Saturday, November 17, 2007

Ramayana 3: Rebirth

“It means nothing but itself” (731).

Spirals are archetypal forms often found in petroglyphs. The spiral connotes a continuous process that grows and expands as it revolves in a circular motion. It can signify renewal and rebirth.



I came into this world on September 23, 1988. Chances are that I will pass from this life before the twenty-third of September 2088. I have a birth certificate and it is likely that I will a death certificate. But each of these documents only tells of my physical entrance and exit. During my time here, I will have died and been born many times. And though it may sound hokey or new age-y or falsely profound, this cycle is not mere melodrama (though it may be that, as Shakespeare reminds us, “all the world’s a stage” (1089)). We are always visiting some stage of the monomyth, always part of a transition between stages of life. It is a continuous cyclical process. Moving from home/childhood/high school to college and adulthood is a fulcrum upon which all of us, as freshman, now sit. I am learning new skills that I need in order to grow into my new more responsible and independent self. I am shedding remnants of dependence and am dying to my previous self. I have experienced the pain of separation from my home and family and familiar past. I have cried and still I do not feel like I have a home at this point in my life. But I have also experienced the thrill of independence and shared excitement with my peers as I could not have done at home or in high school. When I return home, people tell me that I look taller.

Some transitions, of course, are much weightier than others. My junior year of high school really smashed me into the ground. I became completely inverted for a year and a half. But I was fortunate to live in an environment conducive to the sort of healing I needed. I learned much about the value of ritual and approaching pain and discord consciously.
In the Ramayana, Sita does precisely this when she faces her fear and potentially her death (of a major sort) as she attempts to prove her innocence by walking through fire. “Sita made a ritual circumambulation. Then she addressed the fire in these terms: ‘Fire, I commit myself to your safekeeping” (1068). This is the final test before she can free herself of Ravana’s snares. Sita is frightened, but because she has already decided to enter the flames, she chooses to do so in faith. She has been living in a dark spirit world and in order to reintegrate into the mortal realm, she must be reborn. “She was swept up, or outwards or inwards, for it was impossible to define precisely the sensation of so complete a departure, nor to be sure whether it was she that was going or the scene that was being blown away like smoke” (1069). Is it a departure or an entrance? What a tumultuous trip birth must be for the infant.



Lord Rama (center) with wife Sita, brother Lakshmana and devotee Hanuman. Rama and Lakshman are always shown to be ready for battle (with bow and arrow) as it is their Kshatriya dharma to fight. Rama is shown having blue skin which is a characteristic of Vishnu (www.payer.de/ somadeva/soma024.htm).



Lives are cycles of births and deaths. From time to time we must enter into the unknown. We often obtain the most brilliant of our lights from the depths of our descents. During my junior year of high school, I truly felt my self. My ribs and hips protruded and my cheekbones bore my pain. “In the passage all the things I was carrying were scraped off me” (730). I denied myself much during this year and a half, and there are many things I could not admit to myself. I could feel bodily sensations that many writers, especially Joseph Campbell, used as metaphors to describe going under. I felt submerged. As Campbell says, “Once having traversed the threshold, the hero moves in a dream landscape of curiously fluid, ambiguous forms, where he must survive a succession of trials” (Joseph Campbell). I lost my ability to swim and “suddenly cold water closed round my head, and I seemed sinking down for ever” (730). Introversion is a self-baptism: submerge, cleanse, rebirth.


Hindu gods incarnate many times in multiple forms. Life is not defined in an individualistic sense; it stretches and continues between mortal, physical manifestations. This is Vishnu in the form of Satyanarayana.



Meditation may seem like an escape or a denial of the world. But our job here on earth is to participate in life and its many cycles of birth and death. I think meditation can actually enhance this participation by increasing awareness and sensitivity. Through meditation we learn to live in the eternal present. When we live, we are participating in a process. Sometimes we think that we would be better off if we could reach one extreme of the experience spectrum and just rest there. But we are meant to hold the tension between the two poles, and when that tension falls limp, it is time for renewal. For if “thou prunest a rotten tree, / than cannot so much as a blossom yield” (1083). A blossomless life would be fruitless indeed. A renewal calls for a form of rebirth. One stage of life has grown flat and stale. Luckily, “they have their exits and their entrances; / and one man in his time plays many parts” (1089). And when one exit is taken and a new entrance made, it is as though one “kill’d the deer?” but still have the same “leather skin and horns to wear” (1092).

I am interested in past-life regression. The Master on the mountain revisits a life in which he was Rama. Through meditation, Sita finds the life she shared with Rama. This past bond between Sita and Rama forges a bond between Swallow and the Master as they stand on Wu Shan. Sita and Swallow are both manifestations of the same God or energy or spirit and are not, therefore, completely distinct lives. The many commonalities between the past and present relationships of Swallow and the Master show the continuity of reincarnated life. I do not discredit all such past-life experiences and I certainly do not believe them all, but I won’t feel strongly either way until I experience a regression for myself. How much is metaphor? How much feels substantial? How shall I perceive the experience – through sense, intuition, emotion, thought?


This is a depiction of the Aboriginal dreamtime. In Aboriginal culture, geographic space encapsulates time. Landmarks represent ancestors and everything feature of the land has some meaning. Going back into past lives is a matter of stepping out into the Australian bush.



“Epama epam – nothing means nothing” (Aboriginal proverb)