WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.040 --> 00:00:10.679 Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Chidheads podcast. Today's episode is actually 2 00:00:10.839 --> 00:00:16.399 extracted from one of the sessions of the thirty day Sadana that I have been 3 00:00:16.480 --> 00:00:22.039 teaching for embodied philosophy. In this thirty day Sodena, we are exploring a 4 00:00:22.079 --> 00:00:28.120 particular text called the Mattiendra Sanghita, which is an early text associated with hate 5 00:00:28.199 --> 00:00:34.560 yoga that also has a very interesting practice associated with the chakras and the Yoganese 6 00:00:34.600 --> 00:00:39.759 that are associated with them. Initially, I had planned to just speak for 7 00:00:39.799 --> 00:00:43.960 about ten to fifteen minutes and then practice every day for the thirty days of 8 00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:47.640 this sodena, but it's actually turned out to be about an hour. Every 9 00:00:47.719 --> 00:00:54.039 day, I spend about thirty minutes unpacking a particular concept. I explore some 10 00:00:54.119 --> 00:01:02.560 philosophical material that helps to contextualize the text historically and soophically, and to explore 11 00:01:02.600 --> 00:01:06.560 some of the worldview associated with the text, and we also of course explore 12 00:01:06.680 --> 00:01:11.159 various translations of different passages from the text itself. One of the core concepts 13 00:01:11.239 --> 00:01:17.480 that will perhaps be familiar to many of your listeners is this concept of baba, 14 00:01:17.560 --> 00:01:22.120 the Sanskrit word bava. This concept of bava is connected to a theory 15 00:01:22.200 --> 00:01:27.879 of imagination that helps us to make sense of and contextualize the practices of visualization 16 00:01:29.400 --> 00:01:34.519 that are illustrated throughout the text. So on one particular day, I explore 17 00:01:34.640 --> 00:01:38.879 this concept of bava from which we get familiar words like bavana, and so 18 00:01:40.040 --> 00:01:42.640 I thought i'd share it with you before we transition into it. A couple 19 00:01:42.840 --> 00:01:47.920 reminders. We do have a new YouTube channel, So if you're listening to 20 00:01:47.959 --> 00:01:53.719 this as audio and you want to follow us on YouTube, just go ahead 21 00:01:53.799 --> 00:01:57.640 and head to YouTube and search for chit Heads and it should come up. 22 00:01:59.400 --> 00:02:01.159 And if you're a fan of the podcast and you've been listening for some time 23 00:02:01.280 --> 00:02:05.599 or you're new and you feel like supporting us, can offer a one time 24 00:02:05.640 --> 00:02:09.719 donation at buy me a coffee dot com forward slash Chittheads. Let's buy me 25 00:02:09.800 --> 00:02:15.240 a coffee dot com forward slash chittheads. You can leave a donation for as 26 00:02:15.240 --> 00:02:19.000 little as five dollars, and if you do, I will mention your name 27 00:02:19.039 --> 00:02:23.120 on a future episode of the Chittheads podcast. It really does go a long 28 00:02:23.159 --> 00:02:27.520 way to supporting this work, and so I greatly appreciate it. Lastly, 29 00:02:27.719 --> 00:02:30.680 please consider leaving us a positive review on iTunes. They really do make an 30 00:02:30.719 --> 00:02:37.080 impact in getting this podcast out to those who've not discovered it yet, and 31 00:02:37.159 --> 00:02:39.919 so if you enjoy the podcast, please do consider leaving us a review on 32 00:02:39.960 --> 00:02:44.879 iTunes. So, without any further ado, let's go ahead and get right 33 00:02:44.919 --> 00:03:00.439 into the episode. Thanks for listening. Hello everyone, good afternoon, good 34 00:03:00.479 --> 00:03:04.719 morning, good evening, wherever you happen to be in the world, Welcome 35 00:03:04.759 --> 00:03:09.800 back to day four of the thirty day Sodana, exploring the Chekas and the 36 00:03:09.919 --> 00:03:15.280 Yoganese from a particular text, as you know by now, the Matsienda Sanhita. 37 00:03:16.960 --> 00:03:24.919 So today I wanted to unpack an important kind of theoretical concept or what 38 00:03:25.039 --> 00:03:30.120 we could even describe it as the theory of the practice at the basis of 39 00:03:30.159 --> 00:03:36.719 the Matsianda Sanhita or the many different practices that we find in this text. 40 00:03:37.639 --> 00:03:42.159 There is a as I had mentioned I think in one of the earlier sessions, 41 00:03:42.439 --> 00:03:46.919 there's this theory of imagination that is really central not only to this text, 42 00:03:46.199 --> 00:03:52.400 but also to really the entire con tric tradition and yoga tradition. And 43 00:03:52.759 --> 00:03:57.759 it's when we really engage with it, it's quite a radical idea and really 44 00:03:57.800 --> 00:04:02.840 pushes back quite a bit against kind of our cultural presuppositions about you know, 45 00:04:02.840 --> 00:04:09.520 what the role of the imagination is and and how it plays into reality itself, 46 00:04:09.560 --> 00:04:15.400 and and the the creation, the radical creativity of our lives. So 47 00:04:15.639 --> 00:04:20.720 this, this term which you're probably very familiar with if you are not new 48 00:04:20.759 --> 00:04:26.319 to the yoga tradition, is this term bava, This sanscrit word bava. 49 00:04:27.040 --> 00:04:32.800 Now, bava actually has a lot of different uh meanings. It means being 50 00:04:33.439 --> 00:04:39.480 becoming. Uh. It has this sense of of a state of things you 51 00:04:39.600 --> 00:04:45.000 might have. If you're familiar with the with the vision of a tradition, 52 00:04:45.040 --> 00:04:47.120 of the Baku tradition, you often hear people say, I, you know, 53 00:04:47.439 --> 00:04:50.560 I'm in the bav right, I'm in the mood. In other words, 54 00:04:50.959 --> 00:04:57.560 So bava this word of of mood or kind of disposition. It means 55 00:04:57.560 --> 00:05:00.759 a state of being but also a state of becoming. And we find it 56 00:05:00.800 --> 00:05:04.319 in words like pavana, which maybe some of you are familiar with. This 57 00:05:04.439 --> 00:05:11.519 term means well, it's often translated, in my view, somewhat problematically as 58 00:05:12.720 --> 00:05:15.639 as meditation, because of course, what do we mean my meditation here? 59 00:05:16.079 --> 00:05:24.399 But bavana is really better translated, particularly in the context of many facets of 60 00:05:24.439 --> 00:05:31.800 the tonic tradition as creative contemplation or a kiss defines it as empathic imagination. 61 00:05:32.800 --> 00:05:35.839 And so you know, what does this have to do with our practices? 62 00:05:35.920 --> 00:05:41.959 Right? This is a just a bit from one of the articles by this 63 00:05:42.120 --> 00:05:46.240 very celebrated scholar Alexa Sanderson. Perhaps some of you've heard of him, and 64 00:05:46.279 --> 00:05:50.079 I think he captures really beautifully here what kind of what bavana is really all 65 00:05:50.160 --> 00:05:54.600 about, or this term bava and its role and meaning in the context of 66 00:05:55.160 --> 00:06:00.759 contric practice. The thinking which the theorists of the Sedanta, right, Sadanta, 67 00:06:00.879 --> 00:06:05.319 the Shivsedanta is sort of the earliest form of Shaivism, or at least, 68 00:06:05.759 --> 00:06:10.000 you know, the most organized form of Shivism, because we could say 69 00:06:10.399 --> 00:06:13.319 there was proto Shivism all the way back to the Vedas in the form of 70 00:06:13.439 --> 00:06:18.839 Rudra. But the Shivsdanta is kind of the dualistic Shiva tradition that pre was 71 00:06:18.879 --> 00:06:25.959 the precursor to the more esoteric and nondual traditions that were oriented around the goddess. 72 00:06:26.680 --> 00:06:30.319 So, reading this again, the thinking which the theorist of the Sedanta 73 00:06:30.399 --> 00:06:34.040 had in mind was not the cognition of a fact, but a kind of 74 00:06:34.199 --> 00:06:41.399 mental work which produces a result through effort. It is seen as imagination with 75 00:06:41.480 --> 00:06:48.199 the power to cross from the imaginary calpunicam to the real satiam, so transcending 76 00:06:48.240 --> 00:06:54.439 the dichotomy between these domains which marks the world on which ritual works. Ritual 77 00:06:54.519 --> 00:07:00.360 being kind of a particularly important in the Sedanta, but also it's it becomes 78 00:07:00.399 --> 00:07:05.639 more internalized within the more esoteric meditative traditions of nondual tantra, which, of 79 00:07:05.680 --> 00:07:10.279 course, you know, when we're doing our visualization, we are doing a 80 00:07:10.319 --> 00:07:16.040 form of internal ritual, right And in the earlier dualistic traditions it was more 81 00:07:16.360 --> 00:07:21.720 ritual was performed externally primarily in a very similar way. You know, that's 82 00:07:21.720 --> 00:07:30.839 analogous to kind of the Vedic berminical tradition of performing these various sacrifices and rituals 83 00:07:30.920 --> 00:07:36.959 of honoring the various deity forms. But and it's not that the nondual esoteric 84 00:07:38.480 --> 00:07:45.279 practitioners didn't participate in external rituals. It's just that they would have also been 85 00:07:45.759 --> 00:07:50.079 performing these internal rituals through meditation, and from the perspective of their philosophy and 86 00:07:50.120 --> 00:07:55.839 cosmology, this was actually a more important part of it, and in some 87 00:07:55.920 --> 00:08:01.639 sense the external ritual was sort of in some and superfluous, even though they 88 00:08:01.759 --> 00:08:05.000 might perform it almost at a cultural level, right, it was sort of 89 00:08:05.279 --> 00:08:09.160 necessary to keep to stay rooted in the cultural milieu, at least according to 90 00:08:09.439 --> 00:08:13.399 the Tontracas. Anyway, that's another topic. So getting back to this, 91 00:08:13.480 --> 00:08:20.639 it is certainly the case that the effect, namely shivenous is made present in 92 00:08:20.680 --> 00:08:24.040 the mind of the ritual agent. But this is not because his ritual has 93 00:08:24.079 --> 00:08:30.040 become cognition of a fact, in this instance, recognition of self, but 94 00:08:30.160 --> 00:08:33.480 rather because it is the nature of tonic ritual to realize in this way what 95 00:08:33.679 --> 00:08:41.360 is desired and not yet existent. So this is really fascinating and I think, 96 00:08:41.440 --> 00:08:46.039 you know, when we really kind of wrestle with it a little bit, 97 00:08:46.080 --> 00:08:50.440 it implies something quite radical, which is that, you know, when 98 00:08:50.480 --> 00:08:54.440 we are performing Bob, and we're performing ritual, it is not that we 99 00:08:54.480 --> 00:09:01.639 are even necessarily relating to a pre existing end. Is that through the power 100 00:09:01.679 --> 00:09:05.559 of our imagination, which is this divine faculty that we have that was you 101 00:09:05.600 --> 00:09:09.799 know, given by offered by the fabric of reality of itself, which is 102 00:09:09.840 --> 00:09:13.200 our true nature, that that this power of imagination actually has the capacity to 103 00:09:13.320 --> 00:09:18.879 bring into being the deity, as you know, in in identification with ourselves. 104 00:09:20.080 --> 00:09:24.440 So you know, if, for example, we are skeptical about you 105 00:09:24.480 --> 00:09:26.840 know, well, is this a real quality? Is this a real thing? 106 00:09:26.080 --> 00:09:30.440 It's almost beside the point according to this theory, because what we are, 107 00:09:30.879 --> 00:09:35.480 what we are doing, is actually attempting to cultivate a state of divinity 108 00:09:35.720 --> 00:09:41.080 that didn't exist before. So so in a sense, it's sort of irrelevant 109 00:09:41.200 --> 00:09:46.240 whether or not these deity forms are existing independent of us. The idea is 110 00:09:46.240 --> 00:09:48.519 that we are calling them into being, we're actually creating them. So this 111 00:09:48.679 --> 00:09:54.159 idea almost that that God is not yet here in some way or use whatever 112 00:09:54.200 --> 00:09:58.679 substitute for the divine you like, and that God is yet to come through 113 00:09:58.720 --> 00:10:03.320 the cultivation and create and creative capacity of our practice, which I think is 114 00:10:03.399 --> 00:10:09.080 just a really I feel like you don't find this in many other places besides 115 00:10:09.080 --> 00:10:13.960 the hundred traditions, really quite fascinating. So this is from the Jana bay 116 00:10:15.080 --> 00:10:22.759 of Aa Tantra, my translation of verse twenty. So it's Shatiya Vasta Pravishtasia 117 00:10:22.919 --> 00:10:31.159 ne Vi Baghena Bavana Tadasa Shivarupi sat Shaivi mukam i when of the one who 118 00:10:31.240 --> 00:10:37.320 has entered pravishtasia, the state of a sta of shakhti through empathic imagination. 119 00:10:37.480 --> 00:10:41.840 So I'm using the translation of kiss here of bavana, or you could replace 120 00:10:41.879 --> 00:10:46.120 it with creative contemplation if you like. But really not just a kind of 121 00:10:46.200 --> 00:10:52.759 empty meditation, but really a very active, visual, imaginative meditation. Here 122 00:10:52.879 --> 00:10:56.600 is what we're talking about. Such a one has has an understanding of reality. 123 00:10:56.759 --> 00:11:01.039 So what does that mean? So by virtue of harnessing the power of 124 00:11:01.039 --> 00:11:07.960 one's imagination, we also at the same time our understanding reality in a particular 125 00:11:07.960 --> 00:11:15.080 way without distinction. One would then be in that state of the form of 126 00:11:15.120 --> 00:11:22.360 Shiva. So in this state of a radical, liberated creativity capable of bringing 127 00:11:22.399 --> 00:11:26.960 into being a state of being that is divine, is just to be in 128 00:11:28.000 --> 00:11:31.399 a state that is the form of Shiva. And it is declared in the 129 00:11:31.759 --> 00:11:35.919 Agamas that this is the door right, our creative contemplation, our bavana practice 130 00:11:37.000 --> 00:11:41.200 is the door of Shiva or the divine or that state of yoga that we 131 00:11:41.240 --> 00:11:46.120 are seeking to accomplish through practice. It really in some sense, you know, 132 00:11:46.159 --> 00:11:48.759 I got an email and this always happens a little bit, and that 133 00:11:48.799 --> 00:11:52.879 I sometimes when I start teaching, I often start with really trying to discuss 134 00:11:54.039 --> 00:11:58.720 the difference in deity, what deity means in these traditions. Of course, 135 00:11:58.759 --> 00:12:03.320 there are a whole whole host of a range of styles of relationship with what 136 00:12:03.440 --> 00:12:07.559 deity is, and for some people are very kind of maybe traditional is the 137 00:12:07.559 --> 00:12:11.960 wrong word, but an understanding of it is a real being and the personified 138 00:12:13.240 --> 00:12:15.639 expressions of it. That's how it looks like, and it's out there, 139 00:12:15.679 --> 00:12:18.759 and I'm going to relate to it. But you know, and I mean 140 00:12:18.799 --> 00:12:22.000 even to some degree. Also, Western religious traditions also have much more esoteric, 141 00:12:22.039 --> 00:12:26.759 mystical understandings of what the divine is that often gets lost in kind of 142 00:12:26.759 --> 00:12:31.399 the rigid forms of religion that get you know, passed down to us and 143 00:12:31.399 --> 00:12:37.559 and kind of dominate our cultural environment. But the conceptions of deity here are 144 00:12:37.840 --> 00:12:43.320 much more subtle and radical. It's really about almost like a pragmatic These are 145 00:12:43.879 --> 00:12:48.600 pragmatic tools, and this is a kind of sense of deity. That is 146 00:12:48.679 --> 00:12:54.919 you find in both Hindu Tantra and Tibetan Tantra Tibetan Buddhism that these are visualization 147 00:12:56.080 --> 00:13:01.879 tools that are capable of channeling and facilitating the comp puishment of certain states and 148 00:13:01.919 --> 00:13:07.480 the ability of us to cultivate these states. So we are using they are 149 00:13:07.519 --> 00:13:11.440 devices, they are real in a sort of qualitative sense, but they are 150 00:13:11.480 --> 00:13:16.240 also, in a sense already aspects of who we are. But because we 151 00:13:16.320 --> 00:13:22.240 don't have any symbols or you know, knowledge systems to help us connect to 152 00:13:22.279 --> 00:13:26.799 these latent faculties that we have within us, the contract traditions are offering us 153 00:13:26.120 --> 00:13:33.879 essentially tools for us to essentially awaken dormant faculties and capacities that already pre exist. 154 00:13:33.960 --> 00:13:35.480 You know, you could think about it even in terms of you know, 155 00:13:35.759 --> 00:13:41.679 neurochemistry this and I obviously know nothing about brain science, but you know, 156 00:13:41.720 --> 00:13:45.919 there's this common right thing that people will point to about how we only 157 00:13:45.960 --> 00:13:48.120 use a certain portion of our brain and like there's this huge swath of the 158 00:13:48.120 --> 00:13:52.480 brain that's not active and blah blah blah. And then of course there's also 159 00:13:52.559 --> 00:13:56.960 the evidence showing how in certain meditative states contemplative states, scientists neuroscientists are seeing 160 00:13:58.559 --> 00:14:01.399 who are willing to actually explain this, all sorts of other areas of the 161 00:14:01.440 --> 00:14:07.080 brain light up that's another sort of topic for another day. But you can 162 00:14:07.120 --> 00:14:13.399 think about it in terms of, like, you know that that there are 163 00:14:13.480 --> 00:14:18.000 these essentially, you know, there's a corresponding brain state for all these faculties 164 00:14:18.039 --> 00:14:22.919 and dispositions and ways of seeing, ways of perceiving our reality that are not 165 00:14:22.000 --> 00:14:24.240 yet available to us. And it's the question is, well, why, 166 00:14:26.120 --> 00:14:30.720 And one answer to that is that our cultural conditioning just does not have a 167 00:14:30.720 --> 00:14:33.759 place for any of these things. Right when we look back anthropologically at other 168 00:14:33.799 --> 00:14:39.320 traditions, including the Sanskrit tradition, Yoga tradition, there's so many things we 169 00:14:39.440 --> 00:14:45.240 read that don't make any sense to us because we don't have the cultural lexicon 170 00:14:45.559 --> 00:14:50.960 to find kind of analogous understandings and and and that doesn't necessarily mean that we 171 00:14:52.039 --> 00:14:56.799 can't at some point understand it in some visceral way. So we draw on 172 00:14:56.879 --> 00:15:03.200 our contemplative practices in a sense, to cultivate these the possibility of these states 173 00:15:03.200 --> 00:15:07.879 in our lives, and the traditions of philosophical inquiry, the knowledge systems, 174 00:15:09.200 --> 00:15:15.159 the texts themselves, these are profoundly important because they essentially open up our imagination 175 00:15:15.240 --> 00:15:18.279 to possibilities that we don't even know are there, right, And also they 176 00:15:18.320 --> 00:15:22.159 allow us to see the way in which our own cultural conditioning is in some 177 00:15:22.240 --> 00:15:30.000 sense just a kind of arbitrary expression, historically contingent expression of the possibilities of 178 00:15:30.080 --> 00:15:35.720 human imagination. Right, And so we're quite radical in that way Antinomian in 179 00:15:35.799 --> 00:15:39.120 pushing back and saying no, the imagination. Imagination isn't just something in the 180 00:15:39.159 --> 00:15:43.919 realm of fantasy. It's not just something for kids or artists. It is 181 00:15:43.000 --> 00:15:48.600 active in everything that we do, whether we recognize it or not. And 182 00:15:48.799 --> 00:15:52.759 actually, in a lot of ways, the cultural imagination is what dominates our 183 00:15:52.799 --> 00:15:56.440 imagination. And you know, one of the things that perhaps we could say 184 00:15:56.440 --> 00:16:00.759 happens from childhood into adulthood is the kind of liver pready, the freedom, 185 00:16:00.799 --> 00:16:07.200 the playfulness of imagination gets sort of, you know, muscled down by by 186 00:16:07.320 --> 00:16:14.200 all of these cultural forces that essentially domesticate our imagination. So yeah, so 187 00:16:14.240 --> 00:16:19.200 anyway, that's bava. So let's go ahead and practice, shall we.