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SPIRITUAL POETICS

Allen Ginsberg Class - NAROPA Institute July 31, 1974

 

note:  an edited version of this lecture appeared under the same title in the first issue of LOKA , A Journal from Naropa Institute, edited by Rick Fields,  Anchor Books / Doubleday,  Garden City, 1975

 

AG: (This) I got from Karma Trinley, who’s a lama, friend of (Chogyam) Trungpa in England - OM, you might want to write it down so it won’t be mysterious: OM (O-m.) SARASWATI (S-a-r-a-s-w-a-t-i) , Sar-a-swa-ti – how many have heard of Saraswati? - okay, Om-Saraswati, HRIH (H-r-i-h), SOWAH (S-o-w-a-h – So-hah), so it’s easy, Om-Sarawati-Hrih-Sowah.  “Om”, you know – body sound, salutation. Saraswati - is generally pictured with a veena in one hand and a book in the other. Riding, what?. Riding a swan, I think. I’m not sure. Does she have any other attributes ? In Hindu she’s a wife of Shiva

Student: ..playing a lute?

Student: ..playing a veena

AG: A veena, which is, like, a stringed instrument, (a lute would do just as well), a long stringed instrument . Yeah

Student: ..she’s all flowing, she flows..

AG: Flowing? ..you mean.. clothes…?

Student: ..flowing

AG: ...are flowing? (uh?) – (that’s) pretty indefinite. Okay, she flows. She’s the mind. She flowed.
Student: Is she the one they throw in the river one day?

AG: Ah, Durga, I think, another wife of Shiva, they throw in the river. But she apparently exists in Buddhist iconography also. I also don’t know who she’s the consort of . You can ask around your iconography teachers.
Student: Manjusri

AG: Ah, okay, consort of Manjusri
 

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