From the characteristics of the Self we built up in our previous post: Characteristics of the Self, we will now bring in to light how its structured. This time we'll do it from Rig Veda - Book 1: Hymn 164, because it describes it with much extravagant detail. However, we will not go too deep into its contents, and we'll stay focused on only the most important parts.
Considering how, in our previous post, we established Stages as one of the characteristics of the Self, we find that the structure of the Self is in fact inherently wound around this. Why Stages and not anything else? Because Stages brings about another attribute called Memory, which then brings about the attribute of Storage (or a warehouse) where things are usually kept in a neat "structure". Therefore, most of what we are going to learn from the rest of this post is how Stages and Structure are inherently intertwined, and how the Self is structured around the stages of Creation:
sapta yuñjanti rathamekacakrameko aśvo vahati saptanāmā |
trinābhi cakramajaramanarvaṃ yatremā viśvā bhuvanādhitasthuḥ || [Rig 1:164:2]
The Stages
From Rig 1:164, there are about 9 stages that can be discerned from its contents. We'll explain each of these with relevant parts from the hymn and with some general notions we have about certain things.
So lets' begin with the first one: Initiation
1) Initiation
For anything we know that gets created, we know there's a base framework upon which new creations are to be made. These creations are nothing but what we call as "innovations", and it basically comes from the many ideas that can emerge out of this. Rig 1:164:5-6 narrates the same idea.
pākaḥ pṛchāmi manasāvijānan devānāmenā nihitā padāni |
vatse baṣkaye.adhi sapta tantūn vi tatnire kavaya otavāu ||
acikitvāñcikituṣaścidatra kavīn pṛchāmi vidmane na vidvān |
vi yastastambha ṣaḷ imā rajāṃsyajasya rūpe kimapi svidekam ||
2) Ideation
The following set of verses - Rig 1:164:7-9, as expected then talks about the process of ideation. This, as what is even practiced by many startups around the world today, is the process of coupling things together that are usually unforeseen, and sometimes even foreseeable ones inadvertently arising from common knowledge.
iha bravītu ya īmaṅgha vedāsya vāmasya nihitaṃ padaṃ veḥ |
śīrṣṇaḥ kṣīraṃ duhrate ghāvo asya vavriṃ vasānā udakaṃ padāpuḥ ||
mātā pitaraṃ ṛta ā babhāja dhītyaghre manasā saṃ hi jaghme |
sā bībhatsurgharbharasā nividdhā namasvanta idupavākamīyuḥ ||
yuktā mātāsīd dhuri dakṣiṇāyā atiṣṭhad gharbho vṛjanīṣvantaḥ |
amīmed vatso anu ghāmapaśyad viśvarūpyaṃ triṣu yojaneṣu ||
3) Evaluation
Making the marriages is easy. You know considering the level in which our brains 🧠 can concoct absolutely crazy things 😖. But, the question then remains in, how useful are these marriages. This is what is called as Evaluation. Let's take an example: taking into account our usual ideation process, which we discussed earlier, you know, based on things we can already use, let's roll a dice 🎲 on them. Now suppose our roll of a dice gave us two things to marry: Dogs 🐕 with... ... ... Petrol ⛽ 😑. This really is an uncanny combination, but there are certain ideas that can come out this, say: 1) Dog-bikes 🛵🐩, you know considering that we can train them to do anything. Can we train them to push a pedal? 2) Talking about training, can we train dogs to fill our petrol tanks when we stop at a gas station 🐕🦺? Saves gas companies on costs. It also saves us from getting ourselves out of the car just to fill petrol 🤷🫤, 3) Let's use ChatGPT 🤖... here it is: it just gave an idea of using a miniaturized petrol engine for your dog leash 🦮. Now that's really whacky 😎, 4) Let's try again 🤖... it just gave an idea of using petrol as an ingredient for dog food 🍔(⬅ this to me is dog food, because i'm vegetarian)... so it can be more energetic and be your best play buddy whenever you need it. That's just messed up 😵.
So, anyways, ideas can be plenty. But whether they are actually useful and have a real market value is what becomes important when choosing the right one. So do any of the above 4 ideas 👆 sound useful or may have some market value?
sākaṃjānāṃ saptathamahurekajaṃ ṣaḷ id yamā ṛṣayo devajā iti |
teṣāmiṣṭāni vihitāni dhāmaśa sthātre rejante vikṛtāni rūpaśaḥ ||
striyaḥ satīstānu me puṃsa āhuḥ paśyadakṣaṇvān navi cetadandhaḥ |
kaviryaḥ putraḥ sa īmā ciketa yastā vijānāt sa pituṣ pitāsat ||
avaḥ pareṇa para enāvareṇa padā vatsaṃ bibhratī ghaurudasthāt |
sā kadrīcī kaṃ svidardhaṃ parāghāt kva svit sūte nahi yūthe antaḥ ||
Rig Veda 1:164:15-17
4) Sourcing
Once, we have zeroed in on our marketable idea, which is an offspring of two existing elements, and is also both unique and useful, the next step is to source material to make it happen, or make it work. This usually is done from whatever exists already. If there's something required that's not available at all, then the immediate feasibility would come into question. In such cases, things will have to be made at a deeper level before it can be used for the original idea. This thing of going deeper, is what we usually call as "research".
ye arvāñcastānu parāca āhurye parāñcastānu arvāca āhuḥ |
indraśca yā cakrathuḥ soma tāni dhurā na yuktā rajaso vahanti ||
Rig Veda 1:164:19
5) Reconcilation
Remember, the whole idea of innovation was to make sure its an added facility to the existing framework. Therefore, it's important to keep this in consideration when designing the solutions, and even when sourcing the parts. Put plainly, if your new invention requires interfacing with an existing machine, and the machine has a USB port and say not an Ethernet port, then your design must include a USB interface.
yad ghāyatre adhi ghāyatramāhitaṃ traiṣṭubhād vā traiṣṭubhaṃ niratakṣata |
yad vā jaghajjaghatyāhitaṃ padaṃ ya it tad viduste amṛtatvamānaśuḥ ||
Rig Veda 1:164:23
6) The Build
After the design has been finalized, the actual build takes place. This includes taking precise care of the elements that make up the new invention. Also, sometimes things can go wrong, and new fixes have to be made in accordance. And once done, its ready for use.
upa hvaye sudughāṃ dhenumetāṃ suhasto ghodhughuta dohadenām |
śreṣṭhaṃ savaṃ savitā sāviṣan no.abhīddho gharmastadu ṣu pra vocam ||
hiṅkṛṇvatī vasupatnī vasūnāṃ vatsamichantī manasābhyāghāt |
duhāmaśvibhyāṃ payo aghnyeyaṃ sa vardhatāṃ mahate saubhaghāya ||
ghauramīmedanu vatsaṃ miṣantaṃ mūrdhānaṃ hiṃṃ akṛṇon mātavā u |
sṛkvāṇaṃ gharmamabhi vāvaśānā mimāti māyuṃ payate payobhiḥ ||
Rig Veda 1:164:26-28
7) The Life
This is the part of the stage of creation where the new invention begins to do its job. It serves the gap, or purpose, for which it was build for. The invention lives as long as it's needed and goes everywhere accordingly. To serve its purpose.
anacchaye turaghātu jīvamejad dhruvaṃ madhya ā pastyānām |
jīvo mṛtasya carati svadhābhiramartyo martyenā sayoniḥ ||
apaśyaṃ ghopāmanipadyamānamā ca parā ca pathibhiścarantam |
sa sadhrīcīḥ sa viśūcīrvasāna ā varīvarti bhuvaneṣvantaḥ ||
Rig Veda 1:164:30-31
8) The Death
Not everything lives or prevails forever, and at some point the invention created becomes obsolete. Furthermore, because of it, there will arise many other necessities, since it is bound to only specific capabilities (it can't solve everything), and this in return leads it to its saturation, or even death.
ya īṃ cakāra na so asya veda ya īṃ dadarśa hirughin nutasmāt |
sa māturyonā parivīto antarbahuprajā nirṛtimā viveśa ||
Rig Veda 1:164:32
9) The Ingestion
After death, the invention seeps into the framework and becomes part its newer base structure. And it is from this that newer innovations emerge. The whole process then continues with the next step being the 2nd stage: Ideation. All, so much so that the 1st stage: Initiation, gets hidden, and is why we always ask ourselves, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?".
dyaurme pitā janitā nābhiratra bandhurme mātā pṛthivīmahīyam |
uttānayoścamvoryonirantaratrā pitā duhiturgharbhamādhāt ||
pṛchāmi tvā paramantaṃ pṛthivyāḥ pṛchāmi yatra bhuvanasyanābhiḥ |
pṛchāmi tvā vṛṣṇo aśvasya retaḥ pṛchāmi vācaḥ paramaṃ vyoma ||
Rig Veda 1:164:33-34
Converting Stages to Structure
So, after having a good ride into the stages of creation explained in the Rig Veda, it's time to turn this into a structure. This will give us a neat idea of what constitutes the Self.
Since we have 9 stages, we'll use a 3x3 grid to fit all the stages. The 1st stage: Initiation, we'll place it in the central block because it pertains to the base framework, plus the fact that it gets hidden eventually.
Next, by nomenclature of the stages, we see that the actual work of invention starts at the 6th stage: The Build. Everything else that happened before that was mainly conceptualizing around, on the existing framework. So we can roughly say that The Build stage occurs at day-break, while The Ingestion [stage], back to the warehouse, occurs by sunset. That'll leave the Ideation stage to begin at nightfall up until the Reconcilation stage at the close.
Then, since The Build stage occurs at day-break, we place it at the block East to the central block, from where we know the Sun rises. Placing this one stage to the East aligns everything else.
In addition to this, we can also infer the indestructible nature of this structure. From the Vedic verses highlighted in the previous section, we can deduce that each stage is in fact driven by the stage in its opposite node. That would mean: Ideation is driven by whatever is built already so as to build another element (or invention), Evaluation is driven by contemplating on what actually is required to come to life, Sourcing is driven by whatever is reaching maturity (or heading towards death) - its within reach because of how much they have scaled, Renconcilation is driven by whatever is already ingested into the framework, and then, whatever is being Built is driven by the idea it was wound around, whatever comes to Life is driven by the purpose by which it was evaluated, whatever Dies is driven by how many times it gets sourced (or how quickly it reaches saturation), and finally after the death, Ingestion is driven by how compatible it is with the existing framework.
Vaastu
Frankly, this 3x3 grid has everything to do with the Vaastu chart we know of. If we just replace each stage name with Deities, we actually do get it. Let's go ahead and do this, starting with Ideation:
Ideation is the process of creating a pool of ideas from a marriage of two existing elements. It also involves thinking about different ways of coupling two elements, which in return gives us a pool of pools -> which is -> Water -> Varuna.
Evaluation is the process of marking the purpose, the idea can have -> which is -> the Breathe of what lives -> Air -> Vayu.
Sourcing is process of picking up parts from a treasure of whatever is available. Thus, treasure -> which is -> Wealth -> Kubera.
Reconcilation is the process of checking how compatible the design is with the existing framework. It, thus, involves control over what can actually be put forth -> which is -> Austerity -> Eesanya.
The Build is something that starts taking shape in the physical world. It's things that are tangible and can be sensed -> Indra.
The Life is something that lives as long as it is fueled by its purpose. Something that also needs constant fueling is -> Fire -> Agni.
The Death is death. Nothing else around that, so -> Yama.
The Ingestion is something that comes after death. So its -> Ancestral -> Niruti.
[Note: So now you can see why when consecrating the dead, the ritual is wound around oblations (that is, if you have done it, or seen someone do it). Its all based on the idea of Ingestion into the Framework, and also on the fact that the dead departed from the tangible world where it Lived by constant oblation.]
Therefore, as we are all familiar with, the Vaastu as being used for structuring the household or any other living space, you could see why it is so (could be an office space too).
The Structure of the Self
Now using whatever we have developed above, let's make some inferences on the structure of the Self.
In the Bhagavad Gita, when Krishna was explaining to Arjuna why he needed to look deeper in to the Self, to realize why he needed to fight, he was actually telling him about looking deeper into its structure. This is what he says:
bhūmir āponalo vāyuḥ khaṃ mano buddhir eva ca |
ahaṃkāra itīyaṃ me bhinnā prakṛtir aṣṭadhā ||
apareyam itas tvanyāṃ prakṛtiṃ viddhi me parām |
jīvabhūtāṃ mahābāho yayedaṃ dhāryate jagat ||
Bhagavad Gita 7:4-5
This when translated says: His Prakriti - the structure of the Self, comprises of a lower and an upper realms. While the upper is singly wound around the principle of the Self-Consciousness, the lower is divided into eight: Bhumi (Earth), Ap (Water), Anala (Fire), Vayu, Kha (Ether), Mind, Intellect and Egoism.
Applying this to our 3x3 grid: we have arranged it according what we have learned about it so far, and shown in the image on the right, above.
Now, let's make our inferences.
As you can see, there's the factor of Egoism entailing in the Self, with the Mind is just sandwiched between it and [the sanctity of] the Fire. So from this, it suffices to say that the whole Mahabharata episode, was just a massive wave of Kshatriyas' minds pushing towards egoism, because of their spoils, which the Self had to do something about. And Arjuna was the key to their destruction.
But, then, can just one element of Egoism over-power the rest of the other elements, so as to make such a spoil and cause a major event like the Battle of Kurukshetra?
We'll discuss more on this later.
Komentar