Category: Yoga
How I Teach Yoga Philosophy
Well first of all, as with Ayurveda, I don’t really teach. How could I? What – do I know something? Not really. Even less as I get older. But I have gathered a ragged bouquet of question techniques that range from musings to proddings to provocation. Gentleness is key, because the discussion has to explore and penetrate belief, which is sometimes all a person thinks they have in defense against despair. Musings are good icebreakers for where we are frozen; provocations require familiarity and trust. Continue reading “How I Teach Yoga Philosophy”
Transparency Papers: introduction, and growing up Catholic (part one)
It’s become clear in an era of lightning-fast interdisciplinary and intercultural exchange that the transparency of one’s sources can be a grounding factor in understanding why and how one does yoga philosophy. Inspired by discussions on this blog and others, I’m experimenting with creating a record of my religious and academic influences. I think the stories of how we come to yoga are an essential part of the yoga we wind up finding. This entry, which describes some of the impact and lessons of my Catholic childhood, is the first of maybe five parts. The others will follow the chronology as it happened: university influences, years in Buddhism, years in a kundalini cult, years of quieter study — alone, and with quiet mentors — and how these experiences seemed to roll together into an eclectic practice of yoga and the vedic arts, and occasionally being an adult. Continue reading “Transparency Papers: introduction, and growing up Catholic (part one)”
On the Future of Yoga Festival Toronto
Matthew Remski speaks about the future of Yoga Festival Toronto and the Toronto yoga community. Continue reading “On the Future of Yoga Festival Toronto”
śruti and smṛti: intertextu-orality, phenomenology, and the so-ham behind the swan
(This post is a draft of a section from the introduction to a work-in-progress called Yoga Philosophy Digest: three core texts for students, in which I’ll be trying to present the most helpful reading and contemplative strategies for students who wish to navigate theBhagavad Gītā, the Yoga Sūtra-s, and the Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā. Any and all feedback is appreciated.)
Between the academic rock and the traditionalist hard place: finding the open source for yoga philosophy today
(This post is a draft of a section from the introduction to a work-in-progress called Yoga Philosophy Digest: three core texts for students, in which I’ll be trying to present the most helpful reading and contemplative strategies for students who wish to navigate the Bhagavad Gītā, the Yoga Sūtra-s, and the Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā. Any and all feedback is appreciated.) Continue reading “Between the academic rock and the traditionalist hard place: finding the open source for yoga philosophy today”
Yoga at the Threshold: abstracts for feedback
I’m putting together a collection of essays entitled Yoga at the Threshold: Critical Meditations, for release in early 2014. It examines the various thresholds that contemporary yoga practice both represents and faces as it finds its global relevance.
The 2012 publication of Threads of Yoga benefited immensely from crowdsourced feedback, so I thought I’d present the following abstracts publicly at this time to begin this process again. I’d be most appreciative of any comments — confrontative or tangential — that you might have to offer on any of the subjects below. Those abstracts that are in quotations are from essays that have already evolved through several drafts, or have been published in draft form online. Continue reading “Yoga at the Threshold: abstracts for feedback”
Writing about Gurus: Insiders vs. Outsiders, and Other Problems
Whenever I publish a critique of a guru or the guru principle in modern yoga, either by referring to my personal experience (with Michael Roach and others) or by analyzing public events and documents (John Friend, Kausthub Desikachar, Joshu Roshi Sasaki) through the lens of my personal experience, I receive several – sometimes dozens – of emails from those who are invested in my target in some way. Continue reading “Writing about Gurus: Insiders vs. Outsiders, and Other Problems”
The Guru as Artist
My first writing mentor, Luciano, quoted Yeats to me one day. I think I was seventeen. Continue reading “The Guru as Artist”
Notes on the nirguṇa / saguṇa paradox, by way of homage to Aghori Babarazzi
In both form and content, the work curated by Aghori Babarrazi presents a jagged paradox, true to his pseudonym, that defibrillates the limping heart of yoga philosophy. His crew consistently speaks for yoga-as-egoic-dissolution – through the most singular and eccentric voice of modern yoga literature. They repeatedly invoke the austerity of complete personal responsibility, while delighting in trash-talk from behind the scrim of anonymity. Aghori’s editorial paradox mirrors the dueling desires of yoga itself: to become, but to disappear. His masala of cruel empathy flavours the absurd task of making us naked and strange to ourselves, forcing us to wriggle, shift, and grow in the glare of our own contradictions. It’s a dirty, dirty job, but somebody – I mean nobody – I mean somebody who’s made himself a nobody pretending to be everybody – has to do it. Continue reading “Notes on the nirguṇa / saguṇa paradox, by way of homage to Aghori Babarazzi”
Negotiating the anxiety of influence (threads of yoga ephemera)
An excluded section from threads of yoga.
There is a Oedipal subplot to this book that I would like to make transparent. It’s been fuelled by a subconscious drive: by definition, I won’t be able to tell the whole story. But I think I have some idea of how I’ve loved and hated Patañjali, how I’ve wanted to steal his fire, strip his book down for parts and bury him – but then, still dream of him in my bones. I’m at least partially aware of how this desire is but one shade of my general feeling within the grip of history and language. Continue reading “Negotiating the anxiety of influence (threads of yoga ephemera)”
