Random Thoughts - Part 1 and 2

These are my random thoughts. They are mainly metaphysical in nature and therefore perhaps  very distant from  our daily concerns particularly with counselling  and what not . But nevertheless  I want to publish them mainly because I am concerned here with the MIND and hence the matters reflected upon  are of some relevance for all those who are interested in Depth Psychology and without which Counselling as such is impossible (in my view). 

If these thoughts stimulate you along novel lines, I am happy.

Random Thoughts 1

Intersubjective verification, evidences and phenomenology

A passage from ' Phenomenology and Sociology" by Thomas Luckmann (Ed) ( Pp8&9)

" Phenomenology describes the constitution of our experiences by recourse

to the most direct evidence available. Its criteria of 

verification differ, however, from those used to good purpose in social

sciences. In contrast to the epistemologically naive 

observations and 'measurements' of more or less public events that we

practice  in the social sciences when we look for 'data', 

the 'data' of phenomenology are of a more elementary nature. We find them

by inspection of our experiences. By using the 

methods of phenomenological 'reduction' we proceed step by step from

historically, biographically, socially and culturally 

concrete features of everyday experience to its elementary structures. This

is a procedure that differs from the 'inductive' 

generalizations of empirical sciences. Evidently, the result of inspection

and 'reduction' can be communicated in a further step 

to fellow-men. By recourse to evidence of the same kind on their part, they

can be inter subjectively verified."

This notion "intersubjective verification", communicating and seeking confirmation(?) from fellow-men about the phenomenologically reduced elements of MY experience,  creates problems for phenomenology as a science.  For the notion of others, fellow-men just as true and SAME in some ways as myself, exceeds phenomenological reduction unless we invoke the notion of  PARALLELISM which in turn presupposes the being-there of others just  the same as myself. Also how does the notion of "EVIDENCE" that Husserl mentions in his writings on Phenomenology has applications or meaning in the context of the meaning of verification here?  

I see the problem in this way. 

The self, exercising phenomenological reduction or what Husserl called 'eidetic' reduction', does not require evidence for itself for in the perception of elementary structures of its consciousness,  the 'elementariness' of them is enough for self to be certain. The evidences   are required NOT FOR SELF but in the context of communicating to OTHERS  who may disagree with them.  Here again we come across the being-there of others just like myself as a PRESUPPOSITION of phenomenology. The notion of eidetic reduction and seeking inter subjective verification, the THEY also perceiving elementary structures in THEIR own experiences remains a PRESUPPOSITION that remains irreducible.  The Other can protest, combat, disagree , ridicule, comes to blow with me etc. I CANNOT reduce away such behaviours phenomenologically  to elementary structures of my OWN experiences without denying the OTHERNESS of others. If I try to do that, then I become an idealist like the Indian Vedanties, where everything become kaRpitham, my mental construct without any substantial reality or simply REFLECTIONS of one Brahman through different contextualising factors that they call upathies.

In Pedagogic Hermeneutics (or Hermeneutic Science, in the way I have articulated) we overcome this problem by accepting as a TRUTH the plurality of individuals jointly concerned with UNDERSTANDING the  world, existence etc. and who MAY GO WRONG in their seeking. This possibility of being wrong, making mistakes etc. is AVOIDED by seeking continuously AGREEMENT with others.  The act of communicating is actually an act on INSTRUCTING. I learn through my hermeneutic interpretative movements, and UNDERSTANDING that I have gained becomes that which I communicate to an OTHER who MAY NOT agree. But when there is LEARNING that which I communicate and because of which  there is agreement, then it becomes possible that  I am NOT MISTAKEN, that what I have understood and bold enough to communicate is a TRUTH. Between me and those who agree with  me there is SAMENESS of UNDERSTANDING. The possibility of this SAMENESS of understanding  between individuals absolutely different and autonomous also makes that which is communicated OBJECTIVELY true, a stuff of the world  out there and NOT a fiction of my mind.

Random Thoughts 2

Disconstruction and Personal Development.

Through the empirical  studies of many  TEXTS including the non-verbal drawings in my ACCESS TEST , I rediscovered what Tolkaapiyar more than two thousand years ago discovered as an important structural element in every TEXT viz. sequential organization that he called  Athikara MuRaimai, an organization quite distinct  from the Whole-Part relationship, the pakuthi-thokuthi that has played a central role in Western Hermeneutics.  It is this which enabled me to see EPISODIZATION as something that is done by every author , including young children,  who would execute a coherent TEXT that is COMPLETED and hence a  WHOLE in some sense. But of course this is done UNCONSCIOUSLY but it is there in the TEXTS he brings forth for everybody to see only if they have the eyes to see.

But what is this episodization, the verbalized form of 'episode'?

When X is episodized there is simultaneously the allowing to emerge a Y which is distinct from X and because of which episodization is terminating-initiating, the antam-aati of Meykandar , and hence DISCONSTRUCTION as distinct from Heidegger's destruction and Derrida's deconstruction. And to do this, X has to be seen as a WHOLE for otherwise its LACK cannot be seen and articulated.  That which is episodized, the X,  has to be seen as TOTALITY in order to see what is still  wanting in it, what deficiency lurks within but still remains unnoticed. To episodize is to HIGHLIGHT this LACK and hence to push it down to the PAST, now as something that belongs to HISTORY and allow , in virtue of that, a Y to occupy the presence, be the CURRENT, the Ongoing concern.  Hence episodization is 'depresencing', the dethroning the current, the ongoing , the presence as NO MORE so and replace it something NEW. Episodization is inherently revolutionary.

Thus what is episodized is pushed DOWN in the ladder of progress, of development and growth.  But it is NOT vaporized , allowed to disappear into a NOTHINGNESS. It is retained in the current, the ongoing etc. as that which has been ASSIMILATED, understood and already incorporated into the ongoing  positively or negatively or as the Tamil   Philosophers would say, as Akam or PuRam, as within the ongoing or exterior to  it.  Or as Parapakkam or Supakkam  in the style AruNandi Sivacariyar, a famous Tamil Philosopher of the 13th cent.A.D. To episodize then, is to allow the presence of another WHOLE, a Gestalt more comprehensive and inclusive than that  which has been episodized and pushed down now as belonging to the past. 

The UNDERSTANDING that remains unepisodizable in this sense is SUPAKKAM, the TRUTH.

This competence to episodize  remains a FUNDAMENTAL competence of self, the individual psyche, as its essence as  observed  by Meykandar who notes this by saying that the psyche in essence is the ainthezuththu, the si-va-ya-na-ma, the cognitive demons that enables a psyche to episodize, consciously or unconsciously.

Now because episodization is SEQUENTIAL  where the deficiencies in the earlier are made good in the latter, we can note an ABSOLUTE END, the MUKTI as a situation where further episodizations are IMPOSSIBLE.  When we arrive psychically at this way of Being, it informs us that that's the END , the CLOSURE, towards which we have been moving all along.  But now finally it has ARRIVED, it has come HOME, the Viidu  where the episodizing tendency is put to rest, NOT allowed to show itself from within.

Thus there is STRUCTURE and GENESIS in the Pedagogic Hermeneutics that centres on episodization as the FUNDAMENTAL activity that all psychic entities practice, consciously or unconsciously.  There is Global Structure  and Local Structure of that which is episodized.  The Global Structure puts it as belonging to History , to Tradition a part of the grand world History. The Local Structure discloses the individual concerns, that with which  a finite mind is concerned with.  In the Historical, there is SEQUENTIAL structure  which can be a progress or the converse. Where the deficiencies of that which is episodized , the X, is understood and because of which a Y that does not have that deficiency is allowed to be the PRESENCE, there is sequentiality along with PROGRESS or DEVELOPMENT.  Here there is also a GENESIS: Y is generated from an X by the act of episodization. The genetic does not exist within the Local Structure, between X as a whole and its constituent structures., within Whole- Part relationships or as the Tamil philosophers would put it  between avayavi and avayavam, the organismic whole and its organs. The Genesis and Development or its converse is noted only within Sequential Organization, the Athikara MuRaimai of Tolkaapiyar. The static structuralism does disclose the movement that allows us to recognise Progress and Development or the ABSENCE of it.

And here we see what distinguishes Hermeneutic Counselling from others. In Hermeneutic Counselling we allow, encourage, work for the confused and bewildered individual to EFFECT EPISODIZATION on his OWN UNDERSTANDING on his OWN so that the present understanding that's the source of  worries, pains, mental sickness etc. is episodized and in its place a new understanding, a Y , comes to prevail and along with it mental health and better clarity.  It is NOT a total breakaway from the past but rather a disconstruction, the assimilating what can be into the present and discarding what cannot or should not be  and this evaluated on the basis of TRUTH. It is actually a reconstituting self with less of the negative and more of the positive and auspicious.

This applies not only to Depth Psychology but  also to the whole gamut of

Human Sciences.

Loganathan @ Ullaganar

19-2-1998

( editing and re-paragraphing by his student )


( pic taken from https://www.shutterstock.com with thanks )

The Linguistic Philosophy of Tolkaapiyar - Part 3

The Metaphysical Thinking

Before we pass over PoruLatikaaram, we should consider in some details what can be called the Metaphysical Thinking underlying it and which was enormously influential and one could say, provided the metaphysical insights for the burst or recovery of the ancient Bakti a few centuries later. 

Though Metaphysical Thinking is as ancient as human civilization itself, what Tolkaapiyam 
( Tol ) does is to RECOVER it within the Ecological Thinking that became well established as part of the MEANINGS people live with and which is COMMUNICATED by verbal and nonverbal communicative acts. 

We have noted that all acts of communications can be classified into 14 TiNais or departments of behavior and that among these there are 2 akam departments called KaikkiLai and PeruntiNai where the sexual behavior is one-sided or where mutual agreement is absent and which applies also to social reflexes of it viz. Kaanjci and PaadaaN TiNais. 

Thus the first FIVE of Akam, called also the Anpin AintiNai, the Five departments of LOVE are ethically acceptable while the KaikkiLai and PeruntiNai which are DEVOID of love are said to be UNACCEPTABLE. But the difference does not end here. Tol also notes that these LOVE dominated departments of human behavior have as their animating Deep Structures, various deities - the Ceeyoon (Muruka) for KuRinjci, Maayoon (VishNu) for Mullai, Veentan (Indra) for Marutam, and VaruNa for Neytal. The Paalai is left out and for a good reason. This Paalai is peculiar for it does stand on its own but as the Deep Structure of all the four ecologies, KuRinjci and so forth. As observed in Cilappatikaaram, the KuRinjci and so forth are transformations of this deeper Paalai and hence cannot be put alongside them but as different. The deity of Paalai is simply called Paal, the Brilliant in KaLaviyal and which carries the important metaphysical insight that these deities of surface ecologies are TRANSFORMS of this Paal and hence this Paal or Sivan or Brahman remains the Deep Structure (DS) of these deities. 

This understanding only hidden in the body of PoruL (perhaps we have lost a number of sutras related to this theme) is the recovery of the very ancient Metaphysical Thinking where the deities are seen as the animating principles of the essentially inert physical realms and that the Brilliant, the Paal or BEING-as-LIGHT remains the DS of all these ecology pervading deities. 

Thus we have an understanding that all departments of human behavior are not only expressions of the instinct of SEXUALITY but also are ordained by specific deities and which are different expressions of the one and same BEING-as-Pure Light, the Paal. 

Here we should NOT fail to note that the KaikkiLai and PeruntiNai are OUTSIDE the prevalence of these deities and hence the UNACCEPTABLE in behavior, are also NON-DIVINE. It carries the ETHICAL understanding that the GOOD is divinely ordained and EVIL is NOT so, the unacceptable in ethics are forms of behavior where they are OUTSIDE the Grace of BEING. 


The Vedic Gods 

It is interesting that in the list of deities we also find Indra and VaruNa who are also mentioned in the Rig Veda. This shows that at the time Tol was composed these Vedic gods were acknowledged and worshiped and there was a kind of continuity with Vedic culture. Tolkaappiyar was also quite familiar with the fact that the Vedic slokas were RECITED with peculiar cadence of their own but which is NOT what he deals with and calls ezuttu, the phonemes of Tamil language. We have a mention by Panampaaranaar in the Payiram, the Preface that Tolkaappiyar had to convince one ataGkooddu Acaan who is also mentioned as well versed in the four Vedas (naan maRai muRRiya). Here we must not JUMP to the conclusion, as is the habit of the Brahmans that Tolkaappiyar was a Brahmin, a dwija by birth etc and which notion never existed or even when mentioned never was accepted by the Tamils. Tolkaappiyar could never have been a Dwija Brahmin for with his casteic thinking he could NOT have written Tol itself, which embodies the principles of Hermeneutic Science. Furthermore he also defines implicitly himself as Munaivan, one who is FREE of all kinds of PREJUDICES ( vinaiyin niiGki viLaGkiya aRivin Munaivan) 

There could have been Acaans (< Sumerian, Ga-sa-an) or simply TEACHERS or gurus who were also well versed in the Vedas and since VarNasrama Dharma was absent, it could have been an occupational or academic preference and probably OPEN to all. 

Furthermore we must recall that the Rig Vedas and allied scriptures are in Archaic Tamil of a kind and hence maintained by some Tamils during Tol times as part of their OWN ancient heritage. We should also note that Indra and VaruNa are Tamil gods and though Vedic but not gods brought into Tamil culture by some Indo-Aryans with European connections. Indra is to be derived from the Sumerian Indu-ra, an emanation of the heavenly Moon (Indu: moon). VaruNa can be derived from ‘bar” meaning the sun as in Paruti and hence the divine force that expresses itself as the sun etc. 


We should also note that while Indra Vizaa, a massive festival for Indra was celebrated even during post CaGkam period as mentioned in Cilappatikaaram and MaNimekalai, NO mention is made of them and no hymns composed in praise of them during the Bakti and Post Bakti period. It appears that there was a revolution among the Tamils where at least it is on the death of Vedic gods that bakti movement crystallized and became the most powerful cultural force that swept across the whole of India and overseas, giving rise to the dominance of Siva and VishNu. Thus Agamic Hinduism with Temples hymns and so forth, not only weakened other belief systems at that time but also Vedism where only the recitations of Vedas were allowed to be continued in the periphery of the Hymns in Tamil that constitutes the Tevaram and Divvya Prabantam. 



Loganathan @ Ullaganar

( editing and re-paragraphing by his student )

The Metaphysical Gynecology of Tirumular - Part 21

The Transcendental Sexuality( Civayookam) of True Tantrism

Asceticism and Monastic orders for both men and woman are institutions quite common in almost all world religions.

But Tantrism does not promote either the separation of man and woman or throwing them into monastic orders where they torture themselves to death each time the EROS shows up against their will. Instead of devising ingenious ways to suppress, repress and DENY the Eros, the Tantrics go to the very roots of EROS and BURN it so that such impulses are eradicated totally from the system.

They see this as attaining an Inner Purity and True Freedom  where EROS is considered as part of being a defiled self, a self caught up inescapably in the historical, a perpetual tie with FLESH and hence bound and not free.

From very ancient times, Tantrism has also recognized the presence of Inner Moon and Sun as potent forces that install various kinds of instincts like Eros, the desire for Power and so forth. Here they also have recognized that while the Inner Moon, the Woman is responsible for the ordinary EROS that binds man and woman to Samsara, historical existence caught up in the evolutionary mechanism of the cosmos, the Inner Sun can, if activated, BURN this and FREE the human beings from sexuality. 

One way of activating this Inner Sun is gaining deep and profound metaphysical INSIGHTS, illuminations that would flood the interior with FIRE that tend to burn off the erotic desires and pining after sexual partners. But it also follows that  there is another level of sexuality where the union does not involve the normal ejaculation of the seminal fluid but rather the elicitation of NECTAR that would, in addition to giving a youthful body also would furnish further illuminations that would root out EROS totally and irrecoverably.

It is stated that this is the Siddhi, an attainment that would make a person a Siddha or Civayogi, the ideal spiritual individual set up by Tantrism and which is certainly NOT the birth based Brahmanah.


36.

1959

அமுதச் சசிவிந்துவாம் விந்து மாள
அமுதப் புனலோடி அங்கியின் மாள
அமுதச் சிவயோகம் ஆதலாற் சித்தி
அமுதப் *பலாவனம் ஆங்குறும் யோகிக்கே

பாடபேதம்*: பிலாவன

உரை:

உடலின்பம் தந்து சந்தான விருத்திக்கு ஏதுவாகும் அபரவிந்துவின் சந்திரவடிவத்தின் தண்ணொளிக் கசிவு காமப்பாலின் அபரவிந்துவின் ஆட்சி மாள, உள்ளிருந்து எழும் பரநாதத்து நெருப்பினால் ஞானப்புனலாக ஓடும் கானற்பாலினால் அது மாள, சந்தான விருத்தியில் வீழ்த்தாத அமுதம் உண்ணும் சிவயோகம் சித்தியாகும். அதுபொழுது அந்த யோகிக்கு அமுதப்பிலாவனமாகிய என்றும் இளைமையோடு வாழத்தரும் அமுதப்பெருக்கு மெய்யாகும்.
36.

1959

amutac cacivintuvaam Vintu maaLa
amutap punaloodi anGkiyin maaLa
amutac civayookam aataalaaR citti 
amutap pilaavana aaGkuRum yookikkee

Meaning:

The dominance of Apara Bindu, that which appears as the Inner Moon and provides the milk of ordinary sexual bliss that traps one in species regeneration, dies and it dies because of the Fire that comes from the ParaNatam, the Inner Sun. When this is achieved then there will be drinking of Nectar of eternal youthful vitality and which constitute the Siddhi as well as genuine Civayoga. For such yogis there will be an immense flooding of nectar that will make the body eternal youthful

37.

1960

யோகமாம் விந்து ஒழியாவகை புணர்ந்து
ஆகம் இரண்டுங் கலந்தாலும் ஆங்குறாப்
போகம் சிவபோகம் போகி நற்போகமா
மோகங்கெட முயங்கார் மூடர் மாதர்க்கே

உரை:

குண்டலினி யோகமாய் சுக்கில வித்து ஒழியாவகைப் புணர்ந்து, மெய்யுற ஆண் பெண் ஆகங்கள் இரண்டும் கலந்தாலும், ஆங்கு சாதராண காமபோகம் உறாது இன்பம் தூய்த்தால் அதுவே சிவபோகமாகும்.  இவ்வாறு முயங்கி மோகம் கெடுப்பது நினையாது சாதாரண போகியர்கள், மூடர்களாக அற்ப காம இன்பத்திற்கு ஏங்கி மாதர்க்கே மயங்குவர்.
37.

1960

yookamaam Vintu oziyaavakai puNarntu
aakam iraNduG kalantaalum aaGkuRaap
pookam civapookam pooki naRpookamaa
mookaG keda muyaGkaar muudar maatarkkee

Meaning:

The Civayookam, the enjoyment of Siva Bliss is NOT the ordinary sexual union where there is ejaculation of the seminal fluid that would serve to bring about species regeneration. It is a union where such ejaculations do not take place though there are bodily unions  but where the sexual desire itself is transmuted. The ordinary man not knowing this will pine for females for enjoying the bliss or ordinary sexuality.

Comments:

The ‘amutac caci Vintu” is a very ancient notion in Tantrism and which is also common in all religions, however distorted and camouflaged it may be. There is the Inner Moon, a form of Apara Bindu which in fact as the form of the BEING-as-Woman (the Kaamatci etc) installs the sexual instinct, the EROS that make the male and female come together, unite sexually and with that produce progeny that would perpetuate the species and as phenomenal expression of the desire for immortality. But there is within also the Inner Sun, the form of Para Natam, that sends red-hot rays or FIRE, the Agni that would BURN this moon rays and with that FREE a man from the cosmic mechanisms that bind him to the historical. This burning off by the Inner Fire of the antics of the Inner Moon, is that which liberates the man from being bound to the historical, which along with binding him to the FLESH also binds him to the experince of  DEATH and all the miseries that come along with it.

But  the Tantrics like Tirumular do not propose the avoidance of women and leading a ascetic or monastic kind of life and which is quite common in practically all religions. There is a species of Civayookam where the sadhana is the sexual act itself but where it is enjoyed without discharges of the seminal fluid.  As already explained, as a result of deep and true insights into the genesis of sexuality itself, one can lift up oneself to a Pakkuvam, an inner spiritual maturity where one is equipped well to enjoy sex but without the discharge of seminal fluid. Tirumular notes that such enjoyments in fact are that which FREES one from sexuality, from the instinct of EROS and thereby allows one to enjoy true freedom.


Loganathan @ Ullaganar

( Editing and re-paragraphing by his student )


( photo taken from www.pixabay.com, with thanks )