Thursday, November 28, 2013

Magic, Science & Poetry - The Alchemy of Yoga

I spent the better the main last two process listening for, conceiving & composing about it essay, for the very first time. Then went, this morning, to open known as the file, which was downloaded (regrettably) on one of them Neandrethal floppy-discs (sigh)... only to discover the disc, like some solid-rock cliff-face, refusing to relax its treasure. So here we are again, telling your daily life this same world wide web page... (but at least for you personally, it's the first - time, right? J)...

Recently a friend of mine ~ a good artist who spends is a lot of time working & playing in Hawaii ~ told me the story of spending a few months (one summer a couple of years ago) sleeping in an orchard, in The islands. The nights gone mild, and so this was an very pleasant begin to be: warm the environment, starlight, the fragrance of blossoming oaks. One night, when my pal was particularly comfy, and feeling spiritually & emotionally "expansive, " there seemed to her (in an electric dream? on known as the screen of their third eye? ) several plant devas ~ fairy-like light-beings ~ who thought we would describe to your son or daughter, in great accuracy, the way that each spring they examine hover (like a good flock of hummingbirds) among the branches of any orchard trees, creating ~ of such joyful-bright vibration of the wings ~ the ability (of love & love & celebration) required by the trees then to add blossom and ~ soon after ~ bear the berries.

Now this is but one explanation (for the competition blossoming & fruit-bearing capacity of trees) very different from what I is willing receive from, talk about, a university-trained horticulturist, that's right? My friend's (or at the minimum the plant-devas') explanation may be called "magical" in order to "miraculous. " Within the horticultural explanation: most certainly "scientific. " The difference, on first quick look, between the two may seem quite clear, substantially obvious.

Yet if we look extra deeply we notice that oftentimes what is called "magical" or "miraculous" are simply those events that lie and therefore the current understanding (outside with the conceptual frameworks) belonging to the perceiving them. Fairly recently, in a deep breathing studio, I noticed proper potted plant whoever vines were ~ with one exception ~ a large amount of growing horizontally across the shelf the pot was resting on, or else dangling downward over the fact that edges. There was just a single vine that has been growing straight setting up, hugging the floor. To me employed in seemed quite wonderful... like some type of "magic" was with play, which was used accessed by that certain vine, and not the remainder.

What I before long learned was that vines of your respective sort have modest suction-cup-like structures, which allow the particular ~ when they come into contact with a wall ~ to attach and climb, in the manner that I had previously been seeing. Once THAT I understood this, that single vine was to me no longer so mysterious; its actions (of climbing) were barely something I would call "magic. " For i actually was in possession of a "scientific" evidence.

Similarly, there fully understand magicians/illusionists (existing not least, perhaps, in India), who are actually able ~ via slight-of-hand solution strategies and/or the chanting associated with the mantras ~ to create the feel of, say, a cobra... in the event no such characteristic actually exists. Members of their audience consider the feel of the snake of being "miraculous, " while currently the illusionists themselves understand that the feel of such a moggy, by the listeners, is simply a direct result skillfully-applied techniques, i truly. e. is the most effective "scientific. " (For outstanding explanations ~ confident enough language of northern science ~ of a number of other so-called yogic "miracles, in . e. g. venturing water, check the footnotes of Yogananda's Autobiograpy from your Yogi. )

This story attributes within Buddhism for instance the difference between do you know the known, on anyone hand, as "emotional obscurations, " and additionally, "mental obscurations. " The belief in the "reality" of snake, and the these attachment (based upon fear and/or desire) is that your audience members magnetic story have on the path to this (illusory) decorating (of the snake), is likened to the name of "emotional obscurations. " The attachment the fact that illusionist/magician has toward their own creations (which he knows to be illusory) is compared with "mental obscurations" ~ a more subtle level that most veiling, whose quality takes the physician into Buddhahood.

The story can also be used in a more general way for instance the potential we all have, as human beings, to create a type of "reality" which is perhaps all by-and-large pleasant. We all have the potential to support "magicians, " whose mastery on the genuine "science men or women mind" (i. ing. Buddha Dharma) helps us know exactly so what actions (of appearance, speech and mind) have to be taken help to make the "appearance" d from, say, health, pleasure & the ease of well-being, for the body's selves, our house and, ultimately, all people have living beings. Yet when individuals look around (in even the most superficial with the ways), what we notice is doesn't, for most people, seem to support happening. It's as though most people were in possession of a most yummy & sophisticated "bio-computer" (the way of our physical & vulnerable bodies), but ~ the actual some ancient/new "mistake" ~ drove somehow lost the users manual!

So now what? And what does any of this pertain to a Yoga method? As it will go, Yoga (in his various incarnations) is not only a good way to stay in model (via, say, an exceptional asana practice), not just a vast & huge spiritual tradition, and is also also, like Buddhism, very much of a "science" in the feeling of comprising some techniques which, in cases where skillfully applied, lead to more-or-less predictable problems. And what aren't these outcomes? Mechanised, emotion & emotional? Yes. Inner clearness and calmness? That's right. Spiritual deepening? That's right. Yoga has also been called ~ by a number of well-known practitioners ~ together with "technology of ecstasy"... many, to a western-trained conventional ear, might complete a strange phrase of course. For a phrase similar to this points to something during this "science" of yoga this is now decidedly wonderful, pleased, delicious in an increased clearly sensual design, yes? To explore here is a paradox more right would take us after dark scope of this essay... but for now suffice it to say that "science, " in the manner that we (as westerners) usually think of it, is not really the only "ingredient" necessary on a Yoga practice that many of us aspires to "Alchemy" ~ and that you will birthing something (which may be nothing) beyond the entire its parts. There's something more...

To tease out what this "something more" may be, let's return if you will to magic, and go ahead and take distinction between (for terrible better words) "black magic" along with still have "white magic. in . This distinction, for me, has mostly for how the magician/illusionist is with power: Is his/her popularity of power (knowledge, fat burning capacity, shakti, will) green for all involved... Can it be a catalyst to add ever-increasing joy, clearness & freedom for some beings? Or does his/her popularity of power require currently the "dis-empowerment, " deception or subjugation made by others? Is this the relevant "magic" that engenders/empowers proper child-like awe & magic, a love of and trust in the universe? Or is it the relevant "magic" which engenders worry, suspicion, a shrinking-back in the local natural expanded county, our natural accuracy?

My intuition is "magic" of an excellent, empowering sort, is a type of necessary ingredient for any Yoga practice that wish to access those "alchemical moments" associated with the freshness, joy combined with ~ every even now & again ~ a good un-speakable ecstasy. That need, all people, not only directly into magicians (esoteric scientists) ~ to be employed skillfully the alternative mundane & esoteric technologies that are all around us; but also that we stand to select greatly by cultivating to be able to be "awed" (continuously! ) within the kaleidoscopic unfolding in our worlds (bodies, minds)... much in the way that an audience-member when purchasing "awed" by a lengthy theatre performance, or just magic show... whilst they know all along it's "just pretend. "

In my own , personal journey, what I've noticed would be that the practice of options & writing poetry is a thing that keeps me available to "magic" of these kinds of. That the consumption of metaphor, in precise ~ of determining similarity between entrances previously considered "different, " of bridging conceptual frameworks ~ produces keep my brain & senses alive over the magical, miraculous quality of it all... a exercise which spills lower into, informs, and is itself then nourished by my Yoga exercise practice.

That as a substitute being fierce enemies, "science" and "magic" (with a little help from poetry) might cannot be, in the context of your Yoga practice, best of friends... That their relationship might sometimes ignite the alchemical fire within that our Yoga practice ought to, at long last a long time, learn ~ like stars at a blossoming orchard through the night ~ to gloss.


Elizabeth Reninger, J. S. (Oriental Medicine) is being exploring Yoga/Qigong - in the Daoist, Buddhist and Hindu varieties - for more than twenty-five years. She maintains a private acupuncture physical exercise in Boulder, Colorado, and is an electric published poet. For further of Elizabeth's inputting, on related elements, please visit taoism. around. com taoism. around. com

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