[Advaita-l] concentration

[Sundaresan, Vidyasankar (GE Infra, Water)]

>Patanjali's work is a kind of firmware which belongs to a space
somewhere
>between Shruti and Hatha yoga. Y.S. I.6. is a known pranayama based on
>five-fold Sama in Ch.U. As prof. Bharat gupt of Delhi University says
in the
>ancient times we had connections between all subjects like shruti,
advaita,
>yoga, music, dance etc but the links suffered a rupture at some point
of
>time. Thanks for other references. 

I wish statements made with such a broad sweep are substantiated with
proper
text references. And, please resist the tendency to look at everything
in terms
of contemporary IT jargon or management jargon.

YS 1.6 says - pramANa viparyaya vikalpa nidrA smRtayaH

These address the five (pa~ncatayaH) forms (vRttayaH) of the mind
(citta) and are
a development of YS 1.5, which says, vRttayaH pa~ncatayaH
klishTAklishTAH. 

In what earthly or heavenly sense are you describing this enumeration of
vRtti-s
as a prANAyAma? To whom is it known, and how? Furthermore, in what sense
is this related to the pa~ncavidha sAmopAsana described in the
chAndogya?
For that matter, why not make an equally arbitrary connection with
taittirIya
upanishad - pAnktaM vA idaM sarvam? Other than the number five, is there
any
real connection?

There are indeed multiple connections across various traditional
specialities in
the Indian systems of thought, but why make spurious connections today,
claiming that there was a rupture at some time? If the rupture were
complete,
on what basis do you make the connections and validate them?

In another post on this thread, you described meditations as being
Indra's,
Mitra's, Varuna's, Brihaspati's, Vishnu's or Rudra's (which we are not
authorized
to talk about). To begin with, what authority makes these
characterizations
in the first place? What purpose do these names serve? Apart from
sounding
highly esoteric and mysterious, what use is it to anybody to give a name
to
some breathing exercise and then say we are not authorized to talk about
it?
Who grants or denies this authority?!! How different is all this from
the thoughts
of another recent ex-member who derived his own version of advaita
thought from
numerology and a digital wall clock?

The Advaita-L list is not meant to be a forum to air fanciful theories.
It is meant to
be a place where people discuss the advaita vedAnta philosophy and its
tradition.
Any thoughts on all other topics, no matter how profound or value-laden
they may
seem to oneself, are best targeted to other forums. Please spare this
one.

Thanks,
Vidyasankar