Vedanta, Yoga And Buddhism

[Ananta]

@Shanmugam you seem to be on some sort of crusade, I for one am not. So, Vedanta is fine and dandy with me. It's time tested, it makes sense and furthermore, it works. What more could one want? I have no need to integrate teachings. 

What so one should learn both traditions? Yikes, that will take some time. Then piece meal them together? Ack, no thanks.

[Shanmugam]

@Anna1  You are not the only person in the world... I am talking about a totally different perspective.. I don't think that you see that.. If vedanta is working for you, thats fine.. My mission is actually different. 

This discussion is not something about me. In this post, there is nothing that indicates what i am going through ... My search for completion from a separate person is over. All the teachings have done their job for me.  What do you mean by 'you seem to be on some sort of crusade'? 

Edited July 2, 2017 by Shanmugam

[Shanmugam]

@Anna1

"What so one should learn both traditions? Yikes, that will take some time. Then piece meal them together? Ack, no thanks"

My whole question is 'Why different traditions'?..See, I am not saying what an individual should do or should not do.. If a tradition has been working good for you, thats fine.. I am just talking about the ways in which the whole teaching system can be improved. This is probably a discussion that I have to have with various spiritual teachers themselves.. 

 

Edited July 2, 2017 by Shanmugam

[Harikrishnan]

Adi shankara who narrated soundarya lahari and Adi shankara who said maya are different. I think both are different people. Indians credit there work with Guru's name. And i also believe first rebellion was not started by Budha but by First jain teacher.

Edited July 2, 2017 by Harikrishnan

[Mastral]

9 hours ago, Shanmugam said:

This is how I realized that science and spirituality can be integrated by combining psychology and core psychological basis of all major traditions in the world...Scientists can be enlightened and enlightened ones can be scientists. So, I think there should be no division between spirituality and science either.

Can you share the link to your article about Science and Enlightenment again? Thx!

[Shanmugam]

@Harikrishnan   may be... Scholars say that even Aporakshaanubhuti and few other works were written by somebody else but credited to Shankara.. A lot of his works were lost and we don't have a reliable biography of him. With Rishaba, the first Jain master, we don't have much information regarding his works. But if we look at the most notable people whose works are available, we say that Buddha and Shankara are very important. Anyway, no one can be 100% sure about history.

[Shanmugam]

@Mastral Yes, here is the link: https://nellaishanmugam.wordpress.com/2017/06/13/is-there-a-scientific-evidence-for-spiritual-enlightenment/

[Shanmugam]

My whole point of posting all this is to show how a teaching system can be integrated and taught to people. I learnt a lot from Osho. Osho's way was presenting the information he wanted to convey through all traditions. By studying different things in all traditions, I saw how a teaching model combining the advantages of all traditions can be created. After my awakening, I am also able to see things in different point of view. I also studied some psychology to see how we can get help from science.

Here is a rough model I have for a new, updated spiritual teaching:

1) Core principles of advaita, excluding many of the theories.Students should be taught how to clearly discriminate between real and not real. They should be very clear about this.

2) Buddhist mindfulness meditation - This is very effective. Anyone can do this. Once doesn't have to learn Buddhist tradition to learn mindfulness

3) Learning about various cognitive biases and defense mechanisms of ego.  By knowing this, you can learn to see how ego arises and functions in your own consciousness. But without going into complex psychology, a simpler version using layman terms can be created using the principles of psychology. This is not absolutely necessary but it helps.

4) Concentration meditation: Meditating by instructions of either Buddhist jhana meditations or yogic meditations. This is also not absolutely necessary, but it can help many seekers who have good concentration skills. Some people can easily concentrate at first, rather than doing mindfulness meditation. So, this is taught based on the type of the seeker.

This is very flexible and can be customized for each individual student. For example, I didn't have to do any Jhana or yogic meditations. I have tried them but didn't get into them too much, For some people, learning about psychology may not have any value, so they can safely ignore that. Only the first two are compulsory.

 

[Ananta]

9 hours ago, Shanmugam said:

What do you mean by 'you seem to be on some sort of crusade'? 

"A crusade is a long and determined attempt to achieve something for a cause that you feel strongly about." (Collins English Dictionary)

Such as saying this-

10 hours ago, Shanmugam said:

My mission is actually different. 

As in you're on a "mission" to do something. 

 

10 hours ago, Shanmugam said:

This discussion is not something about me.

Aren't you the one writing the posts, aren't you saying your opinions/thoughts here? Anyways, nothing wrong with that, but why deny it?

[Shanmugam]

@Anna1  Yes, I am saying my thoughts.. No denying. But I thought you said i was in some kind of confusion. I didn't know what the word crusade exactly meant.

I wouldn't say that it is really a mission, it is just a direction I want to go. Once you go through spiritual awakening and go beyond the level of seeing yourself as a separate entity, you would want to help others someway to get awakened. Some people become teachers but i don't want to become one. Instead I just blog and spread some word about how they can go forward with the path by pointing to different people, books and sharing my own thoughts about it which I clearly think through in the perspective of truth. I also try to see how science and spirituality can be bridged and make the whole teaching more effective. I suggest to learn principles of Advaita (only the core principles),  and mindfulness because this whole suggestion is based on what I went through, based on my own experience. My effort is to not achieve a goal or accomplish a goal, but I enjoy doing it, it is an end in itself.

This also involves not taking any one human being as the only authority. Not following anyone blindly and following your own light is very important. Taking one human being as authority is as stupid as taking one holy book as the sole authority. Because even awakened owns corrupt the teaching with their own views and opinions. The effect is not really much, but still this ends up in a lot of people blindly repeating what a master says. That is why I have written an article regarding how even awakened ones are biased and their actions can be influenced by ego.

This is not to say one shouldn't find a teacher. If he can't do it on his own, he should get a help of a teacher. But even if your teacher declares you enlightened, don't believe it and don't be in any hurry to declare it. You will know the truth for yourself and then you won't need any external confirmation. Your teacher can be wrong. Any teacher can be wrong, because they are still human beings. 

Here is a sutta from Pali canon that everyone should keep in mind:

"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.

Do not believe in traditions simply because they have been handed down for many generations. ... 

Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. 

But when, after observation and analysis, you find anything that agrees with reason, and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."

– Buddha, Kalama Sutta

 

 

[Loreena]

@Shanmugam @Prabhaker great posts both of you. 

[Ananta]

7 hours ago, Shanmugam said:

But I thought you said i was in some kind of confusion.

What I said was you had a "misunderstanding", regarding the comment about "Vedantins being mere intellectuals", but we've already discussed this.

 

7 hours ago, Shanmugam said:

Here is a rough model I have for a new, updated spiritual teaching

My take is that this mishmash of mixing different traditions is no different from what neo-advaita teachers do now. They just don't give the credit to the traditions they steal from.

Edited July 2, 2017 by Anna1

[Shanmugam]

@Anna1  It is not going to be a mindless mishmash.. What I am talking about is creating a teaching methodology based on a careful empirical approach. It is completely opposite of neo-advaita.

To understand what I am saying requires some deep knowledge of all major traditions and some psychological understanding of human mind. Unless it is there, there is no way someone can see what I am saying. 

I already made a clear point: Traditional vedanta ignores most of the concentration practices and traditional yoga ignores most of the insight practices but Buddhism embraces both. The heart of Buddhism is about Vipassana (insight) and Shamatha (concentration)... There is not much Shamatha in Vedanta and there is not much Vippassana in yoga. But these two were the central ideas of ancient teachings. This is not to show Buddhism in a better light or Vedanta or yoga in an inferior light. I have no interest in arguing which tradition is better. I am saying there is no need for separate traditions anymore, in this century. 

You can give credit to a person. It doesn't really make sense to give credit to something called Vedanta or yoga, as if Vedanta or yoga is going to sit in a corner and cry for not getting any credit. What is called as traditional Vedanta goes back to Shankara and his interpretation of Upanishads and Brahmasutras. Why create an imaginary concept called 'Vedanta' instead of seeing it as shankara's wisdom? Why create a school based on a single person's perspective and place him as one sole authority? This applies to any tradition or school. They have become another kind of vehicles for identification and clinging.

If you look at science, you will see there is no Albert Einstein school or there is no Charles Darwin school. There is one universal system called science. I don't see any reason why the whole spirituality can be in a scientific domain. I don't see any reason why the coming decades will not see enlightened scientists who will work on spirituality by taking an empirical approach.My whole post is a vision for the future.

Being enlightened or awakened is one thing; creating a teaching system according to what works for people is another thing. When we think about the past, none of the great masters in the past had access to the world as we have today. Now we can discuss things over the internet while being thousands of miles away from each other. We really have access to different kind of people with different background, enough access to experiment what works for people and what doesn't. We also have one established way of testing things called 'scientific method', an approach that tests if any hypothesis is true by following a very systematic way.

Also, I don't see any reason why there should be a  separate school called zen and another school called vedanta, when both are essentially teaching the same thing. It is just that one tradition has some methods and techniques which other tradition doesn't have. Combine the essential teaching and different methods of each tradition, apply both experiential knowledge of one's awakening and psychological knowledge that is already available in a systematic way, and we will have a universal way of teaching people.

We can see Bhagwad Gita as Bhagwad Gita, not a text of Vedanta. We can see Shankara's teachings as Shankara's teachings, not as an authority of something called Traditional vedanta. We can see patanjali yoga sutras as a book, not as an authority of so called yoga... Break the boundaries of Yoga, Vedanta etc and see them for what they are... Then there will be no need for any defending, there will be no need for identifying oneself with a particular tradition and miss out all the extraordinary wisdom that other traditions have to offer.

See what I am trying to say as a whole, instead of paying attention to the individual statements. Try top down processing instead of just using bottom up processing.

Edited July 3, 2017 by Shanmugam