Allowing BEING to Form Us - The Psychology of Tirumular

Allowing BEING to Form Us

The new world situation where the national and cultural boundaries are disappearing, demands a philosophy of life that is universal and the Psychology of Tirumular fits in as a suitable candidate to displace the ideologies that have divided people more than uniting them. We need a Philosophy of Life that is UNIVERSAL and at the same time RATIONAL so that an articulation of it becomes acceptable to all whatever their cultural, religious or ideological background they belong to.

This is provided I think by the Philosophy of Praximatism, the philosophy that begins with the empirical truth that human beings ACT, effect Praxis and that is it only through ACTING that one can ascend the metaphysical ladder and assume personalities that are better and closer  to the Divine essence. Though Marxism started with this notion but seems to have gone  astray with its atheism or materialism that is NOT warranted within strict Praximatism.

Tirumular articulates this Philosophy as do the most of the brilliant Saiva Philosophers who sought after the UNIVERSAL in man and connected with it with Bakti.  In the following  verse Tirumular articulates the notion that human personalities are FLUID and CAN BE DEVELOPED continuously provided we allow without any internal resistance to be informed and formed by the ARCHETYPES that are different presentations of BEING. 

We human beings, full of ignorance,  do not know what is good and what is bad, what is right and what is wrong and our praxis reflects this. However we can derive  comfort from the understanding  that BEING is there deep within our interior self, guiding us all along  possessing us through a series of graded archetypes so that we intuit different meanings, ACT consistent with that understanding and LEARN to discard the wrong and evil and retain the good and noble. In this progress is also written a better understanding of BEING. Without ACTING we cannot understand our divine essence.

This philosophy demands that we LOOK INTO our OWN UNDERSTANDING to illuminate ourselves the mysteries of existence and which demands as a corollary that we FREE ourselves from whatever that chains our freedom of thought. At an important point of development these chains become PRISONS and hence something that must be discarded and thrown away as no more relevant and important and look rather at the LIVING PRESENCE of BEING in various archetypal forms. This means we have to throw break away from these binding chains  as no more necessary for the further progress in personality and assume the posture of Bakti  and allow BEING Himself to guide us further in His own way.


7.

aRivil aNuka aRivathu nalkip
poRivazi yaacai pukuttip puNarntiddu
aRivatu vaakki adiyaruL nalkunj
ceRivodu ninRaar civam aayinaaree.
Meaning:

BEING provides the necessary metaphysical illuminations for those individuals who seek their understanding itself as that which needs to be understood. They will realize that BEING does not bless them with  the Absolute Illumination immediately but rather in stages where they are at first given a body and impelled to inquire into metaphysical matters through sensorial perceptions  in the course of which  He discloses Himself in various archetypal forms thereby allowing the anmas intuit His Presence and understand Him.  Furthermore by impelling further inquiries through these archetypal forms, discloses HIS  Grace continuously to further illuminate them. Those who live steadfast with this clarity will finally destroy their Ego and shine forth in existence as BEING  himself.
Notes:Human beings are PRAXIMATIC, inclined to effect ACTIONS knowingly or unknowingly, consciously or unconsciously,  intentionally or unintentionally. That which stabilizes behavior , as we have already seen, is MEANINGFUL behavior and we have already seen that the emergence of DIFFERENT KINDS OF MEANINGS is a matter of Grace, the blessings of BEING that never dries up. As a person continues to act  in the world,  meanings after meanings emerge in a graded manner taking the person higher and higher in cognitive development and so forth.

However such a person , caught up in his Praxism, is ignorant of himself, the various mechanisms made available to him for effecting an action and the presence of BEING as the ONE who provides and regulates all these. Thus a praxic person remains IGNORANT or UNCONSCIOUS of  all these and when the knowledge of one's own ignorance of such matters breaks into the consciousness of the person, then he sits back and makes his UNDERSTANDING itself the subject matter of his search. Thus he becomes at long last genuinely philosophic or metaphysical seeking to understand  his own being and presence in the world  as such and such .  

BEING  provides  the metaphysical illuminations sought after but in stages CONCEALING his OWN Essence till the right sort of philosophic maturity becomes available.  He discloses Himself in various archetypal forms that impel further metaphysical reflections about the essence of BEING and in the course He UNCONCEALS Himself in slow measures so that the individuals begin to glow in the TRUTH of BEING.

But why this archetypal presentations and that too in human-like forms?

Those who do not understand the workings of BEING and His strategies would be inclined to say that such archetypes or divinities are fertile imaginations of human beings , their own projections into the Unknown,  simply their fictions , mental constructs and so forth. 

It should be noted that archetypes, as they possess powers beyond the imagination of the individuals,  are NOT projections of the feeble  human mind but rather presentations of BEING Himself in a manner that is within the COMPREHENSION of the human mind. The anmas are given a body and for the matured the human frame itself with all the cognitive facilities that come along with it so that they can BEHOLD BEING at least in the human- like archetypes but at the same time INQUIRE further as to the TRUTH of the whole matter. BEING conceals Himself behind these archetypal presentations and draws the attention of the anmas to His HIDDEN PRESENCE  so that they would TRANSCEND these archetypes and seek out His FORMLESS ESSENCE.

Not all individuals can do this for it requires a certain maturity to do this -- they must have the INNER  COURAGE to liberate themselves from being held a  prisoner of such comprehensible archetypes that remain dear to oneself. Any way for those who dare and free themselves from the worship of archetypal form of BEING and ascend further, BEING graces them, destroying their Ego and implanting HIMSELF there so that they shine forth as BEING HIMSELF. With this the anmas attain the ultimate mode of behavior for from this moment,  their PRAXIS ceases to be human and turns out to be that of BEING HIMSELF.



ULLAGANAR
( 2-1-2002, DP )

( editing and re-paragraphing by his student )


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