What Knowledge is There to Gain From a Yogic Experience?

Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Religion, 2021

DIALOGO, 2022

In this article, I go beyond health and contemplate the Indian Yogic concept of wellbeing against the changing influences of different spiritual traditions in my life. I finally come full circle and consider what Indian metaphysical tradition best fits and throws light on Jesus’s affirmations “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind” and: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself “(Matthew 22:37-39); proclamations that have fascinated me since my childhood. The inquiry into these statements is a pointer to how we can live a most meaningful yogic life in full clarity and respect concerning all that exists around us.

International journal of innovative research in engineering and management, 2022

Yoga is an ancient Indian way of life that entails a mental shift, a change in food, and the use of particular procedures including such yoga asanas, breathing techniques, and meditation in order to achieve the greatest degree of awareness. There has been a spike in yoga research over the last decade, but we can only identify a few studies on the health benefits of yogic practices or transcendental meditations. Aside from illness, With this in mind, a Medline assessment of relevant publications on physiological assessment in the English literature was undertaken. The effects of TM and yogic practices are distinct. Data was obtained, concerns were investigated, and considerable health benefits were revealed. Just a few of the advantages include improved cognition, cardiovascular risk, respiration, blood pressure, BMI, or diabetes. Yoga also had an effect. Immunity was boosted, and joint pain was reduced.

Smithsonian Institute website, 2013

The earliest textual descriptions of yogic techniques date to the last few centuries BCE and show their practitioners to have been ascetics who had turned their backs on ordinary society. These renouncers have been considered practitioners of yoga par excellence throughout Indian history. While ascetics, including some seated in meditative yoga postures, have been represented in Indian statuary since that early period, the first detailed depictions of Indian ascetics are not found until circa 1560 in paintings produced under the patronage of Mughal Emperor Akbar (reigned 1556-1605) and his successors. These wonderfully naturalistic and precise images illuminate not only Mughal manuscripts and albums but also our understanding of the history of yogis and their sects. Scholars have argued for these paintings' value as historical documents; their usefulness in establishing the history of Indian ascetic orders bears this out. The consistency of their depictions and the astonishing detail they reveal allow us to flesh out-and, sometimes, rewrite-the incomplete and partisan history that can be surmised from Sanskrit and vernacular texts, travelers' reports, hagiography, and ethnography.

Today’s we are facing various Global Challenges for Humanity such as sustainable development & climate change, clean water, population & resources, democratization (crisis of faith), Long term perspectives (Economic recession), Global Convergence of IT, Rich-Poor gap, Health issues, capacity to decide, Peace & conflict (Stress), Status of woman, Transnational Organized Crime, Energy, Science & technology, Globe Ethics etc. are continuously haunting life of everyone and adversely affecting the balance of Human Life. So it's the time to reconnect with our roots to find the permanent solution for managing our Life and it can only be possible through YOG. Yoga is not merely a gesture or Posture only, rather it's a way of Living, It's the art of managing Life. In this particular paper the researcher has tried their level best to put forward the different main sutras from Indian Yogic text which clearly supports the present work and proves that Yoga is the only solution for bringing Health, Happiness & Harmony thereby resulting in Life management. Keywords: yoga, life, management, diet, health, happiness.

2016

Contemplative experience is central to Hindu yoga traditions, Buddhist meditation practices, and Catholic mystical theology, and, despite doctrinal differences, it expresses itself in suggestively similar meditative landmarks in each of these three meditative systems. In Yoga, Meditation and Mysticism, Kenneth Rose shifts the dominant focus of contemporary religious studies away from tradition-specific studies of individual religious traditions, communities, and practices to examine the 'contemplative universals' that arise globally in meditative experience. Through a comparative exploration of the itineraries detailed in the contemplative manuals of Theravada Buddhism, Patañjalian Yoga, and Catholic mystical theology, Rose identifies in each tradition a moment of sharply focused awareness that marks the threshold between immersion in mundane consciousness and contemplative insight. As concentration deepens, the meditator steps through this threshold onto a globally shared contemplative itinerary, which leads through a series of virtually identical stages to mental stillness and insight. Rose argues that these contemplative universals, familiar to experienced contemplatives in multiple traditions, point to a common spiritual, mental, and biological heritage. Pioneering the exploration of contemplative practice and experience with a comparative perspective that ranges over multiple religious traditions, religious studies, philosophy, neuroscience, and the cognitive science of religion, this book is a landmark contribution to the fields of contemplative practice and religious studies. Table of contents Table of Figures Acknowledgments Note on Transliteration, Spelling, and Translations Prologue Introduction Part One 1. A New Comparative Religion and the Search for Contemplative Universals 2. Recovering the Mystical in the Reign of Constructivism 3. Biological Essentialism and the New Sciences of Religion Part Two Introduction to Part Two: Charting the Common Itinerary of the Contemplative Experience 153 4. The Concentrative Itinerary of the Buddhist Jhanas 5. The Concentrative Itinerary of Yogic Samadhi 6. The Concentrative Itinerary of Catholic Unio Mystica Conclusion Bibliography Index Endorsements “Kenneth Rose rehabilitates interreligious comparison as a necessary and powerful tool of Religious Studies. Moreover, he shows how comparative work on religious experience benefits from the insights of cognitive science and neuro-physiology without falling into the trap of materialistic reductionism. Studies like his create a constructive and much needed link between Comparative Religion and Interreligious Theology.” – Perry Schmidt-Leukel, Professor of Religious Studies and Intercultural Theology, University of Muenster, Germany “Kenneth Rose's Yoga, Meditation and Mysticism breaks through the somewhat stagnant discussion between the impoverished arguments of the perennialist/essentialist proponents of mysticism and the by now predictable rebuttals to these from the constructionists. His project is to recover or rehabilitate religious essentialism, but not, like his perennialist predecessors, based on a search for shared underlying concepts or universal symbols, which are easy targets for constructivist deconstruction, but based on the trans-cultural commonalities of contemplative experiences themselves. Using deeply researched case studies from Buddhism, Yoga and the Christian traditions, Rose identifies five “contemplative universals' or shared landmarks of the meditative journey common to these traditions. In other words, he identifies an almost identical set of meditative experiences accompanying the deepening focus of consciousness in these traditions precisely because they are based in experience rather than preconditioned doctrine. Rose harnesses neurobiology to his cause here (ironically, given it is a field primarily inhabited by materialists convinced of a neurological correlate of consciousness), where meditative states show repeatable, observable neurological chemistry that is shared trans-culturally, and trans-doctrinally and therefore not socially constructed. Part of Rose's stated purpose is to seek to loosen the all too often dogmatic materialistic presuppositions and reductionistic ideologies that hold sway over the production of much scholarship in the academic field of Religion, and secure a sui generis grounding for the religious life, at least in its contemplative forms, eschewing the pitfalls of previous efforts in this regard. Thus Yoga, Meditation and Mysticism will likely be welcomed by intellectually responsible meditation practitioners who seek a spirituality grounded in a trans-sectarian metaphysics of meditation that resonates with cutting edge research in the emerging field of contemplative neuroscience. And I envision it will certainly be a seminal text for the next generation in the academic study of mysticism.” – Edwin Bryant, Professor of Hindu Religion and Philosophy, Rutgers University, US and author of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali with Insights from the Traditional Commentators (2009). See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/yoga-meditation-and-mysticism-9781472571694/#sthash.pfLWzlqf.dpuf

Yoga is an ancient Indian way of life, which includes changes in mental attitude, diet, and the practice of specific techniques such as yoga asanas (postures), breathing practices (pranayamas), and meditation to attain the highest level of consciousness. Since a decade, there has been a surge in the research on yoga, but we do find very few reviews regarding yogic practices and transcendental meditation (TM) in health and disease. Keeping this in view, a Medline search was done to review relevant articles in English literature on evaluation of physiological effects of yogic practices and TM. Data were constructed; issues were reviewed and found that there were considerable health benefits, including improved cognition, respiration, reduced cardiovascular risk, body mass index, blood pressure, and diabetes. Yoga also influenced immunity and ameliorated joint disorders.

Chapter In De Manning, R. ed. Mutual Enrichment. Theology, Psychology, and Religious Life. Routledge. Within less than half a century, the teaching of meditation has drastically changed: Long bearded and orange-clad gurus have been replaced by Western white-collared medics and psychologists. From mental health services to education, from business to armed forces, meditation is presented as a technique that makes one a healthier, more efficient, and even a better — more compassionate — human being. The popular and scientific interest in meditative techniques in the West marks a new chapter in the relationship between science and religion. It is born out of a complex dialogue between Western Enlightenment values and Asian religious traditions, leading to two major waves of scientific interest in meditation: Transcendental Meditation and Mindfulness Meditation. This chapter traces the history of the scientization of meditation and summarises some key moments in the making of the science of meditation. It then moves on to argue that we have now reached a second alchemical moment in the relationship between science and meditation: the turning of this meditation science into a secular religion.

Sahapedia, 2018

There are many varied but overlapping conceptions of the body in India. Each offer different accounts of the body, its function and purpose. There is the medical body, the āyurvedic body, the wrestler's body, the subtle body and the yogic body. This entry was initially titled the subtle body (sūkṣma śarīra) but reoriented to the yogic body as, despite overlays in terminology and thought, the yogic body is distinct from the sūkṣma śarīra. This entry will define the yogic body, describe its characteristics, summarise the techniques and purposes of manipulating the yogic body and historically contextualise the perceptions and misperceptions of the yogic body. The yogic body describes the relationship between the physical, 'real' body of flesh and blood, the psychical realms of consciousness, and the ritualistic leveraging of these connections. The body of the practitioner is doctrinally and ritually 'written on' (Flood 2006). As developed by the Indian tradition, yogic bodies offer a sophisticated and practical account of the realm and relationship between body and mind (Samuel and Johnston 2013). They are purposeful, describing an energetic map to be manipulated for the purposes of power, longevity and liberation. There are, in fact, a range of yogic bodies described across time and traditions-some complementary, some contradictory. The yogic body is a network of conduits or channels through which 'substances' (whether ontologically real, energetic or ritually imagined) travel.