Caves and the Subterranean World

Mountains symbolise the zenith of human aspiration while caves are linked with depths of the power of darkness and depravity. It is a stupid association as for thousands of years; caves have provided basic shelter for both man and animals. Caves are also attractive and colourful. Most of the caves have been formed in limestone rock or dolomite. These rocks are sedimentary because they are laid down in layers which are successive. They become susceptible to vertical cracking. Water that seeps down these vertical faults works its way along the bedding planes and it wears away the rock. It results in the formation of sink holes and horizontal caverns. Changes in these water tables have left some caves very dry but many have rivers running through them and they help feed large underground lakes and subterranean waterfalls. Diving apparatus is required at many places to explore these caves. Most caves are damp as water seeps through cracks and joints in their roofs or trickles down their walls. This water is coming through the limestone layers and it starts to dissolve some of the lime. When the water evaporates, it leaves traces behind of calcium carbonate that builds up over a period of time. Some of the calcium carbonate gets deposited at points in the ceilings where the water drips while the remainder falls to floors of the caves. As a result of this, hanging deposits or stalactites and standing deposits or stalagmites are formed. If these formations are allowed to grow for longer periods of time, they will unite and columns will be formed, usually clustered together in styles of music organ pipes. Some caves will form as a result of volcanic activity. This is because the hot lava flows from a fissure and will cool rapidly when exposed to the air and it will harden on the surface while the molten lava flowing underneath drains away, leaving a cavity. There are caves of this type in Hawaii and Iceland. Few caves are a result of water erosion, mostly from the sea and they can take on several varieties of shapes. Their rocks are not always of the same hardness. Waves that hit the cliff will soon cut into rocks which are softer than their surroundings and are likely to erode horizontal or vertical joints. Waves that crash into deep caverns will compress the air within them and this makes the rock loose at weak points in the roofs. A natural chimney or blow hole is formed at some distance back from the face of the cliff. When the arch collapses, a vertical stack will be left and an example of this is the Old Man of Hoy cliff in the Orkney Scottish Islands. The temperature in caves remains mostly constant at about fifty degrees Fahrenheit and this is a boon to many animals, particularly bats. Such kinds of caves are found on the French Riviera, Spain, the Middle East and the Philippines. A remarkable bat cave is the one in Texas USA – the Ney Cave and it is presumed to give shelter to almost fifteen million bats. Other interesting specimens are the columns that guard the entrance to Fingal’s Cave (also made popular by Felix Bartholdy Mendelssohn’s haunting and mystical overture). This cave is located on the island of Staffa, Inner Hebrides, Scotland in the United Kingdom. The columns may look like Masonic work to you but they are a natural formation of basalt which split in this fashion thousands of years ago. Typical limestone formations in caves could be seen in the Tillywhim Caves in Dorset near Swansee. In this case, water has penetrated through the fissures in the rock. The channels have enlarged gradually and they have created underground rivers. The rivers dried up eventually and became dry and their mouths got exposed by the fall and the erosion of the rocks along the coast of the sea.

Intellect and its Limitations

“Pride goeth on horseback and cometh back on foot” – Anonymous What is the capacity of intelligence? Intelligence has been defined in more than one way; it is the capacity for abstraction, logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, reasoning, creativity and problem-solving. Yet our intelligence has several limitations and that includes the inability to process large amounts of information simultaneously as we have limited memory and self-control and have the vulnerability to make mistakes when processing complicated tasks. Each restriction suppresses the amount of data processed in a given situation and time. Social regulations often act as hindrances in being honest in life. We have to go along with the world, a world which is honoured for its reason and intellect. Anything that is connected with feeling is deemed as persona non-grata. It is not welcome. We are caught up in a network of social rituals and make-believes that hit upon us hard and bind us down like prisoners in a cage of ignorance and sub-conscious habits, whether they have any relevance to fact or not. Intellect, like any machine, has its limitations. If understanding a concept was like a recipe, we would require several ingredients such as memory, information and practice; they are all interlinked. The bad news is that our brain makes us all very limited in our access to these. To get information, we have to focus our concentration on what we want to learn. We are not very successful at multi-tasking. With limited attention comes limited input. There is a lot out there that we could study as there is no dearth of information but our capacity to grasp new information is definitely capped. Many spiritualists would come forward and say that intellectual exercise of a religious practice is honoured and appreciated among seekers such as kundalini yoga and hatha yoga. These practices are all good enough in their own way and nothing is wrong with them but they are not sufficient to attain superiority of the intellect. There are secrets within men which even angels cannot know easily. God only knows what is inside us; even we cannot know wholly what is within us. So, it is a part of our wisdom to be a little cautious in assessing the various components of our nature and the building bricks of our personality. It is not easy to see what stuff we are really made of. The occupations in our lives prevent us from being leisurely in our thoughts and we are often drifting because of our vocations. The office work, the business and shopping keep us busy, so that there is not enough leisure to ponder deeply into the substance of what we are made of. We seem to be made out of our social relations in the sense of the atmosphere in which we are living, at every given moment of time. When we are in USA, we think like the Americans; when we are in England, we think like the British; when we are in the midst of orthodoxy, our thinking is orthodox, so that we do not know what exactly the true environment of ours is. Yet, there is an environment of our own which we seldom encounter by reason of the storm of social air that blows over us. Even if we have a small social circle like a four-member family, we cannot be entirely true to ourselves. We are controlled by our fathers, our mothers, our brothers, our sisters and many other relations of this type. We simply cannot be ourselves even when living in a small family, because we are afraid of what others think; and it is much worse if we are in a larger community where every eye is looking at us. Memory depends on the formation of fresh neural connections and we have a restricted number of these connections. When we grow old, it becomes harder for our brains to create new connections and existing connections get overloaded with various memories. It becomes harder to learn and also harder to remember, as we tend to start confusing facts and events. In a comfortable society and a safe atmosphere, submerged feelings are not likely to get manifested. If we promise our creditor that he would be paid after two months, he goes with satisfaction because the promise is given; but if he knows that we are not going to pay, that will become a different matter. He will shout and stand at our door. This defensive attitude of our feelings will be known to us either when we are opposed by our atmosphere in every way or when we are totally alone, left to ourselves on a mountain top with no chance of satisfaction of any kind for a defined period. We will be dreaming of the pleasures of the world. If we go far away from human settlements, the desires become more serious and restless because they know they cannot get anything they want; but, if we live in a city, there is a promise that our desires may get fulfilled and our emotions stay in control. The feeling of security that we feel is very important. An insecure person is always dwelling in a state of turmoil and hot water. So, the human intellect or capacity to understand is the capability of a mind to generalise experiences, to work with abstract conditions and to make conclusions from assumptions. The deterioration of the human intellect could be attributed to depression, stress or disease and to vandalism, terrorism or militancy in societies that tend to threaten humanity with extinction. For effectively using information to form a deep understanding, you need to practice. Besides extremely important events, an effective way to form long-term memories is only through practice. It has to be remembered that we don’t have unlimited time to practice everything that we want to learn and there is a practical limit to our understanding of things that are happening in the world. We are always used to seeing beauty and pleasure in this world, but we cannot see it in God. Intellect will expand if we understand this concept. Ironically, the moment we speak the name of God, there is a sense of fear within us. We are frightened because of the judgment and punishment of the soul out of earthly misdeeds and intentions. People do not project love for God as they do for their parents, their husbands or wives and children. What people are failing to understand is that God is not just a police commissioner or an army general, but a source of beauty and glory. Those who have an understanding of the beauty and power of the spirit and its relationship with the Creator realise that beauty is a subtle secret that creeps silently into us in a private manner and does not operate publicly like the mathematical calculations of a scientist.