Hindu Concepts

Kosha

A Kosha (also, Kosa) (Sanskrit कोश, IAST: kośa), usually rendered "sheath",[1] one of five coverings of the Atman, or Self according to Vedantic philosophy. They are often visualised like the layers of an onion. Belling states:

According to the Kosha system in Yogic philosophy, the nature of being human encompasses physical and psychological aspects that function as one holistic system. The Kosha system refers to these different aspects as layers of subjective experience. Layers range from the dense physical body to the more subtle levels of emotions, mind and spirit. Psychology refers to the emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of our being. Together, all aspects make up our subjective experience of being alive.[2]

The five sheaths (pancha-kosas) are alluded to in the fourteen verse of the Atmabodha. From gross to fine they are:
Annamaya kosha, food-apparent-sheath
Pranamaya kosha, air-apparent-sheath
Manomaya kosha, mind-stuff-apparent-sheath
Vijnanamaya kosha, wisdom-apparent-sheath(Vijnana)
Anandamaya kosha, bliss-apparent-sheath (Ananda)

According to Vedanta the wise man should discriminate between the self and the koshas, which are non-self.
1 The five sheaths
1.1 Annamaya kosha
1.2 Pranamaya kosha
1.3 Manomaya kosha
1.4 Vijnanamaya kosha
1.5 Anandamaya kosha

Annamaya kosha

This is the sheath of the physical self, named from the fact that it is nourished by food. Living through this layer man identifies himself with a mass of skin, flesh, fat, bones, and filth, while the man of discrimination knows his own self, the only reality that there is, as distinct from the body.

Pranamaya kosha

Pranamaya means composed of prana, the vital principle, the force that vitalizes and holds together the body and the mind. It pervades the whole organism, its physical manifestation is the breath. As long as this vital principle exists in the organisms, life continues. Coupled with the five organs of action it forms the vital sheath. In the Vivekachoodamani it is a modification of vayu or air, it enters into and comes out of the body.

Manomaya kosha

Manomaya means composed of manas or mind. The mind (manas) along with the five sensory organs is said to constitute the manomaya kosa. The manomaya kosa, or “mind-sheath” is said more truly to approximate to personhood than annamaya kosa and pranamaya kosha. It is the cause of diversity, of I and mine. Sankara likens it to clouds that are brought in by the wind and again driven away by the same agency. Similarly, man’s bondage is caused by the mind, and liberation, too, is caused by that alone.

Vijnanamaya kosha

Vijnanamaya means composed of vijnana, or intellect, the faculty which discriminates, determines or wills. Chattampi Swamikal defines vijnanamaya as the combination of intellect and the five sense organs. It is the sheath composed of more intellection, associated with the organs of perception. Sankara holds that the buddhi, with its modifications and the organs of knowledge, form the cause of man’s transmigration. This knowledge sheath, which seems to be followed by a reflection of the power of the cit, is a modification of prakrti. It is endowed with the function of knowledge and identifies itself with the body, organs etc.

This knowledge sheath cannot be the supreme self for the following reasons;
It is subject to change.
It is insentient.
It is a limited thing.
It is not constantly present.

Anandamaya kosha

Anandamaya means composed of ananda, or bliss. In the Upanishads the sheath is known also as the causal body. In deep sleep, when the mind and senses cease functioning, it still stands between the finite world and the self. Anandamaya, or that which is composed of Supreme bliss, is regarded as the innermost of all. The bliss sheath normally has its fullest play during deep sleep: while in the dreaming and wakeful states, it has only a partial manifestation. The blissful sheath (anandamaya kosha) is a reflection of the Atman which is bliss absolute.

But now I am considering getting "clipped"

In a realm beyond the laws of physics, beyond the minds of humans, beyond the ken of any save the most highly advanced spiritual adept, lies a reality completely different from the one we inhabit. There, a divine being, actually the essence of “Being” called Narayana, sleeps. Narayana exists in a realm governed by another type of mental activity altogether different from that in which we currently live. In fact, from Narayana’s perspective this universe, the realm we call home, does not exist at all. The galaxies are not even a cosmic conjecture. Sentient beings are far from the consideration. But as Narayana slumbers, this four armed androgynous being prepares to create our universe. By his very dreams, he generates the stuff of our universe, where we will be players in a divine drama acted out over billions of years.

As this particular dream opens, a lotus flower blossoms from Narayana’s navel, and starts to grow. It grows and morphs until it resembles an egg in the middle of a flower from which ultimately hatches a four faced masculine being called Brahma. Brahma represents Mind, and within him-that is, within primordial mind, or consciousness-stirs an overwhelming urge to create and multiply. Just as Narayana represents Being, Brahma is Mind. Within him, now, the Desire to propagate appears. From Mind comes Desire.

But before Brahma can do anything about his desire, two demons emerge from the ear of the sleeping Narayana. Spying Brahma, who has only half emerged from out of his birth lotus, the demons gleefully decide to exhibit the dark side of their nature. Brahma is fully conscious of his vulnerable position. He knows that something terrible may happen to him at any moment, and he yells to the sleeping Narayana to awaken and protect him. For a second, nothing at all happens and Brahma watches, horror-stricken, as the demons start to make their way over to where he rests in the flower at Narayana’s navel.

But just then, a large radiant feminine figure arises out of the form of Narayana. Although he still slumbers the feminine figure seems to come directly from Narayana’s dormant body. Observing Brahma and the encroaching demons, she speaks. “Well what have we here!”

Help, help,’ cries Brahma. “I am threatened by those two evil figures even before I am completely formed. Please, wake Narayana so that I can be saved.”
The radiant feminine figure turns to the demons, who have now halted in their tracks. Briefly contemplating the situation, she muses, “I see.”
“Oh, Great Mother,” one of the demons speaks quickly, “we mean nothing, really.” “Oh yes they do,” gushes Brahma.
(The figure goes on to say…….)
“The sleeping Narayana has created you all. His dream will be the stuff of a new universe and there you shall all contend with one another in due course time. For now, I command that when the universe has completed its first, etheric phase of creation, you demons shall go to the farthest reaches of that place. It will take you a long time to come back to the center of things. Meanwhile, I offer shelter and protection to you, Brahma, while you finish your act of creation.”

Brahma says, “Great Mother, who are you?” She replies, “I am the spouse of he who slumbers. I am his feminine self, his energy, his wisdom, all the power that he manifests in any form whatsoever. I am called Lakshmi. As I am to Narayana whose dream this is, I shall also be your power and all energy and power of this creation of yours. For you, I shall manifest as Saraswati, she who is self contained, self aware and with full knowledge of that which you will create. I shall be your divine speech that you will use to create anything and everything. As your feminine aspect, Saraswati, I give you the power to create.”

“He who has made this cosmos through you is now playing in it. I shall also appear at the proper time, and you, too, will take part in this great play. As the Mind of the cosmos, you will be like the Grandfather who knows and understands all. Saraswati, your feminine counterpart, shall bless sincere seekers with wisdom and power. She shall be the pinnacle of wisdom and knowledge to whom all who love knowledge will aspire.”
(Brahma is the source of all knowledge and Saraswati is knowledge itself.)
Just as Narayana is Being and Brahma is Mind, the great feminine energy Saraswati is Brahma’s shakti, his power. She “speaks” a great idea through his mental conception and the cosmos is born.

Saraswati, in her manifestation as Divine Speech, represents a grout, through mantra, to grasping the underlying spiritual laws of the universe and through them the attainment of personal spiritual and material power.

In the structure of the creative power of sound, Nada, as Saraswati, is the primordial sound vibration emanating from the kundalini at the base of the spine, paralleling the creation of the universe.
The relationship of sound to the creation of the universe is found in different scriptures originating in India. Sir John Woodroffe’s Garland of Letters is a translation of one of the earliest recorded scriptures in all of mankind. Called the Sata-patha-Brahmana, it is reputed to have been part of an oral tradition in India for six to eight thousand years. It states, “IN the beginning was God with power through speech. God said, May I be many…. May I be propagated. And by his will expressed through subtle speech, he united himself with speech and became pregnant…..” It sounds amazingly like the Gospel of John, “IN the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God.”

I read that the Vedas were taken from the Naacal writings and then the Brahmins used them for deception, making no sense of the Vedas, turning it into superstition and awe, and making the people slaves with it with no understanding of it's true meaning.

Ay, and there is wisdom in the Vedas and understanding to be had that no human on earth is today capable of extracting or understanding...thus leaving many interpretations...impotent.

While Behram is sometimes credited with 931 murders, James Paton, an East India Company officer working for the Thuggee and Dacoity Office in the 1830s who wrote a manuscript on Thuggee, quotes Behram as saying he had "been present" at 931 cases of murder, and "I may have strangled with my own hands about 125 men, and I may have seen strangled 150 more."

• 
  Sir Quincy Peck

• The English word 'Thug' [or conman] is in fact borrowed from the word 'Thuggee', although the use of the word today differs from the true reality of the 'Thuggee'. The 'Thuggee' were covert and operated as a member of a group, and the term typically referred to the killing of a large number of people in a single operation. This distinguished the term from simple armed robbery as they would target groups of travelers and kill them in one go, before taking their possessions.

• Sir William Henry Sleeman (August 8, 1788 - February 10, 1856) was a British soldier and administrator in India.
  
  
  Sir William Henry Sleeman - 'Thuggee and Dacoity Dept.' in 1835
  
  He is best known for his suppression of the Thuggee secret society, becoming superintendent of the operations against them in 1835, and commissioner for the suppression of Thuggee and Dacoity in 1839. During these operations, more than 1400 Thugs Bahram, confessed to have strangled 931 persons with his turban. Detection was only possible by means of informers, for whose protection from the vengeance of their associates a special prison was established at Jabalpur (at the time Jubbulpore).

• "In recent years, the revisionist view that thuggee was a British invention, a means to tighten their hold in the country, has been given credence in India, France and the US, but this well-researched book objectively questions that assertion."

• In his book, Dash rejects scepticism about the existence of a secret network of groups with a modus operandi that was different from highwaymen, such as dacoits. To prove his point Dash refers to the excavated corpses in graves, of which the hidden locations were revealed to Sleeman's team by thug informants. In addition, Dash treats the extensive and thorough documentation that Sleeman made. Dash rejects the colonial emphasis on the religious motivation for robbing, but instead asserts that monetary gain was the main motivation for Thuggee and that men sometimes became Thugs due to extreme poverty. He further asserts that the Thugs were highly superstitious and that they worshiped the Hindu goddess Kali, but that their faith was not very different from their contemporary non-thugs. He admits, though, that the thugs had certain group-specific superstitions and rituals."

Thugees distracting their victim before strangulation

• “A religion of murder: "Sahib," replied the benevolent looking native standing before him, in a quiet voice tinged with a note of pride, "there were many more, but I was so intrigued in luring them to destruction that I ceased counting when certain of my thousand victims!"

• Actually a historical fact.
  The British concern with Thuggee started with the description of the
  cult by Sherwood (Of the murderers called Phansigars) in 1816.
  Until that point there had been but little interest in the sect.
  Sherwood's account was read by Sleeman, a young officer in the Bengal
  Army. It rapidly became an obsession with Sleeman, who transferred to
  civil service in 1818. In 1821, he was put in charge of the Nerbudda
  valley, where he investigated for signs of the Phansigars (Thuggee).
  His report, that suggested that Thuggee was nationwide, caused a
  sensation. In 1826 Sleeman was given a wider commission, and in 1830 he
  was given the task of eliminating Thuggee in all central India.
  By 1840 the majority of the cult had been suppressed.
  Without Sleeman, it is doubtful if the British would have taken much
  interest: Thuggee were no danger to Europeans.
  

• Were this fiction it would be extravagant, indeed unbelievable; but that it is fact must surely compel the most skilled and ruthless Chicagoan gun-man to feel the veriest amateur by comparison and to hand the palm for murder to the Thug of India. Thugee's victims rarely escaped death: The histrionic sense of the Thug was highly developed, many being remarkably good actors, and if they detected the slightest suspicion on the part of travelers they were attempting to ingratiate themselves with, they immediately departed and disappeared in another direction. No sooner were they out of sight, however, than messengers were sent to other gangs — for they quartered the ground like wolves — who caught up the travelers, primed with any information that the first Thugs had gleaned, and it was seldom that the quarry escaped death.
  

If there were people in the vicinity and it was dangerous to dig the graves in the open, the Thugs did not scruple to bury the bodies beneath their own tents, eating their food and sleeping on the soil without a qualm!

Many devices were adopted by the Thugs to make their murders easier, one favourite ruse being 'to feign sickness, the Thug selected for the part pretending to be taken violently ill. Others would attempt to succour him, but to no purpose — the pains growing increasingly severe. It was then pretended that a charm would restore him, and the doomed travellers were induced to sit around a pot of water, to uncover their necks, and to look up and count the number of stars. Having, in their superstitious folly, put themselves over so completely in the hands of the Thugs, the ruhmals [scarves] were about their necks in a trice and they were strangled with dispatch.”

• Thugs of Phansigars of India

• 
  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Thuggee-Banditry-Nineteenth-Century-Cambridge-Post-Colonial/dp/0230547176/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273744748&sr=1-4

• Terrorists, Murders and Thugs
  

• Thuggee typically referred to killing of a large number of people in a single operation.

Thugee -trickster - conman - assassin

Vedanta

Vedanta differs from the view that karma is a law of cause and effect but instead additionally hold that karma is mediated by the will of a personal supreme god. This view of karma is in contradiction to Buddhism, Jain and other Hindu religions that do view karma as a law of cause and effect.

Swami Sivananda, an Advaita scholar, reiterates the same views in his commentary synthesising Vedanta views on the Brahma Sutras, a Vedantic text. In his commentary on Chapter 3 of the Brahma Sutras, Sivananda notes that karma is insentient and short-lived, and ceases to exist as soon as a deed is executed. Hence, karma cannot bestow the fruits of actions at a future date according to one's merit. Furthermore, one cannot argue that karma generates apurva or punya, which gives fruit. Since apurva is non-sentient, it cannot act unless moved by an intelligent being such as a god. It cannot independently bestow reward or punishment

Thoughts are your guests they check in and check out, you are the gap in between the two thoughts, go on looking for the gap it might appear to be different in the beginning but eventually you will merge with the empty space of thoughtlessness, when you are in that space you can bring in a thought that you want to manifest the empty mind holding on to this thought will manifest.

The impact of Advaita
Advaita rejuvenated much of Hindu thought and also spurred debate with the two main theistic schools of Vedanta philosophy that were formalized later: Vishishtadvaita (qualified nondualism), and Dvaita (dualism). Advaita further helped to merge the old Vedic religion with popular south-Asian cults/deities, thus making a bridge between higher types of practice (such as jnana yoga) and devotional religion of simple householders.

Theory of creation
In the relative level, Adi Shankara believes in the Creation of the world through Satkaryavada. It is like the philosophy of Samkhya, which says that the cause is always hidden into its effect—and the effect is just a transformation of the cause. However, Samkhya believes in a sub-form of Satkaryavada called Parinamavada (evolution) — whereby the cause really becomes an effect. Instead, Adi Shankara believes in a sub-form called Vivartavada. According to this, the effect is merely an apparent transformation of its cause — like illusion. e.g., In darkness, a man often confuses a rope to be a snake. But this does not mean that the rope has actually transformed into a snake.
At the pragmatic level, the universe is believed to be the creation of the Supreme Lord Ishvara. Maya is the divine magic of Ishvara, with the help of which Ishvara creates the world. The serial of Creation is taken from the Upanishads. First of all, the five subtle elements (ether, air, fire, water and earth) are created from Ishvara. Ether is created by Maya. From ether, air is born. From air, fire is born. From fire, water is born. From water, earth is born. From a proportional combination of all five subtle elements, the five gross elements are created, like the gross sky, the gross fire, etc. From these gross elements, the universe and life are created. This series is exactly the opposite during destruction.
Some people have criticized that these principles are against Satkaryavada. According to Satkaryavada, the cause is hidden inside the effect. How can Ishvara, whose form is spiritual, be the effect of this material world? Adi Shankara says that just as from a conscious living human, inanimate objects like hair and nails are formed, similarly, the inanimate world is formed from the spiritual Ishvara.

Status of ethics
Some claim that there is no place for ethics in Advaita, because everything is ultimately illusionary. But on analysis, ethics also has a firm place in this philosophy—the same place as the world and God. Ethics, which implies doing good Karma, indirectly helps in attaining true knowledge. The traditional ethical system put forth by Advaitins is that the basis of merit and sin is the Shruti (the Vedas and the Upanishads). Truth, non-violence, service of others, pity, etc. are Dharma, and lies, violence, cheating, selfishness, greed, etc. are adharma (sin). However, no authoritative definition of Dharma was ever formulated by any of the major exponents of Advaita Vedanta. Unlike ontological and epistemological claims, there is room for significant disagreement between Advaitins on ethical issues.

Three levels of truth
The transcendental or the Pāramārthika level in which Brahman is the only reality and nothing else;
The pragmatic or the Vyāvahārika level in which both Jiva (living creatures or individual souls) and Iswara are true; here, the material world is also true, and,
The apparent or the Prāthibhāsika level in which material world reality is actually false, like illusion of a snake over a rope or a dream.

Adi Shankara
Adi Shankara consolidated the Advaita Vedanta, an interpretation of the Vedic scriptures that was approved and accepted by Gaudapada and Govinda Bhagavatpada siddhānta (system). Continuing the line of thought of some of the Upanishadic teachers, and also that of his own teacher's teacher Gaudapada, (Ajativada), Adi Shankara expounded the doctrine of Advaita — a nondualistic reality.
He wrote commentaries on the Prasthana Trayi. A famous quote from Vivekacūḍāmaṇi, one of his Prakaraṇa graṃthas (philosophical treatises) that succinctly summarises his philosophy is the following:[4]
Brahma satyaṃ jagat mithyā, jīvo brahmaiva nāparah — Brahman is the only truth, the world is an illusion, and there is ultimately no difference between Brahman and individual self

This widely quoted sentence of his is also widely misunderstood.
In his metaphysics, there are three tiers of reality with each one more real than the previous. The category illusion in this system is unreal only from the viewpoint of the absolutely real and is different from the category of the Absolutely unreal. His system of vedanta introduced the method of scholarly exegesis on the accepted metaphysics of the Upanishads, and this style was adopted by all the later vedanta schools. Another distinctive feature of his work is his refusal to be literal about scriptural statements and adoption of symbolic interpretation where he considered it appropriate. In a famous passage in his commentary on the Brahmasutra's of Badarayana, he says "For each means of knowledge {PramaNam} has a valid domain. The domain of the scriptures {Shabda PramaNam} is the knowledge of the Self. If the scriptures say something about another domain - like the world around us - which contradicts what perception {Pratyaksha PramaNam} and inference {Anumana PramaNam} (the appropriate methods of knowledge for this domain) tells us, then, the scriptural statements have to be symbolically interpreted..."