Vaj -
>Tat Whale Baba and his successor both insist they be done in
>Sanskrit. They also insist the entire set be performed each day, and
>the requisite other techniques the sutras require (which are oral or
>upadesha instructions on inner yoga).
Tat Wala Baba's status as a yogin and guru allowed him to insist on anything he
pleased. Everything a traditional guru says about sadhana is upadesha.
Everything Tat Wala said during his one-hour daily darshan was upadesha. I
never heard his teachings so I don't know if the definitional split between
inner yoga and outer yoga was a category he used.
The facts remain the same. The crux of a sutra is its meaning because the sutra
is an idea. It is that idea which is entertained in awareness through the mode
of a briefly focused attention. It is entertained through recollection or
smriti. Thus mindfulness is summarily present.
Maharishi described meditative attention as "active but undirected", meaning
alert but resting. Returning to the mantra occurs when recollection occurs.
Thus mindfulness is also summarily present.
Whether the idea-sutra is entertained in Sanskrit or natural, conventional
language does not change these facts. In fact the idea-sutra is used MMY's
sanyama technique in a manner that makes it also a mode of contemplation
(bhavana). It does not function merely as a meditation "object".
As far as Tat Wala preferring Sanskrit, Sanskrit chanting of the sutras of
Patanjali is itself a type of yoga. This is what Vyas Houston was able to
transmit to Westerners even from the beginning of his introductory courses in
spoken Sanskrit. Chanting the Yoga Sutras is itself a direct path and most
Indologists cannot do this - yet even a beginner in his intro course engages in
this process.
I hope that Tat Wala's method helps people learn the sutras in Sanskrit.
However doing so cannot make sanyama any better because the sutras are
specifically used as ideas rather than sounds as such.
I just wish that more TM teachers and meditators would dig deeper and realize
that there is much more in the soup than the broth. No one explained that the
sanyama technique includes a contemplative value (bhavana). No one explained
that the holding-flowing-uniting of sanyama and the inherently contemplative
bhavana were actually values of Dhi, the original form of
rishi-drishta/rishi-shrauta.
Maharishi didn't want to encourage discrimination in meditation, so he didn't
say much to ordinary meditators, whether citizen-siddhas or governors. However,
there are now Westerns that have mastered the Visuddhimagga Jhanas which means
there are people willing to do the practice seriously over a long period of
time. Whether any Westerners have become adept enough in tsa-lung and tummo to
master the generation and completion stages of Naropa's sadhanas is unknown.
For them to be able to sucessfully train other Westerners to a level of mastery
is even less certain. In fact it is improbable at this point.
What is certain is that more is possible for TM/Sidhi practitioners. However,
in my opinion this won't develop through any form of tutelage by the TMO.
