[Y-Indology] Thesis on Kundalini

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Matthew Weiss <shalin327 wrote:

 

 

 

I of course agree with Dimitri. The subject matter of these

esoteric texts have nothing to do with common experience, therefore

one has no frame of reference, no way of understanding them if they

are taken in a complete vacuum.

 

Here's a personal analogy: I am an accomplished western-trained

violinist. I can read various books on fingering techniques, how to

draw the bow, various theories on how the instrument should be held,

etc. All these fine points carry great meaning for me. The same

books read by a non-musician or even by an oboist or trumpet-player

would be meaningless and useless.

 

There might be some gee-whiz value in reading these books, but the

true intent of the author is completely missed...

 

 

 

Nevertheless, where translation is concerned, few practitioners of these

meditational methods are sufficiently learned in the langauges in question to

read and translate the texts themselves, so I think your analogy is not quite

perfect. There needs to be a respectful collaboration, on such texts, between

modern practitioners who are concerned with the modern continuation of the

tradition, and indologists who will for the most part be concerned with

lunguistic and historical problems. I don't think anyone could say that he

thinks that either of these perspectives should obscure or oppose the other; the

desire to uncover the realities contemporary with centuries and millennia old

texts, should not be seen as threatening analogous modern realities, and vice

versa.

 

Sorry to state the obvious.

 

Filippo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

Am Montag, 31.10.04 um 17:12 Uhr schrieb Dmitri:

 

> INDOLOGY, "dlite1973" <lime1973@h...> wrote:

>

>> as you know, there are rules in the

>> academic disciplines. If my work is laden with some sort of religious

>> agenda, or contains personal theories and experiences, it's no longer

>> an academic/ history of religions work.

>

> This brings interesting point:

> on the surface of it

> it is quite a strange rule.

>

> By analogy, linguists should frown on any one who writes comparative

> analysis of two languages and speaks both of them. [...]

 

A still more pertinent analogy would be the following: What would

Western divinity schools and departments of theology look like without

Christians? :-)

 

Another one: If theories are not created by persons, then where do they

originate? ;-)))

 

> Since the rule does exist, what makes indology/religious studies so

> unique?

> At what point in time did it become a rule?

 

Actually, the rule does not exist, nor are Indology and religious

studies so unique in this regard. But the issue is a complex one, on

different levels.

 

Firstly, personal experiences can be quite legitimately integrated in

academic work and be highly appreciated in the academic community, also

in the case of Indology and religious studies. For example, Agehananda

Bharati, a born Austrian, emigrated to India, spent considerable time

there, became initiated in a Tantric order, and acquired such a level

of knowledge and (and this is crucial) a proficiency in making his

knowledge rationally communicable that he held a few professional

academic appointments, the last one in a university in New York. Some

well-respected German scholars have made no secret of their personal

involvement with Buddhism, and I believe the same is true of some

Americans today.

 

Such examples are admittedly few, but the number does not matter in

order to prove that there is no such hard and fast 'rule'. What does

matter is the ability to think about one's own involvement with the

religious tradition in question in a manner that is not entirely

subjective, so that one's thinking is communicable and open to rational

discussion in an academic setting. This means that one must have a

sufficiently firm grasp of (a) the religious tradition about which one

speaks, (b) the intellectual tradition in which / with which one wishes

to communicate. Unfortunately, the number of scholars who have

succeeded in doing this (whether of Western or Asian origin: that is

perfectly irrelevant) in Western academic environments has been small.

(Buddhism has meanwhile been blessed with a sufficiently large number

of capable scholars over a sufficiently large period of time to be

considered a well-established field of academic study also in Western

countries.) The main problem with Indology is the limited amount of

resources (mainly: capable persons who devote their professional lives

to the subject). Had there been a larger number of institutes

integrated in larger academic settings and had there been a larger

number of persons active in this field, the status of Indology in

academia would surely have been different, a bit less peripheral, a bit

more like studies of, e.g., China or of the Arab world. (The question

why the various kinds of desirable resources are limited is again

another, and not simple one.)

 

Secondly, most academic institutions tend to be skeptical of what are

seen to be new developments (cf. the case of the celebrated French

philosopher Derrida, whose philosophy for some time was reportedly

rejected by the philosophical establishment in some Anglo-Saxon

universities as non-philosophy). Healthy skepticism is good, since a

university worth the name cannot afford to teach just anything new that

happens to pop up on the idea market. On the other hand, in some

universities, one comes across regrettably unnecessary cases of

theologians and scholars in religious studies departments having a

difficult relationship because the theologians (who represent the

earlier, established discipline) do not really understand what

religious studies are about and feel uneasy about them, theatened or

something like that. And some people (both older, established scholars

as well as younger, innovative scholars and students) fail to

understand that the academic study of religion is not some kind of

missionary activity.

 

Mind you, all this is not an exclusively Western issue. There are

similar concerns about standards for rational, academic studies in

different parts of the global intellectual landscape. A gifted

erstwhiile Japanese fellow student of mine, who was a Zen priest, wrote

his doctoral thesis in Japan on a Jaina subject because he was

personally so highly emotionally involved with Buddhism that he could

not study anything Buddhist in a detached, academic manner.

 

Sorry for the length of the message. However, the kind of question that

Dmitri posted does seem to bother people to such an extent that it

arises regularly in different forums, hence it seemed appropriate to

give a lengthy clarification.

 

RZ

 

Prof. Dr. Robert J. Zydenbos

Department für Asienstudien - Indologie / Philosophie-Department

Universität München