that means that meditation like what marshy taught was essentially a meaningless pursuit.
________________________________ From: emptybill <emptyb...@yahoo.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tuesday, June 18, 2013 9:45 PM Subject: [FairfieldLife] What Maharishi did NOT say ... Since the 14th Century, (i.e. with Shankaracharya Vidyaranya), the Indian understanding of Advaita has has gradually degraded until "Yogic" advaita has become the norm. It manifested in the idea that "transcendence" or nirvikalpa-samaadhi was the experiential requirement for brahma-jñana (knowledge of brahmâtman). This notion is directly adverse to Adi Shankara's written declarations about liberation: Upadesasahasri Shankara did not extol yogic nirvikalpa-samaadhi (non-conceptual absorption or transcendence). Rather, speaking from the understanding that the Self (Atman) is already nirvikalpa by nature, he firmly contrasts the true nature of the Self and the mind: As I have no restlessness (viksepa) I have hence no absorption (samadhi). Restlessness or absorption belong to the mind which is changeable. A similar view is expressed in 13.17: How can samadhi, non-samadhi or anything else which is to be done belong to me? For having meditated and known me, they realize that they have completed [all] that needed to be done. and 14.35: I have never seen "non-samadhi", nor anything else [needing] to be purified, belonging to me who am changeless, the pure Brahman, free from evil. In 15.14 Sankara presents a critique of meditation as an essentially dualistically structured activity: One [comes] to consist of that upon which one fixes one's mind, if one is different from [it]. But, there is no action in the Self through which to become the Self. [It] does not depend upon [anything else] for being the Self, since if [it] depended upon [anything else], it would not be the Self. Furthermore, in 16.39-40, Sankara implicitly criticizes the Sankhya-Yoga view that liberation is dissociation from the association of purusa and prakrti, when he says: It is not at all reasonable that liberation is either a connection [with Brahman] or a dissociation [from prakrti]. For an association is non-eternal and the same is true for dissociation also. One's own nature is never lost. As is evident in his writings, Sankara implicitly rejects both the emancipation of yoga, namely, that liberation has to be accomplished through the real dissociation of the purusa from prakrti, and the yogic pursuit towards that end, - that is, the achievement of nirvikalpa or asamprajata-samadhi (transcendence). Read it and weep.
