Yoga and Horror

I just spent the weekend at MO*CON, a horror/fantasy writers convention. Why was I there? Hopefully to further my writing skills. While there I just happened to have been chosen to be part of a panel that discussed the use of religion, translates to me as spirituality, in the horror/fantasy genre. My response to the question, "What's your religion?" was, "a Yogi (if only aspiring - between you and me), and a monist." The panel moderator found that intriguing, and I promptly found myself seated on a panel with the likes of a magician, a humanists, a former Presbytarian minister now Jewish authoress, and a self-proclaimed atheists amongst others. A part of our discussion revolved around the idea of faith. Faith, per the atheist, is non-existent, there is only calculated risks. When I suggested that calculated risks is virtually the same as faith, there was a disagreement. All in fun, I was reminded of a conversation that I had with my teacher long ago. I had a strange request then, as did others in my group.

"I want to see god."

He said, "Who told you that? You read that in a book. No one really wants that." I balked, but he made sense, after some explanation.

What you really want," he continued, "is to be free from suffering."

I hadn't really thought about these things as deeply as the sages had in days gone by. The three sources of suffering were 1)what I caused myself, 2) caused by beings around me, 3) caused by unseen forces, not gods or demons per se, but maybe the planets and such. In any case, I never asked about seeing god again because I saw that this just wasn't that practical. My friends on the religion and horror panel thought that was a fair assessment of things. The discussion continued on for some time along other lines, but all in all MO*CON, the conference, was interesting experience for a yogi who writes.

evolution of our awareness?

Have you ever thought about the fact that you practice yoga for much subtler reasons than you are aware of? One of the golas of yoga is an evolution of awareness through your central nervous system, and its accompanying cerebro-spinal system. Most of our life is spent in an awareness near the base of our spine in the more primitive, if you will, parts of ourselves. These parts are more related to the lower portions, the primitive portions of our brain. In a sense, hatha yoga (postures) are a primary means to help us move through and beyond these portions of ourselves. Meditation is a key factor in helping us stimulate the higher regions of our brain, the neo-cortex, and offers us a platform to go beyond the brain/mind. What do you think?

We had a nice group for last evenings lecture on Near Death Experiences with Rev. Ralph Spears DD. The discussion covered everything from his clinical experience with the dying and those who confided in him about their near death experiences, to a timely discussion on how this all might relate to reincarnation. Rev. Ralph has an interesting background. He has study with members of the Edgar Cayce family, and is a scholar of the Dead Sea Scrolls. For those of you who do not know the name Edgar Cayce, he was known as the sleeping prophet. A most fascinating book about Cayce is There is a River.

The evening was quite fascinating, and related to our understanding of the depths of yoga practice in more ways than one. We hope to have Rev. Ralph with us again in the future for some other lively discussions.

Instinct, Intellect, Intuition

A few thoughts on the place of the instinct, intellect and intuition in yoga. If we stay with the definitions given in the Perennial Psychology of the Bhagavad Gita we find something interesting. Instinct is that gut feeling that we have about something. Intellect is our reasoning ability, our ability to decide on something. That's my final decision, like in who wants to be a millionaire. Intuition is a spiritual thing and what we aspire to develop even though we may not be able to acknowledge it. The goal of human life is happiness and true happiness is living from our intuition, and meditation is a way to develop it.

Reincarnation

Just saw a news blurb about a new book Soul Survival. It is the story of a young boy who had nightmares about crashing to his death in a plane during an air battle. The dreams turned out to be the child actually remembering facts that happened at the battle of Iwo Jima. This story on some level corroborates what people like Ian Stevenson have uncovered regarding past lives.

Stevenson and his colleagues have written a lot on this matter. It is difficult to believe the story of this young boy, but all indications are that this incidence is worth looking into, and that reincarnation is not just something written about in a book. The East takes reincarnation for granted. One note, the event being discussed is more properly called transmigration versus reincarnation. Reincarnation implies some level of conscious moving into a new body. This has not been the case here in this case, but isn’t this fascinating in any case. Check out the video:http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/index.php?cl=13927753

The yoga of breath

Recently while teaching class we asked students to see if they could detect how the breath was coming out of their nose. The students looked a bit bewildered but fumbled around their nostrils trying to detect how the air was coming out of their nostrils. Most were amazed that the air was not coming out of both nostrils, and others were amazed that the air was not coming out as they thought it should. The amazement continued with several of the students finding that their results were totally different from their classmates.

In fact the knowledge that the nostril dominance changes is not so esoteric these days with the popluarity of yoga, or is it? The more subtle aspects of the breath are almost unfathomable for the normal person, which is why the say the science of breath is secret. The air exiting the nostril actually has several different directions that it choses. The real secret is that this direction indicates which nerve plexus, which chakra, is active at the time. What wonders does this information hold in helping you with your health and well being?

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