12. Moving Beyond the Mind Through “Listening by Heart”: The Role of Experience in Modern Advaitic Satsangs
Embodied Reception - South Asian Spiritualities in Contemporary Contexts - Henriette Hanky
Elin Thorsén [+]
University of Gothenburg
Description
Around February-March, Rishikesh is visited by large numbers of people, mainly from “Western” countries, who come to participate in satsang. This yearly, transnational satsangscene, although housing a variety of teachers, can be characterized as “Modern Advaita” (Lucas 2011, 2014), as the underlying, commonly held metaphysical assumptions rests on modernized, universalized interpretations of Advaita Vedanta. At the outset, the most characteristic feature of these satsangs were verbal dialogues and discourses, mainly revolving around the realization of the non-dual nature of the Self, a state referred to as “awakening”. However, it was frequently argued by teachers and satsang participants that non-dual teachings as intellectual concepts were of secondary importance only; the most important thing was rather to come to a realization of non-dual tenets through personal experience. Hence, while verbal discourses did have a significant function in satsang, a great part of the value ascribed to participation appeared to lie elsewhere. Following the proposal of Michal Pagis (2010) to view meditation retreats as occasions where abstract concepts are turned into experiential knowledge, I suggest that satsangs mirror a similar process. The particular conditions of the satsang hall—the presence of the guru as an embodiment of awakening, together with the communitas of participants representing a sense of human oneness—produced a situation in which non-dual discourses were not only discussed, but partly and temporarily became embodied. The function and appeal of these satsangs, I therefore suggest, lay not so much in the verbal discourses presented as in their experiential, and hence embodied aspects. This focus on personal experience, further, serves as an illustration of the cross-cultural nature of these types of satsangs, as it diffuses the concept of anubhava (“direct perception”) (Forsthoefel 2018) with New Age notions of subjective experience as a strategy for legitimating spiritual claims (Hammer 2004; Heelas 2008).