Mircea Eliade YOGA IMMORTALITY AND ... - Brihaspati.net

Yoga in MAJTRl UPANISAD
We consider the Maitrayani (Maitri) as the starting point of the whole group of
Upanishad means: it seems to have been written about the same time, or maybe a little
later than the Bhagavad-Gita (therefore between the ages II before and because of our age
") but in any event prior to the didactic parts of the Mahabharata (Hopkins, The Great
Epic of India, P. 33-46). As we shall see, the technique and yoga are subject ideology in
Maitri Up, a more careful exposition than in the oldest Upanishads. True, the sixth
chapter, which houses most of the elements yogis, chapter abnormally longer than others,
seems to have been written later: but this detail important to the history of the text, it is
crucial to the appreciation of the content. (Never too often repeated that the chro-nology
of the drafting of religious and philosophical Indians love j corresponds to the chronology
of the "invention" of its content teonco). All the verses of this chapter begin with the
sixth following indication: "For this statement in other places", which shows the
dependence of the Maitri Up with respect to other previous Yogic texts. Moreover,
although this technique exposed yogi in twelve stanzas of the sixth chapter, we find
everywhere innumerable references or allusions (eg. Disgust toward the body I, 3;
everything is perishable, I, 4, III, 4; passions pro convened by tamas and rajas, III, 5,
etc.). The Maitri only knows five of the eight classical anga Yoga (YS, II, 29): Missing
the yama, the niyama, the asana, but Instead we find the tarka, "reflexion", "force of
reason" (term fairly rare in the Yogic texts, which the Amrtabindu Up 16 explains as
follows: "meditation which is not contrary to sastra" ie the Orthodox tradition ). The
explication of Dharana is interesting for its physiological materialism gico: "He who
oppresses the tip of the tongue and palate, cl dominates his voice, his spirit and his
respiration, go to Brahman through the tarka" (VI, 20): The following paragraph (VI, 21)
mentions susumna artery, which serves to channel prana "and argues (through pranayama
and meditation on the syllable OM) the deep meditation through which incurred the
kevalatva (loneliness, isolation). It appears, these texts, the importance given to
meditation by the Maitri Upanishad hearing. Several passages bring relief to the syllable
OM (VI, 3-5, 21-26): the meditation on the syllable leads to liberation (VI, 22) by this
meditation is Brahman and obtained immortality (VI , 24), OM is co Visnu identity (VI,
23), all gods, all respiratory rhythms rivers, all the sacrifices (VI, 5).
This supremacy of the meditation on the mystic syllable OM po-dria may explain both
the concise and sincretis-mo peculiar to this kind of Upanishad, for the practical success
of a hearing meditation technique, that India knew and ha-ing much time and taking into
account that follows. Chapter VI, 22, gives us a very confusing essay explication of
meditation concerning the "word" and "non-word" (test we can consider as a document of
the prehistory of the theories concerning the physical sound, sabela ). The same chapter
also states another method hearing mystical experience: "When you cover your ears with
your thumbs, you hear the sound of space that is inside the heart (Brhad. Up, V, 9) and its
appearance is of seven ways: (is like) the sound of a river, that of a cam panita that of a
copper cup, the wheel of a car, the cry of a frog, the sound of rain, or the word in an
enclosed area. After having passed this sound, which is ca-clear characteristics, will be
lost in the unmanifested Brahman, the supreme sound. Alii, covered in an equally,
without other individual-ity, are as flowers (Chand. Up V. 18, 1) flavor di-verse that