Patanjali and the Forman
From birth to the age of three, our bodies unlock the secrets of motor movement. From the age of two years to ten years, we have the formation of thinking patterns and personality; a worldview begins to form. By the time we reach high school, many of us have formed rigid opinions of the world around us, blinders that limit the scope of the universe. Several psychology texts assert that the best time to expose a child to a musical instrument for instruction is around the age of five or six, and that a person has much greater difficulty learning to play an instrument after the age of twelve or thirteen.Imagine the mind as being a sponge, and pure thought as the pool of water that it sits in. It can only hold so many ways of thinking, limiting the further intake of new thoughts. Yoga offers a method of wringing out that sponge so as to be free of old, stagnant thought patterns, thus allowing the intake of new thoughts (which must also be squeezed out). The retention of those thoughts is unfavorable. They mix with pure thoughts and taint them. This is what the Yoga Sutra defines as the turnings of thought. The goal of Yoga, as stated in the second aphorism, is the cessation of the turnings of
When we look at the practice of yoga, we are told that, "its purpose is to cultivate pure contemplation and attenuate the forces of corruption," (Miller 44.) To enter into this contemplative poise, one must be free of his/her own manners of thought, so as to correctly perceive a mystical experience. It is one's goal to achieve this state; the fact of the matter is that we are not in a constant state of pure contemplation. Our background and habitual modes of thought prevent us from reaching this state. The Yoga Sutra is a guide that teaches us how we can attain this state, so it is clear that it does not exemplify Stephan Katz's theory that there are no pure or unmediated mystical experiences. If a mystical experience is a result of one's own views of the world, as Katz suggests, then why does Patanjali's text insist that we have to place ourselves in a state of pure contemplation? Patanjali feels that it is necessary to shed all the subliminal impressions. They gather as we move through life and create the filter that Katz believes all mystical experiences must pass through. It is stated in the Yoga Sutra that "subliminal impressions are held together by the interdependence of cause and effect," (Miller 77). Life is but a long series of events causing and affecting other occurrences; our personalities are defined by the way we choose to react to those situations. When Katz claims that, "there are no pure experiences," he does not describe the qualities of a mystical experience but rather the natural state of a person who does not practice Yoga. Through the practice of Yoga as outlined in Patanjali's Yoga Sutra, one actually opens his/herself to a pure, unattached experience that he/she can deem "mystical." Sutra Attributed to Patanjali. New York: Bantam, 1995. On the other hand, we have Robert Forman's ideas about the mystical experience, which clearly oppose poor Stephen Katz's rejected misconceptions
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Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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