On Oct 19, 2011, at 5:05 PM, curtisdeltablues wrote: > Ravi: > Curtis, How can we judge something without understanding the time, place, > context and the people that were being addressed to? > > ME: I do, it was an ancient system of medicine that was the best they could > do then. Now we can do better. Not perfect. But better. They didn't > understand the circulation of blood then. They thought the heart functioned > as we now understand our brain functions. We straightened that out. That is > progress in understanding.
The important thing IME is to not under-appreciate what these texts are describing. So for example they may describe the solar eagle-Garuda in terms much like a radiant sun (or phoenix) - and their opposite, the serpent Nagas, as opposites. But until you realize that the Sanskrit word "naga" also means lead, only when you realize they are very precisely describing electromagnetic radiation and lead shielding, do you get that these ancients are describing, from samadhic inquiry into reality, something only relatively recently understood by science. There are many, many similar examples. For example how would an ancient yogi know that to make zinc bioavailable, it needs to be ingested in the presence of certain biochemicals? Well, somehow they did. Same with coral calcium. It's a long list. Plastic surgeons still pay homage to Sushruta as father of their art. Some say the oriental martial arts and acupuncture originate from kalarippayattu. Like I said, it's a long list. While I think it's a good thing to be skeptical after being burned by a phony guru, it's also important to remain open-minded enough to see the actual viable wisdom in the systems of learning they talked about. It's humbling when you realize: most of it's never been translated into western languages, and the stilted Brahmin belief in brahman has relegated much of it to the dust-bins of time.
