jappa, bhakti, kundalini

RE: Heart-Meditation and Jappa with the Support of Kundalini

That was a generous personal sharing ... a rather orderlyarousal/awakening in a devotional context employing quieting &simplicity, having perhaps morenormative significance for those formed in the traditions ofthe West? than certain other meditative techniques? Is thatthe gist?

Any mapping of various theological concepts interreligiouslywill always be more problematical, of course, than the mappingof any praxes and theirensuing phenomenal experiences and it is, indeed, the latterwhich provides the valuable take-away from this sharing, in myview. It was very engagingand in a sweet, gentle way.

Further, the author was wise, I believe, to leavephenomenological categorizing (metaphysical references tokundalini/shakti/prana/energy) to science, as nothing isreally lost in making vague rather than specific references tosuch realities, which hopefully will be explored more and morein clinical-like studies using rigorous methodologies.

Finally, the author mentioned Zen & Buddhist approaches,contrasting them to this more Bahkti yogic-like path (authordid not reference bhakti, which Ifound curious), and I would only point out that the author mayhave had a rather limited exposure to and knowledge of thoseapproaches because thereare some rather prominent devotional strains in Buddhism, ingeneral, even Zen, in particular (not to mention there aredevotional elements in variousHindu advaitan strains, too). It is perhaps an accident ofhistory that the Zen strain that was popularized (and oftenmisappropriated) in the West camemostly out of Japan and that led, unfortunately, to somerather radicalized notions of nonduality, at least, where theKyoto school's philosophicaltradition may have come into play. And this also led, in somecases, to some unhelpful quietest tendencies in the West'sChristianization of Zen, atleast where the Soto school of Zen exerted some influence.This is just to say that we would not want to close off ourdialogue with a wide swath of otherEastern approaches, neither at the level of practice norphilosophy/metaphysics (nor theologically, but that is farmore problematical) nor would we want to caricaturize thembased on certain schools that are not representative of thosetraditions writ large.

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