The 'guru' and self-realisation (from 'The Yoga Tradition', by Feuerstein, PhD.)

Sunday, 12 July 2009

The 'guru' and self-realisation (from 'The Yoga Tradition', by Feuerstein, PhD.)

"The God-realized teacher grants "divine knowledge" (divya-jnana), as the Yoga-Shikha-Upanishad puts it. It is knowldedge that springs from enlightenment and attracts to enlightenment.

The Advaya-Taraka-Upanishad gives an esoteric explanation of the word guru, deriving it from the syllable gu (indicating "darkness") and ru (indicating "dispeller").

Of all the teachers, God-realized adepts are even today given a special place in Hindu society, for they alone are capable of initiating the spiritual seeker into the supreme "knowledge of the Absolute" (brahma-vidya). They alone are sad-gurus (sat-gurus) - "teachers of the Real" or "true teachers." Here, the Sanskrit word sat connotes both "real" and "true". These teachers are celebrated as potent agents of grace. As the Shiva-Samhita states: "By the teacher's grace, everything auspicious for oneself is obtained." And the Hatha-Yoga-Pradipika affirms that without a true teacher's compassion, the state of transcendental spontaneity (sahaja) is difficult to attain.

Because of his or her spiritual realization, the guru is considered to be an embodiment of the Divine itself. [...]

The teacher is not a specific deity but the all-encompassing Divine. This "deification" of the God-realized master must not be misunderstood. He or she is not God in any exclusive sense, but rather is coessential with the transcendental Reality. That is to say, he or she has abrogated the ordinary person's misidentification with a particular body-mind and abides purely as the transcendental Identity of all beings and things.

There is no trace of egoity in the truly enlightened being, for the ego has been replaced by the Self. The body-mind and personality continue for their alloted time, but the enlightened being is no longer implicated by his or her automaticities.

The unenlightened individual, by contrast, believes himself or herself to be a particular "entity", or individuated consciousness, somehow lodged within a body and associated with, possibly even driven by, a particular personality complex. This fatal illusion is gracefully shattered at the moment of enlightenment."

No comments:

The 'Mystique' and 'Mystification' of Enlightenment and Liberation... Enlightenment in 'No Time'

The mystification of spirituality has left us culturally-conditioned to believe that spirituality is something that requires special and different conditions from the ones that we have here and now.
Enlightenment is not about developing, or improving yourself or attaining some state…
Enlightenment is an idea… that falls away when we drop the search, in peace and acceptance of the fullness of all that Is.

"There is no such thing as 'Enlightenment'... Understanding this is Enlightenment itself."
- Nisargadatta Maharaj

Self-realisation through de-conditioning

"The methods and lifestyles developed by the Indian philosophical and spiritual geniuses over a period of at least five millennia all have one and the same purpose: to help us break through the habit patterns of our ordinary consciousness and to realise our identity (or at least union) with the perennial Reality.

India's great traditions of psychospiritual growth understand themselves as paths of liberation. Their goal is to liberate us from our conventional conditioning and hence also free us from suffering, because suffering is a product of our unconscious conditioning. In other words, they are avenues to God-realization, or Self-realization, which is an utterly blissful condition.

God, in this sense [...] is the transcendental totality of existence, which in the nondualist schools of Hinduism is referred to as brahman, or "Absolute." That Absolute is regarded as the essential nature, the transcendental Self, underlying the human personality. Hence, when the unconscious conditioning by which we experience ourselves as independent, isolated egos is removed, we realise that at the core of our being we are all that same One."

- Greg Fueurstein ('The Yoga Tradition')

Advaita Siddhanta

Advaita Siddhanta: (Sanskrit) "Nondual perfect conclusions." Saivite philosophy codified in the Agamas which has at its core the nondual (advaitic) identity of God, soul and world. This monistic-theistic philosophy, unlike the Shankara, or Smarta view, holds that maya (the principle of manifestation) is not an obstacle to God Realization, but God's own power and presence guiding the soul's evolution to perfection. While Advaita Vedanta stresses Upanishadic philosophy, Advaita Siddhanta adds to this a strong emphasis on internal and external worship, yoga sadhanas and tapas. Advaita Siddhanta is a term used in South India to distinguish Tirumular's school from the pluralistic Siddhanta of Meykandar and Aghorasiva. This unified Vedic-Agamic doctrine is also known as Shuddha Saiva Siddhanta.

Siddha Siddhanta

Siddha Siddhanta: (Sanskrit) Siddha Siddhanta, also called Gorakhnatha Saivism, is generally considered to have come in the lineage of the earlier ascetic orders of India. Its most well-known preceptor was Gorakshanatha (ca 1000) a disciple of Matsyendranatha, patron saint of Nepal, revered by certain esoteric Buddhist schools as well as by Hindus.

The school systematized and developed the practice of hatha yoga to a remarkable degree. Indeed, nearly all of what is today taught about hatha yoga comes from this school. Among its central texts are Hatha Yoga Pradipika by Svatmarama, Gheranda Samhita, Siva Samhita and Jnanamrita. Siddha Siddhanta theology embraces both transcendent Siva (being) and immanent Siva (becoming). Siva is both the efficient and material cause of the universe. Devotion is expressed through temple worship and pilgrimage, with the central focus on internal worship and kundalini yoga, with the goal of realizing Parasamvid, the supreme transcendent state of Siva.

Today there are perhaps 750,000 adherents of Siddha Siddhanta Saivism, who are often understood as Shaktas or advaita tantrics. The school fans out through India, but is most prominent in North India and Nepal. Devotees are called yogis, and stress is placed on world renunciation - even for householders. This sect is also most commonly known as Natha, the Gorakshapantha and Siddha Yogi Sampradaya. Other names include Adinatha Sampradaya, Nathamatha and Siddhamarga.

Pages

Sunday, 12 July 2009

The 'guru' and self-realisation (from 'The Yoga Tradition', by Feuerstein, PhD.)

No comments:

Post a Comment