--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <jst...@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, billy jim <emptybill@> wrote: > <snip> > > by discussing the sanyama practice as a advance > > development through using "meaning" as a more subtle > > value than the beginning practice of "sound without > > meaning" and "learning to focus a deeper form of > > attention" rather than "only favoring the mantra". > > Dunno, it wasn't explained exactly that way > when I learned the TM-Sidhis, but it was > certainly made clear that the point of the > sutras was their meaning, the intention the > words expressed, rather than the sound value > per se. That distinction from the mantra was > emphasized. So it was never a problem for me. > (Easier to remember in English too.) >
You are pointing out the way it was done and that in fact it did indeed work for most people. I observed the same thing from watching the citizens course. People were indeed told that the focus was on the "meaning" rather than the mantric sound. However I must admit that I was told in advance (by other Governors) that the sanyama technique was the exact opposite of our training in the mantra technique. Or as they succinctly put it - "we do exactly what we were originally told not to do - hold attention on an object of attention (dharana) and entertain the "meaning" of that object of attention. As a consequence, my reaction to learning the English was satisfaction rather than consternation - precisely because I already had an understanding that the citizens did not yet have. This is why I think that a little extra explanation would have helped. For instance: 1. I had studied the Yoga Sutras for about 10 years, (1968-1978) including learning Classical Patanjala Yoga theory from a European Buddhologist in collegetown. However I was still puzzled at how to conjoin dharana, dhyana and samadhi into sanyama. Most scholars of the time did not see sanyama as a tying-together (ie: synthesis or "placing together") but rather as the progressive deepening of dharana (as a form of fixed attention). It is the Vaj school of mystical oblivion in shrinking intellection. My Jesuit Buddhologist teacher was trained in Husserl's phenomenology and Heidegger's post-phenomenological quest for "Being-as-such" and considered these scholars to offer a superficial and faulty analysis. Maharishi showed me a way to tie-together (san = with, together) (yama=string or tie) the holding (dharana) with the seeing (dhyana <from dhi to see>) and the placing together (samadhi). 2. As far as the difference between mantra and sutra, the classical traditions of Yoga, both Hindu and Buddhist, define the sense-powers (the five jnanendriya or five-vijnana) as faculties that simply register the data of the sensorium. They are considered to be inherently non-conceptual. As a result, the mantra, as a sound value, is understood to be a non-conceptual direct perception. The mantra, as non-conceptual sound, does not require an added layer of conceptual meaning to function as a "transcending object" during meditation. The bija mantra are in fact used precisely for their (non-conceptual) sound value. Confusion can arise because they are also human speech sounds, and as such, they are also some of the most intimate values in human consciousness. 3.The sutras are understood mainly as bearers of meaning significant because they can also cause attention to dwell, deepen and enfold into the objective referents of their "meaning". This occurs without regard to whether "objectness" is cosmological, (surya), physical (kurma-nadi) or subjective (buddhi and. purusha). Perhaps this is a way to understand that the way we were introduced to the sanyama practice was consistent the tradition and not a rip-off. If we lacked this kind of supporting knowledge then we could always decide that we were the only one's who "really" knew what a rip-off it was. Ignorance aggressively parading around as knowledge is a wonder to watch but if it tries to burn us out of malice we need to annihilate it.
