Dear friends, As I sit here before my keyboard to pen this posting, I recollect a famous passage in the "mahA-NArAyaNa-upanishad". It's both a sacred and poignant paean to what perhaps is the most precious of the 5 great natural elements of the world --Water, known in Sanskrit as "aapah:": aapO vA idagam sarvam vishvA bhUtAnyApah: prANA vA aapah: pashava aapO amrutham aapO annam aapah: samrAda aapO virAda aapO svarAda aapa chandAgam aapO jyOti aapO satya aapO sarva devatA aapO... bhur-bhuva-suvar-apa ...(pranavam) II (meaning): All existence is verily Water: all beings are in Water, all vitality is Water, all animals are Water, the nectar of life is Water, the food of life is Water -- Water is the brilliance of life, Water rules Life, The Vedas themselves are Water, The celestial bodies are Water, Truth is Water -- All the gods live in Water! ************** For a long, long time I have wondered why the Upanishad sings this "mantra" which is a panegyric, as it were, to Water and which resonates eternally in our ears and hearts. Till today I have not yet fully fathomed the true intent or import of the Vedic passage. Why does the Upanishad place Water upon such a lofty moral pedestal? Water is no doubt an essential need for all life on earth, but then so too are other great elements of nature such as the air we breathe or the earth we tread. Why does the Upanishad 'mantra' single out Water for deification in such absolute and universal terms of awe and reverence? On my recent travels -- my first one -- through America I believe I was able to grasp, even if only in the vaguest or feeblest of terms, some idea of the transcendent vision of Water found in the Upanishads. **************** Last month, work took me for over three weeks from one corner of the world in the island of Taiwan in the South China Sea to the other end in the tiny island of Bermuda in the Atlantic and onwards thereafter to the Eastern sea-board of the USA -- to parts of New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Pittsburgh, Maryland and Washington DC. The scorching pace of my tour-schedule was partly set by the official tasks I had to complete as well as by my own eagerness to cover as much of territory as possible and to visit and see as many places of interest as could possibly be squeezed into my rushed itinerary. This was my first visit to USA which in my imagination of many years had always been the proverbial 'land of milk and honey' -- the land everyone on earth wants to go to, live and make a fortune in, a country variously hailed as "bhulOka-vaikuntam" (paradise on earth!), "bhOgya-bhUmi" (the land of plenty!)... a land which, more than any other in the entire world, appeals to popular imagination as the closest possible approximation of the kingdom of God on earth. The moment I set foot on its hallowed soil, I was seized by a strong desire to see as much of USA as I possibly could in the limited time available to me -- to take in and experience its many fascinating sights, historic landmarks, its grandeur, its natural vibrance, its teeming prosperity and its great many variety of peoples. America did not disappoint me. It was indeed every bit the land of plenty, the veritable "bhOgya-bhUmi" my colourful imagination had all along led me to believe it truly was. The first sign of God-given plenitude I saw in America was the overwhelming supply of fresh water the country possesses. As a native of the rain-deficient and often water-starved city of Chennai, India, and furthermore, as a long-time expatriate-resident of the desert-city of Kuwait on the driest fringes of the great Arabian Desert -- where a barrel of potable water costs as much as it does the world to buy a barrel of precious crude-oil -- I was simply overawed to see America's seemingly inexhaustible supply of fresh water everywhere I went. The first sign of Water I saw was as soon as my plane began its descent into Newark International Airport. All around the state of New Jersey and right along the ruddy horizons stretching across New York, Connecticut and Massachussets -- certainly as far as my eyes could see, from my seat in the aircraft, over the sprawling landscape they call 'New England' -- I saw nothing but vast white and seemingly unending sheets of snow in the distance. It struck me then immediately like a flash of revelation: Snow! Snow it is! Snow it is that's the precious, perennial, plentiful groundswell of America's live-giving, life-nourishing wealth -- Water... "aapah:"! >From the port-hole of the aircraft, I saw a sight that made me momentarily seize my breath! I could not remember having beheld ever before in any one single moment (except in movies perhaps or in some odd serial on 'Discovery Channel') so large an aggregation of water-mass of such great proportions upon so vast a tract on Planet Earth. I held my breath in wonder as I took in the scene: it was like watching a giant, benign and blindingly white glacier in motion -- stately, magnificent, majestic... It seemed to me Nature, in that moment, was verily show-casing for my sake, for me, a first-time visitor to America -- showcasing in one moment the immensity of all her life sustaining force. "Here at last", I whispered to myself as my plane descended, "here at last stands before me the secret behind all of America's riches, prowess and greatness -- the overwhelmingly plentiful supply of fresh Water, "aapah"! ************** I flew into NJ from Bermuda on a late afternoon Continental flight on March 20 '04. I was told I could not have chosen a better day to first set foot on American soil: Winter was over and Spring would be officially announced across the whole country precisely at dawn the following day, March 21st -- and my very first one in the land I recalled (from my old geography lessons in school) had once been called "the New World". When I woke up at 5Am dawn the next day, America woke up to herald a brand new season of Spring. I performed my "prAtah:sandhyA" ritual in the semi-darkness of the plush guest bedroom my kind host had put me up in. I could hardly see the ritual water ("arghya", "aapah")cupped in my palms. Outside the window I took my first good look at urban America just as the first sunrise of spring began to spread its smile all over the country. It was however still bitingly cold. In the streets of New Jersey, for the first time in my life, I was presented with the sight of real snow... first-hand and at close quarters. I stepped out from my host's apartment into the street and into the dark and nebulous morning and, immediately, felt the soft crunch of fresh white snow withering crisply under my boots... It was a strangely delicious feeling that overcame me. I could hardly explain to myself why the sound of crunching snow should move me at all. Was it because it somehow reminded me momentarily, in some vague, ineffable way, of similar sounds echoing a whole continent away? The sounds my feet made as they trod upon fine, burning sands across some forlorn stretch of the Arabian desert just outside Kuwait City, a whole continent away in the place where I lived and worked...? Later on I was told the the part of America I was in -- New Jersey state -- was not really the best or the most attractive part of the country. On the contrary, New Jersey was one of the oldest, most industrial and hence environmentally one of the most polluted of states. New Jersey was said to be such a dark and dinghy state it had acquired, I learnt much to my amusement, the dubious distinction of being known as the "Armpit of America". And yet that morning, as I looked out of the window offering "aapah" as "arghya", all of snow-clad and water-covered America looked to me just about perfect. The dawn of spring and the first spring dawn, the enchanting whiteness, the sense of all-pervading, frozen stillness around me... It all appeared to me as one of the most serene places I had seen in life. To my eyes all of America stood in that moment swathed in the sheer, sacred magic of Vedic Water..."aapah"... ************ Later during the week, while visiting Washington DC, I took the oft-trodden, tourist-beaten track down the Mall right along the route from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial. Strangely, it felt as though I was on some sort of pilgrimage. It is the 21st century AD, after all, and America is the most powerful nation on earth, militarily, economically and politically; Washington is the epicentre of all worldly power and here I was at the doorsteps of the White House, the seat of all temporal power in the world! Well, well, it did feel like some kind of pilgrimage to tread the winding path down Independence Road, 7th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, past the Smithsonian Museums until to be finally led past the Jefferson Memorial and reach the grand Lincoln Memorial on the lush banks overlooking the magnificent river Potomac... As if arriving at some sacred "teertha-sthala" or "pushkariNni" (temple pond or stream) somewhere in the holy lands back home in India, I came upon the swift Potomac and felt immediately as though I was witnessing some ancient fount spouting and gushing forth crystal-fresh Vedic "aapah"... Seeing so much of deliciously white snow around me on my first day in America, and the later memory of those vividly blue and historic waters of the River Potomac... it all made me silently wonder, again and yet again, at how overwhelmingly copious God's blessing of fresh, clean Water has been upon the length and breadth of this vast, gracious land. ************* There is a famous 'mantra' usually chanted during the 'sandhya' rite in praise of the 'aapah:devata'. It is a very inspiring one even in normal times. For some strange reason I can hardly fathom, it seemed suddenly to assume, on the first day I stepped into America, a resonance more powerful and far deeper in significance than normal: "aapah: punanthu pruthivIm pruthivI pUthA pUnAthu mAm... "sarvam pUnanthu mAm-apO' satAmcha pratigraham svAhA!" "May the Waters purify this earth! May the Earth thus cleansed Cleanse me too and my heart of all sins... May the Waters render pure All that be." ************ (to be continued) Rgds, dAsan, Sudarshan ________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your partner online. http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Oppiliappan/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: Oppiliappan-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
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