TEXTUALITY AND INTENTIONALITY
We must keep to the notion that until the very end understanding is TEXTUAL, in an extended sense of the word, and that too with the primordiality of SEEING.
We must keep to the notion that until the very end understanding is TEXTUAL, in an extended sense of the word, and that too with the primordiality of SEEING.
The seeing, the darsana, generates an understanding and that in turns generates a TEXT-short stories poetry, essays , artistic productions, architecture, dance, dramas, in short everything that is produced by man. We are using the notion of TEXT in a very large and extended sense by noting a similarity that prevails between the WRITTEN texts and the nonwritten, the verbal and nonverbal.
Every product of man is a TEXT with its attendant DUALITY of structure. We must also remember that all texts have TWO distinct kinds of organization: the whole-part and the sequential that Tolkaapiyar called Pakuthi-thokuthi and Athikaara muRaimai.
Now with regard to Whole-Part relationship , it may be possible that the INTENTIONALITY of the author may NOT be available as element of its structure. But this NOT SO with respect to the sequential. The sequentiality discloses the decisions made by the author consciously or unconsciously and in this DISPLAYS his INTENTIONS. Thus viewed from this perspective, all TEXTS are extentional-intentional where the extentional is the REPRESENTATIONAL and intentional disclosive of the mind of the author.
Thus through reaching the intentional elements of TEXT, say a letter written by a friend, we reach the mind of the individual and SEE through the extentional what the author really wants.
Now with regard to Whole-Part relationship , it may be possible that the INTENTIONALITY of the author may NOT be available as element of its structure. But this NOT SO with respect to the sequential. The sequentiality discloses the decisions made by the author consciously or unconsciously and in this DISPLAYS his INTENTIONS. Thus viewed from this perspective, all TEXTS are extentional-intentional where the extentional is the REPRESENTATIONAL and intentional disclosive of the mind of the author.
Thus through reaching the intentional elements of TEXT, say a letter written by a friend, we reach the mind of the individual and SEE through the extentional what the author really wants.
My understanding of the intentional component of the letter and not say the language or the style of writing or the colour of the ink etc. makes me UNDERSTAND my friend and what kind of fellow he is : concerned, loving, caring, cynical, jealous, rude, cultivated, polite etc. In reading the letter, we bypass the language etc. and LEAP towards the INTENTIONAL and thereby the SELF of the person.
Thus the intentional component of TEXTS become enormously important for psychology , not the psychology that conceptualise measures and ascertain but for a psychology that SEEKS to UNDERSTAND people -- what they are, how they actually feel, respond, react etc.
Thus the intentional component of TEXTS become enormously important for psychology , not the psychology that conceptualise measures and ascertain but for a psychology that SEEKS to UNDERSTAND people -- what they are, how they actually feel, respond, react etc.
As Tirumular has said long ago: when we see the wood of an wooden elephant, the elephant recedes to the background, and when we see the elephant the wood recedes and becomes invisible -- it is there but not seen.
The language in the same manner absents itself when the MEANING , the INTENTION is noted and grasped.
Now we must introduce a distinction between personal-intentions and transpersonal-intentions. For the TEXTS in addition to being the normal, the ordinary , those that directly related to LIVING as such, there are the SCRIPTURAL , the METAPHYSICAL where the concerns or ordinary life are forsaken for the sake of Mystical , Unconscious or the Metaphysical.
Here too the two kinds of organizations are available- the whole-part and sequential. The SivapuraaNam of Manikavaasagar is NOT ordinary poetry of mundane life. It transcends the mundane and discloses the mystical, that realm of understanding outside the normal and for which reason it is classified as mystical.
Here too the two kinds of organizations are available- the whole-part and sequential. The SivapuraaNam of Manikavaasagar is NOT ordinary poetry of mundane life. It transcends the mundane and discloses the mystical, that realm of understanding outside the normal and for which reason it is classified as mystical.
But here too there is sequential organization. Whose intentionality is it that is shown? There is NOTHING mundane though some may be personal . But the personal is submerged to allow the TRANSPERSONAL to display itself . The transpersonal is the same as BEING, the God .
In metaphysical poetry, the individual will is submerged and the Divine Will is allowed to shine forth. Through leaping towards the INTENTIONALITY of such metaphysical TEXTS we reach the DIVINE . Thus each reading of SivapuraaNam - not simply reciting it mechanically but understanding it - is simultaneously the experiencing of the DIVINE and for which reason they also become religious. Such texts by their metaphysical qualities serve for us to reach the metaphysical and Divine within us.
In metaphysical poetry, the individual will is submerged and the Divine Will is allowed to shine forth. Through leaping towards the INTENTIONALITY of such metaphysical TEXTS we reach the DIVINE . Thus each reading of SivapuraaNam - not simply reciting it mechanically but understanding it - is simultaneously the experiencing of the DIVINE and for which reason they also become religious. Such texts by their metaphysical qualities serve for us to reach the metaphysical and Divine within us.
This applies to reading and understanding scriptural lore of any kind: they facilitate the submergence of the egoistic individual and enjoy the transpersonal DIVINE.
In such transcendenses are born metaphysical insights and which later become systematised as coherent philosophies.
ULLAGANAR
( Editing and re-paragraphing by his student )
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