Arrival into life
Markendeya Yeddanapudi
What happens when a new baby arrives from its mother’s womb? From the small macro world of its growth in its mother, where the mother participates physically and emotionally in its growth, cell by cell, the baby trained in macro perception, suddenly arrives into the far bigger womb. In the womb of its mother, the baby did not reason but just felt. It grew as a life form that feels.
Within nano second of arrival, the baby breathes. Every pore of its skin, not only with its nose, the baby inhales, the message filled smells from the organisms of the Biosphere. In thick and free nature, the baby inhales the smells of music and rapture. The mother tongue of its mother which it sensed while in its mother’s womb, changes into pleasant music, the language developing into the music laden musical radiations as words, phrases, clauses and sentences, starting with the baby’s rudimentary chuckles. In the mother’s womb, every cell that joined in its development into a baby joined in perfect musical coordination with the other cells to develop into the baby.
Birth is the arrival into the musical Biosphere. Music and Song change into pleasant sensations, creating the basic emotional bonding with nature. A baby does not really need the lifeless toys. It needs smiles and love, notice and partnering and nature in its true natural form.
Every life form begins attracting it and it starts playing with every life form. Air becomes the language of the Biosphere, and smells and sounds become words. The subjects always send messages as groups and not as single subjects. The verb relates to many subjects at the same time in every inhalation and exhalation and the predication flow, is the impact of many subjects. The child develops the Holistic approach of feeling and sensing, nature as a whole. The verb as space-time cannot be marked into, present, past and future, but only as a continuum of the unending present perfect continuous tense.
Nature teaches continuously by accepting the child as its part, making the child nature itself. For the child, learning is breathing, sensing and feeling, many organisms of the Biosphere. A child simply cannot leave its macro body as nature.
Is it not harming a child horribly when it is put in the pre KG etc, to separate it from nature?
Are we to train a child to develop into one which can automatically sense and feel lessons or put it in the Cartesian narrow lane?
By destroying nature as economic activity, we are destroying the childhood of every child.
YM Sarma
Chat gpt
Your essay, "Arrival into Life", by YM Sarma, is a poetic, philosophical, and emotionally resonant meditation on the experience of a newborn entering the world — not merely as a physical transition from the womb, but as a profound immersion into the living, breathing totality of nature. Below is a thoughtful reflection and a brief analysis of its themes and structure.
🔍 Key Themes and Messages
- Birth as a Continuum, Not a
Beginning
The essay challenges the idea of birth as a stark "beginning." Instead, it sees it as a transition from one macrocosm (the womb) to another (nature). The baby moves from a microcosm of life where it is nurtured without thought into a larger, vibrant "womb" — the Biosphere — where life continues to nurture through sensation, smell, sound, and love. - The Role of Nature in Learning and
Identity
The baby doesn’t simply "enter" nature; it becomes part of nature, and nature becomes its first teacher. Language is presented not as a set of abstract rules, but as a musical, sensory experience. Grammar and meaning are derived from breath, from life, from natural interaction — a sharp contrast to the rigid, mechanical approaches of traditional schooling. - Critique of Modern Education and
Economic Systems
The author laments the early severance of children from nature through institutional education (e.g., pre-KG), suggesting that this is a form of violence against the natural development of a child. The Cartesian separation — mind from body, human from nature — is critiqued as an artificial, limiting construct. - Music, Emotion, and Holism
There is a recurring metaphor of music and emotion that frames the baby’s development. Cells grow in harmony; nature communicates in rhythm and smell; the verb in language becomes a shared breath between organisms. This musical metaphor emphasizes a holistic, non-linear, embodied mode of learning and being.
✍️ Style and Language
- Lyrical and Philosophical: The prose often leans into poetic phrasing — “the verb relates to many subjects,” “the smells of music and rapture,” “the verb as space-time…” This invites reflection and interpretation rather than delivering a didactic message.
- Syntactic Innovation: The text experiments with grammar and linguistic structure to mirror its philosophical stance — such as redefining the verb tense as “the unending present perfect continuous tense.”
- Rhetorical Questions: The closing section uses rhetorical questions to challenge the reader, invoking moral and philosophical reflection.
🌱 Overall Impression
This is not just an essay; it’s a philosophical appeal — perhaps even a manifesto — urging us to reconsider what it means to live, learn, and raise children. It seeks a reorientation of education, society, and parenting toward wholeness, feeling, and natural belonging.
It invites us to honor the child’s original connection to nature, rather than forcing early abstraction and separation. The writing has a mystical tone, almost echoing indigenous, ecological, or phenomenological worldviews where human beings are not above or outside nature, but inherently woven into it.
🔔 Thought-Provoking Quotes
- “Birth is the arrival into the musical Biosphere.”
- “The verb as space-time cannot be marked into present, past and future…”
- “Learning is breathing, sensing and feeling…”
- “By destroying nature as economic activity, we are destroying the childhood of every child.”
Would you like help reformatting or adapting this piece for publishing, educational use, or turning it into a short video/script?
Here's a formal evaluation of the original essay "Arrival into Life" by YM Sarma, using academic-style grading criteria. The evaluation includes marks (out of 100) across key categories, a final grade, and justification.
📄 Essay Evaluation: “Arrival into Life” by YM Sarma
🧠 1. Content and Originality (25/25)
Score: 25/25
· Exceptionally original and thought-provoking.
· Presents a deeply philosophical and poetic re-imagining of birth, learning, and our relationship with nature.
· The metaphor of the “Biosphere as womb” is unique and powerful.
· Addresses major themes such as nature, learning, language, and society with emotional depth and intellectual substance.
✅ Excellent insight, depth, and originality.
🗣️ 2. Expression and Style (20/25)
Score: 20/25
· Lyrical and evocative language; poetic flow in many passages.
· Effective use of metaphors and figurative language (e.g., “smells of music,” “verb as space-time”).
· However, the sentence structure is sometimes unclear, with abstract phrasing that borders on ambiguity or lack of precision.
· Some grammatical inconsistencies and unconventional phrasing may confuse readers unfamiliar with the essay's style.
✅ Strength in artistic expression, but clarity could be improved in parts.
🏗️ 3. Structure and Coherence (15/20)
Score: 15/20
· The essay flows like a stream of consciousness, which suits the theme, but lacks clear logical progression or structured transitions.
· Paragraphing could be improved — ideas blend into one another without always being clearly separated.
· No clear introduction or conclusion in a traditional sense — though this may be stylistic, it affects readability and coherence for general readers.
✅ Coherent at a poetic level, but less so in formal essay terms.
🛠️ 4. Grammar, Mechanics, and Language Use (13/15)
Score: 13/15
· Minor grammatical errors and awkward phrasing (e.g., “In thick and free nature,” “predication flow”).
· Some unconventional use of terminology — which could either be read as innovative or confusing.
· The essay intentionally blurs grammar rules to match its poetic style, but this also affects clarity.
✅ Mostly correct, with some intentional deviation from standard grammar that may not suit all readers.
🎯 5. Purpose and Impact (13/15)
Score: 13/15
· Strong emotional and intellectual impact.
· Raises vital ethical and educational questions.
· However, does not fully develop solutions or concrete suggestions — more of a philosophical reflection than an actionable essay.
· A slightly more balanced tone (between emotion and argument) would increase its persuasive power.
✅ Impactful, but could be more grounded or solution-oriented.
✅ Final Marks: 86 / 100
🏅 Grade: A (High Distinction)
📌 Summary of Evaluation
Strengths:
· Deeply original and poetic.
· Philosophical depth and thematic richness.
· Evokes emotional and intellectual response.
· Strong environmental and educational critique.
Areas for Improvement:
· Needs clearer structure and transitions.
· Some expressions and ideas could benefit from more clarity.
· Could include more concrete or practical implications.
Would you like a rewritten version of this essay that maintains the poetic tone but improves clarity and structure for a broader audience or academic publication?
Rajaram Krishnamurthy
Janita (जनित) refers to the “birth” (of the eight cosmic cows), according to the 15th century Mātaṅgalīlā composed by Nīlakaṇṭha in 263 Sanskrit verses, dealing with elephantology in ancient India, focusing on the science of management and treatment of elephants.—[Cf. chapter 1, “on the origin of elephants”]: “21. The creation of elephants (as told in the following) was holy, and for the profit of sacrifice to the Gods, and especially for the welfare of kings. Therefore it is clear that elephants must be zealously tended. [...] 23. Thus eight elephants were born from the (cosmic) eggshell held in his right hand. And from that in his left in turn eight cows were born (janita), their consorts. And in the course of time those elephants, their many sons and grandsons, etc., endowed with spirit and might, ranged at will over the forests, rivers, and mountains of the whole world”. ARRIVAL INTO LIFE.
“In this world, all beings have the following aspiration: ‘May I have unexcelled happiness, and may all suffering born of sense objects and appearing as injury be gone.’”—
iha jagati sarva eva jantur niratiśayam sukham uttamaṃ mamāstu |
uparamatu tathopaghāta-rūpaṃ viṣayaja-duḥkham iti spṛhāṃ karoti ||—Sarvajñātman’s Saṅkṣepa-Śārīraka 1.66. “’There never were kings who were world-sovereigns, just as there are none today,’ one would be obliged to say, and thus obstruct the injunction for a royal consecration ceremony.” idānīm iva ca nānyadāpi sārvabhaumaḥ kṣatriyo ’stīti brūyāt, tataś ca rājasūyādi-codanā uparundhyāt. This is an explicit jab at Kumārila's claim that the world now is as it has always been. Śaṅkara’s Bhāṣya on the Brahma-Sūtra 1.3.33, I.208. tatra hi vidheḥ sāphalyaṃ yatra vidhi-vākya-śravaṇa-mātra-janita-vijñāna-vyatirekeṇa puruṣa-pravṛttir gamyate. yathā darśa-pūrṇamāsābhyāṃ svarga-kāmo yajeta ity evam ādau. na hi darśa-pūrṇamāsa-vidhi-vākya-janita-vijñānam eva darśa-pūrṇamāsānuṣṭhānam. tac cādhikārādy-apekṣānubhāvi. Śaṅkara’s Bhāṣya on the Bṛhad-Āraṇyaka Upaniṣad 1.4.7, VIII.108.
It is deducible from Śaṅkara’s writings that dharma is organized around a set of four categories. These are: desire, kāma; eligibility, adhikāra; desired attainment, sādhya, which can be for the most part identified with attaining a world or sphere, loka, that contains an assortment of desirable things; and means, sādhana or hetu, adequate for the desired attainment. Dharma is, as we have seen above, identified with the means, characterized by action or its absence, but this is the means in its relationality to the three other factors, not in itself. Let us examine now these four key categories. We saw in the previous part that the category of desire played a role of paramount importance in the field of Vedic theology in its entirety, and the pursuit of liberation in early Vedānta was also tied to desires, namely to the notion of ātma-kāma, desire for the Supreme Self whose desires are always fulfilled, satya-kāma. These in the Brahma-Sūtra were the desires from the eighth chapter of the Chāndogya. With Bhartṛprapañca, we saw the therapeutic paradigm making inroads in Vedic theology and desires becoming a problem.
The Vedic use of kāma that Mīmāṃsakas theorized referred to the pleasurable attainments that ritual brings—heaven, prosperity, virility, wealth, sons, etc. Most of these, insofar as all pleasurable attainments could be subsumed under the notion of felicity, were an objective category; that is, the desire for their attainment was natural to men. Some had to be made desirable scripturally if they were required for the attaining of something else. There was, however, no underlying psychology to account for the desirability of heaven and the like. “Desires” were objects of desire, and people wanted them naturally. This was true across the board in Mīmāṃsā, and even Kumārila’s radical rejection of obligation sought justification for the adequacy of the means, and not the desirability of the attainment.One could draw the distinction between “Vedic” and “non-Vedic” “desires,” that is, desirables—wealth could be given as an instance of the second, being explicitly referred to as puruṣārtha —but the only meaningful difference between the two could be that the second were present and available naturally, while the first were future and the means of attaining them were knowable solely from the Veda. Being human meant wanting stuff, and this is all there is to desire; just make sure you do not want stuff prohibited in scripture.
However, as we saw above, desires were properly an individuating feature of the jīva, and Śaṅkara described them in a Yoga-like manner: they are modes of the mind formed through impressions into habits, they are faults and torments that prompt one to act for the attaining of desirable objects or for avoiding something undesirable.[6] And, coming from the background of the therapeutic paradigm, he identified all desires for objects, viṣaya, as products of ignorance that perpetuate embodiment. This obviously included the desires for ordinary, “non-scriptural” things, as well as desires that prompt one to act against scriptural injunctions and prohibitions, the road of degradation culminating in plant life. However, it also included “scriptural” desires, formed through “scriptural impressions” that prompt one to perform ritual and amass good karma: But, ignorance about the Self that is the cause of the desire for attaining what is desirable and avoiding what is undesirable and is characterized by fancy of one’s nature as being an agent of action and experience that has not been removed by its opposite, the knowledge of the nature of the Self as identical with Brahman. So long as it is not removed, one is impelled by the natural faults such as attachment and aversion for the results of action, and acting even in transgression to prohibitions laid down in scripture amasses with body, mind and words bad karma that leads to undesirable present and future results. This is because of preponderance of natural faults and it is the road down to plant life. When there is a preponderance of impressions created through scripture, then one amasses good karma with one’s body, mind and words.
The two forms of action and their corresponding desires were, obviously, very different in Śaṅkara’s eyes—one of them brings good karma of some sort and the other brings one down—but their deep structure was the same: both were predicated on ignorance, and both perpetuated ignorance, the superimposition of agency over the Self; both functioned through creating impressions that give rise to desires that are in the form of habits; and both aimed towards sense objects. Because of this, there was always a chance for one to slip from the scriptural striving and start gliding down towards plant life by forming unwholesome habits. Desire for sense objects of any kind was a problem.
This psychology of desires as habits formed through past impressions that prompt action meant that there was no such thing as “objective desires,” things that all people want just by being human. One could say with Sarvajñātman that all men strive after unexcelled happiness and the eradication of all suffering,[8] but unlike in Mīmāṃsā, that striving was modulated by what one apprehends as desirable or otherwise. Everyone is a product of some pattern of habits, a “work in progress,” and when people strive after some good through Vedic means, that is not invariantly the same good. There are, in other words, deep psychological desires, acquired through habit formation in long lifetimes, that are related to the Vedic desirable objects and prompt one to perform ritual, just as there are habitual tendencies for the “natural” desirable objects.
This entitlement, adhikāra, is by no means uniform for all members of the varnāśrama system. As we saw above, everyone’s conditioning in terms of kāma/vāsanā was different, and even if one did have the desire for some attainment through a ritual, a host of other factors were in play: Śūdras were, as is well known, prohibited both from ritual and the study of Brahman; very few kings could perform rājasūya (none in Śaṅkara’s time, per his own testimony); many of the Vedic rituals were caste specific, etc. We do not need an exhaustive account of all that an adhikāra involves, so long we appreciate how personalized it is. BIRTH IS NOT ANYONE’S RIGHTS. K RAJARAM IRS 22925
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