Comment

Comment by Christian von Lahr on March 28, 2011 at 7:25pm

This is Right thinking.

Comment by David Reigle on March 28, 2011 at 5:55pm

Sorry to have started off on a somewhat discordant note with Dr. Ananda Wood, who those sympathetic to Theosophical ideas should regard as a friend and ally. We, of course, try to regard all as friends; but more than that, his writings show him to be a strong ally in the promotion of ideas that closely harmonize with Theosophical ideas (http://sites.google.com/site/advaitaenquiry/). This is of far greater importance than the use of a single word, "explicitly," on a single occasion, that I did not regard as being accurate.

To me, Blavatsky's writings are full of deep truths. But they are equally full of mistakes regarding what she cites in support of those truths. This inaccuracy in the supporting material has caused a large number of people to dismiss the deeper truths that she was trying to illustrate.

For any comparison of traditional teachings and modern science, we are obliged to use the scientific method. What one scientist can produce in the laboratory must be able to be reproduced by any other scientist in the laboratory, in order for it to be accepted as true. Similarly, if we want to support truths with quotations from old texts, anyone who knows the language of those texts must be able to agree that that is what the text says.

This is where I was coming from. We cannot say that the Katha Upanishad 6.2 "explicitly" says that the world is made of prana, unless those who know Sanskrit would agree that it says this. This would have been an acceptably accurate statement if only the word "explicitly" was left out. Most students of Advaita Vedanta would agree that prana is understood as a synonym of brahman; and since everything is brahman, it therefore follows that everything is made of prana. So the Upanishad passage may very well mean this, but it does not say this explicitly. Like with Blavatsky's writings, if statements that cannot stand up to scrutiny are made in support of a deep truth, then the deep truth itself will be rejected by many readers.

Comment by Jacques Mahnich on March 26, 2011 at 2:54pm

Mr Wood wrote :

"If I wanted to learn something or to prove a point in Newtonian physics, would it be at all sensible today to read Newton's Principia in Latin and to reason or argue from there?"

 

On this specific subject, reading the Newton's Principia, even if one has to become familiar with his century' language, is much more rich than reading a modern physics book. It gives you not only the formulas, but also what Newton had in mind, what he believes and the areas where he just do not know and make some hypothesis. At this time every proposal of formula had to be explained in plain language.

For example , in Book III - The System of the World :  "The Supreme God is a Being eternal, infinite, absolutely perfect ; ... And from his true dominion it follows that the true God is a living, intelligent and powerful Being...He is not eternity and infinity, but eternal and infinite ; he is not duration or space, but he endures and is present....God suffers nothing from the motion of the bodies ; bodies find no resistance from the omnipresence of God."

 

H.P.B quoted many times Sir Isaac Newton (as in for example in Proem p.13) : "Nature is a perpetual circulatory worker, generating fluids out of solids, fixed things out of volatile, and volatile out of fixed, subtile out of gross, and gross out of subtile....Thus, perhaps, may all things be originated from Ether,"

Comment by David Reigle on March 26, 2011 at 9:44am

Thanks much, Capt. Anand, for pursuing this with Mr. Wood, and for letting us know his reply. We all want what he wants, direct experience over interpretations of old books. But let us see where following his advice takes us in Theosophy. We leave aside the old book, The Secret Doctrine, and go to the living lineage of students of HPB to explain Theosophy to us. Two of her direct students were Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater. They in turn had students, so that we have a living tradition of Theosophy today. We can get Theosophy from these living teachers. Is this what we want? A large number of Theosophists have rejected even Besant and Leadbeater, let alone their living students. So this idea sounds good, but in real life there are significant problems with it. Why has the tradition of the Upanishads split into Advaita, Bhedabheda, Vishishtadvaita, Dvaita, Suddhadvaita, etc., etc.? Who is giving us the true meaning of the Upanishads today? If each of the great teachers behind these various traditions of Vedanta has directly experienced the truth, why do they disagree with each other?

Comment by Christian von Lahr on March 26, 2011 at 9:29am

Most excellent reply by Mr. Ananda. I have struggled for some time to express this point of view which Ananda does so eloquently. His answer and philosophy is the living reason why. If theosophy,net's new Radio program can embody some of this approach they will succeed in their endeavors with a broad uninitiated audience where all else have failed, in my humble opinion.

Comment by Capt. Anand Kumar on March 26, 2011 at 9:14am

 

Following reply received from Mr. Ananda Wood as a rejoinder to what was posted here from his work, "Questioning Back In" regarding Katha Upanishad verse 6.2:

Thank you for the link to your discussion on the Katha Upanishad 6.2. Yes indeed, David Reigle's grammatical analysis of the Sanskrit original is quite correct, in that I have rather freely interpreted the original Sanskrit. But my purpose in making such an interpretation is to reflect back towards an essentially informal depth of meaning, which has to be found far beyond any formal analysis of grammar and words.

For me, this freedom of informal reflection is essential to the interpretation of philosophical texts, for both classical and vernacular traditions. Where the Indian tradition is considered in particular, I would point out that it makes relatively little use of institutional translations like those of the bible in European and Western traditions. Rather than translations carried out by externally organized institutions, the Indian tradition has been handed down more intensively through retellings (from the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, the Puranas and folk legends and stories and poems and songs).

Such retellings are not so much formal translations as informal recreations by inspired individuals: who have reflected back beneath the classical formality, into a common depth of individuality from where new works are informally recreated. It's thus that the Indian tradition still remains very much alive, with an extraordinary richness which has continued essentially unbroken through a long medieval period of individual transmission and retelling in many diverse forms.

I would say that this requires a very different view of history from what most of have taken rather uncritically and unquestioningly from the West.

On the one hand, the Western view emphasizes the written document as handed down in externally organized institutions: like the Roman Catholic church which handed down the Greek and Roman classics and the Christian bible in a much damaged and diminished form during the European middle ages.

But, on the other hand, the Indian view of history emphasizes the spoken word, as heard alive from an individual teacher. It's through this spoken and living tradition that the extraordinary riches of the Indian tradition have been handed down, largely decentralized, through a medieval bhakti period which lasted almost a thousand years from about 900 CE to 1850 CE (or, to use the older nomenclature, 900 AD to 1850 AD).

Our Indian medieval period is thus very much more recent and closer to us in India than the European medieval period to Westerners. And I would say that that the kind of attempt to prove a point by quoting from ancient texts (as some members of your discussion group tend to do) is a little misplaced. If I wanted to learn something or to prove a point in Newtonian physics, would it be at all sensible today to read Newton's Principia in Latin and to reason or argue from there?

Wouldn't it be much simpler and better to go to a living teacher of modern Newtonian physics and to learn from her or him in the currently spoken language with which one is most familiar?

For myself at least, I am very grateful that my teacher Shri Atmananda taught and spoke to me in my own native language of English. And while it can be sometimes useful to interpret some selected passages from other languages, I do much prefer to think and to reason and to enquire in ordinary English that is as plain and simple as I can manage to speak and read directly for myself.

Best wishes and thanks for your interest,

Ananda

Comment by Capt. Anand Kumar on March 26, 2011 at 2:53am

 

THE ABSOLUTE AS A STATE:

Not everyone may agree that describing the state of the Absolute will render it measuarble. For example, HPB in the proem of the Secret Doctrine mentions:

Since there can be neither two INFINITES nor two ABSOLUTES in a Universe supposed to be Boundless, this Self-Existence can hardly be conceived of as creating personally. In the sense and perceptions of finite "Beings," THAT is Non-"being," in the sense that it is the one BE-NESS;

 

Here BE-NESS may be the state of the Absolute.

Comment by Christian von Lahr on March 25, 2011 at 3:23am

Sensible.

 

Comment by Joe Fulton on March 18, 2011 at 2:59pm

As a further thought, and this is directed mostly towards Capt. Kumar, and that is, no matter where we take this we are going to run into fundamental differences between ancient traditions and modern methods.  As has been stated in this discussion before, the approaches are fundamentally different.  In that sense, the real reconciliation has to be made in understanding the basis of the wisdom which became the basis of ancient, oral traditions.

Comment by Christian von Lahr on March 25, 2011 at 3:21am

The Absolute as a "State?"  Wouldn't that render it measurable?  ... Therefore bounded?

 

ON THE ABSOLUTE

What is this ultimate state of the Absolute?

Comment by Christian von Lahr on March 25, 2011 at 3:19am

Again, speaking from a point of practicality re phenomena, a Mantra has the unique quality of keeping the mind BUSY.   If it is busy, it does not interfere with the underlying intended process, and [something] spiritual, psychic, inspirational can occur.  Some might argue also that a Mantra provides "focus."

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