oh really? make sure to tell that to modern psychologists and sociologists and philosophers. because they seem to think those old desert dwellers actually knew something ... and weren't all from the desert.

@Allamanda they also had an advantage in that their minds weren't as clouded with bullshit as ours are today. we are a dopamine addicted, ADD affected society with little mental discipline.

@JeffMesser Exactly. A different internal dialogue with a different understanding of their world.

No Trumps or Kadashians to distract. I guess that is why St Anthony told all the people that followed him into the desert to fuck off, just like Brian!

@Geoffrey51 I really try to pay heed to what the various ascetics had to say in the vedas. thats why I want to know sanskrit.

@Allamanda The church of England is a very weird entity, ranging from so called "High Church" who are to all intents and purposes Roman Catholics through to vicars who openly profess to be atheists but still see value in the church as a social institution.
Famously the Bishop of York once caused a scandal by outrightly declaring the virgin birth to be a myth, the resurrection to have probably been a trick and casting doubt on the divinity of christ, yet at the same time taking his seat in the house of Lords and towing the church line on law making.
However since the C of E was created so a King of England could divorce his wife and tell the pope to go and get stuffed it is hardly surprising that it is such a blasphemous organisation in the eyes of most other christian churches.

@LenHazell53 Love the C of E. You don’t have to be a Christian to get involved. High Church gives you the theatre without the hassle.

@JeffMesser I started learning bits of Sanskrit nearly 20 years ago along with Polish. There is a tangible difference with languages as to what they do with your mind.

For me Sanskrit hit something internally I hadn’t known before where Polish was a real heart thing.

If you’ve got the inclination to be able to write and recite some of the Vedic hymns I am sure you will have the same experience.

@Geoffrey51 right now I just work on little phrases from the vedas while I use a site to translate the upanishads. I don't trust translations after the whole Muller thing not to mention eaknath easwaran's interp I was reading was rather biased. So I have been boning up on sanskrit and devanagari. I do like parting with "jagat mithya ayam brahmasmi".

@JeffMesser Yes, translations are a problem because the originals are addressing ideas for which there is no real comparative in English, similar to some German. Heidegger and Hegel classic examples.