Female authors' comments on female voices

In Charlotte Bronte's "The Professor", an Englishman takes up a post in a Belgian school. His room was next to the playground & Bronte writes his experience:

"I could hear the voices of the children in their hours of recreation, & my reflections were disarranged by the not quite silvery, in fact the too often brazen sounds, which penetrated into my solitude. When it came to shrieking the girls beat the boys hollow."

Dorothy Sayers' in her "Gaudy Night", writes about her heroine visiting a women's college in Oxford. She writes about her experience thus:

"The first thing to strike her was the appalling noise in the dining hall. Two hundred female tongues, released as though by a spring, burst into high, clamorous speech. She felt that if the noise continued for one minute more, she would go quite mad. Within a week, the effect had worn off."

Universal Sisterhood of Spirituality

Hell with You is Liberation

Liberation without You is Hell

Pleasure without You is Grief

Grief with You is Ultimate Pleasure

Akka Mahadevi to Lord Shiva.

If I worship You from fear of hell,

Burn me in hell.

If I worship You from hope of heaven,

Exclude me from heaven.

If I worship You for Your Love,

Show me Your Eternal Beauty.

Rabia of Basra to Allah.

Punitavati aka Karaikkal  Ammaiyar, was a beautiful woman, who prayed to Lord Shiva to make her hideous so that she might not attract the men who saw her & her prayer was granted.

Julian of Norwich, in one of her "shewings" prayed to be allowed to experience the pains of Jesus Christ on the Cross & her prayer was granted.

Kodai aka Andal adorned herself with the garlands meant for Lord Krishna. When her father reproved her, the Lord admonished him in a dream & wanted to be worshipped with the garland worn by her.

St.Teresa of Avila famously said "More tears are shed over answered prayers than over unanswered ones." meaning one should never ask God for worldly boons, because God knows exactly what we need.

Brambley Hedge: A Murine Utopia

Richard ("Seagull") Bach, bored with media saturation about evil, war, malice & crime, wondered what if a culture grew up without evil, crime or war? So he imagined such a world peopled with anthropomorphic ferrets & "Curious Lives" was born.

Similarly, Jill Barklem, has created a magical feel-good world of mice in her popular "Brambley Hedge" books. They are eight in number & deal with a birthday picnic for Wilfred, a wedding of Poppy & Dusty, the adventurous discovery of a maze of tunnels by Primrose, a Snow Ball in the Ice Hall, the discovery of a secret staircase by Primrose & Wilfred & subsequent mid-winter celebrations by them in the grand costumes found in the magnificent room at the top of the staircase, a trip to the High Hills to deliver blankets to the needy Voles, a journey on boat along a river to fetch salt from the Saltapple mice & ending with a surprise gift of a new house for Poppy & her babies.

As Jill Barklem says in her introduction, creating the books was very hard work as she made sure that each flower must have the correct number of petals & be growing in the right place at the right time. Everything the mice make or do must be possible for them, living where they do.

The result is there for all to see, a meticulously detailed world, (reminiscent of the art of Brueghel), lovingly created, free from all unpleasantness & an unalloyed visual delight. The popularity of these books is also attested by a range of china, named after them.

The Importance of the Right Livelihood

Aldous Huxley, in his "The Perennial Philosophy" writes that in the Eightfold Path described by the Buddha, the penultimate one is the Right Livelihood. Certain professions are incompatible with the achievement of man's final end. So the criminal professions, such as brothel-keeping, forgery, racketeering & the like are forbidden. (in addition to the ten commandments of course). In many Buddhist societies, the manufacture of arms, the concoction of intoxicating liquors & the purveying of butchers' meat were not (as in contemporary Christendom) rewarded by wealth, peerages & political influence; they were deplored as businesses which made it difficult to achieve enlightenment & liberation. 

In medieval Europe, Christians were forbidden to make a living by usury, as it is still being forbidden in Islam. It was only after the Reformation that usury & gambling in stocks & commodities became respectable. For the Quakers (a peace loving sect among Christians), soldiering is a wrong profession. Satyajit Ray, an avowed agnostic, shows in his film "Jana Aranya", a man reading the scriptures (probably the Bhagavadgita) in his spare time, his profession being that of a pimp!

This importance of the Right Livelihood is underscored by an award for the same by a German-Swedish philanthropist Jakob von Uexkull from 1980.

Antigone & Adoor's Rajamma

In "The Antigone Complex, Ethics & the invention of feminine desire", Cecilia Sjoholm, Professor of Aesthetics at Sodertorn University, argues what if psychoanalysis had chosen Antigone rather than Oedipus? Freud's notion of the Oedipus complex had proven to be an inadequate model for the understanding of femininity & feminine desire for many of those engaged in that issue from a social or political viewpoint, & Antigone enables us to discuss some of the most pertinent questions from new angles.

If in Sophocles' play Antigone sacrifices her life for her brother, in Adoor Gopalakrishnan's acclaimed film "The Rat Trap", the protagonist's sister, Rajamma, also sacrifices her life for her bachelor  brother, waiting on him hand & foot, denying herself all her feminine desires. Another sister, Sridevi, is like Sophocles' Ismene, not so self-sacrificing as Rajamma, & actually elopes with her lover, as she knows full well that her brother will not arrange her marriage, as he has to give away her share of the ancestral property. At the end of the film, Rajamma collapses& is hospitalised, may be to recover or to find her final freedom in death.

Poison Pen Letters Detective Novels

Three famous female detective novel writers have written on this subject, incidentally featuring female detectives.

Agatha Christie has written "The Moving Finger" (1942-3) featuring Miss Jane Marple as the detective who solves the case in the quiet town of Lymstock. Only after two deaths, a blackmailing followed by an attempt at murder, is the case resolved by Miss Marple.

Dorothy Sayers, wrote "Gaudy Night" (1935) setting it intriguingly in a women's college at Oxford. However no murders take place in the novel, the spotlight being on women's higher education. The discussions among the female dons give ample scope for display of Sayers' erudition & her detective Miss Harriet Vane solves it with a little help from Lord Peter Wimsey.

"Poison in the Pen" (1955) by Patricia Wentworth features her detective Miss Maud Silver solving a spate of Poison Pen letters & a suicide in the village of Tilling Green. Some reviewers felt it was even better than Christie's book.

Culture & Religion at the crossroads

In Bhagavadgita, chapter 11 is devoted to Vishwaroopa darshan, where Lord Krishna displays his Cosmic form to Arjuna. However, as it cannot be perceived by the ordinary senses, divine organs of perception are temporarily provided to Arjuna to experience it. 

Similarly to appreciate classical literature & music, a special ability has to be developed. Otherwise even if exposure to them takes place, the result will be nil. This is the unfortunate condition of most now. There is some minimal exposure to literary works in language courses, but no exposure to  classical music & film appreciation here unlike in western countries where semester courses are available in universities. So generation after generation of young people are being educated with the sole purpose of earning money, & worse, with an all encompassing disinterest in anything else. A mutant human race may be evolved similar to animals with only basic instincts & devoid of curiosity, which differentiated the human race from animals.

Though walking is involved both in treadmill & walking from one point to another, in the former, only exercise is the purpose whereas in the latter a place is also to be reached. Similarly organised religions provide a repetitive ritual based system to lull the mind into believing that something is being achieved, whereas like a treadmill, the spiritual life is stationary. Whereas to actually progress spiritually from one point to another, only the mystics in all religions have shown the way, bypassing the organisation & priestcraft in conventional religions.

To paraphrase Jiddu Krishnamurti, "God created religion & the Devil allowed man to organise it." This was also the gist of Thomas Paine's appealing & appaling "The Age of Reason." The need of the hour may be a "rat race" with cultural & spiritual goals instead of material goals to save the human race!

Blacks teaching manners to Whites in literature

The outstanding example is Mammy from Margaret Mitchell's "Gone with the wind". Especially after the death of their mother, she keeps a censorious eye on the three O'Hara girls, especially the oldest, the tempestuous Scarlett. Actually only Mammy knows Scarlett inside out, more than her mother, husbands & even Rhett Butler. She even goes to the extent of fully feeding the girls before they go to any banquet, so that they do eat sparsely there, that being considered ladylike!

The second example is Calpurnia from Harper Lee's "To kill a Mockingbird." Here also she plays a strict surrogate mother to the hoydenish Scout. When Scout mocks a poor hungry boy invited to dinner, Calpurnia hauls Scout out to the kitchen & points out the the boy is "company" (guest) & even if he eats the tablecloth, Scout should not comment! No wonder that Scout's father rejects his sister's advice to get rid of Calpurnia as the children are old enough.

Of course, this way of looking at things may not find favour at the present time, where the Biblical injunction (Matthew 7:5) "First remove the beam out of your eye; and then you can see clearly to remove the speck out of your brother's eye" is observed more in the breach.

Kundalini's Seven Chakras & St. Teresa's Seven Mansions

Swami Harshananda writes in his "A Concise Encyclopaedia of Hinduism" that the "Chakras" are not anatomical centres but subtle seats of consciousness or Divine Power. 

Works on Yoga depict the nadis called the susumna, the ida & the pingala as the most important conduits for the flow of pranic energy. They start from the root of the spinal column & end near the centre of the head. They are seven in number namely muladhara, svadhisthana, manipura, anahata, visuddha, ajna & sahasrara, the last being the ultimate experience. These are part of the Kundalini Sakti, which is likened to a coiled serpent lying dormant, until it is roused by appropriate yogic exercises. The Kundalini is similar to the  Caduceus, a symbol of a staff with two serpents intertwined around it, which can be traced back to Mesopotamia (4000 - 3000 B.C.)

In St.Teresa of Avila's book, "The Interior Castle" (1577), she likens the soul to a diamond in the shape of a castle containing seven "mansions", signifying the journey of faith in seven stages to the ultimate union with God. First mansion is the soul's state of grace through humility. The second is the practice of Prayer. The third is an Exemplary life where the soul has an aversion to wordly life & has an overwhelming love of God. The fourth is a departure from the soul actively acquiring what it gains as God increases His role. The fifth is incipient union as the soul prepares to receive gifts from God. The sixth is time torn between favours from God & outside afflictions. The seventh is the ultimate union with God.

Here it can be noted that in answer to queries about the spiritual attainments described in "Sri Ramakrishna The Great Master" by Swami Saradananda, a direct disciple of the Master, the Swami said "Nothing beyond my spiritual experience has been recorded in the book." As the book is replete with various spiritual realisations, including the highest one of transcendental oneness, it sums up the Swami as a liberated soul.

Similarly, we find St.Teresa writing "Ask (that person) to read the chapter on the Seventh Mansion (the highest union with God) & tell that the writer (i.e., herself) has reached that point & has the peace which goes with it." So, irrespective of religious affliations, Saints have achieved the highest spiritual goals.