--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > On Jul 24, 2007, at 9:23 AM, t3rinity wrote: > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Vaj <vajranatha@> wrote: > > > If you want to use paradox as a vehicle, > > > try running through a couple hundred mahavakyas you don't already > > > know an answer to or have discursive ideas about. > > > > Sorry Vaj, there are only 4 mahavakyas, all else are just vakyas. > > Maybe you mean koans. Its not the same, it has a different underlying > > principle, and it comes from different paths with different goals and > > spiritual perspectives. > > I was referring to the 600 or so mahavakyas of the Chinese kung-an > (called koans in Japanese) which are also used to stimulate waking in > some Buddhist schools. The goal, awakening, is the same, but the View > is different. It was actually my Patanjali guru who turned me on to > the fact that these kung-an are a more detailed and rigorous set of > mahavakyas.
Sure, but then its Buddhism, not Advaita Vedanta right. Working with paradoxes to stop the mind momentarily is not the purpose of the Upanishadic Mahavakyas. The traditional advaitic method is quite different, and consists in a thorough acceptance and understanding of the advaitic truth as it is confirmed by vedic scripture - thats traditional Advaita in opposition to Neo-Advaita. The premises are the acceptance that this world is unreal and only Brahman is real. The Neo-Advaitins have appropriated the term 'Advaita' in order to describe an experience of Unity or their understanding of it, and mix with it all kinds of psychological or New Age methods. But Advaita is firmly rooted in scripture, it is 'Vedanta', the end of 'veda'. It consists of Sravana (Hearing or listening to the highest spiritual truth), Manana (The process of reasoning in which one reflects on the spiritual teacher's words and meditates upon their meaning) and Nididhyasana (Deep meditation on the truth of Brahman) Mahavakya Literally, "great saying." A Vedantic formula that declares the oneness of the individual soul with Brahman. (Each mahavakya in Vedanta comes from a different of the main Upanishads. Each of these Upanishad belongs to a different Veda, hence only 4 Mahavakyas) see:http://www.vedanta.org/wiv/glossary/glossary_mr.html I suggest to investigate terms from spiritual path within their own respective philosophies and not a hotchpotch of new age ideas.
