Guest guest Posted November 15, 2004 Report Share Posted November 15, 2004 What you have stated is certainly a very sound defence of the yogic experience and going through sympathetic accounts like those of Aldous Huxley, Kapra and others, one is inclined to accept the fact that religious experience is both universal and cutting across the barriers of caste and creed. And indeed yoga gives a grammar for the whole gamut of experience.I feel that a lucid, vivid, subjective account of the experience would certainly be received with sensitiveness by the academic world, if not exactly accepted as an ultimate scientific fact. You mention violin, but are you suggesting like Swami Agehananda Bharati that spiritual experience, like proficiency in music, is available only to people genetically programmed for it? It is an interesting argument. Another problem is ontological. To the spiritually awakened soul, the experience of the whole world is supposed to undergo a remarkable transformation. But ontologically, this cannot be defended. How do we reconcile these two perspectives scientifically? Rajendran Dr.C.Rajendran Professor of Sanskrit University of Calicut Calicut University P.O Kerala 673 635 Phone: 0494-2401144 Residential address:28/1097,Rajadhani Kumaran Nair Road, Chevayur, Calicut Kerala 673 017 Phone: 0495-2354 624 Check out the new Front Page. www. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 15, 2004 Report Share Posted November 15, 2004 INDOLOGY, Rajendran C <crajenin> wrote: > You mention violin, but are you suggesting like Swami Agehananda > Bharati that spiritual experience, like proficiency in music, is > available only to people genetically programmed for it? It is an > interesting argument. > Another problem is ontological. To the spiritually awakened soul, > the experience of the whole world is supposed to undergo a > remarkable transformation. But ontologically, this cannot be > defended. How do we reconcile these two perspectives scientifically? > Rajendran Imho, medicine and biology would have to be the academic platform. The problem obviously, is to find people who are willing to subject themselves to such investigations. Those who have the required spiritual insight are usually not inclined to expose themselves just to boost modern science, but rather work with an entirely different agenda. Yogis like Gopi Krishna was of the opinion that man lacked wisdom, but had enormous technical understanding of the world we live in. Still he meant it was important to do scientific research on kundalini, if I understand his books correctly. So far, very few scientists in the natural sciences have been interested in doing any serious research on this. Even people like the gifted russian girl Natasha Demkina are treated, not only with scepticism, but with disrespect as well by the medical community. Pearls like these should be embraced. They're a gift to science, not a threat. I believe works in comparative-religion can help bridge the gulf between the religious and the medical scientists. But then of course, we're back to the question of agenda. Fred M. UiO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 17, 2004 Report Share Posted November 17, 2004 Dear Matthew, I believe that all people do not have the ear for music, just as all people have no taste for poetry or painting.This is not to sound elitist, but to reiterate a fact of nature. Similarly, some people have a peculiar senstiveness to certain types of psychic experiences, whom the society rever as saints.I can be corrected. As to the ontlogical problem, in deep psychical experience , the mystic feels the basic unity of all phenomena and finds peace with himself. But this inner transformation means nothing to the outside world, which goes on with all its struggles and woes.The commonsense view compels us to recognise variety in phenomena which to a mystic may be only an illusion. Hence the difference in the ontological pespective All this is , of course not something new.Advaitins like Sankara make a distinction between vyavaharika and paramarthika planes of existence and put the latter on a higher pedestal.Philosophers like Bertrand Russell would like to reverse the hierarch by arguing that the commonsense view is the real one. Thanks a lot for your comments. Rajendran Dr.C.Rajendran Professor of Sanskrit University of Calicut Calicut University P.O Kerala 673 635 Phone: 0494-2401144 Residential address:28/1097,Rajadhani Kumaran Nair Road, Chevayur, Calicut Kerala 673 017 Phone: 0495-2354 624 Discover all that’s new in My Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 25, 2004 Report Share Posted November 25, 2004 - "Matthew Weiss" <shalin327 "Having sipped the nectar of the inner joy, the yogi naturally becomes aligned with the Cosmic Order and fits within it according to his/her role. The Yoga Vasistha also contains many stories that illustrate this point. If a physicist, having come to the conclusion that all matter is composed of atoms and molecules, is still able to dress himself, eat, drink, and pay the bills, why should it be so hard for a yogi to similarly function after realising the truth within?" Because it makes him happy. Sananda-samapatti is a savikalpa-samadhi, hence it must be sublated in the act of nirananda-samapatti followed by nirasmita-samapatti. Only then is the absolutely nirvikalpa samadhi reached. Best, Plamen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted November 28, 2004 Report Share Posted November 28, 2004 Dear Matt, > Could you be coaxed into elaborating a bit? I am also interested to hear what our pandita colleagues think on the subject of death, life and nirvikalpa-samadhi. Logically and metaphysically, at least from the point of view of asamprajnata-yoga, nirvikalpa-samadhi is a lifeless state, and this understanding is reminiscent in the popular use of the euphemism mahasamadhi. >"Yes, the theory is that complete union with the paraatman is only possible when the mind, psychic instruments, and the senses have all merged into the oneness which is nirvikalpa samadhi. However, it is shown in scriptures such as the Yoga Vasistha that a yogi eventually emerges from this state and functions once again as an individual in a savikalpa-samadhi state, at least when he/she goes about his/her daily activities." There is also evidence from Buddhist accounts of samapatti that having reached the eight samapatti, arhats could occasionally return to life to perform their duties, down to shaving and cleansing. But isn't this the exact illustration of Yoga-sutra I.4 (vRttisArUpyam itaratra)? Every coming back from the state of nirvikalpa-samadhi points to the fact that the transcendental dRSTu is now somewhere else, not in Its own form, and rather conforms to the vRttis, thus nullifying the desired instrumental telos of Yoga which is cittavRttinirodhaH, and failing to reach for the yogaphala itself. Such occasional turn-backs to daily activities are defined also as yogapratipakSatva, counterindicative to Yoga, and have to be fought against as saMskAra-vyutthanas. Best, Plamen http://www.indology.net, http://www.orientalia.org, http://www.husserl.info Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.