| The Dynamic Duo that is you all!
Here I will have some fun with the similar sounds of the crimefighters names: "Batman and Robin" and the 2 aspects of the soul "Atman and Jiva." In addition I will share my idea of what the Falcon and Serpent on the Chemetan (Egyptian) headdress represent in terms of Kundalini or Tantric Yoga.
[img]http://Givnology.com/321/headdressm.jpg[/img]
Egyptian Headdress of Falcon and Serpent
The "third eye chakra," related to the Pituitary gland, is said to have 2 Sanskrit letters "Ha" and "Ksha." Ha represents breath, and Ksha is Ka the last vowel from the throat combined with Sha the very first petal or letter of the root chakra. In that third eye chakra is said to be the dual awareness of being spirit, breath, "Ha," the Bird, and the "loop of the body," "Ksha."
In Hindu (East Indian) Kundalini or Tantric Yoga the highest awareness level that a person can achieve is said to be Atman. The next highest awareness is Brahman or the all-pervading creative source. If we look at it the other way, coming down that is, there is the allness, and it reduces itself to an individual person, a man, and it could be said that it goes down to an at-man level, or Atman.
Dr. Deepak Chopra, being a medical doctor yet well versed in the Vedic traditions of his homeland India brings sacred ancient wisdom to the west in a marvelously palatable and logical way.
[quote=How To Know God, Deepak Chopra, page 275]
In India the soul has two parts. One is called Jiva, which corresponds to the individual soul making its long journey through many lifetimes until it reaches full realization of God. When a child is taught that being good means your soul will go to heaven, it is Jiva that we are talking about. Jiva is involved in action. It is affected by our good and bad acts; it rules our conscience, and all the seeds of karma are planted inside it. The kind of person you turn out to be is rooted in Jiva, and the kind of life you make for yourself will change Jiva day by day.
The second half of the soul, called Atman, does not accompany us on any journey. It is pure and simple spirit, made of the same essence as God. Atman cannot change in any way. It never reaches God because it never left in the first place...
You need Jiva to remember who you are personally. You need Atman to remember yourself as pure spirit.
You need Jiva to have a reason to act, think, wish, and dream. You need Atman for the peace beyond all action.
You need Jiva to journey through time and space. You need Atman to live in the timeless.
You need Jiva to preserve personality and identity. You need Atman to become universal, beyond identity.
As you can see, even though they are melded together as "soul," these two aspects are exact opposites in many ways. Such is the paradox of the soul that it manages to accommodate itself to our world of time, thought, and action while dwelling externally in the spiritual world. The soul must be half-human, half-divine in order to give us a way to retain our identity during all the prayer, meditation, seeking, and other spiritual work that is involved in finding God, and yet the soul must have a divine aspect that embodies the goal of all seeking.
A more complete quote is here.
So it seems that we have a super super hero Atman, beyond all things and matters, our cloaked flying symbol using a bat that many connect with Vampires - the living dead - and ancient caves, towers and attics. He does have a sidekick, a junior super hero, not with all the razzle dazzle of a Bat-mobile, Bat-copter, Bat-plane and Bat-cave, but he can use them in his quest for helping justice. It just seems too uncannily similar to the 2 aspects of our eternal souls, and I wanted to share the humor, lightness, levity.
[img]http://www.sf-fan.de/sf-comic/news/batman_und_robin.jpg[/img]
May our Atman and Robin do-gooders capture the meanies and make our Gotham City safe for all! |
Atman & Robin your dynamic duo
![[img]http://Givnology.com/321/headdressm.jpg[/img] Egyptian Headdress of Falcon and Serpent](http://Givnology.com/321/headdress.jpg){kind=link}