An Introduction to Narayana Guru's Garland of Mystical Visions Darśanamālā

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This 100 verse poem merges mysticism and science. The magic act that Nitya pulls off in this lecture series is to convey how these visions, if worn like lenses through which we view the world, can make life richer, more rewarding and forever tinged with the grace of our very self-nature.
Narayana Guru, who created these verses, was a mystic seer and social visionary of the early 20th century, who nearly one hundred years after his death, still has millions of admirers and practitioners today.

For orty-five years ago, at the age of twenty-four, through a long series of incidents and accidents and what now appear as "divine mistakes," I happened to meet an Indian swami (renunciate/ monk) named Nitya Chaitanya Yati. Classically trained in the wisdom tradition of Indian philosophy/spirituality, and equally well-versed in the methods and findings of modern science, he was in a unique position to translate the wisdom of the ancient sages of India into the vernacular of modern materialistic and utilitarian society. I, having graduated in 1969 from Stanford University and thus being a prime product of the so called best of modern western education, was in a good position to recognize how the perennial wisdom teachings of India filled the cavernous gaps neglected or dismissed by modern western education.
Whereas the former (western) preferences how to make a living, the latter focuses on how to make a life. Whereas the former celebrates the freedom and facility to gratify ever-expanding desires, which themselves enslave and compel us as strictly as any ruthless master, the latter cultivates a freedom from compulsive desire itself. Whereas the former teaches us to atomize and analyze the whole into its countless constituent parts, the latter teaches us to synthesize innumerable seemingly separate entities into an underlying and over-riding wholeness or unity. Whereas the former presents life as a competitive struggle for survival, the latter pictures life more as a mostly harmonious dance to the music of the spheres.
After meeting Swami Nitya, it quickly became evident to me that these differences were not merely of academic or theoretical significance, but on the contrary had everything to do with the social and personal happiness and well-being which is at the heart of all of our striving, in all climes and at all times.

Darsanamala, A Garland mprehenvisions, is the most profound and comprehensive philo sophical poem of Narayana Guru in the Sanskrit language, and what it teaches is the science of the Absolute or Brahmavidya, also known as Advaita Vedanta. It must have been written around the year 1916. It was a period of time in which the Guru had already given expression to his philosophical vision covering all its aspects, in the Malayalam language. But almost all the traditional source books, text books and commentaries on Vedanta were in the Sanskrit language.
Guru's close disciple, Swami Vidyananda thought that a work of Guru's on Brahmavidya in Sanskrit also was a must, so that the traditional scholars of Vedanta of the future could get a clear picture of Advaita Vedanta as visualized by Narayana Guru. Hence the disciple made an earnest appeal to Guru to compose such a work. Guru's immediate reaction was, "Who will be there to study it?" The disciple replied, "There will be people." Guru gave his consent to give dictation to the very same disciple, who enthusiastically took it down. Darsanamala was the outcome of it.
Swami Vidyananda himself very soon wrote a short commentary on Darśanamala in Malayalam. The original text plus this commen tary provide the basis for Nataraja Guru's masterwork, An Integrated Science of the Absolute, which is to be published as a separate book very soon.
Advaita Vedanta attempts to reveal the nature and content of non-dual, Ultimate Reality, which the Upanişads, the original source books of Vedanta, ex plicitly claim to be beyond words and beyond mental comprehension. Expounding the very same in effable experiential vision was also Narayana Guru's goal while writing Darsanamala. In order to overcome the ineffability of what he intends to convey, Narayana Guru resorts to a novel method.
The Reality meant to be revealed here is not stated directly. But the very same ineffable Reality could be viewed from different conceivable angles, and from each such perspective we get a different conceivable picture of the very same in conceivable Reality. Guru thus selects ten such angles of perspective and presents ten visions or darsanas of one and the same Reality, and leaves the task of experientially realizing the Reality, by making use of these ten visions, to the genuine seeker.