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...

Admittedly nine hours in siddhāsana is a bit hard on the back; today my back hurts a little and is tired. I skipped meditation this morning and took extra rest. The lower back has to work hard. Nevertheless, it is the strengthening of the lower back and the progressive straightening of the upper, where I have had a pronounced curvature since childhood, that has made sitting a long time possible. Needless to say, some proficiency in breath control is also required. The lower back is part of the maṇipūra-cakra zone; where it meets the spine is the seat of the kanda or bulb, which is the central clearing house for all the nadis. Early hatha yoga texts talk about this kanda as also being a seat of the kundalini as much as the yoni-sthāna, which lies between the muladhara and svadhishthana. This may be a source of confusion to some, but if one thinks of the kundalini rising as a two stage affair, beginning in the yoni and then getting a boost from the kanda , one will understand the...

Yesterday we were reading in the Philosophy of Hatha Yoga class the section from the Yoga-sūtras dealing with asana, i.e. 2.46-48. There is a long discussion at 2.47. Anyway, the basics are: āsanas are to be steady and comfortable (46). They can be perfected by relaxing the effort and by meditation on the infinite (47). When one perfects the āsanas , one becomes indifferent to the dualities (48). The discussion about "meditation on the infinite" (actually, Swamiji translates samāpatti by "coalescence" with the infinite, but that is a little harder to follow) was pretty interesting. I have to say that I got a glimpse of that in meditation today in relation to my sahaja-sādhanā and my siddha-svarupa . There was a moment when I was literally dancing in my Jaya Manjari form, my blue dress covered with silver sequins literally swirling in the sky and merging into the milky way. Anyway, in his discussion there, Swamiji gives two interpretations of the phrasa an...

Part I. All in all, on reading this book I expected to come to some more earth-shattering conclusions about celibacy or discover some new facts that might make me adjust my opinions. Rather to my surprise, after reading through more than 400 pages of historical information, I felt rather less enlightened than more. Nevertheless, Abbott's summary of modern developments, celibate movements in the current environment, did resonate with me. She describes, as I occasionally have also on these pages, the malaise in today's society that has grown out of the commodification of sexuality and its use as a tool for commercialization. (Indeed, the growth of sexual liberty seems to be an integral part of the consumer culture.) I also described in an earlier post my horror at the kind of sexual escalation that has developed in youth culture, to a great extent the result of easy accessibility of pornography . Obsessions with the body, bodily appearance, the idealization of sexuality itsel...