Do eu ao si-mesmo: um comentário crítico aos aforismos do Tantra Yoga da Ananda Marga

A presente tese tem por objetivo apresentar uma vertente contemporânea da tradição da filosofia indiana, o Tantra Yoga da Ānanda Mārga. Realiza-se, primeiramente, sua localização teórica e, em seguida, aborda-se sua ontologia e praxiologia. A tese desenvolve-se através de um diálogo hermenêutico com o Ānanda Sūtraṃ, produção textual central do guru e autor da linhagem tântrica, Ānandamūrti. Através de uma tradução própria dos aforismos (sūtra) reunidos no referido texto elabora-se um discurso que lida com os conceitos postos de forma cumulativa e gradual. Visa-se apresentar, de forma clara, os princípios constitutivos da interdependência ontológica proposta através de seu perspectivismo monista (advaitadvaitādvaitavāda), assim como os mecanismos práticos para sua realização pragmática. O texto debruça-se, assim, sobre o desvendamento de uma realidade (jagat) simultaneamente plural e una, uma vez que modo de ser daquilo que se toma pelo princípio do Ser/Consciência (Brahman). A narrativa busca, portanto, demonstrar que a noção de sujeito (jīvātman) encontra-se em uma alteridade radical, da qual os entes são seu desdobramento. Há, assim, uma epistemologia pedagógica cuja proposta soteriológica pretende dispor ao adepto a completude permanente do desejo de felicidade (mokṣa). Para tanto, o texto dispõe e a tese apresenta, as diretrizes para a ação cotidiana segundo a Ānanda Mārga, as quais constituem uma luta visceral (sādhana) pelo estabelecimento da empatia originária – em si-mesmo e na sociedade

The effect of living a ‘yogic lifestyle’ on stress response and self-image in healthcare professionals: a pilot study

Background: Healthcare staff in modern metropolitan settings face higher rates of burnout characterized by emotional stress and difficulty coping with not only building work pressure but also balancing personal life stress. The aim of this pilot study was to see the impact of a yogic lifestyle, incorporating diet, exercise and mindfulness activities based on tantra yoga. Materials & methods: Fifteen participants were recruited and completed three or more of the interventions. Results: The 4-week pilot study showed increased self-compassion and decreased stress among the participants.

Buddhism and Sexuality

Because of its high regard for celibate monasticism and incisive critique of desire as a root cause of suffering, Buddhism is widely assumed to be a sex-negative religion. In fact, as a growing body of scholarship has demonstrated, the sexual landscape of Buddhist traditions across time and place is varied, complex, and at times transgressive. The beginnings of Buddhism and sexuality as a research subfield can arguably be traced to the 1998 publication of Bernard Faure’s The Red Thread, a work that attempts to identity major themes and lines of tension in Buddhists’ imaginative encounters with, efforts to discipline, and philosophical understandings of human sexuality. Faure’s monograph was, however, preceded by L. P. N. Perera study of sexuality in ancient Buddhist India (Sexuality in Ancient India); see Perera 1993, cited under Seminal Monographs), Miranda Shaw’s monograph on women and Tantra (Passionate Enlightenment); see Shaw 1994, cited under Sexuality in Indo-Tibetan Tantra), and Liz Wilson’s book on disgust and the female body in early Buddhism (Charming Cadavers); see Wilson 1996, cited under Seminal Monographs). Since Faure, specialists in various Asian traditions have focused on sexuality with ever increasing levels of historical detail and theoretical sophistication. Examples include Sarah Jacoby’s work, Love and Liberation (Jacoby 2014, cited under Seminal Monographs), Richard Jaffe’s monograph, Neither Monk nor Layman (Jaffe 2001, cited under Non-celibate Monasticisms), John Power’s 2009 book A Bull of a Man (Powers 2009, cited under Seminal Monographs), and José Ignacio Cabezón’s Sexuality and Classical South Asian Buddhism (Cabezón 2017, cited under Seminal Monographs). In the meantime, scholars of tantra, yoga, and consort traditions such as Holly Gayley, David Gray, Janet Gyatso, and Christian Wedemeyer have moved past the orientalist judgements of early Indology and the phenomenology of Mircea Eliade in their treatments of Tantric sexuality; advances in Vinaya studies by Shayne Clarke, Alice Collett, Anālayo, and others have deepened understanding of early monastic negotiations with Indian sexual concepts and social mores; and queer and LGBT studies by Richard Corless and Hsiao-lan Hu have generated new research angles. The subfield of Buddhist ethics has also produced a small literature on Buddhist sexual ethics to complement its already substantial work on related topics like human rights and abortion. Additionally, specialists in Buddhist modernisms such as Ann Gleig and Stephanie Kaza have enriched the literature on Buddhism and sexuality by addressing issues such as sexual expression, sexual identity, and sexual abuse in contemporary Buddhist communities in the West.

The Yogīs’ Latest Trick

David Gordon White's wide-ranging scholarship on tantra, yoga and alchemy has inspired many students and scholars to undertake research in those fields. White worked as an assistant to Mircea Eliade and his doctorate from the University of Chicago was in History of Religions. His research methodology, true to this scholastic heritage, is not as deeply rooted in textual criticism as that of the current vanguard of scholars working on tantra and yoga, whose philological studies rarely reference his work. The accessibility of his books and articles, however, together with his engaging writing style and the excitement that imbues his scholarship, mean that indologists specialising in other fields, and authors addressing non-scholarly audiences, frequently draw on his publications. White's prominence in the study of yoga and tantra requires all scholars working on those subjects to address his work.

Channeling a Tantric Guru

Ananda Seva Mission (Blissful Service Mission) is an international Hindu tantric organization that resulted from a schism within Ananda Marga (Path of Bliss), a million-member, international socio-spiritual organization that teaches a type of Hindu tantra yoga. Ananda Marga’s founder and guru is Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar (1921–1990). The ostensible cause of Ananda Seva Mission’s formation was the purported ability of one of its co-founders to channel the spirit of Sarkar and the subsequent acceptance of this claim by some Ananda Margiis. However, Ananda Seva’s rapid establishment internationally should be partially attributed to its reformist agenda addressing some former Margiis’ dissatisfaction with what has been described as Ananda Marga’s control by a monastic order dominated by male renunciates. Ananda Seva created a more egalitarian organization based on Ananda Marga’s ideology, which gives married individuals a greater decision-making role and increases social opportunities available to women.