--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Actually the way it's taught by lineal Patanjali masters is that > siddhis are not to be cultivated via samyama but instead are > spontaneous side-effects of samadhi. Swami Brahmananda Saraswati > emphasized this as well.
Hey there. While in India, I bought a book which was recommended here to me, the Bhagavad Gita with commentary by Madhusudana Saraswati, who was in the 16th century, a contemporary of Akbhar and a renovator of the Dasanami Order. It is because of him that Non-Brahmins are accepted into most Dasanami Orders. he was also a great Bhakta who synthezised the bhakti philosophies with Shankara Advaita. Here in verse 21 he calls samyama "strongest of all disciplines" This is what he says in his Invocation to the Gita. 20 Through the power of knowledge of reality (tattva-jnana) the results of actions (done in past lives) that have not commenced bearing fruit (anarabdha or sancita) get wholly destroyed, to be sure, and the results of actions (done in the present life after the dawn of knowledge) that are to bear fruit in the furure (agamini) do not accrue. 21 But because of disturbances created by the results of actions that have started bearing fruit (prarabdha), vasana (past impressions) does not get destroyed. That is eliminated through samyama, the strongest of all (the disciplines). 22. The five disciplines, viz yama (restraint) etc. (P.Y.Su 2.29) practised before become conducive to that samyama which is a triad consisting of dharana, dhyan and samadhi (see ibid. 3.1.4)
