I think that you are sensationalising and fear mongering, Walter1963.
Undoubtedly there are perverted humans who do unspeakable violence to others under an umbrella of pretence that they are engaged in the lofty pursuit of a religious calling. That happens across the spectrum of belief systems and says more about the particular human being engaging in the violence than about the particular belief system.

The sexual element of Taoism that I was referring to is the fundamental principle of seeing the world as polar opposites, male and female principles that nevertheless constitute an integrated whole that allows the complete show to continue endlessly.

The fact that some people have been taught, sometimes by brute experience, to view sexual behaviour in a negative light does not make it possible to remove sexual behaviour from the world.
Remove that and there is no world. Bees do it, birds do it, it is inescapable.
Trying to construct a belief system that sanitises, hides and denies this fact is a path to disaster.

Let's not get into a religious debate and off topic.

Also, personal attacks are not appropriate and against the rules.

This was written in the discussion comments section following an article on Rituals of Disenchantment, a blog by and for persons who were in a Hindu tantric group--SYDA Yoga (Gurumayi) successsor to Muktananda (Siddha Yoga)

[ritualsofdisenchantment.blogspot.com]

The misuse of the concepts of "devotion" and "surrender" by teachers and gurus, taken out of context and out of the cultures that gave rise to these methods, has caused tremendous damage here in the West.

In the guise of "ego busting", trust in deep perception is eroded.

This effectively prevents the rise of inner knowing as a "check-in" system for the student.

(And when Buddhism is corrupted in to 'buddhism' and used to instill distrust in our "conditioned perceptions" the same outcome can be manipulated--Corboy)

What "should" be happening is a more and more refined discrimination and "inner authority" as clarity arises.

What does happen is more and more dependence on an outer authority.

The student (devotee or whatever label you want to use) becomes more and more rigid, more and more dependent, less and less able to open to anything outside of the guru's dogma. It's a particularly insidious form of dependence and really hard to break away from. The ones who suffer worst are the ones closest to the dependent person.

I am grateful every single day for the lesson of syda. I see the same dynamic playing out all around me but syda was the "vaccination" that gave me some immunity to this particular spiritual illness.
Many of us may wind up old and broke; some of us (all of us, eventually) will wind up alone but not necessarily 'broken'". I really wish you well in your own deepening understanding.

This was written in response to a sad commentary by a person who left SY but whose spouse remains a devotee.

SeekHer,

The saddest thing to me is that there still are a significant number of people looking at the other side of that coin, and who have held on for the past 8 to 9 years.

I should know. I'm married to one of them. My leaving became a great "stab to the heart" in the mind of my spouse. To the point of my repeatedly having been told "You are not my true life partner. I thought you were, but you're not." Which becomes a stab to the heart for me.

But I have resigned myself that my spouse has so much invested in SY that the hanging on is beyond mere denial.

In fact, my spouse knows all the allegations through the years full well. What is going on here is some sort of deep need to hold on. It's even beyond a willful refusal to let go and move on.

The suggestion of letting go and moving on is derided as a "you really don't understand me at all and you never have".

It's just so sad.

Why are we still together?
Easy: For the sake of the offspring.

Like SY, in my own little world, the inevitable is being willfully delayed. Holding on, rather than moving on.

Sad, ain't it?



Later this person wrote

Anonymous said...
Very difficult journey.

I brought it up -- at the risk of looking too much like I was playing up my own "victim-hood" and begging for sympathy -- primarily as a reminder that the damage SY did was not merely one of tossing out old ashramites out on their backsides after years of harvesting their devoted and years of harvesting faithful service, world-wide devotees' money.

Real damage was done to people's lives even if they never lived full-time in an SY ashram. Real damage was done to family relationships, to the children growing up in those relationships.

I have to live with that damage every day of my life.

Someday, the offspring will grow up and move away. I do not relish the idea of being broke, alone, and broken once the unavoidable split comes at that time.

But I can see it coming. And other than divorcing and becoming broke now, do not see one da**ned thing I can do about it. Because that would certainly not serve offspring's educational and financial future.

So who sacrifices? Well, all of us, parents and offspring.

All because devotion to the cult will not be let go of. All because "moving on" cannot take place as a result.

Damage. REAL damage, has been wrought by SY.

COrboy note:

This damage is probably similar to what has been wrought in Buddhist tantric guru set ups.

There is a new book out by a scholar who has done a survey of tantric texts.

Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism: History, Semiology, and Transgression in the Indian Traditions (South Asia Across the Disciplines (Hardcover)) (Hardback)
By (author) Christian K. Wedemeyer

[www.bookdepository.com]

Surveying indigenous Buddhist accounts of the history of their traditions, (Wedemeyer) reveals the lived world of Tantric Buddhism as largely continuous with the Indian religious mainstream and deploys contemporary methods of semiotic and structural analysis to make sense of its seemingly repellent and immoral injunctions.

Conducting the first-ever semiological reading of the influential Guhyasamaja Tantra, Wedemeyer underscores the text's overriding concern with purity, pollution, and transcendent insight -- issues that are shared by all Indic religions. He also conducts a large-scale, quantitative study of Tantric literature, showing the radical antinomianism that has been taken generically as Tantric "practice" ( carya) is instead a rarefied and highly managed ritual observance restricted to a sacerdotal elite.

These insights into Tantric scripture and ritual enable a better appreciation of the continuities between South Asian Tantrism and broader currents in Indian religion, and Wedemeyer successfully illustrates how thoroughly these "radical" communities were integrated into the intellectual, institutional, and social structures of South Asian Buddhism.


See this:

"He also conducts a large-scale, quantitative study of Tantric literature, showing the radical antinomianism that has been taken generically as Tantric "practice" ( carya) is instead a rarefied and highly managed ritual observance restricted to a sacerdotal elite. "

This should indicate that Hindu or Buddhist teachers who involve newbie students in tantric consort practice are violating the guidelines of this tradition.

A true partner would have to have the equivalent training, not only in meditation, but in the complex language used in the rituals--something that would require years of study. Words and phrases used in tantric rituals have quite different meanings from those used in conventional language. A partner must be able to share an understanding of the ritual, otherwise he or she is a mere object for manipulation.

A so called tantric who belittles study and who consistently selects malleable young persons is violating the guidelines.

Twilight language 'sandhya bhasha' Polysemy

Tantra--words can have multiple meanings-- this has been termed 'twilight language.'

In linguistics this is an exampe of what is termed polysemy and this can occur in everyday usage.

This means that if a tantric teacher is ethical, he or she must signal what level of discourse he or she is using when communicating with us.

All who have discussions with the teacher must be told or reminded that that there are multiple levels at which language can be used in tantra, and the teacher as powerholder, must signal what level of language he or she is using and must remain consistent--not switch levels for purposes of mere confusion or manipulation.

Otherwise this slippeiness between levels of meaning can be a refuge for con artists who naturally look for any short of ambiguity or confusion as good places for hiding out.

All participants in a tantric relationship, especially if sexual visualization or action take place, should have mastered the language and terms and levels of discourse and be able to negotiate in advance what terms and definitions will be used to define this relationship.

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The Twilight Language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Twilight language is a rendering of the Sanskrit term sâṃdhyâbhâṣâ (written also sândhyâbhâṣâ, sâṃdhyabhâṣâ, sândhyabhâṣâ; Standard Tibetan: dgongs-pa'i ske) — or of their modern Indic equivalents (especially in Bengali, Oriya, Assamese, Maithili, Hindi, Nepali, Braj and Khariboli).

The twilight language is a polysemic language (words with multiple meanings) and communication system associated with tantric traditions in Vajrayana Buddhism and Hinduism.

It includes visual communication, verbal communication and nonverbal communication.

Tantric texts are often written in a form of the twilight language that is incomprehensible to the uninitiated reader. (written as code)

As part of an esoteric tradition of initiation, the texts are not to be employed by those without an experienced guide and the use of the twilight language ensures that the uninitiated do not easily gain access to the knowledge contained in these works. According to Judith Simmer-Brown:

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As has often been said, tantric texts are written in "twilight language" (sandha-bhasa, gongpe-ke), which, as the Hevajra-tantra states, is a "secret language, that great convention of the yoginis, which the shravakas and others cannot unriddle". This means that the texts of Buddhist tantra cannot be understood without the specific oral commentary by authorized Vajrayana teachers

[www.google.com]

Quote

The Twilight Language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaThe twilight language is a polysemic language and communication system
associated with tantric traditions in Vajrayana Buddhism and Hinduism. It
includes ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twilight_Language - 52k - Cached - Similar pages


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books.google.com/books?isbn=0700702342

Words used for ordinary non esoteric purposes can display polysemy. But in tantra the polysemy is yet more complex.

I would suggest that a tantric relationship between two persons is legitimate only if both participants have an equivalent proficiency in the very conplex terminology and rituals of tantra. Professor Wendy Doninger, in her book, The Hindus: An Alternative History evaluates tantra int this way. "Whats in it for the woman?"

polysemy - definition of polysemy by the Free Online Dictionary ...polysemy. a diversity of meanings for a given word.

[www.google.com]

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English is a polysemic language, because it is common for English words to have many meanings.

The term “polysemy” consists of two words ‘poly’ that means many and ‘sem’- meaning. For example, the word ‘sound’ means a noise, a body of water, a state of health etc. In a word, it has 19 meanings as a noun, 12 meanings as adjective, 12 meanings as a verb and so on. The same characteristic exists in the word “set”; it has 57 meanings as a noun and 120 meanings as a verb.

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Twilight language can have some legitimate applications. Here is an introduction to a book by Bucknell

[books.google.com]

Protest poetry and songs can use this twilight language approach. An example from some decades ago was the song, Puff the Magic Dragon. To persons who knew nothing about marijuana, it was merely a charming children's song.

But to persons who were well aware of marijuana and who used it themselves, the song had a double meaning.

There was also Goldie Hawn's routine on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, in which, playing the character of a hippie chick, she teachings the audience how to 'get rid of all the roaches.'

For those uninitated, it was merely a skit on getting rid of cockroaches. But to those who knew about marijuana (in those days the cigarettes were called roaches), it had a double meaning and an added thrill because all this was being acted out on TV.

There is a collection, Songs of Ecstacy Mystics, Minstrels and Merchants in Colonial Bengal. These poems read often as descriptions of dealings in the market place, trouble at work.

But the people, who had a centuries old background in reading multiple meanings into words, could also see them as spiritual teachings--and enjoy them as subversive satire of the British.

Those of us who have grown up in the United States have to make a major adjustment to understand societies in which coded language is used in every day life as a matter of survival, and where the language used to hide tantric practices would be even more complex than the coded language used in everyday life.

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Extract
news-business.vlex.com/.../ecstasy-mystics-minstrels-merchants-bengal- 56590607

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Songs of Ecstasy: mystics, minstrels, and merchants in colonial Bengal.

The songs are composed in a very simple, beautiful form ... which expresses deep philosophical truth, but which cannot be understood by anyone apart from initiates. Although the language is simple, it is highly enigmatic.... Just as we can't understand the songs of birds, so too, we can't understand these songs, but still our hearts are touched by their obscure beauty. --Dinescandra Sen (1951: 459)

Amidst the long, rich history of literature in Bengal, few texts remain so enigmatic, poorly understood, or sadly neglected by contemporary scholarship as the body of highly esoteric mystical songs called the Bhaver Gita or "Songs of Ecstasy." (1)

Composed sometime between 1825 and 1870, the songs of the Bhaver Gita are the most sacred texts of the enigmatic and secretive sect known as the Kartabhajas--the "Worshippers of the Master"--which flourished in the area around Calcutta beginning in the late 18th century.

Founded by a semi-legendary holy madman named Aulcand, who is said to have been Sri Caitanya in the disguise of a Muslim fakir, the Kartabhajas are perhaps the most important later branch of the Sahajiya tradition which survived in colonial Bengal. In many respects, the Kartabhajas are a group much like the Bauls (who were neglected and ignored until made famous by Rabindranath Tagore) or the Vaisnava-Sahajiyas (who were virtually unknown in the West until brought to light by Edward C. Dimock [1966]).

"At the height of their power in the nineteenth century, the Kartabhajas were more numerous and powerful than the Sahajiyas, Bauls, or almost any other of Bengal's so-called "deviant sects" or "obscure religious cults." Yet they remain to this day one of the most mysterious and poorly understood traditions in Bengali history.

"Some of Bengal's most respected literary historians, such as Sukumar Sen, have commented on the importance of the Bhaver Gita, which represents both an unusual form of Bengali song and a highly influential body of religious thought. Sen even compares the Bhaver Gita with the songs of the great poet and national hero, Rabindranath Tagore:

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Among the songs there is some philosophy, but its value is not as great as their unusual simplicity and the originality in their composition ... There is no influence from the high-class sadhubhasa. The unrestricted emotion of Sahaja is expressed with the simple language of the spoken word ... Within these songs flows the life blood of Bengali literature which one cannot see anywhere prior to Rabindranath (1977: 39).

But despite their acknowledged importance, the songs of the Bhaver Gita have never been studied in any thorough or critical way by modern scholars. Sen has even suggested that a careful study of the Bhaver Gita remains one of the most needed projects in the study of Bengali literature. (2) This neglect is not, however, surprising, given that these are also among the most deeply encoded and difficult songs in the Bengali language.

Perhaps most unusual is the fact that these songs not only employ a wide range of esoteric mystical imagery, drawn from the Sahajiya and other Tantric traditions of medieval Bengal, but they also clothe this Tantric imagery in a large amount of idiosyncratic economic discourse, the language of commerce drawn from the teeming marketplaces of colonial Calcutta.

"Not only is the metaphor of the marketplace (bajar) the dominant trope in these songs, but even more boldly the Kartabhajas appropriate the image of the British East India Company itself. Calling themselves the "new Company" or the "Poor Company" (gorib kompani), they promise to bring a host of new spiritual goods to the lowly and downtrodden of society (Urban 1996, 1998b).

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Corboy note: The author gives text from one of the songs and commentary. 'To make the mind firm" turns out to have a spectrum of meanings. Interested readers should look at the rest of the document.

Introduction: The Sahajiya Traditions in Bengal

"The songs were sung and probablydanced to just as one might find a modern day Baul, like Purno Das, or a modernkŊırtaniy¯a (a singer of kŊırtanas) singing, playing a simple instrument, and dancing tothe songs in his or her tradition. Then as now each song is signed in the last verse,called a bhan. it¯a, by its author.

"Thus, we have evidence in these early proto-Bengalisongs, going back over a millennium, of a tradition of itinerant practitioner-singerstraveling from village to village, town to town, singing the songs or padas of his orher various traditions. One also can point to the influence of this form of transmissionof information concerning religious ideas and practices not only in the Vais.n.ava andS¯akta pad¯avalŊıs of Bengal, but also in the songs produced by Sants like Kabir, GuruNanak, and others.

Such songs. therefore, appear to have been the vehicles of popularreligious beliefs and insights in India for at least a thousand years and perhaps more.Another important and interesting feature of these songs, and a feature that contin-ues to be a part of the texts of the various Sahajiy¯a traditions down to the present, isa special use of language called “twilight speech” or “intentional speech” (sandhy¯a-bh¯as. ¯a). It is the use of words and descriptions in such a way that to the uninitiated theyhave one meaning, but to the initiated they have another secret meaning. often timesrelated to practice.

More recent scholars have argued that the only proper way to trans-late sandhy¯a-bh¯as. ¯a is “intentional” or “implied” language.3

I tend to disagree.

I think“twilight language” is a delightful and meaningful way to refer the use of language in the Sahajiy¯a literature.

As twilight language words occupy two worlds simultaneously,the world of daylight and the world of night.

The daylight world represents the surfacemeaning of the text, the meaning that is open to all speakers of the language the text isin.

The night world represents the secret meaning of the text, the meaning only knownto the initiated members of the tradition that produced the texts.

The words themselvesstand on the borderline participating in both worlds simultaneously. To take an exam-ple from one of the songs translated here, one might point to the “wings of gold” of the very first song. Wings of gold on the surface has a lovely poetic resonance to it. Wingsi ndicate flight and gold great value.

An alternate translation “fans of gold” conjuresup equally appealing associations. Gold, again, suggest great wealth or value and fan suggests relief from the heat of the day.

The commentator Munidatta glosses “wings of gold” with the words s¯unyat¯a-paks.aka, wings of emptiness or the side of emptiness.

Thus, the wings of gold mean for Munidatta and probably the Buddhist audience ofthis song the Buddhist way which is presented by Luip¯a as superior to the various yo-yogic postures and such. All of those positive associations invoked by the image, wingsof gold, overflow and enhance the feelings of the listeners for the Buddhist way.

Per-haps on an even more secret level, the hearers of the song would have heard the words“wings of gold” and known them to be the spread thighs of the practitioners’ femalepartners and the order “take them to your sides” the guru’s injunction to his disciplesto take up the secret rites of sahaja and leave the rest behind

To try and sum up--it appears that in tantra, words can have multiple meanings simultaneously, depending on the level of meaning.


This is very difficult for those of us who had our formation in Western cultures.

In the Greek Scriptures, Jesus states, "Let your 'yes' be 'yes', let your 'no' be 'no'. Anything else is from the Evil One."

Unlike India or the Himalayas, the defining texts (Hebrew Scriptures, Greek Scriptuers)put an emphasis on truth and on honoring oaths that maintain community consensus. God is depicted as taking direct interest in human affairs and in lawfulness. And in boundaries. (Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's spouse, thou shalt not move thy neighbor's boundary marker)

God promises by covenant to be faithful and just. The Gods of India did not promise to be just or faithful to human beings. The creation of the universe is described in Hindu stories (and tantra derived from practice in the old Hindu territories)..the creation of the universe in the Hindu stories is described as leela, play.

This is different from the Genesis story in which Gods act of creating is described as work, as an expression not of play but of purposeful adult creativity a creativity which God finds to be 'Tov' -- 'Good'. God is the First Builder and Worker.

The first human, Adam, before the fall, participates by assigning names to what God, the Worker, has built or propagated.

Though we may not go to church, shul, or Masjid, this is the Story behind Judeo Christian society.

To move from this into the world of tantra in which yes may mean more-than-what-is -conventionally-understood-to-be-meant-by-the-word-yes--that requires a giant shift in perspective. And can lead to confusion or worse.


First, even if we are not university trained, in the West, much of our reasoning is still based on classical Aristotelian logic. In this form of logic the one we are familiar with, an argument is true or false.

But, Agehananda Bharati, in his landmark book, The Tantric Tradition, and a tantric practitioner/initiate and scholar in his own right, suggested as far back as the 1960s that new techniques were needed for Westerners to properly understand tantra. Among these tools suggested by Bharati was multivalued logic. He had found that the either/or true/false binary system of classical, Aristotelian logic was not enough to assist Westerners in understanding the multiple levels of meaning that occur simultaneously in tantric language and ritual.

Quote

In the early 1960s, in the first chapter of his book The Tantric Tradition, Agehananda Bharati wrote:

Quote

"Scholars who wrote and write on Indian 'philosophy' -Schterbatsky, Raju, Gasenapp, Edgerton, Radhakrishnan, to mention but a few, did not seriously attempt to read modern philosophy and use its accurate terminology.

(Corboy: And if one is to translate texts from the original language or teach with any accuracy, one has to create an accurate terminology)

" All (of the above named) somehow assume that western philosophy had reached its climax with Kant, Hegel, or Bradley, and hence they do not (keep in mind Bharati was writing 50 years ago) did not feel a need to improve on their archaic terminology.

"I think the are mistaken. Terminologies previous to that of the analytical schools of twentieth century philosophy are deficient...modern philosophy uses all the tools of the classical philosophical tradition, plus the considerably sharper and more sophisticated tools of multi-value logic, logical empiricism, and linguistic analysis.

(pp 12-13 The Tantric Tradition, Agehananda Bharati, Rider & CO, London, 1965)

Here is Wikipedia on multi-valued logic

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In logic, a many-valued logic (also multi- or multiple-valued logic) is a propositional calculus in which there are more than two truth values

(Its beyond "let your yes be yes, let your no be no" -- Corboy)

"Traditionally, in Aristotle's logical calculus, there were only two possible values (i.e., "true" and "false") for any proposition.

"An obvious extension to classical two-valued logic is an n-valued logic for n greater than 2.

"Those most popular in the literature are three-valued (e.g., ¨©ukasiewicz's and Kleene's, which accept the values "true", "false", and "unknown"), the finite-valued with more than three values.

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History

"The first known classical logician who didn't fully accept the law of excluded middle was Aristotle (who, ironically, is also generally considered to be the first classical logician and the "father of logic"[1]). Aristotle admitted that his laws did not all apply to future events (De Interpretatione, ch. IX), but he didn't create a system of multi-valued logic to explain this isolated remark.

"Until the coming of the 20th century, later logicians followed Aristotelian logic, which includes or assumes the law of the excluded middle.

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(Law of Excluded Middle)http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:R5vtJ2xymmAJ:[en.wikipedia.org]

In logic, the law of excluded middle (or the principle of excluded middle) is the third of the three classic laws of thought. It states that for any proposition, either that proposition is true, or its negation is true.

The law is also known as the law (or principle) of the excluded third (or of the excluded middle), or, in Latin, principium tertii exclusi. Yet another Latin designation for this law is tertium non datur: "no third (possibility) is given".

(Corboy note: On page

The earliest known formulation is Aristotle's principle of non-contradiction, first proposed in On Interpretation,[1] where he says that of two contradictory propositions (i.e. where one proposition is the negation of the other) one must be true, and the other false.[2] He also states it as a principle in the Metaphysics book 3, saying that it is necessary in every case to affirm or deny,[3] and that it is impossible that there should be anything between the two parts of a contradiction.[4]

"The 20th century brought back the idea of multi-valued logic. The Polish logician and philosopher, Jan ¨©ukasiewicz, began to create systems of many-valued logic in 1920, using a third value, "possible", to deal with Aristotle's paradox of the sea battle. Meanwhile, the American mathematician, Emil L. Post (1921), also introduced the formulation of additional truth degrees with n ¡Ã 2, where n are the truth values. Later, Jan ¨©ukasiewicz and Alfred Tarski together formulated a logic on n truth values where n ¡Ã 2. In 1932 Hans Reichenbach formulated a logic of many truth values where n¡æinfinity.
"

(Corboy note: to make this a little less intimidating, lets compare the verdicts possible in American law, English law and old Scottish law. In English and American law, the only possible verdict was Guilty or Not Guilty. (A hung jury was not a verdict; it merely was a jury that could not arrive at a verdict)

Jurors in the first two systems had an either or binary choice--guilty or not guilty

In old Scots law there were three possible verdicts--guilty, not guilty and not proven.

Or as one joker put it, Not Proven or 'Guilty, but dont do it again'.)

In tantric understanding, there are many more levels of meaning than either or.

And in tantra, there is an understanding among the initiated in-group that it is permissible to speak in code so as to conceal the practices from the uninitiated.

What to an unitiated person seems concealment or a lie, is boundary keeping and integral to tantric practice, so far as the initiate is concerned.

This means that persons who grew up in families or societies permeated by ego driven lying and secrecy are well advised to avoid tantra and those whose tradition does include tantra. It would risk a disastrous re-enactment of the primary family dynamics.

In tantra, an initate or a master would, in many cases, probably feel it appropriate to say "No I do not practice or teach tantra" when asked, flat out, "Do you practice tantra or teach tantra?" by someone who is 1) not initatiated 2) demonstrates fear (such as a person who wants to avoid exposure to anyone involved with tantra, having heard bad stories about situations gone wrong) or by someone taking a stance deemed disrespectful or intrusive by the tantric initiate/being who is being questioned.

This is on the principle that a teacher must adapt a teaching to each students level of understanding.

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In qualification, the Nyingmapa (the oldest lineage of Vajrayana--the others share this perspective)do not equate a value judgment with the yana (practice), one is not better than another, the yana most appropriate for a practitioner is determined by their karma, propensity and proclivity. The majority of practitioners stay within one yana for the duration of their lifetime.

Tibetan Buddhist doctrines unite a seemingly diverse group of practices to offer a variety of ways to truth (Sanskrit: satya; refer Two Truths) and enlightenment (Sanskrit: bodhi) in accordance with the different qualities and capacities of sentient beings.

These practices involve the use of tantra and yoga. Yoga used as a way to enhance concentration

It turns out that another term for sandhabhasa, 'twilight language' is 'intentional language'

The older term was sandhyabhasa

Chapter 6 of Bharati's The Tantric Tradition discusses intentional language.

It may be that a good way to test someone is to flat out ask, "Are you, when talking with me using ONLY the language of consensus society? Or are you at this very moment also using "sandhabhasa? or sandhyabhasa?"

Friends, someone who has studied and practiced in the tantric traditions would recognisze these two different words.

And if that person is a grown up, would have some grudging respect that you, the questioner, though a non initiate, already know those two words and and what they signify.

If the person goes on a tirade that intellect and discursive thinking are obstacles, leave.

Now, to whet the readers appetite, on pp174-180, Bharati gives a list of words Sanksrit and Tibetan used in both daily language and in tantra with variant meanings, which illustrates how one word can have multiple meanings when one commutes between consensus vocabulary and intentional speech vocabulary.

A left leaning 'U' ( I will use a >) stands for implication A implies B '=' means A=B

(a) in brackets = afferent 'leading towards'

(e) in brackets = efferent 'leading away from'

**(corboy note: I omitted accent marks needed to inflect the terms, so readers be alert)

"

Quote

M, Shahidallah compiled an interesting list of sandha (intentional language terms() in his edition of the dohakosa and the caryas from which I quote.

padma 'lotus' (e) > bhaga 'vagina' (padma implies vagina)

usnisa 'diadem' (a) > 'lotus', 'the universe'

vajra 'thunderbolt, the absolute (e)> linga 'phallus'

ravi, surya, 'sun' (a) > rasana, pingala 'the right artery' in the yoga body

ravi, surya, 'sun' (e) >rajas 'the menstrual fluid'

sasi, candra 'moon' (a) > lalana, ida, 'the left artery' in the yoga body

bodhicitta (Tibetan. byan chub kyi sems) 'the bodhi mind' (e) > sukra(Tibetan, khu ba,) Semen virile

taruni, 'a young damsel' (a) > mahamudra (Tibetan phyag rgya chen po) 'the consecrated female partner' -- a complex loaded term

grhini 'the house-wife'-'spouse' (a) > mahamudra, divyamudra, jnanamudra--synonymous terms (see Guenther, Naropa, biography)

samarasa (Tibetan ro mnam pa) 'coitus' 'identitie de juissance' (a) > suppression of thought, together with stopping of breath and retention of the sperm

karin 'elephant' (a) > citta 'thought' 'mind'.

As illustrated a sandha (intentional language) term may have both afferent (carrying into) and efferent (carrying out) use according to the context.

Agehandha Bharati, pp 175-176, The Tantric Tradition.

Note: This complex terminology with this implied meanings is richly poetic.

However, it lacks the precision needed to create the kinds of stable publicly shared terminologies needed for modern science.

Vajrayana Buddhism has tantra at its core--and a long heritage of communicating using intentional lannguage in which a single word imply many different things.

One could not do science using this kind of mindset.

What makes scientists so valuable to the Dalai Lama is that they did not use coded language and thus their achievements in this word are measurable and can be fact checked and improved upon.

Whether the scientists are aware of the shifting meanings of the language used in private by Vajrayanists is quite another matter.

Fleming, Chain and Florey could not have communicated their findings about penicillin mold and its properties had they been using tantric intentional language, which is private and for initiates.

And the speed with which pencillin was identified, extracted and industrially produced in time for shipments to be made to supply troops for the DDay invasions could not have been accomplished using sandhabhasa language, either.

Alchemists had used their own intentional languages and symbol systems.

Tantra is a sort of yoga alchemy.

What shifted Western science from alchemy into its three hundred plus years of achievement (and which has made it possible for me and many of you to be alive right this minute) was to create a public language with precise terminology.

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corboy

In the Greek Scriptures, Jesus states, "Let your 'yes' be 'yes', let your 'no' be 'no'. Anything else is from the Evil One."

It sounds like Jesus was aware of esoteric traditions and their practice of using double/triple entendres. I wonder if the Kaballah does this.