DrK.Loganathan
Dear Friends,
As I have already mentioned several
times, the East has developed highly sophisticated sciences but basically
as Hermeneutic Sciences, a fact that we are slowly recognizing. The
war thirsty West has developed the technological sciences that has led,
despite economical wellbeing , to psychopathological human conditions.
For the positive sciences are rapes of Nature by way of mastering it and
forcing it to yield what the greedy man wants for his own material wellbeing
and ego aspirations. Because of the greediness and the aggressive
tendency it reinforces, the advancement in the positive sciences has not
kept pace with the human sciences . The Western psyche is a tortured psyche
so well illustrated by the paintings of Picasso. The East too has failed
by over-projecting the mystical side of it and that
too by way of attracting the disenchanted
Westerners . It has failed to project the logical rigor with which it has
tackled the Human Sciences and buried them inside the unnecessary mystical
mess. The best of the East is NOT mystical but rather Hermeneutical.
ArutkuRaL is a massive text I wrote some time ago which I now
realize contains a variety of hermeneuti sciences. I have already
dealt with the Dream Theory and now I propose to deal with Hymnotherapy
that is dealt with in ArutkuRal in nine chapters with each chapter containing
highly cryptic and sutra style verses. This science
belongs to what is technically called
saathanaviyal , the science of psychological technology that are essentially
therapeutic in nature. They are designed to solve the personal problems
of human beings by enabling them to attain ILLUMINATIONS of a fundamental
sort so that CLARITY attained serves also to SOLVE their personal problems.
What is Hymnotherapy?
Throughout the world all major religions
have something in common: the singing of hymns, the recitation of
sacred verses, the muttering of mantras and so forth along with perhaps
sacred dances. Dance and music appear to be
the essential ingredients of primitive
religions throughout the world and there are already extensive anthropological
studies of various kinds. What ArutkuRaL describes is not anthropology
but rather the SCIENCE of hymns, a
consciously organized set of activities
that has a THEORECTICAL FOUNDATION. There is a rational accounting for
the activities prescribed on the basis of a deep-seated UNDRSTANDING
of how's and why's of the activities. They are
not the enactment of the UNCONSCOIUS
as in the case of the primitive man but rather a conscious prescription
on the basis of a well founded theory. Though initially unconscious but
later reflected upon and owned with an UNDERSTANDING so that there is a
rational justification for procedures recommended.
What is a HYMN?
In hymnotherapy what are recommended
are hymns to be sung in a prescribed manner because each hymn unfolds itself
with a paN i.e. musical notes that serve to bring out the effectivity of
the hymn to its maximum. Now because
he whole enterprise will misfire
if FALSE hymns are chosen to be sung, it becomes very important to isolate
right at the beginning the MOST AUTHENTIC hymn. There must a set of criteria,
the ilakkaNam that would serve the RIGHT choice of the hymns. And
ArutkuRaL describes this in several couplets:
First of all they are literary productions
, bursting out as if spontaneous from the mouth of individuals who
are totally liberated and enjoy a RELEASEMENT of a magnificent kind
and because of which there is no stress
of whatever kind in their bosom:
niikallarum piRavi niikkinaartham kaLippin
aakkamee azakuthiru vaaram
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When worldly desires are finally overcome
in a gradual and spontaneous manner and without any pretensions and falsities,
there is genuine FREEDOM and because of which the ways of Being-in-the
-World of the person is
characterized by total autonomy;
he ceases to be subservient to any power only because he has transcended
the mundane desires that would make him a seeker of this and that.
Wanting NOTHING, he does not SUBMIT himself to any earthly powers. Only
such a person can inhabit the TRUE Divine Ground and immerse himself totally
in it and express through hymnic productions his Being totally inside
the divine ground.
Another feature is that they give expressions to rare and deep experiences that are normally not available for ordinary individuals despite the fact that all are there as possibilities for oneself as well. Such liberated and autonomous individuals enjoy as experiential realities what remain only possibilities for others. They enjoy the highest and rarest ways of Being ever possible for man.
ariyamey kaLinanu puuthikaL aruLum
aruLaaLar thamazakup paadal
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Another important feature is that such hymns unfold the ABSOLUTE TRUTH for the hymns are productions of individuals who live forever in the shadow of total ILLUMINATION that is also simultaneously the experiencing and Being and in the absolute TRUTH, that which is the search of everyone of us. Having sundered very worldly ties the only desire remaining is that of enjoying and Being in absolute Truth, the end of religious and philosophic quest that is the essence of everyone of us whether we realize it or not.
niththya menjaanam niingkaaniRka ninaivil
kaththiyaza theyva kaanangkaL
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