Posted by John Theobald on July 29, 19100 at 04:08:02:
In Reply to: Enlightenment and Contemplation posted by Phil on October 28, 1998 at 08:17:12:
: As East meets West, one of the most important issues is if they are both aiming for the same kind of experience.
: This is not the same question as if they are making contact with God. Obviously, they are! But is it possible that there are different kinds of experiences of God, and that what the East calls enlightenment is different from what Christianity calls contemplation? Could it be that these differences are not merely semantical, but experiential and even ontological?
In the East they describe this very difference.
Patanjali talks obout the focus of meditation producing the experience. In his model transcendent pure consciousness underlys all phenominal existence as a field of all possibilities. In his yoga sutras he gives a whole list of experiences that can result by doing sanyama (the whole process of contemplation to transcendence) on the object of focus. He refers to the personal aspect of God as Ishtadeveta, and say that if one does sanyama of their ishtadeveta one achieves liberation. So transcending on the intention to be open to the divine will allow the form of the divine (loving Abba,Father in the Christian model), then that is what a person will experience. By surrendering to Abba, one becomes free (liberated) from conditioning (samskara).