dwai

There is no source that defines what ananda means in English, because ananda is an untranslatable word. It is varyingly translated into English as “happiness, joy, bliss” etc. In the vedantic tradition, another term used in place of ananda is purnam (completeness or fullness). We can go by that to understand what is implied - what does one feel when there is “completeness” in their life? Is it bliss? Joy? I think contentment is more apropos.

I think this is another misunderstanding - in the dharmic context, “bliss” means cessation of craving/aversion towards pain and pleasure.

yes I’m aware of the Buddhist use of the terminology, it can lead to confusion. There is, especially in translation, a conflation of mind and consciousness which is not very productive for proper inquiry imho. The system I find to be most clear is the vedantic one, which clearly identifies the antahkarana — comprising of manas, chitta, ahamkara, and buddhi (thought field, storehouse of impressions and memories, ego, and intellect, respectively), lit up by chit (or chaitanya) - consciousness. A lot of English translation issues can be resolved by following this definition. That is even more exacerbated by improper translations. There are a lot of untranslatable native words which are roughly translated into English words, consequently causing confusion. I think that can be quite a case of “cart before the horse” for many people (especially modern people). The process of sitting down and witnessing can be quite arduous without the aid of posture and breath. But it is certainly true that the breath work should be an intermediate practice at best. Beyond a certain point of purification of the mind, it becomes unnecessary in my experience, especially in the Self-inquiry type of practices. I’ve found that many of these texts use “death” to refer to loss of discrimination between consciousness and the mind-stuff/samsara. For example, in the katha Upanishad the Yama says to little nachiketa, “those who fail to recognize that all this (samsara) is Brahman alone, will travel from death to death. Immortality is not typically a physical immortality, but the recognition of the non-duality of the “self” and “world” with Brahman.

Do you have to control your epiglottis to regulate inhale/exhale duration?

What I have learned about “breath control” is of yogic nature. Breathwork has a huge role to play in preparing the mind for meditation. The breath, prana/qi and mind are interlinked. Breath control is done to regulate prana/qi, and prana/qi regulation in turn regulates the mind (and vice versa). To understand this, one needs to understand the concept of the Gunas in the yogic paradigm. Inertia (tamas), kinetic activity (rajas), and spiritual clarity/tranquility (satva). Natural breath cessation is an outcome of specific breathing techniques, and consequently the mind is settled/stilled. This is important for people who have high level of rajas. Such people need to focus on pranayama to produce clarity. For people who have high degree of tamas, they need to follow asanas to convert the inertia to kinetic energy (rajas), and then they can transform it to spiritual clarity (satva) via breath work. There is a few thousand years of empirical evidence about this.

There is a basic mistranslation from Sanskrit to English which leads to this misunderstanding. “Mind” is not the same as consciousness in Sanskrit. Mind is manas - the field of thoughts. So when a yogic/vedantic text refers to “mind stopping”, it means thoughts cease to rise and fall, or the manas pauses. Consciousness of course doesn’t cease, and in Sanskrit it’s called “chit” or “Samvit” or “chaitanya”.

The mod team is looking at how we can solve this issue. There is already work underway toward this. I think you had communication from @ilumairen on your very specific thread on the same topic. It doesn’t help to act out on the mod team like @senseless virtue just did on this thread.

then it seems you need to grow up a bit The variance is because of the same benefit of doubt until people repeatedly abuse the guidelines of respecting each other Now you are swinging back towards disrespectful behavior.

This forum is different. We are stubborn that way - we work our way through the actual human condition to get to a place of equilibrium. And then more human condition joins, and they either learn to respect the other bums and grow up, or they leave (some are given timeouts, others shown the door). Good recovery. See, progress already.

Iirc there was a member @Lucky7Strikes who had become a Sadhguru student and has very positive and uplifting results as a result thereof.

Wow, nice! Please convey my regards to your teacher. 🙏🏾🙇🏻 I find the facts about his “estate” really questionable. Where are these numbers coming from? Also he doesn’t have a fleet of cars or mansions - he does have a couple of high end motorbikes and he does most of his traveling riding motorbikes. His foundation has large properties in coimbatore india and in McMinnville Tennessee. But it is a non-profit org. From what I gather, he spends most of his time either traveling the world to raise awareness on social or ecological issues, or in his ashram teaching. I don’t have a problem that his foundation has lot of money - for the kind of work they do, they need money and infrastructural support. BTW he is from my hometown, and we’ve seen him when we were kids, thought I’ve never interacted with him personally (we lived in adjacent neighborhoods) — and he was just another dude. My friend’s family and his were very close and my friend referred to him as “jaggi uncle”, a bit eccentric but a good guy. My wife took a course in person with him and it has had a very powerful effect on her. My sister-in-law is also a disciple and is co-writing a book with him. Look, he is a celebrity, and with that comes the usual share of negative press and speculation. I’ve heard some absolutely cockamamie stories about his supposed “villainy” that are so ludicrous that no one in their right mind would believe them. FWIW, I didn’t think for a moment that you are capable of xenophobia or racism. What I find most cringeworthy about him (and most other public spiritual teachers) is the over-zealous adulation his followers exhibit and their cult-like mentality. I avoid such teachers, but they do play a huge role in bringing people to the spiritual path. I don’t think such things are necessarily new - I’m sure many of the famous teachers of the older past had similar following as well as detractors.

Is he gimmicky at times? sure. But he’s usually talking to people with tremendously short attention spans, who need such gimmicks to be drawn into the wisdom path. I’m not defending him but I’ve got enough reliable testimonies on his caliber - it is pretty high. FWIW there’s plenty he says that I disagree with, and at one point he used to irritate the heck out of me as well 😜

It depends on whether you want to cultivate yang, yin or balance yin-yang. Far back as possible is the yang position. Behind the front-teeth is the neutral/balanced position. Suspended in the space of our mouth is the yin position.

There is a long and sordid history of expansion. India is the last bastion of “pagans” and there are many concerted efforts to convert, such as the Joshua project, etc.

Who was there to corroborate this so-called proof of “independent existence of objective reality”? The game is rigged, so to speak - the house (consciousness) always wins. Even when it seems it loses

But seriously, is reality really real? https://www.livescience.com/38234-is-reality-real-or-not.html

When we start to question the Reality of reality, we are really having fun 😂

Samkhya is indeed the foundation for indic cosmology. It proposes two primordial "realities" - Consciousness (Purusha) and Nature (Prakriti). But Samkhya was also very effectively & publicly countered by the Buddha/Buddhists and the Advaita Vedantins, not to mention the Kashmiri Shaivites. Some claim that Yoga is the practical aspect of Samkhya, but Yoga also leads to nirvikalpa samadhi, which is the penultimate condition in Nondual traditions. So Nonduality doesn't really "reject" Samkhya, but rather resolves the essential dichotomy of the duality between Purusha and Prakriti. One doesn't need to do anything but understand their own everyday experiences to realize why Samkhya is incomplete/flawed. That being said, FWIW, modern philosophers are gravitating towards the Samkhya model in the form of panpsychism. They'll eventually get around to understanding the nondual view.

There are three forms of valid knowledge. Direct experience - which is what you're referring to. Indirect knowledge via intuition (such as intuiting there is a fire by seeing smoke in the air), and testimony of a reliable witness (such as books, experts etc). There can be no object without a subject (irrespective of whether there is direct knowledge or indirect knowledge).

Yes, that is it! Some people claim that it is emotional avoidance/dissociation, but I found that it is not so. Emotions still arise, but they seldom have the power to completely cloud the mind. I will narrate a very personal anecdote. When I was 20 years old, my father passed away in the most unexpected way after being hospitalized for 7 days. In the Hindu tradition, the body of the deceased is brought home and the immediate family sits around it in mourning while physically staying in contact with the body. Friends, and neighbors, stop by to pay their respects, to console the bereaved (if not for anything else but to show that they are there). As his body lay on the floor, the tears started flowing, and I was bawling like a little child. And strangely enough, something happened - a part of me separated from this scene, and was observing the happenings, completely unaffected by those that were crying all around, myself included. I literally saw myself bawling there on the floor, my palms resting on my father's legs. The difference was so vivid and stark, that the memory is still fresh like it were yesterday, as I think about it. I think that was what set me down the spiritual path (or at least was partially responsible for it). Over time, I lost many loved ones, but that "unaffected" awareness seemed to always emerge. Over time, as my practice matured, the split became permanent. There is beautiful verse in the Mundaka Upanishad that gives the analogy of two birds on a tree. I'm sharing a wonderful poem inspired by that by a Swami of the Ramakrishna Order -- https://vedantaprov.org/two-birds-on-the-tree/

Moderator Note: This is the last attempt to prevent further COVID discussions. I will lock this thread down if the trend continues.

Moderator Note: If COVID is to be discussed, please request access to the Current Events sub-forum and post there. @ralis special note for you - these are discussions, it's best not to turn them into confrontations.

Happy solstice. And I do proclaim that this day will be henceforth celebrated as Happy Nungali Day.

A very modern perspective, very insightful -- https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/anger-in-the-age-entitlement/201104/pain-and-suffering

In my experience, suffering is a chronic resistance to what is. Usually accompanied with thoughts such as - "Why is this happening to ME?" "What did I do to deserve this?" "Why is it not happening to x, y or z who is so much worse than I am?" "I don't want this thing/circumstance/feeling" and so on... or "Why can't I have this thing/this person forever?" "Why can't this feeling last forever?" "I want more of that" and so on... Yup - quite apropos, because by ignoring pain one is resisting what is.