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Annademiel
Germany
29 Posts |
 Posted - Sep 06 2024 : 2:03:03 PM
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Hello,
I had a thought last time and I would like to know your opinion on it. I haven't read that much about yoga and sacred texts and have only recently started looking around to see what others have written about it - so it's possible that the idea is completely off the mark; the thought came to me without much prior knowledge, so to speak. So:
Could it be that verse number 7 in the Vigyan Bhairava has a praralelle to the Yoga Suta:
Vigyan Bhairava : "7th Devi, imagine the Sanskrit letters in these honey-filled foci of consciousness, first as letter-signs and then more subtly as sound and finally as the subtlest feeling. Then leave all this aside and feel free."
Osho translates focal points of consciousness more as moments of awareness - that's where the confusion starts for me because focal points of consciousness could also be chakras, but that's not what I'm getting at. Please read the following in parallel to the quote above and tell me if I am the only one who sees a connection: (especially through the "leave everything aside and feel free" at the end)
Yoga Sutra III "The three Dhahrana, Dhyana, Samadhi applied together to one object or place is called Samyama."
So concentration on an object; penetrating the object with consciousness and entering or releasing into Conscious Silence without any object in succession is Samyama...
Osho explains the verse from Vigyan Bhairava as a step-by-step meditation that leads from visualisation to sound, to feeling through sound and then to stillness.
But when I read the text for the first time, I immediately thought: This must be Samyama; applied with elements of visualisation and sound but still Samyama.
Patanjali does not directly describe the Samyama exercise used in AYP, but says that it can basically be applied to everything (thought, feeling, place etc.) and also mentions body regions as an example.
What do you think is a parallel here; an acceptable interpretation or would that be a stretch?
Greetings
Annademiel |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4487 Posts |
Posted - Sep 06 2024 : 4:41:32 PM
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Hi Annademiel,
I believe the technique you are referring to is from verse 30 of the Vigyan Bhairava Tantra. It can be translated like this:
"There are twelve [such centers] in sequence; properly associated with twelve vowels. By fixing awareness on each one, in successively coarse, subtle, and supreme forms, and then abandoning each, in the end, [one becomes] Shiva."
So, this is a practice from classical Tantra which uses a twelve chakra system. It involves first of all moving the awareness from chakra to chakra up through the body, intoning the Sanskrit vowels in turn at each chakra's location (a at muladhara, aa at the svadhistana chakra, i at kanda chakra, and so on...) in gross form, then doing the same again in subtle form (at the level of thought), and finally in the "supreme" form. The words in Sanskrit used in the text for these three forms are sthula, sukshma, and para. Para means "beyond", "highest" or "supreme". The commentary to the text says that the supreme state of the vibration of the phonemes (vowels) is the point where sound turns into divine light.
So, there is certainly a Samyama aspect to the practice. It is not a touch-and-release practice like the AYP Samyama practice is, but in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali there is no mention of timeframes for the practice of Samyama. Simply beginning with the attention on a sutra (dharana), merging with it (dhyana), and transcending it (samadhi). So yes, this verse from the VBT could be said to be Samyama on "the progression of the repetition of these twelve phonemes in these twelve chakras".
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Annademiel
Germany
29 Posts |
Posted - Sep 07 2024 : 09:10:48 AM
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Thank you, that's very interesting. May I ask which commentary you have? I have a translation (only the verses) on the German FY? website and there the text reads as first given above.
Osho (Book of Secrets) does not speak of chakras at all in the context of this verse, the number 12 does not appear at all. Instead of chakras, it speaks of moments of awareness. ... In both translations there is something about ?leaving aside? at the end, which is why, in combination with the becoming finer aspect, I came up with letting go at the end and samyama.
Your comment seems to me to be based on an exact translation - is this also available in German?
Or asked differently and additionally: is anyone aware of an older text source / quote than the Yoga Sutra that describes a form of Samyama or that could be interpreted as Samyama-like without going too far out on a limb?
I'm just interested in how something like this developed and how far back the documentation goes...
Regards
Annademiel |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4487 Posts |
Posted - Sep 07 2024 : 10:27:25 AM
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Hi Annademiel,
The verse you quoted follows-on from the previous verse in the VBT which talks about chakras:
"[Imagine the #347;akti] rising like a streak of lightning from one subtle center (cakra) to the next in succession. When She reaches the upper[most] center, twelve finger-widths above the crown, there comes the Great Dawn [of liberation]." || 29 ||
Then verse 30 mentions that there are twelve of these centres. The number twelve is dvaadasha in Sanskrit, which is mentioned twice in verse 30. Osho is giving quite a loose translation, leaving out the number 12, and the reference to chakras.
The translation I quoted is by Christopher Wallis and can be found on this page. I do not know if there is a translation available in German?
It is difficult to date Sanskrit texts as we often do not have the originals, only copies, or even copies of copies. But the Vigyan Bhairava Tantra could have been composed around the 7th or 8th centuries AD. Patanjali's yoga sutras are also difficult to date. Some historians put them around the 5th Century AD, but they could be quite a bit older. I am not aware of anything composed before Patanjali's Yoga Sutras that talks about Samyama, or describes the process so clearly.
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Christi
United Kingdom
4487 Posts |
Posted - Sep 07 2024 : 4:35:09 PM
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Hi Annademiel,
p.s.
Apparently, when Osho published "The Book of Secrets" he changed the original order of the verses in the VBT and re-numbered them. That is why you are seeing verse 30 numbered incorrectly as verse 7 on the FYU website, because it is Osho's translation. Shivananda did something similar when he published his translation and commentary of the Bhagavad Gita. He re-ordered and re-numbered some of the verses to make it easier to understand. |
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Annademiel
Germany
29 Posts |
Posted - Sep 08 2024 : 09:24:22 AM
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Thank you very much that was already very enlightening and I can certainly do something with the English translation on the website :)
Greetings
Annademiel |
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Annademiel
Germany
29 Posts |
Posted - Sep 08 2024 : 09:25:45 AM
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| um ... do you have perhaps a link to the translation on AYP? |
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Christi
United Kingdom
4487 Posts |
Posted - Sep 08 2024 : 5:00:50 PM
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Hi Annademiel,
I have not seen a translation on the AYP website. There is Osho's translation on the FYU website here. That is the one with the verses switched around and which uses a very loose translation of the text. |
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Annademiel
Germany
29 Posts |
Posted - Sep 09 2024 : 7:16:25 PM
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Thanks  |
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describes Vigyan Bhairava Samyama?
