In the mid 1980’s while pursuing my BA Degree in English Language and Literature, at the Maharajah’s University College, Thiruvananthapuram, a close chum of mine, Dr. Santhosh (now well known in the Malayalam film world as the Babusenan Brothers) introduced me to a book shelf in the Kerala University Library entitled ‘Mysticism’… And in the years to follow, I poured over several books including one which recently a senior professor whom I see as a mentor, Prof.Sreedharan, of NIT, Calicut referred to in a casual conversation. The professor told me that a rare manuscript of Varahamihira’s Bhirat Samhita is available in manuscript form in archives…and I surprised him by saying that it is available in the Kerala University Library in print form!
My tryst with books on Mysticism indirectly
prepared me to teach
Indian Philosophy to the students
of the Integrated Teacher Education Programme
this year…The schools of
philosophy included everything from Vaisheshika, Samkhya, and Vedanta to
Buddhism, Jainism and Charavaka….
A close study of
the different schools led me to
an affirmation of the richness of
Indian spirituality.
A few years ago, I had
purchased half a dozen books published
by OSHO Media International at a
throwaway price from an antique book seller. Recently,
I read the first in the
collection on Zen Buddhism based on informal talks delivered by
Osho (Sri Rajaneesh). It was
quite a revelation...In the second book
I am reading now, on talks related to Kabir, I came across the following quote:
“All
the beautiful has come out of the religious
people, the theistic people…
There
are three hundred religions in the
world-so much variety so many possibilities…
In
religion there is tremendous variety. Mahavira says something, Buddha says
something else, Jesus still something else, Mohammed brings another dimension,
Moses opens another door, and
Zarathustra is calling you to see from his eyes. The tremendous variety,
so may dimension so many possibilities challenge humanity and bring out
the best in you…”p254
This is to me a reassuring affirmation of
something I was ruminating on… all these
years…and I thought I should share it in my Blog.
