From: kish@ring8.rutgers.edu (Kish)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Re: Effort vs clinging on the spiritual path
Date: 18 Nov 1992 12:32:03 -0800
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+ Paramahansa Yogananda's advice to hold on to the peace of meditation
+ means to not allow the obstacles to feeling this inner peace to reign
+ again and trample over the peace within.  The spiritual path is a
+ moving upstream, against the current. Maya (delusion at the macro or
+ universal level) and avidya (delusion at the individual level) is the
+ downstream and where you are when flowing with the current (ie.
+ conditioning of environment, heredity, family influence, peer
+ pressure, karma, etc.) so it can be said to be the "default" if we do
+ nothing else. If you meditate for an hour then allow the peace to be
+ clouded over and muddied by mental restlessness and self-centeredness,
+ you are pretty much trashing the benefits of meditation although even
+ a little spiritual practice will begin to lift the veil of ignorance
+ and so the benefit of meditation alone will still be a good influence.


	There is merit and validity to this approach, and I don't wish
to discount it.  The approach taken by the "lazy" man, however,
strikes me as being more sympathetic what is taught in a number of
tantric traditions.  The lazy man can use any sphere of activity as a
means of cultivating wakefulness.  Disgust with samsara manifests
itself by action without residue.  In this approach, avidya is seen as
having continuity with vidya. The spiritual path is thus viewed as the
complete penetration of samsara and the uncovering of its inherent
purity. Nirvana is pure samsara.
	I think there is a difference between effort-on-the-path for
the lazy man and for the more traditionally ascetic approach, although
I suspect that somewhere along the line these two paths converge.
They each have their own strengths and pitfalls.
	Your use of maya here made me recall a passage from a book I
am currently reading called "Kundalini in the World" by Mary Scott.
On page 28 she states:

	The dualism which tends to arise in Eastern thought 
	is not between mind and matter, but between the natural
	world, seen as an illusion created by the senses, and
	reality, seen as Brahman;  between nature and God. This
	is basis of the Hindu philosopher Shangkara's 
	distinction between true and false knowledge and his 
	equation of the phenomenal universe, or Maya, with
	illusion.  It caused, within classical Hinduism, a
	dichotomy between the creator and the creation which
	neither Shangkara nor any of his followers managed
	to overcome.  A similar split between God and the
	phenomenal world never arose in Tantric cosmology.

Prior to this, on page 19 she says:

	Modern Vedanta as it is understood in the West is
	largely based on the principles formulated by 
	Shangkara.

My question before about preferences for Hindu thinking was based on
intellectual curiosity spurred by Scott's book more than anything
else.  Can you place Paramahansa Yogananda's thinking in a historical
context i.e. do you think he has been influenced by Shangkara ?  Scott
seems to either have been either a student or an admirer of Sri
Aurobindo.

Yours in Dharma,
-Bill
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