[Buddha-l] Withdrawal of the senses

[Dan Lusthaus]

Eric,

I am leaving for a conference (AAR) tomorrow morning, so I don't have time
at present for a protracted debunking of the perennial philosophy
appropriation of asian thought.

> I understand that texts are different, but there's only so much you can
> do with your body and mind. So similar practices can have a different
> meaning, but similar effects. Plotinus also describes visualisation in
> the Eneads. In the Giita Arjuna 'sees' Kri.s.na in his true form, this
> doesn't seem to me merely to be unattached perception.
> I wouldn't be so sure about what the Giita really says, because it's not
> written by one person overnight.

People in India and people in Iceland have eyes. That doesn't mean they see
the same things, nor view such things as the night-sky (which is VERY
different in both places) in the same way. People everywhere eat, but not
the same things, nor do they prefer the same foods.

Ch. 11 of the Gita has Krsna give Arjuna a divine eye: The "vision"
initially impresses him with its beauty (light of a thousand sons), but it
turns horrifying and frightening. Krsna's body starts to aquire (or Arjuna
notices) parts that are devouring the soldiers on the battlefield (it is a
very contextually-specific vision), the light turns into scorching flames,
and Arjuna is so overcome by terror that he asks for his regular eye back.
The result is he fawns and supplicates himself to Krsna, which the Gita
explains at the end of ch. 11 and the entire ch. 12, is what bhakti is.

World religious literature is filled with visions. In translation many sound
similar. Read carefully in context they are all very different.

Joy's musings about the plethora of different practitioners practicing
different types of practices, each in their own way, is closer to truth. The
Gita recognizes that, which is why each chapter is called a "yoga", and
promotes a different style of practice, a different cultural type. All
"work" (according to Krsna), even though they are competing and even
mutually exclusive at times (hence Arjuna's confusions, often expressed at
the beginning of chapters). Plotinus wants a "One," Indians tended to be
just as comfortable with plurarity.

Dan Lusthaus