Freedom in the market place

Three judgments which are a pleasure to read for anyone interested in the history of human rights:

1. Boumediene v. Bush, US Supreme Court, The Right to Habeas Corpus (June 2008) (Section III, page 16 onwards presents the larger picture)

2. Naz Foundation v. the Govt of NCT of Delhi, Whether homosexuality is a criminal offense (July 2009)

3. Joginder Kumar v. State of UP, The Justification for Arrest distinct from the Power to Arrest (April 1994)

The Unsayable in Words (part I)

Many people, when they enter a discussion on spirituality and spiritual Enlightenment, sooner or later say something like:

• "It cannot be described in words."
• "He who knows doesn't speak of it."
• "You can only experience it, you cannot communicate it."

Now to disagree with it is one thing, to produce evidence that the Enlightened through the ages have described their state and/or expressed that they are Enlightened is another. This post falls in that "another" category.

1. Siddharth Gautam (circa 500 BC)
   
   "As long as my knowledge and vision of things as they actually unfold was not perfectly clear, each of the four truths in each of its three aspects - twelve turns in all - I could not claim to have realized the incomparable supreme enlightenment in this universe with its gods, its destroyers and its creators; in this generation with its recluses and its Brahmins, its spirits and its humans. But when my knowledge and vision of things as they actually unfold became perfectly clear - four truths, each with three aspects, making twelve turns in all - then I did claim to have realized the incomparable supreme enlightenment in this universe with its powers, its destroyers and creators; in this generation with its recluses and Brahmins, its spirits and its humans. Then knowledge and insight arose in me: nothing any longer holds me here; this is the last birth; there will be no more becoming." (the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta)
   
   "There is that sphere where there is neither earth, nor water, nor fire, nor wind; neither the infinitude of space, nor the infinitude of consciousness (...) neither this world, nor the next world, nor sun, nor moon. And there, I say, there is neither coming, nor going, nor stasis; neither passing away nor arising: without stance, without foundation, without support. This, just this, is the end of dukkha." (Udana 8.1, Total Unbinding).
   
   
2. Jesus Christ (circa 1 BC)
   
   "And where I go you know, and the way you know.' Thomas said to Him, 'Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?' Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.'" - John 14:4-6
   
   
3. Adi Sankaracharya (circa 800 AD)
   
   "Dwelling in this body as a mere temporary halting-place, he meets the things of sense just as they come, like a child subject to another's will; thus lives the knower of the Self, who shows no outward sign, nor is attached to external things. Whether clothed in space alone, or wearing other vestures, or clothed in skins, or in a vesture of thought; like one in trance, or like a child, or like a shade, he walks the earth."
   
   "Binding and getting rid of bondage have to be spoken of because of. the existence, and yet the unreality, of enveloping by unwisdom. But there is no enveloping of the Eternal; it is not enveloped because nothing besides the Eternal exists to envelop it.
   
   "The binding and the getting rid of bondage are both mirages; the deluded attribute the work of thought to the thing itself; just as they attribute the cloud-born cutting off of vision to the sun; for the unchanging is secondless consciousness, free from every clinging stain.
   
   "The belief that bondage of the Real, is, and the belief that it has ceased, are both mere things of thought; not of the everlasting Real.
   
   "Therefore these two, glamor-built, bondage and the getting rid of bonds, exist not in the Real; the partless, changeless, peaceful; the unassailable, stainless; for what building-up could there be in the secondless, supreme reality, any more than in clear space?
   
   "There is no limiting, nor letting go, no binding nor gaining of success; there is neither the seeker of Freedom, nor the free; this, verily, is the ultimate truth."
   
   "For this world no longer is, whether past, present, or to come, after awakening to the supreme reality, in the real Self, the Eternal, from all wavering free. The snake seen in the rope exists not, nor even a drop of water in the desert mirage, where the deer thirsts.
   
   "This duality is mere glamor, for the supreme reality is not twofold; thus the scripture says, and it is directly experienced in dreamlessness."
   
   (from Vivekchudamani)
   
   
4. Mansur Al-Hallaj (circa 900 AD)
   
   "Anal Haq" ("I am the Truth").
   
   "There is nothing wrapped in my turban but God."
   


5. Meister Eckhart (circa 1300 AD)
   
   "Nothing hinders the soul so much in attaining to the knowledge of God as time and place. Therefore, if the soul is to know God, it must know Him outside time and place, since God is neither in this or that, but One and above them. If the soul is to see God, it must look at nothing in time; for while the soul is occupied with time or place or any image of the kind, it cannot recognize God." (The Nearness of the Kingdom sermon)
   
   "God's being is my life, but if it is so, then what is God's must be mine and what is mine God's. God's is-ness is my is-ness, and neither more nor less. They just live eternally with God, on a par with God, neither deeper nor higher. All their work is done by God and God's by them."
   
   "The eye by which I see God is the same as the eye by which God sees me. My eye and God's eye are one and the same--one in seeing, one in knowing, and one in loving."
   
   To be continued in the next part:
   
   
6. Guru Nanak Dev (circa 1500 AD)


7. Sri Ramakrishna (circa 1850 AD)


8. Ramana Maharishi (circa 1900 AD)


9. Jiddu Krishnamurti (20th century AD)


10. Chandar Mohan Jain, aka Osho (20th century AD)

The Deer and the Duck

Once a deer and a duck were good friends. The deer was fond of the duck, and the duck was fond of the deer.

The deer was fond of galloping in the open range, whereas the duck was content with her pond. The duck knew that the deer wanted to venture far, and frequently told the deer that it was free to go anytime, and that the duck would not give it a hard time.

The deer was fond of the duck and though it wanted to venture far, it also knew that without it the duck would soon be devoured by the vultures. The deer slept fitfully, with dreams of vistas beyond the hills. The duck, though dismayed to keep the deer restrained, was nevertheless pleased that the deer cared for it and was keeping it company. They had promised each other that no matter what happened, they would always meet in the evening and care for and protect each other.

One day the deer went very far and could come only late at night. The duck was filled with an inordinate rage that the deer had forsaken it. While the deer slept, the duck quacked and quacked till her distant friends the wolves came near the pond. The wolves dared not attack the deer on their own but they promised the duck, in their cunning, that they would teach the deer a lesson and make the deer pay for the duck's quacks of misery.

The next day, as the deer was just venturing from the pond, the duck gave a signal to the wolves and their friends, the bloodhounds. There was a great roar all around as the hounds and the wolves ran after the deer. As the deer galloped to safety in a cave, the hounds and the wolves, with saliva dripping from their jaws, set fire to the bushes near the cave. The deer went further and further inside the cave.

Deep inside the cave it found an inscription which simply said, in duck language: "Remember This." It was hungry and thirsty, and the heat from the fires nearby were sucking all air from inside the cave. It started eating the leaves and licking the damp walls of the cave, and fell unconscious as the heat became unbearable.

But it survived.

Many days and weeks and months passed as the wolves and hounds waited for the deer to come out. The duck, with its eyes still blood-red with anger, wanted to know from the wolves if they had killed the deer yet, and the wolves promised it that it was only a matter of time.

In the meanwhile, the deer, inside the cave, found an elixir of strength, a fountain of water so pure that it made the deer lustrous. Even in the dark of the night, the cave shimmered with a slight glow from the deer's body. The deer, not knowing the reality behind the attack, shed tears over what it thought to be the duck's plight, who was alone in its absence.

Many more days, weeks and months passed and the patience of the wolves and of the hounds ran out. They lost interest and assumed the deer was long dead.

As a new day broke over the horizon, the deer saw that there were no moving shadows near the gate of the cave. The wolves and the hounds had left. It came out of the cave, looked at the sky for a long time till its neck hurt, and then walked back to its home near the pond.

The duck saw the deer, became scared that the deer was coming for it, and started quacking again. Once again the wolves and the hounds came running. The deer, for a moment, could not understand what was happening. But then it suddenly realized. Now it realized what the duck had done, and that it was the duck who was behind the attacks.

But this time, the deer was not scared. With an indomitable strength, it stood calmly as the hounds growled and as the wolves bared their teeth and scratched their paws in the ground. The deer, suddenly, started soaring and galloping and wounding the hounds and the wolves with its antlers. It started attacking and killing the hounds and the wolves. Nobody knew what had made the deer so strong, and the duck trembled in fear when it saw that the deer had become immortal, that no blood flowed from its body even when it was wounded.

The battle was soon over, and the deer then turned towards the duck, and looked into its eyes for a long time. With a piercing gaze, it kept looking till the duck could take it no more and begged forgiveness. But the deer had spent so many months on its own now that it had forgotten the duck's language and could not understand what the duck said.

It simply repeated the only phrase of duck-language that it now knew: "Remember This."

The duck then gestured for the deer to come closer and sit down. The deer again looked at the sky, which was clear except a single whiff of a cloud directly above. But it heard a flutter of a great many wings. It galloped away with an effortless grace into the open range, leaving the duck behind, forever.


The duck became despondent and tried looking at the sky to see what the deer had seen, but its neck was too short to look up to see what was coming. But it did not have to wait for long. In a short while, the faint flutter of wings that the deer had heard became a thunderstorm. Thousands of vultures descended near the pond and started devouring the carcasses of the wolves and the hounds. The day became night as they clouded the sun.

Neither the deer nor the duck was seen again after that day.

Three Verses from Advaita Vedanta

Bhagwad Gita 2.69

या निशा सर्व भूतानाम् तस्याम् जागर्ति संयमी
यस्यां जागर्ति भूतानि सा निशा पश्यतो मुनेः

What is night to all beings is the time of awakening for the seeker
When all are active and awake, that apparent day is like the night for the silent.

Bhagwad Gita 3.27

प्रकरते क्रियामाणानी गुणैः कर्माणि सर्वशः
अंहकार विमूढात्मा कर्ताहमिति मन्यते

All processes are due to the qualities of nature
An egoist deludes himself in thinking "I am am the doer."

...

Ishavasyam Upanishad, sholka one:

इशावास्यम इदं सर्वं यतकिन्च जगत्याम जगत
तेंत्यक्तेनभुन्जिथा माँ गृधः कस्यस्विद धनं

All that is, in this world or another, is enveloped by the Lord
Knowing this, be content, and do not covet anybody's wealth.

रात के मुसाफिर

The lyrics of the end titles song from Gulaal, a 2009 Hindi film:

ओ रात के मुसाफिर
तू भागना संभलके
पोटली में तेरी हो आग ना
... संभलके

चल तो तू पड़ा है
फासला बड़ा है
जान ले अंधेरे के सर पे खून चढा है

मुकाम खोज ले तू
मकान खोज ले तू
इन्सान के शहर में इन्सान खोज ले तू

देख तेरी ठोकर से
राह का वो पत्थर

माथे पे तेरे कसके लग जाए ना
... उछलके

ओ रात के मुसाफिर
तू भागना संभलके
पोटली में तेरी हो आग ना
... संभलके

माना कि जो हुआ है
वो तूने भी किया है

इन्हों ने भी किया है
उन्हों ने भी किया है

माना कि तूने ... हाँ हाँ
चाहा नहीं था लेकिन
तू जानता नहीं कि ये कैसे हो गया है

लेकिन तू फिर भी सुन ले
नहीं सुनेगा कोई

तुझे ये सारी दुनिया खा जायेगी
...निगल के

ओ रात के मुसाफिर ...