GENIUS

GENIUS

Genius is in Shakespearean parlance the Spirit. And the Spirit as the repository of all knowledge is the background of all embodied beings. The psychophysical complex is the refracting-dispersing-deflecting-transforming medium through which this original knowledge or the singular superconsciousness comes. The body-mind complex being finite, this infinite undivided consciousness is limited to becoming apparently---not really, for all of Nature is Maya or a phenomenal dream, shadow-like, insubstantial---fractured finite thoughts of diverse wavelengths, frequencies and energy quanta. Thus, each person is finite on the frontier and infinite at foundation, the intervening strata being of progressive refinement as one moves from the outermost physical realm to the innermost transcendental Self. It is like a thick chain that in progressive recession is in like proportion refined till it disappears altogether, the last ultra-refined almost line-like fibre so approximating the meta-Planck limit that it cannot sustain in material terms any further refinement and dissolves altogether into the nothingness of the Spirit where matter is none and consciousness alone abides as existence. It is no more an objective, dependent, relative reality but is the subjective singularity of the Spirit which in self-brooding abides.

So far as individual genius is concerned, what you in conversation here refer to, it may be said to be the gift of a relatively larger access into the background knowledge, somewhat spontaneously through a facilitating combination of nerve centres, especially in the brain, whereby gushes of higher knowledge stream through the hyperperforated psychophysical system and fertilise the field there, the output therein being called the masterpiece, the inventive act of genius or the discovery of the millennium that ushered in the millennium like a Da Vinci stroke, a Newtonian or Einsteinian idea or a Mozartian melody of the heavens.

It has not been possible to exactly define in exact scientific terms what constitutes genius beyond the wonder that its creative output causes in the mind of man. Were it possible to correctly identify its correlations with the genetic inheritance, environment, culture and history, its pressures and demands in the path of human evolutionary progression, both individual and collective, genetic scientists might have attempted with some success at manufacturing geniuses. But there are counterparts to physical reality that work unseen and with telling effect, not Freudian lunatic forces of the subconscious alone but higher forces of the superconscious which are saner and more potent in effecting changes on the conscious plane. A complex multilayered web this phenomena is and there are influences stretching beyond our conscious cognition that transform things including giving rise to an integrated organic order called a genius.

To democratise the discussion now along Vedantic lines as was my original intent in responding to your observation, it may be said that the mastery of the senses, the five sheaths (Annamay--physical, Prānamay--vital, Manomay--mental, Vijnānamay--intellectual, and Ānandamay--bliss), the vital breaths, airs, nerve-currents, the ability to drive the Kulakundalini Shakti up the spinal column unto the sacral plexus of the brain was the way the Vedic Rishis and their lineage in succeeding generations even unto this day produced the geniuses in our blessed motherland. This is the Vedic way and this is open to all. That 'grandest of all sciences', the Sanatan Dharma, is apprehended in its core content and elaborate branching through this yogic method, a term much maligned by corruption preached in its name by charlatans these days. This then is the Indian way to the Divine, the Spirit, the Shakespearean genius, but it cannot be gainsaid that great creative geniuses must necessarily come forth by appearing to observe those spiritual strictures as are enjoined in our Sanatan scriptures. Ultimately, it is the resolution of multiple forces operating in multiple layers of relative existence that end up eventually as a genius who is recognisable as a creative titan by his immeasurable contribution to human advancement in knowledge and light. But as we are all connected at base to the source of all knowledge, we may all fancy a chance to progress patiently, persistently to that pyramidal apex of culture in some life or other where the genius in us flows out as a Ganga of fertilising current and life. Unto that end we must work with deliberate effort but detached hopes. 🕉 

Written by Sugata Bose