-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-admin at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-admin at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of James Culbertson Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2003 2:04 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: [lbo-talk] Re: Godel's Proof of God
>KM: Speaking of Buddhism, I just started reading Liz Wilson's "Charming
>Cadavers" - a rather graphic study of the male practice of meditating on
>decomposing female corpses in order to quell desire. [BTW - this is why I
>object to religion being equated with science (however primitive).
>Scientists look a decomposing bodies too, especially to help them with
>forensics; but this isn't exactly the same thing is it?] <<<
JC: Interesting. Sort of an odd off-shoot of the Aghora tradition in India... practitioners rub the ash of dead folks on their bodies or sit on bones while they meditate in the areas where cremation has occurred. Perhaps to quell desire but mainly to place their own mortality at the forefront of their awareness.
I talked a bit about this last year in a course I taught on Death. I don't know enough about it... found this though: http://www.sanathanadharma.com/symbol/tiryak.htm I might have said this before: I think death and mourning rituals are probably better signifiers of "belief" than creeds or doctrines... it is the ritual activity that I find fascinating. Your comment here reminded me of an ancient Indian story.
“The Brahman in the Graveyard."
The story begins very much like "Once upon a time " – a goblin is the narrator telling the story to a king. The story tells us about a Brahmin (priestly class) and his daughter. The daughter is said to be extremely beautiful, her beauty is equal to that of the heavens and the earth. Three young priestly suitors ask for her hand in marriage. Her father responds, "All three of you are handsome and wealthy as well as noted for your good families and masculine qualities. To which of you should I give my daughter?" One young Brahman says, "Give her to me." Another responds, "If this young woman is given to one of us worthy suitors, the other two will surely die. Then you would be guilty of murder!" Fearful of the terrible consequences of murdering a priest, the father did not give the daughter to any of the three young brahmans. As fate would have it, the daughter died shortly after. When she had been cremated, one of the young priests smeared his body with ashes from the funeral pyre and, wearing the matted hair and bark garments of an ascetic, went away into another country. The second young priest took her bones to various places of pilgrimage to receive blessings for her. The third young priest made himself a dwelling place upon the ashes of the cremation site and abandoned all worldly attachments, dwelling constantly on that sport. The first young Brahman, wandering as an ascetic, came upon the house of a fellow Brahman where he asked for food. The Brahman said to his wife, “Give some food to this noble ascetic. While the wife was cooking the meal, her son cried until, distraught, the wife threw her child into the fire. When the visiting Brahman saw that the child had been killed and would be part of his meal he prepared to leave without taking any of the polluted food. Seeing his guest about to depart, the host Brahman recited a magical incantation and brought his son back to life – running after the ascetic to show him that the boy was alive. After he returned and eaten the food, he took the book containing the charm and rushed back to the cremation sight of the beautiful daughter. The second suitor, in the meantime, also returned to the cremation ground within the bones of his beloved which he had washed at various places of pilgrimage. The third Brahman continued to guard the cremation site. Then the ascetic Brahman took the bones and ashes from the other two suitors and formed a new body for the woman which he brought to life by chanting the spell from the stolen book of charms. When they saw her restored to life, the three young Brahmans all desired her more than ever and quarrelled over whom she should marry. The goblin narrator then asks: who is her husband according to what is right? The king responds, "Goblin, the one who possessed the charm is her FATHER because he created her. The one who washed her bones at places of pilgrimage is her son because he cared for her when she was in the heavenly abode. The one who guarded the pyre and ashes is her true husband because he waited for her." So, according to the king it is the father’s duty to provide children to populate the family cluster, he is the initiator of life. It is the son’s duty to perform all the necessary rituals associated with death, such activity is an extension of the filial task of honouring and caring for parents. The husband’s role is understood to encompass protection and care centered upon the wife during her lifetime...
> But certainly Raja Yoga, Hatha Yoga, and Vajrayana Bhuddism would be
examples of spiritual sciences in that you can sit down and personally
explore the tradition in an empirical way (via meditation, pranayama,
asana,...). And people have been doing so for thousands of years. As a good
scientist you cannot negate these practices. You can only say you have not
done the experimentation necessary to replicate them yourself.
** How does that work? How is the comparative history of religions possible through meditation? (since it is only through comparative research that the history of religion(s) makes much sense).
ken