--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@...> wrote: > I see it as > almost a purely intellectual technique, similar to > Kabbalists gazing at and focusing on that study's > intricate diagrams of *their* fundamentalist theories > of How Everything Works. Or Westerners doing the same > gazing/focusing on cards from the tarot.
Kabbalah is what came to my mind too. You really cover almost all of the points. I wouldn't go quite as far as saying it is only there to make you feel special /elite, but see it definitely there as a side effect. I do not believe in the correspondences between vedas and physiology, or cosmic 'correlations' as given by Nader Ram, the actual reason he was made king. But, Bhairatu might update us here, all the tantras are full at corelations between the (subtle) body and the cosmos. I think that the examples given by Nader Ram are simply analogies. For example, an organ has a certain form, maybe looking like the head of a horse, then there is a reference of horses in the vedas somewhere horses are mentioned, and viola. It's a belief-system, as so many others, and most belief systems, if they are not shared by too many people, tent to make them feel special in one way or the other. I for example compare the TM movement to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, where the last leader died about 40 years ago. I just met an old lady, who works there in the Ashram since 40 years, is now 75 years old, and to my opinion, has the typical TB mindset. She still experienced the master (Mira Alfassa) about 3 years, if so, from a distance (balcony darshans). And I just read a book by Peter Heehs on Sri Aurobindo, and as I thought it was actually a very positive review of his life. But it stirred up the whole Ashram, lead to a huge controversy, the book is actually forbidden in India (the lives of Sri Aurobindo), while most ashramites have read photocopies. The book is published by the cambridge universtity press, and directed to academics, not devotees. Yet it is in no way deferrential, but it happens to mention certain biographic facts, seen as a no no by the ashramites. Now the funny thing is, that the ashram leadership, might actually have inspired the book, and is not really against it. (they don't endorse it either) That in itself is the reason for controversy, as it seems there is a group of fundamentalists who want to overtake the Ashram. Right now there are efforts on the way, to deprive Heehs of his visa, he lives since decades in India, and was one of the main Ashram archivars, the book was originally approved by the ashram leadership (without reading it) before it was published. Also, the philospophy of Aurobindo is elitary, by definition, he says that nobody before embarked on this type of yoga or knowledge. So, for Ashramites, anybody practicing a more traditional form of yoga misses out on the new yoga. (The old yoga has its basis in the 'overmind', with all its gods, which is something like 'supermind' gone wrong) And the only way is to be devoted to SA and / or Mirra Alfassa. There is a similar idea like in TM, that 'we are the ones doing the transformation for the world, unprecedented, for all times to come' And it's all there in the writings of SA.
