The Plane Must Fly — Nara, Śiva, and Śakti as One

 

A plane rising into a glowing sunset sky, wheels still lowered, as if between earth and heaven — a moment of both flight and return.

 

“A plane does not cease to be a plane when it moves along the ground; it can — indeed must — do so again and again.
But it proves itself a plane only when it takes to the air.
Likewise, a human being proves their humanity when they rise above mere psychophysical facticity — when they transcend themselves.”
— Viktor E. Frankl, Das Flugzeug in den Lüften (1938), reprinted in Der Seele Heimat ist der Sinn. Logotherapie in Gleichnissen (Kösel, 2005)

 

Vira Chandra: An airplane does not live in the sky from the start.
It is born on the ground, built for flight but not yet flying.
For a long time it behaves almost like a car — rolling along the concrete, turning, slowing, stopping.
The engines roar, but the wheels stay on the earth.
From the outside, one might think it has forgotten what it was made for.
But this movement is not failure — it is the way of all flight.
The ground is not its prison but its teacher, teaching the weight of the body, the resistance of the earth, the strength of the engines.

So it is with us.
The human life begins low, close to the dust.
We crawl, we walk, we stumble.
We taste hunger and longing.
We love with grasping hands.
We make mistakes and feel their weight.
This is not a detour from the path — it is the path.
The ground phase is not something to be ashamed of.
It is the necessary runway from which everything else will rise.

And yet, a plane that only rolls and never leaves the earth is a tragedy.
It may be polished, powerful, and impressive — but until it takes to the air, no one will know what it was truly meant to be.
So it is with the human being.
To remain forever at the level of survival, of instinct, of compulsion — to never rise above the ground of mere necessity — is to remain hidden from one’s own destiny.
The call to flight is built into the soul.

 

The Ground Must Be Honored

 

There is a great temptation, once the call to flight is felt, to despise the ground.
To look at our own instincts, longings, and mistakes with disgust — to say, “This is weakness, this must die if I am to be spiritual.”

But the ground cannot be bypassed.
An airplane that tries to rise before it has gathered enough speed does not soar — it crashes.
A human being who tries to kill the creaturely side too soon does not become a saint — they become divided, hollow, haunted by the very drives they tried to erase.

The pashu — the creature within — is not the enemy.
Being itself holds Creator, Creation, and Created, and none of these can be erased without tearing the whole fabric of existence.
To destroy the creature would be to destroy the very ground from which flight is possible.

What must be transformed are not the instincts but the bonds that twist them — the inertia that keeps them lying in the mud, the compulsive motion that drives them to run blindly.
These are the pāśa, the knots that bind the soul.
And it is the work of the Goddess — the work of consciousness — to loosen these knots one by one, until the creature is free to stand upright.

The ground is not a curse.
It is the cradle where thrust is born, the place where the soul gathers the strength to rise without tearing itself apart.

 

Desire as the Engine

 

Every plane needs thrust.
Without power, there is only rolling, never flight.

So it is with us.
The power that drives us forward is desire — the raw, urgent kāma that reaches, grasps, aches.
Desire is not a mistake.
It is the engine the Creator placed in the heart so that we would not lie forever on the runway.

At first this desire is heavy, sticky.
It wants to take, to possess, to hold tight.
It drags the soul backward even as it tries to run forward.
But when desire is turned toward giving rather than grasping, its weight transforms into lift.

This is the birth of prema — love that no longer seeks to consume but to offer, to pour itself out.
And where these two currents meet — the fire of longing and the freedom of offering — something greater is born.

This is bhakti:
love that burns,
love that bows,
love that becomes its own sacrifice.

And this love is what finally lets the plane leave the earth.
The very engine that once seemed to hold us down becomes the power that carries us upward.

 

The Moment of Flight

 

There comes a point when the ground lets go.
The long rumble of the wheels fades,
and suddenly there is no more rolling — only rising.

This is the moment when the soul transcends itself —
when the creature is no longer just surviving
but begins to live from a higher place.

It is not an escape from the earth,
but the earth seen from above,
seen whole for the first time.

In this moment, all the weight that once held us down
becomes part of the lift.
Even pain, even longing, even past mistakes —
all of it becomes fuel.

This is what Frankl meant:
we “prove” our humanity
not by being flawless,
but by rising above what once defined us —
by showing that we are more than instincts,
more than fear,
more than fate.

The sky was always there.
We simply had to reach the speed where wings could catch it.

 

The Sky and the Ground Together

 

Flight does not mean abandoning the earth.
A plane that stays in the sky forever would be useless —
its purpose is to touch down,
to bring what it carried to its destination.

So it is with the soul.
To rise above ourselves does not mean to disappear,
to live in endless trance,
to be lost to the world.

True transcendence means freedom —
the freedom to take to the air when needed,
and the freedom to roll again on the ground
without forgetting the sky.

The one who has truly flown
walks the earth differently.
The horizon is wider,
the air still clings to their skin.
They know the sky is always there,
even when their feet are in the dust.

And because they have seen from above,
they can now serve the ground more wisely,
loving it without being bound to it.

 

When All Three Are One

 

Flight is not just about leaving the earth,
and it is not just about touching the sky.
It is about learning to belong to both.

This is the hidden meaning of being fully human.
The sages say that perfection is not one-sided:
not only Nara, not only Śiva, not only Śakti —
but all three at once.

Nara, the embodied human,
who walks, eats, weeps, loves.
Śiva, the pure witness,
silent and untouched,
the open sky within.
Śakti, the power that moves everything,
the current that loves, creates, and destroys.

To be a siddha is to hold all three together,
without denying or rejecting any.
To roll on the ground when it is time to roll.
To fly when it is time to fly.
To burn with action when the world calls for action.
To rest in stillness when silence is needed.

When these three are reconciled,
the journey is complete.
The plane can fly and land,
the sky and earth no longer compete,
and every step becomes as sacred as every flight.