Desires, Moksha,
Atman-Brahman,
Personality Types,
Yogas, Gods, Stages,
Karma, Samsara, Maya
Gandhi
AUM
The sound from
which everything
was created
The buzz of the
Cosmos
All vowels included
Big Questions
 Polytheism or Monotheism?
 Personal or Transpersonal?
 What is the purpose of life?
 What is the purpose of religion?
 How are religions paths?
Big Ideas
 Big and Little
 Self-Emptying
 Paths - Different Strokes for Different
Folks
The Goal: Moksha, Atman-Brahman
"It is only ignorance to regard
the seeming separateness of
objects in the external world
as real. The only true reality
is oneness with Brahman, and
the only right and true
purpose in human life is to
realize this oneness. Man's
essential duty is to transform
his consciousness so that he
can become one with
Brahman" (Lamb, 27).
Basics
• World’s oldest, extremely diverse,
constantly adapting
• Goal – Atman (soul) Moksha
(liberation) from cycle of Samsara
(reincarnation), achieve unity with
Brahman (universal spirit) by freeing self
from earthly desires through discipline
(yogas)
• Lacks historical founder, organized
priesthood, required creed of beliefs.
Hinduism Map
Where?
India
Ganges River (Benares, etc.)
When?
 Pre-1500 B.C. Mother goddess cult in
Indus Valley
 1400-500 B.C. - Aryan people who
wrote the Vedas - Ideas of hierarchies
(higher and lower) - beliefs, castes,
occupations, etc. emerged
“People are different"

No founder

Four wants

Four major stages of life

Four major stations of life (castes)

Four major paths to God (Yogas)

All approaches to God equally valid
Really Essential Questions
When are you happy?
When are you unhappy?
What is your passion?
When is your work your play?
What does your symbol mean?
What is an experience when words failed you?
What is a symbol/image/picture you would use
to depict your image of “God”?
 Who is a role model you admire enough to
emulate and why?







You can
have what
you want!
What People Want: Path of Desire
1. Pleasure – not bad, right for a stage,
seek intelligently, won’t last
2. Worldly success –
a) wealth
b) fame
c) power - more satisfying –involves
others
You can
have
what
you
want!
Why won’t worldly success last?
 Exclusive –hence competitive, precarious
 Drive is insatiable
 Centers meaning on self, not beyond self
 Finite and temporary – not eternal and
transcendent – can’t take them with you
The Question All Religion Begins With
 "Is this all?“ – Is there More?
 Turn from desire when desire turns from
you
 Toys
 Psychological age v. chronological age
What People Really Want:
B. Path of Renunciation
3. To be needed, useful, helpful - Duty
4. Liberation (“Moksha”) –
a) being (sit)
b) awareness (chit)
c) bliss (ananda)
Goal
 Joy
Human Limitations
Obstacle
suffering, unmet desire,
boredom
 Knowledge
ignorance
 Being
space and time (“I
wish you were here”,
death, etc.)
The Three Poisons
1.
2.
3.
Desire/Grasping
Aversion/Fear/Hatred
Ignorance/Delusion
 Cause all suffering
 Reflect Personality types
Fire
Ice
 Caught between fear and desire
Hindu Concept of the Self
1. Body (caterpillar)
2. Mind/Personality (conscious and
subconscious) (butterfly)
3. Atman-Brahman (flying)
Atman-Brahman
 The Beyond Within
 Detachment from finite self, or
 Attachment to whole of BEING
Big Picture and Small Picture




Whole
One
Energy
Transcendent








Spirit
Idea/Word
Tao unnamed
Brahman –
transpersonal, mono




Parts
Many
Matter
Immanent –
Here/Now
Flesh
Incarnation/Flesh
Tao named
Gods – personal,
poly
Hinduism
 All is one – unity with
Brahman
 Being is hierarchical
 World is multiple
– Galaxies, accordion
and
Science
 Agrees
– Physics – Big Bang – “pearl” of
E, BOOM, “cooled” into
matter
– Physics/Chemistry - Atomic
theory –
 Stuff/Matter
 Molecules
 Atoms
 Subatomic particles,
quarks, no mass/diam, etc.
 Energy
– Bio/Genetics – Sameness
– Physics – String Theory?
 Strings of energy?
 Parallel Universes?
Hinduism
and
 Self is layered entity
– Body
– Conscious Mind
– Subconscious Mind
– Atman-Brahman
 Life is Developmental –
stages of life,
consciousness
 Samsara – Cycles of death
and rebirth
 Karma – Moral cause and
effect
Science
 Agrees
– Psychology – levels of
consciousness
 Evolution, psychological
theory
 Happens all the time in
nature? – cycles of water,
nutrients, etc.
 What goes around comes
around?
Parables, Symbols, Rituals, Myths
Scriptures, etc.
 “awake us to realms of
gold hidden at the
depths of our being”
 Express inexpressible in
everyday terms,
pictures, etc.
 Upanishads - section of
Vedas discussed
relationship between
Brahman and Atman
 Mahabharata and
Ramayana - Long epic
poems about a war, a
quest
 Bhagavad Gita – part of
Mahabharata – dialogue
between warrior Arjuna
and Krishna, lays out
essential concepts.
Hindu Scripture
 dialogue btw warrior Arjuna
+ charioteer Krishna - avatar
of Vishnu
 Part of Mahabharata - about
battle between Pandavas and
100 sons of Dhritarashtra
 In 18 Teachings, Krishna lays
out much of Hindu
philosophy of duty
(dharma), moral choice and
consequence (karma) and
discipline (yoga), as well as
the nature of the divine
essence (Brahman), and it's
relationship to the self
(Atman).
Bhagavad Gita
Conceptions of God
 Personal – God with attributes – creator,
loving, powerful, etc.
 Impersonal/Transpersonal – God without
attributes – Godhead, Universal Essence,
etc. Brahman, Tao, Nirvana? YHVH?
Spirit?
 The Transcendent in the Immanent –
Religion expresses the inexpressible in the
everyday – Metaphors pointing to truth?
 Need concrete, use Supreme
Hindu Concept
Person
of God
 Saguna Brahman - God w/
attributes - personal
Thou Before Whom
 Nirguna Brahman - God
All Words Recoil
w/out attributes  words fail "like trying transpersonal - how both?
 light = wave and particle
to ladle the ocean
 "personal terms" - though
with a net.“
not intervening
Hindu Concept of God
 Brahman – unnamed,
universal, transcendent
essence permeating
everything – Monotheistic?
 Hindu Gods – Polytheistic?
Hindu Trinity
 Brahma – Creator
 Vishnu – Preserver
– 10 Avatars (incarnations
 Krishna
 Rama
 Buddha
 Shiva – Destroyer
– Destroys the barrier
between illusion and
reality
– Shiva Nataraja
 Lord of the Dance
Jot everything
you see, and
guess what it
symbolizes
More Gods
How
Many
Gods?
 The whole aim of
Eastern religion is
to shift selfidentity from the
light bulb to the
light –
 Joseph Campbell
Goal - Awareness
 “The only thing that is unqualifiedly good is
extended vision, the enlargement of one’s
understanding of the ultimate nature of
things” (Smith, 8).
 For Hindus this vision is the awareness of the
essential unity of all things as being one with
Brahman
 Light Bulb or Light?
 Transformation of consciousness
Yoga - The Paths to God
 India's obsession: “tap into supreme
strength, fullness of wisdom,
unquenchable joy within”
 Religion = path to higher states of being
 People are different – 5 yogas
YOGA
 method of training/discipline designed to
lead to integration or union
 Yoke – your own consciousness to
transcendent.
 Get rid of Desire and Fear by shifting
Consciousness
 Defined broadly – the discipline of
“following your bliss” (Joseph Campbell)
 Different strokes for different folks
Four Personality Traits and Paths:
 1. reflective - knowledge - Jnana yoga
 2. emotional - love - Bhakti yoga
 3. active - work - Karma yoga
 4. experimental – psychophysical
experiments – Raja yoga
Whereas focus in
west is on strength,
focus in east is on
control
Hatha Yoga Preparatory
Jnana Yoga
 Reflective/Philosophical
personality –
 Way to God through knowledge of
Brahman
 Shortest and Steepest Path
 Staying “in the zone”
 Shift self-ID to eternal part
Bhakti Yoga
 Religion (God, ritual)
 Emotions, Love
 Most popular
 Closest 2 Christianity
 Loving devotion to/
worship of chosen
deity, family god
 Like devotion to
saints?
 Myths, symbols,
1. Japam – Chanting
God's name - "washing
or weaving, planting or
shopping,
imperceptibly but
indelibly these verbal
droplets of aspiration
soak down into the
subconscious, loading
it with the divine."
2. See God in various
human relationships
3. Puja - Worship of
chosen ideal
Bhakti continued
Karma Yoga
 Active Personality
 Way to God through work – find your
passion, empty self of attachment/desire
 Work for God selflessly - in love (bhakti)
or detachment (jnana)
 Starve the finite ego by detaching self from
fruits of labor
 Of four yogas, main difference is between
jnana and bhakti
Habits to Cultivate First:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
non-injury
truthfulness
non-stealing
self control
cleanliness
contentment
self-discipline
compelling desire to reach the goal.
Raja Yoga
 Meditation
 For the scientific personality
 Through “psychophysical experiments
 8 steps (control/tune out body, breathing,
senses, etc. deepen mental concentration)
 a "determined refusal to allow the pitter
patter of daily existence to distract from the
unknown demands of some urgency within
" - a "total strike" against the routine of
existence.
Eight Steps of Raja Yoga
1) 5 Don’t’s - cravings, injury, lying, stealing, sensuality, greed
2) 5 Do’s - cleanliness, contentment, self control, studiousness,
contemplation of divine
1 and 2 - clear moral static - achieve calmness in conscience
3) Body - yogic postures work through the body to mind, rid
distractions, - lotus position
4) Breathing, reduce air required – “light of lamp does not flicker in
windless place”
5) Senses - Control and Tune Out- close doors of perception Up to now five intrusions - like damming of rivulets, but lake
bottom streams and fantasies continue
6) Mind - Focus and Control still active/restless even now, allow
thoughts that need release to exorcise themselves
7) Deepen Concentration – deepen to losing self-consciousness
8) Samadhi - state of mind of complete absorption in God, forms fall
away, "The knower is united with what is known, been brought
to the knowledge of total being, and for a spell, dissolved into it"
The Chakras
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Kundalini – dragon journey
Raja=Royal yoga
Lotuses
Psychotic drowns, yogi
swims
The Seven Chakras
 7 – Crown
 6 – Third Eye
 5 – Larynx
 4 – Heart
 3 - Navel
 2 - Genitals
 1 – Base of Spine (root)
 7 – The 1000 petal lotus –
Distinctons disappear
 6 – Soul beholds God
 5 - Cleansing, Air, Aum
 4 – Love (Divinity down,
Human up)
 3 – Power (most at 2 or 3)
 2 - Pleasure
 1 – Holding On - dragon
Benefits?
Hinduism agrees w/
psychoanalysis
that if only we
could tap into our
subconscious we
would experience
a remarkable
expansion of
power and life
1. student - after rite of Stages
initiation - 12 years old
2. householder - duty to
family, vocation,
community - first three
wants
3. retirement - find meaning
4. Sannyasin - neither hates
nor loves anything - identify
with eternal self
of Life
1.
2.
3.
4.

Stations of Life - Castes
Brahmins - seers - reflective philosophers, artists, religious
leaders and teachers
Kshatriyas - administrators
Vaishyas - producers, artisans,
farmers
Shudras - followers, servants,
unskilled laborers
"perversion" with addition of 5th
group - outcastes/untouchables
Caste
 From Buddha to Gandhi, many reformers sought to
remove untouchability from caste outlawed in India's
constitution
5 perversions/deteriorations:
1. Untouchables
2. Breakup of 4 into over 3000 subcastes –
3. Proscriptions v. intermarriage, dining complicates
society
 4. Privileges - higher castes benefited at expense of lower
 5. Caste became hereditary




Samsara –
Coming of age
in the universe
Reincarnation
 "When we outgrow a suit
or find our house to
cramped, we exchange
these for roomier ones that
offer our bodies freer play souls do the same."
 From Gita :
"Worn out garments
Are shed by the body.
Worn out bodies
Are shed by the dweller
(soul)."
“The function of your body is to put your jiva in the realm
of temporary existence” – Joseph Campbell
What Brings
You Back?
Two Things:
Desire
and
Fear
Karma
Karma
 Moral law of cause and effect - present life
is exact product of past wants and actions
 "As you sow, so shall you reap.“
 “What goes around, comes around”
 Desire and Fear
 Two important psychological corollaries to
Karma:
 1. Complete personal responsibility
 2. No accidents or chance events
Karma Quote
 "It is as if each desire that aims at the
ego's gratification adds a grain of
concrete to the wall surrounding the
individual self and insulates it from the
infinite sea of being that surrounds it,
while, conversely, each compassionate or
disinterested act dislodges a grain from
the confining dike" (66).
Hindu Worldview
 Giant Accordion
 1. Multiple - innumerable horizontal
galaxies, vertical tiers, temporal cycles
 2. Moral - law of Karma
 3. Middle – never heaven or hell, but
between
 4. Maya = illusion/”tricky”, passes off
“multiplicity, materiality and dualities as
ultimate when they are provisional”
 5. Training ground - people can develop
 6. Lila - divine play in the cosmic dance
Bird over the Himalayas
Many Paths to the Same Summit
"truth is one, the sages call it by many
names"
stained glass window
Pun Fun