Joined: 29 Jan 2006
Posts: 5
Location: Sundbyberg, Sweden
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Hello Folks,
(The text here below got to be much longer than I intended. But, well, I hope there be something of substance for ye readers all in all 'a this. This text has also been slightly updated at 09:04, GMT+1, 7 December 2008.)
In the year 2003, after I had made a translation of The Yoga Sutra into Swedish (working from 12 English translations along with my experiences in the teaching of yoga over 38 years now), yes, then, I suddenly had me a little idea. (And please pardon me some a bit beforhand as I do know I’m a bit wordy as it comes to the writing down of any thinkings that come my way. Seems to be the way it is with me. Dah! I might add that I am from Sweden and that English is not my native language.)
Well. So I wrote a book on the paradigm of yoga: rest & activity.
There’s a paradigm to yoga, the way the wholity of it is perceived. A paradigm: in yoga a paradigm would represent the broader scope of the general understanding on how yogic practice creates a great and wide-ranging spree of a platform to encounter both the outer world and the inner life from, it’s all about rest and activity. In rest there is peace. In awareness of rest existential angst falls away. From that platform action concurrs with the natural dynamic of ones nature. From rest that natural dynamic gains momentum.
The title of my book is thus simply: The Paradigm of Yoga.
(Click the link to read it.)
Here’s a picture of the cover of this book. This painting, ‘Lilies’, done in oils, is by Lithuanian Poet/Painter Diana Janavičiené and is used, with Dianas gracious approval, along with four more of her beautiful pieces of art.
The Paradigm of Yoga
by Juri Aidas (Albatross)
paintings by Diana Janavičiené
The Paradigm of Yoga: Rest & Activity … an’ nothin’ but (but then, of course, there’s a pendulum swing over the abstruseness transversal ‘tween inner and outer to take stock of, for to discover the aha factor, so to say).
By following the links above you, dear reader, will find, as I recently found, an interesting way to present a book on-line, have a look. Or, if you'd wish, you might start out from my blog, The Algorythmies of An Another Albatross, where a little embedded pageable display of this book resides along with a short introduction to what it is all about. From this blog you may surf on to some various presentations of mine on this idea on yoga. These presentations document the path of development that this my idea in the field of yoga has traversed. I state that yoga may be viewed in terms of a paradigm: rest and activity. In a way my work is a thesis (though informally held) to explain and make this paradigm relevant and graspable and for to underscore the way it actually reveals the mechanism and process of recursive algorythmy (this is how I word the process of yoga) as such. The heuristic metaphor The Tree of Life, that is generated by analysis of the paradigm, may even (though only conjecturally as of yet, though not without rational foundations) be grounded in modern neuro-physiological discoveries, I get on about this in the appendix to this work.
I warmly recommend the Issuu (to s’es and two u’s) platform for, I should guess, the many and much varied, deeply felt and intelligently worded essays produced by, say, the many members of this forum. See the main Issuu site, Issuu, for their generous offers – no ads, and no cost (well of course there are some perks in the priced version, but for starters this free platform is just incredible). Issuu accepts the Adobe pdf format, Word-doc’s and Powerpoint ppt’s, I think there even were a few more workable formats. The Issuu platform is really sophisticated, all in Flash.
(I think the many insightful analyzes of the business aspect of yoga, that runnin’ of a yoga studio, in this section of the Hrih forum ought to be collected into a full piece ‘a layouted design and presented all over – maybe even in the Issuu fashion [or have they already been published? I just can't recall at the moment]. Anyway, I’ve read through quite a few of them and all the many recommendations seem sensible enough. Thanks for all 'a that. Well done coach_al.)
Here below is a paragraph on the structure of this metaphor of a tree of life, The Tree of Life (this link will take you to my general pages on yoga). In this take on the aspects of the yogic darśana that samesame darśana may hereby be somewhat more contextually complete (as if something was missing? no no, I am not implying any ultimate closure, I have but added a third metaphor, that of a tree to the traditional two of a stair/ladder and a table [I like ‘a use a grand piano for tha second one, uh, but for effect], yet these two still act as underpinnings for the modern edifice). These thinkings of mine on yoga I now view as an updating of the darśana of yoga to todays real world standards of sense and reason, empiricism and critical thinking, analysis and illuminative hariolatory .
From deep cognitive rest spring creative impulses that in natural and spontaneous evolutionary ways guide both the progress of individual development and the recursive yogic practice as such. Such impulses when acted upon, with actions that are appropriate to activity when that is called for, and conversely to rest further a life-supportive dynamic (when the impulses of creativity come to be applied to the inwards thrust of lifes' dynamic the recursivity inherent in lifes' process is set into an algorythmic settling motion, a trajectory as of a leaf falling). The incorporating of a continuity in yoga, a daily rythm to yogic process, that olde algorythmie, will act to uphold and extend the state pictured in the precept “established in yoga, perform action”, the yogic stance. There’s a time for the deep rest of samadhi and there’s a time to put that field into action. There is a dynamic nerve, so to say, 'tween samadhi and dhyana that begets the wholity of yoga in one concentrated pattern, a jewel in da lotus. One may apply a cognitive magnifying glass to the relational structure of dhyana and samadhi and in that microcosm the whole pattern of yogic method is revealed.
The eight aspects of yoga may be viewed in the light of an heuristic metaphor in the simile of a tree with seven branches and a root. The image of a tree is ordinarily used to display hierarchies and genealogies, stuff like that, and, to now transport the aspects of yoga onto such an image actually creates a li'l problem. In the ordinary sequence of these aspects (Patanjali, 2:29) Samadhi and Dhyana, deep inner contentment and the meditative process (as I word the aspects, please see my referring links in this post), are found next to eachother closely followed by focusing, withdrawal, the smoothness of breath and posture of the body, and lastly morals and ethics. In viewing the sequence in this way I actually take stock of Patanjalis sequence from its top end, as if the sequence were a ladder turned end over, instead of a stairway only approachable from the one end, and this makes for a difficulty, as said, in the projection of said sequence onto the metaphor of a tree. The linearity of Patanjalis sequence must be split (but not really), the two most abstract aspects must be separated (but only in a virtual sense; they do remain in close proximity) thus dhyana goes to the top of a Tree of Life to crown an edifice rooted in samadhic all-encompassing rest and peace (for the individual engaged in the application of the algorythmic recursivity of yogic process). The central connective nerve of dhyana and samadhii becomes as if the unifying stem of a great tree whereof the all-embracing branchings of ethics and morals display as if a first tier to this metaphoric tree of life, for to broaden the understanding and grasp of the ultimate opportunity offered by yogic method; so, then to this tree the next tier upwards represents the balanced structure of the physical body and the flows of the breath to uphold psyche and physiology, to establish dynamics of balance and stability for the individual in the midst of the perceived universal maelstrom of encroaching real world existential actualities; well, and then the third tier of this tree views the dynamic of the inner life of spontaneous withdrawal of the senses and of effortless focusing of the cognitive lens. Yes. And to top this image off I place dhyana, the recursive meditative process of simple algorythmy, in the position of crown and canopy of this Tree of Life and cognize its virtual linkage to the far reaching dynamic of samadhi that nourishes the whole of this tree of the wholity of samadhi. Within the transversal 'tween subject and object lies the archetypal pattern of recursive algorythmy of yogic process (thus samadhi and dhyana never were really parted, the heuristic structure of a tree of life is intrinsic to that abstruse relationship).
Here's 'a the tree.
The Tree of Life
(Please to excuse the quality in the above pics, I but ripped 'em out'a the book.)
So, there’s a span to yoga to cover the spread of the two apexes to lifes existentiality as nominally perceived from the middle ground of human existance, this is the great divide of the opposite poles of rest and activity. Yoga offers a process to unite these extremes. Now, as the yogic process actually is available to the cognitive lens even in the midst of extensive throes of demanding activity (look, there’ll always be a li’l lull somewhere for to slip in a few moments of the practice if events get to be very hectic) as this is a process that reaches out from the deep awareness of rest in samadhi in algorythmic cascades of protuberant creative display and into the inundating throes af activity, and just so the yogic process partakes of and thus enhances the far ranging cognitive field of the individual.
For an half hour Powerpoint slide show on this, uh, this algorythmy of yoga, see my other blog, An Another Albatross Goes Arundo, where I store my works on yoga in a folder called, ‘Metaphor’. Here’s a direct link to this animated slide show, The Nature of Yoga.
I do hope these ideas of mine would have some value in the understanding of Yoga as such, it’s central kernel, it’s nature, it’s paradigm. There are two steps to yoga, rest and activity. Skill in yoga, the establishing of a stable inner platform of access to the state of samadhi, establishes deep cognitive undistracted rest and from this activity flows in spontaneous creative streams to strengthen individual ambition and progress for all.
Well, all the best to you all ye great yogis and entusiastic novices whom this all, this hariolatory, in some depth might read.
Albatross
(Sundbyberg, Sweden, 6 December 2008) |
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