Monday, October 23, 2006


big yoga book

oh yeah. so long-time readers know that from the ancient anusara background of my regular yoga studio i retain a strange interest in the philosopher and dramatist abhinavagupta. thus after talking to eddie stern, he recommended to me a rather scholarly tome, the doctrine of vibration.

i finally found a used copy of this puppy -- rather beat up and underlined i must say -- but there it is. and alas like so many books about indian thinking it's written that stilted style so peculiar to indology.

i almost think they force professors of eastern thought to adopt that crazy awkward tone and wacked-out english syntax. despite what the amazon reviews might lead you to believe, this ain't an easy book to read, and in fact i don't think your average yoga student could do it without having made some headway through feuerstein's the yoga tradition first.

otherwise you wouldn't know your agama from your veda, if you know what i mean, and would be totally lost among the technical terms of formal indology, of which feuerstein gives a fairly do-able overview. and to be totally honest, i'm not sure most well-meaning yoga students could be induced to give good attention to the feuerstein without the inspiration of dr. douglas brooks' cd, currents of grace, which makes all this seem approachable to begin with.

i haven't done anusara as an asana practice for years and years, but i still find that cd an interesting source. . .truly devoted readers may recall that it even propelled me to attempt to make my way through some of swami laxmanjoo's work itself.

it is an interesting experience to tangle with this scholarly doctrine -- an interesting contrast to for example this article in the ny review of books on consciousness. it's amazing how western thinking is so, um, well, non-nuanced when it comes to this subject in comparison to indian thinking.

it's clear we don't really have much clue about it at all beyond the physical science of it. . .

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posted by fortune | 5:45 PM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 0 comments