Two Methods of Contemplation: Yoga and Hesychast Prayer: An Exercise in Comparative Religion
Two Methods of Contemplation: Yoga and Hesychast Prayer: An Exercise in Comparative Religion

Summary/Abstract: Using Arvind Sharmas’s comparative method of reciprocal illumination, this essay examines two contemplative methods, the Hindu yogic, as defined in Patañjali’s Yoga-sūtra, and the hesychast, as developed primarily within the Eastern Christian monastic tradition. Despite differences in the overall theological context, the similarities in several aspects of the technique are worth noting as they point out that the practice, rather than theory, reveals the common ground – a similar understanding of the nature of human mind, and its inner workings.

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