Life in its various moods

  One of the flourishing and foundational orchards of the vast and glorious plantation of Bhartiya Sabhyata ( Indian Civilization) are the Vedas. The Vedas are a majestic and unparalleled heritage of all Indians, despite their caste, creed, panth (religion). The fruits of Vedas have nourished our land for the past 5000 years or even more. Hence I thoroughly believe that we as Bhartiyas (Indians) should at the very least have a basic understanding of its essence.  Rig Veda is the most ancient and most voluminous of the four Vedas and also serves as a foundational text for the entire Vedic Corpus. Through a rich tapestry of poetic verses, Rig Veda conveys various philosophical, spiritual, and cosmological ideas. Over the centuries many Rishis, Acharyas and commentators have tried to translate and interpret it. In my limited knowledge and reading, I found ‘ The Secret of the Veda ’ by Shri Aurobindo, to be a profound and critical examination of the core...

Imagine a beautiful nursery having fragrant and colourful flowers. The Gardener has the knowledge of how to cultivate them, trim them, grow them etc. He plants the seeds and gives adequate manure and water. He has the knowledge of which seed needs how much of what resource. Once this is done the plant grows, he protects them from bad weather, directs them towards sunlight. He experiments , learns and practices this daily. The solutions and process that he devises to make the nursery blooming forms his knowledge and the craft. Now, when the plant grows up and starts blooming, starts giving beautiful flowers, whose fragrance is felt all across the locality, the whole locality enjoys it. But now neither the locality knows how this happened nor the plant knows. And in fact the process forward is even more beautiful and autonomous.  Once the flower grows, one of its part becomes fruit. the locality enjoys the fruit. Then the seeds of the same fruit fall on the gr...