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Purusha and prakritii

Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Mysticism
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  • J Offline
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    Jim Eshelman
    replied to Leo Buziki on last edited by
    #6

    I think you're making this all too hard and too complicated.

    When you start reading the original Sanskrit works, and especially Samkhya, one thing that stands out is simplicity. There may be complicated mental constructs for purposes of labelling and cataloguing etc. - 25 rings of 25 kinds of vrittis (or whatever it is - I made that up). But, in the midst of all of it, there's a folksy "down home" simplicity.

    Purusha is just the Sanskrit word for "person." (It's even used grammatically as in "1st person pronoun," etc.) So, behind all the metaphysics and complexity and the Atma vs. Yechidah vs. Hadit vs. Real Self vs. Whatever, Purusha just means the person.

    And then the Samkhya philosphy goes on to say that everything that isn't "the person" is "something else," and all that "something else" is called prakriti.

    And then the philosophy pauses to say, "Oh, by the way, a lot of stuff that you normally think of as part of you - part of the person - isn't really part of the person. It's part of that prakriti thing. For example, your thoughts aren't part of yoy. They're part of your environment."

    And then, of course, Samkhya goes on to catalogue all the layers of the not-self as possible (perhaps to the point of absurdity).

    But the underlying philosophy is simple, even folksy: There's a person. And there's the environment. And, oh yeah, a lot of what you normally think of as the person is actually part of the environment.

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    Leo Buziki
    replied to Leo Buziki on last edited by
    #7

    ohh i understand it 😀

    sorry for making complications.

    I believe (to not do more complications) end this matter here...
    what you said above, Jim, is the sufficient, to end the question of this topic.

    Thanks 😀

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    Jim Eshelman
    replied to Leo Buziki on last edited by
    #8

    I recommend reading source literature to get the feel of a system, but as I believe in speaking a little of the language and eating the food of a people to get how their psyches are wired.

    Reading Patanjali's Yoga Sutras all the way through, especially against a Sanskrit original and really getting the meaning of the terms - that's a lot of work, and enormously powerful. (We spent a year doing that once in one of my classes in the '90s.) Also, I own the only copy of Kapila's Samkhya Philosophy that I've ever seen.

    So much more understanding from reding the original works 😄

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    Leo Buziki
    replied to Leo Buziki on last edited by
    #9

    haha i have so much to study yet 😀

    ...and that is the better part, in my point of view.
    Well, i have a lot of books to read, and understand. Much homework.
    I'll try to find the originals, but the problem is that most part of original books still in english, therefore i have to translate to portuguese, to be more easy read and understand it, as i have to read more times a book to get the content.

    Ahh and tanks for the tip, i'll try to find the Sutras. 🆒

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    Uni_Verse
    replied to Leo Buziki on last edited by
    #10

    @Leo Buziki said

    "I'll try to find the originals, but the problem is that most part of original books still in english, therefore i have to translate to portuguese, to be more easy read and understand it, as i have to read more times a book to get the content."

    That sounds like a pretty good idea in general, that of translation into another language.

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    Faust
    replied to Leo Buziki on last edited by
    #11

    Leo, we got some very good translations of the Yoga Sutras in Portuguese. The thesis of Lilian Gulmini, published by USP I believe, is my favorite one. Good work!

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    Leo Buziki
    replied to Leo Buziki on last edited by
    #12

    @Uni_Verse said

    "That sounds like a pretty good idea in general, that of translation into another language."

    Yeah, this turn some books more acessible for the staff. But isn't a ease work haha

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    Leo Buziki
    replied to Leo Buziki on last edited by
    #13

    @Faus said

    "Leo, we got some very good translations of the Yoga Sutras in Portuguese. The thesis of Lilian Gulmini, published by USP I believe, is my favorite one. Good work!"

    Yes Faust, you're really right. I made some search and found the Yoga Sutras in a interesting translation.. i'll read them and after other that i got also.
    😀

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    Faust
    replied to Leo Buziki on last edited by
    #14

    There is one by Carlos Eduardo G. Barbosa. He is a specialist in sanscrit and a Shaiva. Very good work althought some times he is not as clear as I would like.

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    Leo Buziki
    replied to Leo Buziki on last edited by
    #15

    Faust, is exactly that book that i got. 😀

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