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etzchaim
Registered User
(12/8/03 8:21 am)
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Re: Etzchaim's remarks; trust; "higher powers"
I was afraid that question would come up. I can't give you details, but it was pretty basic Tantra Puja with Mantra and Yantra. They tell you to do 1000's of repetitions, but it didn't take that long, and the second one took even less time than the first because I was concentrating my energy so strongly out of dire necessity. With enough ambition and a good technique, you can move mountains, but it really doesn't make you holy.

My take on power is that if you want it and you have the techniques and the will power, it's fairly easy to come up with. It's smarter to look for wisdom...

Edited by: etzchaim at: 12/8/03 8:30 am
prssmd
Registered User
(12/9/03 10:43 pm)
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Re: Etzchaim's remarks; trust; "higher powers"
Kriyananda is not the only expert who supports the notion that enlightened yogis necessarily attain higher powers. This view is quite standard in yoga. For example, Georg Feuerstein, on his outstanding website on yoga, www.yrec.org, writes "Yoga practice also brings power to the practitioner."

He goes on to say that "there are teachers who are not fully enlightened and they might misuse that power. Power in the wrong hands might accentuate differences and cause conflict, not only within a person but also between people and the view points for which they stand."

etzchaim
Registered User
(12/11/03 5:20 am)
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Re: Etzchaim's remarks; trust; "higher powers"
Yup.

Not sure if you're trying to prove that Yogis do get siddhis, but yeah, that's right. Try not to focus on it, 'it's just the normal noises in here'. The second statement by Feuerstein is quite accurate.

prssmd
Registered User
(12/19/03 6:04 pm)
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Re: Etzchaim's remarks; trust; "higher powers"
You couldn't really "prove" such a thing--it is a conceptual issue. What does your concept of "yoga" include?

I suppose if enough experts considered the attainment of siddhis to be a necessary condition of "enlightenment," i.e., as part of the concept, then we could conclude that anyone who denies that the attainment of siddhis is a necessary condition of "enlightenment" doesn't understand what "enlightenment" means. But just what percentage of experts would have to take this view? 75%? 90%? 99%? Can't say.

Actually, there is an interesting issue about what "meditation" is. Right now I am attending meditations at SUMARAH centers in Jogyakarta, Indonesia. At least, in the West we would call what they do there "meditation." But THEY don't call it that. In fact, they insist that what they do is NOT meditation because they say that in meditation you concentrate on something while in SUMARAH you don't. (Maybe that's why a lot of people at Sumarah sessions fall asleep--without a focus one often drifts off to sleep.) In fact, they are VEHEMENT in their denial that they do meditation. I simply can't figure it out.

There are numerous semi-secret practices here in Indonesia. Another is Subud, which started here and now exists world-wide. Subud is the only practice of Indonesian origin that I know of that now exists in an organized fashion world-wide. The groups I know of have some connection to Islam (or at least to the name "Allah") but do not require that one be a Moslem to join. Apart from its website, Subud goes out of its way to stay out of the public eye. I can't explain why they do that.


Edited by: prssmd at: 12/21/03 7:18 pm
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