Jagat

There is, of course, much more to the story, but we will leave it for here and I will conclude by giving a summary of the contents of my first lecture on Yoga-taraṅgiṇī . The GS course in yoga starts with a lesson in anatomy. This is something that needs to be learned as the beginning of the yoga journey inwards begins with an internal inspection of the physical body, which especially in later Nath Yoga texts is seen as the microcosm, where everything found in the universe can be found. The later Nath Yoga texts like Siddha-siddhänta-paddhati take this quite seriously and have a series of meditations on these correspondences. Nowadays research into yoga by the empirical method is being given increasing favor, and this means that the yogis' understanding of the body as viewed from within is not given anything more than arcane importance, without much scientific or objective value. But thousands of years of investigation through practice should not be minimized or discounted. Su...

[ I   am happy to have finally received a copy of the  Yoga-taraṅgiṇī , which has been published by Motilal Banarsidass with the Himalayan Yoga Publications Trust. When I was writing the introduction, I started also to describe the adventure that working on this text represented, and became quite bogged down as the self-examination and other external factors made it seem impossible to conclude. Finally, I just gave up on the idea and handed in the manuscript without this part of the introduction. This is the first part, which discusses the apparent conflict between the bhakti and yoga paths. ] In the SRSG library and research center. Bhakti and Yoga I often wonder about the relationship of a translation to the original text. The famous Italian saying that "to translate is to betray" indicates that any translation is inevitably an interpretation of some kind. A third person enters between the speaker and his audience, and neither the third person nor the audience wer...

Over the next two weeks, I will be giving my attention back to  Yoga-taraṅginī commentary to Gorakṣa-śataka  as this project needs to be completed, and all that is left to do is a final redaction of the text and translation, and writing an introduction. So I will try to communicate those portions that I think are important or which affected me as I was doing the work. I must confess that there has been a considerable change in lifestyles between the way I was living in Rishikesh at Swami Rama Sadhaka Grama and the way I am right now in Vrindavan. The three months at SRSG were fairly intense. Most of that time I spent in at least verbal silence, although I still used the internet. But even in that I was far more disciplined than I am now, as I kept my personal computer internet free. Besides that, I regularly meditated three hours a day and did hatha-yoga on a regular basis, including many of the disciplines that are described in the book I was working on. Since coming bac...

I am slowly coming out of silence. I don't really know if I still am or not. The actual vrata was to stay in silence until I finished a particular project, which is still not finished. So it feels a bit like an incomplete vrata and I will probably have to plunge again. It has been and is being a very interesting experience overall. I tried so many times to do a perfect vrata in my life, especially when I was younger. In ISKCON and as a babaji I started to do very strict Chaturmasyas on at least three occasions. Even eating plain kitcherie for weeks in yoga mudra and so on. But it never lasted to the fullest extent. Once, when I was a babaji in Nabadwip, I did a vrata in Agrahayan, the Katyayani vrata. This is in around 1984. I tried to keep it simple. I went at 2 a.m. every night to Porama Tala (Paurnamasi Tala) and meditated for two hours, chanting japa. It was only to be for a month. It was a very interesting experience, because Pora Ma is a very powerful Shakta and Tantric...