"Samadhi in the Bhagavata Purana" Lecture by Edwin Bryant

Lecture Description:
Real life dhyana yoga in the Hindu traditions has always been predominantly focused on one of the many forms of Isvara, as evidenced in the vast Puranic corpus that informs on the ground meditational practices. In this session, we will first briefly engage the Isvara verses in Patanjali, then consider some of the Isvara-centric expressions this focus takes in some of the dominant theistic traditions of Hinduism, and, finally, focus in more depth on how the eight-limbed sa-Isvara yoga process is depicted in the Bhagavata Purana. We will read several relevant passages together, which will also cause us to engage Vedantic notions of the soteriological relationship between sa-guna and nir-guna modalities of Brahman in samadhi states.
About Edwin Bryant:
Edwin Bryant received his Ph.D in Indic languages and Cultures from Columbia University, where his thesis culminated in his first book: The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture (Oxford University Press, 2001). As a personal practitioner of bhakti yoga for over 45 years, Edwin strives to combine academic scholarship and rigor with appreciation towards traditional knowledge systems. His teaching method is to allow the ancient texts to speak in their own voice and through their own terms and categories.