On Srirangam and Kanchipuram

Suddenly, I yearned for some good classical music from the old country.

It happens, from time to time.  It is no different from when the mind aches for BB King. Or Sarah Vaughn.  Or SPB.

I pulled up this song in YouTube.  A masterful interpretation of a Dikshitar composition, at a wonderfully slower than normal pace.

It is a composition that is dedicated to the presiding deity at Srirangam--one of the most sacred places for the faithful.

For the faithful.

I am not.

But, as I noted even a decade ago, all across the world, literature and the arts grew within religious frameworks. A confirmed atheist, Camille Paglia points out, and I am in complete agreement with her, that the works that resulted from this framework have been phenomenal, both in quantity and quality.  Rangapura Vihara is a case in point.

Most of us atheists easily wander into the faith world of the arts, and find great comfort in it.  We see no contradiction there.  It is just we don't engage with the arts nor pursue them as a ticket to some glorious afterlife in heaven with god or the gods.  We just don't worry about the afterlife.  It is all about the here and the now.

But, of course, we too have to deal with the certainty that our lives will end at some time.  As this philosopher, who is an atheist puts it, "because we can die at any time that threat is a constant one. We live under the shadow of death."

I am acutely aware of my mortality.  But, that does not mean I plan for an afterlife either.

First, we must engage in forward-looking projects and engagements, because that’s inevitable for almost all human beings. A life without ongoing engagements is, for most people, an impoverished one.
Second, we must try to live as best we can within the moments of those engagements. Instead of solely looking forward, we should enjoy the present of what we do in the knowledge that at any moment the future could disappear. It’s a kind of stereoscopic vision that seeks to orient toward the future while immersing in the present.

At any moment the future could disappear.  Every single day becomes that much more enjoyable in this framework, and we try to live a life in gratitude for the awesomeness that we are here alive.

We enjoy the music, even when it is not secular.