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Sawmik:
So TT, if I can interject....
Can we define "Beauty" as a reflection of Truth, or a refraction of Truth, ...or in some way related to Truth?

Once again Beauty is going to be in the eye of the beholder and depending on the levels of stress or internal programs what one defines as stressful or even beautiful is going to be subjective.
In the previous Sutra Patanjali describes 5 kinds of action or movements:
1) Upward thoughts
2) Downward thoughts
3) Dreaming
4) Sleep
5) Memory

"Upward thoughts," also mean "great, filling, fulfilling, true, satisfying, and nourishing beliefs, wishes, desires, perceptions and observations." Thus this kind of movement of consciousness leads directly to positivity, to health, to expansion of consciousness, to all that is great and worthwhile in the mind.
Patanjali uses the word to describe thoughts based on Truth. Tho all is connected in the Unity of God not all thoughts are based on One truth if consciousness is divided in the relative ideals and identities that are created within the ego.
"Downward thoughts," on the other hand, mean all that is destructive. Viparyaya (sanskrit from the original Sutra) can also be translated as "inverted, opposed, perverse, altered, changed for the worse, disfigured, calamitous, unfortunate, wrong and erroneous thinking." Thus downward thoughts lead to all that is damaging in life, to greater bondage, to increased ignorance and destruction.
These two kinds of movements together constitute the thoughts of the Waking State of Consciousness. Downward thoughts include all the self-destructive beliefs, habits and judgments that make life difficult, that lead to failure of all kinds -- mental, emotional and physical. Upward thoughts include those thoughts that lead to liberation. Any thought that is directed upward -- toward Truth, Beauty, Love, Light, God -- is under this category.
Of the nearly Infinite number of possible upward-rising thoughts, a small handful can be considered to be truly liberating from the confines of the Waking State ego. In our experience, there are approximately 108 of these Great Thoughts (Mahavakyas in Sanskrit) that lead directly to enlightenment.
"Dreams," vikalpa, the 3rd movement of consciousness include all illusions and fantasies. Dreams follow the echo of experience; they are void of Reality.

Experience in the Waking State overloads the nervous system and creates stresses in the body. With the rest of sleep, these stresses start to dissolve; their movement creates the illusion of reality in the mind. In other words, the source of most dreams is the reverberation of previous experience. Attempting to derive meaning from the symbols contained in dreams is therefore largely a waste of time. Much more can be accomplished in the Waking State, given the appropriate tools and guidance, than can be accomplished by analyzing dreams. They are like the shards of the broken pottery of Waking State experience: difficult to piece back together, hard to manipulate effectively, time-consuming and of questionable value in the end. Time is precious. Why analyze illusions when so much of Reality remains to be understood? Enlightenment comes more quickly by studying Reality than by studying fantasy. There is wonder enough in the waking world to keep anyone enthralled indefinitely. As fascinating and instructional as dreams can certainly be, Evolution comes most quickly by focusing on transformation of the Waking State.
None of this should be taken to mean that direct cognition cannot occur in the dream state. It can occur in any state. Lucid dreaming does not fall under this definition of dreaming. Truth and Beauty can be found anywhere at any time. But it is not from studying dreams that direct cognition most easily flows.
"Sleep," nidra, the 4th movement of consciousness: Sleep is the movement that adheres to the thought of nothing.

Patanjali reintroduces vitti, "movement," here to reinforce his explanation that sleep is not a state of mind completely without thought. The mind completely without thought, it must be reemphasized, experiences Transcendant or absolute Consciousness or cosmic consciousness or the reflection of the absolute The "True Nature of the Self," "True Condition of the Self," "True Character of the Self." When the stress of the day's activity becomes too great for the body to continue functioning effectively, when the fatigue toxins have accumulated too much for the body to deal with them efficiently, sleep comes to restore the balance. The EEG records that brain waves continue during sleep, they are registering a thought of non-existence or nothingness. A thought of nothing is not the experience of Nothing!
"Nothing," derived from the sanskrit abhava, literally means "not Being." Bhava is Being, a common and useful word for the "True Self" or condition of the "True Self". "Thought," pratyaya, also means "belief, faith, conviction, cause, idea." And "adheres to," alambana, also means "supporting" or "foundation." So sleep is the movement of consciousness of non-being that supports the beliefs and causes the ideas of the Waking State. This means that the thought of nothingness underlies all the movements of the mind. Being remains forever transcendental to the reality of the world; it remains forever beyond thought and experience. What then underlies and supports all the movements of consciousness? Not Being. Nothingness. This is a very abstract understanding of this sutra, and one that probably makes little sense to the Waking State, for one of the primary beliefs of the Waking State is that its thoughts and perceptions of the external world are undeniably real. Thus someone falls ill because of a wandering bacteria or virus; one ages; one suffers; one dies.
There is another way of experiencing Reality, one that begins with the premise that the underlying support of all thoughts and external perceptions is, in fact, nothing. If this concept can be understood, not intellectually, but as a direct and living experience, then the ability to redirect the world in any desired manner can be effortlessly accomplished. The transformation of consciousness that makes this a reality is the subject of the Yoga Sutras.

The fifth type of movement of consciousness, flawless memory, is the most important of the five. Flawed memory, the usual experience of the Waking State, falls under the category of downward thoughts. Nothing is remembered perfectly in the Waking State, for nothing is experienced perfectly, as it really is. Rather, the previous impressions of experience and belief color every experience, every thought, so nothing is or even can be seen exactly as it is. Cognition of the True Form of the Self is a function of flawless memory, and therefore so is seeing life exactly as it is.
Quote:
Sawmik:
I think I agree with all you've said; but you apply this to "the acronym," and isn't the acronym just more of an evolution in one's capability to express something (more fully?), rather than an evolution or morphing of the fundamental philosophy behind the expression?

But I have a question about "evolution" of our 'God sense' that you speak to.

People born and raised in a particular faith have no basis for comparison.... Umm. Let me start over.

Doesn't there need to be some evolution of faith; from our childlike, 'magical' understanding, thru some crisis or challenge by other perspectives, and finally into a more capable, cohesive, integrated, inclusive and reality-based faith?

...like being re-born, or at least re-affirmed, perhaps....

From what I took in the Yoga Sutras to point to interpretation of reality, any Acronym is going to be subject to the illusions that are created by the ego. Therefor God, G'd or GØD is what some might think of as evolutionary to ones spiritual development but if you are still not in direct contact with God any reference to what God is will still be from the imagination which is encapsulated with personal interpretation.

The stories or acronyms of the personal become alot like the story of the three blind men who are taken to different parts of the elephant to briefly touch "an appendage" and are then withdrawn to tell their story of their experience and then define God.
The one who touches the "leg" describes the elephant as an immovable tree, round, rough and solid. The one who is standing on a crate and touches the "ear" describes it like a living carpet. And then the one who touches the "trunk" which causes the elephant to react and flip the blind man over and on to the ground describes it as a wild and dangerous snake.

Now if you apply the unified field theory of combining thoughts what do you get by combining a tree, a carpet and a snake? Do you get elephant?

Within the meanings of the unified field theory that Einstein was searching for was commonality to all perceptions that don't necessarily require that all pieces combined make a whole, because Einstein intuitively sensed that it was impossible to exhaust the potential of the universe to create a total combination of pieces that would make the whole of God or Consciousness, or the underlying principle of the universe.
So in fact combining religions is not the way to clarity.
Religion is more like a branch of a tree. While the religious followers try and water the branch and gaze over with scrutiny to those on other branches even possibly with interest as long as they see the branches rather than the whole tree they will invariably fail to note the root of the tree from which all branches and the tree have grown.
Once one has fully mastered themselves and their connection to the universe they have taken their awareness from the ego's interpretations of the branch to the root.

Of all the worlds religions: Hinduism--the most ancient, The Hebrew religion, Buddhism, The Confucian teachings, The Taoist beliefs, Zoroastrianism, Shinto, Jainism, Christianity, Islam,and Sikhism the most recent, all were derived from the experience of the root. The visionary who spoke to the people of their direct experience became the master amongst the waking state masses who's imagination was focused on what they could interpret from the visionary as he spoke of the root. From their interpretations grew religion, like a game of Chinese whispers or
blind men comparing their parts of the elephant creating democratic spiritualism, and we have a written history of how thoughts and dreams were applied in the crusades and the Spanish inquisition and even the Third Reich of Hitlers regime.

True vision, or to be born again is to be immersed in the Unity of God in all things, or said another way to have a direct "living link" to the root in conscious awareness. Only then can one be free of illusions and the discrepancies that cause illusion.
Only then does love become unconditional and will wisdom of omniscience fill the heart with compassion for humanity that is searching for Absolute truth within the relative ideals of egoic fantasy.
The wisdom of being a parent comes from recognizing the illusions of childhood and having a tolerance for the mistakes that children make from misinterpretations of the adult world. The wisdom of the enlightened is in recognizing the illusions ego creates while idealizing and defining spirituality and God.

Tho a wise parent can be tolerant and patient the child is not always as tolerant or patient and out of frustration will see the parent as trying to take from them what they have when they are guiding them to greater understanding. But without guidance the child will stumble into illusion after illusion until they have become open to receive truth. Without love of the parent children do not know love. If love of the parent is conditional children learn conditional love. If love of the parent is unconditional it is more likely that the child will learn unconditional love. Children are like sponges, their innocence allows them to absorb almost everything, it is the parents and the societal education system that shapes the sponge so that it absorbs what is categorically "socially acceptable."
Obviously with the conflicting beliefs of society and peer groups that are shaped by diverse individual thinking of families and their political and spiritual beliefs, children are pretty much living their lives in the environment of our schools in defense rather than innocence. Searching for packs that offer protection and support.

It does not require a calamitous event to draw the infinite into ones awareness but there are many stories of people who had reached a point in their life when nothing seemed worth hanging on to, and life seemed pointless. This is just the break spirit needed to slip past the ego to reveal itself. When the mind is no longer actively seeking to protect its beliefs and illusions a window is created where truth may reveal itself but this absolutely is not the rule. Epiphanies are not the standard for awakenings or for evolution of consciousness, they are more like the lighthouses that have been constantly ignored because if the societal and familial programming that has constantly turned attention from the truth rather than toward it. People get glimpses of the light when they relax the attention that is given to programmed beliefs founded on illusion and fear.

Man may in all earnestness move toward truth by intention and desire. With proper guidance from one who has themselves realized the truth of the root and with the proper tools to take the awareness to the direct experience of the root of the tree one can easily master the illusions of life and learn to separate them from the Truth of the absolute nature of themselves.
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MYSTICISM
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World Book Dictionary defines 'mysticism' as: the doctrine that truth or God may be known through spiritual insight, independent of the mind ...
Direct contact with the absolute is the spiritual insight that supersedes all imaginative illusions of the mind of the ego. It is direct communion of soul and universal mind, or what is also called the Holy Spirit.






One Sunday morning, the pastor noticed little Alex
standing in the foyer of the church staring up at a large
plaque. It was covered with names and small American
flags mounted on either side of it.

The six-year old had been staring at the plaque for some
time, so the pastor walked up, stood beside the little
boy, and said quietly, 'Good morning Alex.'

''Good morning Pastor,' he replied, still focused on the
plaque. 'Pastor, what is this?'

The pastor said, 'Well son, it's a memorial to all the
young men and women who died in the service.'

Soberly, they just stood together, staring at the large
plaque.

Finally, little Alex's voice, barely audible and trembling
with fear asked, 'Which service, the 8:30 or 10:45?'


I was addicted to the Hokey Pokey, but then I turned myself around!!