The three bondages (vasanas)

[dwai]

I’m translating the Sanskrit word “Vasana” as bondage. Literally it means “Tendency” or even “addiction”. What are these?

 

• Deha Vasana - Bondage of the body. This is tied to the misidentification with the body. The body and the gross senses rule supreme and everything is done to ensure a regular “fix”. This is easy to understand and easiest to let go of. For example, addiction to pleasure producing things and activities (such as sex, food, etc etc).
• Loka Vasana - bondage of the world. This has to do with identities and labels and the value ascribed to them. If one attaches  to the label of “upper middle class” human being. One will do anything to at least maintain that “stature”, no matter how much trouble they would have to endure, how many heads they would have to trample in order to do so. It has to do with our perceived place in this world and what we do to uphold those imaginary identities. This is a harder (and more subtle) addiction to get rid of.
• Shastra Vasana - bondage of scripture. This is when one is so enamored by scriptures and the intellectual prowess one requires to maintain “mastery” over the scriptures that they fail to see the truth behind the words (addicted to the messenger rather than the message). This is a very subtle addiction and the hardest to get rid of. One who succumbed to this will seldom realize it. They will be full of themselves and their “knowledge”. 

 

 

Edited January 8, 2018 by dwai
Typo fix

[Spotless]

In translating this did you add the beliefs regarding what is easiest and what is harder and what is hardest to get rid of?

Or was this from the original translation in Sanskrit?

 

Also - Is the Shastra Vasana translated as both enamored by scriptures AND intellectual prowess or was this your addition?

[dwai]

18 minutes ago, Spotless said:

In translating this did you add the beliefs regarding what is easiest and what is harder and what is hardest to get rid of?

Or was this from the original translation in Sanskrit?

This is the traditional view as far as I know 

18 minutes ago, Spotless said:

 

Also - Is the Shastra Vasana translated as both enamored by scriptures AND intellectual prowess or was this your addition?

It is meant to address a section of seekers who deal with scriptures, can quote stuff on demand, have very good intellectual understanding. But that is not the “Reality”. 

[Spotless]

17 minutes ago, dwai said:

This is the traditional view as far as I know 

It is meant to address a section of seekers who deal with scriptures, can quote stuff on demand, have very good intellectual understanding. But that is not the “Reality”. 

I brought up the questions because different bodies have very different proclivities - DNA and other factors create strong addiction to a general center and a supporting center. Some Emotional, Some Instinctive, some Movement, some communication, some mind, some intellectual. 

 

Quite a few who have little problem quoting scripture do not heavily invest in their summation of a quote but might simply find the emotional appeal incredible. While some might find the emotional appeal pitiable and the intellectual content childish.

 

Some people cannot give up trance addiction, it can be all about trance, food and relationships while some people are like bricks that could use some trance - some letting go.

 

DNA can have us hating another race while for no reason we are aware of. 

 

So few have much in the way of intellectual prowess that it is simply rare for one who does to have too much invested in their understanding - though in this regard i will not argue - so many that have moderate intellectual prowess believe they hold the reins to a far wider view than they do.

 

Thank you for the translations

[Spotless]

I dont mean in any way to derail this thread - i find translation very interesting, difficult and an art.

 

I thought the choice of Bondage was probably not what I would want to use. An addiction is a bit like bondage but in many ways it is more like an addiction. A bit like a Chinese finger puzzle - a proclivity to make it go a certain way.

 

one is not actually bound yet they are in the illusion of position and inertia.

 

in the end the pounding of the square peg into the round hole is not seen as bondage - it is constant willful disregard for Presence, Self and selflessness. 

 

 

[dwai]

10 hours ago, Spotless said:

I brought up the questions because different bodies have very different proclivities - DNA and other factors create strong addiction to a general center and a supporting center. Some Emotional, Some Instinctive, some Movement, some communication, some mind, some intellectual. 

I"m not sure what role DNA has to play with dropping attachment to bodily identification.

10 hours ago, Spotless said:

 

Quite a few who have little problem quoting scripture do not heavily invest in their summation of a quote but might simply find the emotional appeal incredible. While some might find the emotional appeal pitiable and the intellectual content childish.

It is a "serious problem" with scholarly types. 

10 hours ago, Spotless said:

 

Some people cannot give up trance addiction, it can be all about trance, food and relationships while some people are like bricks that could use some trance - some letting go.

 

DNA can have us hating another race while for no reason we are aware of. 

Never experienced it so don't know. Hatred towards a race, AFAIK is a learnt, nurtured thing and not due to nature. 

10 hours ago, Spotless said:

 

So few have much in the way of intellectual prowess that it is simply rare for one who does to have too much invested in their understanding - though in this regard i will not argue - so many that have moderate intellectual prowess believe they hold the reins to a far wider view than they do.

That is usually the case. There are many who rely purely on the words of the scripture and consider them final authority without verifying experientially (Direct Apperception). We can see that here on Daobums as well...page after page of obsessive quotes from this or that authoritative texts. 

10 hours ago, Spotless said:

 

Thank you for the translations

My pleasure  

[Spotless]

2 hours ago, dwai said:

I"m not sure what role DNA has to play with dropping attachment to bodily identification.

It is a "serious problem" with scholarly types. 

Never experienced it so don't know. Hatred towards a race, AFAIK is a learnt, nurtured thing and not due to nature. 

That is usually the case. There are many who rely purely on the words of the scripture and consider them final authority without verifying experientially (Direct Apperception). We can see that here on Daobums as well...page after page of obsessive quotes from this or that authoritative texts. 

My pleasure  

I think much of what was presented was done with some assumption and done with the idea of Monk's in mind.

 

Take the monk element out of it and the seeker does not find the removal of basic desires nearly so easy - and it is an assumption that it is easy yet it is partly because of so much obliviousness to our animal inheritance. 

 

We think racism is a learned bias yet nearly every species of animal has deep deep instinctive reactions across a broad range of other life forms. 

 

I assumed that we learned them - i was so certain in my assumption that it did not feel like a position but self evident. 

And much of it is learned - but then one day my clairaudience opened up for me to hear and not just sense and react with.

I had very definite reactions to the sounds of the different races - I was shocked at my reactions. I could hear male and female energy and many other life form energies - and across the board my reaction was actually very different than my learned cultural responses. 

 

If you look at the bird experiment in Berkeley over a period of years it becomes obvious that the facial recognition of enemies of a regional bird group pass on through inheritance the dislike of previous generations enemies - not taught behavior but inherited.

 

We assume that seekers can move beyond the body issues yet for a seeker to change diet or find the time to meditate and sleep less are among the most major obstacles. 

 

In fact the greater part of the illusion is supported by the instinctive drives and very simple incorrect thinking - the level is at the very bottom of mankind. Why are we continually in futures and pasts? Is it because of high intellectual pursuit? Because of our great love of someone or some thing? 

 

It is typically about territory - about finite stuff and the sense that if I don't get it some one else will and there won't be any for me. Its about living a thousand possible scenarios in a day but not living the NOW. Its about living with a story that does not exist and holding back our every move in fear of doing it all over again. Or walking over the faces of others because they move simply too slowly for our willfulness and Important life.

 

When we read the works of someone we may love what they say and find great resonance. 

 

Often when we see a person recite his own words - the words we loved when first we read them - we cannot get past the looks of the person - whole parts of our DNA and other parts of us come in to play. 

 

We think this is fantasy - that only learned responses come into play - but look at simple studies with babies:

Across all nations babies respond favorably to certain facial types - much more favorably that many other facial types. 

It is not an ethnic thing nor a learned thing - it is deep DNA.

 

Consider the many "successful" monks/seekers that have Awakened and to whom many have been given the moniker of Enlightened: so many of them have fallen for bodily desires and wrecked havoc upon women and men under their teaching.

So many of them have fallen to basic and often childish behavior.

 

-

There are scholars and their are fundamentalists - not always so easy to understand just what that means but isolated thinking is fundamentalist thinking - the traditional Fundamentalist is no different from the Athiest but tell that to either and an argument will never bring agreement to it. Most scholars are not exercising intellectual prowess but rather a plethera of research and apple polishing and predetermined thinking. I am nearly surrounded by Academics from Harvard - the pedigree does not change the integration of dogma and tradition.

 

The trappings are not from the nice sounding "intellectual prowess" - which is i consider a bad misleading choice of words - it is from intense research and self indoctrination of predetermined thinking that it is hard to transcend. Positioned thinking, safe thinking - what is assumed as correct thinking. 

 

I am not really trying to hard to disagree with the general notion of the scholar/believer/seekers stuckness with regard to their vast research base - it is simply that real intellectual prowess is relatively rare - the ability to remember and recall and quote has nothing to do with intellectual prowess  but simply memory retention.

 

 

[dwai]

46 minutes ago, Spotless said:

I think much of what was presented was done with some assumption and done with the idea of Monk's in mind.

 

Take the monk element out of it and the seeker does not find the removal of basic desires nearly so easy - and it is an assumption that it is easy yet it is partly because of so much obliviousness to our animal inheritance. 

It is generic and not meant for monks alone. What is the difference between a householder and a monk? Renunciation? 

True renunciation is in dropping attachment, not living in a monastery. 

46 minutes ago, Spotless said:

 

We think racism is a learned bias yet nearly every species of animal has deep deep instinctive reactions across a broad range of other life forms. 

What you call Racism is just genetic memory that is present in other creatures. Humans are somehow more immune to them and the distinction of "race" is a mythical concept. There is no inherent significant difference between a caucasian or an african or an east asian or a south asian. Genetic studies show that too. Therefore, racism, as in bigotry is a social trait that is acquired (sometimes over generations of bigoted concepts). They are mental concepts only. 

46 minutes ago, Spotless said:

 

I assumed that we learned them - i was so certain in my assumption that it did not feel like a position but self evident. 

And much of it is learned - but then one day my clairaudience opened up for me to hear and not just sense and react with.

I had very definite reactions to the sounds of the different races - I was shocked at my reactions. I could hear male and female energy and many other life form energies - and across the board my reaction was actually very different than my learned cultural responses. 

Interesting. Are you sure your mind is not interpreting these "reactions" based on the sounds you heard by picking "this is good, that is bad"?

 

46 minutes ago, Spotless said:

 

If you look at the bird experiment in Berkeley over a period of years it becomes obvious that the facial recognition of enemies of a regional bird group pass on through inheritance the dislike of previous generations enemies - not taught behavior but inherited.

That is genetic memory and humans seem to be exempt from it. 

46 minutes ago, Spotless said:

 

We assume that seekers can move beyond the body issues yet for a seeker to change diet or find the time to meditate and sleep less are among the most major obstacles. 

 

In fact the greater part of the illusion is supported by the instinctive drives and very simple incorrect thinking - the level is at the very bottom of mankind. Why are we continually in futures and pasts? Is it because of high intellectual pursuit? Because of our great love of someone or some thing? 

 

It is typically about territory - about finite stuff and the sense that if I don't get it some one else will and there won't be any for me. Its about living a thousand possible scenarios in a day but not living the NOW. Its about living with a story that does not exist and holding back our every move in fear of doing it all over again. Or walking over the faces of others because they move simply too slowly for our willfulness and Important life.

That is what Loka Vasana entails. Identities and what we do to protect them (including but not limited to projecting from past into the future). 

46 minutes ago, Spotless said:

 

When we read the works of someone we may love what they say and find great resonance. 

 

Often when we see a person recite his own words - the words we loved when first we read them - we cannot get past the looks of the person - whole parts of our DNA and other parts of us come in to play. 

 

We think this is fantasy - that only learned responses come into play - but look at simple studies with babies:

Across all nations babies respond favorably to certain facial types - much more favorably that many other facial types. 

It is not an ethnic thing nor a learned thing - it is deep DNA.

That is interesting. Would you be able to share some sources that support this theory?

46 minutes ago, Spotless said:

 

Consider the many "successful" monks/seekers that have Awakened and to whom many have been given the moniker of Enlightened: so many of them have fallen for bodily desires and wrecked havoc upon women and men under their teaching.

So many of them have fallen to basic and often childish behavior.

Agreed that people do slip up from time to time. But then again there are many who don't. We only see those who are involved in public scandals. 

46 minutes ago, Spotless said:

 

-

There are scholars and their are fundamentalists - not always so easy to understand just what that means but isolated thinking is fundamentalist thinking - the traditional Fundamentalist is no different from the Athiest but tell that to either and an argument will never bring agreement to it. Most scholars are not exercising intellectual prowess but rather a plethera of research and apple polishing and predetermined thinking. I am nearly surrounded by Academics from Harvard - the pedigree does not change the integration of dogma and tradition.

 

The trappings are not from the nice sounding "intellectual prowess" - which is i consider a bad misleading choice of words - it is from intense research and self indoctrination of predetermined thinking that it is hard to transcend. Positioned thinking, safe thinking - what is assumed as correct thinking. 

This is based on what has been observed. The Ashtavakra Gita says very succinctly (quoting the Upanishads). One who is ignorant (without Jnana) of one's true nature is doomed to suffer in this world of appearances. One who has knowledge (jnana) is in an even more precarious position. It is related to the old point about needing a raft only as long as one has to cross the river. After crossing the river, one has to let go of the raft. Many people are unable to do so, and therefore struggle with "Buddhism vs Hindusim vs Daoism vs etc etc"...

46 minutes ago, Spotless said:

 

I am not really trying to hard to disagree with the general notion of the scholar/believer/seekers stuckness with regard to their vast research base - it is simply that real intellectual prowess is relatively rare - the ability to remember and recall and quote has nothing to do with intellectual prowess  but simply memory retention.

 

 

Intellectual ability is hugely aided by memory. All knowledge (not direct apperception) is essentially from the past. Memories. To apply any knowledge involves storage and retrieval of said memory.

[3bob]

"This is based on what has been observed. The Ashtavakra Gita says very succinctly (quoting the Upanishads). One who is ignorant (without Jnana) of one's true nature is doomed to suffer in this world of appearances. One who has knowledge (jnana) is in an even more precarious position. It is related to the old point about needing a raft only as long as one has to cross the river. After crossing the river, one has to let go of the raft. Many people are unable to do so, and therefore struggle with "Buddhism vs Hindusim vs Daoism vs etc etc"."  Dwai

 

Hello Dwai,  I don't agree with parts of  the paragraph above...  For instance we could ask who or what is doomed or in a precarious position?  - which the Self never was, is or ever will be in - thus in having unbreakable knowledge or (jnana/being) of Self >doubt and death are broken once and for all!  Also True Gurus cross the river but many come back so to speak and pick-up the dharma raft they once used for reuse with students...and along that line many would agree there are pitfalls in mixing parts of one raft with another or with another, etc.,  which is different than vs another or another....  

Edited January 9, 2018 by 3bob

[dwai]

27 minutes ago, 3bob said:

Hello Dwai,  I don't agree with parts of  the paragraph above...  For instance we could ask who or what is doomed or in a precarious position?  - which the Self never was, is or ever will be in - thus in having unbreakable knowledge or (jnana/being) of Self >doubt and death are broken once and for all!  Also True Gurus cross the river but many come back so to speak and pick-up the dharma raft they once used for reuse with students...and along that line many would agree there are pitfalls in mixing parts of one raft with another or with another, etc.,  which is different than vs another or another....  

The one who needs to ask this question needs to know that while avidya (absence of jnana) is bad, attachment to jnana is worse.

Edited January 9, 2018 by dwai
typo fix

[Spotless]

3 hours ago, dwai said:

It is generic and not meant for monks alone. What is the difference between a householder and a monk? Renunciation? 

True renunciation is in dropping attachment, not living in a monastery. 

What you call Racism is just genetic memory that is present in other creatures. Humans are somehow more immune to them and the distinction of "race" is a mythical concept. There is no inherent significant difference between a caucasian or an african or an east asian or a south asian. Genetic studies show that too. Therefore, racism, as in bigotry is a social trait that is acquired (sometimes over generations of bigoted concepts). They are mental concepts only. 

Interesting. Are you sure your mind is not interpreting these "reactions" based on the sounds you heard by picking "this is good, that is bad"?

 

That is genetic memory and humans seem to be exempt from it. 

That is what Loka Vasana entails. Identities and what we do to protect them (including but not limited to projecting from past into the future). 

That is interesting. Would you be able to share some sources that support this theory?

Agreed that people do slip up from time to time. But then again there are many who don't. We only see those who are involved in public scandals. 

This is based on what has been observed. The Ashtavakra Gita says very succinctly (quoting the Upanishads). One who is ignorant (without Jnana) of one's true nature is doomed to suffer in this world of appearances. One who has knowledge (jnana) is in an even more precarious position. It is related to the old point about needing a raft only as long as one has to cross the river. After crossing the river, one has to let go of the raft. Many people are unable to do so, and therefore struggle with "Buddhism vs Hindusim vs Daoism vs etc etc"...

Intellectual ability is hugely aided by memory. All knowledge (not direct apperception) is essentially from the past. Memories. To apply any knowledge involves storage and retrieval of said memory.

Alas - we live in different worlds🙏🏻

[3bob]

2 hours ago, dwai said:

The one who needs to ask this question needs to know that while avidya (absence of jnana) is bad, attachment to jnana is worse.

 

umm, in the paragraph I quoted the term jnana was first used to mean knowledge of "one's true nature" or the Self, thus not just theoretically/intellectually based type knowledge or jnana; thus as the term was first used nothing bad can come of such knowledge.. I get your point though which is also made in the Isa upanishad, I'm just trying to clairify what sounds like two different usages of the term in said paragraph. 

[dwai]

55 minutes ago, 3bob said:

 

umm, in the paragraph I quoted the term jnana was first used to mean knowledge of "one's true nature" or the Self, thus not just theoretically/intellectually based type knowledge or jnana; thus as the term was first used nothing bad can come of such knowledge.. I get your point though which is also made in the Isa upanishad, I'm just trying to clairify what sounds like two different usages of the term in said paragraph. 

I was just trying to point out for Atman there is no avidya, so Atman would never ask “who needs jnana?”. All asking and seeking and learning is purely from point of view of the limited identity/personality

 

and yes you are right about jnana being used as that which dispels ignorance but also that which causes bondage. I think it’s a paradoxical statement that elicits a deeper inspection. 

[3bob]

Note: a partial quote from and some commentary on the Isa upanishad by Swami Paramananda:

 

"9. They enter into blind darkness who worship Avidya (ignorance and delusion); they fall, as it were, into greater darkness who worship Vidya (knowledge).

10. By Vidya one end is attained; by Avidya, another. Thus we have heard from the wise men who taught this.

11. He who knows at the same time both Vidya and Avidya, crosses over death by Avidya and attains immortality through Vidya.

Those who follow or "worship" the path of selfishness and pleasure (Avidya), without knowing anything higher, necessarily fall into darkness; but those who worship or cherish Vidya (knowledge) for mere intellectual pride and satisfaction, fall into greater darkness, because the opportunity which they misuse is greater.

In the subsequent verses Vidya and Avidya are used in something the same sense as "faith" and "works" in the Christian Bible; neither alone can lead to the ultimate goal, but when taken together they carry one to the Highest. Work done with unselfish motive purifies the mind and enables man to perceive his undying nature. From this he gains inevitably a knowledge of God, because the Soul and God are one and inseparable; and when he knows himself to be one with the Supreme and Indestructible Whole, he realizes his immortality.

12. They fall into blind darkness who worship the Unmanifested and they fall into greater darkness who worship the manifested.

13. By the worship of the Unmanifested one end is attained; by the worship of the manifested, another. Thus we have heard from the wise men who taught us this.

14. He who knows at the same time both the Unmanifested (the cause of manifestation) and the destructible or manifested, he crosses over death through knowledge of the destructible and attains immortality through knowledge of the First Cause (Unmanifested).

This particular Upanishad deals chiefly with the Invisible Cause and the visible manifestation, and the whole trend of its teaching is to show that they are one and the same, one being the outcome of the other hence no perfect knowledge is possible without simultaneous comprehension of both. The wise men declare that he who worships in a one-sided way, whether the visible or the invisible, does not reach the highest goal. Only he who has a co-ordinated understanding of both the visible and the invisible, of matter and spirit, of activity and that which is behind activity, conquers Nature and thus overcomes death. By work, by making the mind steady and by following the prescribed rules given in the Scriptures, a man gains wisdom. By the light of that wisdom he is able to perceive the Invisible Cause in all visible forms. Therefore the wise man sees Him in every manifested form. They who have a true conception of God are never separated from Him. They exist in Him and He in them."