Colonial Discourse and the Suffering of Indian American Children Book Cover.webp

Colonial Discourse and the Suffering of Indian American Children is now published after academic peer-review and available through open access.

In this book, we analyze the psycho-social consequences that Indian American children face after they are exposed to the school textbook discourse on Hinduism and ancient India. We show that there is an intimate connection―an almost exact correspondence―between James Mill’s ( a prominent politician in Britain and head of the British East India Company) colonial-racist discourse and the current school-textbook discourse. Consequently, this archaic and racist discourse, camouflaged under the cover of political correctness, produces in the Indian American children the same psychological impact as racism is known to produce: shame, inferiority, embarrassment, identity confusion, assimilation, and a phenomenon similar to racelessness where the children dissociate from the tradition and culture of their ancestors

This book is an outcome of 4 years of rigorous research as a part of our ongoing commitment at Hindupedia to challenge the representation of Hindu Dharma within Academia.

Asamprajñāta

From Hindupedia, the Hindu Encyclopedia

By Swami Harshananda

Asamprajñāta literally means ‘ultra-cognitive absorption’.

Patañjali's Yogasutra is one of the popular darśanas since it gives practical methods to control the mind.

When a systematic attempt is made to control and eliminate the vṛttis or modifications of the mind through the practice of the various steps of yoga such as yama and niyama, it will result in ‘samādhi,’ total absorption in the object of contemplation. This samādhi is of two types :

  1. Samprajñāta - Cognitive. In this, the object of contemplation will be vividly revealed. In this state, though all other mental modifications are eliminated, that of the object of contemplation continues to remain active. Hence in the strictest sense of the definition of ‘yoga’ as ‘cittavrtti- nirodha’[1] (‘suppression of modifications of mind’) this samādhi indicates a lower state of yoga.
  2. Asamprajñāta - Ultra-cognitive. A higher samādhi is called asamprajñāta where all modifications of mind are eliminated, leaving only the sanskāras (latent tendencies) behind.[2] In this state, it looks as though even the mind does not exist, since there are no mental modifications to reveal its presence. This samādhi is sometimes called ‘nirbīja-samādhi’ (seedless samādhi) since the seeds of rebirth are eliminated as a result of this experience.

Intense vairāgya (‘paravairāgya’) or detachment is said to be the means of achieving this samādhi.


References[edit]

  1. ↑ Yogasutras 1.2
  2. ↑ Yogasutras 1.18
  • The Concise Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Swami Harshananda, Ram Krishna Math, Bangalore

Contributors to this article

Krishna Maheshwari, Deval Sancheti

Explore Other Articles

Retrieved from "https://hindupedia.com/index.php?title=Asamprajñāta&oldid=133671"