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Oppiliappan List Archive: Message 00078 Apr 2004

 
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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




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