Yogic Perception, I.

pp. v-vi; 16-17 Part I : Table of Contents

*chapter (mostly lectures)*		*author (lecturer)*	*pp.*
Introduction		Eli Franco	1 to 51
1	Mimamsa Rejection of Yaugik Perception	Lawrence McCrea	55-70
2	Yoga and the Epistemic Praedicament	John Taber	71-92
3	Meditation and Metaphysics ... in ... Buddhism	Eli Franco	93-132
4	Candrakirti and Yaugik Perception	Anne MacDonald	133-168
5	On the Career and Cognition of *Yogin*-s	Vincent Eltschinger	169-213
6	Purity ... of Perception in ... Buddhism	Dorji Wangchuk	215-239
7	Gnosis in Some rN~in-ma Tantrik Sources	Orna Almogi	241-262
8	Yoga ... in the Patan~jala Yoga-s`astra	Philip Andre' Maas	263-282
9	Yaugik Perception according to Vis`is.t.a-advaita	Marcus Schmu:cker	283-298
10	Yaugik Perception ... in the Vais.n.ava Tradition	Marion Rastelli	299-317

pp. 481-3 Part I : authors & their affiliations

p.	*author*	*affiliation*
481	Orna Almogi	Universita:t Hamburg in Germany
	Lawrence McCrea	Cornell University in Ithaca, NY
	Ann MacDonald	Universita:t Wien in Austria
	Vincent Eltschinger	O:sterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften
	Eli Franco	Universita:t Leipzig in Germany
	Shulamith Kreitler	Tel Abib University in Yis`ra>el
482	Philip Andre' Maas	" " " "
	Marion Rastelli	O:sterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften
	Marcus Schumu:cker	" " " "
	John Taber	University of New Mexico at Albuquerque
483	Dorji Wangchuk	Universita:t Hamburg in Germany

I.1-I.3

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Introduction

Eli Franco

1 to 51

p. 19, fn. 42 Mimamsa polytheism

"While the Mimamsa does not reject the existence of deities who might play the role of recipients in sacrifices, the existence of an omnipotent ... God, like S`iva or Vis.n.u, to whom the creation of world ... or a decisive influence on the human lot may be attributed, is vigorously rejected."

{Domination by an omnipotent entity would be severe tyranny, and incompatible with mutual co-operation. The notion of an omnipotent deity tyrannizing all other beings was unknown in antiquity anywhere in the world, when consensual co-operation was in vogue worldwide.}

{Similarly as each mortal person's every thought hath been derived from outside of that person (so that without external sources of information, that person could have no thought), so in like manner an immortal deity without already-existent external sources of information could never originate any thought nor thought-process, and therefore could never construct the intent to think nor to do anything, let alone to think of, nor to perform any "creation of world". And while monotheism is, logically, an utter absurdity, creation of anything at all out of sheer nothingness is well-known to be a stark impossibility : out of nothingness, nothing at all can be extracted nor derived. [written 22 January 2019]} {While in may be well to agree with Mimamsa theology thus far, its delusive notion that deities wish for mortals simply to destroy their own useful possessions as a supposed form of worship, is far indeed from genuine piety. By far, a superior understanding of that which is pleasing to deties is to be found in West Africa, where the gifts to deities are praesented (instead to an insensible fire having no actual taste for gifts) as food (and raiment, with instrumental music accompanying hymns of praise) to deities who are in actually manifest temporary occupancy of the living bodies mortal humans.}

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mimamsa Rejection of Yaugik Perception

Lawrence McCrea

55-70

p. 55 unrestrainted eccentricity of Mimamsa heterodox notions

"even a cursory survey of the central works of the Mimamsa tradition is sufficient to reveal that their positions were {and are} ... at odds with most or all ... philosophical traditions, even those within the "Hindu" fold. They were {and remain} ... outright deniers of ... the stock elements of Hindu {read "Astika"} cosmology -- for example, the existence of gods ...,
the existence of gods ...,	{This Mimamsa denial is, of course, in flagrant contradiction against the entire content of the *Veda* (and especially contrary to its *Samhit*a).}
the possibility of liberation from the cycle of birth and death." {Such a "possibility" is of meaningfulness only to a person lacking omniscience and with concomitant supernormal divinely-provided powers.}		{For an entity, or person, having a permanent status of sarva-jn~ata (omniscience), however, birth and death are mere insignificant trifles, insofar as, for such an entity or person, abandoment of one body and assuming of a different body cannot entail any possible loss.}

pp. 57-8 an instance of the typical absurdity of infesting Mimamsa dogmata

p. 57	"S`abara's argument, and the central Mimamsa claim it upholds, will collapse. Hence Kumarila, in commenting on ... S`abara's work, ...
p. 58	confronts ... not ... an ontological question ... -- but an epistemological one --
	How, if at all, could one reliably determine whether the statements of any self-proclaimed {incidentally, vidyadhara-s are not "self-proclaimed", but, rather, are acclaimed by their cela-s} yogi are reliable or not?"	{The quite evident means of determining this is to go into the praesence of a vidyadhara who can readily read one's mind and tell one one's inmost throughts. However, no craftily unprincipled and mendaciously deceitful Mimamsin will ever dare to do this.}

p. 69 nonsensical Mimamsa allegation that no religious information that ever been received nor revealed

"the Mimamsakas ... ground the reliability of Vedic scriptures on their eternality, and
on the absence of any person who composed or revealed them ... ." {Conventionally, every hymn in the *Samhita of the Veda* is stated to have a specific r.s.i as its divinely-guided revelator. Will not the bigoted Mimamsin ever admit to this?}	{In actuality, if no mortal had ever received the information by divine revelation (viz., by witnessing it in dreams), it would not be known amongst mortals. By the same token, any mortal person so capable may receive further such information from the divine worlds at any time, thus increasing and enriching the content of known-amongst-mortals religious lore.}

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yoga and the Epistemic Praedicament

John Taber

71-92

pp. 76-7 Sarva-jn~a Siddhi ('all-knowing success/perfection')

p. 76	"Ratnakirti in his *Sarvajn~asiddhi* ... represents the culmination of a long development, which was translated into German by Gudrun Bu:hnemann in her doctoral dissertation, written
p. 77	under the supervision of Prof. Ernst Steinkellner and published in 1980."

p. 77 an extreme limitation of Occidental philosophers

"The category of supernatural or supernormal phenomena with which

Western philosophers have traditionally been concerned has been, not yogic experience ... nor even extrasensory perception, but miracles ... ."

{Because the capacity for performing of miracles is derived directly from yaugik experience and extraordinary perception, it is not possible to understand nor to discuss the performing of miracles without thoroughly understanding yaugik experience and extraordinary perception; therefore the feeble efforts by Occidental self-styled "philosophers" to understand any of these concerns have been utterly futile, and deserve only to be condignly ignored.}

p. 81 summoning deities to appear

Kuntidevi in the *Mah*abharata is able to call into her presence the various the various gods, but
she was given a mantra to do that." {Of course, the mantra will not be able to function if the deity involved is not in approval both of the invoker and of all links in any utilized chain of transmission through a guru-parampara.}	{Such mantra-s (magical spells) are originally obtained from the deities themselves while a mortal is visiting those deities' divine realms in a dream. Afterwards, the mantra may be transmitted through a guru-parampara (praeceptor-lineage).}

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Meditation and Metaphysics ... in ... Buddhism"

Eli Franco

93-132

p. 98, fn. 8 the two differently-shaped mountains, each labeled \Meru\

Contrary to that which is indicated "in the Abhidharmakos`a, ... in ... the Kalacakra cosmology ..., Mount Meru is round and not quadrangular." {Are there not, according to some of the puran.a-s, two distinct mountains, both labeled \Meru\ (but when distinctively labeled, known as \and \Ku-meru\ and \Su-meru\)?}

{There is an irregularly-shaped (i.e., putatively "round") mountain named \Meru\ not far from mt Kilimanjaro in Tanganyika, and a tepui (i.e., square-shaped mountain) likewise named \Meru\ in estado Boli`var of Venezuela. The round mountain can be regarded as the asura-inhabited Ku-meru, and the square mountain as the sura (deva)-inhabited Su-meru.}

\Meru\ ("UPI-AC", p. 86) : Ku-meru is antipodal (to Su-meru), so that (according to, e.g., the Vis.n.u Puran.a, p. 209 in the translation by Wilson) its (Ku-meru's) denizens "move with their heads inverted", moving about with (according to the Jaina scripture in Sacred Books of the East, vol xlv, p. 279) their "heads downwards". Because the \su-\ (in \Su-meru\) may be an abbreviation for \soma\, therefore, correspondingly, the \ku\ (in \Ku-meru\) may likewise be an abbreviation,

"UPI-AC" = William F. Warren : "Problems still Unsolved in Indo-Aryan Cosmology". J OF THE AMER ORIENTAL SOC 26(1905):84-92. https://books.google.com/books?id=aMwoAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA86&lpg=PA86&dq=

pp. 98-9 formless heavens entred in trances

p. 98 "After meditating on the infinity of space (akas`anantya), the yogi {viz., dope-fiend} naturally moves on to meditate on the infinity of ... conscious-	{Such heavens (of shapeless luminosity) are attained by ingestation of certain powerful drugs, such as the dermal secretion of the so-called "toad of light" (to be found in ponds at oases in the Sonora Desert).}
*[p. 99] ness (vijn~*ananantya) {better translated 'understanding unending'}; next the stage of nothingness (akin~canya) is reached ... . Finally, ... it ... is ... "neither consciousness nor non-consciousness" (naivasamjn~asamjn~a) [na-iva-sa**mjn~a-asamjn~a]."

p. 99, fn. 10 "teachers" of deep trance

"According to the Buddhist tradition, the Buddha practiced this meditation with his teachers Arad.a Kalama and Rudraka Ramaputra." {\Arada\ is well-known as a spirit-possession cult in West Africa; it may have been a major source of the buddha's docrine.}

{Those "teachers" supplied the bodhisattva with the appropriate hard drug.} {The "meditators" who come to the United States of American (and to western Europe) take care to conceal their sources of psychedelic drugs from law-enforcement agencies, for such drugs would likely be made illegal if known to the respective national governments.}

p. 111 visionary experiences while awake with one's eyen closed

"the yogi generalizes : ... during the meditation all objects were mere images in my mind. ... As the text says,
he did not go to the Buddha, and	{Going would necessarily entail being in a body (whether a material body or a dream-body); but while in an abstracted trance-state, one must lack a dream-body capable of travel.}
the Buddha did not come to him.	{A buddha's coming bodily to him would necessarily entail having eyen open so as to witness the bodily praesence of [the aitheric body of] a buddha in the physical space of the waking-world; but without open eyen, one can perceive only a visionary space not oriented in relation to the material waking-world.}
(Nevertheless, ... the mind of the Buddha indeed operates from a distance directly on the mind of the yogi.)"		{That is to say, the buddha sent, via thought-transference, a visionary mental image (of the buddha's own appearance, viz., of the buddha's own body) fit to the viewed in the recipient-yogin's internal mind's eye.}
fn. 32 : "Three factors are necessary : "The might (Skt. *anubhava) of the Buddha, the application of the force of their ["the Bodhisattvas' "] own wholesome potentialities, and the power ["which is the result"] of attaining sam*adhi."

p. 123 problemata?

"faced with the problem of how abstract statements, such as those that constitute the four noble truths, could be perceived in an immediate manner, that is, without involving concepts ... . {By "concepts" the author is evidently intending 'wordsmithery'. The author is evidently in the habit of regarding, as the greatest of metaphysicists, the craftiest of wordsmiths in dealing in abstractions.} ...		{It is not claimed that any statement (composed of words) can "be perceived in an immediate manner" (other than the *supposedly* trivial cases of : [1] seeing in a vision or in a dream a written or inscribed text containing those words, [2] hearing in a vision or in a dream a spoken text containing those words). How-be-it, it is very easy and straightforward to perceive "in an immediate manner" the so-called "four noble truths", to wit, by experiencing a vision or a dream displaying (in cinematic, or in theatrical, fashion) that which those "truths" describe.}
Is it really possible for a yogi, such as the Buddha, to know everything?	{The meaning of \to know everything\ is simply 'to procure immediately (from, of course, divine sources) any information sought'. This is [at least theoretically] feasible (for such a yogin as is in ongoing communication with the appropriate deities).}
What is the object of omniscient cognition?			{It is any information sought-for.}
Can one really know all individual things in a single act of cognition?					{Nay, not so : of course not!}
Or is it only possible to know the essence of one thing and from that knowledge to understand the essence of all things?" {This quaestion is not sufficiently praecise to be distinctly intelligible.}				{The resolution of this quaestion must depend on what is meant by \essence\ -- its 'sensible qualities', its 'responsiveness of the laws of physics', or whatever?}

{I myself am constantly nightly engaged (while dreaming) in : [1] seeing written philosophical texts, and [2] hearing spoken philosophical texts -- but the academic philosopher-authors of this book would evidently consider such perceptions to be the merest triviality (which is a likely indication that they themselves seldom or never experience such dreaming, although such dreaming be more impressive than material-world-experienced bookeries).} [written 12 January 2019]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Candrakirti and Yogic Perception"

Ann MacDonald

133-168

p. 139 independent existence is tantamount to indestructibility

"Phenomena {of the material universe} must be empty of a real nature, of an own-being (svabhava) {actually, 'own-becoming'}, the Madhyamaka argues, because they arise in dependence (pratityasamutpada) upon other things {particulars arising from other particulars, but only in accordance with universals}; whatever arises in dependence, in being reliant on something else {from other particulars, but, more importantly, through application of universal laws} and thus not capable of existing without the other's support, obviously does not exist of its own accord, by its own nature. {This argument must effectively be tantamount to a demolition of the notion of independence of particulars from universals.}

{The particulars which are constituents of the material universe in the waking-state, are themselves non-existent in the sense of not possessing meaning or purpose in relationship to the material universe as such, because in-and-of itself the material universe in the waking-state is simply devoid of meaning-and-purpose; for, meaning-and-purpose must have consciousness as their basis, and consciousness is absent from the material plane, being praesent only in the composite-but-indestructible consciousnesses which collectively constitute the contents of the aitheric plane (and additionally being praesent in the "pure lands" which are non-composite in regard to planes, though potentially composite in regard to sub-planes of a single plane).}

Would things exist on their own, i.e., be real, they could as a consequence neither arise nor perish ... . ... Such an entity {if an abstract law of logic could be described as "an entity"} would exist forever ... . "

{The "things" that exist on their own, exist, indeed, forever. These "things" are the laws of logical reasoning, along with the laws of physics (which are rigidly deducible from the laws of reasoning).}

{The litteral meaning of \sva-bhava\ is 'own-becoming' : thus, ontological particulars do not become (viz., change themselves into) anything else under action of their own intrinsic accord, but rather, instead, they become else only under action of the accord of universals (i.e., of the universal laws of physics, as motivated through the meaning-and-purpose of the collectivity of the indestructible consciousnesses which act through these aeternal laws).} [written 12 January 2019]

p. 140 just exactly what hath never existed?

"According to the Madhyamikas, no thing has ever really existed and no thing will ever come into existence.	{The indestructible aeternals, which have never "come into existence" because they have always existed (co-aeval with Time itself) include : the laws of logic-and-physics, the planes-of-existence and their subplanes, and the particular consciousnesses along with their capacity for intercommunicating.}
The cycling through repeated births and deaths ... has never really occurred."	{From the point-of-view of non-conscious qualities of the merely material waking-world : yea, cycling through lives (by consciousnesses of mortal entities) hath never occurred.}

{In essence, this Madhyamaka mode of contemplation is suggesting that we hold open the the quasi-capacity of entities to a considering of understanding the nature of life-and-consciousness from a non-conscious material perspective, in order (by such an adroit manoeuvre) provisionally to eliminate any vulnerability to be overcome by the blind mechanisms of samsara. This is a plan cleverly-devised so as to compell the material-plane aspect of samsara to protect oneself against the possibility of becoming redincarnated (on any further occasions) into the material world.} [written 12 January 2019]

p. 162 a mark is not useful as an object of metaphysical-ethical knowledge

"experience of the ultimate ..., viz., "gnosis" (jn~ana) ... does not take, ... as Candrakirti sometimes terms it, a mark (nimitta) as its object."

{A "mark" would be an emblem, which in-and-of-itself would not be a secure basis for establishing thereon a metaphysical system of an ethical nature, inasmuch as the natural signification of any emblem may be multifarious and variable.}

pp. 164-5 the way whereby both understandings and personal entities can evade the the definiteness of countability

p. 164	"Candrakirti describes gnosis ... as "transcending all manifoldness" (*prapan~c*atita). ... Just as striking is Candrakirti comment ... that the Tathagatas ... are	{Where \manifoldness\ would be defined as definiteness as to where more than understandings is being explicated (or more than one personal entity is being communicated withal), to \transcend manifoldness\ could be defined as an means or mechanism for blurring over such explications (or communications) in such a fashion as to leave uncertainly whether all such explications are aimed as the same understanding (or whether all such communications are with the same personal entity).}
p. 165	"completely outside ["the domain of"] manifoldness.""

{When actually receiving messages concerning understanding, they may be so vaguely (or ambiguously) worded as to be indefinite whether they all refer to the same understanding (especially when the understanding aimed at, is involved in the metaphysics of ethics); and likewise when actually receiving messages from (or concerning) personal entities, they may be so vaguely (or ambiguously) worded as to be indefinite whether they all refer to the same personal entity (especially when the personal entity be praeternatural and otherworldly). A further way in which there may be a "transcending of manifoldness" might be a circumstance wherein the source of a divine message may be in an indefinite state of awareness as a whether the various message have the same reference, or as to whether they originated from the same entity (which indefiniteness would be rather usual for a group of immaterial-bodied entities who commonly think collectively via collective thought-transference).} [written 13 January 2019]

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"On the Career and Cognition of Yogins"

Vincent Eltschinger

169-213

p. 189 instances of continuation (even for an arhant) of propensities from former lives

"This after-effect ... still affects liberated saints like the Arhat Maudgalyayana, who kept hopping around because he had been born as a monkey 500 lifetimes earlier,

or the Arhat Pilindavatsa who, because he had been a brahman.a before, continued to say harsh and belittling words ... ."

p. 191 the atman ('abstract nature') of yoga

"Dharmottara (740-800) is one of the few authors to supply any substantial definition of ... yoga ..., it consists of tranquillity (of mind, s`amatha) and discernment (vipas`yana), which have (psychic) concentration and insight (prajn~a) for their nature, respectively.

A yogin is one who is possessed of tranquillity of mind and discernment into the nature of things ... ."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Purity ... of Perception in ... Buddhism"

Dorji Wangchuk

215-239

pp. 221-2 potential internal structure of atoms

p. 221	"Buddhist {viz., Maha-yana} scriptures are full of allusions to the ... superatural or supramundane phenomena or perceptions that ... in just a single atom there ... exist Buddha fields numbering as	{The statement "nor the size of the atom expanded" must mean that the Buddha-Fields internal to atoms really are tiny indeed; whereas, that those Buddha-Fields have not "been contracted" would simply mean that relative to their own internal units of measurement they are quite huge.} {Though not observable in the currently existent universes, nevertheless via extrapolation of potentiality beyond the actual reach of Consciousness itself, such transcendental Implicate Orders (similar to that envisaged by David Bo:hm) in the conceptual envisagement of internal structure within atoms, can be feasible. [written 22 January 2019]}
p. 222	many as the total number of atoms. It is even explicitly stated neither has the size of the Buddha fields been contracted nor the size of the atom expanded. ...
	Mi-pham's motive thus seems to have been to propose an upgraded and updated theory that could explain the ... pure appearances and pure perceptions (thematised in both tantric and non-tantric Maha-yana scriptures)."		{Thus, in such a context, "pure appearances and pure perceptions" could only signifying apply to the apparitional perceptivity attained by dhyani-buddha-s abiding in "Pure-Lands" of "Buddha-Fields", viz., as concerning abstractly conceptual realms beyond the actual reach of Time itself. [written 22 January 2019]}

{Beside the repraesentation in terms of increasingly finer quantum structure at increasing distance-ranges in both remote past and remote future, another means of repraesentation would be in terms of increasingly greater number of spatial dimensions at increasing distance-ranges extending into both remote past and remote future. A calculus of convergent series (as in the Taylor Series as could easily yield finite, and praecise, numerical solutions for calculation applied even into the infinite past and the infinite future of Time itself, as it can for calculation into infinitude in the convergent series applied Space, via the indefinite integral invented by Isaac Newton via combining, with Hindu-invented al-gebra, the method of Arkhimedes in calculating the volumes of cones and of sphaires.) [written 22 January 2019]}

p. 224 divine nature (of divine entities) immanently pervading and controlling the material universe

"In Tibetan sources ... occurs ... what is called "establishing the divinity of appearance" (snang ba lhar sgrub pa), that is, establishing the supramundaneness of the very mundane, the divinity of the very earthly -- according to Mi-pham, a uniquely rNying-ma concern, which stems from the eleventh-century rNying-ma scholar Rong-zom-pa, and is described by him as the "lion's roar" (seng ge>i nga ro) of this scholar."

{That the power of divine entities pervadeth and controlleth all levels and features of the material universe is a fact well-known, traditionally, as it hath indeed remained, for perhaps scores of millennia, amongst so-called "primitive" peoples throughout this planet's surface -- Sub-Saharan Africans, Australian aboriginals, Siberians, AmerIndians. (The folk furthest removed from understanding this fact have been modern self-styled "materialists" of mainly European extraction.)}

p. 226 "special Maha-yana" as proclaiming indivisibility of the "two truths"

"by great equality (mnyam pa chen po) ... the two modes are characterised by great indivisibility (dbyer med pa chen po). ...

By "special Mahayana," he means ... the indivisibility of the two kinds of truths ..., that is, ... that in reality ... its division into conventional and absolute is merely a device for enabling access to that single truth. ...

This "special Mahayana" of Rong-zom-pa includes ... both {vaipulya} sutras, such as the Vimalakirti[-]nirdes`a[-]sutra and Ratna[-]gun.a[-]samucaya[-]gatha, and tantras, such as the *Guhya[-]garbha[-]tantra. According to him, the "special Mahayana" ... is special because it proposes ... nirvan.a in samsara itself ... ."

p. 227 svayam-bhu

"our ordinary minds are by nature self-occurring gnosis (svayambhujn~ana : ) {\Svayambhu\ is the name of (worshipped as Supreme Being in Nepal) the mightiest of the deities, a personification of the power of shape-shifting, which is hardly an ability of "ordinary mind".}

{WRONG MEANING. The meaning of \bhu-\ is 'become' (i.e., 'change oneself into another category of entity'), so that \svayambhujn~ana\ would be 'esoteric knowledge of how to change oneself (viz., the shape of one's body) into another species of living entity' : a practice engaged in by great shamans in their transcendent dreaming.}

{C^>an/Zen philosophy also proclaimeth the bodhi (or "buddha-nature") inhaerent in "ordinary mind" : this may be "ordinary" enow to miracle-working sorcerers (perfected saints).}

p. 228 characteristics of "reality"

"within the Buddhist systems one assumes that there is a kind of reality ... that is cognisable, timeless, and independent of being cognised and the person who cognises it. ... This ... can be found in non-Mahayana sources (such as the Samyutta[-]nikaya and Anguttara[-]nikaya), in non-tantric Mahayana literature (such as the Lankavatara[-]sutra, Saddharma[-]pun.d.arika[-]sutra, and Jn~analokalamkara[-]sutra), and tantric sources (such as the Vairocanabhisambodhi[-]tantra)."

pp. 229-30 "self-cognition"??

p. 229	"the power of self-cognition is explained as ... mind, being always self-cognitive ... .	{UNTRUE! Self-cognition is not possible, and this fact is the main reason for asserting non-existence of a personal atman ('self-nature') -- which is a fundamental and distinguishing feature of Bauddha doctrine.}
	If the mind were not self-self-cognitive ...		{This is NOT ACTUALLY TRUE! Everything whereof one's mind is ever aware is aways primarily located outside itself.}
p. 230	nothing would appear."

{The fact of the impossibility of self-cognition is the only secure reason for denying existence of the atman. The compositeness of personality, i.e., that it is constituted of so-called skandha-s (which compositeness is usually given as a reason denying existence of the atman), is utterly invalid as any indication; for, all that exists is always composite -- for example, all reasoning must, of and by its own nature, be composite (in being composed of axioms and steps of logical inference), and the validity of all reasoning must be therefore be denied by applying the same very lame excuse (namely, its "compositeness") as is usually applied for denying existence of the atman. Indeed, must not have the Buddha hypnotized (by unsavory means of witchcraft) his audiences in order ever to have convinced their membership by means of such an inapplicably-invalid excuse? Or did his being of membre of the royal family terrify his audience (who were aware that they would be summarily put to death -- very likely tortured-to-death -- for daring a defy a royal declaration) into praetending that they actually agreed to patently faulty reasoning which any sensible person could readily perceive to be quite invalid? Anyway, Bauddha dharma immediately collapsed in Bharata the moment when the despotic royal dynasty (namely, Maurya) forcibly upholding it was (thankfully) overthrown -- with only a few local holdovers temporarily maintained by a few local despots. It is very well understood that the only reason why Bauddha dharma was ever able to exist in sTod-Bod was that it allowed the king to claim to be an incarnate god; and that the only reason why Bauddha dharma was ever able to exist in Indo-China (Bhurma, Syama, Kambhujiya) was that its attitude of contempt toward gods generally allowed royalty to claim to be greater than the gods. (The only other Eastern-Hemisphaire country wherein royalty were ever able to maintain such extreme arrogance was TL-MRJ/Aiguptos, notorious for its intolerantly extreme harshness toward commoners and foreigners.) [written 22 January 2019]}

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Eli Franco (ed.) : Yogic Perception, Meditation, and Altered States of Consciousness. BEITRA:GE ZUR KULTUR UND GEISTESGESCHICHTE, Nr. 65 = O:STERREICHISCHE AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN, PHILOSOPHISCH-HISTORISCHE KLASSE, SITZUNGBERICHTE, 794. Band. Wien, 2009.