[Y-Indology] Thesis on Kundalini

[Guest guest]

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

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

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.

[Guest guest]

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

 

 

[Guest guest]

-

"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

[Guest guest]

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