Jagat

FB Jan. 8, 2016 One of the other important ideas that comes up in Yoga Sūtra and has its origins in Sāṅkhya is the following: "Prakṛti exists for the sake of the other ( parārtha ), while the Puruṣa exists for itself ( svārtha )." This terminology is very significant, as it pervades "normative" Hindu philosophy, including both Advaita and Vaishnava Vedanta, though with some adjustments, especially in the latter. According to Sāṅkhya, the Consciousness Principle is called Puruṣa. In this philosophy, the Puruṣa is consciousness only. To even be aware of the world requires that consciousness be reflected in the material nature, starting with its subtlest form, which is buddhi or Mahat. The universe is, as the Gita says, the result of the combination of Puruṣa and Prakṛti, the former providing the life-giving properties to matter. But in this Prakṛti exists for the Puruṣa. Matter presents itself to the consciousness principle through the chain leading to Buddhi. Matt...

I made a quick trip to Rishikesh to get some of the books that I had in the library there. I offered to give a talk and was asked by Adhikariji to talk on Yoga-sūtra 1.23, īśvara-praṇidhānād vā , which is a rather significant  sūtra  for theists and devotees, since this is a rare direct mention of God. The phrase īśvara-praṇidhāna appears no less than four times in the YS, making it well worthy of attention, but we would be mistaken to read to much into it. After all, devotion to God is not the primary purpose of the YS, worship of God serves the end of liberation. But from a devotee's point of view, it is an opportunity to discuss the subject of God. But since it is not the subject most interesting to the yogis, it presents an interesting challenge, one that I have faced since the beginning of my relationship with SRSG . I worked on the revised first volume of the YS written by Swami Veda Bharati (SVB), which is the main text that is followed by his disciples, so I spoke ...

The world exists for bhoga (experience) and apavarga (liberation). These are the two options the material world gives you. The spiritual world, however, offers you the added option of prema . It is the hope of this prema , its transmutation, sometimes into bhoga and sometimes into apavarga , that keeps saṁsāra rolling around and around. One of the other important ideas that comes up in Yoga Sutra and has its origins in Sāṅkhya is the following: "Prakṛti is parārtha (for another), Puruṣa is svārtha (for itself)." This terminology is very significant, as it pervades "normative" Hindu philosophy, including both Advaita and Vaishnava Vedanta, though with some adjustments, especially in the latter. According to Sāṅkhya, the Consciousness Principle is called Puruṣa. In this philosophy, the Puruṣa is consciousness only . To even be aware of the world requires that consciousness be reflected in the material nature, starting with its subtlest form, which is buddhi ...

I just came back from an interesting group meditation session in the wake of this conversation, in which naturally sent the most interesting and joyful waves riding through my consciousness, and I have all of you to thank for it. I don't think it would really be possible to share all of the reflections that went through my mind, but I especially would like to thank Prishni for reminding me of exactly what my entire Sahajiya philosophy was about and what I have been writing about ad nauseam on my blog for the last ten years. Even today, I was teaching Sanskrit to my little group of Gurukula students, which consists of one young Indian male and two North American women over 60. Mostly I am teaching the alphabet and basic Hindu dharma vocabulary. Since we have been learning about gender in Sanskrit, the implications of grammatical gender is a subject that we have already encountered. Today again, in the course of talking about the purusharthas, we were led to a discussion of dharma...

For the course in Rishikesh, we reviewed Freud and Jung's models of the psyche. Looking first at these two, we then looked at three others, that of the Tantra-yoga and two others represented by the  Rāsa-līlās in the  Bhāgavata  and Gīta-govinda . Freud's model Freud's psychic model sees the instinctual urges as id or libido , an unconscious energetic force that in its attempt for gratification strikes the external world, the reality principle. This shock then creates the intelligence, which becomes internalized as the superego, conscience, etc., and is projected outward as God. Freud sees the economy of the psyche as essentially one of sublimation: libidinal energy is syphoned off for the strengthening of superego, which through self-discipline then produces all the gains of civilization. For Freud, God was perhaps necessary for the beginnings of civilization to strengthen such self-discipline, but has now outlived his usefulness. Human beings should through self-a...