--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, tartbrain <no_reply@...> wrote: > > categorically deny that these states of consciousness are possible for anyone doing TM.You could even opine that TM practitioners can't go beyond asmita because they indulge in laya during meditation.>
Almost couldn't believe my ears when I once heard 'laya' pronounced by Maharishi as the Finnish word 'läjä' (j = y in yes; ä ~= a in cat), meaning 'a heap'. The expression 'lehmän läjä' (a cow's heap) has a somewhat specialiced meaning: http://tinyurl.com/6hkztgg It's true that according to the last suutra of aSTaadhyaayii (a a [sic!]), short a-sound in Sanskrit is somewhat reduced, but the reduction is usually so small that I can't hear the qualitative difference between a and aa (long a). I gather native speakers of English might be able to hear that difference more easily, because vowel reduction is such a prominent feature of English.
