Skip to main content

Mystery of Life


Book Review

Life is a mystery to be lived and not a riddle to be solved. One of the fundamental differences between spirituality and philosophy is in this approach to life. Spirituality teaches us to embrace life with faith while philosophy analyses it with reason.

Faith is a gift. Catholic theologian Hans Kung goes to the extent of associating religious faith with Erik Erikson’s psychological concept of ‘basic trust’. Erikson postulates basic trust as the first component of a healthy personality. What is this basic trust? “An attitude toward oneself and the world derived from the experiences of the first year of life.” It is a reasonable trustfulness as far as others are concerned and simple sense of trustworthiness as far as oneself is concerned.

This attitude is established first of all in a healthy mother-child relationship. The mother gives the most fundamental sense of security to a child from which sense develops the child’s attitudes to the realities that it will experience eventually. Accepting the realities with a positive feeling of security and confidence depends on the basic trust developed in the infant.

No one can grow up into adulthood learning to love an invisible God without having a trustful, positive attitude towards one’s fellow beings. All that positivity and trust begin when you are a helpless infant and that is why we say it is a gift. A gift given to you when you can’t get anything by yourself.

Ravish Mani’s short book, See Through Words, is about the gift and mystery of life. It relies mostly on Zen Buddhism for probing the mystery of life. Probing is not quite the right word. Experience is the word. We should experience the mystery.

One of the many examples cited by the author is that of the young Kamal (mystic poet Kabir’s son) who became one with the grass that was swaying in the wind. Kamal who had gone to cut the grass for cattle forgot himself and dissolved into the grass. It is a mystical experience. It is that sort of experience that makes life blissful.

Ravish Mani’s entire enterprise is to guide the reader to that kind of an experience. He uses religious stories and examples of mystics to achieve his purpose. His approach is the ideal for those who look for deeper spiritual experiences.

Most people are content with superficial religion. That is my understanding and not Mani’s. The author is never judgmental. He is quite like the Buddha. My understanding is that religion is just a tool in the hands of most people; a tool for getting political power, a tool for adding comforting illusions and delusions to life, a tool for making miracles happen… It stops far short of being an ennobling experience, let alone mystical experience. This is also the reason why mankind went through a lot of hells created in the names of religions.

Ravish Mani’s efforts to make religion or spirituality more meaningful and effective are appreciable. I understand that he does much more than just write about it. That is the chief reason why I decided to showcase him here.

I am not religious at all. A lot of religious people I came across made me look at religion with suspicion. I belong to the thinking category, to those who philosophise rather than experience much as I would like to belong to the latter class. I too long to merge into the swaying grass in the mountainsides.

PS. Ravish Mani’s book can be downloaded here.

My contribution to the same series – a book titled Great Books for Great Thoughts – can also be downloaded here.

Comments

  1. Love the thought of life being a mystery to be lived rather than a riddle to be solved. Will check out the book.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mystics always experience the mystery of life with awe. Ravish has a mystic streak in him.

      Delete
  2. I just read the book and then your review. I'm yet to discover more about the Zen way of life. I would like to believe it's philosophical spirituality and yet may discover its different facets along the way.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Zen is mystical more than philosophical, I'd say. It's an insight that is required for practising Zen. Not intellectual understanding.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Whispers of the Self

Book Review Title: The Journey of the Soul Author: Dhanya Ramachandran Publisher: Sahitya Publications, Kozhikode, 2025 Pages: 64 “I n the whispers of the wind, I hear a gentle voice.” Dhanya Ramachandran’s poems are generally gentle voices like the whispers of the wind. The above line is from the poem ‘Seek’. There is some quest in most of the poems. As the title of the anthology suggests, most of the poems are inward journeys of the poet, searching for something or offering consolations to the self. Darkness and shadows come and go, especially in the initial poems, like a motif. “In the darkness, shadows dance and play.” That’s how ‘Echoes of Agony’ begins. There are haunting memories, regrets, and sorrow in that poem. And a longing for solace. “Tears dry, but scars remain.” Shadows are genial too occasionally. “Shadows sway to the wind’s soft sigh / As we stroll hand in hand beneath the sky…” (‘Moonlit Serenade’) The serenity of love is rare, however, in the collecti...

Jatayu: The Winged Warrior

Image by Gemini AI Jatayu is a vulture in Valmiki Ramayana. The choice of a vulture for a very noble mission on behalf of Rama is powerful poetic and moral decision. Vultures are scavengers, associated with death and decay. Yet Valmiki assigns to it one of the noblest tasks of sacrificing itself in defence of Sita. Your true worth lies in what you do, in your character, and not in your caste or even species. [In some versions, Jatayu is an eagle.] Jatayu is given a noble funeral after his death. Rama treats Jatayu like a noble kshatriya who sacrificed his life fighting for dharma against an evil force like Ravana. “You are blessed, O Jatayu!” Rama tells the dying bird. “Even in your last moments, you upheld dharma. You fought to save a woman in distress. Your sacrifice will not go in vain.” Jatayu sacrificed himself to save Sita from Ravana. He flew up into the clouds to stop Ravana’s flight with Sita. Jatayu was a friend of Dasharatha, Rama’s father. Now Rama calls him equal to ...

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...

Hanuman: Zenith of Devotion

Illustration by Google Gemini When you conquer certain heights, you won’t descend; you will spread your wings and fly. This is one of my favourite quotes from Richard Bach. I have used that quote again and again in my classes to underscore the importance of pursuing excellence. Hanuman of the Ramayana illustrates the quote best. He met divinity; nothing less would satisfy him ever. The divine is a personal experience, I think. It is an experience that transforms you. Once you have encountered the divine, nothing less will ever satisfy you. Hanuman’s devotion to Rama is because of this. Hanuman meets Rama in the forest. His heart senses that he is in the presence of the embodiment of dharma, love, and cosmic order. One of Hanuman’s first utterances after encountering Rama is: “You are Narayana Himself, Lord Vishnu, the refuge of all virtues. When You dwell in this world, what is left for the righteous to strive for?” Experiencing the divinity is conquering the highest peak from ...

Golden Deer: Illusions

Illustration by Copilot Designer Maricha is the demon who changed his appearance as the golden deer that attracted Sita’s attention. He doesn’t want to do it but is forced by Ravana to play the role. Maricha warns Ravana of calamitous consequences if he dares to do any harm to Sita. Rama is very powerful, in the first place. Secondly, he is very virtuous. Thirdly, he doesn’t do us any harm. Rama doesn’t even bother about us though we do immense harm to the sages in Dandakaranya where Rama too lives with Sita and Lakshmana. In spite of being an exceptionally learned and intellectually gifted person, Ravana fails to understand Maricha’s counsel. Ravana is a Brahmin by birth and was well-versed in the four Vedas and the six Vedangas. He has a deep understanding of scriptures and rituals. An ardent devotee of Lord Shiva, Ravana composed the Shiva Tandava Stotram, a complex and powerful hymn in praise of Shiva. He had won many boons from Lord Shiva through intense tapas (penance). Ye...