Hmm now he may have a point when he says I enjoy irritating peeps. But all the same I have no idea what has got young Mistress Mitchell into such a state. The main thing I took away from her email, perhaps, was her retort. We are not your adversaries. Sri Aurobindo picks up formal logic and runs with the ball. Unlike most Indian mystics who do something surreal with it. The standard problem with the law of Contradiction is that its mere tautology. If you try to use the law to say anything you can't. So in the statement if it A is true then Not A is false doesn't work if you try to make it mean if A is Black then not A is White because it might be green. Hence MM wasn't suggesting she wants to be my friend. What was interesting in ploughing through Aurobindo and then reference works on Aurobindo is a quote that, God is not a sceptic Logician intent on denying the validity of all other propositions, he is pure being life giving and generous and is not diminished by the existence of contingent or finite beings rather it is his nature to create and pass on Being. Something like that. I think he may be on to something.
This evening I may meet Fr Jose after evening prayer. If John the Just is insightful and he just may be the best outcome is for him to suggest that he will work on getting me further along the path of seeking a Syriac Grammar and do all things that stop short of getting me one, the worst case scenario is he is there with a usable readable Syriac Grammar in his hand. The same applies for my visit to SEERI.
When one is a middle age man with a growing pot belly it's not easy to flirt, but I am sure there is a beautiful loving widow who will want to iron my kurtis and will see through the tragic pathos to the sadness of the wordless poet, and if she can make pastries.
Still pressing on with the ardha padma asana and the Tai Chi Chuan see you all on the other side.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Yoga
I dont recall ever being able to get into the full lotus. I think I used to be able to manage the Sukom Asana, the comfortable position. Obviously the point of Yoga is not whether you can get into the Lotus, although they say in the West because of the grossness of the material body, Hatha is emphasized more so maybe it is the point, but I seek Samadhi, the beatific vision, once I have raised the Kundalini Shakti up me Shushumna and the light of enlightenment has blazed if only for a moment I feel I shall be changed, by the Grace of the beloved I shall remain in a perpetual state of Samadhi possibly giving of a slight luminescent glow visible only to the wise. But for now the odd thing is I seem to be able both to get into the half lotus, and have realized it is far easier to acquire a steady base in either lotus or half lotus than in the comfortable asana and now I have been taught the heart mudra. Index finger tucks into base of thumb forming a circle and directing prana back into the body middle and ring finger tips touch thumb tip pinky points away like you are having tea with Queen Victoria. Which strengthens the heart chakra and therefore the heart. Yep now in that position yer basic kundalini Shakti rising is almost automatic, plan is to stick with the japa I already know maranatha. One session every morning and one every night. How hard can it be. I am sure if I asked a Guru is the approach of Samadhi sometimes experienced as an on-coming stress fracture he'd just say you are doing something terribly unnatural but then that's what the Guru told Sri Aurobindo when he first discovered the essential truths of the logic of Infinity and his revised Advaita system. All the same no more than five minutes with alternating legs in the lotus at a time. And no sudden movements after the meditation.
I nearly became quite tearful over not being able to get a Syriac Grammar. I think even if you are close to Samadhi there's no cigar. The text book I had been hunting has been lost for sometime. Simple solution is to ask Fr Jose to get one of the three experts they have at DVK why do you wish to go to Kottayam SEERI my son, we have experts here, and get them to sell or lend me a Syriac Grammar else I shall take up SEERI's offer to visit them for a few days get some one to one tuition and purchase the text books they have. I could also bring some back for the libraries here.
I don't think they particularly appreciate the Western predeliction for problem solving here, and it will be the major block to my Samadhi experience, that or a Stress fracture. Just the ankles mind, my hips are like that Brazilian woman who first came to fame singing about stampeding horses in buckskin jeans and backless frontless top. I don't think I'll study Sex and Family Therapy with the second years next week. I don't think it's a good idea for me to join the first years in their Group Counselling Practicum either. But a quick visit to Kottayam SEERI. Could be just the tonic.
I nearly became quite tearful over not being able to get a Syriac Grammar. I think even if you are close to Samadhi there's no cigar. The text book I had been hunting has been lost for sometime. Simple solution is to ask Fr Jose to get one of the three experts they have at DVK why do you wish to go to Kottayam SEERI my son, we have experts here, and get them to sell or lend me a Syriac Grammar else I shall take up SEERI's offer to visit them for a few days get some one to one tuition and purchase the text books they have. I could also bring some back for the libraries here.
I don't think they particularly appreciate the Western predeliction for problem solving here, and it will be the major block to my Samadhi experience, that or a Stress fracture. Just the ankles mind, my hips are like that Brazilian woman who first came to fame singing about stampeding horses in buckskin jeans and backless frontless top. I don't think I'll study Sex and Family Therapy with the second years next week. I don't think it's a good idea for me to join the first years in their Group Counselling Practicum either. But a quick visit to Kottayam SEERI. Could be just the tonic.
Monday, September 7, 2009
This will do
Religion: a means of integral liberation (moksha) through dharma sadhanas.For Rev Fr Cyriac Kanichari CMIby Desmond M Coutinho
The course distinguished between the artful particulars of Faith and the general call of Religion. Even moderate Hindus comfortable in the secular world would hesitate to admit that they were following the dharma sadhanas due to the backwash against modernity which in India occasionally splashes into the widespread use of gang rape, selective murder and state-wide genocide as an instrument to encourage religious conversion.
The example of Nicholas of Cusa is relevant. He began his legal career as a member of the Conciliar Party at the Council of Basel. The Conciliar movement was democratic, God working from within rather than from on High. Cusa defended it because he wanted a more just world. He believed in Religion that derived from God's call in the human heart applied equally to all although better interpreted by the more intelligent. But in order to preserve this vision Cusa switched sides and supported the minority party of the Pope. In the quattrocentro the striving for independence from authority backed by the majority was becoming an ugly ochlocracy with various Dictators of the common will vying with each other to form a new papacy. Today in order to preserve the spiritual insights of the dharma sadhanas it may be necessary to repudiate entirely both the terminology, culture and heritage to which it intrinsically belongs.
The Dharma Sadhanas are primarily techniques for individual liberation via a guru-Brahmachari mediation, they were not designed for a people directly and only indirectly designated to oppress a non-people of the Shudra, Dalits and Tribals. From at least the Manusmrti these people were not allowed to attend any religious practices. The purana stories offered to proclaim the inner teachings granted to select Brahmins to the people of God offer to clear examples of how the rest of us should be kept in our place. Arjuna in the Mahabharat comes across a Tribal Archer who has more talent and ability. In order to maintain his paramouncy in archery the Tribal is ordered to cut off his thumb. In a later Purana Krsn in order to bring back to life his Guru’s son finds a Dalit who had been practising Dharma Sadhanas illicitly, once he put him to death the natural order is restored and the Guru’s son returns to life.
Since Religion describes relationship between God and God’s people, Dharma Sadhanas more properly can be deemed a form of personal devotion or spirituality and one similar to a Sprituality of Dutch Boer South Africa or regrettably modern Zionism in Israel, the raising up of an Invidual at the expense of the People of God.
Indeed it was Western Orientalism that provided India with a sense of History. History belongs to a people and Indians are only now becoming a people, Indian legends and myths refer to an ancient time when they were a people but until the British came and created an Indian Empire there is no evidence to suggest any truth in this. The number of languages, food styles, religious practices and mini-cultures within India also belie any beliefs in a Pan-Indian nation. Aside from one noted Tamil Historian of the twelfth century India has produced only purana and Itihasa. As a first requirement for genuine Religious as opposed to personal spiritual Liberation there needs must be a sense of History.Judaism offers this in the story of the Exodus, which Christianity took as transformed in the Paschal Mystery and prefigured in the sacrifice of Abel. If we seek modern Indian Scripture which takes up this typos we must look for prophets among Indian Subaltern Theologians, Poets, Politicians and rabble rowsers.
The second requirement of Religious experience is Liturgy, a prayer of a community as opposed to personal mystagogical practices. The sadhanas may be performed in a hall but essentially they are private practices for self-development. A possible response is that ultimately these two forms merge in Moksha. The aphorisms of Mahayana and Hiniyana Buddhism, I shall not enter Nirbana until every blade of grass has so entered, and I shall enter Nirbana to lessen the burden of unliberated souls in the World are ultimately similar. The Sadhanas remain by their own standards the quest of men of Genius for answers, for meaning and for peace. Although this does not deny God’s free and graceful response to this searching Religious experience is always a communication always twofold. A corrollary critique can be made against Christianity. If God alone makes the request and people respond not to that call but one of their own making Christianity ceases to be a Religion.
Prescinding these opening comments there are commonalities to all true Religion in the techniques of Dharma Sadhanas. Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism have all taken up some of the eightfold yoga of Pantajali, his Yamas form the underpinning of all these faiths especially Ahimsa, Satya, Asteya, Aparigraha and Brahmacharya. Indeed with Ghandhi-ji both a communal aspect of these personal devotions emerge in Gram Swaraj, and a negative side in his title of Dalit Drohi, the man responsible for the maintenance of Varnashrama in India, at least according to the poor in their own words, from his caste-centred politics during the 1930s especially in the betrayal of the Poor at the Poona Conference.The Children of the Covenant from East Syriac Tradition do emulate many of the techniques of the Sadhanas except their place is within the community not above it. This early Syriac movement stressed personal ascetism, purity and self-discipline Neither do the children of Qyame derive from a caste except where Indian culture prevailed. They could live in families, communities or in the desert. The Ihidaya monks are closer to the elitist model of Hindutva and the Modern Christian Church but these only appear to give sway to the invincible illusion of Inviduality. For a monk in this tradition is like Maya a sign of contradiction, only by leaving the hustle and bustle and in finding stillness can they rediscover the essential true connection in God with all.
On an interesting tangent, although the analogy of St Thomas principle of Individuation is attractive when considering the reality and unreality of Maya, unreality as an analogue of Individuality and reality as an analogue of Personhood, there is a greater attraction in considering Duns Scotus view that individuality is an aspect of Haeceitas, that there is a mystic element to the sense of distinctiveness that is neither real or unreal. What gives a person a sense of distinctiveness is their Thisness which does not depend on matter and is therefore the distinctiveness that abides in as part of a glorified body of Christ after death. The invincible illusion of individuality then becomes the sin of pride in kneeling down and worshipping your own Haeceitas because it reminds you of the image and likeness of one who is to be worshipped. The reasons for Scotus’ rejection of Aquinas first principle of Inviduation are too far down the tangent and I am not entirely certain if I fully understand it.Tangents perhaps are a better analogy for the way of Moksha. As Wittgenstein put it even for the Sadhanas they are like ladders which once you have climbed you throw away.
I hadn’t realized that the belief of the Logos in the mind of God before creation, Creation as a negative potentiality in God’s coincidentia oppositorum was a restatement of Augustine’s rationes seminales, the Logos Spermatikos, which had for many years lain in disuse as it was rejected by Thomas and all the later Scholastics. In the process of reading for and writing this assessment this is one of the insights that became clarified.
I could mention that the sadhanas of srvana, manan and nidihyasana were practised more prayerfully and spiritually in the Syriac tradition under Ephrem Jacob Aphraphat et al than all the clever German protestants of the 19th Century who hijacked Biblical Criticism in the West for many generations. But a better presentation of the truth that Moksha must eventually break free from all techniques, that Religion ultimately exists independently of all Faiths rests in the denial of the title thesis.
To confound matters further on this eigthth day of September the feast of the Nativity of Our Lady my final criticism of the Thesis Title is that there can be no integrative Religion outwith Our Lady, extra Maria nullus salus. Returning to the twofold communication model of integrative religion, God requires informed consent in order to begin the process of Salvation Moksha. God condescends to answer the adolescent complaint I never asked to be liberated, with the model of Our Lady. Even though the World was created by God through God and for God in the Logos, and even though all creation existed as rationes seminales in the coincidentia oppositorum of God in negative potential, God awaited for one moment when all creation hushed, which Mar Jacob of Serugh relays as intense Camp David negotiations, for Our Lady to say Yes. And because a Yes means nothing if we cannot say No. All depends on Our Lady’s Yes, all Moksha derives from her and outwith her Yes all is Oblivion. On this feast day of Our Lady then let us praise and laud her name.
The course distinguished between the artful particulars of Faith and the general call of Religion. Even moderate Hindus comfortable in the secular world would hesitate to admit that they were following the dharma sadhanas due to the backwash against modernity which in India occasionally splashes into the widespread use of gang rape, selective murder and state-wide genocide as an instrument to encourage religious conversion.
The example of Nicholas of Cusa is relevant. He began his legal career as a member of the Conciliar Party at the Council of Basel. The Conciliar movement was democratic, God working from within rather than from on High. Cusa defended it because he wanted a more just world. He believed in Religion that derived from God's call in the human heart applied equally to all although better interpreted by the more intelligent. But in order to preserve this vision Cusa switched sides and supported the minority party of the Pope. In the quattrocentro the striving for independence from authority backed by the majority was becoming an ugly ochlocracy with various Dictators of the common will vying with each other to form a new papacy. Today in order to preserve the spiritual insights of the dharma sadhanas it may be necessary to repudiate entirely both the terminology, culture and heritage to which it intrinsically belongs.
The Dharma Sadhanas are primarily techniques for individual liberation via a guru-Brahmachari mediation, they were not designed for a people directly and only indirectly designated to oppress a non-people of the Shudra, Dalits and Tribals. From at least the Manusmrti these people were not allowed to attend any religious practices. The purana stories offered to proclaim the inner teachings granted to select Brahmins to the people of God offer to clear examples of how the rest of us should be kept in our place. Arjuna in the Mahabharat comes across a Tribal Archer who has more talent and ability. In order to maintain his paramouncy in archery the Tribal is ordered to cut off his thumb. In a later Purana Krsn in order to bring back to life his Guru’s son finds a Dalit who had been practising Dharma Sadhanas illicitly, once he put him to death the natural order is restored and the Guru’s son returns to life.
Since Religion describes relationship between God and God’s people, Dharma Sadhanas more properly can be deemed a form of personal devotion or spirituality and one similar to a Sprituality of Dutch Boer South Africa or regrettably modern Zionism in Israel, the raising up of an Invidual at the expense of the People of God.
Indeed it was Western Orientalism that provided India with a sense of History. History belongs to a people and Indians are only now becoming a people, Indian legends and myths refer to an ancient time when they were a people but until the British came and created an Indian Empire there is no evidence to suggest any truth in this. The number of languages, food styles, religious practices and mini-cultures within India also belie any beliefs in a Pan-Indian nation. Aside from one noted Tamil Historian of the twelfth century India has produced only purana and Itihasa. As a first requirement for genuine Religious as opposed to personal spiritual Liberation there needs must be a sense of History.Judaism offers this in the story of the Exodus, which Christianity took as transformed in the Paschal Mystery and prefigured in the sacrifice of Abel. If we seek modern Indian Scripture which takes up this typos we must look for prophets among Indian Subaltern Theologians, Poets, Politicians and rabble rowsers.
The second requirement of Religious experience is Liturgy, a prayer of a community as opposed to personal mystagogical practices. The sadhanas may be performed in a hall but essentially they are private practices for self-development. A possible response is that ultimately these two forms merge in Moksha. The aphorisms of Mahayana and Hiniyana Buddhism, I shall not enter Nirbana until every blade of grass has so entered, and I shall enter Nirbana to lessen the burden of unliberated souls in the World are ultimately similar. The Sadhanas remain by their own standards the quest of men of Genius for answers, for meaning and for peace. Although this does not deny God’s free and graceful response to this searching Religious experience is always a communication always twofold. A corrollary critique can be made against Christianity. If God alone makes the request and people respond not to that call but one of their own making Christianity ceases to be a Religion.
Prescinding these opening comments there are commonalities to all true Religion in the techniques of Dharma Sadhanas. Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism have all taken up some of the eightfold yoga of Pantajali, his Yamas form the underpinning of all these faiths especially Ahimsa, Satya, Asteya, Aparigraha and Brahmacharya. Indeed with Ghandhi-ji both a communal aspect of these personal devotions emerge in Gram Swaraj, and a negative side in his title of Dalit Drohi, the man responsible for the maintenance of Varnashrama in India, at least according to the poor in their own words, from his caste-centred politics during the 1930s especially in the betrayal of the Poor at the Poona Conference.The Children of the Covenant from East Syriac Tradition do emulate many of the techniques of the Sadhanas except their place is within the community not above it. This early Syriac movement stressed personal ascetism, purity and self-discipline Neither do the children of Qyame derive from a caste except where Indian culture prevailed. They could live in families, communities or in the desert. The Ihidaya monks are closer to the elitist model of Hindutva and the Modern Christian Church but these only appear to give sway to the invincible illusion of Inviduality. For a monk in this tradition is like Maya a sign of contradiction, only by leaving the hustle and bustle and in finding stillness can they rediscover the essential true connection in God with all.
On an interesting tangent, although the analogy of St Thomas principle of Individuation is attractive when considering the reality and unreality of Maya, unreality as an analogue of Individuality and reality as an analogue of Personhood, there is a greater attraction in considering Duns Scotus view that individuality is an aspect of Haeceitas, that there is a mystic element to the sense of distinctiveness that is neither real or unreal. What gives a person a sense of distinctiveness is their Thisness which does not depend on matter and is therefore the distinctiveness that abides in as part of a glorified body of Christ after death. The invincible illusion of individuality then becomes the sin of pride in kneeling down and worshipping your own Haeceitas because it reminds you of the image and likeness of one who is to be worshipped. The reasons for Scotus’ rejection of Aquinas first principle of Inviduation are too far down the tangent and I am not entirely certain if I fully understand it.Tangents perhaps are a better analogy for the way of Moksha. As Wittgenstein put it even for the Sadhanas they are like ladders which once you have climbed you throw away.
I hadn’t realized that the belief of the Logos in the mind of God before creation, Creation as a negative potentiality in God’s coincidentia oppositorum was a restatement of Augustine’s rationes seminales, the Logos Spermatikos, which had for many years lain in disuse as it was rejected by Thomas and all the later Scholastics. In the process of reading for and writing this assessment this is one of the insights that became clarified.
I could mention that the sadhanas of srvana, manan and nidihyasana were practised more prayerfully and spiritually in the Syriac tradition under Ephrem Jacob Aphraphat et al than all the clever German protestants of the 19th Century who hijacked Biblical Criticism in the West for many generations. But a better presentation of the truth that Moksha must eventually break free from all techniques, that Religion ultimately exists independently of all Faiths rests in the denial of the title thesis.
To confound matters further on this eigthth day of September the feast of the Nativity of Our Lady my final criticism of the Thesis Title is that there can be no integrative Religion outwith Our Lady, extra Maria nullus salus. Returning to the twofold communication model of integrative religion, God requires informed consent in order to begin the process of Salvation Moksha. God condescends to answer the adolescent complaint I never asked to be liberated, with the model of Our Lady. Even though the World was created by God through God and for God in the Logos, and even though all creation existed as rationes seminales in the coincidentia oppositorum of God in negative potential, God awaited for one moment when all creation hushed, which Mar Jacob of Serugh relays as intense Camp David negotiations, for Our Lady to say Yes. And because a Yes means nothing if we cannot say No. All depends on Our Lady’s Yes, all Moksha derives from her and outwith her Yes all is Oblivion. On this feast day of Our Lady then let us praise and laud her name.
assignment two version two need one more page really
Religion: a means of integral liberation (moksha) through dharma sadhanas.For Rev Fr Cyriac Kanichari CMIby Desmond M CoutinhoI am sorely tempted by the aphorism of Rev Dr Ian Paisley former First Minister of Ulster on whether he would consider power sharing with Sinn Fein/ IRA, Never Never Never was his battlecry but in the course of time he became the First Minister sharing power with them in the Northern Irish Assembly. This is clearly a trick question. The course distinguished between the artful particulars of Faith and the general call of Religion. Since the dharma sadhanas are the fons et culmen of the Sanatana Dharma known today as Hindutva to which some unkindly add Fascism then it clearly cannot be a means of integral liberation unless the Lecturer is referring to the occasional attempts at genocide by this movement. However just as Sinn Fein IRA could reform and work in a modern democratic world with its adversaries so can we the people of God work with those who would rape and murder us.
The example of Nicholas of Cusa is relevant. He began his legal career as a member of the Conciliar Party at the Council of Basel. The Conciliar movement was democratic, God working from within rather than from on High. Cusa defended it because he wanted a more just world. He believed in Religion that derived from God's call in the human heart applied equally to all although better interpreted by the more intelligent. But in order to preserve this vision Cusa switched sides and supported the minority party of the Pope. A counter-intuitive result occurred then just as the freedom for the lecturer to think and break free from Western Thinking models was provided by his sound basis in Western Thinking.
The Dharma Sadhanas are primarily techniques for individual liberation via a guru-Brahmachari mediation, it is not designed for a people. Since Religion describes relationship between God and God’s people, Dharma Sadhanas more properly can be deemed a form of personal devotion or spirituality. Indeed it was Western Orientalism that provided India with a sense of History. History belongs to a people and Indians are only now becoming a people once more. Aside from one noted Tamil Historian of the twelfth century India has produced only purana and Itihasa. As a first requirement for genuine Religious as opposed to personal spiritual Liberation there needs must be a sense of History.
Judaism offers this in the story of the Exodus, which Christianity took as transformed in the Paschal Mystery and prefigured in the sacrifice of Abel. Thus Indian Subaltern Theology can rightfully claim the charism of means of integral liberation. One should not throw out the baby with the bathwater in reexamining India’s treasure houses.
The second requirement of Religious experience is Liturgy, a prayer of a community as opposed to personal mystagogical practices. The sadhanas may be performed in a hall but essentially they are private practices for self-development. A possible response is that ultimately these two forms merge in Moksha. The aphorisms of Mahayana and Hiniyana Buddhism, I shall not enter Nirbana until every blade of grass has so entered, and I shall enter Nirbana to lessen the burden of unliberated souls in the World are ultimately similar.
Prescinding these opening comments there are commonalities to all true Religion in the techniques of Dharma Sadhanas. Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism have all taken up some of the eightfold yoga of Pantajali, his Yamas form the underpinning of all these faiths especially Ahimsa, Satya, Asteya, Aparigraha and Brahmacharya. Indeed with Ghandhi-ji both a communal aspect of these personal devotions emerge in Gram Swaraj, and a negative side in his title of Dalit Drohi, the man responsible for the maintenance of Varnashrama in India, at least according to the poor in their own words.
The Children of the Covenant from East Syriac Tradition do emulate many of the techniques of the Brahmachari except their place within the community is far more obvious. This early Syriac movement stressed personal ascetism, purity and self-discipline Neither do the children of Qyame derive from a caste. They could live in families, communities or in the desert. The Ihidaya monks are closer to the elitist model of Hindutva and the Modern Christian Church but these only appear to give sway to the invincible illusion of Inviduality. For a monk in this tradition is like Maya a sign of contradiction, only by leaving the hustle and bustle and in finding stillness can they rediscover the essential true connection in God with all. Although the analogy of St Thomas principle of Individuation is attractive when considering the reality and unreality of Maya, unreality an analogue of Individuality and reality and analogue of Personhood, there is a greater attraction in considering Duns Scotus view that individuality is an aspect of Haeceitas, that there is a mystic element to the sense of distinctiveness that is neither real or unreal. What gives a person a sense of distinctiveness is their Thisness which does not depend on matter and is therefore the distinctiveness that abides in as part of a glorified body of Christ after death. The invincible illusion of individuality then becomes the sin of pride in kneeling down and worshipping your own Haeceitas because it reminds you of the image and likeness of one who is to be worshipped.
In the tangents to the question true learning is forged. I hadn’t realized that the belief of the Logos in the mind of God before creation, Creation as a negative potentiality in God’s coincidentia oppositorum was a restatement of Augustine’s rationes seminales, the Logos Spermatikos, which had for many years lain in disuse as it was rejected by Thomas and all the later Scholastics. These are not matters of truth or falsehood but of how meaningful the idea becomes when mulled over prayerfully. If the thoughts contain some eros, and if the new questions are fruitbearing, and carry us upwards to God and outwards to God’s people then it must be from the Logos because merely a glance from her and I burgeon.
The example of Nicholas of Cusa is relevant. He began his legal career as a member of the Conciliar Party at the Council of Basel. The Conciliar movement was democratic, God working from within rather than from on High. Cusa defended it because he wanted a more just world. He believed in Religion that derived from God's call in the human heart applied equally to all although better interpreted by the more intelligent. But in order to preserve this vision Cusa switched sides and supported the minority party of the Pope. A counter-intuitive result occurred then just as the freedom for the lecturer to think and break free from Western Thinking models was provided by his sound basis in Western Thinking.
The Dharma Sadhanas are primarily techniques for individual liberation via a guru-Brahmachari mediation, it is not designed for a people. Since Religion describes relationship between God and God’s people, Dharma Sadhanas more properly can be deemed a form of personal devotion or spirituality. Indeed it was Western Orientalism that provided India with a sense of History. History belongs to a people and Indians are only now becoming a people once more. Aside from one noted Tamil Historian of the twelfth century India has produced only purana and Itihasa. As a first requirement for genuine Religious as opposed to personal spiritual Liberation there needs must be a sense of History.
Judaism offers this in the story of the Exodus, which Christianity took as transformed in the Paschal Mystery and prefigured in the sacrifice of Abel. Thus Indian Subaltern Theology can rightfully claim the charism of means of integral liberation. One should not throw out the baby with the bathwater in reexamining India’s treasure houses.
The second requirement of Religious experience is Liturgy, a prayer of a community as opposed to personal mystagogical practices. The sadhanas may be performed in a hall but essentially they are private practices for self-development. A possible response is that ultimately these two forms merge in Moksha. The aphorisms of Mahayana and Hiniyana Buddhism, I shall not enter Nirbana until every blade of grass has so entered, and I shall enter Nirbana to lessen the burden of unliberated souls in the World are ultimately similar.
Prescinding these opening comments there are commonalities to all true Religion in the techniques of Dharma Sadhanas. Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism have all taken up some of the eightfold yoga of Pantajali, his Yamas form the underpinning of all these faiths especially Ahimsa, Satya, Asteya, Aparigraha and Brahmacharya. Indeed with Ghandhi-ji both a communal aspect of these personal devotions emerge in Gram Swaraj, and a negative side in his title of Dalit Drohi, the man responsible for the maintenance of Varnashrama in India, at least according to the poor in their own words.
The Children of the Covenant from East Syriac Tradition do emulate many of the techniques of the Brahmachari except their place within the community is far more obvious. This early Syriac movement stressed personal ascetism, purity and self-discipline Neither do the children of Qyame derive from a caste. They could live in families, communities or in the desert. The Ihidaya monks are closer to the elitist model of Hindutva and the Modern Christian Church but these only appear to give sway to the invincible illusion of Inviduality. For a monk in this tradition is like Maya a sign of contradiction, only by leaving the hustle and bustle and in finding stillness can they rediscover the essential true connection in God with all. Although the analogy of St Thomas principle of Individuation is attractive when considering the reality and unreality of Maya, unreality an analogue of Individuality and reality and analogue of Personhood, there is a greater attraction in considering Duns Scotus view that individuality is an aspect of Haeceitas, that there is a mystic element to the sense of distinctiveness that is neither real or unreal. What gives a person a sense of distinctiveness is their Thisness which does not depend on matter and is therefore the distinctiveness that abides in as part of a glorified body of Christ after death. The invincible illusion of individuality then becomes the sin of pride in kneeling down and worshipping your own Haeceitas because it reminds you of the image and likeness of one who is to be worshipped.
In the tangents to the question true learning is forged. I hadn’t realized that the belief of the Logos in the mind of God before creation, Creation as a negative potentiality in God’s coincidentia oppositorum was a restatement of Augustine’s rationes seminales, the Logos Spermatikos, which had for many years lain in disuse as it was rejected by Thomas and all the later Scholastics. These are not matters of truth or falsehood but of how meaningful the idea becomes when mulled over prayerfully. If the thoughts contain some eros, and if the new questions are fruitbearing, and carry us upwards to God and outwards to God’s people then it must be from the Logos because merely a glance from her and I burgeon.
its worse than we thought Jim
Can't blame my peers. Nobody knowns notin. I attended the morning session. The Department Head introduced him. Then he let him know that he was losing one of the five days because it was a holiday and part of one day because it was an exam day. And all the afternoons because they had Christ University courses to attend. When someone mentioned Wednesday he said but you don't have that many classes now as it is. In addition Teach wants one of the four morning lectures to be a practical, and one is a eucharist. I am not sure if I'll bother attending the first session at 6.00am. I'd have to walk to the nuns hostel. And if they can't be that bothered. The morning session was Yoga Nidra which is not sleeping but very much like it. He doesn't seem that interested in the yamas which is how the other teach started his Yoga classes so they work together. He believes the physical purification works just as well and is necessary before the spiritual. But he doesn't seem to mean just Hatha Yoga the stuff we used to get in the west involving women in leotards though apparently now everyone who does Yoga is also a guru sexologist and mystic master so god knows what they teach people in the west. It was my small complaint. A people don't learn yoga, individuals do, and usually for large amounts of money to avoid meeting poor people. But maybe that's just my new thing.
Oh and the Christ's University session with young mistress Gilda whom I know from Bible Study. Ok thing is she is a very attractive young thing. Now call me sexist. But her colleague patronising arrogant lil wanker. Problem seems to be that they have allocated two hour sessions to assessment following some kickass medical model. Three sections for assessment of students. And that is what they are learning how to pass assessments. It may be a perennial omnipresent complaint but I know this stuff and I was frustrated for everyone. Even the arrogant patronising guy was responding that way because he didn't have the option to provide extra hours or more explanation. Basically he told the gang he wanted assessments of random clients not each other by Wednesday you know how it's done. Apart from half the class didn't attend the previous session. They don't know how it's done. Most people learn this stuff by making mistakes and getting feedback from their first half dozen clients. So they ended up with a quick review and young mistress Gilda reading out sections from an introductory book in Psychiatriac Assessment. My god those trick cyclists like big words. Verbigeration. Then she mentioned neologism, the only time I spoke I said it's when you make up words like verbigeration. But she accepted when you make up new words. That and why is she asking people to check for katatonic schizophrenia, echopraxis or depersonalisation which apparently meant believing you are outside your body. Sometimes she wasn't quite accurate on her terms but I was sitting this one out as they didn't have time. Psychosomatic she went for how stress can make you run down and you can catch a cold. I would have gone for the nervous cough thing when you have something you need to say but I am not that hot on psychiatric terms. I know how to do assessments mind because if you work in England in mental health or related areas that's all you really do. And usually to a target.
Good news is if I do the course next year I could pass without much effort. Some of the stuff is interesting and some is just shovelling snow for marks. I applied to SEERI for their summer course in Syriac. 3 months to figure out whether I like Kottayam. Plus if I get my OCI before then I hope Jose comes through with a Shyster, then I won't even have to return I was going to say Home but I mean to Blightey.
And poysonally the best way to get a suitable widow from Jose in Bangalore is to spend a few months in Kottayam. It's like playing hard to get only with basic Syriac grammar and simple manuscripts from the patristic period. I should try work a bit more on that second assignment.
Oh and the Christ's University session with young mistress Gilda whom I know from Bible Study. Ok thing is she is a very attractive young thing. Now call me sexist. But her colleague patronising arrogant lil wanker. Problem seems to be that they have allocated two hour sessions to assessment following some kickass medical model. Three sections for assessment of students. And that is what they are learning how to pass assessments. It may be a perennial omnipresent complaint but I know this stuff and I was frustrated for everyone. Even the arrogant patronising guy was responding that way because he didn't have the option to provide extra hours or more explanation. Basically he told the gang he wanted assessments of random clients not each other by Wednesday you know how it's done. Apart from half the class didn't attend the previous session. They don't know how it's done. Most people learn this stuff by making mistakes and getting feedback from their first half dozen clients. So they ended up with a quick review and young mistress Gilda reading out sections from an introductory book in Psychiatriac Assessment. My god those trick cyclists like big words. Verbigeration. Then she mentioned neologism, the only time I spoke I said it's when you make up words like verbigeration. But she accepted when you make up new words. That and why is she asking people to check for katatonic schizophrenia, echopraxis or depersonalisation which apparently meant believing you are outside your body. Sometimes she wasn't quite accurate on her terms but I was sitting this one out as they didn't have time. Psychosomatic she went for how stress can make you run down and you can catch a cold. I would have gone for the nervous cough thing when you have something you need to say but I am not that hot on psychiatric terms. I know how to do assessments mind because if you work in England in mental health or related areas that's all you really do. And usually to a target.
Good news is if I do the course next year I could pass without much effort. Some of the stuff is interesting and some is just shovelling snow for marks. I applied to SEERI for their summer course in Syriac. 3 months to figure out whether I like Kottayam. Plus if I get my OCI before then I hope Jose comes through with a Shyster, then I won't even have to return I was going to say Home but I mean to Blightey.
And poysonally the best way to get a suitable widow from Jose in Bangalore is to spend a few months in Kottayam. It's like playing hard to get only with basic Syriac grammar and simple manuscripts from the patristic period. I should try work a bit more on that second assignment.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
A whine
The beauty of a blog is I can whine as much as I like here and it has as much if not more of an effect in the real world. And it doesn't make anyone defensive. So Fr Cyriac the old heretic genius his class ended last week. I explained to Jose that well that I experience communication difficulties with my peers could he give me the email of the course tutor so I can find out what the next courses are and pick one suitable with him. Negotiations continued. He sent an MA student to assist but I didn't get very far. Apart from his suggestion that unless I already had some counselling or theology I would not find the M A courses accessible. This after telling him I have two years Theology and three years Counselling, five years in Religious Life and several years as an Addictions Counsellor. Anyway he said he would get back to me so I asked Jose again. He finally got me a meeting with Fr Matthew who was happy for me to attend any of the courses I suggested that I understood were coming up. This week Yoga. Ok so when does the class start. I tried with the student I thought I was getting on with. Fr Johnson, the Tomist but I get jokes about my Kurti, the slightly dopey look about classes, es Yoga. When will they start es Yoga perhaps the Library. No but when do we actually start the next class and where. Oh I don't know. But tomorrow when the classes start how will you know where to go. Oh they will tell us. Well can you tell me also when you know. That's before dinner. This morning the swine accosts me and says oh why weren't you at Yoga class this morning. I nearly lost my temper with him just decided to sit with someone else for me breakfast pooris and curried mushy peas. I had tried with another priest but had got the same dopey look. And then over breakfast some second year says oh its a great course you must go. So do I go to the lecture hall for the theory. Oh es. And is it the same hours 4 lectures in the morning then two after lunch. Es or maybe not. Same as before. Or maybe not. I am not discussing Maya with them.
Now on East and West. At TVU lectures would be cancelled either for no reason. Or technically because the lecture failed to attend. The next very common excuse was train and or photocopier breakdown. And if it was the latter it meant the lecturer would bugger off for half an hour to make additional photocopies. My point being, everybody pisses about with timetables. Whether they are bus train or teaching, they are more symbolic that there is a governing order to the universe a deus absconditus. So I was going to email Jose and complain it my most outraged virgin style if I was attending an MA here it would be far less frustrating to know when and where the lectures are being held and in advance what those lectures might be. But then since he is not God and it's not his job to do this. (I got that one when I asked how many tribals and SCs do you take at Christ's then). So let's not embarrass him. I shall instead try to press him to get a local shyster to get me an OCI. The beauty of that one is all it needs is sufficient bribes. I am not taking the mickey here it is the system they use. Uncle John was at first surprised at how open they are but when in Rome. And if I get a shyster through the Church he won't just rip me off for many thousands of rupees and not do anything for me. I am happy for him to take his facilitation fee, pay some bribes and get me the OCI.
Either way I shall enquire at SEERI in Kottayam about the MA in Syriac to start next June. My reasoning being, a year or two in community retreat on an MA in spirituality and counselling is all well and good but the poor admin would frustrate me. That and then they'll expect me to regurgitate lectures for the exams. Whereas with Syriac, good old fashioned dead language. There I know where I stand, memorize irregular verbs, build up some vocab, bullshit about connotations and meaning changes over the centuries, they asked me to conjugate but I declined, and I doubt there will be that many teaching hours involved. It will be get thee to a library. Poring over old manuscripts or photocopies or really nicely printed ones with decent large size fonts and vowel points visible but I can enjoy that and get an MA too, just need a room on campus and be surrounded with liturgy nerds. Heaven.
Now on East and West. At TVU lectures would be cancelled either for no reason. Or technically because the lecture failed to attend. The next very common excuse was train and or photocopier breakdown. And if it was the latter it meant the lecturer would bugger off for half an hour to make additional photocopies. My point being, everybody pisses about with timetables. Whether they are bus train or teaching, they are more symbolic that there is a governing order to the universe a deus absconditus. So I was going to email Jose and complain it my most outraged virgin style if I was attending an MA here it would be far less frustrating to know when and where the lectures are being held and in advance what those lectures might be. But then since he is not God and it's not his job to do this. (I got that one when I asked how many tribals and SCs do you take at Christ's then). So let's not embarrass him. I shall instead try to press him to get a local shyster to get me an OCI. The beauty of that one is all it needs is sufficient bribes. I am not taking the mickey here it is the system they use. Uncle John was at first surprised at how open they are but when in Rome. And if I get a shyster through the Church he won't just rip me off for many thousands of rupees and not do anything for me. I am happy for him to take his facilitation fee, pay some bribes and get me the OCI.
Either way I shall enquire at SEERI in Kottayam about the MA in Syriac to start next June. My reasoning being, a year or two in community retreat on an MA in spirituality and counselling is all well and good but the poor admin would frustrate me. That and then they'll expect me to regurgitate lectures for the exams. Whereas with Syriac, good old fashioned dead language. There I know where I stand, memorize irregular verbs, build up some vocab, bullshit about connotations and meaning changes over the centuries, they asked me to conjugate but I declined, and I doubt there will be that many teaching hours involved. It will be get thee to a library. Poring over old manuscripts or photocopies or really nicely printed ones with decent large size fonts and vowel points visible but I can enjoy that and get an MA too, just need a room on campus and be surrounded with liturgy nerds. Heaven.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
assignement 2 four pages needed second draft
Religion: a means of integral liberation (moksha) through dharma sadhanas.
For Rev Fr Cyriac Kanichari CMI
by Desmond M Coutinho
I am sorely tempted by the aphorism of Rev Dr Ian Paisley former First Minister of Ulster on whether he would consider power sharing with Sinn Fein/ IRA, Never Never Never was his battlecry but in the course of time he became the First Minister sharing power with them in the Northern Irish Assembly. This is clearly a trick question. The course distinguished between the artful particulars of Faith and the general call of Religion. Since the dharma sadhanas are the fons et culmen of the Sanatana Dharma known today as Hindutva to which some unkindly add Fascism then it clearly cannot be a means of integral liberation unless the Lecturer is referring to the occasional attempts at genocide by this movement. However just as Sinn Fein IRA could reform and work in a modern democratic world with its adversaries so can we the people of God work with those who would rape and murder us.
The example of Nicholas of Cusa is relevant. He began his legal career as a member of the Conciliar Party at the Council of Basel. The Conciliar movement was democratic, God working from within rather than from on High, Cusa defended it because he wanted a more just world. He believed in Religion that derived from God's call in the human heart applied equally to all although interpreted better by the more intelligent. But in order to preserve this vision Cusa switched sides and supported the minority party with the Pope. A counter-intuitive result occurred then just as the freedom for the lecturer to think and break free from Western Thinking models was provided by his sound basis in Western Thinking.
The Dharma Sadhanas are primarily techniques for individual liberation via a guru-Brahmachari mediation. Indeed it was Western Orientalism that provided India with a sense of History. History belongs to a people and Indians are only now becoming a people once more. Aside from one noted Tamil Historian of the twelfth century India has produced only purana and Itihasa. As a first requirement for genuine Religious as opposed to personal spiritual Liberation there needs must be a sense of History. Judaism offers this in the story of the Exodus, which Christianity took as transformed in the Paschal Mystery and prefigured in the sacrifice of Abel. The second requirement is Liturgy, a prayer of a community as opposed to personal mystagogical practices.
Given these stumbling blocks it is possible to see some basic principles common to all true Religion in the techniques of Dharma Sadhanas. The Children of the Covenant from East Syriac Tradition do emulate many of the techniques of the Brahmachari except their place within the community is far more obvious. Neither do the Bane Qyame derive from a caste. The Ihidaya are closer to the elitist model of Hindutva and the Modern Christian Church but these can be treated as part of the invincible illusion of Inviduality.
Before dismissing completely the insights of Western Philosophy as colonial predators who merely wish to steal the exotic wisdom of the Other in the East by redressing them in Latin and with no regard for the particular regional truth, there is a problem with the first principle of Individuation as defined by Aquinas. For if as Scotus suggests Matter is prime before form or any other accident then the fundamental differentiator between individuals is quantitative. Scotus invents the term Thisness, Haecitas to provide a mystical differentiator.
This seems to be more fruitful to intellect. Inviduation is the key to understanding Maya. Individuation is the key to Modernism. Both Hindutva and those of any true Religion are opposed to the evils caused by the invincible illusion of separating individuality. The true foundation of liberation lies not in the particularities of Faith but in how examining these particularities can reveal a way out from Individuality to Personhood.
For Rev Fr Cyriac Kanichari CMI
by Desmond M Coutinho
I am sorely tempted by the aphorism of Rev Dr Ian Paisley former First Minister of Ulster on whether he would consider power sharing with Sinn Fein/ IRA, Never Never Never was his battlecry but in the course of time he became the First Minister sharing power with them in the Northern Irish Assembly. This is clearly a trick question. The course distinguished between the artful particulars of Faith and the general call of Religion. Since the dharma sadhanas are the fons et culmen of the Sanatana Dharma known today as Hindutva to which some unkindly add Fascism then it clearly cannot be a means of integral liberation unless the Lecturer is referring to the occasional attempts at genocide by this movement. However just as Sinn Fein IRA could reform and work in a modern democratic world with its adversaries so can we the people of God work with those who would rape and murder us.
The example of Nicholas of Cusa is relevant. He began his legal career as a member of the Conciliar Party at the Council of Basel. The Conciliar movement was democratic, God working from within rather than from on High, Cusa defended it because he wanted a more just world. He believed in Religion that derived from God's call in the human heart applied equally to all although interpreted better by the more intelligent. But in order to preserve this vision Cusa switched sides and supported the minority party with the Pope. A counter-intuitive result occurred then just as the freedom for the lecturer to think and break free from Western Thinking models was provided by his sound basis in Western Thinking.
The Dharma Sadhanas are primarily techniques for individual liberation via a guru-Brahmachari mediation. Indeed it was Western Orientalism that provided India with a sense of History. History belongs to a people and Indians are only now becoming a people once more. Aside from one noted Tamil Historian of the twelfth century India has produced only purana and Itihasa. As a first requirement for genuine Religious as opposed to personal spiritual Liberation there needs must be a sense of History. Judaism offers this in the story of the Exodus, which Christianity took as transformed in the Paschal Mystery and prefigured in the sacrifice of Abel. The second requirement is Liturgy, a prayer of a community as opposed to personal mystagogical practices.
Given these stumbling blocks it is possible to see some basic principles common to all true Religion in the techniques of Dharma Sadhanas. The Children of the Covenant from East Syriac Tradition do emulate many of the techniques of the Brahmachari except their place within the community is far more obvious. Neither do the Bane Qyame derive from a caste. The Ihidaya are closer to the elitist model of Hindutva and the Modern Christian Church but these can be treated as part of the invincible illusion of Inviduality.
Before dismissing completely the insights of Western Philosophy as colonial predators who merely wish to steal the exotic wisdom of the Other in the East by redressing them in Latin and with no regard for the particular regional truth, there is a problem with the first principle of Individuation as defined by Aquinas. For if as Scotus suggests Matter is prime before form or any other accident then the fundamental differentiator between individuals is quantitative. Scotus invents the term Thisness, Haecitas to provide a mystical differentiator.
This seems to be more fruitful to intellect. Inviduation is the key to understanding Maya. Individuation is the key to Modernism. Both Hindutva and those of any true Religion are opposed to the evils caused by the invincible illusion of separating individuality. The true foundation of liberation lies not in the particularities of Faith but in how examining these particularities can reveal a way out from Individuality to Personhood.
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