Sunday, May 6, 2012

Samskara: A Mostly Painful Aspect of Spiritual Evolution

6 comments:

  1. As a white southern boy born and raised in the US I totally agree with this. I am one of them, I was raised in this "scar" this samskara. In my mine is housed this teaching which I do not in any way honor but is a part of me. It has taken me over 40 years to come to terms with what I am inside. This stuff is rooted deep into our very souls. But thank Buddha for giving me the lotus metaphor. I will fully flower one day. I will allow only love, kindness, and compassion to rule me. There is a mountain and I will climb it so help me Jesus.

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  2. My dear "Southern Boy,"

    Thank you so very much for your heart-felt comment, about a very difficult subject. [I'm guessing that you meant "in my mind" (rather than "in my mine"), just to be completely clear.]

    By becoming ever more aware of your thoughts, feelings and behaviors, you're already part of the healing of not only your own samskaras, but of our beautiful and troubled country's as well. I believe that we are all constantly in the process of flowering like a lotus, and are simultaneously also connected to our metaphorical roots in the juicy muck of life. Please try not to be too hard on yourself -- your commitment to your three treasures of love, kindness and compassion honor the Buddha and Jesus, as well as your deepest Self. I'm so very grateful that you chose to comment here! Shanti Om...

    Lastly, I think you might enjoy this brief expression of the metaphor of the lotus (if the link doesn't appear, you can find this post in my Blog Archives under 6/1/11: http://shrishari.blogspot.com/2011/06/why-are-lotuses-mentioned-so-often-in.html

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  3. This thought is so beautiful....I recall the stories of the Western books by Louis L'Amour who is my favorite western author. The entire history of the past world is full of such horror stories whether it is East or West...thanks so much for such insight...in gratitude...sundar

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    1. You are most welcome, Sundar! In return, I appreciate your taking the time so send such a lovely comment.

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  4. samskar is a process or treatment which converts raw material into product. for example, sanscrit is a voice which is processed natural sound.

    the disadvantage is, that reverse conversion i.e., product to raw matter is not possible because the vehicle called process has no reverse gear, but needs to take a U turn.

    buddha refers to process and warns that it must be avoided at all costs, as cleaning the impression on mind, is far more difficult than making it.

    krishna talks of cleaning the impression of minds which people create first by themselves, and try to clean by a further unclean mop, and the impressions increase.

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    1. This is a fascinating perspective, Krishna Gopal Misra! I especially like your "cleaning with an unclean mop" metaphor, though your concept of there being "no reverse gear" to the Universe's evolutionary processes (turning samskaric product back into raw matter, or as another possible example, turning back time) is also extremely interesting...

      It reminds me of my apprehensions about smashing sub-atomic particles together at close to light-speed in order to figure out how matter was created in the first place: the underlying assumption there (via metaphor) seems to be that we can re-construct the practical, humanly-useful architecture and technology needed to build a brick house by sifting through the highly chaotic remnants of dust and rubble left behind after blowing up an entire city block.

      Please don't be mistaken, I believe high-energy science can be useful in many practical ways, but the goal of gaining control over the creation of matter seems more destructive than constructive to me... much as, if I understand you correctly, instead of simply learning from our samskaras, we try to manipulate or speed through them, which both the Buddha and Krishna warned of as being dangerous.

      Thank you so much for your marvelously thought-provoking comment, Krishna Gopal!

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