Lila means play. Back in the 1980s while we were in India, friends of mine in the ashram made the following Veda Lila video. The Veda is an unbounded field, an unbounded ocean of pure consciousness interacting with itself. The Veda is nature. It is the underlying basis of all existence. To know the Veda is to know the true nature of life and existence. It is like the seed that births the entire tree.
Consciousness, the Knower, Rishi, becomes conscious of itself and perceives itself as other, the Known Chhandas. The process is of Knower becoming aware of Known is called Devata. So those three things are born: Rishi, Devata, and Chhandas. Those three things taken together are called the wholeness or Samhita value. This process goes on and on creating the play of the Veda, Veda Lila. One becomes three and goes on within and to infinity.
That video is beautiful. Thank you for sharing it. Words you have spoken to us time and again have taken a deeper dive into my being when combined with the music and gestures. Very sweet indeed.
Wow! Captivated me.
This is a wonderful video. Thank you for sharing it.
This is a lovely blog. It gave me a better feel for the play of Consciousness, the Lila of the Veda.
You all were creative in your spare time at the ashram, in a theatrical and educational kind of way!
I wish I could get away with sharing this with my students. I wonder if they’d like it.
My middle school students study the Aryans in History class. They learn everything they are expected to, but it is all wrong.
They learn the castes were designed to “keep order in society” and caused people to have no choices in careers, rather than making people happy by respecting their different nervous systems.
They learn the Veda is songs or poems or scriptures, rather than the structure of Nature itself.
They learn Hinduism is polytheistic, as opposed to possibly honoring different facets of one god, or the three in one, as the video shows.
We have a really hard time, as a society, accepting the idea that something can be two ways at once: the one AND the three, simultaneously.
I feel like we need to practice that idea, over and over, before we even try to apply it to anything profound… I spend my time trying to think up easy examples!
Excellent video to accompany the blog. Fun!
Lots of fun 🙂