The Titanic and the Upanishads

... I remember watching footage of how the Titanic was discovered - two and a half miles below the surface of the ocean, far beyond depths that light can penetrate, where the sheer weight of the sea would-crush a human being.

Scientists designed a twelve-foot robot called Argo and lowered it little by little through those black waters right to the ocean floor.  At those blind depths, probing with cameras and sonar, they began to piece together a vivid picture of a world no one could have seen before.  The video seemed to take us through doors that had not been opened for seventy years, down that famous staircase into a silent crystal ballroom uncorrupted by time - eerie, disjointed shots of lightless landscape.

That is how I think of the Upanishads, probing depths where individuality itself dissolves and sending up pictures of treasures sunk in the seabed of the unconscious.

I continue to be totally mesmerized by the way Easwaran takes me through the Upanishads,  I have written about it before in the context of my deepest desires. This is one of those books I don't want to end.  I am savoring it, slowly.


I feel like I can see the staircases, (and Leo and Kate in them by the way).  How is that for a metaphore.   They [the enlightened intronauts) had to try to send signals, they had to try to show us how wonderful it was, even if words became meaningless.


This comes from location 295 on the kindle version of the book.   I am loving the kindle by the way.