Chanting of the name/Book Details

[Rolando Santos]

Namaste,

Thank you for the excellent information.

AUM
Rolando

On Sun, 9 Feb 2003 15:38:10 -0500, Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at BRAINCELLS.COM>
wrote:

>1.  Meaning of "Samkhya" and "Yoga" has changed over time.  three phases
>can be distinguished:
>
>a. The "presystematic" phase.  Samkhya literally means "enumeration" it
>was a proto-scientific attempt to understand nature by determining its'
>fundamental elements (tattvas)  Yoga literally means "union" it was the
>term for all the experiments in raising consciousness by means of
>meditative and ritual practices.  There are many references to Samkhya and
>Yoga concepts in the Vedas and other shastras such as Bhagavadgita.  But
>we needn't assume they refer to specific coherent philosophies but more
>like generic "theory"  and "practice"
>
>b. "Classical" Samkhya/Yoga.  The Buddha originally had a Samkhya teacher
>but became dissatisfied and developed his "middle way"  Perhaps because of
>pressure from the Buddhists or internal debates, Samkhya/Yoga bgan
>developing more systematically and the foundational texts of these
>two schools such as Yogasutras and Samkhyakarikas were written.
>Samkhya concepts such as the number of tattvas were fixed (at 25) and
>polemics were written against rivals.  Yoga closely follows Samkhya in
>philosphical matters one big exception being the former was atheistic
>while the latter admitted God (Ishvara) as the 26th tattva.
>
>c. "Advaitization"  Shankaracharya devotes a lot of energy in the
>Brahmasutrabhashya to refuting Samkhya/Yoga concepts and was so
>successful, Samkhya/Yoga largely fell by the wayside.  It was rescued by
>the brilliant ~11th century scholar Vachaspati Mishra who wrote
>influential commentaries on Samkhya, Yoga, and Advaita Vedanta.  He
>reinterpreted Samkhya/Yoga terms in an Advaita fashion e.g. equating
>Purush ("soul") with Atma ("self") and since then Samkhya/Yoga has become
>little more than a department of Advaita Vedanta.  So much so that
>nowadays people talk of "Yogavedanta" not even aware that these were once
>two seperate things.
>
>So when you come across these terms you have to stop and consider the
>context to understand exactly which usage is being intended.