On Squirrels and Sanskrit

One of my best friends is a squirrel named Mamasita ("little mother" in Spanish) who visits me everyday. It started last winter during a cold snap here in Colorado when a shivering and very pregnant squirrel showed up on our back porch. I offered her a nut and that was it. We're lifelong friends now.

Every morning I watch her amazing gymnastic feats, laugh out loud at her antics and gestures, and now that she lets me -- listen up close to her language. Lately, I've been calling to her using the sounds she makes. (I've learned these over the past months as she barks when other animals approach our back yard, chirps along with me as I chant the Lalita Sahasranama (the 1000 names of the Goddess) outside my meditation room window, and eats the nuts I give her.

Each of her sounds, I notice, come from her teeth -- as is the case with all rodents. In the rodent world, it's all about the teeth.

So it makes sense that in Sanskrit, the dental sounds correspond with the rodent kingdom -- and you can learn how exactly to make the dental sounds from these creatures. In English, we pronounce "th" as in "thank you," but in Sanskrit the sound is made differently. You have to make contact between the teeth and the lips and then release them as you exhale. As in the word -- "boaT House."

When we pronounce "tha" correctly according to Sanskrit, we create a tangible effect on our subtle physiology. The contact between the tongue and the teeth stimulates the center of the forehead, the location of the third eye (ajna chakra). This is the gateway of wisdom and the center of mental intelligence in the body.

Interestingly, in Vedic symbolism mental intelligence is depicted as a rodent -- a small rat or mouse, in fact. And who rides on a small mouse?

Ganesha, the elephant-headed deity. (See his picture with my first post on this blog...)

Ganesha is wisdom -- the vast nature of our consciousness symbolized by the largest of animals, the elephant. And he traverses the universe on the back of the smallest creature, the mouse.

What does this mean?

Yoga is the union of the small with the big -- the relative with the Absolute -- the individual with the universal.

It is also the realization of the mind of its higher nature, which happens when the third-eye of knowledge awakens.

In sound form, Ganesha (the Brahman) in connection with the rat (the Atman) is -- "atha" -- Now.

(See for yourself when you pronounce "atha" with this new awareness if you can experience this Yoga. Or perhaps you'll have to make friends with a squirrel and learn this way!)