Reading Notes: Seven Secrets of Vishnu

This week I watched videos on the Seven Secrets of Vishnu from Devdutt Pattanaik.  These videos were very interesting to me for several reasons. The first is because they talk about metaphysics, a concept that is not commonly discussed in the western hemisphere. Hearing this mentioned piqued my interest to watch more of the videos. They also discuss Mohini in great length for the first section of the videos. According to mythology she represents the female form of Vishnu.

In this mythology the female forms represent material reality and male forms represent spiritual reality. I like how the videos explained what this means in depth. That the female form representing material reality comes from the fact that women give birth and are physically giving life on earth, whereas men are giving to life from outside their bodies. They do a good job of explaining why the female form representing material reality is not a bad thing. Rather that both realities need each other to survive and succeed. I really liked this concept and may have to try and include it in my reading for this coming week.

There are many concepts intertwined with Vishnu and learning more about him has been a lot of fun. I took a peak at some of the other video options about the Hindu calendar and may read those next week. I look forward to writing my story this week because Seven Secrets of Vishnu gives me a large range of topics to write about. They are mainly focused on the different forms of Vishnu, so I may have to include a couple of them throughout my story. This will be tricky while also tying them to my characters, Jonathon and Mr. Piddles. Although, I may be able to convey this with different stuffed animal forms!

Mohini