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The Secrets of Bhakti of Taoshobuddha Reviewed
The Secrets of Bhakti of Taoshobuddha Reviewed
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Circulation September 27, 2009
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By Ratnadeep Banerji
Reproduced from Indian News Paper ‘ORGANISER’ SEPT 27th, 2009
While explaining Sutra 14, the author resorts to a spacecraft breaking free
from the earth’s gravitational field in order to explain some core concepts of
energy centers in the body. Many of the aphorisms of Narada quote the
precepts of bhakti as envisaged by Ved Vyas, Sage Garga and Sage Shandilya.
The author props up a salient question - ‘Why is bhakti so difficult? Bhakti is
not difficult at all. What makes it difficult is your upbringing from the time you
were born?’ The author goes on explaining the nature of conditioning and
grooming a puerile mind to adopt a path called religion. ‘Religion is not Hindu,
Muslim or Christian- Religion has four pillars. These are truth compassion,
austerities and purity’. Interestingly, the author reveals, ‘Narad does not
specify the word God by any denomination as Brahman, Atman, Ishwara,
Rama, Krishna-Narada deliberately uses the word asmin (in that). And thus,
He has avoided any kind of sectarianism. To add on, Taoshobuddha mentions
of Urdu mystical poet, Jigar Moradabadi and the impact of his kawwals.
The Narad Sutra invokes the manifest as well as the unmanifest; immanent
and the transcendent; formful and the formless. Devotion can bestow
perfection and immortality on account of the devotee relinquishing himself
from the outside world and begins to achieve the changeless, the immutable.
The author narrates this commentary with a simplistic rancour spiked with
anecdotes and contemporary situation lest the aphorisms sound quaint and
dogmatic. So, couplets of Kabir and Tulsidas have been cited to invigorate
Narad’s message.
There is something mystical in these compositions of Narad for which I have
no words to explain. However, certainly there I something. Through these
compositions and meditations Taoshobuddha has created such level of beauty
through the use and mastery of musical rhythms and rhyme through the play
of the words that the reader and the listener not only can appreciate the
wisdom contained in these compositions, but also reach the levels of ecstasy
and mystical energy that is seldom found in other such compositions.
Certainly these connect you to your being. Taoshobuddha calls these as
Aphorisms of Love.
The mastery of rhyme and rhythm is such that very often he creates a new
vocabulary, using the same old word, yet creating new feelings that are
associated with the insights of Narad. Furthermore, often he has such mastery
of play on words or at other times he uses the same word with a different
accent or vowel twice or even thrice in the same composition with a different
meaning each time.
One cannot but marvel at the linguistic mastery that Taoshobuddha displays
through various compositions and meditations that Taoshobuddha has
created. One can simply down in the essence of it and thus get connected to
his being.
In any case the end result is the same. The experience of the artistic beauty of
these compositions, voice modulation, rhyme and ecstatic energy, and alpha
brain wave patterns all combined together with mental understanding of the
wisdom conveyed takes the listener to the state of meditation. This is as close
as one can get to the mystical experience itself, without actually being present
with Taoshobuddha.
In other words, his presence pervades the essence of his insights just as the
presence of Narad pervaded his compositions. One cannot help but be touched
by such energy field and loving presence, that only an Enlightened Master can
create.