Kannadasan – A Realized Master (Part 6)

[Disclaimer first: Even if I scour every source with the utmost diligence to find songs written by Kannadasan, please forgive me if a track by the youthful Vaali sneaks in. Please do not banish this native of (Thiruvidai)Maruthur to Kasi just because I committed the sin of slipping in a song by the seasoned veterans Pattukottaiyar or Maruthakasi instead of Kannadasan. I simply didn't witness him writing them! No matter how devoutly I worship and check with the trinity of deities—Google (Brahma), YouTube (Vishnu), and ChatGPT (Shiva)—what can I do if Narada comes along and stirs up trouble in between? Do point out my errors, but please don't shoot me down. Feel free to tear into me with criticism, but please don't hang me! 

Next, in marriage invitations, in the end, I find a Sanskrit expression, “vaasaka dosha kshnakarthavya” (वासकदोषा क्ष्नकर्थव्य” २.), simply means E&OE (“Errors and Omissions may please be Excused!”) Though I run spell check in English version, Google Translate Narathar may play with the Tamil Version. Please bear with him. While translating Tamil-English, it said ‘please beer with him!]

A friend commented that I had cleverly skipped the final verse of the 'Siva Sambho' song. Let me satisfy that wish. Here is the rest of the song:

“Today, you can digest even a stone…

But as time passes, they will tell you not to eat it…”

(Satisfied, my friend?) In her book "Heal Your Body: The mental Causes for Physical illness and the metaphysical way to overcome them", Louise L Hay says, “When you were a tiny baby, you were pure joy and love. You loved yourself totally, every part of your body, including your feces. You knew you were perfect. And that is the truth of your being. All the rest is learned nonsense and can be unlearned.” 

“With wine, women, and food…

With pleasure and a willing heart…

There is a place in heaven…” 

And Kavignar says, with sufficient food in your stomach, and open mind, you can remain blissfully intoxicated in the union with the ‘other’ (God/dess) and you will rest in the abode of Heaven.

Moving forward, friend Ramesh Thiagarajan had given positive feedback and shared about Zen meditation. Before taking up meditation, we need to recognize practically the drama/trauma making mechanics of the mind. Kavignar who is a Master of Questions, comes to our help in this with his other song “Kelviyin Naayagane.. Indha Kelvikku Bathil Ethaiyya?” from film “Apoorva Raahangal”: 

“Oh, Master of the Question…

What is the answer to this question?

On a stage that does not exist…

An unwritten play…

We are all acting…

And we ourselves are the audience…”

Though the remaining lines of this song pertain particularly and strongly to the storyline of the film, the above two lines or Kannadasan struck me like bullets. They also stand as separate pearls of wisdom for anyone to recognize instantly the everyday drama we humans play in our lives, both in the workplace and at home. In the office/shop floor, even though human dramas begin, due to the formal authority structure present and our own survival instincts put off those ‘fires’ quickly. But at home?

Due to our long-relished memories of ‘you said this’, ‘I did this ALL these years for you!’ kinds of unwritten dialogues are very familiar in every family. But, as Kavi Gnani asks, where is the stage? It is ONLY in our minds as a fleeting mix of emotions and thoughts drawn from etched memories. We perform this everyday drama, repeatedly, where couples, children and grandparents are actors and who is watching the play? Not the neighbors, but we actors ourselves! What a teasing line from Kaviyarasar on the plight of human society to laugh at itself.

Indian Spirituality coins this as a perennial staged ‘Leela’, repeated for generations. Also called ‘Maya’ of mind-generated smoke-screen on which the drama is enacted incessantly. Because of its engaging and energizing nature, we don’t get tired or sick of it, until it attains the stage of chronic depression affecting physical health, breakdown of relationships, leading to separation/divorce, etc. Home is the best place to explore human emotions safely, but the way we enact daily drama, home has turned out to be the worst place to wrangle the nerves of loved ones, which is subliminally picked up by the watching children, affecting their temperament/emotional fibers, only to be repeated later in their families! And the drama continues…

In the West, Shakespeare wrote the famous line for his character Jaques in the pastoral comedy As You Like It (Act II, Scene VII):

“All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts.” 

What a resemblance! Great people think alike. Eckhart Tolle in his must-read international best seller book ‘The Power of Now’ extensively deals with this mental drama of human relationships and how to stop creating it, or if got unconsciously entangled/sucked into the quicksand, how to wriggle out of these emotional episodes. If you have reviewed the recent emotional plays at home, you will easily notice the pattern of its repetition. It happens when one or many of the actors is either hungry (before breakfast or office/school/cooking stress), tired (in the evenings when the body is so drained that there is no energy left for the mind to think clearly), not well (actual illness), sleep deprivation, stressful situations, etc. Particularly in nucleus families where the ‘experienced’ grandparents are not present who have ‘seen all these in their lives’, to defuse by bringing in life wisdom.

Funnily, if one spouse or teenage son/daughter is responding with continuous ‘Mmm’, ‘Mmm’ for every question, remark or comment, when the young children or grandparents are displaying a sheepish smile on their faces, it means, the silent ‘Mmm’ person is avoiding the ensuing melodrama at home. It’s like treading the ground laid with landmines with utmost caution. I am sure you are very familiar with this kind of episodes.

These days technology comes to their rescue when they simply dig their heads into the cell phone, as if they are not ‘there’ to respond to the pestering. We can understand that this person is patiently waiting as per the advice of Lord Buddha that “This (storm) too shall pass”. In some families, when one person does over-acting and becomes dominating the entire household, the remaining victims simply to avoid ALL the subsequent drama, practice ‘agree’culture! In her book “The Drama of the Gifted Child!”, Alice Miller, a Psychotherapeutics Expert compassionately records: “Oppression and the forcing of submission do not begin in the office, factory, or political party; they begin in the very first weeks of an infants' life. Afterward they are repressed and are then, because of their very nature, inaccessible to argument.”

Anyway, Gnani Kannadasan again comes to our rescue with these famous lyrics:

Film: “Aandavan Kattalai” Song: “Amaithiyana Nathiyinile Odam..”

“A boat sailing on a calm river…

It tosses about when the floodwaters surge…

Amidst the wind and the rain…

And the thunder that shakes the soul…

It survives if it finds shelter by the shore…” 

Like a Good Boatman, the realized master poet guides us to the shore by showing us how to tether the restless, wandering mind: 

“On the riverbank’s rise…

The swaying reed stands tall…

It does not bend when the wind blows…

A heart matured by wisdom does not falter…” 

He further confirms that if we are 'rooted well', remain mature & flexible in the head (mind) and stay untouched by the flow, we can pass through any ferocious typhoon (drama): 

“At dusk, one may swoon and falter...

By morning, clarity returns...

Once the language of love is heard...

The state of sorrow transforms...” 

Human bio-logical battery is down in the evening, but charges itself overnight to get a clean slate (RAM-Random Access Memory) in the morning. If we look at life afresh everyday morning, track our mind with sharp attention and spread love through words and deeds, sorrow will vanish. Hence, Indian Spirituality prescribed as a daily regimen, Yoga/Pranayama/Meditation in the early morning (Brahma Muhoortham) which aligns/tunes the body machine, breathing apparatus and thought process to handle the ups and downs of everyday living.

You make it sound so easy, Sir. "Will everything we wish for actually happen? (Ninaippathellam nadanthuvittaal?)" Let's try building a "temple in the heart (Nenjil Orr Aalayam)" in the next episode!

-J Jeyes (www.jeyes.in)