The Unity of All Life and the Symbolism of Vahanas

In myths and in direct experience, vahanas always appear as animals. But what they actually are is something more precise: conscious agents of a higher order, without whom the greater forces they carry could neither enter our world nor move within it. This is where things become difficult to hold in the mind, and even the attempts to approach it in “How Consciousness Creates Matter?” leave the concept somewhat out of reach. We will return to that. For now, it is easier to turn toward myths—which exist precisely to make visible to the heart what the mind cannot hold. Myths,…