature of the physical realm about us, kä or 'What is?' The first consonant and the first vowel have combined to make a word whose meaning suits the zeroing in point for any jivNmuKt jiivanmukta standing at a juncture of living in a world which is there for metaphysical inquiry. Note also that the construct grammatically of the sentence 'What is?' in Sanskrit more strictly would be ikm! kim since the neuter pronoun is more likely to be used. However, for didactic reasons the interrogative pronoun ka k has been translated straight out. (If we so follow the progression of the vowels from the first vowel forward and combine this with the first consonant, then the language teaches us its meaning in a way which precedes the grammatical perfection. Grammatical precision can then be understood as founded also upon the phonetics, which is a more advanced topic than that which presents here immediately although this topic is a leading topic of this Sanskrit primer.) In terms of a sound which can be used much as a building block to represent the material world about us we should find the most fundamental level of sound production, the guttural, and see what sound is produced to correlate with |
Send mail to marilynnstark@msn.com
with questions or comments about this web site.
|
