Practice meditating under stress

Why do we need to get whipped?

 

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It will put hair on your chest too.

 

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My deplilatory bills are already high. I mean this both literally and as a metaphor for spirituality.

 

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Because we're cream?

 

Ah, whisked then. That disturbs me less. (Very positive self-image, by the way. Good on ya.)

 

Its the Astavakra/Visvamrta syndrome.

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I am not sure I understand the reference ...?

I found these, for example:
http://www.vnn.org/editorials/ET9908/ET26-4589.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vishvamitra

Both Astavakra and Visvamrta could be said to be spiritually proud, and this made their journey on the path of spiritual perfection long and hard.
Is this what you meant by the 'Astavakra/Visvamrta syndrome'?


If yes, this is interesting for me also because 'here in the West' we are used to have only similes of people who were proud and who eventually failed miserably. I can't think of any 'didactic story' where a proud, vain person or other being would see the errors of his ways and overcome them. I don't know of any Western story where the lesson 'pride is bad' ends in any other way but in 'death in the gutter' or something similar.

 

Signal,
thank you for doing that work for me. I wondered what the actual message was in LG's response, but when I googled around it looked like I would have to read more than I wanted for what might turn out to be simply a joke.

LG,
I am not sure 'having a sense one needs to be whipped' is a positive thing, even if pride can be an issue in spiritual development. Self-disdain is also an obstacle.

But that's taking your point as also serious.

 

I think the point of spiritual practice is to be neither spiritually proud/vain, nor have disdain or hate for oneself.
Which I think is quite an art to achieve.

 

Yes that's the general idea.
Its something that turns up alot in descriptions of practices that view tapasya as topmost (as opposed to bhakti)

The point is that pride can quite easily run parallel and be cultivated along side grueling austerities.

Typically such persons acquire merit through austerity but then blow it all in a moment of out of control senses.

nb - as a side point, the astavakra article is more in line with strict brahminical behavior than vaisnavism (although the author is correct in her conclusion ..... just using the wrong analogy)

Astavakra is associated more with the Tapasvi's than the bhakta's

- from bhaktivinoda's dasamula

even tapasvis and mayavadis go a certain distance down the way of "I am not this body" with "aham brahmasmi" etc

I think there might be a few.
prodigal son comes to mind

 

pride is not curbed by "whipping" or self disdain.

it is curbed by humility

"the only cure for mental suffering is physical pain" has many inherent problems

 

I think the point is to have an accurate understanding of how one relates to the world and other living entities at large.

Pride and self disdain artificially deflate and inflate this vision

 

One thing any master should realize is that what someone who regularly feels self-disdain thinks of as pride might simply be the absence of self-disdain. So lessons of the dangers of pride can reinforce rather than liberate.

 

If humility is the result of that good lesson, there is no danger

 

Sigh. 'humility' is another word to be careful with.....

 

only if it is loaded up with the extra baggage of pride or self disdain

 

Ah, well, since practically no one has that kind of baggage we can use the word without too much care.

 

or alternatively, clear understandings of what is underpinning issues of pride and self disdain can make things easier

 

Yes, it can. Just as poor, physically ill or depressed people, or people in any kind of hardship, can still maintain an air of haughtiness.
I was quite struck a while back to find that depression and pride/vanity can go hand in hand. I used to think that a person undergoing hardship would be humble - but that is not the case at all; in fact, humiliation (and responding to it with pride) seems to be the likeliest course for many people.
What to speak of the possibility of pride when deliberately undergoing hardship!

Allright, thank you for the info.

How did that end well?? For one, I have never seen that a repentant person would really be accepted back. The biblical story is one thing, but daily life is another. For two, there is no evidence given in the story that the prodigal son actually changed his ways. He certainly showed good intentions and made a show of repenting, but the story doesn't say anything about 'and they lived happily ever after' so for me, it's open-ended.


EDIT: Here's a Sunday School question about the parable of the prodigal son: Which one of the two sons will go to heaven, and which one will burn in hell for all eternity? Answer: The prodigal son will go to heaven; the other son who stayed at home will go to hell because he was envious.
Really, from my Christian education, what I remember the most about the parable of the prodigal son is the focus on the other son and how bad he was.

 

That's a better way to see it.

My saying

is still tapasvic (is that a word?), right?