Logic of Yoga

Bhadraiah Mallampalli vaidix at HOTMAIL.COM
Sat Jan 20 12:15:11 UTC 2001


Sri Sundaresan,

>it seems to me that nothing much useful comes out of conflating
> >philosophical views of ultimate reality with a restricted set of
> >disciplines that may be called Indology.

This is the "it" I was trying to explain in all my posts.  :-)

What I find is that just one cycle which is yajna contains all subjects, all
darshanas, all rituals, all gods, in fact everything one can or can not
conceive of. This one cycle can be anything, a breathing cycle, or a thought
cycle, or a life cycle or whatever. That is the reason why it looks like I
am merging various subjects. It is not me who is merging. The khichdi is
already out there, I am just reading out its contents as I see.

According to this model, yajna as a cycle is not just a circle or ellipse or
a piece of a sine wave. It has all the necessary twists and turns, because
its components (known, unknown and desirable) get mixed up quickly. These
twists and turns are all standard, call it dIkSa, puroruc, prAtaranuvAka,
jyotiSToma or whatever names of chapters one can see in any brAhmaNa. People
do not see "all" these symbols in "each" cycle because they make
approximations for large chunks of the cycle by calling the chunks with a
different name. But I repeat "all" the vedic symbols exist in "each" cycle.
Giving a different name to a chunk of its contents does not change the
nature of yajna.

Chemistry is all about protons, neutrons and electrons. So why not talk only
in terms of these three? Why talk of elements? Why talk of sugars,
aldehydes, toluene's, and so on? We need these higher combinations because
it makes sense to denote some combinations with certain names. In the same
way yajna is a simple and flexible system of "darshana" consisting of a few
handful of basic elements, but at the same time one can make complex
combinations to represent real world situations.

In spite of its complexity, the cycle also unwinds quickly and disappears
into thin air at the slightest hint of advaita. When a child plays with a
reel of thread it gets messed up in no time and looks as if it is an
insolvable puzzle. We know very well the child was just playing at random
and doesn't have enough cunning to purposely entangle the thread to make it
useless. Theoretically it is possible to separate out the thread but
practically it looks impossible. Same goes for yajna.

Scholars are comfortable to talk in the six or more darshanas. But I find
that using agni etc is the most natural way to discuss; as much as Sanskrit
scholars find it more natural to converse in Sanskrit than English. I am
trying to reintroduce this simple, flexible and the most reliable ancient
system of darshana, which at the same time meets the specifications of the
latest technological or scientific advances, simply because no subject is
outside of it - in PRACTICAL TERMS. I mean practical terms, because every
one can claim brahman is the background of everything, but practically if
any one claims it supports relativity such claims will be ridiculed. The
currently available darshanas can not handle this complexity because they
became prisoners of their own jargon. Again this is just my view.

As all subjects are included in it, the description of "it" (yajna) will
never be "complete". It will be complete only when the yajna goes away. If
we do not use the yajna paribhASa, I believe we are either losing valuable
information or simply we are not in control.

If I may repeat, the existing darshanas are also a part of the yajna because
they can not be logically out of it. Indologists who are working on such
subjects are in minority but even one in 1000 is enough for me. My
description may be crude but somebody will improve it in the next 200 years.

Best regards
Bhadraiah
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