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Samyama, a form of Yoga.
Yeah sometimes I do feel awkward explaining these concepts to the westerners because the terminologies are not just there in the English vocabulary, concepts otherwise which could have been easily explained by using a few simple Sanskrit words.
All these concepts sound completely alien to most of the western as well as the eastern minds.
Well said, Pleroma, and thank you for referencing Samyama. RA Heinlein said that “In English, only the first person singular present of the verb ‘to be’ is true to fact.” And it is my understanding that some of the subtleties of Sanskrit are taught not even to scholars, as there is simply no ground in most humans for any useful psychological referencing of those extreme refinements. On top of all that, I agree with the Roman dictum that “All translators are liars.”
My Mentor claimed that when he lectured, he had one foot* each in samsara and nirvana, as described in a fascinating passage in a book by Franklin Merrell-Wolff (1). His discussion about that state reminds me very much of Samyama as laid out in your reference. In any case, when he spoke that way, he was clearly present and aware of the happenings in the room, and yet distinctly in another state of perception. It was rather fascinating to see him thus. A point of interest about that came from a Buddhist nun: she claimed that his use of English was such that it actually did convey many subtleties thought impossible to say in English. That was notable as well in that English was his only language, save for a smattering of French. I can’t verify what she said, but it was a rather interesting thing to hear, along with other comments from yogis, etc. In any case, his language became at those times more musical than grammatical, if that possibly makes any sense.
As for the general state of our understanding of our ability to have facility with language and its referent ideas, especially between what is left of Sanskrit and the falsehood inherent in English, I am reminded of a fascinating book called
The Yugas (2) which claims that many of our difficulties, linguistic, relational, etc, stem from our place in the eonic cycle of the awareness of the Race as a whole. We are just now beginning to ascend again, according to the authors, from the nadir of that cyclic process, or Kali yuga. The argument that this is so, as put down in those pages, is nothing short of utterly fascinating, and tends to explain why Sanskrit is so refined, and English is so dense, to the point that it is a wonder that useful thought can happen through such a structure.
At any rate, all that is to say that I completely agree with the idea that language is a huge difficulty here, not only as a matter of translation, but in the inadequate correspondence of the one we commonly use with Reality as such. Just to throw some gasoline on that fire, it can be demonstrated (with some work on perception and the sense of identity) that the subject/object relationship paradigm we ordinarily take as our interaction with the world is false at its root.
*He used a lot of symbology, and when he said “foot” we understood it to refer to “understanding.”
(1)
The Philosophy of Consciousness Without an Object, F M-W, Three Rivers Press, May 25, 1983
(2) Selbie and Steinmetz, Crystal Carity Publishers, 2010
Sorry for hijacking the thread for a while there.