---below: Vaj, like Sam Harris (a closet Buddhist - read "The End of
Faith carefully, especially the footnotes), wants to divorce the pure
yogic sciences from religions paraphenalia. Here's his quote:
great, it succeeds; to the extent that it becomes a religion, it
fails. I get the same thing from Hinduism: give me the pure yogic
sciences, I can do without the Hindu Dumbo. [end quote, Prof. Vaj]
There's a major problem with this: Enlightened Gurus transmit some
type of energy which is crucial to creating vehicles for
transcendence. That energy is typically attached to, via types of
morphogenetic fields, the icons of traditional religion which have
soaked up power for hundreds or thousands of years. These may take
the forms of visual mandalas, images of Saints, Crucifixes, mantras,
etc;...
Typical example: Vatican II sought to make the Mass more accessible
to various cultures by clensing it of the Latin "Mumbo Jumbo". This
backfired to a certain extent because the Latin Mass had a lot of
Power in it. As soon as you starting taking away all the stuff Vaj
and Sam Harris consider to be excess baggage, you are left with no
vehicle through which raw Spiritual Power can become transmitted.
If Vaj knew more about his own Guru, Chogyal Namkhai Norbu, he
would realize that Norbu is in agreement with the above. To quote
from "Dzogchen Teachings" by Chogyal Namkhai Norbu, p.82, the section
on "Fixation with an Object".
First, the Guru defines "Shine": ("The fact is, we line in the
relative condition, in the midst of great confustion, and as a result
oall this we may develop many mental problems. So the first thing we
need to do is to discover and enter a calm state of mind."..."The
final goal of Shine is to enable us to enter into the experience of
emptiness".
Next, the Guru gets int "Fixation with an Object", being methods
which help facilitate "Shine", or mental equanimnity:
"To arrive at this experience, we begin our practice of Shine with
fixation, fixing our eyes on an object such as a statue of the
Buddha, or a thangka, such as a painting of Manjushri, or a small
piece of wood or stone." "In any event we place an object in front of
us, and fix our gaze and our attention on it one-pointedly".
"Why do we practice Shine using an object in this way? We line in a
dualistic condition, and are very used to the objects of dualistic
perception. If we don't have something concrete in front of us, it
is harder to do the practice".
To conclude this topic, Vaj's two points have serious flaws. (i.e.
just these two for now, among many of his erronous notions):
1. As to doing away with religion and simply extracting the "pure"
Yogic practices; (another stupid idea shared by Sam Harris), this
wouldn't work in practice since (often) the power of Traditions is
embedded in religious icons (visual or auditory morphogenetic
fields); and if you do away with the icons, the desired energy may
having no vehicle for transmission.
In TM, the mantra is the vehicle. In Dzogchen, it's the Guru - and
that requires some type of connection, hopefully sitting in the
Guru's physical presence as some retreat (costing tons of $).
In addition, from the previous quotes from Vaj's Guru Norbu, we see
that dualistic icons are legitimate tools in beginning with "Shine"
and progressing to emptiness.
However, whereas in Dzogchen one progresses to "Fixation without an
object" (page 83); in TM; there's a more natural progression in which
the mantra simply vanishes into the Transcendent. With more
experience, sensory input continues along with absorbtion into
emptiness.
Thus, TM is superior since it doesn't require an artificial two-
staged Sadhana of a. with an object and b. without an object.
That's enough for now. To be continued.
In [email protected], Vaj <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> On Mar 6, 2007, at 6:32 PM, claudiouk wrote:
>
> > Feeling rather disillusioned right now about enlightenment.
Firstly
> > on a personal level - a dead loss. Secondly as regards MMY even
if he
> > is enlightened there are just too many things that appear "wrong"
> > about it to me - his mismanagement of followers and Movement
> > resources & opportunities, his total lack of any aesthetic sense
> > (witness the ridiculous music and lyrics he's promoting on the
> > Maharishi Channel, which would immediately put off any curious
> > onlooker!); the catalogue of tales of woe outlined in Fairfield
Life,
> > including insensitive & irresponsible dealings with distressed
> > meditators and sexual misconduct from MMY downwards in the
hierarchy,
> > some of which MUST be true;
>
> It does speak for itself in a lot of ways.
>
> > Mohammed's legacy of holy war and suicide
> > bombers and the appalling mistreatment of women and other innocent
> > victims at the hands of Islam - a complete turn off.
>
> If you get a chance, see the film (now on DVD), _Islam: What the
West
> Needs to Know_. You might just find the "turn off" had a basis.
>
> > Christianity and
> > its obsessive tunnel vision about sexual morality and its pathetic
> > history of unenlightened action - another religion down the drain;
>
> They did build some nice buildings though! It is kind of
ridiculous
> for us to have expected a religion whose primary symbol is a guy on
a
> torture device to be peaceful...
>
> >
> > Buddhism seems noble enough but Buddha never found a God and can
only
> > point the way; moreover the premise that action and reaction on a
> > moral level requires other lifetimes to work itself through (in
order
> > to reflect how cause and effect are evidenced in the physical
world)
> > does not seem a logical necessity, especially in the absence of a
> > moral God or evidence of morality in Nature as a whole. It is thus
> > possible to agree with Buddha that life is suffering but to
disagree
> > with his solution, to eliminate it via Nirvana after lifetimes of
> > purification.
>
> Well that's not necessarily the case. Many people confuse Buddhism
> with sutric or Indian Buddhism...there are different flavors of
> Buddhism. My take, in a few words: to the extent that a brand of
> Buddhism is an awakening/enlightenment school, great, it succeeds;
to
> the extent that it becomes a religion, it fails. I get the same
thing
> from Hinduism: give me the pure yogic sciences, I can do without
the
> Hindu Dumbo.
>
> > Finally the exchanges typical in Fairfield life lead me
> > to conclude that many people have had more fortunate experiences
than
> > myself with TM, that such experiences may even be interpreted by
the
> > individuals concerned as hallmarks of enlightenment, but in the
end
> > what do they really signify?
>
> There's a group of experiences that people tend to wig out on and
> confuse with the Big E, more often than not, that's what's going
on.
> Part of the problem is also, IMO, the dumbing down of
enlightenment
> traditions to make them seem simple and saleable: palatable to the
> masses. The ego can then make an easier jump AND people tend to
hand
> around longer. But sometimes it just means the teacher is faking
it
> and just being sketchy for that very reason.
>
> > There is an admission that enlightenment
> > doesn't actually morally improve the individual - we see such
> > individuals behaving childishly enough in FF Life. They are no
great
> > inspirational figures - no Gandhi or Mandela equivalents here.
> > Neither of those in any case were more than great HUMANISTIC
icons.
> > What about the saints? I recently read a biography of St. Francis
and
> > was thoroughly disappointed by his limited Christian vision -
tried
> > to join the Crusades to convert the infidel Islamists. A Bin Laden
> > equivalent of the Middle Ages, perhaps, although he seemed at
least
> > to have some truly mystical revelations. Anyway what I'm trying to
> > say is that everyone thinks THEIR guru or scripture or religious
> > prophet or saviour is so special - but from an objective
perspective
> > they are NOT truly enlightened and neither are their biggoted
> > followers. If everything is relative there is still some scope in
> > following a personal vision, following one's inner Light, for the
> > enhancement of personal and social life, and it may still be true
> > that some visions might be better than others, but unfortunately
none
> > so far has really stood out as really outstanding in a really
> > thorough sense, from my perspective. Not sure how this will be
> > received by FF Life - but makes little difference in any case!!
>
> At least you've asked the question! -- perhaps the universe will
> answer it for you? Never was a big Jesus freak myself, but I have
> always found the formula 'knock and it shall open, ask and it
shall
> be given to you' to be a workable one.
>
