Alan Wilson Watts, British Born American writer and speaker is considered as the foremost interpreter of Eastern disciplines for the contemporary West. He jovially calls a philosopher as “a sort of an intellectual yokel, who gawks at things that sensible people take for granted”.
“What is he talking about ? Us ! taking things for granted! He must be crazy” we must be wondering. No! Watts has not gone nuts. Let us see what Watts says.
“Philosophy starts with wonder, Aristotle said. During the trip between the maternity ward to the crematorium called otherwise as life, without awe/wonder, we take several things for granted and live our life as a routine. For example let us take the word “Existence”. Existence of an object, existence of a number, existence of the world, existence of life in the world etc. Existence is routinely taken for granted.
On the other hand if we think about it for a minute we will be absolutely amazed to discover ourself on the surface of a tiny rock-ball, rotating around a spherical fire in a tiny galaxy in an ever expanding galaxies – a very odd situation and the more we look at things, we cannot get rid of the feeling that existence is quite weird and it is very very strange.
But the so called insignificant little creature “We the humans” have inside our skulls, a neurological contraption that is able to center itself in the midst of this incredible expanse of galaxies and start measuring the whole thing. That is quite extraordinary. Isn’t it?
Furthermore, let us realise that for a world where there are no eyes, there is no light: in a world where there are no soft skin, there are no roughs and in a world where there are no muscles, there is nothing called heavy. It is all relational. Existence is relationship and we are smack in the middle of it”.
When we talk of Relationship what is that we are speaking about? Relationship between whom and whom ? Relationship on what basis ? This is what we will learn in Dakshinamurthy Sthothram Sloka 3 onwards.
Adi Sankara after revealing about the “Sathya” in the first Sloka and the “Creator” in the next Sloka, introduces gradually the “Jiva” by discussing the “Existence and the light” that the Jiva/SELF experience every moment first. This will be the focus of this Sloka.
Prabhu's Ponder 