Yoga remains largely independent of religionism

Re: Untold Potentialities: India and the Third World. by Richard Hartz (2)

by Debashish on Sat 11 Aug 2007 08:49 PM PDT Profile Permanent Link

YR Sane: concepy of "Rastra" consist[s] of souls born and reborn according to the cosmic plan carrying a specific “Jati and Chiti”.

DB: I do not see any evidence in Vamadeva or anywhere else in the Rig veda for this theory of fixed soul types returning life after life and associated with a single territory or culture. Nor do Sri Aurobindo's pronouncements on rebirth, official or unofficial, support this. Moreover, "jati" in the psychic sense is taken to mean "soul-type" as in swabhava and relates to the chaturvarna, but if this is being related to rashtra, that means there will be 4 nations in the world. Furthermore, unless one is claiming dristi or spiritual vijnana and is affirming these concepts from pratyaksha, they are bound to reamin sepculations. It is ture that our approach to yoga is also of this kind - a body of pronouncements for which we do not have the direct knowledge when we start, but that is backgrounded by two important differences from the concept mentioned:

(1) truths of yoga are repeatedly validated in the lives of those who practice the methods leading to direct knowledge; and

(2) truths of yoga are matters of individual realization, not of general conversion.

In fact, it is the latter which has allowed yoga to remain largely independent of religionism or the need for social orthodoxy.