mad-bhaktiṁ labhate parām | What happens when the body dies – Vedanta Q & A @mad-bhaktimlabhateparam2592 | Uploaded March 2022 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
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What happens when the body dies – Vedanta Q & A @mad-bhaktimlabhateparam2592
![Prof. Edwin Bryant [Advaita Das]: Sankhya, Yoga, Vedanta & The Hard Problem of Consciousness](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/AJRNAUvWbq4/hqdefault.jpg "Prof. Edwin Bryant [Advaita Das]: Sankhya, Yoga, Vedanta & The Hard Problem of Consciousness
Full presentation (this excerpt is a question asked at 1.09.45, during the Q & A): https://youtu.be/cp1X-ar76nA?t=4188
Prof. Edwin Bryant [Advaita Das]: Asamprajñāta Samādhi Explained (Patanjalis Yoga Sutras)
https://youtu.be/d7dZ26cEUgU
Professor Edwin Bryants Bio:
http://www.edwinbryant.org
Excerpt from Edwin Bryants Translation & Commentary on the Yoga Sutras:
Ch 1.V 1 atha yogānuśāsanam atha, now; yoga, yoga; anuśāsanam, teachings
Now, the teachings of yoga [are presented].
. . . all aspects of mind, intellect, and cognition in Yoga psychology are external to or distinct from the true self, or soul. As will become clearer, the soul, which is pure consciousness, is autonomous and separable from the mind, and lies behind and beyond all forms of thought. It is essential to fully grasp this fundamental point in order to understand the Yoga system. Just as in most religious systems the body is commonly accepted to be extraneous to and separable from some notion of a soul or life force, and discarded at death, so - in contrast to certain major strains of Western thought - according to the Yoga system (and Hindu thought in general), the mind is also held to be extraneous to and separable from the soul (although it is discarded not at death but only upon attaining liberation). The soul is enveloped in two external and separable bodies in Yoga metaphysics: the gross material body consisting of the senses, and the subtle body consisting of the mind, intellect, ego, and other subtle aspects of the persona.
At death, the soul discards the gross body (which returns to the material elements, to “dust”) but remains encapsulated in the subtle body, which is retained from life to life, and eventually attains a new gross body, in accordance with natural laws (karma, etc.). In order to be liberated from this cycle of repeated birth and death (termed saṁsāra in ancient Indian thought), the soul has to be uncoupled from not just the gross body but the subtle body as well. The process of yoga is directed toward this end. For our present purposes, then, in contrast to the Cartesian model, knowledge, as a feature of the intellect, or the discriminatory aspect of the mind, is extraneous to the pure self and thus not the ultimate aspect of being.
The point here is that while knowledge is initially essential in leading the yogī practitioner through the various levels of samādhi, concentrative states, it is only through yoga, for Vijñānabhikṣu, that one can transcend the very intellect itself and thus the base of knowledge, to arrive at puruṣa, the ultimate state of pure, unconditioned awareness.
From this perspective, Yoga is therefore superior to other schools of thought that occupy themselves with knowledge and thus remain connected to the material intellect. Just as a person with a torch in hand gives up the torch upon finding treasure, says Vijñānabhikṣu, so, eventually, the intellect, and the knowledge that it presents, also become redundant upon attaining the ultimate source of truth, puruṣa, the soul and innermost self.
The self is pure subjectivity and transcends all knowledge, which is of the nature of objectivity: One knows, that is, one is aware or conscious of, something, hence some other object distinct from the knower or power of consciousness itself, whether this is an external object of the physical world, or an internal object of thought. Thus, Vijñānabhikṣu says (paraphrasing Sāṅkhya Kārikā XXXV), knowledge and the intellect are the door and doorkeeper, and both lead the practitioner of yoga from the domain of material cognition to the highest goal of existence, realization of puruṣa or the real self (consciousness itself) but this ultimately lies beyond even the intellect.
This state of pure consciousness, which is not conscious of anything other than consciousness itself, is termed asamprajñāta-samādhi. The attainment of this state is the ultimate goal for the school of Yoga, not any type of knowledge however profound or mystical. Hence, from this perspective, Yoga is superior to knowledge-centered paths.
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