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The Means of achieving spiritual experience - Shaivism – 09 Sensory Deprivation
Identifier
022569
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Sensory deprivation was achieved by yoga type postures and by closing the eyes, but there were also extreme methods used involving caves, barrows and specially constructed cells within ‘temples’. If one looks at the descriptions for the Malta temples, for example, the underground cells appear to have been used for provoking rebirth via sensory deprivation.
A description of the experience
Alain Danielou – While the Gods Play
Yoga is a method of introspection that permits the exploration of the subtle centres, dwelling places of the inner faculties
Samkhya-Karika, 35
The physical sense organs are the openings, the doors through which the Internal Organ perceives exterior objects (but which, at the same time, by confining them, limit the possibilities of perception). Consciousness and the other inner faculties are like spectators gazing through these doors.