One thing you have to consider is that the practice of "TM", or any
other yoga technique, is NOT the cause of enlightenment - TM just
provides the ideal opportunity for the awakening. No "technique" is
going to cause a person to become enlightened, even if you practice yoga
for years and years. You are only going to get as much enlightenment as
you are going to get.
But, you only have to ingest LSD or some other alkaloid once in order to
realize that there are altered states of consciousness. Once you do
that, you will probably never forget it. LoL!
According to yoga theory, you build up "samskaras" due to "karma" - the
actions in this life and in your past lives. You can remove the
samskaras through "tapas" - "burning off" the accumulated layers of past
actions. But, yoga will not remove all the samskaras - there's always a
trace of karma because you still maintain a human body which requires
food, coarse or fine, and thoughts and volitions. There is always an
innate clinging to life which is human nature.
Patanjali says that the ideal state for awakening is the cessation of
thoughts; you simply have to *isolate* the Purusha from the prakriti and
then realization can occur on it's own, or not. SBS compared
enlightement to "Light" (Brahman). The Absolute is already there; it
doesn't require anything else to illuminate it because it is an already
established ultimate reality.
The enlightened state is described in the Indian rice analogy: you can
remove the chaff and it's still rice paddy.
In this day and age hardly anyone reads or understands the Sanskrit
scriptures. The only hope for enlightenment today is to practice "karma
yoga" - giving up the fruits of your labor for the common good, like
Nelson Mandela, and having the good fortune to meet a qualified teacher.
In the final analysis though, nobody is going to give you enlightenment
- you earn it, and sometimes, by the grace of the gods, you realize your
true nature. May the gods be with you!
"As in a pond, when its influx of water has been blocked, dries up
gradually through evaporation and use, so karmic matter, which has been
acquired through millions of lives, is erased through tapas; there is no
further unflux" (Wallah Sutra, I.4.).
On 12/7/2013 9:25 AM, s3raph...@yahoo.com wrote:
Re "The mystical psychiatrist Richard Maurice Bucke distinguished
between three types of consciousness: Simple Consciousness, awareness
of the body, possessed by many animals; Self Consciousness, awareness
of being aware, possessed only by humans; and Cosmic Consciousness,
awareness of the life and order of the universe, possessed only by
humans who are enlightened.":
Bucke's experience of CC only lasted a minute or so. Some of his
friends later advised him to try Indian yoga to learn how to replicate
the experience. He wasn't interested. It wasn't that he didn't believe
that yoga/meditation could alter someone's state but he regarded it as
too much like "taking heaven by storm". It was evolution of the race
that would gradually produce more enlightened humans - in the same way
that "self consciousness" had naturally arisen out of "simple
consciousness". Was he right?
It's striking that Gopi Krishna (of kundalini fame), living in India
and spending a lifetime on the spiritual quest, said that he'd only
ever met two people he regarded as fully awakened. One was an
anonymous sadhu who emerged from a forest about whom we know nothing;
the other was Ramana Maharshi. Now one thing we do know about Maharshi
is that he achieved his awakening spontaneously and *not* as a result
of doing yoga/meditation or other spiritual exercises. So he was a
"natural mystic" in Bucke's sense. Maybe the "anonymous sadhu" was a
"natural" also.
Perhaps we should all be more relaxed about the spiritual trip and
just let Mother Nature take her course. She probably knows better than
us what it's all about.
