Language of the Gods, Part One: The Primordial Mantra,withDebashish Banerji

Books Mentioned In This Interview

debashish banerji critical posthumanism and planetary futures debashish banerji integral yoga psychology debashish banerji meditations upon the isa upanisad debashish banerji rabindranath tagore in the 21st century debashish banerji the alternate nation of abanindranath tagore

Debashish Banerji, PhD, is former Dean of Academic Affairs at the University of Philosophical Research in Los Angeles as well as an adjunct faculty member at Pasadena City College and the California Institute of Integral Studies. He is also the former director of the East West Cultural Center in Los Angeles. He is author of Seven Quartets of Becoming: A Transformative Yoga Psychology Based on the Diaries of Sri Aurobindo and also The Alternate Nation of Abanindranath Tagore, a book about his great grandfather. He edited an anthology about his great uncle, Rabindranath Tagore in the Twenty-First Century.

Here he describes the Indo-European family of languages and the relationship between Sanskrit and other languages of Europe and Asia. The linguistic similarities are also related to cultural and religious similarities. It is notable that the pantheon of gods in the ancient Rig Veda bears a strong resemblance to the Greek pantheon. This is not accidental. In India, Sanskrit developed a unique life as a language used in ritual and as a language for the sacred texts of the Vedanta tradition. These include the Vedas and the Upanishads, the Brahmanas, and the Bhagavat Gita. As such, Sanskrit became a language for contemplation. The very sounds of the language were thought to have the power of altering consciousness. Of particular interest is the mantra, AUM. It is considered to be the primordial sound of the universe that, when repeated, gives access to the entire spectrum of consciousness.

(Recorded on December 19, 2015)

Published on December 27, 2015

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