Sri Ramakrishna Math : The Vedanta Kesari, December 2002

[Swami Satyamayananda of the Advaita Ashrama, Kolkata, is a monk of the Ramakrishna Order.]

Many hold deep-rooted belief that mythologies are nothing but traditional, irrational stories and allegories, illustrating primitive man's worldview. This belief gets reinforced when it is noted that some mythologies have crystallized into dogmas, rituals and customs whose influence has turned people superstitious and narrow. Generations have been misled into ignorance. Animosity towards those who have different beliefs is pandemic. The bottom line is, this world would have been a better place without this mythological nonsense called religious beliefs. The gentlemanly types, however, state mythologies were a mode of transmitting beliefs of primitive people regarding nature, history, sociology, culture etc. and of course, ubiquitous religion; all these have become dispensable but somehow they still cling to us. Yet other thoughtful people believe mythologies are remnants of a hoary past and like shards of ancient pottery, which in the hands of an archeologist can throw a flood of light on those ancient cultures and times, mythologies also can reveal wonderful things of an ancient mindset. A minority, yet an extremely voluble camp, pronounces mythologies as products of delusions having no substance. They assert mythologies are exactly what the word myth means, i.e., something that does not exist, a lie. But known to a few, some pundits have for many years been looking at different mythologies a little more closely; their efforts have done a lot to clear many of its misconceptions. The problems and disrepute of mythology ought to be placed, not at the doors of traditions but on the heads of some of its ignorant and fanatical adherents.

Paradoxically, the amount of energy expended by the radical types in denouncing mythology, is equal to, if not more than what they put in creating modern myths. One of the by-products of ancient mythology is, it gives an identity to a race; identities nowadays are built on scientific, social, political and economic myths; everybody knows how flimsy and destructive they are. Fiction is a modern myth, permeating a greater part of life. Mankind busily spins fictitious worldviews; some of which border on the absurd and ludicrous. From cheap novels right up to audio-visuals this alluring fiction fabric spreads. And just as anything that is alluring is also revealing, this fabric shows up modern man's psyche. So this extreme annoyance at ancient mythology is mere bedlam. Not only fiction, why, if one only looks at some modern paintings and sculptures, they appear so warped. Do people genuinely try to depict reality as it is? Or is man's so-called creativity an opiate to buffer harsh reality, to remain oblivious in a make-believe world? This tendency seems pervasive; even sitting idly makes the mind daydream and fantasize. Litterateurs, film-producers, artists, designers, decorators, etc. emphatically aver that creativity represents reality. Whose? Moreover, some of these things are object d' arts and what a lucrative business it has turned out to be. The world labels and lauds these creative people as 'extraordinary' and 'genius', definitely not someone in need of detoxification. If rational persons or even children yet uncorrupted, are made to impartially judge this so called creativity, they will automatically maintain that reality has been distorted and misrepresented. Artists and their entourage however urge that what is depicted is not what is readily perceived to an untrained eye, also recommending at the same time that it has to be seen from a different perspective, that of the mind--better still from the creative mind's standpoint. And then remark that one has to understand art besides having a little culture and refinement to appreciate these things. Now if this is the case here, why cannot the same earnestness be applied while studying ancient mythology? Then there are nursery rhymes, fables, and comic books that every child memorizes and learns along with playing bizarre computer games. All these can also be lumped under the fiction category. Everyone has his or her own viewpoint but still why do people have the disposition to run and amuse themselves after the counterfeit? To quote Swami Vivekananda regarding people's attitude towards mythology: `Often behind these ancient mythologies are nuggets of truth; and often, I am sorry to say, behind the fine polished phrases of the moderns is arrant trash. So, we need not throw a thing overboard because it is clothed in mythology, because it does not fit in with the notions of Mr. So-and-so or Mrs. So-and-so of modern times. If people should laugh at religion because most religions declare that men must believe in mythologies taught by such and such a prophet, they ought to laugh more at these moderns. In modern times, if a man quotes a Moses or a Buddha or a Christ, he is laughed at; but let him give the name of Huxley, a Tyndal or a Darwin, and it is swallowed without salt&. We are free from superstition indeed! That was a religious superstition and this is a scientific superstition; only, in and through that superstition came life-giving ideas of spirituality; in and through this modern superstition come lust and greed. That superstition was the worship of God, and this superstition is the worship of filthy lucre, of fame or power. That is the difference.'¹

This article will limit itself in trying to explore the rationale behind religious mythology. And since this field is vast, it will focus on Hindu mythology, which itself is immense. While on this, other profoundly interesting subjects viz. Symbols and Language will naturally beckon for attention.² Language, mythology and symbology however, crowd a common ground, so a mention of one will automatically engender at least a very brief elucidation of the rest. Man's tendency to create languages, symbols and myths, (alternately, read fiction, art, etc.), seems inexhaustible or to use a modern term, is wired in the brain. The amount of modern symbols churned out from the corporate to the cultural to the crass is simply astounding; these fight for elbow space amongst the discarded ones. Regarding languages, one finds an enormous number of languages, written and unwritten, archaic and polished, amongst every people on earth. As the worldview of a particular society constantly shifts due to its increase in knowledge and information, language must and does keep apace. If we throw a few innocent people on an island, in time they will develop their own language, symbols and myths; this will invariably conform to their view of the world. The rest of the cultural development like music, dance, art, literature, etc. will naturally follow in that particular groove. Societies with the greatest interaction with others develop quickly and enrich themselves, jettisoning old ideas and words for new. And if society or language cannot adapt itself to changes, it soon becomes a fit subject for the museum. Yet, history is witness to powerful civilizations and races along with their once vigorous language vanishing; its survivors, if any, are a dim reflection of their own ancient heritage. Wars, natural calamities, disasters etc. merely make growth take a breather after which it is quickly and aggressively renewed. On the other hand, if we look at some of the surviving ancient civilizations and races, we will discover that they have not only survived but are progressive, endowed with an unusual degree of resilience. It will be noticed that this is due mainly to their religious literature, mythology, symbols and rituals, temples and other paraphernalia. No doubt every society did and does posses these sheet anchors but if at any time in its history, they were subordinated to a materialistic goal, of pursuing power and pelf, that society inevitably bit the dust. Every surviving ancient society is guided by particular traditions and culture, with its emphasis on religion. This is what impels it towards its (subconscious) destiny, its fulfilment; this is its deathlessness, and as long as its goals are not met, till then its language, mythology, symbols etc. will stay in the race; whatever modern people might say to the contrary. People steeped in modernity who see no incongruity in Mickey Mouse, Superman, Harry Potter and a host of comical characters, all through their childhood and adult life, and yet rail against a Hanuman with a tail, a Brahma having four heads and Goddess Durga ten hands, should stop fretting and start pondering.

Linguists, psychologists and scholars are divided as to how language originated, resulting in various theories being propounded. These theories can fall into two broad categories: one, language is native to the human brain, the other, that of empiricism--language is learnt through experience. Leaving aside these profound theories, we shall quote Swami Vivekananda: 'Language is not the result of convention; it is not that people ever agreed to represent certain ideas by certain words; there was never an idea without a corresponding word or a word without a corresponding idea; ideas and words are in their nature inseparable. The symbols to represent ideas may be sound symbols or colour (picture) symbols.'³ The various theories may be beyond our intellect but for our purpose here, we just need to keep in mind that no language is static. As there are many languages from the crude to the polished, there are also various levels in a given language. And as is a person's stage of mental and cultural development, so is his language. A farmer or a student will not have the same level of understanding as that of an urbane gentleman or a professor. Yet even brilliant persons with the best education and diction can never say that they know the whole of their self with its faculties of logical and abstract thoughts, feelings, willing, instincts, intuitions, memories etc. For no language covers the whole ground of the mind, and never will. Can language articulate emotions for instance? If emotions like 'love' cannot be articulated correctly, is not love felt? In fact, trying to articulate an emotion sometimes diminishes its intensity. We can and do communicate in silence, not only through our expressive eyes but also body language; this is everybody's experience. Though besides the point, from this has arisen every classical dance forms along with mudras, (symbolic use of fingers to convey a message). In the Dakshinamurti Stotra, hymn to Shiva, the guru is shown dispelling the disciples' doubts in silence. When Holy Mother, who knew nothing but rustic Bengali, visited south India, neither Holy Mother nor the devotees experienced any difficulty in understanding each other; human hearts can get across barriers put by languages. Language itself is found at times to be an artificiality of the soul and that is why the recourse to silence, which has a therapeutic effect on the psyche. Music has had a high place in every culture, it is a vehicle to communicate not only with other human minds but also with all minds; it is seen even animals, birds and plants are affected by music. Scientists are sometimes confronted with the limitations of language, however polished, while trying to describe quantum reality. This quantum reality can only be understood in mathematical formulas and equations. Thinking in patterns while studying nature is now the latest thing. Swami Vivekananda says on this topic: 'Abstract ideas are often very hard to comprehend. Therefore symbols are of great help, and we cannot dispense with the symbolical method of putting things before us & in one sense we cannot think but in symbols; words themselves are symbols of thought.'⁴

Language and symbols then, besides struggling to represent various levels of external reality, also labour to represent various inner realities. But this Cartesian divide often gets blurred. To take an example, people who undergo the stress of surviving turbulent climatic conditions, like being caught for days in a harsh blizzard, experience external reality as floating and dreamlike where all sense of time, space and relatedness are no longer operative, the mind losing as it were, its moorings; simultaneously, imaginations, fears, etc. appear concrete. This is of course an extreme example. But mildly put, the various theories of perception confound and contradict each other, while being unable to put their nimble fingers on how exactly we experience this world. That we do is irrefutable but all the theories state that what we know, is just a small portion of it. And language, as we have shown, conforming to our worldview will naturally limit itself to this thin slice of reality. It can be likened to tottering on a tightrope of consciousness with the aid of a balancing pole of language, with the end nowhere in sight and space all around. As a tightrope walker concentrates only on a couple of meters of rope from where he will place his foot, so do we, conditioned to think in a language. Moreover this language in turn, does our thinking. To give a rather crude illustration: a person owns a pet dog, feeds, loves and trains it; later the demands made by this pet, enslaves the master. A mere whine is enough to send the master scurrying to fondle it. Initially, it is the pet that goes though conditioning then that very conditioning, conditions the master. Thus experiencing consciousness merely through language makes us view a miniscule portion of it, while a vast domain lies unexplored. This is called being caught in a vicious circle, of knowledge and ignorance. 'This standing between knowledge and ignorance, this mystic and twilight, this mingling of truth and falsehood--and where they meet--no one knows. We are walking in the midst of a dream, half sleeping, half waking, passing all our lives in a haze; this is the fate of every one of us. This is the fate of all sense-knowledge. This is the fate of all philosophy, of all boasted science, of all boasted human knowledge. This is the universe.' ⁵ We understand now what is called a mixture of fact and fiction. We can now appreciate Sankaracharya's words: sabda jâlam mahâranyam chitta-vibhrama kâranam--the net of words is like a great forest and is the cause of deluding the mind.⁶

So paintings, sculptures, architecture, why, even literature, that tries to represent something that is not purely sensuous but something ethereal, something on which the object itself hangs, and which is grasped by the mind at a sublime level, different from the logical, exact and concrete, are not entirely wrong. All forms of creativity wash the object off its slime to see it from a deeper level. If this is true of secular objects, it will be equally true of sacred symbols, images, rituals and mythology. The explanation is: The mind is unitary but it kind of tapers downwards from the subtle becoming gradually grosser. The subtle mind operates on what we call an abstract level and even higher; the gross level of that mind operates on the gross level of everyday objects. Thus there is no real divide between general concepts and specific perceptions, or abstract thoughts and concrete thoughts. There is however, a world of a difference between them. In Hindu epistemology most of the orthodox and unorthodox schools have studied this phenomena. It is called nirvikalpa pratyaksha, indeterminative cognition and savikalpa pratyaksha, determinative cognition. In indeterminative cognition, an object is immediately presented to the mind through a sense organ, as it really is, in itself, in its uniqueness and specific individuality; the mind then undergoes a process and the object presented is recognized, identified and associated with a name. Buddhist philosophers urge that nirvikalpa alone is valid because the object is apprehended in its pure form devoid of qualifications and determinants; Savikalpa is invalid because qualifications, determinations and identifications are due to the ideal constructions of the mind, hence unreal.⁷ We won't go into how Indian philosophers dealt with the validity and invalidity question; this principle of perception is accepted by the major philosophies. Every perception whether sacred or secular has a deeper level and those who have trained themselves or are receptive enough discover joy and inspiration in everything, even in the most ordinary. This is the true meaning of living, not floating merely on the surface of things. Savikalpa pratyaksha comes about through a complex process. Like external phenomena working under strict physical laws, internal nature also works under certain rigid laws called Vyâpti in Nyâya philosophy. 'According to them, (Nayyayikas) all our ideas of law are due to association. A series of phenomena becomes associated with things in our mind in a sort of invariable order, so that whatever we perceive at any time is immediately referred to other facts in the mind. Any one idea or according to our psychology, any one wave that is produced in the mind stuff, must always give rise to many similar waves. This is the psychological idea of association, and causation is only an aspect of this grand pervasive principle of association'.⁸ Thus one thought or one emotion however insignificant, gives rise to a long and deep swell of associated ideas. In other words, behind every conscious thought there is a vast history of very complex web-like subconscious thoughts. The much-trumpeted consciousness on which so many theories and sciences are built is truly what can be called 'a thin slice of reality'. There is yet another aspect that is not known to most people and that is super-consciousness. Swami Vivekananda says, 'Consciousness is a mere film between the two oceans of sub-consciousness and super-consciousness.'

This seeming digression was necessary to arrive at the core of the article. Max Mueller says regarding the origin of mythology: 'If we recognize in language the outer form and manifestation of thought; (mythology) is in fact the dark shadow which language throws upon thought and which can never disappear till language becomes commensurate with thought, which it never will.'⁹ This is a wonderful metaphor. Ernest Cassier in his Language and Myth wonderfully comments on it, 'If myths be ¬hing but a darkening shadow which language throws upon thought, it is mystifying indeed that this shadow should appear ever as in an aura of its own light, should evolve positive vitality and activity of its own, which tend to eclipse what we commonly call the immediate reality of things, so that even a wealth of empirical sensuous experience pales before it.'¹⁰ These are tremendous statements; another even more tremendous is made by Werner Heisenburg while discussing Wolfgang Pauli's (a famous physicist) philosophical outlook where he says, 'The bridge leading from the initial unordered data of experience to the ideas seen by Pauli in certain primeval images of the soul, the archetypes discussed by Kepler and modern psychology (Carl Jung's idea of the collective unconscious), could not be located in consciousness or related to specific rational formulable ideas. It is a question of forms belonging to the unconscious regions of the human soul, images of powerful emotional content, which are not thought but are beheld as it were, pictorially. The delight one feels on becoming aware of a new piece of knowledge arises from the way such pre-existing images fall into consequence with the external object.'¹¹ To paraphrase the above by using an illustration: Imagine an open sea with a ship sailing on it; mind is the sea, thoughts are the undulating waters and language is the ship. A shadow of the ship is invariably thrown on the waters; this shadow is mythology. There can be no shadow without the sea and the ship; and no ship without a shadow. So, as long as there is mind, thought and language there will be mythology. Heisenburg went even further and said that certain symbols and forms pre-exist in the waters of the sea, and as a sea throws out its secrets, so do these forms now and then surface, i.e., are revealed to the conscious mind.

Language, it was mentioned, evolves along with our worldview. It will be proper now to say that the worldview evolves because the mind evolves and unfolds itself. The two main views of the mind are: one, material and the other, psychic. Through what does the mind evolve? The answer is, through knowledge. And to the invariable question that follows this: what is its goal? the answer is again knowledge. Swamiji opens his Karma Yoga with: 'The goal of mankind is knowledge.' Sri Ramakrishna also says: the aim of human life is to realize God (the essence of knowledge). Matter is insentient, sentiency belongs to the mind, as it were, and this struggles to work itself out on matter. To another question: does every type of knowledge help? The answer is, yes; but specifically religious knowledge. Religion has been the greatest force that has impelled humanity towards its goals. It is not to be understood as narrow, fanatical or sectarian but as the essence of searching and discovering truth. 'Science and religion are both attempts to help us out of the bondage; only religion is more ancient, and we have the superstition that it is more holy. In a way it is, because it makes morality a vital point and science does not&. This purity of the heart will bring the vision of God. It is the theme of the whole music of the universe.'¹²

'Now in every religion there are three parts: philosophy, mythology and ritual. Philosophy is of course the essence of every religion; mythology explains and illustrates it by means of more or less legendary lives of great men, stories and fables of wonderful things and so on; ritual gives to that philosophy a still more concrete form&'¹³. Take up any Hindu scripture and one will be amazed to see at how mythology and philosophy or metaphysics have blended perfectly with each other. Even some of the purely philosophical treatises illustrate their points with the help of mythology, for it is found effective in orienting philosophical thought. To Hindus there is no dichotomy between philosophy and mythology and rituals. Can there be a dichotomy between the superconscious, subconscious and conscious aspects of the mind? Never! There cannot be any compartmentalization between thoughts, feelings, intuitions, instincts, supernal visions, etc. Man is growing all the time; that does not mean a person disowns the stages of childhood and youth after growing out of them. We cannot disown our past but we build on it. This is one of the reasons why Hindus as a race are not iconoclasts. Do parents pull away toys from the hands of a child? A growing mind needs supports; similarly a mind growing in spirituality needs mythology.

Sanâtana Dharma, Eternal Religion, has retained much of its vigour because the rishis (literally seers of mantras), first experienced the truths they preached. These were the real fathers of the race, endowed with love and insight; they knew how people would grow and in order to guide and hasten future humanity to the goal called freedom, gave appropriate mythology, symbols, ideas etc. and made them practical and tangible through numerous stories and rituals. These stories, injected with their power of purity and realization, penetrated and saturated the collective mind of the race. And this is what impels minds towards those very realms from which these forms were first experienced. This is what Swamiji means when he says that each one of us must become a rishi. This is another distinctiveness of Sanâtana Dharma; its noble task is to lead every soul towards its higher destiny. No one, however evil and debased, will suffer damnation forever, every soul will get millions of chances to rectify itself, and like a patient mother, it waits for the child to grow. Sri Ramakrishna says: 'All will surely realize God. All will be liberated. It may be that some get their meal in the morning, some at noon, and some in the evening; but none will go without food. All, without exception, will certainly know their real Atman.' ¹⁴

As each mind, though connected with other minds, is distinct, a vast array of forms of gods, goddesses and symbols were placed in the collective mind of the race. This was done in order that according to its nature and stage of development, individuals could pick up what was best suited. There is another way of putting it: like water seeking its own level, these forms and symbols seek out the particular mind that is ready. The stages of mental development can be various, hence the necessity of a very large number of gods and goddesses. One thing has to be clearly understood, these gods, goddesses, symbols, ideas, images, are not imaginary, they have been seen, are seen even today, and to become spiritual they have to be seen. This has been the history of the Hindu race, a mighty saga of rediscovering the spiritual truths as living. Devoted Hanuman was seen, and even now can be seen; this is the testimony of thousands of aspirants and holy men. Mickey-mouse is a figment of the imagination; it will not help the mind towards its journey of unfolding itself but probably lead to neurosis.

Every mythological form whether of Shiva or Ganesh, every symbol, whether the swastika or circle, pushes the mind toward higher and higher stages of subtlety and spiritual realms; this is effected by contemplating on them. These mythological forms and symbols thus contemplated upon, help expand consciousness. Every particular divine form has its own mantra. Indian Philosophy states that there can never be a name without a form, or sound without a corresponding idea. Repeated contemplation on both aspects devotedly picks up the pace and the intended deity reveals itself. To quote the young Swami Vivekananda, at the Baranagar Math: 'I have seen the Mantra in letters of gold and shining with effulgence! Many times I have seen the form of Kali and of other aspects of the Personal God.' In Sri Ramakrishna:The Great Master one comes across Sri Ramakrishna, his parents etc. constantly seeing forms of gods and goddesses, talking and interacting with them. But all this is all right for those who take religion seriously; do mythological forms guide those who do not fall in this category? The answer is a simple yes; the explanation is complex. Every living form, i.e., bodies and minds, have deities that preside over the various functions of consciousness. This is found in the Vedas and is a settled doctrine of Advaita Vedanta philosophy. Each deity apart from presiding over microcosmic consciousness has a macrocosmic aspect.¹⁵ Later, the Puranas, mythological literature extended the list. We won't go into this but present a verse from the Vedantasara that deals with some of the deities guiding consciousness: 'Visva, (individual consciousness in the waking state), perceives the gross objects, viz. sound, touch, colour, taste and smell, respectively, through the five sense organs (such as the ears, skin, eyes, tongue, and nose), controlled respectively by the presiding deities of Dik, Vâyu, Surya, Varuna and the two Asvins&the functions of speech, grasping, walking, excretion and enjoyment respectively through&Agni, Indra, Vishnu, Yama Prajâpati&.uncertainty, determination, personality and remembrance through the inner organs viz. mind, intellect, egoism and memory, controlled respectively by Chandra, Brahmâ, Siva and Vishnu.'¹⁶

Heisenburg's telling of Wolfgang Pauli's 'primeval images of the soul' was right. It is astonishing how these men, could arrive at this. Of course being scientists they are not easily fooled by what nature presents to them. In Hinduism, every mythological character has a great deal of stories spun around it, and very interesting ones too. The reason obviously is to let the particular form get fixed in the mind. If we remember what was spoken about Vyâpti, the mythological form gets `associated' with various other ordinary impressions in the mind. So, if one of these impressions gets activated, it brings in its train those mythological forms to memory. So seeing a snow-clad mountain will bring to mind Lord Shiva sitting rapt in meditation. The recitation of mythological stories to children were an integral part of a child's education; and this was after all better than repeating nursery rhymes like 'Jack and Jill' and fairy tales like 'Little Red Riding Hood'.

These innumerable mythological/mystic forms and symbols crowding, so to say, inside naturally proliferates outside in: rituals, temples, art, sculpture, music, drama, language, symbols, literature, even down to proper nouns. The whole culture of the race gets tinged with it. Even a noted reformer, Swami Dayananada Saraswati, who did not believe in worshipping forms, believed they existed. In the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna we come across the Master telling Kesav Chandra Sen: 'Since God has created so many things couldn't He have created deities?'¹⁷ It was said that metaphysics and mythology blend easily in Hindu scriptures, but there is a specialty in Hinduism which knows that behind these numerous forms stands the One, the Formless, the Absolute, which is not lost sight of. It knows that the baggage of forms and language which has provided them on their evolutionary journey will have to be discarded at one point, for Real Existence is yato vâcho nivartante aprâpya manasâ saha¹⁸ where speech along with the mind returns unable to reach It. In Sri Ramakrishna's wonderful words, 'The Relative arises from the Absolute; the causal, the subtle and the gross bodies appear out of the Great Cause; from Turiya emerge the states of deep sleep, dream and waking. These waves arising out of the Great Ocean merge again into the Great Ocean &. I have clearly perceived these things.'¹⁹

This article can be brought to a close in various ways but to stick to the orthodox view--In India the idea is that things exist because they are in the Vedas. In and through the Vedas the whole creation has come. All that is called knowledge is in the Vedas. Every word is sacred and eternal, eternal as the soul, without beginning and without end. The whole of the Creator's mind is in this book, as it were.'²⁰ The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad speaks of creation figuratively; 'As from a fire kindled with wet faggot diverse kinds of smoke issue, even so my dear, The Rig Veda, Yajur Veda, Sama Veda, Atharvangirasa, history, mythology, arts, Upanishads, pithy verses, aphorisms, elucidations and explanations are (like) the breath of this Infinite Reality.'²¹ The mind evolves through knowledge, with knowledge as its goal. To add a little more to this statement; it is knowledge pre existing in the form of deities and symbols, in the very beginning, that inexorably manifest themselves through various channels. This manifestation is not necessarily through their archetypal forms but even through what we call secular knowledge. How do we connect manifestation of knowledge and these deities? In Sanskrit literature it is well known that devas, deities or gods are called 'shining ones'. What can shine but consciousness (chit)? Consciousness is knowledge. Even in ordinary parlance it is said knowledge is revelatory, i.e., the light of knowledge lights an area that we are ignorant of, which is thought of as darkness. The characteristic of knowledge is it tries to find unity in the midst of diversity; this is science. In the midst of our daily lives filled with care, some fortunate enough wonder as to where they are heading. They ask 'What am I?' and try to seek their 'self' amongst the fragments of consciousness. Then arises the desire to curb all fragmentations, all that is fictional, all that is myth, and to get to the unitary consciousness of being. The child is tired and seeks the mother; this seeking is religion. Here the mythological forms and symbols etc. come in and help us ascend higher and higher; they are strung out like a rope to let the child hold on and reach the pinnacle--our source, the goal, the unity, supreme consciousness, existence. If this can be kept in mind, there will be a sea change in perception, amongst those who believe in mythology unknowingly, those who swear by it, the fence sitters and the critical.

1. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Vol 1, pg. 72
2. An excellent book recommended is: Myth, Symbol & Language-A modern perspective with reference to India and her Religions, by Ananda, Published by Aryan Books International, 4B Ansari Rd, N. Delhi 2
3. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Vol I, pg 73
4. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Vol I, pg 72
5. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda Vol. II pg. 112
6 . The Vivekachudamani of Sri Sankaracharya, verse 60
7. Indian Psychology, vol. III, by Jadunath Sinha, published by Motilal Banarasidass, New Delhi.
8. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda Vol I, pg 95
9. The Philosophy of Mythology appended to the Introduction of Science of Religion, London 1893 and quoted by Ananda in Myth, Symbol & Language.
10. Quoted by Ananda in Myth, Symbol & Language
11. Across the Frontiers, Heisenburg, Harper & Co. quoted by Ananda in Myth, Symbol & Language
12. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Vol VII, pg. 103
13. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Vol I, pg 72
14. The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, Chennai Math, 1996, pg. 818
15. See Aitareya Upanishad, Chp. I. 3-4 & Ch. II. 1-3
16. Vedantasara of Sadananda verse 114
17. The Gospel Ramakrishna, Advice to Ishan, pg 607
18. Taittiriya Upanishad, Brahmanandavalli, 4
19. The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, With Various Devotees, pg 653
20. The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Vol. II, pg. 169
21. II.iv.10