Feb. 23, 2003

 

This Hindu parable is not a story as we usually hear them.  It has layers of meaning and a concept of time so very different from our own Western linear, historical logical progression.  Listen well and you may hear a different view of the Universe, an image that may both puzzle and enrich us.

 

A Hindu Parable: A Parade of Ants.

          Indra slew the Dragon that had been resting on the mountains in the shape of a cloud, holding the waters of heaven captive in its belly.  The waters burst free and streamed in ribbons across the land, to circulate once more through the body of the world. 

 

 This flood is the flood of life and belongs to all.  It is the sap of field and forest, the blood cursing in the vein.  The monster had taken it for him self, away from the world.  But now it was released and the gods returned.

 

          During the reign of the Dragon the majestic mansions of the city of the Gods had crumbled and cracked.  The first act of Indra was to rebuild them.  He summoned Vishvakarnan, the God of arts and crafts to build a place fitting the unequaled splendor of the king of the Gods.  Vishvakarnan created a shining residence, marvelous with palaces and gardens, lakes and towers.  But Indra was not satisfied.  He wanted more of everything.  Give me bigger ponds, trees, towers and golden palaces! Whenever Vishvakarnan was done with one thing Indra wanted yet another. The divine craftsman was in deep despair.  So he complained to the creator Brahma, the Universal Spirit, who abides far above the Gods.  Brahma comforted him: Go home, you will soon be relieved of your burden.   Brahma then approached Vishnu, the Supreme Being of whom he, Brahma, the creator was but an agent.  Vishnu listened and nodded his head.

 

           Early the next morning a Brahmin boy appeared at the gate of the palace asking to see the great Indra, the king of the gods.  The boy was slender, ten years old, blue of color and radiant with wisdom.  The king welcomed the boy with gifts of honey, milk and fruits.  "Oh, tell me, venerable boy, why did you come here?" asked Indra.  The beautiful child replied with a voice that was as deep and soft as the slow thundering of rain clouds.  "Oh, King of the Gods, I have heard of this palace you are building and have come to ask you some questions.  How many years will it take to finish this rich and extensive residence?  Surely no Indra before you have ever succeeded in completing such a task."

 

          Indra was amused by the boy.  How could this child have known any Indras other than himself?  " Tell me child! " he said in a fatherly manner, "How many other Indras have you have seen - or heard of?

 

          The boy replied in a voice as warm and sweet as milk from a cow, but with words that sent a slow chill through Indra's veins.  " My dear child, "said the boy " I knew your father, the Old Tortoise Man, progenitor of all the creatures on the earth.  And I knew you grandfather, Beam of Celestial Light, who was the son of Brahma.  Also I know Brahma, brought forth by Vishnu from a lotus growing from Vishnu's navel.  And Vishnu too the Supreme Being, I know."

 

          "Oh king of Gods, I have seen the dreadful dissolution of the universe.  I have seen it all perish again and again, at the end of each cycle. At that time every single atom dissolves into the primal pure waters of eternity, whence originally all arose.  Who will count the universes that have passed away, or the creations that have risen afresh, again and again from the formless abyss of the vast waters?  Who will search through the wide infinities of space to count the universes existing side by side, each containing its own Brahma, its Vishnu and its Shiva?  Who will count the Indras in them all? "

 

          As they were talking a procession of ants had made its appearance into the hall.  In military precision, the tribe of ants paraded across the floor.  The boy noticed them and stared and suddenly laughed.  " Why do you laugh?" stammered Indra.  The boy answered:" I laughed because of the ants.  Tell me why! Pleaded the king.  " I saw the ants filing in a long parade.  Each of them was once an Indra.  Like you, each by virtue of his deeds ascended to the rank of king of the gods.  But now through many rebirths each has become again an ant.  This army of ants is an army of former Indras.

 

          Piety and high deeds elevate the inhabitants of the world to the glorious realm of gods and goddesses, or even higher to the domains of Brahma and Shiva and to the highest sphere of Vishnu.  But wicked acts sink them into the worlds beneath, into pits of grief and sorrow, reincarnated among vermin and pigs and animals of the wild or among insects.  It is through deeds that one attains happiness or anguish and becomes a master and a serf.

 

          Life is a cycle of the countless rebirths like a vision in a dream.  Perishable as bubbles are the good and evil beings of the dream.  In unending cycles good and evil alternate.  Hence the wise is attached to neither."   Shaken the king Indra sat in wonder.  The events seemed to him to have been but a dream.  But he no longer felt any desire to magnify his magnificent splendor.  He now desired redemption.  He wished only to be free.  So he sent the divine craftsman home with gifts and thanks.  Thus the king of the Gods was humiliated in his boundless pride, cured of his excessive ambition and made to understand his proper role in the wheel of unending life.

 ( Adapted from Bramavaivarta Purana, Krishna-janma Khanda)

The God with the Many Faces.

 

 

          What did you think of this story?  It is a parable with multiple layers of meaning that we can peel back as we wish.  On one level it is a simple story: pride stands to fall.  But on another level it gives you the secret of enlightenment and indeed of the universe itself.  Like the religion we call Hinduism it has so many facets as to be confusing to the outsider and easily misunderstood.

 

          Most of us in the West know little about this faith.  Almost everyone however knows about Gandhi and his universal tolerance.  He was a Hindu but belonged to that small group of universal saints who earn their place in our religious history because of their unfailing insistence upon treating others with respect.  Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu.  This man hated Gandhi’s tolerance toward Muslims and Christians and wanted a different so called pure Hindu state.  Today in India this battle is still going on and sadly the killings continue.  But that is no more Hinduism’s fault than Christianity's for the crimes committed in Jesus’ name.  Intolerance, and hatred of those that are “not like us ” is to blame.  That is one reason it is important to understand more about other religions. Because ignorance breeds fear and fear can lead to violence.

 

          So today I offer you a small taste of this most ancient of religions.  I hope it will inspire you to find out more and most of all that it will remind us not to make quick judgments about things we know little about.

 

          Hinduism at first may seem like an ancient temple wall with intricately carved and finely detailed figures intertwined, sensuous, richly carved, detailed, complicated with Gods, Goddesses, heroes, heroines, sacred animals, flowers and fruits in an abundant overwhelming display.  How do we make sense of it all?  There is a labyrinth of beliefs, practices, stories, parables and ancient texts in this all-embracing religion.  Ralph Waldo Emerson was one of the first to realize that there was much within this ancient religion that we might benefit from.

 

          So here is the briefest of road maps.  Hinduism is so called because its earliest adherents occupied the valley drained by the Indus river systems in the North West Frontier province and the Punjab.  In this valley a civilization bloomed some 4000 years ago, a period recorded in the Rig Veda, the oldest of the Vedas, the Hindu scriptures.   Originally Hindu implied residence in the area not a religion.   As in today’s India, men and women worshipped different Gods and practiced different rites.  Yet over the centuries a central core of Hinduism survived through successive invasions, endured Muslim Conquests, British Home Rule missionaries and co-existed for centuries with the simpler Buddhist philosophy of enlightenment each influencing the other.  According to Radhakrishna the common Hindu attitude toward religion sets no fixed intellectual limits to mark off one religion from another.  In this view, intellect is subordinated to intuition, dogma to experience and outward expression to inward realization.   Religion is a kind of life experience.  It is insight into the nature of reality (darsana) or experience of reality (anubhava).  The chief sacred scriptures, the Vedas are the sayings of perfected souls, those strongly endowed with the sense for reality.   The three divisions of the Vedanta: the Upanishads, the Brahma Sutra and the Bhavadagita correspond to the three stages of faith, knowledge and discipline.  The Upanishads embody the experience.  The Brahma Sutras are attempts to interpret in logical terms the conclusions of the Upanishads.  The Bhagavadgita is a yogi text giving us the chief means by which we can attain a truly religious life.  All sects of Hinduism attempt to interpret these texts.  But again there are many layers.  From the village shrine to philosophy this religion is lived on many levels. 

The Upanishad says that"  God, the maker of all, the Great Spirit ever seated in the heart of the creatures, is fashioned by the heart, the understanding and the will.  They who know that become immortal. "  As in the parable there is One Supreme Universal Spirit.  But many need the help of the imagination to envision God. Thus the many faces of God developed with all aspect of creation and life represented.  Radhakrishna writes: " We are persons and God is perfect personality.  If we analyze the concept of personality we find that it includes cognition, emotion and will and God is viewed as the supreme knower, the great lover and the perfect will, Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva."   In his view the images of Gods and of the numerous Goddesses points us to better selves, perfected aspects of our personality.

 

          With this in mind let us return to the story of the Parade of Ants.   It begins with the slaying of the Dragon, a great monster in who has selfishly captured the life giving waters.  Only when those waters are liberated, released can creation begin - again.  It is out of the cosmic, milky waters that the thousand petaled golden lotus grows that becomes the door, the womb of the Universe and out of which Brahma, the creator is born.  Waters are seen as female, they are the maternal, procreative aspects of the Absolute.  The sacred Rivers are seen as food and life bestowing mothers.  Ganga (or Ganges) is known as "the mother who bestows prosperity and secures salvation"; she represents joy in this life and hope for the lives to come.  She washes away the sins and secures a rebirth among the Gods.  That is why people will bathe in the same waters that may also carry the remains of those who have gone on to another life.  Ganges, the Great Mother holds all in her embrace, the living and the dead.  Thus only when the waters are released can the story begin, as only with the creation of water can life exist.   It is thought provoking that so many creation stories begin with water including Genesis where the "spirit hovered over the waters.. "

          Indra’s first act is to rebuild that which has been destroyed, what seems to me a very commendable and human act.  We rise up new cities after wars, after floods, after fires and earthquakes.  Again and again we too create new worlds upon the ruins of the old.  Growing up in Europe after the war, living in Louisiana through many floods and in North Carolina after hurricanes I am amazed by the power and resources of the human will.   But the shadow side of this is that often we also do not know when we have more than enough.  Greed and pride is the same among humans and gods.  Indra wanted a better, bigger, improved, newer, later model of gardens, terraces and palaces.  He was insatiable and fell from the Hindu way of grace.  He forgot what his proper place in the Universe was.  I think we some thousands of years later also forget.   Water is cheap around here and we forget it is still a desert.  When the poor artist desperate for some rest approaches the creator, the Universal spirit, Brahma, we begin to see the layers upon layers of this worldview.  Here there is a King of the Gods but above him is a Universal Spirit and above him again Vishnu.  But all subject to the cosmic cycles.  When the divine child, who appears in many cultures as an archetypal figure, offers Indra enlightenment, a clearer view of what reality is, he describes all the Gods he has known.  Then in a passage written long before the dawn of modern cosmology, he continues to remember the Universes he has seen destroyed, the Universes he has seen created.  " I have seen it all perish again and again, at the end of each cycle.  At that time every single atom dissolves into the primal pure waters of eternity, whence originally all arose.  Who will count the universes that have passed away or the creations that have risen afresh, again and again from the formless abyss of the vast waters?  Who will search through the wide infinities of space to count the Universes existing side by side? “ Even the highest of the Gods are subject to the same cosmic cycles as the rest of us and may become re-incarnated as a lowly ant.   Judgment is thus also eternal and changing.  What do you want to be in your next life? The wheel of existence is endlessly created and destroyed.  The aim of Indian thought is to learn the secret of the entanglement, and, if possible to get off the wheel of existence. 

          So what are we to make of this?  The cosmic view may be attractive, the many faces of God sure to please some part of us.  My personal favorite is Ganesha, the plump elephant God who is called upon whenever one starts a new enterprise.   Life and death are honored, accepted and ultimately seen as illusions. Shiva dances eternally and Kali devours.  We could use some acceptance of this eternal dance of life and a good dose of humility. We are so used to seeing reality the material world around us. We are so used to seeing time as a commodity, a seconds, minutes and hours and our minds are used to everything, even the Universe, having a definite beginning and an ending as in the theory of the Big Bang.  At the heart of Hinduism is an attempt to understand not just the mind of God but eternity itself.  This is a tough paradox to understand for a mortal still hung up on the wheel of life.

 

          Gandhi continues to be an example of how embracing and accepting this religion distilled to its human essence and universality can be.   God with the many faces in this view is revealed as One Spirit and One God.   In these times of sectarian divisions when religion far too often has come to stand for intolerance, the saved versus the unsaved, the pure versus the impure, the believers versus the unbelievers, in these troubled times it is that universal spirit I call upon.  Give our hearts the courage we need and our minds the wisdom to know that our separateness is the real illusion.