Nice presentation, good presence, well spoken. I’m not sure I agree with everything you said, but I almost never do. I like that you went to Patanjali for your answer.
Would you mind telling us a little about yourself?
[ul]
[li]What is your background?[/li][li]How did you become interested in yoga philosophy?[/li][li]Do you have credentials or are you a hobbyist?[/li][li]What do you hope to accomplish?[/li][/ul]
“What is your background?”
That is irrelevant. But if one must know, I invoked the spirit of Lao Tzu and have remained in communication ever since.
“How did you become interested in yoga philosophy?”
Yoga has absolutely nothing to do with philosophy. And those who continue considering it as having something to do with philosophy continue mistaking the shell for the pearl. The word itself simply means to unite, it is a certain state of consciousness. Any method that leads towards a direct perception of one’s true nature is a method towards yoga.
As far as how I had become interested in yoga, in the beginning it was simply as an escape from the sufferings of life.
“Do you have credentials”
I simply know myself, through and through.
“What do you hope to accomplish?”
It is like asking the what the lotus wants to achieve by emanating it’s fragrance, or why the tide washes itself on the shore.
Amir,
Your presentation oozes good command over thoughts, lucid exposition of complex concepts; but above all a gift of precision that is often a spiritual legacy. It will be very interesting to know more about you, as Asuri has requested.
“It will be very interesting to know more about you”
Suhas,
There is not much for me to say about the matter. I do not have any training under any master or guru. Before teaching, I remained for six years as an ascetic.
Even I am starting to call Yoga a science now, rather than a philosophy. I still have the habit of using that word “philosophy” but I am realising how that this word is misleading to describe Yoga. It makes Yoga sound like just a school of speculations on truth(which is what philosophy is about) When in actual fact Yoga is a phenomenological science, using actual direct physical methods to explore the continuum of the mind from the conscious to the unconscious. There is nothing speculative about it. It is all directly experienced data. This data can be compiled and peer-reviewed to give reliable scientific data on the continuum of mind(as well as body-mind interactions)
Yoga has long been called the highest science.
Surya,
I absolutely agree. Because the whole work of philosophy is to think about Truth. And in thinking about Truth, you can create as many different interpretations and hallucinations as possible. All of the philosophers have done that, even though in spite of one’s knowledge, it has not managed to bring any contentment. It like trying to walk from the Earth to the moon, perhaps at the most one may reach the top of an everest. But thought is too limited an instrument to come to know of things as they are. And this mind is such, that unless one comes to know of something beyond it, it will see whatever it wants to see.
The yogi is not at all interested in philosophy, but how to use his own system as a vehicle for the expansion of consciousness. But many yogis can be interpreted as being philosophical if one misunderstands, because once one has come to a certain space, the problem arises about how to express the inexpressible. And whatever one says, is always going to be a distortion of the reality. And yet, if one says nothing, then there is not even a possibility of helping others to know that there is another way of being, free of the turmoil that we have created in the mind.
Yeah, that sounds cool. I guess they’re going to have re-write a lot of textbooks. How can you sit there an talk about kleshas of the mind, then turn around and say yoga has nothing to do with philosophy? Where I come from, they call that “full of shit”.
Then let me re-write the text books. A vast majority of the stuff written on Hinduism, Indian philosophy, Yoga, Indian history is full of errors anyway.
There is no word for philosophy in Sanskrit or the Indian tradition anyway. The closest word for philosophy in India is darsana, and darsana means viewpoint or perspective. A viewpoint on the reality of something. The Yoga darsana is a viewpoint on the reality of the mind.
Asuri,
“I guess they’re going to have re-write a lot of textbooks.”
If you want to accumulate knowledge, then consult a textbook. If you want to see directly into Truth, you will have to see directly into the nature of your own being.
But since one seems to be fond of books, the Yoga Sutras, which has been accepted for centuries as one of the most authoratitive works on the science of yoga, has defined yoga very simply. The whole essence of it is contained in the second aphorism. Patanjali says, “Yoga is bringing of the mind to stillness”.
That is what the state of yoga is. All of the methods of yoga are just various devices towards this. And the experience of the stillness of the mind is not anymore a philosophy than one’s heartbeat is a philosophy, or drinking water is a philosophy. You may have heard a thousand and one other things in the name of yoga, but fundamentally, it is a certain experience, and the transformation of consciousness that arises out of that experience. It is the same space which has been realized by all of the Buddhas who have discovered the diamond in the lotus.
Asuri,
“I guess they’re going to have re-write a lot of textbooks.”
If you want to accumulate knowledge, then consult a textbook. If you want to see directly into Truth, you will have to see directly into the nature of your own being.
But since one seems to be fond of books, the Yoga Sutras, which has been accepted for centuries as one of the most authoratitive works on the science of yoga, has defined yoga very simply. The whole essence of it is contained in the second aphorism. Patanjali says, “Yoga is bringing of the mind to stillness”.
That is what the state of yoga is. All of the methods of yoga are just various devices towards this. And the experience of the stillness of the mind is not anymore a philosophy than one’s heartbeat is a philosophy, or drinking water is a philosophy. You may have heard a thousand and one other things in the name of yoga, but fundamentally, it is a certain experience, and the transformation of consciousness that arises out of that experience. It is the same space which has been realized by all of the Buddhas who have discovered the diamond in the lotus.
…,
@ SD
Apparently Amir doesn’t know about the darsanas, which kind of makes him like a man with one eye telling others they don’t see very well.
I spent my time sitting through a 25 minute sermon, was careful not to be too critical, and even offered a few words of praise. But apparently Amir was too full of hot air to come down from his self-appointed guru pedestal long enough to give me a straight answer to few simple questions. Instead I get a lecture about how yoga has nothing to do with philosophy. Somehow I get the feeling that I’m not the one who is missing the pearl here.
I have in front of me a book by Swami Hariharananda Aranya. The Swami was a well known, well-respected, and well-loved guru of the Samkhya-Yoga school. He was well known for a couple of reasons. He went off and lived alone in a cave with nothing but a loin-cloth and a blanket for five years, but he was also an excellent scholar. I’m sure he also knew himself very well, and he had credentials to back him up.
The title of the book is “Yoga Philosophy of Patanjali”. It’s too bad that swamiji is not around to find out that yoga has nothing to do with philosophy. I’m sure he would be embarrassed to find out that he got it wrong, but now it’s a little too late to change the title of his book.
[QUOTE=AmirMourad;48173]“It will be very interesting to know more about you”
Suhas,
There is not much for me to say about the matter. I do not have any training under any master or guru. Before teaching, I remained for six years as an ascetic.[/QUOTE]
This reads as “I won’t come to you, you may come to me”. Fine. Thanks.
Amir,
Wonderful presentation with excellent understanding and conveyance of that understanding. Thank you so much for sharing this with us!
Asuri,
“Apparently Amir doesn’t know about the darsanas”
Yes, I know what a darsana is. But I do not consider them to be of any value at all, unless one is using a point of view just as a means to come to a transformation. Otherwise, everything in existence can be seen from almost infinite number of angles and perspectives, all a finger pointing to the moon.
Asuri,
“But apparently Amir was too full of hot air to come down from his self-appointed guru pedestal long enough to give me a straight answer to few simple questions.”
I answered you in a very straightforward way, but you had missed the point. But even if I had been more clear and answered your questions the way you wanted, it still would not have been satisfying. Your desire to inquire and understand is not sincere.
Not Impressed.