It used to be that the unexamined life was not worth living. Now, the unexamined life is killing the planet. Staying mindful of our collective condition will keep things on point and our heads out of the stars.
Śaṅkara's tender age and what I at least hear as the naïveté of his poem got me thinking about the difference between the adolescent rhythm of rejection/assertion, versus what comes with a little more life experience. And what comes, transhistorically, with the refinement of the sciences.
I’ll try to do two things in this article. First, to nail down the hard facts about astrology and how it confounds the intelligence of contemporary yoga -- which seems to be the only global subculture at present that tolerates it as a kind of adjunct discipline. Then I'll turn to my personal experience of this archaic art, to help illustrate its seduction, and why it's dying so hard.
About a month and two dozen interviews into this research project and I can honestly say I’ve learned more about how folks experience yoga than I have over the past eleven years of teaching. The stories of pain, injury, recovery, and wisdom keep rolling, each unraveling unique twists of psychology along with the tweaks of tissue.