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Sutra 3
of the Pratyabhijna Hrdayam states ‘That (i.e. the universe) is
manifold because of the differentiation of reciprocally adapted objects and subjects.’
Or ‘The universe appears different
to every individual on account of differences in the corresponding subjects and
objects’
Or ‘The universe appears different
to different perceivers, because of the differences in the external and
internal conditions of the perceiver and the perceived in a particular
situation.’
Last
week I miscalled the beginning of winter and then gossiped about the breakdown
of certain relationships. I didn’t know then that I would be an unwitting
victim of one of the fall-outs through the man concerned being a business
partner of mine. Because of his mental state he’s packing in the business for a
year, leaving the country for a very extended break and reconsidering the
future of his life. His girlfriend’s bonking could cost me 10,000 a year which
is considerably more than half my notional income.
My
reason for discussing these relationships is that I have for a while been
thinking of making ‘relationship’ a theme for a novel. I tend to treat
relationship as an unwanted bind. It was Ramakrishna who said the problems in
life are ‘women and gold’ (kamini and kanchan), now more modernly
translated as lust and greed. I have often felt that my desire for women has
been a weakness in terms of self-reliance. No man is an island but often he
wishes he was and why else would yogis need to retreat to caves, away from
worldly distraction, to perform their tapasyas and unite with their god , if
not because it is either necessary or ideal?
So
despite living in almost constant relationship, I have resisted the focus on relationships
as being important and found myself asking, ‘what are other people for?’
In my
last novel one of the characters turns to his wife and says, ‘Without you, I’d
just be me.’ I love the line for its ambiguity and since then I’ve had the idea
of writing about relationship. After all I’m supposed to be a Shaivite and
shaivites don’t see the universe as an illusion but as a real emanation of -
for want of a better word - god (or less provocatively, universal consciousness).
It is the vedantins that mistrust the world and push us back into the idea that
we must be alone and untouchable. It now seems (to me) that now only is this
idea impracticable but also it is impossible.
Like
many, my unscientifically trained and forgetful mind, will take hold of a fact
and misremember it for some time after. One of these facts is that
neuroscientifically speaking each of our brains is dependent on other brains to
grow and that two brains can’t meet without interacting and changing one another.
Another of these facts is that quantamly we are in constant relationship as our
respective molecules bombard one another. (Okay, I know that probably doesn’t
make any sense but it will do for the moment as a clue to my meaning.)
I will
leave that there for the moment because I am distracted by other stories
---.
Yesterday
I visited someone that I fell out with some eighteen months ago when he was
having a breakdown of sorts. Before seeing him I’d been told the news that his
daughter had just experienced something similar and that the doctors seemed to
think that she had been within hours of losing her grip on reality altogether
on a long-term basis.
On
arriving outside the blocks of flat in which Barmi lives, I saw his partner,
(who is not the mother of his kids or had anything to do with the daughter
concerned) tending a fire in a small brazier by the front entrance to the
flats. What she was burning, I don’t
know, but it stank of things that shouldn’t be burned.
When I
saw Barmi, he said, ‘Have you seen the mad woman?’ He then told me that she
hadn’t eaten or slept for a week, that she was setting fire to noxious things
in that brazier every day and that if he left her alone she would wander, only
to be found hours later staring at a wall or at a piece of shit on the ground.
What the
fuck is going on here?
He tells
me that neither his woman nor his daughter has been taking drugs and that these
episodes have risen spontaneously and separately. How can this be?
Another
story: A young man’s Polish mother died two years ago, thus elevating him from
a half-employed overgrown teenager into a hardworking two house owning man with
a Polish girlfriend who just three weeks ago became his wife. Ten days ago they
had their first baby. The girl’s mother had flown in from Poland for the
occasion and to help out for a short time. She’s staying in their little house
and won’t go away again and has formed an alliance with her daughter that is
excluding Master Sam and preventing him from forming that nuclear family bond that
he feels is necessary. Master and Mrs Sam have begun to argue. It could be that
he has suddenly realized he has made a big mistake. He loves his new baby girl,
yes, but does he love his wife anymore? We shall see.
---
Oh yes,
the quotes from the Pratyabhijna, what are they about?
Well, I
have just spent the last couple of days reading a 1977 dissertation called Śaiva
Encounter With Buddhism In Iśvara-Pratyabhijñā-Vimarśinī by
Sharada Ramasubrahmanian in which he
elucidates the difference between the Buddhist and Shaivite theories of Self. The
crux of the argument appears to be around memory and whether being able to
recall things means that there has been a continuity of self.
Mr Sharada appears to do a good
job at comparing the two soteriological philosophies and points out the
doctrine of bhedabheda (unity in diversity) is the means by which the Shaivites
explain not only memory but relationship at all, for to have a relationship you
need two relatum, something which Buddhism does not recognize. How does the one
become two? Well that, apparently, is explained in the sutra at the beginning
of this entry.
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