śraddhā sūktam
śraddhā, Agni, Medhā
Faith, fire, and wisdom
-
There are many metaphors for spiritual experiences/possibilities of human consciousness in the Veda.
One of the recurring metaphors is that of a bird.
śraddhā is very much like flight - a soaring, a leaving the ground, a being supported on the winds.
But flight is also instinctive. We have an inborn desire for the truth just like birds innately know how to migrate.
-
I love images like these as they clearly show the landscape and depth involved in spiritual teachings. Spirituality is not just flight - it is a relationship to ocean, land, mountain peaks, sky and the sun.
Each of these layers are important. All of them have divine attributes in the Veda.
Welcome! Welcome to one of the most exquisite bodies of knowledge to ever come out of human history.
More to the point: welcome to your own self-discovery.
We’re going to spend the next three months learning to recite three sūktams - or small collection of beautiful mantraḥ-s - that are regarded as the most important teachings of them all.
These mantraḥ-s are beginner friendly - open to all regardless of experience, background, age, level of health, ethnicity or gender or anything else.
But they are also considered to be ultimate. They carry the seed of everything else one needs to learn or could possibly discover on the yoga path.
How to
Each week/lesson has some supportive text encoded, several audio files, and a PDF. Print the text. Come to class. Outside of class, use your text + the audio to practice several times.
Every time you learn a set of mantraḥ-s, you go through the yogic journey in miniature.
At first, it seems like a daunting challenge or quest. You can’t even imagine success, what lies ahead, where you’re going to go. You’ve got to show up/be initiated. True to a hero’s quest, this is often a little like having a rug pulled out from under you, watching life as you knew it tremble, or realizing you must change.
But you are given some tools.
In the course of a couple of practices, you experience both humility and overcoming. Over the course of several weeks, you unlearn a lot of things, get a lot of experiential learning, and come to understand something from an entirely different point of view. This is the stage of personal practice, discovering/recovering your birthright or true nature. You’ll both discovery your innate capacity and go through training.
In the end, you have come to a complete revolution.
Along the way, you learn mastery.
print the text
come to class
personal practice: 4x a week, use the text and the audio for self-practice
send in a recording every other week
return to the next class
experience ‘magic’