Autobiography of Adhyatma Ratna C N Guruswami Sarma, Kumbakonam -chapter 2 -The Dawn

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

ADHYATMA RATNA KUMBAKONAM C N GURUSWAMI SARMA (1900-1968)

Chapter 2 

The Dawn

It is said that everything has a dawn or ought to have one. Whether the beginning is a portent exhibition of any object that we cognise or has something behind planted in the prior stages of evolution is a problem saints and seers have vainly sought to answer. Again whether the beginning we see is only a beginning or an evolved condition of something prior to it has troubled the honest bosom of many a thinker and yet one has been given a satisfactory answer. It even seems not impossible that the thing conceived and brought forth ought to have had many stages of evolution prior to it until we see a finished object now, which by itself may be only a further stage in that history or a link in the chain of evolution leading on to further stages of development until it becomes fully evolved and becomes perfect if such a stage is possible which will thereafter not grow at all and stay quiescent or get metamorphosed and begin another cycle of evolution provided the progress is all on advanced stages and there is no getting back by a process of involution. 

The dawn of the sunlight begins the day only for a particular region and the people that inhabit it at that time, but the sun is ever dawning at every place on every day. It seems only a temporary conception for the time being and for a certain definitive space and a definite group of sentiments who cognise it. It is always a dawn in the east and is almost as much a  truth to say that it always a setting and the terms are only comparative based on limited cognition. There can therefore be no beginning nor an end but a continuous cycle of beginnings and ends which narrowed down might begin and end at the same time. Such beginnings and ends being always synchronous and the being in between a stage from the start to the finish. when at every moment there is the double phenomenon of start and finish.

It seems strange therefore for anyone to say that one had his birth except to state that as a cognisable being imbued with life he came or or got dropped into this world out of design or by accident when certain planets were in certain positions relative to each other which marks a particular moment in the space of time, which again had progressed and is progressing relative to other dimensions. This point of time spotted out with the positions of other planets is supposed to show the birth time of any individual. It is note worthy that this is exactly what happens to a child when his birth time is noted and a nativity chart is drawn pinning this speck of an individual in relation to the very very large sized planets and stars in juxtaposition to the earth and the significant dot on this terra firma where the baby draws its first breath and gets out into the cosmos. Here again .people and pedants more with an eye to accuracy even trouble themselves to go behind the patent birth and get  to the point of time and get to the point of time when the spermatozoa fertilized the egg and developed life in a quiescent stage which after further development in the womb,comes out as a separate existence with an individuality all its own. The entombed life draws succor from the outside world. that is why we find in Hindu shastras that births of great beings are described more as a result of some combinations of planets conducive to birth of a great soul or rather the projection of the divine on this mundane screen with a form and  a name. It will be a truism to say that such combinations are looked forward to and they are taken advantage of by Rishis to usher forth into this world certain births for the apparent purpose of keeping the path of faltering humanity clean and cleared. Whatever it might be, it seems almost true that such moments are auspicious enough to be counted upon and treasured and such occasions celebrated for all times so every such similar combinations (though?-Ed) do not result in birth of great souls. The birth  after all is secondary and it is the importance of ushering in of necessary principles in guiding life .on this globe and of lives in other globes too perhaps that is greatly stressed. In juxtaposition to the births of a high order, the births of human beings of lower mental strata are also correlated only to the relative positions of stars and planets which almost pronounces the type and mental makeup of the life that comes into this tangible world of physical existence (1).  It can almost be safely predicted therefore that there are only two things that make up a human being , one the inner force and two the outer physical vehicle.These two factors are coexistent and are equally depending on one or the other for an individual existence which comes into a medley of circumstances seemingly made and kept ready for the necessary interactions leading to some results. Almost preplanned and with a designed purpose does an individual come for th into this world. An airy nothing gets its local habitation and a name and becomes cabinned, cribbed and confined. That airy nothing variously so called, first reconciles itself to its wonderful vehicle and begins to exhibit its sentient existence   through the limbs and mobile portions of the vehicle which itself is being nurtured and helped to stay on without rotting by its very nothing. Curiously paradoxical indeed ! One is not sure which supports which and to the credit of which one of those two things go all that is enjoyable in human activity and sensations. They are so interdependent and co existing that if the vehicle is damaged beyond repair for the force which was driving it from somewhere inside vanishes into conceivable nothing and when the spirit flees from an undamaged vehicle, the container rots and is returned to the earth being interred into it or reduced to the elements by being consumed by fire without the least chance of a re conglomeration into the wonderful edifice called the body. We know not what plan is behind this entrance and exit but in the interspace of time between both, what tales, what wonders, achievements , exhibitions of stupendous intellect . and mighty brains and admirable and lasting works adorning the face of the earth as though in gratitude are manifested. Life of an individual seems like a pendulum to oscillate in one direction for the nonce and probably come back to the starting point all unseen for the second oscillation. Yet one exclaims to one's self "Quo vadis ?"  even after years of conscious living on this globe.

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Editor's note: 
1.The chapter contains strong assertion about astrology and its influence on humans. My grandfather had a strong belief  in astrology. However, I doubt whether any of his sons believed in astrology. Two of them (my uncles) had mentioned to me that it is illogical to expect that thousands of persons born at a particular moment will have their lives charted in a similar way and hence astrology cannot be a science.  I will leave the readers to judge for themselves whether astrology is a science or a pseudo science..