When I enter into a contact improv jam, I make a commitment. I commit to paying attention with all of my being, to myself, to my partner or partners of the moment, to all the others in the room, and to a spatial, energetic, and creative attention to the dance itself and for the dancers…
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
Last night, Paul Muller-Ortega, as part of the introductory talk for the meditation intensive, spoke at some length about the principles of ardha, kama, dharma, moksha. As I have written about before, in the classical yoga view, it is the renunciation of the first three–material well-being, love and relationship, and right work or path, that…
A fundamental precept of classical yoga is that of vairagya or renunciation. The yogin is meant to gradually renounce all of the life of mind and body until he or she transcends them and sees only spirit. I have been thinking about how renunciation fits in with the holidays and how we, as a society,…
On my previous visits to Sedona in the past year and a half, the moon has been full or nearly full each time. Even though there was little light from man-made sources, the bright light of the moon illuminated the sky enough that the stars were outshone. This trip, though, there was only a sliver…
One of the aims of yoga, according to Patanjali’s classic eight-limbed path of yoga, is to be free from being torn between the pairs of opposites — pleasure and pain. We cannot be free if we are always grasping at pleasure or acting to avoid pain. From a tantric perspective, we are not trying to…
The shiva-shakti tattvas, the two highest tattvas, are completely subjective. The shiva tattva is, according to the philosophy, the ultimate reality, the pure “I,” undiminished and undifferentiated consciousness. As something purely subjective, it is both everywhere and nowhere, in every being and simultaneously beyond them. It is not dissimilar to Hegel’s Absolute (though I believe…
Above (or perhaps beyond, or maybe more elemental, or more universal — words inevitably tangle us in discussing essential philosophical constructs) the six kanchukas (cloakings or coverings) are the five universal elements. These are suddha vidya, ishvara, saddha shiva, and shiva-shakti. John Friend suggests that we think of the first three of these tattvas as…
Paul Muller-Ortega, who teaches philosophy and meditation from similar roots to those that inform Anusara yoga, spoke yesterday of the differences between the path of the renunciate and the path of the householder. He strongly stated that neither path was better. What he suggested, though, was that a householder will better flourish practicing yoga designed…