(That was horrible, but I loved saying it)
The Upanishads are full of wonderful kernels that we can carry with us in our medicine-bags. These notions can remind us earth-worshippers that we are empowered, whether we know it or not, by an arcane cosmography that concerned itself with rubrics for spiritual nutrition, and assumed that this was the point of origin for all other forms of nutrition (physical and environmental). Some of my favorite wordcrystals are "the earth is honey for all beings, and all beings are the honey for this earth" (Brihadaranyaka, 2:5:1), or "This whole universe is fivefold" (1:4:17) [[DaVinci, Sacred Geometry, & Permaculture design all agree with this]], or finally "the whole extent of this universe is nothing but food and what eats food." (1:4:6) [[Vandana Shiva, who is a level 70 shaman, summons the power of that one frequently]] -- this text also dabbles in MAGIC, as in "What introduces differentiation is name and form..." (1:4:7) Y'know, that whole 'nomina sunt realia' chaosmagick game... Oh, I could go on! But let me get to the passage that inspired this diatribe in the first place...(By the way, the noun "diatribi" in Greek means variably "a waste of time" or "a serious employment/study", depending on the intention of the language user. Don't ya know I just love words that have dual potentiality, much like subatomic particles... But as usual I DIGRESS...we'll get to that later!
The following are the very last few verses that conclude the Taittiriya Upanishad. Very giggle-worthy. Such is the effect of hindu scripture on me... and maybe others who grew up in a religious culture that "didn't do" ecology. lol
(psst...ecology isn't patriotic, dontcha know! Plants? Yeah, *total* socialists.) ;)
"This one that is here in a man (purusa) and that one [up] there in the sun, - HE IS ONE.
[5] The man who knows this, on departing from this world, draws near to the self that consists of food, draws near to the self that consists of breath, draws near to the self that consists of mind, draws near to the self that consists of understanding, draws near to the self that consists of bliss; then he roams [at will] throughout these worlds, eating what he will, changing his form at will: and sitting down, he sings this song:
Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!
I am food! I am food! I am food!
I am an eater of food! I am an eater of food! I am an eater of food!
I am a maker of verses! I am a maker of verses! I am a maker of verses!
I am the first born of the universal order (rta),
Earlier than the gods, in the navel of immortality!
Whoso gives me away, he, verily, has succoured me!
I who am the eater of food!
I have overcome the whole world!
He who knows this shines with a golden light."†
(emphasis my own)
Vedanta extolls the principle, mentioned ceaselessly in the Upanishads, that the Atman (self, ground of being) and the Brahman (reality substrate) are the same thing, as in Tat Tvam Asi. As my Hinduism professor said a few years ago, when asked if the "atman" was like a cupcake and the "brahman" was like a cake made from the same batter, he replied "No... it's like a cake and... A CAKE".
Therein is the idea that the cosmos is fractal in nature, or is A singular fractal that contains many different levels of manifest being that all operate from the very same "mathemagical" principles.
We did have thinking like this in the west, y'know. Abrahamic religion relegated it to "the occult". Meet Hermeticism. You might have heard the maxim that the Corpus Hermeticum is really famous for (similar to the fame of "Tav Tvam Asi" vis a vis the Upanishads)... and this maxim is, in the popular form: "As above, so below". This proceeds from the literal text which says something more like "That which is Below corresponds to that which is Above, and that which is Above corresponds to that which is Below, to accomplish the miracle of the One Thing"††.
Mmmm.. sounds like fundamental complementarity to me. This is a principle that is consanguineous and supplemental to the fractal-universe model. It can be evidenced in the study of particle physics, where matter is held together by the co-attraction of "opposites", and in an even more capricious guise, quantum functioning, where subatomic entities have at least dual potentiality when left to their own sneaky devices.
The Hermetic maxim is a riddle, because as "You-know-who" (Bucky-ballz) points out elsewhen, the only directions worth talking about in Universe are "in", "out" and "around". This is due to the effect of gravity on the space-time fabric - think of the S-T Continuum as a big bedsheet stretched out taught in all directions. If you were to roll a baseball onto that sheet, it would make a little depression, right? And then say once the baseball had settled in the middle somewhere you were to toss a couple of marbles onto the sheet. Where do they roll? Into the "gravity field" of the baseball, obvs. This is a bad model, since it itself is privy and dependent on REAL gravity to simulate fictional gravity, so we're still inclined to think that the marbles are rolling "down" into the baseball's gravity field. But imagine this happening on a celestial scale, so instead of a bedsheet, it's a void. A bit less comfy sounding. But in that case, there is no "up" or "down" in a cosmic sense, since those notions proceed from our orientation as earthlings to our mother earth (and that concept is important to hold, too - I don't mean to discount it).
So the translation of the hermetic maxim can be a bit misleading at first, because it appears, in English, as well as many other earthling tongues, very married to the dimensions of "up" and "down", which can sound a bit Heaven-n'-Hell-esque. Do not be fooled! The Great Above and the Great Below are but metaphoric prepositions. This antithetical word-string IS a template with infinite applications; the microcosmic and the macrocosmic, the organ and the organism, the breathing of your body and the breathing of the world, every action has an equal and opposite reaction, matter cannot be created or destroyed... etc. etc. etc.
Which reminds me, Hermeticism was onto the laws of thermodynamics WAY before the fact. Chapter VIII of the Corpus is titled "That No One of Existing Things doth Perish, but Men in Error Speak of Their Changes as Destructions and as Deaths." This veritably lays out the first law of thermodynamics which states in common terms that matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed, they can only shapeshift (and thus the net energy within the 'mainframe' always stays the same)
Jeez. You hardly even need to watch the movie now, eh?
Winks and love,
Omnivorous Faun
p.s. Hakim Bey, ever ahead of the pack, has written a manifesto heralding the return of such ideas in the west... and this time, the Hermes T's incarnation is clothed in GREEN. Haven't read it yet, BTW...Can us well-informed tricksters not spot viral meme potential a mile away? Good old Mercury is strong in me. ;)
† Hindu Scriptures. Trans. R.C. Zaehner. Everyman's Library, 1966.
†† Download the Corpus Hermeticum as a PDF
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