The Swastika

The Swastika comes from Sanskrit 'Su' (good) + 'Asti' (to be) — 'that which brings good fortune.' Its four arms represent the four Vedas, four directions, four yugas, four life stages, and four life goals (dharma, artha, kama, moksha). The clockwise version represents the sun and evolution.

The central point = unchanging Brahman. Four arms = movement around the still center. 90-degree bends = dharma that bends but never breaks.

The Swastika is found in virtually every ancient culture — Navajo, Greek, Nordic, Chinese — suggesting it represents something fundamental to human consciousness: recognition of ordered, cyclical patterns.

The oldest Swastika found is on a 15,000-year-old mammoth ivory from Ukraine. Indus Valley Swastika seals date to 3000 BCE. It was the world's most universally positive symbol for millennia.

Rig Veda: 'Swasti na Indro vriddhashravah' — May Indra give us well-being (swasti).

The Swastika's tragedy teaches that symbols have no inherent meaning — they carry the meaning we assign. It teaches us to reclaim and redefine narratives.

Carl Jung considered the Swastika an archetype of the collective unconscious — a symbol that spontaneously emerges from the human psyche across all cultures.

Goodness can be corrupted, but truth can be reclaimed. Never abandon what's sacred because someone misused it.