The SA-NE Sutra
Paulo Coelho, the Harper Collins author of "The Alchemist", summing up his beautifully crafted article titled "In search of my island" (Hindustan Times, page 8, 19-Jun-05) quoted Paul McCartney, the iconic singer, as "All you need is love", that summed up his whole body of works in one line.
Love is the common contraption, that traps the great western minds, and stifles it from realizing its full potential. I am certainly not suggesting that love is a bad in any way. It is a good thing.
Love is the nature's way of bribing the humans into fulfilling their pro-creative duty. But like all bribers, the nature becomes indifferent towards its beneficiary after having got what it had given in lieu of the bribe.
After having received love and procreated in return, it is up to us humans to seek our way and move forward. Love is but the first step towards this destiny. The necessary first step. Buddha got love, procreated and moved on to find Nirvana. And, so can all of us. All we need to look beyond love, not to break away from it but evolving it to the next levels.
This is what is called the SA-NE sutra. SA and NE are the first and the last alphabets of SARGAM (the Indian equivalent to Sofele) and sutra is a Sanskrit word literally for a thread, and is used to mean a short cut and sometimes a formula. SA in the sutra stands for sakar and NE for Nirakar. sakar means having a form and Nirakar is formless. The goal is to evolve from sakar to Nirakar. To evolve from the Form to Formless.
Love is the first step towards Nirvana. In the evolution of the Indian thoughts, Bhakti movement was an important step. The likes of Meera, Ras Khan (a Muslim devotee of Krishna), Tulsidas and many others evolved their loves for a human form to that of gods. This achieves the next step towards the Holy Grail of SA-NE sutra. Thought Bhakti movement achieved to redirect the energies of love of forms towards the formless, yet a state of duality remains between the devotee and their gods.
Even in Mono-ism, which assumes one God and that being same and realizable from different religions, has this duality intact. The final destiny is beyond love, even beyond the love of God.
Love pre-assumes duality, a state of distinction between the conscious subject from that of its object of love.
Love gives rise to passion and out of which arises happiness, if love is reciprocated by the object of love. And, sadness and sometimes even anger takes the place of this happiness when faced with rejection or a perceived rejection by God, having faced a tragedy.
However, Nirvana, is the state of pure Joy and eternal bliss (Ananda in Sanskrit). No object is needed. In this ultimate quest subject and the object dissolve into each other and are one. The love dissolves too, with the dissolution of the duality. Love looses its meaning in this state of mind.
One can leave behind the concept of God, and enjoy the pure bliss or Ananda. However, if one fears to navigate this uncharted waters of the supreme state of divine consciousness alone, one can seek a refuge in the concept of God and use it as its lifebuoy. But then, when the final destination is reached and the duality dissolves, one has to proclaim to have been united with God.
This is nothing but a state of mind where the consciousness is united in itself, the subject and the object are both one and the same creating an divergent recursion or an Infinity.
This nothingness is everything.
Ashish Banerjee (www.Ashish.Banerjee.name)
Love is the common contraption, that traps the great western minds, and stifles it from realizing its full potential. I am certainly not suggesting that love is a bad in any way. It is a good thing.
Love is the nature's way of bribing the humans into fulfilling their pro-creative duty. But like all bribers, the nature becomes indifferent towards its beneficiary after having got what it had given in lieu of the bribe.
After having received love and procreated in return, it is up to us humans to seek our way and move forward. Love is but the first step towards this destiny. The necessary first step. Buddha got love, procreated and moved on to find Nirvana. And, so can all of us. All we need to look beyond love, not to break away from it but evolving it to the next levels.
This is what is called the SA-NE sutra. SA and NE are the first and the last alphabets of SARGAM (the Indian equivalent to Sofele) and sutra is a Sanskrit word literally for a thread, and is used to mean a short cut and sometimes a formula. SA in the sutra stands for sakar and NE for Nirakar. sakar means having a form and Nirakar is formless. The goal is to evolve from sakar to Nirakar. To evolve from the Form to Formless.
Love is the first step towards Nirvana. In the evolution of the Indian thoughts, Bhakti movement was an important step. The likes of Meera, Ras Khan (a Muslim devotee of Krishna), Tulsidas and many others evolved their loves for a human form to that of gods. This achieves the next step towards the Holy Grail of SA-NE sutra. Thought Bhakti movement achieved to redirect the energies of love of forms towards the formless, yet a state of duality remains between the devotee and their gods.
Even in Mono-ism, which assumes one God and that being same and realizable from different religions, has this duality intact. The final destiny is beyond love, even beyond the love of God.
Love pre-assumes duality, a state of distinction between the conscious subject from that of its object of love.
Love gives rise to passion and out of which arises happiness, if love is reciprocated by the object of love. And, sadness and sometimes even anger takes the place of this happiness when faced with rejection or a perceived rejection by God, having faced a tragedy.
However, Nirvana, is the state of pure Joy and eternal bliss (Ananda in Sanskrit). No object is needed. In this ultimate quest subject and the object dissolve into each other and are one. The love dissolves too, with the dissolution of the duality. Love looses its meaning in this state of mind.
One can leave behind the concept of God, and enjoy the pure bliss or Ananda. However, if one fears to navigate this uncharted waters of the supreme state of divine consciousness alone, one can seek a refuge in the concept of God and use it as its lifebuoy. But then, when the final destination is reached and the duality dissolves, one has to proclaim to have been united with God.
This is nothing but a state of mind where the consciousness is united in itself, the subject and the object are both one and the same creating an divergent recursion or an Infinity.
This nothingness is everything.
Ashish Banerjee (www.Ashish.Banerjee.name)
posted by Unknown at 10:21 PM
