Theories and Interpretations

Day 1,122, 11:32 • Published in India India • by Patanjali

Namaste
Translated for you, with the kind help of visual vampire, to whom I thank very much.



Mean time, listen to that, if you like

In order to live in this world, people need to design a representation of it. Otherwise, they cannot understand it.
Just think of it: unless we see a map, even if of the city we live in, we have a different perception of the streets and houses we are passing by. We understand them visually, as we recall them during our walks.

Regarding this topic, an interesting case for both Europeans and Westerners would be that of Aristotle (poor Plato being acknowledged only later).
Aristotle wrote his major works around the year 364, having returned to Athens.
Him being gone, scores of other people „interpreted” what he had said/written.

Somehwat a normal consequence, in a Europe in which Moor invaders were the representatives of culture and civilization (an exceptional illustration being Isidor of Seville, The Spaniard.
Thus, he reached fame on account of some Arabic translations and only later due to transcripts of some of his works written in ancient Greek (a language with a schepsys, is it not, christo?).

A multitude of scholars attempted to express the truth in Aristotle’s writings (the medieval Avicenna, Averoes, Thomas d’Aquino or even Spinoza, who even developed a geometrical method for the demonstration of philosophical ideas, a concept later embraced by Wittgenstein).
Each was more or less influenced by the times he was living in (be they a peripathetic or a Renaissance period).

To the result that today we hold several interpretations of Aristotle’s treaties, each trying to explain what he, the prince of philosophy, was trying to tell us.
Some interpretations are very profound, explaining and envisaging the ties functioning in that Athens of 364, the egos and tensions between Plato and Aristotle (or the neoplatonicists).

In India, with the help of miles247, I have succeeded (or I think I have, after almost 2 years) in understanding the real state of difficulty of the Indian civilization (which is very similar to other civilizations’).

Alienation due to interpretation.

To understand Pantajali, it is enough to read Pantajali, neither the interpretations of his single book, nor accounts given by different historians regarding his life and times.
Similarly, approaching what we see today (various yogis that are still alive, fakirs – especially in the manner they have degenerated in Europe and the USA) is of no use, I think.

Moreover, even the field that Pantajali makes direct reference to is impossible to grasp without actual practice, without studying Shamkhya karika and without giving up the fruit of one’s own deeds.
It is a sort of innate method, a natural initiation system which is presented, (Yoga Sutra, Vibhutti Pada, 8. "tad api bahir angam nirbijasya"), also having a deep connection to our identification with one of the three domains (sattwa, raja or tamas).

What also seems quite strange is that those concepts of Shamkhya, in spite of their countless and timeless renditions, do not seem naive even nowadays, whereas Aristotle’s associations of the senses to the natural elements of earth, water, air and fire might be perceived as amusing. Still, Aristotle is acknowledged by the „western canonic” science, while Kapila is hardly mentioned – being labeled as esoteric.


Spiritual teachings?


Be aware !