The mystery of the Syberian Mummy

I found this documentary on youtube. It was probably made by German people and narrated into French. It's very interesting. A pity though they make one horrible mistake in the first few seconds of the video saying the "mummy is a proof of the existence of God" which not at all what the monk is saying (not to mention one must be an awful incompetent to say such a thing regarding Buddhism)!!

The documentary is in French and translated in Romanian!!

If you like this, don't hesitate to watch the "Mystery of the Tibetan Mummy" (on youtube) which is a pure jewel (English).

To eat or not to eat?

You might remember the link I had put a while ago on breatharianism..(quick reminder: Indian fellow who claims he's not eatten in 60 years; experiments are then conducted on him by a huge number of Indian and German doctors from different fields; he's put under surveillance for 9 days and indeed, he seems to be just fine: nothing goes in, nothing comes out)
Well, it turns out some Austrian people made a documentary on Mataji Prahlad Jani! And it's gonna hit the cinemas (here in France at least) the 15th of December!
Apparently they are trying to give a detailed account of the research that has been done, the studies conducted on the man and (hopefully)encourage people to ask some daring questions about the way we see reality.
I cannot wait to watch it.
Here's a concise description (in English!) on the way the experiments had been conducted.
And here's the trailer.

Rupert Snell interview!

Rupert Snell is famous for his Teach Yourself Hindi series. The interview is really nice and interesting.

Radio interview with M. Ricard

Subject: Meditation.
Language: French (sorry!)
Interest: High!

Interviews!

Just a quick note to draw your attention on this fascinating site which contains loads of very interesting interviews with several famous culture figures (for example the interview with David Snellgrove, the Tibetologist who's quite known for the "Nine Ways of Bön").

A discussion not like any other

This is a very interesting video with Graham Hancock and David Wilcock (who is believed to be the reincarnation of Edgar Cayce!). They are trying to retrace the work of Hancock from jurnalism to the search into an ancient lost civilisation which might have existed 10500 BC (during the Ice Age, with proof), passing through Ethiopia and the Arc of the Covenant (watch to see what the researcher thinks it is!).

How open-minded are we really?

Granted, this is not a post about anything Sanskrit, even though I can easily find a link to it (the "vimanas"...).
I have "stumbled" onto a video made by Stephane Allix, a French war journalist who decided to take on the subject of "aliens" and prove once and for all that it's all bogus. He has written a book on his discoveries and made a documentary (further down for the link). He was particularly interested in the work of Jahn E. Mack, a psychiatrist at Harvard University (not your average lunatic) who studied a good number of cases of so called "alien abduction". His view of the phenomenon is the reason i'm posting the link to the videos here (English).

The Women's Meditation Tradition in Tibet

A very interesting talk given by the Venerable Wangdrak Rinpoche in which he explains the practices of some buddhist nuns famous for their mastery of meditation and the Tummo technique ("inner fire"). Here!

Something to dream about....

Ok, I'm definitely in a documentary mood.
But how could I not be? I just found a film made by and featuring James Mallinson (Sanskrit scholar, Yoga practitioner and paraglider!) called Temples in the Clouds: himalayan landscape, a search for the temple of the Goddess Himani Chamunda Devi with the most unnusual means of locomotion:) (or should I say airomotion?).
Enjoy!

Another wonderful documentary

Its title is Chalo Hamara Des: Journeys with Kabir & Friends, and I think it gives a very authentic view of Indian life, culture, people, surroundings, but most of all, of the spiritual dimension of music.
Kabir was a "Sant", a mystic poet, who used to compose poems and sing them to the people who would come and listen to him. He's very much loved by Indians and very much present in their lives as you can see from the footage, (even though he died in the 16th century).
Also, the singer we're following during the film, Prahlad Tipanya (see photo), is quite amazing.

ps: you will notice how the mahant of the Kabir Panth is completely off-track with his statements! Paradox: that's another name for India!:)

Yoga, Inc.

A very interesting documentary on the Yoga phenomenon. In focus: the US avatars!

Ani Choying Drolma

A Tibetan nun with a magical voice.
I love listening to her.
Namo Ratna Traya and Tara Mantra, two of my favourite mantras brilliantly interpreted.
I was pleasantly surprised to hear her interpret a (Hindu) Ganapati mantra as well. When will Westerners be able to cross boundaries like this without the fear of some "divine" punishment?

Meditation book online

Bhante Henepola Gunaratana's classic book on meditation Mindfulness in Plain English is online. I do encourage anyone to go check it out.

A trip down memory lane

In a few days there's the anniversary of a very dear friend of mine. Knowing her tastes in reading - or rather her open-mindness -, I decided to offer her some books, one of them being Mystiques et magiciens du Tibet (Magic and Mystery in Tibet) by Alexandra David-Néel.
This is one of my all-time favourites.
After reading Milarepa's life story, this book was the next in line to fuel my passion for Tibet. I remember getting my copy back in Bucarest in the beginning of my highschoold years from an antiquarian (nowdays, adolescents in highschool read entrepreneurial books and become millionnaires... ). I used to roam all the strees in the center of the city - which were at the time filled with these people selling old volumes, less nowdays - in search for books on India, yoga and the like.
It was quite a surprise to me to find this type of reading translated into Romanian. It didn't look like much, a poor quality print with unproper biding. I bought it nonetheless.
I must have started reading it immediately. I was about 50 pages through, and I remember Karla (i.e. best friend) came to Bucarest and we got to spend all the evening talking and playing lab rats for mom (some poetry experiment relatetd to Bachelard - or was it some other time?) and then we read halfway through the night. Karla chose a novel by Camil Petrescu, a Romanian writer, called Patul lui Procust (Procust's Bed), and I went on with my mystics and magicians.
It was quite hillarious exchanging atmospheres: one the one hand you had this ritch, intellectual sort of individual lying in the bed of a prostitute whom he despised, in a room that the hated, a bed that he found disgusting because of the smell, the sweat and the texture, and who had to put up with conversations that he couldn't stand, then meeting THE woman, left her, plane crash, dead; and on the other hand there were those huge, cold, windy, empty plateaus, the yak caravans, the lamas, the weird rituals, the endless walking, the psychic powers, the weird people, the monasteries, strange deeds.
Literally and literary, two worlds appart.

At the time I had no real idea what Tibet looked like, I had seen no documentaries, no photos, no nothing. And so, my imagination had to make it up and it really felt like a very very mysterious and dangerous place, filled with adventures and lots of treasures (I don't mean material ones). Now the feeling I get while reading the book is obviously no longer the same, but many times I still get this late-cold-winter-night-with-torch-under-the-blanket feeling. And it's lovely. It really does open up a world of possiblities.

Another Alexandra book online: Tibetan Journey

Sita Sings the Blues

Watch this excellent movie inspired from the Ramayana online, here.

Tenzin Palmo

I have received a precious gift yesterday, the French translation of Cave in the Snow (Un ermitage dans la neige) written by Vicki Mackenzie. It is a book on the life of a still very active Western buddhist woman, Tenzin Palmo, who has spent 12 years in retreat practicing meditation. The books states she is the first european woman to have done it, but as most of you know, the first one was most probably Alexandra David-Néel (and I do encourage everyone to read her books, she was an amazing woman!).
The book is very inspiring in ways which probably differ with each person who reads her story, so I will not dwell on this.

However, one of the things that the book adresses is the condition of buddhist nuns, the difficulties they - and Tenzin Palmo - have to face because of so many preconceived ideas about the inferiority of the body of the woman and other such nonsense.
She states that - aside from here guru - the only ones who didn't make any distinction between them and her were the yogis (togden).
Her master wanted her to create a monastery and reinstate the tradition of female yogis that had pretty much become extinct because of the Chinese invasion. She is working at this project right now, and progress is being made! She asked her yogi friends to teach what they know to the nuns in the nunnery she founded so that they too could become accomplished yoginis and teach other women and eventually help change all these preconceived ideas about the limit of women on the spiritual path.
As you would imagine, most great buddhist masters today, headed by HH the Dalai Lama agree that the situation is not normal and that it should be changed but there is this whole tradition which dates back thousands of years and which is very much anchored in psyché of the lamas. (this goes not only for Tibetan buddhism, but for all types)

There is a very interesting passage in the book which reports Sylvia Wetzel's words -a German buddhist - at the very first conference organized by HH the Dalai Lama on Western buddhism (1993), and which adressed amongst other subjects the question of the role of women in buddhism. I find it very suggestive:
"Imagine that you are a man coming into a buddhist retreat center. You can see the paintings of this beautiful Tara surrounded by 16 female arhats, and you can see HH the Dalai Lama who deliberately incarnated 14 times under female forms. You are surrounded by great female Rimpoché, beautiful, strong, intelligent women. Then the bhikshuni (nunns) come in, confident and straighforward. And then, behind them, the monks enter timidly and and in a hesitant fashion. You start to hear talking about the holders of the ligneage whom are all women, descendants from Tara."

Now you interchange the sexes and you get the real picture.

Levitation

Here!

Mahendra Trivedi

An Indian-born man, now living in the States, with a special ability.
Here.

Birthday Gift

Tomorrow is my birthday, and it just so happens that I received my gift one day early: Tea !!!!!!!:)
My significant other brought me to my absolute favourite Tea Shop in Paris, le Palais des Thés, and basically gave me green card to choose. And choose I did!! Visualize children in candy shops and you'll get the picture. i must have had the broadest smile you've ever seen.
Not to mention that I was served my the most kind and knowledgeable tea person ever who explained thoroughly every single thing I asked (and I asked quite a lot of things)and who might just become a good friend.

So, here they are:

JAPAN
Genmaicha - a classic, one of my lasting favourites even though it's not one of THOSE teas..
Kukicha - I hadn't tries this one before (I may be a tea fanatic, but there's a limit to my budget! unfortunately.. but the good part is I always get to discover new things :) ), it's a green tea made exclusively from tea stems.

THAILAND
Milky Wu Long - an Oolong on which milk is used to treat the leaves!

NEPAL
Jun Chiyabari Himalayan Oolong - an oolong as the name says, but it is not to be treated like a classic oolong (not for gong fu cha)! It's a Nepalese oolong made from tea trees used especially to create black teas.

CHINA
Long Zhu - a round, non-astringent green tea;
Bai Lin Gong Fu - This is a special tea. It resembles the Keemun but it is a lot softer. Actually, the manufacturers used the plants from which they make White Jade tea but they processed it as if it were a blak tea! And apparently they were so happy that they managed to create them thet they called it Gong fu (= to control, master) Bai Lin ( which is the name of that particular tea tree).

TAIWAN
These teas are actually the stars of my purchase. They are high quality Oolong teas cultivated in this side of the world in which there exist tea contests: Who manages to produce the most excuisite Oolong. the one who won, got to sell the tea at a really wild price on the stock market.
Wen Shan Bao Zhong "Premium green" - Amazing Oolong with long leaves, not rolled up like the usual ones. It's got a fruity and vanilla aroma about it.
Li shan Gao Shan Cha - another very special high altitude oolong, with rolled leaves which kept the stem, light green colour and a bit more oxidated than the previous one (30% as opposed to 15%). it's got a vegetal and fruity aroma.

But these teas must be prepared in gong fu cha, otherwise one cannot enjoy the whole poetry they carry. So I also bought a Gong fu cha tea pot!

I can't wait to try them all! I think I'm going to organize some tea parties and invite friends over so that we can share this together. What's the point of a great tea if it is not shared anyway?

Spiritual dimension of Time Travel

A talk given by Fred Alan Wolf in seven parts. He had written a book called the Yoga of Time Travel and the talk tackels that issue.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

PS: please notice the subtle alliteration :)

Breatharianism

Prahlad Jani

Things Europe Never Invented

Ancient Chinese inventions documentary

Buddha Boy

Documentary

Fakir

A video made in 1965 by the French television.
Here.

Immoderation and excessiveness

I was really shocked when I saw a picture (then videos) of the 7th yoga gathering in Times Square NY: an important amount of people doing asanas in one of the most famous public places in the world, among cars and by-passers.
A public statement?
Marketing?
I find this to be a scarry phenomenon.
Yoga is a personal practice not a circus act!
The huge industry that developped and continues to grow around "yoga" brings billions of dollars each year, but the more marketized yoga gets, the more it is made "chewable" and "available" to the masses, the more it becomes a physical exercise with the aspirations of a "spiritual" practice. There is nothing traditional about the way we, Westerners, do yoga. And yet all groups lay claim to such a heritage.
What a mess.

Ear and sound

It all started with an Alfred Tomatis (founder of the Tomatis Method) article on the energetics of sound and mantra listening (fascinating article but I'm too lazy to write about it right now) and this led me on youtube searching for more videos on his method and, as you well know, once you're on youtube you're bound to make all sorts of Hesse-an discoveries. So this search led me for some reason to the tuvan throat singing then to throat techniques then to ave maria tuvan style then to comments then to Bobby McFerrin. I never realized how amazing this fellow was!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is an excellent video in 10 parts with him and some neuro scientists. Worth to watch!! Part 1/... just follow the lead.

Fresh air

I have indulged these past days in reading Stephen Batchelor's Buddhism Without Beliefs, a book after my own heart. Since it is a non-dogmatic approach to the dharma (several translations possible, but let's say "teaching of the Buddha"), it can profitably be read by anyone who dares question their most cherished beliefs.

The book is filled with enlightening and common sensical remarks, but the one that struck me the most is probably the following:
"An agnostic Buddhist eschews atheism as much as theism, and is reluctant to regard the universe as devoid of meaning as endowed with meaning. For to deny either God or meaning is simply the antithesis of affirming them. Yet such an agnostic stance is not based on disinterest. It is founded on a passionate recognition that I do not know. It confronts the enormity of having been born instead of reaching for the consolation of belief. It strips away, layer by layer, the views that conceal the mystery of being here - either by affirming it as something or denying it as nothing."
In order to be able to confront the mystery of life as it is, one obviously needs a lot of training. Decades of conditioning have to be brought to consciousness, then gently put aside. Tout un programme.

Here are the three parts of an excellent talk Stephen gave on "Buddhism and the art of imagining": Part 1/ Part 2/ Part 3.

Ch'an Buddhism

John R. McRae podcast on "Rethinking the Rhetoric of Meditative Experience in Chinese Buddhism" : here. Yey!
Also, the introduction written by the same author to Introduction to Zen Buddhism: a history.

Wonderful documentary

If you want to understand dimensions a little better (the 4th one in particular!) watch this! It's fascinating.

On the intricacies of Qigong

A fascinating book made its way into my hands today while roaming between the shelves of the National Library: Qigong Fever by David A. Palmer. The book is actually a revised edition of its French version called La fièvre du qigong, published by EHESS. The purpose of the study is - to make it short - the elucidation of the "meanings, the goals and the social relations created around qigong practices", which "are not quite the same as those that have emerged around similar or even identical body techniques" (p 7).
I found some very interesting passages which I am going to transcribe here not only because they allow one to have a better idea of what lies behind the qigong phenomenon or to understand what we are being served nowdays under the "traditional" label, but also because I feel that there are lots of parallels to be drawn between qigong and its development and modern yoga.
I will start though - in order to arrouse your interest:) - with the author's experience in relation to this practice.

"The effects of qigong practice were powerful. I entered mental states I had never previously imagined. The limits of my body and of my world seemed to dissolve. I felt imbued with a powerful energy that could make anything possible. I no longer thought in words, but in forms and symbols which seemed to leap out of my head, my hands and my abdomen. I could see my thoughts like visible and living objects, as real and palpable as the material things in the outside world. The boundary between the real and the imaginary was vanishing. (p. 2)
...
A few years before the founding of the People's Republic of China" in 1949 a group of Communist cadres in the mountains of the South Hebei Liberated Zone discovered an ancient technique that, at almost no cost, could bring healts and vigour to the sickly and impoverished masses. It was a simple set of exercices that anyone could learn: every day stand still for half an hour, control your breath, concentrate on the yongquan acupoints at the centre of the soles of your feet, recite the mantra "My organs move, my mind is still". The cadres called this and other sitiing, lying and strtching exercices qigong - a name that literally means "breath training".(p.3)
...
In the 1950s and early 1960s traditional body technologies were reformulated and institutionalised as part of the Communist state's project of developing the health of the masses and of extracting and transforming all useful elements of traditional culture in the service of building a New China. The choice of the term qigong by Party cadres in 1949 reflected an ideological project: to extract Chinese body cultivation techniques from their "feudal" and religious setting, to standardise them, and to put them to the service of the construction of a secular, modern state. As such, qigong is an invented tradition. The object of its construction was to present qigong from a purely technical angle, to reconstitute the history of these techniques in isolation from their religious, political and social context, and to classify them according to a rational schema. (p. 5)
...
Many of the gymnastic, breathing and meditation techniques defined as qigong were widely practised in Chinese society before 1949, but were not known under that name, nor grouped under a single category. They were practiced in a diversity of contexts, and embedded in a variety of systems of representations and social organisations: monastic institutions, sectarian groups, martial arts networks, literati circles and medical lineages. It was only in 1949 that qigong became a global category which aimed to include all Chinese breathing, meditation and gymnastic techniques. As noted by Jian Xu, 'In a certain sense, the various forms of qi exercises designated by the modern term qigong always resided at the centre of Chinese culture, even though they were never regarded as self-sufficient cultural practices, but instead as ancillary to other cultural practices. ... Masters and students who transmitted knowledge of qi techniques usually did so in the name of a religion, or of a school of medecine or martial arts. It was unthinkable to study qi for the sake of its form and techniques and not in the service of other goals.'(p.8)
...
The status of body technologies began to change in the first half of the twentieth century with the introduction of Western values and the construction of a modern state. The new institutions privileged mechanical, disembodied ordering of the world: traditional body technologies were irrelevant to the ends of the modern bureaucracies, armies schools that mediated knowledge and power in the emerging society. [however, these body technologies manage tomake their way thanks to] widely circulated books that sought to eliminate the obscure esoteric language in which techniques had traditionally been couched, and to present them in the idioms of psychology, physiology and physics. (p.12-13)
...
But it was under the Communist regime that traditional body technologies became a distinct category. In its secular, technical, rational expression qigong has attempted a modern reformulation of the traditions through new combinations of techniques, new ideological constructions and enw models of transmission and collective practice. The technologies are traditional, but the qigong movement which diffused them in the second half of the twentieth century is a product of the Chinese socialist project of modernisation (p. 13)"

Oh ye brothers and sisters in suffering...

This post is for all of you out there who are struggling with a language like Sanskrit, who deal with the difficult personalities of your teachers (indologist do have a reputation of being among the most... complicated people ever to walk the face of the earth), who despite the countless problems you face each day you continue to learn those paradigms, who -unpon realizing you forgot most of what you had learned during those hard-earned vacations- still have the power to open those dreadful grammar books and who, inevitably, at one point or another face THE question coming from a less than friendly interlocutor: "what's the use of it?".
Oh, and let's not forget the variations: "What are you planning to use Sanskrit for?"; "How is THAT going to change peoples' lives for the better?"; "Who needs that anymore?", "India hasn't got a civilization anyway, why bother learning that language?"... I could go on an on, and no, I'm not exaggerating. Usually at this point in the conversation you're glad you don't have a kalashnikov next to you, because you know you'd use it gladly despite you affinity for non-violence and pacifism.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Having this hanging on a nail somwhere in the abyss of my subconscious, I was thrilled to read Niels Hammer's introduction to his Art of Sanskrit Poetry. He most obviously dealt with the same problems as you and I: "Though I have often been asked why I enjoy or study Sanskrit and what benefit such obscure language possibly might convey, I still cannot give an appropriate answer. Basically there's no real answer. Why do we live? What is the use of a Hareball? For each single act and each single thought should be complete in itself, without any arrière-pensée. Joy's soul lies in the doing; the present moment is all there is and that should suffice; [here he quotes the most fabulous of phrases:))] kṛpaṇāḥ phalahetavaḥ (only) the miserable (are) motivated (by) the result(s of their actions). But our civilisations pay the highest price possible for focusing so narrow-mindedly upon "utility"" (p. xv).

One precision is in order here: in India, when one speaks of action, one never means just the action itself, but its result as well. This is karma basically. And as you probably know, the actions (and so their results) is what engender a good or bad karma. Either way however, you are trapped in the infinite cycle of existence, doomed to be reborn until you will have consumed all the results of you actions. As a consequence,in a theistic approach, you are supposed to reach a state in which you realize you are not the one who does the action, but that the action is being done through you (by Reality, or God if you wish). In a Buddhist context, you would probably realize "I" doesn't really exist, and so there's no one to do the acts (and thus no one to collect their "fruits"). This is the way in which one can transcend this infernal cycle.
So the idea is that one needs to act as selfless as possible. This is the main idea behind the Sanskrit phrase cited above.

Hammer doesn't stop at this though, he reviews the imensity of Sanskrit literautre (be it scientific, religious, litterary etc), he draws the attention on the different approach one finds in the west as opposed to the East ("whereas Judaism, Christianity adn Islam primarily are faith-systems [...], Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism are primarily experience-systems. The difference is between faith in hearsay and subjective cognition. [...] for where the West emphasized moral perfection as the ultimate goal on life, the East preferred the freedom beyond the relative values of good and evil. reason may be a perfect servant but it is a devastating master. (p. XVII") and he finally states the importance of poetry: "generations outlive ideas, change theories, customs and clothes, whereas art remains, like human nature, basically the same - universal, as it suggests wonder, delight, beauty, compassion, sorrow or peace, through the subtles intuition of the fundamental unity of all living beings. [...] But awareness of the past creates humility and puts current issues into a relative perspective, and the purpose of much sanskrit poetic art was to suggest reality in all its absolute suchness thereby enhancing the quality of the present which is all we truly are. This approach tacitly presupposes that there exists a common neurophysiologically determined process causing deep inner (peack) experiences by transforming the view from within as a number of neural pathways in both cortical and subcortical structures are changed; and the art of poetry should be able to further such a process by suggesting the true nature of reality and/or consciousness - or life (p. xix)." Rien que ça!!

So there are those fields of study out of which practical and material stuff results (physics, maths, biology etc), and then there's what we call "human sciences". These are the ones who are fighting to keep us human, or fulfill those "human" needs in us. After a tyring day at the office, you're not gonna go study the intricacies of you car's engine are you? You're gonna go see a movie, a theater play, an opera, you'll read a novel or some poetry.. maybe even learn a language in order to be able to understand a certain culture better and thus raffine your thinking and the way you see the world. This is what Sanskrit does among other things.

On different conceptions of poetry: East-West

The following passage is taken from The Transport of Love - The Meghadûta of Kâlidâsa translated and Leonard Nathan (1976, University of California). I think it describes quite accurately the Western vs. Eastern attitude towards art, in this case poetry.

"Where we look for close adherence to phychological and physical reality, the INdian poet rigorously excludes verisimilitude. Where we expect the poet to speak in his own voice - a voice that should be at once close to common speech and yet identifiably original - the Indian poet stays far behind his subject and stives at every turn for uncommon eloquence which yet deliberately echoes the voices of his tradition. Where we are prepared for, il not direct conflict, at least strong tension needing drastic resolution, the Indian poet gives us the slow unfolding of a foregone conclusion. Where we might hope to feel the pleasure of new insight, the Indian poet wants his audience to experience the delight of a foreknown universal sentiment. IN short, the poet was not expected to bring raw news of himself or the world, to lay out the complexities of social relations, or to flash light on the dark interior life of the particularized soul. He was asked instead to proffer the experience of the ideal, all the flaws of nature corrected, all the unfinished aims of men completed, everything in its proper place, performing its proper function in an orderly, therefore beautiful way. (...)
Behind INdian poetic expectation and the poems addressed to it were two major assumptions that we do not share. First, that reality was not to be sought through personal sensory apprehension of our changing empirical world, but beyond it to one that is permanent and ideal. One way the latter could be apprehended was through language that matches the ideal in its permanence and perfection. That language was Sanskrit in its poetic mode. Poems, then, were a way of experiencing the reality beyond appearance, and the pleasure one derived from reading or hearing them was, in the view of respected critics, analogous to the personal bliss arrived at by the religious experience of the divine truth. The second assumption concerned the hierarchical social system developed in India from Vedic times. This system was, according to the traditional view, based upon the rock of divine order. To understand it was, therefore, to approve it, realizing its faults to be the result merely of the shortcomings in those who failed to adhere to its rules, to dharma. The unspoken contract between Kâlidâsa and his audience assimilated these assumptions so thoroghly that they enter into every element of the Meghadûta and must be kept continually in mind if we are to understand what its proper audience experienced in the presence of the poem."

Welcome to the future!

Here.

On "Yoga"

For years i have been trying to find hints through different texts and documents as well as different modern practices of what might be called "authentic Yoga", "THE Yoga". I realise now I had been entirely missing the point. There is no such thing as "true yoga", "authentic yoga" or whatever other derivate. Quite frankly, there is no one who can say exactly what yoga is!(anyone who pretends otherwise has just not read or pondered enough on this). There is not one yoga, but a multitude: as many practitionners, as many types of yoga. We are all forging our own yoga no matter what anyone thinks or says. There are no immutable principles. There are some who take a few ideas/affirmations and turn them into axioms. I'm not saying this is bad. On the contrary. Whether we like it or not, whether we're conscious of it or not, we are practicing while having adhered to a particular way of thinking. So one might better be conscious of it. I'm just saying that, while having been trained in a certain school (and obviously, they all think they have it right, even if they are denying it - why would one practice something if one thought there was something better out there?), we take on bord what is given to us and adhere to it and tend to see everything else as deviations from the true path. If one cannot see the validity of other approaches- or to look at it from a diffrent angle, the relativity of one's own approach - then one has most probably been brainwashed.

Here's an interesting passage taken from "Yoga in Modern India" (p. 19) by Alter, which might illustrate some of the points I've made earlier:
[the author mentions the orientalist who tend - and not only them mind you - to look at classical texts dealing with Yoga and consider thel "gold standard" in order to measure the authenticity of various kinds of practice]: "What else counts as an authoritative text, and on what basis are different texts ranked in terms of relative importance? How are they to be compared one with another if your point of reference is not the corpus itself but modern practice? The most obvious answer to these questions is to be somewhat restrictive and judiciously limit the scope to what are regarded as the primary texts [based on what? - my remark] - the Yoga Sûtra, the Yoga Upanisads, the Bhagavad Gîtâ, and the three mais Hatha Yoga texts of more recent, medieval antiquity, the Hathayogapradîpikâ, the Sivasamhitâ and the Gherandasamhitâ. But this presents problems, since in these texts Yoga blurs into Samkhya, Tantra, and the "cult of Krsna" among other forms of practice, systems of religious thought, and philosophical reasoning."

The differences in philosophies, in the forms of yoga, in the religious environment are far more drastic in reality than this passage suggests. This is why I'm saying that there's simply no point in looking for THE yoga (and judging others based on what one thinks Yoga is), but for what suits one best.

Matthieu Ricard conference

I have finally managed to attend a Matthieu Ricard conference last night in Paris. The last time I had tried to do this I had arrived one hour earlier and the place had been filled three hours earlier. This time I went there early enough and got a perfect seat (about one meter away from him:) ).
It was fantastic. The theme of the conference was altruism and the way it could change us all individually and - thanks to that - the society we live in. I must say it was the first time I actually understood the whole point of it. He said that altruism, kindness, compassion are all states of mind (not just some abstract concept of feeling) and that just as one works to cultivate a physical skill, in the same manner one should devote time to the betterment of one's mind. Through this, we can "contaminate" others with our lack of anger and disarm them. This is also the way in which we can oppose the exacerbated individualism of our society which will eventually lead us to our own self-destruction (ex. environnement, wars - since you no longer see others as human beins but only as targets - etc).
He also said some things about why saying that meditation is a way of shutting yourself from others and reality and of being egocentric is nonsense. One practices meditation in order to stop being egocentric and the transformation is visible in everyday life (a great deal of scientific studies have meen made on this topic). Some person said that withdrawing from her family in order to meditate made her feel as if she was excluding the latter, to which he responded that in order to do anything one need some privacy: whether it's practicing the piano, writing a thesis, or training for some competition. He said that if alowing 20 minutes a day or say 45 in order to become better and be a wonderful human being during the 23:15 hours left , then it is no doubt worth the investment.
He also dedicated a book to me (and many others :) ) saying: "à Alina, que l'amour altruiste règne en votre cœur, Matthieu", which I thought to be (and still do) really beautiful.

Inspiratie

Ma gandeam sa scriu un articol si sa-l intitulez: "Les chercheurs et la phobie du point". :))

Dalai Lama

On a demandé au DALAI LAMA :
Qu'est ce qui vous surprend le plus, dans l'humanité ?
Il a répondu :
« Les hommes, parce-qu'ils perdent leur santé, pour accumuler de l'argent
Ensuite, ils perdent de l'argent pour retrouver leur santé !
Et à force de penser anxieusement au futur, ils oublient le présent,
de telle sorte qu'ils finissent par non–vivre et le présent et le futur;
Ils vivent comme s'ils n'allaient jamais mourir
Et meurent comme s'ils n'avaient jamais vécus. »