(Taoist Diary) Why being "Nobody" is our greatest power: Taoist secret
Becoming Nobody: Ego Death by DMT?
Satyakāma Jābāla (सत्यकाम जाबाल)
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| The Brahmin Vacchagotta demanded the Buddha answer yes or no. The Buddha was silent. |
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| What does a Hindu sage see? |
As a boy, in order to become brahmachārī (celibate Brahmin student), Satyakāma enquires about his father and his family from his mother Jabālā. His mother tells him that she went about many places in her youth attending to different people devoted to their service and did not know his lineage.
Therefore, she tells him that in this world, all that she has is him and vice versa, so he is called Satyakāma Jābāla.
Eager for knowledge, he goes to the sage Haridrumata Gautama, requesting the sage's permission to live in his school for to be a Brahmacharya. The teacher asks, "My dear child, what family do you come from?"
Satyakāma replies that he is of uncertain lineage because his mother does not know who his father is. He tells the sage that as to his lineage, his mother named him Satyakāma Jābāla.
Seeing his innocence and his strong wish to learn, the sage declares that the boy's honesty is the mark of a "Brahmin (brāhmaṇa), a true seeker of the knowledge of Brahman" and accepts him as a student in his school [2, 3].
- The Buddha redefined the label "Brahmin" from a biological lineage -- as the Brahmins taught of their own descent from God's mouth -- to a meritocracy, stating that one is not a Brahmin (high caste) from birth because of one's parents but because of one's own actions (karma, "deeds").
- In Buddhism anatta (no-self) means "selflessness"
- SUTRA: Is there a Self or not? (Wisdom Quarterly)
- Satyakama, the Seeker of Truth (Upanishads)
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| Will Satyakama Jabala know how to help us? |
The symbolic legend or allegory then presents Satyakāma's conversation with a bull, a fire, a swan (Haṃsa, हंस), and a diver bird (Madgu, मद्गु), which respectively symbolize Vāyu, Agni, Āditya, and Prāṇa [1].
Satyakāma thereby learns from these creatures that the form of Brahman is in all of the cardinal directions (north, south, east, west), world-bodies (earth, atmosphere, sky, ocean), sources of light (fire, sun, moon, lightning), and in humans (breath, eye, ear, and mind) [2].
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| Aummmm, the cosmic sound of the universe |
Satyakāma graduates and becomes a celebrated sage, according to the Hindu tradition.
A Vedic school is named after him, as is the influential ancient text Jābāla Upanishad – a treatise on Sannyāsa (a Hindu sannyasin or renunciate's life) [4].
Upakosala Kamalayana was a student of Satyakama Jabala, whose story is also presented in the Chhāndogya Upanishad [5]. In the end, Satyakāma Jābāla's teacher the Sage Gautama gives him the name Patan. More
