India, Science & Yoga
Last night, I
went to a Nanaimo
Metaphysical Network meeting, where
they had Professor Deborah Hearn from the VIU Physics Department
speak about Quantum Physics and Consciousness. It was a great talk,
and it brought up some things for me I wanted to talk about here in
an article while it’s fresh in my mind.
Fundamentally, my main issue with the way that this science is presented in general, I will go into specifics later, is the startling lack of grasp of what REAL scientists, philosophers and so on have always known: India is the mother of all science, religion, myth, mysticism and mathematics. Here are many many pages of quotes from the most esteemed of these:
Ignorance Explained
To start with, I’d like to restate an obvious point: the main problem in human life is ignorance. Ignorance is a result of the presence of tamas in the mind. Tamas is heavy, dark and results in one-half of the psychological phenomenon known as The Shadow. Keeping aside a more correct explanation of tamas than is provided by Wikipedia, I’d like to say that tamas, as a guna, creates as a side effect, ignorance.
A Different View of Intelligence
John Dosbon, the inspiration behind this post, said it like this:
“For any cosmological model in which the Universe is considered to be "actual", the problem of the origin of sentiency and intelligence is insoluble. But if the Universe is apparitional, sentiency is in it from the word "go". Even the atoms are "sentient". We have senses for the perception of gravity, kinetic energy, radiation, electricity and magnetism, because the individual protoplasmic cells can respond to these same five kinds of energy. And the cells can respond to them because the atoms respond to them. The atoms themselves respond to gravity, kinetic energy, radiation, electricity and magnetism. The plumb bob "knows" where the Earth is, and the electron "knows" where the proton is. Sentiency is in this from the word "go", because the underlying existence is "involved" in what we see and must show through. It is hopeless to expect that something like sentiency or intelligence, or anything, for that matter, could arise by "evolution" (as a rose evolves from a bud), unless it was first put in by "involution". The reason the oak tree can "evolve" from the acorn is because it was first put in the acorn through "involution" by the parent trees. But in the case of the tree and the acorn, the involution is by transformational causation, parinama. Whereas, in the case of the underlying existence and the Universe, the involution is by apparitional causation, or vivarta. What underlies the Universe is involved by apparition in us and what we see. And since what underlies all this is infinite, there is no knowing what may evolve. (1)
The expectation that sentiency and intelligence might arise from "inert matter" is contrary to all the experience of our race. But matter is not inert. It is "ert", (it moves by itself) because what underlies the apparition shows through. And the notion that what is more might evolve from what is less is beyond the domain of reason.”
The implication of this is that being ignorant goes against nature. I happen to agree. We live in a time and culture that raises ignorance in every form up to something which is somehow desireable!
Before The Greeks
It seems that ALL science books I read refer back to the Greek civilization as a beginning point, the seed of all modern knowledge, exclusive of ANY other cultural influences. There are many articles (and indeed whole books) which talk fairly explicitly about what cultures did what BEFORE the Greeks. This new trend of so-called “superstar” scientists on their own holy war regarding science-as-religion (Richard Dawkins and his proteges)- they are the worst offenders in a long line of eurocentric scientists who sound more like ego-centric, rather than euro-centric scientists in the end.
Eurocentrism Defined Is Deconstructionism
At some point, this focus on the Greeks forgot all about one of the most prominent of Greek philosophy: Plotinus. One may debate whether Plotinus was a non-dualist or a monist as this man does, but I am in line with Ken Wilber on this one- he was a non-dualist, or at the very least was taught and influenced by non-dual thought from the East, as many philosophers were during his time.
In general, however, an ego-centric view is seen to be had by many deconstructionist scientists and this Mr. Hines is the least offender- if you want to be really offended, try debating (or just listening to) so-called comedian (and Dawkins protege&rsquo
Bill Maher. Bill Maher is essentially a
television bully- interrupting, name calling and so on. Because
Bill Maher agrees with gay marriage and holds some other humanistic
opinions doesn’t give him a free pass to ignore all science and
philosophy that came before the Greeks just because he believes in
a currently successful materialistic philosophy. He’s a slave to
his left brain as much as any other bully egotist.
Quoting from Mr. Hines, the author of the monist view of Plotinus in the last link above:
“obviously I don't know what ultimate reality is like. Nobody does, Ken Wilber included. All we can do is look at evidence and come to the best conclusions we can. I've got a strong scientific bent. It seems to me that understanding the observable universe is the best first step (and maybe the last step) toward grasping unseen mysteries.”
So, the conclusion that ONLY science holds the answers seems to be come to by MANY scientists- and I’ll point out that Deborah Hearn was NOT saying these things in an intentional way like Bill Maher or Richard Dawkins, nor was she on some holy war like they are- but rather she was brought up and her perspective is largely informed by a culture devoted to (and enslaved by) the left brain.
The left brain has a tendency, along with how we’ve been taught (that is key) in a Cartesian method of thinking that essentially says everything is separate. The subsequent success of this divided approach is apparent in modern technology. Still, we’re slow, as a culture to catch up to the implications of Quantum Mechanics. Looking back, it takes between 50-100 years to begin to grasp the implications societally of what our highest minds are achieving in science and pre-eminent thought. We lack the cultural precedent that Indians have to learn from their vast heritage, and our is almost entirely borrowed.
Check Your Assumptions
The conclusion is the NO ONE CAN KNOW these mysteries, and concurrent with that, another thought also is there almost automatically: NO ONE EVER HAS KNOWN.
The left brain is a seductive and logical taskmaster, especially when one’s perspective becomes too reliant upon it. Lacking a schooling system and a culture of thought that informs the individual about the right brain’s function, I can see how this ignorance arises, especially in science.
Everyone I’ve talked about here MAKES ENORMOUS ASSUMPTIONS regarding all this, and we (the public) buy it hook line and sinker, every time, as we’re surrounded by it constantly. It’s not any LESS ignorant than the idea that there is a vengeful God awaiting us after death, and maybe we’ll go to Hell.
Now, I do believe a great deal of science is good. It’s brought a tremendous amount of both good and bad things to the human race, according to the level of ignorance had by it’s users (see sign above). However, assuming that ONLY science can help us is a fallacy. A facile thought.
Why? Because eventually things taken apart begin to reveal their interconnectedness at very small levels and this is EXACTLY what was found by the founding fathers of quantum mechanics.
If you read Quantum Questions by Ken Wilber, you’ll see that EVERY ONE of these major scientists in the field of quantum mechanics was ALSO writing and had deeply held beliefs similar to Eastern mysticism, then you start to realize the impact of working at this level of understanding even in science. In other words, consciousness catches up to you.
An example: Two sorts of truth: trivialities, where opposites are obviously absurd, and profound truths, recognised by the fact that the opposite is also a profound truth. -Neils Bohr
What you also see is that most of these scientists has little understanding of how to relate directly through experience what they were running into. I believe that this is because they has little training that would assist them in understanding it.
Why Does The Particle Have To Be There?
Another amazing ego-centric assumption I was reminded of last night was brought home by a famous double-slit experiment in quantum physics that has (in the minds of scientists anyway) an amazing conclusion about their lack of control in experimentation and measurement.
Why I was so amazed at the level of assumption here was that in yoga and Vedanta philosophy, the main aim is to remember at every moment that you are not separate from anyone or anything. All yoga practice is, in some way or another, supporting this experience. It can be logically argued for, as the great Vedantic teachers have shown, or experienced directly through meditation or devotional practices. There are MANY MANY examples in Indian culture that support this, and the largest scriptural bodies of work (which are a tiny fraction of the actual teachings of these great Masters) on earth support this conclusion also.
East Meet West
Hello. We’re yogis and we’ve been resolving paradoxes for thousands of years. Nice to meet you.
I am just astounded at how cultural assumptions forgot over time how Greek myth and methods were derived. Yes, the Egyptians were there, but ultimately it’s all come from India. As you learn just a little Sanskrit, it’s amazing how the etymology of words in English come from Sanskrit. In Greek myth, Dionysus is remarkably similar to Lord Shiva in the Indian tradition and so on. Scientists who reference Greek thought as the end-all-be-all should look to the root of Greek myth and logic. In the end, knowledge has come from the Vedas. Yes, it’s been expanded, but let’s not forget who your mother is. The Mother of Modern Civilization was NOT Greece, it was India. Indian astrologers understood that the Earth went around the sun 5000 years ago. We forget this because people in Europe had a flat-land mentality at some point.
In the above picture, there appears to be only one direction to head in. Only ONE POSSIBLE CONCLUSION. Welcome To Flatland
Ken Wilber uses this term to describe a theory which lacks the cohesive and cross-discipline connections Art, Morals and Science had before they were split up into their pieces by Modernists:
“Modernity, on the other hand, did manage to differentiate the Big Three of art, morals and science, on a large scale, so that each began to make phenomenal discoveries. But as the Big Three dissociated, and scientific colonialism began its aggressive career, all ‘Is’ and all ‘we’s’ were reduced to patterns of objective ‘its’, and thus all the interior stages of consciousness – reaching from body to mind to soul to spirit – were summarily dismissed as so much superstitious nonsense. The Great Nest collapsed into scientific materialism – into what we will be calling “flatland” – and there the modern world, by and large, still remains.
Our job, it thus appears, is to take the strengths of both premodernity and modernity, and jettison their weaknesses.” Integral Psychology Pp 64-65
We’re SO Shocked
What I wondered was: Why do we assume that the particle CANNOT be influencing another particle across great distances? Why do we assume that the particle must be acting like a particle and not a wave- like in the above experiment? Why do we make all these assumptions about what a particle does or does not do? Ignorance. The particle itself knows it’s own self more than we do, it seems! Why is it that it’s on the particle to demonstrate consistent behavior?
Why do we assume separation between each of us as people or us from animals or us from the environment (and everything else, while we’re at it)? Why would science? Why do scientists? This is why I started off this article talking about ignorance.
Most startling (to scientists) was the assertion that the two slit experiment shocked so many people. She even put up a famous quote from Niels Bohr, of which there are many, that said:
“Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.” - Niels Bohr
What is so shocking? What makes anything so shocking? Well, any fact that contradicts your cultural conditioning. Think about it. Truth has a way of doing that. What is nice is that Niels Bohr himself kindly provides some eloquent quotes that show he has in fact understood the implications of his theories:
“How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.”
“There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature...”
Paradox IS Philosophy and Self-Realization
In both, he demonstrates a mystics understanding of the place where metaphysics begins, and philosophy also. These men were clearly great men, and really approached their field with an utmost seriousness and rigor to be so profoundly affected by their own understanding of their discoveries. In our current science-oriented culture where charlatans who claim to know merely propagate the ignorance they hypocritically deride society for having- or worse, don’t understand their own ignorance of how to “make progress” according to Bohr himself, one who really DID understand.
Ultimately, technical or intellectual understanding is far inferior to practical understanding. Here I speak of the practical understanding of ourselves such that we can easily grasp how paradoxes work, as a result of having deeply considered them within ourselves. The yogi or mystic who has considered these things within themselves could easily grasp without being “shocked” the apparent paradoxes of quantum mechanics, even if on a relatively superficial intellectual level.
Grasping how to move in the world, free of paradox ENTIRELY is something else besides. Freeing one’s self of dualities in totem is the ultimate desire of all spiritual aspiration, if indeed it is sincere.
Yogis ARE Scientists
Given that “an ounce of practice is worth tons of theory” (- Swami Sivananda) then, the practical inner work that would enable one to live in harmony with what the limited mind or intellect can grasp AND what is beyond that mind lay the superior practice of Yoga. The ancient method of Yoga says that ALL your concerns should rather be of that which is practical. Yoga is non-theistic and rather points to a systematic resolution of intellectual, emotional, physical, and metaphysical paradoxes.
In this way, yogis have been approaching, scientifically (in both a left-brained and right-brained manner) for thousands of years (that we know of) the practice of Yoga. Nothing is left out in Yoga and Vedanta. Indeed Vedanta is translated as the “end of knowledge”. Yet, Vedanta is a balanced viewpoint. Even Jnana yogis who study scriptures in an almost anti-social modern university sort of way are understood to be inferior to those who reform their personality in a more complete fashion using all four paths.
Summary
I hope I have shown the fallacy of ignorance based in science. I see it in so many places. The ignorance of the origins of knowledge (inside us) the ignorance of the great realizations and experiences of saints and sages of the past, especially in the East, the ignorance of the MASSIVE body of work produced by thousands of years of yogic scientists, both left and right brain oriented, and lastly the responsibility we have to really pay attention to the information we’re being given and the assumptions behind it. I hope I’ve been clear and thorough.
Fundamentally, my main issue with the way that this science is presented in general, I will go into specifics later, is the startling lack of grasp of what REAL scientists, philosophers and so on have always known: India is the mother of all science, religion, myth, mysticism and mathematics. Here are many many pages of quotes from the most esteemed of these:
What is India?
View more documents from SALIL GEWALI.
Ignorance Explained
To start with, I’d like to restate an obvious point: the main problem in human life is ignorance. Ignorance is a result of the presence of tamas in the mind. Tamas is heavy, dark and results in one-half of the psychological phenomenon known as The Shadow. Keeping aside a more correct explanation of tamas than is provided by Wikipedia, I’d like to say that tamas, as a guna, creates as a side effect, ignorance.
A Different View of Intelligence
John Dosbon, the inspiration behind this post, said it like this:
“For any cosmological model in which the Universe is considered to be "actual", the problem of the origin of sentiency and intelligence is insoluble. But if the Universe is apparitional, sentiency is in it from the word "go". Even the atoms are "sentient". We have senses for the perception of gravity, kinetic energy, radiation, electricity and magnetism, because the individual protoplasmic cells can respond to these same five kinds of energy. And the cells can respond to them because the atoms respond to them. The atoms themselves respond to gravity, kinetic energy, radiation, electricity and magnetism. The plumb bob "knows" where the Earth is, and the electron "knows" where the proton is. Sentiency is in this from the word "go", because the underlying existence is "involved" in what we see and must show through. It is hopeless to expect that something like sentiency or intelligence, or anything, for that matter, could arise by "evolution" (as a rose evolves from a bud), unless it was first put in by "involution". The reason the oak tree can "evolve" from the acorn is because it was first put in the acorn through "involution" by the parent trees. But in the case of the tree and the acorn, the involution is by transformational causation, parinama. Whereas, in the case of the underlying existence and the Universe, the involution is by apparitional causation, or vivarta. What underlies the Universe is involved by apparition in us and what we see. And since what underlies all this is infinite, there is no knowing what may evolve. (1)
The expectation that sentiency and intelligence might arise from "inert matter" is contrary to all the experience of our race. But matter is not inert. It is "ert", (it moves by itself) because what underlies the apparition shows through. And the notion that what is more might evolve from what is less is beyond the domain of reason.”
The implication of this is that being ignorant goes against nature. I happen to agree. We live in a time and culture that raises ignorance in every form up to something which is somehow desireable!
Before The Greeks
It seems that ALL science books I read refer back to the Greek civilization as a beginning point, the seed of all modern knowledge, exclusive of ANY other cultural influences. There are many articles (and indeed whole books) which talk fairly explicitly about what cultures did what BEFORE the Greeks. This new trend of so-called “superstar” scientists on their own holy war regarding science-as-religion (Richard Dawkins and his proteges)- they are the worst offenders in a long line of eurocentric scientists who sound more like ego-centric, rather than euro-centric scientists in the end.
Eurocentrism Defined Is Deconstructionism
At some point, this focus on the Greeks forgot all about one of the most prominent of Greek philosophy: Plotinus. One may debate whether Plotinus was a non-dualist or a monist as this man does, but I am in line with Ken Wilber on this one- he was a non-dualist, or at the very least was taught and influenced by non-dual thought from the East, as many philosophers were during his time.
In general, however, an ego-centric view is seen to be had by many deconstructionist scientists and this Mr. Hines is the least offender- if you want to be really offended, try debating (or just listening to) so-called comedian (and Dawkins protege&rsquo
Bill Maher. Bill Maher is essentially a
television bully- interrupting, name calling and so on. Because
Bill Maher agrees with gay marriage and holds some other humanistic
opinions doesn’t give him a free pass to ignore all science and
philosophy that came before the Greeks just because he believes in
a currently successful materialistic philosophy. He’s a slave to
his left brain as much as any other bully egotist.Quoting from Mr. Hines, the author of the monist view of Plotinus in the last link above:
“obviously I don't know what ultimate reality is like. Nobody does, Ken Wilber included. All we can do is look at evidence and come to the best conclusions we can. I've got a strong scientific bent. It seems to me that understanding the observable universe is the best first step (and maybe the last step) toward grasping unseen mysteries.”
So, the conclusion that ONLY science holds the answers seems to be come to by MANY scientists- and I’ll point out that Deborah Hearn was NOT saying these things in an intentional way like Bill Maher or Richard Dawkins, nor was she on some holy war like they are- but rather she was brought up and her perspective is largely informed by a culture devoted to (and enslaved by) the left brain.
The left brain has a tendency, along with how we’ve been taught (that is key) in a Cartesian method of thinking that essentially says everything is separate. The subsequent success of this divided approach is apparent in modern technology. Still, we’re slow, as a culture to catch up to the implications of Quantum Mechanics. Looking back, it takes between 50-100 years to begin to grasp the implications societally of what our highest minds are achieving in science and pre-eminent thought. We lack the cultural precedent that Indians have to learn from their vast heritage, and our is almost entirely borrowed.
Check Your Assumptions
The conclusion is the NO ONE CAN KNOW these mysteries, and concurrent with that, another thought also is there almost automatically: NO ONE EVER HAS KNOWN.
The left brain is a seductive and logical taskmaster, especially when one’s perspective becomes too reliant upon it. Lacking a schooling system and a culture of thought that informs the individual about the right brain’s function, I can see how this ignorance arises, especially in science.
Everyone I’ve talked about here MAKES ENORMOUS ASSUMPTIONS regarding all this, and we (the public) buy it hook line and sinker, every time, as we’re surrounded by it constantly. It’s not any LESS ignorant than the idea that there is a vengeful God awaiting us after death, and maybe we’ll go to Hell.
Now, I do believe a great deal of science is good. It’s brought a tremendous amount of both good and bad things to the human race, according to the level of ignorance had by it’s users (see sign above). However, assuming that ONLY science can help us is a fallacy. A facile thought.
Why? Because eventually things taken apart begin to reveal their interconnectedness at very small levels and this is EXACTLY what was found by the founding fathers of quantum mechanics.
If you read Quantum Questions by Ken Wilber, you’ll see that EVERY ONE of these major scientists in the field of quantum mechanics was ALSO writing and had deeply held beliefs similar to Eastern mysticism, then you start to realize the impact of working at this level of understanding even in science. In other words, consciousness catches up to you.
An example: Two sorts of truth: trivialities, where opposites are obviously absurd, and profound truths, recognised by the fact that the opposite is also a profound truth. -Neils Bohr
What you also see is that most of these scientists has little understanding of how to relate directly through experience what they were running into. I believe that this is because they has little training that would assist them in understanding it.
Why Does The Particle Have To Be There?
Another amazing ego-centric assumption I was reminded of last night was brought home by a famous double-slit experiment in quantum physics that has (in the minds of scientists anyway) an amazing conclusion about their lack of control in experimentation and measurement.
Why I was so amazed at the level of assumption here was that in yoga and Vedanta philosophy, the main aim is to remember at every moment that you are not separate from anyone or anything. All yoga practice is, in some way or another, supporting this experience. It can be logically argued for, as the great Vedantic teachers have shown, or experienced directly through meditation or devotional practices. There are MANY MANY examples in Indian culture that support this, and the largest scriptural bodies of work (which are a tiny fraction of the actual teachings of these great Masters) on earth support this conclusion also.
East Meet West
Hello. We’re yogis and we’ve been resolving paradoxes for thousands of years. Nice to meet you.
I am just astounded at how cultural assumptions forgot over time how Greek myth and methods were derived. Yes, the Egyptians were there, but ultimately it’s all come from India. As you learn just a little Sanskrit, it’s amazing how the etymology of words in English come from Sanskrit. In Greek myth, Dionysus is remarkably similar to Lord Shiva in the Indian tradition and so on. Scientists who reference Greek thought as the end-all-be-all should look to the root of Greek myth and logic. In the end, knowledge has come from the Vedas. Yes, it’s been expanded, but let’s not forget who your mother is. The Mother of Modern Civilization was NOT Greece, it was India. Indian astrologers understood that the Earth went around the sun 5000 years ago. We forget this because people in Europe had a flat-land mentality at some point.
In the above picture, there appears to be only one direction to head in. Only ONE POSSIBLE CONCLUSION. Welcome To Flatland
Ken Wilber uses this term to describe a theory which lacks the cohesive and cross-discipline connections Art, Morals and Science had before they were split up into their pieces by Modernists:
“Modernity, on the other hand, did manage to differentiate the Big Three of art, morals and science, on a large scale, so that each began to make phenomenal discoveries. But as the Big Three dissociated, and scientific colonialism began its aggressive career, all ‘Is’ and all ‘we’s’ were reduced to patterns of objective ‘its’, and thus all the interior stages of consciousness – reaching from body to mind to soul to spirit – were summarily dismissed as so much superstitious nonsense. The Great Nest collapsed into scientific materialism – into what we will be calling “flatland” – and there the modern world, by and large, still remains.
Our job, it thus appears, is to take the strengths of both premodernity and modernity, and jettison their weaknesses.” Integral Psychology Pp 64-65
We’re SO Shocked
What I wondered was: Why do we assume that the particle CANNOT be influencing another particle across great distances? Why do we assume that the particle must be acting like a particle and not a wave- like in the above experiment? Why do we make all these assumptions about what a particle does or does not do? Ignorance. The particle itself knows it’s own self more than we do, it seems! Why is it that it’s on the particle to demonstrate consistent behavior?
Why do we assume separation between each of us as people or us from animals or us from the environment (and everything else, while we’re at it)? Why would science? Why do scientists? This is why I started off this article talking about ignorance.
Most startling (to scientists) was the assertion that the two slit experiment shocked so many people. She even put up a famous quote from Niels Bohr, of which there are many, that said:
“Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.” - Niels Bohr
What is so shocking? What makes anything so shocking? Well, any fact that contradicts your cultural conditioning. Think about it. Truth has a way of doing that. What is nice is that Niels Bohr himself kindly provides some eloquent quotes that show he has in fact understood the implications of his theories:
“How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.”
“There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature...”
Paradox IS Philosophy and Self-Realization
In both, he demonstrates a mystics understanding of the place where metaphysics begins, and philosophy also. These men were clearly great men, and really approached their field with an utmost seriousness and rigor to be so profoundly affected by their own understanding of their discoveries. In our current science-oriented culture where charlatans who claim to know merely propagate the ignorance they hypocritically deride society for having- or worse, don’t understand their own ignorance of how to “make progress” according to Bohr himself, one who really DID understand.
Ultimately, technical or intellectual understanding is far inferior to practical understanding. Here I speak of the practical understanding of ourselves such that we can easily grasp how paradoxes work, as a result of having deeply considered them within ourselves. The yogi or mystic who has considered these things within themselves could easily grasp without being “shocked” the apparent paradoxes of quantum mechanics, even if on a relatively superficial intellectual level.
Grasping how to move in the world, free of paradox ENTIRELY is something else besides. Freeing one’s self of dualities in totem is the ultimate desire of all spiritual aspiration, if indeed it is sincere.
Yogis ARE Scientists
Given that “an ounce of practice is worth tons of theory” (- Swami Sivananda) then, the practical inner work that would enable one to live in harmony with what the limited mind or intellect can grasp AND what is beyond that mind lay the superior practice of Yoga. The ancient method of Yoga says that ALL your concerns should rather be of that which is practical. Yoga is non-theistic and rather points to a systematic resolution of intellectual, emotional, physical, and metaphysical paradoxes.
In this way, yogis have been approaching, scientifically (in both a left-brained and right-brained manner) for thousands of years (that we know of) the practice of Yoga. Nothing is left out in Yoga and Vedanta. Indeed Vedanta is translated as the “end of knowledge”. Yet, Vedanta is a balanced viewpoint. Even Jnana yogis who study scriptures in an almost anti-social modern university sort of way are understood to be inferior to those who reform their personality in a more complete fashion using all four paths.
Summary
I hope I have shown the fallacy of ignorance based in science. I see it in so many places. The ignorance of the origins of knowledge (inside us) the ignorance of the great realizations and experiences of saints and sages of the past, especially in the East, the ignorance of the MASSIVE body of work produced by thousands of years of yogic scientists, both left and right brain oriented, and lastly the responsibility we have to really pay attention to the information we’re being given and the assumptions behind it. I hope I’ve been clear and thorough.
Comments
Vedic Life and Sex
This post is in
response to a question asked on Facebook by one of our friends
regarding sex, and as I wrote it, I thought that it would make a
nice article:
"I have a funny Vedic question for you and Regis. What makes it ok for a vedic to have a sexual partnership? Not sure if my new vedic friend knows how it could be ok, so that he won't degrade his ultimate evolution?"
Understanding the nature of sex against a backdrop of Hindu thought will help tremendously, as one key aspect of the Hindu culture is that reproduction and family life is a main spiritual agreement with God. In Hindu thinking, there are four aims of life (purusarthas), and they are seen in many different contexts. You will see them described slightly differently, depending on the perspective of the speaker. To address the variety of viewpoints shown here and in Vedic thought in general, I like to think of them as planets with a gravitational pull on us, affecting many moons of our psycho-archetypes.
Four Aims of Life
Kama (pleasure, enjoyment)
Artha (security, material concerns)
Dharma (right living, moral life in society)
Moksha (desire for liberation)
Four Phases of Life
In Western Society:
hahaha!
In Eastern Society:
Against these Four Aims, the Four Phases of Life are set, and you can easily see how they are related and support each other:
Brahmacharya Ashrama : Youth, usually age 8 to 24; apprenticeship, studying in a guru-kula with a spiritual teacher, celibate
Grihastha Ashrama: Householder & married family life, usually age 25 to 50, raising children, working, etc.
Vanaprastha Ashrama: Children are grown, job has matured, one begins to phase one's self out of normal running of the family, giving over to children and begins to prepare for the final phase of life. Ages 50-65
Sanyasa Ashrama : One renounces worldly life to prepare for physical death or possible rebirth properly, detaches gradually from sense objects, family, and material objects. Given that spiritual life always focuses on how to detach from all worldly pursuits, it’s easy to see that this might include detachment from one’s wife also. However, often the wife would accompany the husband “into the forest” as it were. Even kings of old did this with their wives, clearing the way for the younger generation to succeed them. Ages 55-Death.
An excellent article on these four stages of life compared with castes is here.
Householder Life
One of these key archetypes is that of the Householder. In the context of householder life family is the main concern. Therefore, artha is security and gathering up those things to secure yourself and your family. In that same context, kama is seen as enjoyment of meals, music, talking between family and friends and yes, even sex with your wife. Then, the "kama" sutra is a series of scriptures devoted to this topic. Note that all this is considered in some way holy. In fact what is difficult to understand for the Western mind is that ALL life is to be spiritualized and understood in that context. In a family context dharma could be understood as fulfilling your role properly as a husband, father, parent, son, daughter, etc. and treating each of these as a relationship to God also. This is a beautiful way in which Hindu thought proceeds. Even a celibate devotee may have a relationship with his chosen form of God (Krishna, Rama, Durga, etc.) in any of those roles too!
The Third Sex
Shown above as a half-man, half-woman diety named Ardhanarishwara (ardha means half), these individuals (and mythic icons) fulfill an important role in society. Mentioned in many places in Hindu thought, scriptures, etc. is the idea of a third sex. People of the third sex are also classified under a larger social category known as the “neutral gender.” Its members are called napumsaka, or “those who do not engage in procreation.” There are five different types of napumsaka people: (1) children; (2) the elderly; (3) the impotent; (4) the celibate, and (5) the third sex. They were all considered to be sexually neutral by Vedic definition and were protected and believed to bring good luck. As a distinct social category, members of the neutral gender did not engage in sexual reproduction. This non-reproductive category played an integral role in the balance of both human society and nature, similar to the way in which asexual bees play out their own particular roles in the operation of a hive. In Hinduism there are no accidents or errors, and everything in nature has a purpose, role, and reason for existence.
The Doshas or the Qualities of Nature
Fundamentally, one must understand the three gunas, or qualities of nature, and the four aims of life and how they combine together. Seen from a energetic standpoint, that of understanding the doshas: vata (air), pitta (fire), kappa (earth) found in Ayurvedic thought, and the subtle doshas: prana (energy), tejas (intellectual energy), and ojas (reserves), respectively; one can understand that restriction of sexual activity is to preserve one's energetic integrity.
To understand this, you must look at how spiritual devotee's spend their time. Aside from being inward focused more than other lifestyles it's largely spent in the pursuit of increasing one's prana or life force, especially at the beginning. Breathing exercises (prana- vital force, yama- control of) increase the relationship with the prana and increase it's flow. Tejas is the mental acuity or force behind intelligence or the mental fire in which understanding of mental topics are "digested". This is naturally similar to the pitta dosha whose energy is closely related to the digestion of food.
The "container" of the life force is found in ojas, however. A lack of ojas due to our typical Western lifestyle of "dispersal" doesn't help us in many ways, and can easily be understood to be weak in many Western aspirants. When one gets sick, one's ojas is low. When one has been working too hard (using prana), not sleeping or eating properly, one's ojas container can develop holes or cracks, allowing the prana to seep out, even while not in a current activity. Much of spiritual life is oriented toward preserving ojas, increasing it, and being aware of it's influence on us, so that we don't waste our energy needlessly.
So, if you think of prana as being air both increasing and flowing more strongly, you will need a container in which to hold this moving flow, like a balloon that must be strongly maintained to contain a large volume of air. The physical manifestation of ojas eventually becomes semen in men and eggs in women. Semen can be thought of like a distillation of ojas (the pinnacle of the subtle doshas) for the purpose of creating another life. It's literally a seed, and as we consume seeds and nuts for their great energy, so also our semen and eggs contain this great potential energy.
Energy and Sex
Dispersing this energy can create a life when having sex, but preserving it can turn that energy (over time) ultimately back into the mumukshu (spiritual aspirant with a burning desire for liberation) who preserves it. Indeed a burning desire is needed to withstand the amount of energy that is available to the person who restricts their sexual impulses consciously. Important to note here is that often restricting the sexual impulse is considered repressive. It is not this I speak of. It is specifically NOT restricting your impulses because they have become out of control in a repressive manner. It is a conscious restriction to achieve a desire that is greater than mere sex itself, a desire for unification with a larger Self.
Spiritual Focus
This mumukshutva "feeling" can overcome us during any of the four phases of life, however, and it's important to understand which you are currently in, before deciding to become celibate or not as a spiritual practice, considering the total context of the culture in which you live, etc. For Westerners, this can create a confusion as to how to proceed through when much of this Hindu thinking is not commonplace here.
It is when you reach a real desire for liberation from birth and death (mumukshutva) that sex recedes in the background with one's awareness of one's larger Self and eventually becomes simply unimportant. This difficulty in "receding" sex is related, as is easily seen, to food and in general the level of sensual desires one has trained into the mind through one's cultural influences. Our Western culture emphasizes personal, individual enjoyment above all else, perpetuating a mythological "frontier" idea in our minds which is simply irrelevant to modern life.
Brahmacharya (misunderstood to be celibacy)
Brahmacharya means literally "under the teaching of Brahma", the mythical 'creator' in Hindu thought. I think people misunderstand the idea of brahmacharya a lot. it is both a phase of life and an approach to spiritual life that recognizes the more subtle nature inherent in our eternal karmic makeup, and where the mind is aware of it, consciously chooses that above the genetic impulse naturally present in the physical body.
In more developed yogis, when one's mind is super-focused on the understanding of one's Self where one's energy and thought dissolves the small-"i" or "personality" into the vast ocean of the larger, "poorna" or fullness- the desire for sex simply becomes secondary and eventually unnecessary.
I have even experienced this myself when pursuing bicycle racing. My desire for sex eventually went to zero, as my focus was just somewhere else, and I sort of "forgot" about the need to have sex or pursue a sensual life at all.
What brahmacharya is, then, is a more right-focused turning away from sensual and material life into something which is more subtle, larger and therefore more "real". What could be better than total completeness compared with sex? Sex doesn't measure up at all in this respect.
Believing Our Way Out
Understand also that genetic impulses are NOT a solution to the karmic problem. Right thinking, according to Vedanta, is the only way to fix the first problem, the problem that got us into this karmic mess we are in now: misunderstanding ourselves to be separate from God.
Many people ask me: "what do I believe in?" I don't. I want to believe my way out of this problem. Sexual impulses ultimately don't assist one in gaining the understanding needed, unless pursued in a spiritual context with a partner who knows and understand the phases of life, and can see what phase of life you yourself are in. It's an important discussion to have.
Spiritual Life vs. Romantic Life
In the West, it can be difficult to find someone who will agree that there is a larger goal to be found in life than the romantic ideal of love between a couple. Neither sex is free of it's influence, either.
This idea is so embedded in our cultural references of songs, movies, music, and interpersonally that we may find ourselves pulled toward it, even where you can see a beautiful spiritually oriented person in front of you. Conflicts can arise between two people who understand love as attachment (which is what all Western culture tells you).
You can see from the phases of life that if a life is to be had according to these principles, it would take a tremendous amount of courage to face this cultural legacy as well as the interpersonal agreement to focus on larger more subtle ways of thinking and living.
Summary
In summary, if sex is to be seen in a larger, more reverential and detached manner in the Hindu way of thinking, then one must consider many subtle factors. While it can be a beautiful and challenging agreement to make with your partner to work toward these subtleties as a couple, using sex as an important reference point (like our culture does) makes little sense without the larger overall context in which to place it. I hope that I've effectively showed this context and answered some questions about it.
Books & Readings
Sex and Superconsciousness (Bhagavan Shree Rajneesh, aka Osho) is a good book for sure to read about sex- probably the best book on that topic available, and clears up many misunderstandings had about Osho regarding sex. It's also a wonderful read about spirituality in general. Specifically, there is a beautiful heart-aching description of the nature of ego in that book that is worthy of a book or article by itself.
I read another one about Buddhism and sex (I forget the name) and from that book it would appear that the Buddha himself had to address ten thousand questions regarding this from his devotees, set up rules around it all and it's been a constant topic since then also.
What I would say is, since this is a more "vedic" question, is that you should read some articles from Swami Dayananda Saraswati or Swami Krishnananda.
http://www.swami-krishnananda.org/disc/disc_23.html
http://www.swami-krishnananda.org/sadh/sadh_07.html
http://www.swami-krishnananda.org/disc/disc_76.html
I posted a link to many of Swami Dayananda's articles on my Wall recently, and here is that link: http://www.avgsatsang.org/hhpsds.html
I would read Swami Dayananda's work, as it's very very easy to understand him explain these subtle topics. Especially the one about Viveka- Discerning Realities, and Becoming a Complete Person both which talk about some aspects of the four aims of life.
"I have a funny Vedic question for you and Regis. What makes it ok for a vedic to have a sexual partnership? Not sure if my new vedic friend knows how it could be ok, so that he won't degrade his ultimate evolution?"
Understanding the nature of sex against a backdrop of Hindu thought will help tremendously, as one key aspect of the Hindu culture is that reproduction and family life is a main spiritual agreement with God. In Hindu thinking, there are four aims of life (purusarthas), and they are seen in many different contexts. You will see them described slightly differently, depending on the perspective of the speaker. To address the variety of viewpoints shown here and in Vedic thought in general, I like to think of them as planets with a gravitational pull on us, affecting many moons of our psycho-archetypes.
Four Aims of Life
Kama (pleasure, enjoyment)
Artha (security, material concerns)
Dharma (right living, moral life in society)
Moksha (desire for liberation)
Four Phases of Life
In Western Society:
hahaha!
In Eastern Society:
Against these Four Aims, the Four Phases of Life are set, and you can easily see how they are related and support each other:
Brahmacharya Ashrama : Youth, usually age 8 to 24; apprenticeship, studying in a guru-kula with a spiritual teacher, celibate
Grihastha Ashrama: Householder & married family life, usually age 25 to 50, raising children, working, etc.
Vanaprastha Ashrama: Children are grown, job has matured, one begins to phase one's self out of normal running of the family, giving over to children and begins to prepare for the final phase of life. Ages 50-65
Sanyasa Ashrama : One renounces worldly life to prepare for physical death or possible rebirth properly, detaches gradually from sense objects, family, and material objects. Given that spiritual life always focuses on how to detach from all worldly pursuits, it’s easy to see that this might include detachment from one’s wife also. However, often the wife would accompany the husband “into the forest” as it were. Even kings of old did this with their wives, clearing the way for the younger generation to succeed them. Ages 55-Death.
An excellent article on these four stages of life compared with castes is here.
Householder Life
One of these key archetypes is that of the Householder. In the context of householder life family is the main concern. Therefore, artha is security and gathering up those things to secure yourself and your family. In that same context, kama is seen as enjoyment of meals, music, talking between family and friends and yes, even sex with your wife. Then, the "kama" sutra is a series of scriptures devoted to this topic. Note that all this is considered in some way holy. In fact what is difficult to understand for the Western mind is that ALL life is to be spiritualized and understood in that context. In a family context dharma could be understood as fulfilling your role properly as a husband, father, parent, son, daughter, etc. and treating each of these as a relationship to God also. This is a beautiful way in which Hindu thought proceeds. Even a celibate devotee may have a relationship with his chosen form of God (Krishna, Rama, Durga, etc.) in any of those roles too!
The Third Sex
Shown above as a half-man, half-woman diety named Ardhanarishwara (ardha means half), these individuals (and mythic icons) fulfill an important role in society. Mentioned in many places in Hindu thought, scriptures, etc. is the idea of a third sex. People of the third sex are also classified under a larger social category known as the “neutral gender.” Its members are called napumsaka, or “those who do not engage in procreation.” There are five different types of napumsaka people: (1) children; (2) the elderly; (3) the impotent; (4) the celibate, and (5) the third sex. They were all considered to be sexually neutral by Vedic definition and were protected and believed to bring good luck. As a distinct social category, members of the neutral gender did not engage in sexual reproduction. This non-reproductive category played an integral role in the balance of both human society and nature, similar to the way in which asexual bees play out their own particular roles in the operation of a hive. In Hinduism there are no accidents or errors, and everything in nature has a purpose, role, and reason for existence.
The Doshas or the Qualities of Nature
Fundamentally, one must understand the three gunas, or qualities of nature, and the four aims of life and how they combine together. Seen from a energetic standpoint, that of understanding the doshas: vata (air), pitta (fire), kappa (earth) found in Ayurvedic thought, and the subtle doshas: prana (energy), tejas (intellectual energy), and ojas (reserves), respectively; one can understand that restriction of sexual activity is to preserve one's energetic integrity.
To understand this, you must look at how spiritual devotee's spend their time. Aside from being inward focused more than other lifestyles it's largely spent in the pursuit of increasing one's prana or life force, especially at the beginning. Breathing exercises (prana- vital force, yama- control of) increase the relationship with the prana and increase it's flow. Tejas is the mental acuity or force behind intelligence or the mental fire in which understanding of mental topics are "digested". This is naturally similar to the pitta dosha whose energy is closely related to the digestion of food.
The "container" of the life force is found in ojas, however. A lack of ojas due to our typical Western lifestyle of "dispersal" doesn't help us in many ways, and can easily be understood to be weak in many Western aspirants. When one gets sick, one's ojas is low. When one has been working too hard (using prana), not sleeping or eating properly, one's ojas container can develop holes or cracks, allowing the prana to seep out, even while not in a current activity. Much of spiritual life is oriented toward preserving ojas, increasing it, and being aware of it's influence on us, so that we don't waste our energy needlessly.
So, if you think of prana as being air both increasing and flowing more strongly, you will need a container in which to hold this moving flow, like a balloon that must be strongly maintained to contain a large volume of air. The physical manifestation of ojas eventually becomes semen in men and eggs in women. Semen can be thought of like a distillation of ojas (the pinnacle of the subtle doshas) for the purpose of creating another life. It's literally a seed, and as we consume seeds and nuts for their great energy, so also our semen and eggs contain this great potential energy.
Energy and Sex
Dispersing this energy can create a life when having sex, but preserving it can turn that energy (over time) ultimately back into the mumukshu (spiritual aspirant with a burning desire for liberation) who preserves it. Indeed a burning desire is needed to withstand the amount of energy that is available to the person who restricts their sexual impulses consciously. Important to note here is that often restricting the sexual impulse is considered repressive. It is not this I speak of. It is specifically NOT restricting your impulses because they have become out of control in a repressive manner. It is a conscious restriction to achieve a desire that is greater than mere sex itself, a desire for unification with a larger Self.
Spiritual Focus
This mumukshutva "feeling" can overcome us during any of the four phases of life, however, and it's important to understand which you are currently in, before deciding to become celibate or not as a spiritual practice, considering the total context of the culture in which you live, etc. For Westerners, this can create a confusion as to how to proceed through when much of this Hindu thinking is not commonplace here.
It is when you reach a real desire for liberation from birth and death (mumukshutva) that sex recedes in the background with one's awareness of one's larger Self and eventually becomes simply unimportant. This difficulty in "receding" sex is related, as is easily seen, to food and in general the level of sensual desires one has trained into the mind through one's cultural influences. Our Western culture emphasizes personal, individual enjoyment above all else, perpetuating a mythological "frontier" idea in our minds which is simply irrelevant to modern life.
Brahmacharya (misunderstood to be celibacy)
Brahmacharya means literally "under the teaching of Brahma", the mythical 'creator' in Hindu thought. I think people misunderstand the idea of brahmacharya a lot. it is both a phase of life and an approach to spiritual life that recognizes the more subtle nature inherent in our eternal karmic makeup, and where the mind is aware of it, consciously chooses that above the genetic impulse naturally present in the physical body.
In more developed yogis, when one's mind is super-focused on the understanding of one's Self where one's energy and thought dissolves the small-"i" or "personality" into the vast ocean of the larger, "poorna" or fullness- the desire for sex simply becomes secondary and eventually unnecessary.
I have even experienced this myself when pursuing bicycle racing. My desire for sex eventually went to zero, as my focus was just somewhere else, and I sort of "forgot" about the need to have sex or pursue a sensual life at all.
What brahmacharya is, then, is a more right-focused turning away from sensual and material life into something which is more subtle, larger and therefore more "real". What could be better than total completeness compared with sex? Sex doesn't measure up at all in this respect.
Believing Our Way Out
Understand also that genetic impulses are NOT a solution to the karmic problem. Right thinking, according to Vedanta, is the only way to fix the first problem, the problem that got us into this karmic mess we are in now: misunderstanding ourselves to be separate from God.
Many people ask me: "what do I believe in?" I don't. I want to believe my way out of this problem. Sexual impulses ultimately don't assist one in gaining the understanding needed, unless pursued in a spiritual context with a partner who knows and understand the phases of life, and can see what phase of life you yourself are in. It's an important discussion to have.
Spiritual Life vs. Romantic Life
In the West, it can be difficult to find someone who will agree that there is a larger goal to be found in life than the romantic ideal of love between a couple. Neither sex is free of it's influence, either.
This idea is so embedded in our cultural references of songs, movies, music, and interpersonally that we may find ourselves pulled toward it, even where you can see a beautiful spiritually oriented person in front of you. Conflicts can arise between two people who understand love as attachment (which is what all Western culture tells you).
You can see from the phases of life that if a life is to be had according to these principles, it would take a tremendous amount of courage to face this cultural legacy as well as the interpersonal agreement to focus on larger more subtle ways of thinking and living.
Summary
In summary, if sex is to be seen in a larger, more reverential and detached manner in the Hindu way of thinking, then one must consider many subtle factors. While it can be a beautiful and challenging agreement to make with your partner to work toward these subtleties as a couple, using sex as an important reference point (like our culture does) makes little sense without the larger overall context in which to place it. I hope that I've effectively showed this context and answered some questions about it.
Books & Readings
Sex and Superconsciousness (Bhagavan Shree Rajneesh, aka Osho) is a good book for sure to read about sex- probably the best book on that topic available, and clears up many misunderstandings had about Osho regarding sex. It's also a wonderful read about spirituality in general. Specifically, there is a beautiful heart-aching description of the nature of ego in that book that is worthy of a book or article by itself.
I read another one about Buddhism and sex (I forget the name) and from that book it would appear that the Buddha himself had to address ten thousand questions regarding this from his devotees, set up rules around it all and it's been a constant topic since then also.
What I would say is, since this is a more "vedic" question, is that you should read some articles from Swami Dayananda Saraswati or Swami Krishnananda.
http://www.swami-krishnananda.org/disc/disc_23.html
http://www.swami-krishnananda.org/sadh/sadh_07.html
http://www.swami-krishnananda.org/disc/disc_76.html
I posted a link to many of Swami Dayananda's articles on my Wall recently, and here is that link: http://www.avgsatsang.org/hhpsds.html
I would read Swami Dayananda's work, as it's very very easy to understand him explain these subtle topics. Especially the one about Viveka- Discerning Realities, and Becoming a Complete Person both which talk about some aspects of the four aims of life.