07-08-2004, 12:41 AM
Sunder,
From a scientific viewpoint, we understand the chemical reactions of life. But whether we understand the 'life' per se is still open to question. There seems to be orders of magnitude of difference in complexity and organization from an amino acid to even the simplest living cell. Mind and consciousness are equally shrouded in mystery as far as science is concerned. Most hard core scientists just talk about neuronal functioning while on the topic of the mind. But the gap between consciousness and neuronal mechanisms is a very wide one. Many scientists take a cheap route and deny that there is anything called consciousness. I call it cheap, because it is very easy to get rid of a problem by insisting/pretending that it doesn't exist.
So these are great problems still untackled by science. Although many Yogis have gone much further and gathered important guidelines to help people. But we being humans, also want to entertain our minds by trying to find a 'rational' scientific explanation. Hence in India philosphical systems go together with yogic realizaions. With the success of science in physical realm, we want to have scientific explanations as well. Not only personal realizations or philosophies, but scientific explanations.
When I was writing my first response , I felt a very strong dichotomy and unease. I knew what I was saying flies in the face of science. And yet there is enough evidence from yogis and limited personal experiences to actually give such ideas due weightage. In your case, you have had much more stronger personal evidence. So you perhaps don't feel this unease. I guess until I get similar personal realizations, I will continue to feel this way.
Agree with you regarding swapna and sushupti. Turiya is of course a very different kind of state. It is said that 'pour turiya like oil into all the three states of wakefulness, dream and sushupti to remain in the self-awareness all the time'.
Prana and anna both follow their own conservation laws such as conservation of mass/energy etc. By the 'death' of pranamaya kosha I meant that the pranamaya body doesn't remain functional anymore. Prana is just a kind of vital energy. Even during meditation yogis are supposed to merge indriyas into prana then into manas etc. In such cases the anna-prana-mana bodies just become dormant. But right after death they actually start disintegrating.
Your description of the 'flame in the heart' is very good. Most mahayogis/paramahamsas emphasize the importance of heart center. Coming face to face with one's own soul is usually a momentous event in a yogi's life. Normally they see it like a flame in the heart with which they merge. It may also take a form of some divine figure such as Sri Krishna.
Sri Aurobindo strongly emphasizes that according to his experience heart center is a dual center. He says it is behind the Anahata chakra. He says that while meditating on the second heart center, one gets a feeling of progressively sinking deeper and deeper until the golden 'hiranmaya purusha' is seen. Also most of the descriptions of Anahata Chakra of the Kundalini yoga, don't exactly match with the description of the 'angustha matra hiranmaya purusha'. Maharshi Ramana also emphasized the heart center and he made a curious observation that in his opinion heart center and sahasrara are directly connected.
People imagine hell as some sort o torture chamber. But just imagine what one will go through if one were given the senses and mind of a worm. To get a sense of the feeling let someone tie his arms and legs together. Cover the ears a with thick pads, and eyes with hazy glasses. drug himself so that the mind barely functions and then bury himself inside moist mud and try to have a life while eating mud! <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--> Of course worms don't mind such existence. So we should be little bit understanding if a mahatma, who has taken a human birth for some purpose, says that we must strive to gain knowledge and freedom (jnana and mukti). Even though we may be happy at our level of knowledge and freedom, the Mahatma perhaps knows how much more is possible. For such a great soul, human condition may be like the life of worm to us.
From a scientific viewpoint, we understand the chemical reactions of life. But whether we understand the 'life' per se is still open to question. There seems to be orders of magnitude of difference in complexity and organization from an amino acid to even the simplest living cell. Mind and consciousness are equally shrouded in mystery as far as science is concerned. Most hard core scientists just talk about neuronal functioning while on the topic of the mind. But the gap between consciousness and neuronal mechanisms is a very wide one. Many scientists take a cheap route and deny that there is anything called consciousness. I call it cheap, because it is very easy to get rid of a problem by insisting/pretending that it doesn't exist.
So these are great problems still untackled by science. Although many Yogis have gone much further and gathered important guidelines to help people. But we being humans, also want to entertain our minds by trying to find a 'rational' scientific explanation. Hence in India philosphical systems go together with yogic realizaions. With the success of science in physical realm, we want to have scientific explanations as well. Not only personal realizations or philosophies, but scientific explanations.
When I was writing my first response , I felt a very strong dichotomy and unease. I knew what I was saying flies in the face of science. And yet there is enough evidence from yogis and limited personal experiences to actually give such ideas due weightage. In your case, you have had much more stronger personal evidence. So you perhaps don't feel this unease. I guess until I get similar personal realizations, I will continue to feel this way.
Agree with you regarding swapna and sushupti. Turiya is of course a very different kind of state. It is said that 'pour turiya like oil into all the three states of wakefulness, dream and sushupti to remain in the self-awareness all the time'.
Prana and anna both follow their own conservation laws such as conservation of mass/energy etc. By the 'death' of pranamaya kosha I meant that the pranamaya body doesn't remain functional anymore. Prana is just a kind of vital energy. Even during meditation yogis are supposed to merge indriyas into prana then into manas etc. In such cases the anna-prana-mana bodies just become dormant. But right after death they actually start disintegrating.
Your description of the 'flame in the heart' is very good. Most mahayogis/paramahamsas emphasize the importance of heart center. Coming face to face with one's own soul is usually a momentous event in a yogi's life. Normally they see it like a flame in the heart with which they merge. It may also take a form of some divine figure such as Sri Krishna.
Sri Aurobindo strongly emphasizes that according to his experience heart center is a dual center. He says it is behind the Anahata chakra. He says that while meditating on the second heart center, one gets a feeling of progressively sinking deeper and deeper until the golden 'hiranmaya purusha' is seen. Also most of the descriptions of Anahata Chakra of the Kundalini yoga, don't exactly match with the description of the 'angustha matra hiranmaya purusha'. Maharshi Ramana also emphasized the heart center and he made a curious observation that in his opinion heart center and sahasrara are directly connected.
People imagine hell as some sort o torture chamber. But just imagine what one will go through if one were given the senses and mind of a worm. To get a sense of the feeling let someone tie his arms and legs together. Cover the ears a with thick pads, and eyes with hazy glasses. drug himself so that the mind barely functions and then bury himself inside moist mud and try to have a life while eating mud! <!--emo&
--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo--> Of course worms don't mind such existence. So we should be little bit understanding if a mahatma, who has taken a human birth for some purpose, says that we must strive to gain knowledge and freedom (jnana and mukti). Even though we may be happy at our level of knowledge and freedom, the Mahatma perhaps knows how much more is possible. For such a great soul, human condition may be like the life of worm to us.