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Re: Faith & Healing
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To: srh@rbhatnagar.csm.uc.edu
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Subject: Re: Faith & Healing
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From: jackphel@ix.netcom.com (Jack Phelan )
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Date: 2 Jul 1996 21:21:38 GMT
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Newsgroups: soc.religion.hindu
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Organization: Netcom
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References: <4qshtp$iv@babbage.ece.uc.edu> <4r3tfq$15i@babbage.ece.uc.edu> <4r8u94$3da@babbage.ece.uc.edu>
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ReSent-Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 02:55:55 -0400 (EDT)
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ReSent-From: SRH Editor <srh@rbhatnagar.ececs.uc.edu>
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ReSent-Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.91.960724025554.8039J@rbhatnagar.ececs.uc.edu>
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ReSent-To: ghen@netcom.com
In <4r8u94$3da@babbage.ece.uc.edu> gmadras@pinto.engr.ucdavis.edu
(Giri) writes:
>
>gururj@erols.com (Gururajan Ramachandran) writes:
>
>>It appears that the wisdom in Hinduism is finally being discovered
>>by the "scientific" community.
>>Regards,
>>Guru
>
> There has been many scientific studies on yoga and the body. For
>example, the book 'yoga and psychotherapy' extensively deals with
this.
>I think Swami Rama was able to change the temperature in the palm of
his
>hand. That is two points in the palm of the hand were at the same
temperature
>at the start of the experiment and he changed both the temperatures
(one
>increasing, one decreasing) with time. There were lot of other
experiments too.
> In the book 'The awakened mind' by Cade, it was shown that states
>of superconsciousness were possible. And the touch of a Guru (like
Swami
>XX) was able to shift a person's consciousness from the alpha state to
>a delta state and higher by mere touch.
> There are similar studies on the Kundalini and Chakras in the
book
>called 'Supersensonics" by Christopher Hills.
> There are some excellent books on biofeedback and yoga.
>
> I can go on and on, but an important criteria is to realize that
>one need not explain yoga and Hinduism and twist some facts to support
>the scientific thought. As Swami Prabhavananda once remarked 'Yoga is
>a perfect and established science, while psychology is a developing
one.'
>Science changes its views with new experimental evidence but the
essemce
>of yoga and scriptures remain the same.
>
> For example, the dasa-avatars of Vishnu are linked to show the
>evolution of being according to Darwin. But there is no scriptural
support
>for this (as far as i know). Darwin's theory is the best science can
offer
>right now, but that may change with time and new evidence. Hence
association
>of things like avatars to an imperfect science is not only dangerous
but
>may look foolish in the long run.
>
>Namaste.
>
If I may just add, changing the temperature of one's hand is not Yoga,
sleeping on a bed of nails is not Yoga, changing your heart's pulse is
not Yoga, and changing a person's consciousness to something that can
be measured on a machine is not Yoga. Yoga is measureless, beyond the
senses, beyond birth and death. Yoga is, precisely, to get rid of all
the human measurements. All this stuff with "supersensonics?" and other
age-old gimmicks are just new versions of the same old distortions and
popularizations of Yoga. It is just another vogue and in a few years or
a few months, everyone will be running after some other popular idea of
the day. But the essence of Yoga can never be discovered by a machine
or given to someone who has not earned it.
Jack
