Sanskritist wannabe

David Sye

2012-02-09T20:53:00.002+01:00

I found this interview with yoga teacher David Sye; and it's so inspirational. The philosophy he stands by may take other forms than the one he uses, but it's so nice to see a yoga teacher full of life, humble and happy.

Clarification

2012-02-06T23:26:00.005+01:00

I found this extract from a David Goodman interview on Ramana Maharshi. He is explaining the difference between the Maharshi's Self-Inquiry method and more classical methods of meditation (like you may find in Yoga for instance). Very interesting indeed!

I find this to be a very astute technique. In all spiritual traditions you want to stop the mind in order to realize you are not the ego. In some Indian traditions (including the one to which Ramana Maharshi belongs, the Advaita Vedanta), that which is beyond the ego, the Reality, is often called Self. Now this is highly disturbing, because you need to get rid of the "little"/"personal" self and merge in the real Self which is actually Brahman (the ultimate principle). Personally it doesn't really suit me since it is all to subjective (like in grammar) and.. personal:)
The Buddha was quite bright in denying the existence of self altogether. You may feel there is an "I", but upon analysis, you realize there is no such thing, and this is a great relief actually.
Ramana Maharshi's method is a very interesting one none the less because it engages the practitioner to always be with the sense of "I". It basically indulges the ego, and comforts it (whereas in Buddhism, the ego gets all defensive because of its negation). But as you follow it with your attention, you realize there's no such thing, or should I say, the little "I", disappears and lets you experience the big "I" which has nothing to do with the ego whatsoever.
Maharshi: follow the I all the way through until it finally dissolves.
Buddha: Analyse the mind scrupulously and you'll see there's no such thing as "I".

"Sri Ramana had a very appropriate analogy for this process. Imagine that you have a bull, and that you keep it in a stable. If you leave the door open, the bull will wander out, looking for food. It may find food, but a lot of the time it will get into trouble by grazing in cultivated fields. This is an Indian story. Here, there are no boundary fences, so cattle can wander anywhere in search of food. The owners of the fields our bull wanders into will beat it with sticks and throw stones at it to chase it away, but it will come back again and again, and suffer repeatedly, because it doesn’t understand the notion of field boundaries. It is just programmed to look for food and to eat it wherever it finds something edible.

The bull is the mind, the stable is the Self where it arises and to where it returns, and the grazing in the fields represents the mind’s painful addiction to seeking pleasure in outside objects. Sri Ramana said that most mind-control techniques forcibly restrain the bull to stop it from moving around but they don’t do anything about the bull’s fundamental desire to wander and get itself into trouble. You can tie up the mind temporarily with japa (repetition of sacred names) or pranayama (breath control), but when these restraints are loosened, the mind just wanders off again, gets involved in more mischief and suffers again. You can tie up a bull, but it won’t like it. You will just end up with an angry, cantankerous bull that will probably be looking for a chance to commit some act of violence on you.

Sri Ramana likened self-enquiry to holding a bunch of fresh grass under the bull’s nose. As the bull approaches it, you move away in the direction of the stable door and the bull follows you. You lead it back into the stable, and it voluntarily follows you because it wants the pleasure of eating the grass that you are holding in front of it. Once it is inside the stable, you allow it to eat the abundant grass that is always stored there. In this way you train it to stay home. The door of the stable is always left open, and the bull is free to leave and roam about at any time. There is no punishment or restraint. The bull will go out repeatedly, because it is the nature of such animals to wander in search of food, but every time you notice that your bull–mind has wandered out, tempt it back into its stable with the same technique. Don’t try to beat it into submission or you may be attacked, and don’t try to solve the problem forcibly by locking it up. Sooner or later even the dimmest of bulls will understand that, since there is a perpetual supply of tasty food in the stable, there is no point wandering around outside, because that always leads to suffering and punishments. Even though the stable door is always open, the bull will eventually stay inside and enjoy the food that is always there."

On twisted minds

2012-01-27T11:58:00.011+01:00

I am always taken aback by the way we people tend to loose our common sense when we get too much into interesting philosophies (like the non-dualist ones, or thos that proclaim there are two realities the absolute one and the relative etc). At some point we actually get to accept things that "normal" people whith their "normal" way of thinking would not. And we think this is very spiritual and elevated and that the others are delving in the dark waters of samsara, ignorance.
Let me give an example.
Some will say that when one is enlightened or reached some spiritual peak, they see the intricacies of reality, and they see for instance that killing in fact is not killing (Bhagavad-gita) and that harm isn't really harm and that basically everything can be done if one has this sort of perception. "Spiritual" masters, like the famous mahasiddhas, who pretended they were insane, drank alcohol, copulated with women of any social status etc. in order to prove that all this is relative thinking, that ordinary people are submitted to rules because they don't have the enlightened point of view on reality. Being Enlightened (or almost) allows you to do anything because you are above duality, beyond "good" and "evil".
Of course, there will be those "masters" who will say "Just because I'm allowed to do anything, it doesn't mean that i need them ", but then of course they do it anyway. Or if they don't, you realize it's not because they have this transcendental understanding, but because they're indoctrinated by their religion!!
This is highly fascinating a study, a pity it brings so much suffering to the ones around.
Like the Dalai Lama said (as reported by Martine Batchelor here) - please watch it!:) )at some point when he found out about the abuses some Tibetan masters had done, "Well, if they're so Enlightened, and gone beyond good and evil, why don't they eat shit and drink pee? Why is it the first thing they do is drink alcohol and sexually abuse women (beautiful women mind you!!! apparently, even in a transcendental state, enlightened men won't be attracted to unattractive females, sorry!) who try to follow their teachings?".
I totally agree! Why?
Because they are NOT enlightened and didn't understand anything that's really essential.
Look at Ramana Maharshi, Anthony de Mello and Eckhart Tolle : would they abuse women you think? Would they pretend they detain some secret, higher knowledge? No. Of course not.
After his enlightenment, Eckhart Tolle said he realised nothing he could ever obtain would ever add whatsoever to what he already had!
And did you notice the wonderful flow of freedom current that infuse their writing? How you get uplifted from them? Do you get that from Chogyam Thrungpa?
NO. Of course the latter is fascinating. But that's not the real deal as far as i'm concerned.
So you've got these great figures, Thrungpa, Sogyal Rimpoche, Karlfried Dürckheim, Krishnamurti who said these wonderful things and who ended up embodying the opposite of their teaching when they got close to their death or who created suffering because of their uncontrolled sexual drives.
I won't be bothered with them.
Give me Ramana, Tolle, Ma ANanda Moyi, Dipa ma, Mr and Mrs Batchelor, Munindra, they "will do" more than enough.
In Romanian we have a saying: "you should do what the priest says not what he does!" and it's so rooted in our psyché that we take this for a normal condition. And of course they justify this by the fact that they have some divine spirit with them which manifest irrespective of how the priest is! And People actually buy into it.

Anyway, let me get back to my original point. So "ordinary" people with "ordinary" vision get to understand intellectually how things on an ultimate level and go and apply that "understanding" to our "relative"/"ordinary" level. This is what allows them to accept that one can be an "enlightened" being and still abuse people or illicit substances. This reminds me of a point Stoppard made in his play "Jumpers" (excellent play!!!) that you can get a smart person to believe anything, you can sell a huge white canvas with a black dot in the center for an outrageous price just by explaining the intricacies of the philosophy behind the black point, whereas to a "stupid", uneducated human being you cannot, because they will still see a black dot on a white canvas (and not the origin of the universe before it embodied its myriad of potentialities).
I really feel this is what goes on within the spiritual market as well.
I say cling on common sense. Best protection ever.

See also Stephen Batchelor here.

Yoga dangers - NY times article

2012-01-21T20:31:00.001+01:00

On a cold Saturday in early 2009, Glenn Black, a yoga teacher of nearly four decades, whose devoted clientele includes a number of celebrities and prominent gurus, was giving a master class at Sankalpah Yoga in Manhattan. Black is, in many ways, a classic yogi: he studied in Pune, India, at the institute founded by the legendary B. K. S. Iyengar, and spent years in solitude and meditation. He now lives in Rhinebeck, N.Y., and often teaches at the nearby Omega Institute, a New Age emporium spread over nearly 200 acres of woods and gardens. He is known for his rigor and his down-to-earth style. But this was not why I sought him out: Black, I’d been told, was the person to speak with if you wanted to know not about the virtues of yoga but rather about the damage it could do. Many of his regular clients came to him for bodywork or rehabilitation following yoga injuries. This was the situation I found myself in. In my 30s, I had somehow managed to rupture a disk in my lower back and found I could prevent bouts of pain with a selection of yoga postures and abdominal exercises. Then, in 2007, while doing the extended-side-angle pose, a posture hailed as a cure for many diseases, my back gave way. With it went my belief, naïve in retrospect, that yoga was a source only of healing and never harm.

At Sankalpah Yoga, the room was packed; roughly half the students were said to be teachers themselves. Black walked around the room, joking and talking. “Is this yoga?” he asked as we sweated through a pose that seemed to demand superhuman endurance. “It is if you’re paying attention.” His approach was almost free-form: he made us hold poses for a long time but taught no inversions and few classical postures. Throughout the class, he urged us to pay attention to the thresholds of pain. “I make it as hard as possible,” he told the group. “It’s up to you to make it easy on yourself.” He drove his point home with a cautionary tale. In India, he recalled, a yogi came to study at Iyengar’s school and threw himself into a spinal twist. Black said he watched in disbelief as three of the man’s ribs gave way — pop, pop, pop.

After class, I asked Black about his approach to teaching yoga — the emphasis on holding only a few simple poses, the absence of common inversions like headstands and shoulder stands. He gave me the kind of answer you’d expect from any yoga teacher: that awareness is more important than rushing through a series of postures just to say you’d done them. But then he said something more radical. Black has come to believe that “the vast majority of people” should give up yoga altogether. It’s simply too likely to cause harm.

Not just students but celebrated teachers too, Black said, injure themselves in droves because most have underlying physical weaknesses or problems that make serious injury all but inevitable. Instead of doing yoga, “they need to be doing a specific range of motions for articulation, for organ condition,” he said, to strengthen weak parts of the body. “Yoga is for people in good physical condition. Or it can be used therapeutically. It’s controversial to say, but it really shouldn’t be used for a general class.”

Black seemingly reconciles the dangers of yoga with his own teaching of it by working hard at knowing when a student “shouldn’t do something — the shoulder stand, the headstand or putting any weight on the cervical vertebrae.” Though he studied with Shmuel Tatz, a legendary Manhattan-based physical therapist who devised a method of massage and alignment for actors and dancers, he acknowledges that he has no formal training for determining which poses are good for a student and which may be problematic. What he does have, he says, is “a ton of experience.”

“To come to New York and do a class with people who have many problems and say, ‘O.K., we’re going to do this sequence of poses today’ — it just doesn’t work.”

According to Black, a number of factors have converged to heighten the risk of practicing yoga. The biggest is the demographic shift in those who study it. Indian practitioners of yoga typically squatted and sat cross-legged in daily life, and yoga poses, or asanas, were an outgrowth of these postures. Now urbanites who sit in chairs all day walk into a studio a couple of times a week and strain to twist themselves into ever-more-difficult postures despite their lack of flexibility and other physical problems. Many come to yoga as a gentle alternative to vigorous sports or for rehabilitation for injuries. But yoga’s exploding popularity — the number of Americans doing yoga has risen from about 4 million in 2001 to what some estimate to be as many as 20 million in 2011 — means that there is now an abundance of studios where many teachers lack the deeper training necessary to recognize when students are headed toward injury. “Today many schools of yoga are just about pushing people,” Black said. “You can’t believe what’s going on — teachers jumping on people, pushing and pulling and saying, ‘You should be able to do this by now.’ It has to do with their egos.”

When yoga teachers come to him for bodywork after suffering major traumas, Black tells them, “Don’t do yoga.”

“They look at me like I’m crazy,” he goes on to say. “And I know if they continue, they won’t be able to take it.” I asked him about the worst injuries he’d seen. He spoke of well-known yoga teachers doing such basic poses as downward-facing dog, in which the body forms an inverted V, so strenuously that they tore Achilles tendons. “It’s ego,” he said. “The whole point of yoga is to get rid of ego.” He said he had seen some “pretty gruesome hips.” “One of the biggest teachers in America had zero movement in her hip joints,” Black told me. “The sockets had become so degenerated that she had to have hip replacements.” I asked if she still taught. “Oh, yeah,” Black replied. “There are other yoga teachers that have such bad backs they have to lie down to teach. I’d be so embarrassed.”

Among devotees, from gurus to acolytes forever carrying their rolled-up mats, yoga is described as a nearly miraculous agent of renewal and healing. They celebrate its abilities to calm, cure, energize and strengthen. And much of this appears to be true: yoga can lower your blood pressure, make chemicals that act as antidepressants, even improve your sex life. But the yoga community long remained silent about its potential to inflict blinding pain. Jagannath G. Gune, who helped revive yoga for the modern era, made no allusion to injuries in his journal Yoga Mimansa or his 1931 book “Asanas.” Indra Devi avoided the issue in her 1953 best seller “Forever Young, Forever Healthy,” as did B. K. S. Iyengar in his seminal “Light on Yoga,” published in 1965. Reassurances about yoga’s safety also make regular appearances in the how-to books of such yogis as Swami Sivananda, K. Pattabhi Jois and Bikram Choudhury. “Real yoga is as safe as mother’s milk,” declared Swami Gitananda, a guru who made 10 world tours and founded ashrams on several continents.

But a growing body of medical evidence supports Black’s contention that, for many people, a number of commonly taught yoga poses are inherently risky. The first reports of yoga injuries appeared decades ago, published in some of the world’s most respected journals — among them, Neurology, The British Medical Journal and The Journal of the American Medical Association. The problems ranged from relatively mild injuries to permanent disabilities. In one case, a male college student, after more than a year of doing yoga, decided to intensify his practice. He would sit upright on his heels in a kneeling position known as vajrasana for hours a day, chanting for world peace. Soon he was experiencing difficulty walking, running and climbing stairs.

Doctors traced the problem to an unresponsive nerve, a peripheral branch of the sciatic, which runs from the lower spine through the buttocks and down the legs. Sitting in vajrasana deprived the branch that runs below the knee of oxygen, deadening the nerve. Once the student gave up the pose, he improved rapidly. Clinicians recorded a number of similar cases and the condition even got its own name: “yoga foot drop.”

More troubling reports followed. In 1972 a prominent Oxford neurophysiologist, W. Ritchie Russell, published an article in The British Medical Journal arguing that, while rare, some yoga postures threatened to cause strokes even in relatively young, healthy people. Russell found that brain injuries arose not only from direct trauma to the head but also from quick movements or excessive extensions of the neck, such as occur in whiplash — or certain yoga poses. Normally, the neck can stretch backward 75 degrees, forward 40 degrees and sideways 45 degrees, and it can rotate on its axis about 50 degrees. Yoga practitioners typically move the vertebrae much farther. An intermediate student can easily turn his or her neck 90 degrees — nearly twice the normal rotation.

Hyperflexion of the neck was encouraged by experienced practitioners. Iyengar emphasized that in cobra pose, the head should arch “as far back as possible” and insisted that in the shoulder stand, in which the chin is tucked deep in the chest, the trunk and head forming a right angle, “the body should be in one straight line, perpendicular to the floor.” He called the pose, said to stimulate the thyroid, “one of the greatest boons conferred on humanity by our ancient sages.”

Extreme motions of the head and neck, Russell warned, could wound the vertebral arteries, producing clots, swelling and constriction, and eventually wreak havoc in the brain. The basilar artery, which arises from the union of the two vertebral arteries and forms a wide conduit at the base of the brain, was of particular concern. It feeds such structures as the pons (which plays a role in respiration), the cerebellum (which coordinates the muscles), the occipital lobe of the outer brain (which turns eye impulses into images) and the thalamus (which relays sensory messages to the outer brain). Reductions in blood flow to the basilar artery are known to produce a variety of strokes. These rarely affect language and conscious thinking (often said to be located in the frontal cortex) but can severely damage the body’s core machinery and sometimes be fatal. The majority of patients suffering such a stroke do recover most functions. But in some cases headaches, imbalance, dizziness and difficulty in making fine movements persist for years.

Russell also worried that when strokes hit yoga practitioners, doctors might fail to trace their cause. The cerebral damage, he wrote, “may be delayed, perhaps to appear during the night following, and this delay of some hours distracts attention from the earlier precipitating factor.”

In 1973, a year after Russell’s paper was published, Willibald Nagler, a renowned authority on spinal rehabilitation at Cornell University Medical College, published a paper on a strange case. A healthy woman of 28 suffered a stroke while doing a yoga position known as the wheel or upward bow, in which the practitioner lies on her back, then lifts her body into a semicircular arc, balancing on hands and feet. An intermediate stage often involves raising the trunk and resting the crown of the head on the floor. While balanced on her head, her neck bent far backward, the woman “suddenly felt a severe throbbing headache.” She had difficulty getting up, and when helped into a standing position, was unable to walk without assistance. The woman was rushed to the hospital. She had no sensation on the right side of her body; her left arm and leg responded poorly to her commands. Her eyes kept glancing involuntarily to the left. And the left side of her face showed a contracted pupil, a drooping upper eyelid and a rising lower lid — a cluster of symptoms known as Horner’s syndrome. Nagler reported that the woman also had a tendency to fall to the left.

Her doctors found that the woman’s left vertebral artery, which runs between the first two cervical vertebrae, had narrowed considerably and that the arteries feeding her cerebellum had undergone severe displacement. Given the lack of advanced imaging technologies at the time, an exploratory operation was conducted to get a clearer sense of her injuries. The surgeons who opened her skull found that the left hemisphere of her cerebellum suffered a major failure of blood supply that resulted in much dead tissue and that the site was seeped in secondary hemorrhages.

The patient began an intensive program of rehabilitation. Two years later, she was able to walk, Nagler reported, “with [a] broad-based gait.” But her left arm continued to wander and her left eye continued to show Horner’s syndrome. Nagler concluded that such injuries appeared to be rare but served as a warning about the hazards of “forceful hyperextension of the neck.” He urged caution in recommending such postures, particularly to individuals of middle age.

The experience of Nagler’s patient was not an isolated incident. A few years later, a 25-year-old man was rushed to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, in Chicago, complaining of blurred vision, difficulty swallowing and controlling the left side of his body. Steven H. Hanus, a medical student at the time, became interested in the case and worked with the chairman of the neurology department to determine the cause (he later published the results with several colleagues). The patient had been in excellent health, practicing yoga every morning for a year and a half. His routine included spinal twists in which he rotated his head far to the left and far to the right. Then he would do a shoulder stand with his neck “maximally flexed against the bare floor,” just as Iyengar had instructed, remaining in the inversion for about five minutes. A series of bruises ran down the man’s lower neck, which, the team wrote in The Archives of Neurology, “resulted from repeated contact with the hard floor surface on which he did yoga exercises.” These were a sign of neck trauma. Diagnostic tests revealed blockages of the left vertebral artery between the c2 and c3 vertebrae; the blood vessel there had suffered “total or nearly complete occlusion” — in other words, no blood could get through to the brain.

Two months after his attack, and after much physical therapy, the man was able to walk with a cane. But, the team reported, he “continued to have pronounced difficulty performing fine movements with his left hand.” Hanus and his colleagues concluded that the young man’s condition represented a new kind of danger. Healthy individuals could seriously damage their vertebral arteries, they warned, “by neck movements that exceed physiological tolerance.” Yoga, they stressed, “should be considered as a possible precipitating event.” In its report, the Northwestern team cited not only Nagler’s account of his female patient but also Russell’s early warning. Concern about yoga’s safety began to ripple through the medical establishment.

These cases may seem exceedingly rare, but surveys by the Consumer Product Safety Commission showed that the number of emergency-room admissions related to yoga, after years of slow increases, was rising quickly. They went from 13 in 2000 to 20 in 2001. Then they more than doubled to 46 in 2002. These surveys rely on sampling rather than exhaustive reporting — they reveal trends rather than totals — but the spike was nonetheless statistically significant. Only a fraction of the injured visit hospital emergency rooms. Many of those suffering from less serious yoga injuries go to family doctors, chiropractors and various kinds of therapists.

Around this time, stories of yoga-induced injuries began to appear in the media. The Times reported that health professionals found that the penetrating heat of Bikram yoga, for example, could raise the risk of overstretching, muscle damage and torn cartilage. One specialist noted that ligaments — the tough bands of fiber that connect bones or cartilage at a joint — failed to regain their shape once stretched out, raising the risk of strains, sprains and dislocations.

In 2009, a New York City team based at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons published an ambitious worldwide survey of yoga teachers, therapists and doctors. The answers to the survey’s central question — What were the most serious yoga-related injuries (disabling and/or of long duration) they had seen? — revealed that the largest number of injuries (231) centered on the lower back. The other main sites were, in declining order of prevalence: the shoulder (219), the knee (174) and the neck (110). Then came stroke. The respondents noted four cases in which yoga’s extreme bending and contortions resulted in some degree of brain damage. The numbers weren’t alarming but the acknowledgment of risk — nearly four decades after Russell first issued his warning — pointed to a decided shift in the perception of the dangers yoga posed.

In recent years, reformers in the yoga community have begun to address the issue of yoga-induced damage. In a 2003 article in Yoga Journal, Carol Krucoff — a yoga instructor and therapist who works at the Integrative Medicine center at Duke University in North Carolina — revealed her own struggles. She told of being filmed one day for national television and after being urged to do more, lifting one foot, grabbing her big toe and stretching her leg into the extended-hand-to-big-toe pose. As her leg straightened, she felt a sickening pop in her hamstring. The next day, she could barely walk. Krucoff needed physical therapy and a year of recovery before she could fully extend her leg again. The editor of Yoga Journal, Kaitlin Quistgaard, described reinjuring a torn rotator cuff in a yoga class. “I’ve experienced how yoga can heal,” she wrote. “But I’ve also experienced how yoga can hurt — and I’ve heard the same from plenty of other yogis.”

One of the most vocal reformers is Roger Cole, an Iyengar teacher with degrees in psychology from Stanford and the University of California, San Francisco. Cole has written extensively for Yoga Journal and speaks on yoga safety to the American College of Sports Medicine. In one column, Cole discussed the practice of reducing neck bending in a shoulder stand by lifting the shoulders on a stack of folded blankets and letting the head fall below it. The modification eases the angle between the head and the torso, from 90 degrees to perhaps 110 degrees. Cole ticked off the dangers of doing an unmodified shoulder stand: muscle strains, overstretched ligaments and cervical-disk injuries.

But modifications are not always the solution. Timothy McCall, a physician who is the medical editor of Yoga Journal, called the headstand too dangerous for general yoga classes. His warning was based partly on his own experience. He found that doing the headstand led to thoracic outlet syndrome, a condition that arises from the compression of nerves passing from the neck into the arms, causing tingling in his right hand as well as sporadic numbness. McCall stopped doing the pose, and his symptoms went away. Later, he noted that the inversion could produce other injuries, including degenerative arthritis of the cervical spine and retinal tears (a result of the increased eye pressure caused by the pose). “Unfortunately,” McCall concluded, “the negative effects of headstand can be insidious.”

Almost a year after I first met Glenn Black at his master class in Manhattan, I received an e-mail from him telling me that he had undergone spinal surgery. “It was a success,” he wrote. “Recovery is slow and painful. Call if you like.”

The injury, Black said, had its origins in four decades of extreme backbends and twists. He had developed spinal stenosis — a serious condition in which the openings between vertebrae begin to narrow, compressing spinal nerves and causing excruciating pain. Black said that he felt the tenderness start 20 years ago when he was coming out of such poses as the plow and the shoulder stand. Two years ago, the pain became extreme. One surgeon said that without treatment, he would eventually be unable to walk. The surgery took five hours, fusing together several lumbar vertebrae. He would eventually be fine but was under surgeon’s orders to reduce strain on his lower back. His range of motion would never be the same.

Black is one of the most careful yoga practitioners I know. When I first spoke to him, he said he had never injured himself doing yoga or, as far as he knew, been responsible for harming any of his students. I asked him if his recent injury could have been congenital or related to aging. No, he said. It was yoga. “You have to get a different perspective to see if what you’re doing is going to eventually be bad for you.”

Black recently took that message to a conference at the Omega Institute, his feelings on the subject deepened by his recent operation. But his warnings seemed to fall on deaf ears. “I was a little more emphatic than usual,” he recalled. “My message was that ‘Asana is not a panacea or a cure-all. In fact, if you do it with ego or obsession, you’ll end up causing problems.’ A lot of people don’t like to hear that.”

This article is adapted from “The Science of Yoga: The Risks and Rewards,” by William J. Broad, to be published next month by Simon & Schuster. Broad is a senior science writer at The Times.

Editor: Sheila Glaser

Short video

2012-01-15T09:55:00.002+01:00

I found this short video about yogic powers, a conversation between J. Mallinson and Chauntra Baba. This comes probably from the TV documentary Mallinson did a few years ago. (?)
If someone has an idea on how one could watch it, PLEASE share!!! I'm dying to see it!

Nodurile Lunii

2011-11-21T12:13:00.002+01:00

Roman apolitic, academic si esoteric!
de Lavinia Barlogeanu

Aici articol din observator cultural.

Lansarea are loc la Tîrgul de Carte Gaudeamus, sîmbătă, 26 noiembrie, la ora 12.30. Impreuna cu autoarea, Carmen Muşat şi Caius Dobrescu

Trika

2011-09-20T15:52:00.002+02:00

I found this article written by my former teacher on the contributions of the Trika philosophy to the problem of "salvation" (in the Indian sense of the word).
Very interesting indeed!

Alexandra David-Néel

2011-06-22T20:15:00.002+02:00

I wish I had her mind when I'm 99 or 100 years old!
here.

Doing Time, Doing Vipassana

2011-06-13T19:24:00.001+02:00

An excellent documentary on the impact of meditation in an Indian prison.

Cancer cure - the Burzynski case

2011-06-13T16:34:00.000+02:00

Film here.
His clinic, here.

Amongst White Clouds

2011-04-08T01:07:00.001+02:00

A documentary filmed in China amongst Buddhist Hermits.

Guidebook to Dreamland(s)

2011-04-07T11:54:00.003+02:00

You're probably familiar with James Hilton's novel Lost Horizon and his invention of Shangri-La, a hidden place situated somewhere in the Himalayas in which spirituality reigns, time does not lead to decay, paradisiac surroundings, marvelous people etc. (the inspiration of which is probably Shambala).
Well, a very astute and knowledgeable traveller, Michael Buckley, wrote a guide to getting to the possible locations of Shangri-La.:) I have not yet read the book, but will do so the minute I get my hands on it. It does seem to be a great read.
In the meantime, I found this nice interview with the author about the book.

PS: for an English explanation of Shambala, here.

Conversations, articles, reviews

2011-04-06T12:57:00.008+02:00

I found some very interesting interviews that tackle certain issues related to Yoga and Yoga in its modern context. I do recommend them to those interested in the topic.
The first one is an interview with David G White (I'm a real fan of his books; here is a review of his Sinister Yogis), the other two interviews (here and here) are with Mark Singleton (another good author). Finally, and interesting article about the "Oprah-fication of Patanjali".

Hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

Wudang Shan

2011-03-09T15:22:00.004+01:00

A documentary called "The Master of Wudangshan" (French) about daoism, martial arts, t'ai chi. Poor quality unfortunately but interesting nonetheless.

Dilgo Khyentse Rimpoche

2011-01-23T16:33:00.001+01:00

A documentary in 5 parts on this great master narrated by Richard Gere, here.

Short French tv show on alchemy

2011-01-20T23:24:00.001+01:00

Part 1.
Part 2.

excellent interview

2011-01-18T20:37:00.004+01:00

I found this very interesting interview with a Western practitionner of Buddhism (former Tantric turned Theravada)in which he explains his practice, his personal journey (inner and outer).
part one.
part two.
part three.

3 documentaries

2011-01-15T14:57:00.003+01:00

One on the Mustang (Nepal) and its art.
Another on Zhang Zhung and Bön.
Finally, on a whole different note, a documentary on Shugendô and the practices of the yamabushi.

The (Self-)Healing Technology

2011-01-10T01:37:00.002+01:00

An interesting video with Gregg Braden: here.

The mystery of the Syberian Mummy

2010-12-24T16:32:00.005+01:00

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?

2010-10-29T22:04:00.007+02:00

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!

2010-10-24T20:16:00.002+02:00

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

Radio interview with M. Ricard

2010-10-14T00:21:00.002+02:00

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

Interviews!

2010-10-13T23:09:00.006+02:00

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

2010-10-03T14:51:00.007+02:00

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?

2010-09-09T23:16:00.011+02:00

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

2010-08-29T15:55:00.001+02:00

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....

2010-08-27T01:28:00.004+02:00

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

2010-08-26T22:20:00.008+02:00

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.

2010-08-23T20:31:00.004+02:00

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

Ani Choying Drolma

2010-08-18T14:05:00.005+02:00

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

2010-08-18T00:44:00.003+02:00

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

2010-08-17T23:17:00.009+02:00

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

2010-08-07T20:07:00.001+02:00

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

Tenzin Palmo

2010-07-30T22:54:00.010+02:00

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

2010-07-25T01:10:00.000+02:00

Here!

Mahendra Trivedi

2010-07-24T22:45:00.002+02:00

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

Birthday Gift

2010-07-15T22:27:00.007+02:00

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

2010-05-04T09:29:00.005+02:00

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

2010-05-01T22:07:00.001+02:00

Prahlad Jani

Things Europe Never Invented

2010-05-01T10:07:00.000+02:00

Ancient Chinese inventions documentary

Buddha Boy

2010-05-01T09:15:00.000+02:00

Documentary

Fakir

2010-04-27T09:21:00.000+02:00

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

Immoderation and excessiveness

2010-04-26T13:26:00.004+02:00

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

2010-04-14T12:24:00.006+02:00

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

2010-04-06T11:17:00.008+02:00

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

2010-04-03T20:07:00.004+02:00

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

2010-03-24T23:22:00.001+01:00

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

On the intricacies of Qigong

2010-03-23T18:33:00.006+01:00

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...

2010-03-19T17:35:00.014+01:00

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

2010-03-08T15:26:00.005+01:00

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!

2010-03-07T13:48:00.000+01:00

Here.

On "Yoga"

2010-03-06T11:50:00.007+01:00

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

2010-03-05T10:38:00.010+01:00

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

2010-02-09T19:09:00.000+01:00

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

Dalai Lama

2010-01-28T17:54:00.005+01:00

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. »

Juifs pour Jésus

2009-12-21T14:12:00.002+01:00

Am descoperit astazi o asociatie fondata in California in 1973 de evrei convertiti la crestinism ("evrei mesianici"). Unii dintre ei spun ca sunt si evrei si crestini in acelasi timp, si incearca sa explice celorlati "frati" ca Isus este Mesia pe care-l asteaptau.
L-a inceput chestiunea m-a entuziasmat, apoi am avut ceva dubii. Am impresia ca vor sa-L "recupereze" pe Isus si evangheliile si sa le transforme intr-o "juiverie". Chiar daca radacinile crestinilor se afla in traditia iudaica, multe chestiuni au fost transformate pe parcurs: doar de asta ii spunem Crestinism si nu Iudaism.
In fine, pana la urma gasesc totusi ca (atat cat sunt capabila sa-mi dau seama in acest moment) intentia lor nu este una daunatoare dimpotriva. Cred ca incearca sa stabileasca pasarele cu crestinii si cu musulmanii.
Situl asociatiei: http://www.juifspourjesus.org/
Un interviu foarte instructiv. http://www.zebuzztv.com/?item=521&lien=rechrpo

Despre imaginile de cult

2009-12-05T18:43:00.003+01:00

Cateva pasaje scurte despre semnificatia imaginilor (=diferitilor zei) in hinduism (tantrism) : B. Bhattacharya - World of Tantra:

"Each aspirant under a threat of spiritual and emotional pressure creates his own deity and prostrates before the ideal so crystallised (in the image). [...]
As many individuals, as many individual ideas; as many ideas, as many ideals; as many ideals, as many dhyāna ; as many dhyāna, as many murtis (images). Images are not idols. Deprived of the eternal values that are attributes of the divine presence, idols are mere lumps that man creates to raise up on a false pedestal. [...]
Tantric images differ from mood to mood, from urge to urge, need to need; even from occasion to occasion. From the fierce forms of Chāmuṇḍā, Kāli and Nīla Sarasvatī to the milder forms of Lakṣmī, Sāradā and Prajñā-Pāramitā; from Viṣṇu, the sun-god, to Varuṇa, the water-god, and Śiva, the quiet static material image of absolute neutrality, every image is imbued with a subjective ideal, which if imaged successfully, holds the devotee's trying attention, and brings about the coveted concentration. This is just a method of sitting the mind free of all inhibited pre-thoughts and neutralising the world of the senses. [...]
This is the underlying secret of the many images of the tantriks, of the many ideals that aspirants nurse and adore. Each image represents an aspirant's soul-hunger concealed into a tangible form, so that he can establish a personal and rational bond between the outer form and the inner hunger.
[...] even the lover who wants to reach the divine liberation, identification of the absolute type, must determine the kind of love that appeals to him the most; responds to his inner personality the most. There need never be any hesitation in accepting that which fits, suits and answers an inner hunger."

Cateva puncte de reper: in hinduism (si budism), imaginile, statuetele ce reprezinta zeitati sunt utilizate ca suport de meditatii si in ritual. Cel putin in tantrism, prin practica sa, adeptul incerca sa se indentifice cu zeitatea aleasa.

"Concertul"

2009-11-09T10:16:00.003+01:00

Un scurt mesaj pentru a va incita sa mergeti sa vedeti filmul "Concertul"("Le concert") de Radu Mihaileanu. Este absolut fantastic. Mai ales (dar chiar daca nu) sunteti iubitori de muzica clasica. Si Ceaikovski.

Lama Ole Nydahl

2009-10-30T23:52:00.002+01:00

Ole Nydahl este un lama occidental originar din Danemarca ce apartine traditiei Karma Kagyu. Expunerile sale despre budism mi se par foarte interesante si clare.
Mahamudra, meditatie, karma, love & relationships. Enjoy!

Strange

2009-10-25T21:20:00.003+01:00

I found this article about a village in China called Guizhou in which really strange rituals conducted by Feng Shui Masters take place from time to time. I had no idea they dealt with this kind of activities.

Am gasit poza!

2009-10-23T17:31:00.004+02:00

Astazi am gasit si despre cine este vorba: Vajrakilaya, zeitate fioroasa ce tine in mana un kila sau p'urba, pumnal piramidal care distruge obstacolele. Face parte din yidam-si.

Au pays du Dragon: arts sacrés du Bhoutan

2009-10-23T17:03:00.007+02:00

Acesta este numele expozitiei pe care am fost sa o vad astazi la musée Guimet. O splendoare!
Inceputul expozitiei este dat de niste fotografii facute de Matthieu Ricard. Prima dintre ele prezinta cadrul: un peisaj magnific din Himalaya, un curs de apa intre doua vai ce se pierde undeva intr-un munte imens care domina compozitia. Peisaj arid, culori pamantii plus un albastru pal ce tine loc de cer.
Apoi expozitia in sine e destul de bogata cu multe piese interesante: obiecte rituale, sculpturi, thankasuri, mandalasuri. Personajele variaza si ele de la Buddha Shakyamuni pana la Buddha Mayitreya trecand pe la Padmasambhava, Avalokiteshvara, Vajrasattva, Vairocana si alti boddisattva plus niste persoanje specifice Butanului dar al caror nume imi scapa in acest moment.
thankasurile si mandalasurile nu erau protejate de nici un fel de vitrina asa ca am putut admira in voie desenele lor magnifice cu toate detaliile lor (very impressive!). Si bineinteles ca de fiecare data cand ma duc la o expozitie, mi-am ales si de data asta "obiectul-pe-care-l-asi-lua-cu-mine". Imi e greu sa spun daca era vorba de un pumnal ritual sau de o sculptura in sine, (si evident ca nu-mi mai aduc aminte ce scria pe fisa), in orice caz, era o chestiune in forma de pumnal gros infipt intr-un cadru in forma de paralelipiped si pe care era desenat un Buddha sau un personaj in pozitie de meditatie (obiectul pare sa fie detasabil), iar in loc de maner are ceva zeitate pe el cu multe maini care tine si ea in fata un pumnal si care in spatele celorlalte pereche de maini are aripi! (semana putin cu genul de vulturi pe care-i deseneaza amerindienii...). E prima oara cand am vazut un asfel de obiect. Pentru a vedea o parte din obiect, aici este o mica animatie cu cateva din piesele prezente. Este vorba chiar de ultima imagine - nu e greu sa o recunoasteti e cea mai ciudata de-acolo:) Culoare neagra (inafara de fata care e galbena), o zeitate care se uita bizar si tine un cutit ritual in mana.
Partea interesanta este ca cea care s-a ocupat de expozitie a fost Nathalie Bazin pe care am avut prilejul sa o ascult acum un an jumate la zilele Nepalului organizate la Pagoda. A tinut o conferinta despre piesele budiste nepaleze, in special din Mustang. Atat de interesant mi s-a parut ce spunea si de fascinant incat atunci mi-am spus ca trebuie sa fac ceva sa-mi schimb aria de interes (eram la sfarsitul masterului 2 de engleza) si sa virez spre genul acesta de subiect:).
Asa ca intr-o oarecare masura ii datorez faptul ca m-am "reorientat".
"Fun" fact: stiati ca dorje-ul (sau vajra) este in mod normal sculptat in bucati de meteorit?! Am aflat astazi acest lucru uitandu-ma pe un catalog. Dar cica nu s-au facut studii serioase in sensul asta. Asta pretind tibetanii.

Chindia

2009-10-16T13:30:00.004+02:00

Un cantec pe care l-am facut si eu cu multi ani in urma la cor, compus de Alexandru Pascanu. E cam bizar sa-l vad interpretat de americani!:) Ma intreb daca dirijoarea cunoaste si altceva din muzica populara romaneasca pentru ca pe ici pe colo mi se par putin dubiose alegerile (+ plus vocea I nu se aude suficient de tare, e tot timpul acoperita de a doua si a treia). Dar in mare e faina.

Témoignage

2009-10-09T13:33:00.004+02:00

Experienta unui tanar care se pregatea sa intre in randul preotilor dar care a avut parte de o noapte "with a twist" (si ce mai twist) cu putin inainte de pasul decisiv si care i-a schimbat parcursul: Nuit magique dans la cathédrale de Chartres.

Dintr-una-ntr-alta:)

2009-10-08T18:48:00.009+02:00

Deschid o pagina pe net ca sa vad ce manipulare folosesc autoritatile pentru a prezenta vaccinul minune impotriva gripei porcine, insa se avereste ca pagina respectiva duce la alte titluri. Si evident ca nu am mai ajuns acolo unde vroiam pentru ca un altul mi-a atras atentia, si anume, un articol despre Herta Muller careia i-a fost decernat premiul Nobel de literatura. Scriitoarea facea parte din comunitatea germana din Romania inainte de a se exila in Germania in 1987, la varsta de 34 de ani.
Si evident ca subiectul cheie al operei sale este - ati ghicit - regimul ceausist, dictatura comunista. Ok.
Si ma intrebam, cum se face ca toti cei de origine romana care se intampla sa ia premii prin strainatate pentru opera lor artistica se invart tot in jurul acestui subiect? Bineinteles ca vremurile respective au afectat pe toata lumea si e normal sa fie asa, dar nu e timpul sa mergem inainte? Sa "get a grip" (or five) ?
Spun aceasta pentru ca am "ras-le-bol" ca de fiecare data cand e vorba de Romania sa-i fie asociati doar tiganii si Ceausescu. Nimeni nu vorbeste de colinde de pilda!:)
Insa cum stateam eu asa si cugetam, mi-am adus aminte de prima mea intalnire cu violenta.
Era in timpul sau imediat dupa revolutie (deci aveam vreo 4 ani jumate) si vad la televizor urmatoarea imagine: camera de filmat fixata pe un teren in ruine (cred ca era in Bucuresti) si un tip care fuge inspre aceasta strigand "Jos Ceausescu!" de mai multe ori si, cand ajunge in dreptul ei, rupe cu niste gesturi foarte bruste o fotografie de-a lui Ceasca.
Nu, nu am vazut batai, nici sange, insa ura pe care o avea acel om in ochi in timp ce facea gestul respectiv, ca sa nu mai vorbesc de ton, a fost pur si simplu monumentala. Am ramas socata. Sigur, fusesem supusa unei indoctrinari la gradinita ("Ceausescu este un erou! Datorita lui noi avem energie, curent, lumina!..." si alte traznai de genul), iar ceea ce vedeam mi se parea de o cruzime sora cu nebunia. Cum sa urasti in halul acesta un "erou"! Imi aduc aminte ca m-am revoltat si ca am spus cu voce tare lucrul asta, si nu mica-mi fu mirarea cand ai mei (parinti si bunici cred) toti erau de partea lui! Parca se intorsese lumea cu fundul in sus!
Dupa aceasta mi-au explicat evident ce si cum, dar momentele acelea au fost foarte bulversante.:) Tot atat de bulversante ca atunci cand mi-am dat seama in liceu (si mai apoi la facultate) ca, impofida a ceea ce sistemul educational m-a facut sa cred ani de-a randul, si anume, ca totul se stie, se cunoaste, inveti, aplici reguli si e ok, lucrurile stau exact pe dos. Ca exista un flou artistic ce inconjoara totul si in care fiecare isi croieste o cale asa cum il duce mintea si putinta. Si sensibilitatea. Si sigur, multi vor sa te convinga (in special in Romania, dar mai sunt si p-aici) ca varianta lor e cea viabila, buna si evidenta.
Voilà! Cele doua principale destabilizari ale vietii mele:))

L'Alchimie, Science et mystique

2009-10-07T15:27:00.003+02:00

Partea 1.
Partea 2.
Partea 3.

C'est du jamais vu!!!

Fête des peuples de l'Himalaya

2009-10-03T17:27:00.020+02:00

Astazi si maine se desfasoara festivalul populatiilor din Himalaya (de fapt 99% tibetan), manifestare despre care am mai avut prilejul sa scriu si pe care o astept in fiecare an cu mare nerabdare.
Ajung acolo pe o vreme destul de racoroasa, fara soare, in jur 12:15 si constatat cu tristete ca pierdusem un documentar intitulat "Lacul Yoginilor" care tocmai se terminase (proiectia avea loc chiar in Pagoda). Am iesit afara si m-am indreptat spre standul cu mancare:) Acolo mi-am ales un momo vegetarian si inca doua chestiuni cu legume si un ceai sarat tibetan.
Ma asez la o masa afara unde bate vantul si incep sa degust mancarea care se dovedeste a fi mult prea sarata pentru gustul meu. Pana si ceaiul, care nu este excesiv de sarat, mi se pare totusi de nebaut in aceste conditii. (In acest moment savurez un "kashmiri tchaï", care contine 6 condimente amestecate cu ceai negru dupa o reteta traditionala nepaleza --- sau cel putin asa scrie pe ambalaj:) )
Impresiile de moment sunt destul de dezamagitoare. Decalajul dintre entuziasmul debordant cu care asteptam sa vina aceste zile si ceea ce mi se arata era destul de flagrant.
Lumea nu venise in abundenta, iar in incinta pagodei unde de obicei sunt o puzderie de oameni, acum nu se aflau decat standurile de mancare, restul comerturilor fiind amenajate inafara, intr-un spatiu mult mai generos (pregatit fara indoiala pentru concertul traditional din aceasta seara). Ma ridic de la masa si decid sa dau totusi o tura pe la diversele standuri sa ma uit pe la obiectele pe care le afiseaza.
Afara incep sa se arate razele soarelui, si constant cu placere ca spatiul se mai animase intre timp.
Gasesc o multitudine de figurine, haine, thankas si alte obiecte foarte simpatice. M-am si facut cu doua medalioane foarte dragute, amandoua rotunde, unul cu desenul de pe Svayambhunath din Kathmandu, iar al doilea -foarte fin- cu doua dorje-uri incrucisate in relief.
Apoi m-am asezat pe unul din scaunele din fata scenei (de fiecare data exista si ceva reprezentatii artistice) si am asistat la o chestiune destul de speciala.
Asteptam noi (spectatorii) asa, si apare un nene, muzician, dansator etc care vine cu un soi de toba si scoate tot felul de sunete foarte frumoase si armonioase din propriul glas de rasuna intreaga poiana. (asa un volum mai rar:) ). Aflam ca ceea ce facea era de fapt un soi de invocatie care se canta intotdeauna inaintea operelor tibetane (foarte asemanatoare -ca functie, nu si stil:)- cu orice inceput al unei performante traditionale de teatru sau muzica din India) si in care se cere ajutorul sau protectia fiintelor invizibile pentru buna desfasurare a reprezentatiei.
Vocea acestui om a fost incredibila, si ne-a captivat pe toti cei care eram acolo. se stransesera oamenii de pe la toate buticurile sa vina sa vada despre ce este vorba.
Dupa acest moment a urmat o poveste. O frantuzoiaca ce facea pe povestitoarea citea textul (o poveste tibetana tradusa in franceza,cu niste puternice tente budiste dar cu un caracter eminamente popular:), "occurences" de ragete, c**, partzuri si altele) iar nenea de adineaori o acompagna la diverse instrumente traditionale. Povestioare era despre doi magarusi foarte buni prieteni care, trecand prin tot soiul de peripetii ajung sa fie luati drept cei doi lei ai zapezilor (ii vedeti pe steagul tibetan), iar de frica lor o iau la goana toate animalele carnivore, si de atunci incoace, in acea vale in care se aflau din sudul Tibetului, toata lumea trai in pace si armonie ... pana la invazia chinezilor! (asta nu era in poveste :) ).
Binedispusa dupa auzul acestei istorisiri dar cam infrigurata, m-am ridicat si am decis sa o iau la pas. Am iesit din incinta "festivalului", am luat un vélib (adica o bicicleta) si m-am dus la plimbare. Si am circulat asa mai bine de vreo doua ore jumate pana sa ajung acasa, pe un soare superb dar prin destul de mult vand si praf.
All in all, a very nice experience.

The strangest thing

2009-09-26T15:19:00.011+02:00

Ma trezesc in aceasta dimineatza si, dupa cateva activitati indispensabile, ma apuc de lucru. Dupa ceva sanskrita ma pun sa citesc dintr-o carte despre Krama (una din scolile din SK). Si citeam si luam note, si cum avansam asa, parca se tot accentua atmosfera Craciunului!!! Tot auzeam in minte colindele Madrigalului si ale lui Hrusca, pana cand chiar m-am pus sa le ascult. In timp ce ascultam mi-am pregatit ceva de mancare, si gustul mancarii mi-a evocat si el Craciunul (din cauza semintelor de brad?). In acel moment mi-am spus: "Gata! azi e Craciun!" si am decis sa-l sarbatoresc de fiecare data cand imi vine. Oricum de ani de zile nu-l mai simt de ziua lui oficiala, asa ca.. decat sa fiu dezamagita ca nu e asa cum vreau, mai bine fructific momentele acestea.

Acum ascult in continuu "Ma luai luai" de Tudor Jarda (gasesc ca e minunata) si beau "Christmas tea" pe care l-am cumparat la Londra si care evoca si el foarte bine Craciunul. Am pornit si beculetele, iar mai tarziu am de gand sa-mi procur niste "After Eight".

Dar lucrul cel mai straniu e ca texte despre SK imi evoca un astfel de context!! Pana si eu gasesc lucrul asta bizar. E drept ca sunt niste elemente in el care aduc a Crestinism, dar nu cred ca de aici mi se trage. Poate de anul trecut, cand iar ma simteam de Craciun prin noiembrie, si in timp ce lucram la sanskrita pentru cursuri, ascultam colinde si mancam ciocolata cu menta.

L'oubli de l'Inde

2009-09-20T23:48:00.009+02:00

sau "Amnezia filozofica" cum o numeste Roger Pol-Droit. O carte despre care mi s-a povestit destul de mult si pe care de-abia acum cateva zile am reusit sa pun mana si ochii. E intr-adevar foarte interesanta si amuzanta (haz de necaz). Intrebarea la care incearca sa raspunda autorul este cum se face ca lumea occidentala traieste intr-o ignoranta filozofica totala fata de filozofia asiatica (si in special cea Indiana pentru ca pe ea pune accentul), in timp ce in secolul 19 erau foarte interesati de ideile vehiculate prin acele orizonturi.
Prima problema este conceptia despre filozofie pe care inca o mai partajeaza majoritatea eruditilor, si anume, ca filozofie a exista numai in Grecia, ca acolo s-a nascut, iar pe alte meleaguri nu au rasarit decat gandiri mitice, ceva speculatii pe ici pe colo, superstitii, spiritualitati si cam atat.
"NU!" este raspunsul la intrebarea pe care v-o puneti.
NU iau in considerare (stimatii filozofi), nu cunosc, n-au auzit de nici un Shankara, Asanga, Dharmakirti, Nagarjuna, Abhinavagupta etc. etc. etc.

Filozofia in ziua de astazi se defineste drept o constructie intelectuala care incearca sa expliciteze locul omului in univers si alte chestiuni de genul acesta, dar care este cu totul desprinsa de vreo practica. Cu alte cuvinte e ca popa: una zice si alta face. Si dupa definitia asta ei decid ca filozofie a existat numai in Grecia! (e deajuns sa consultati orice manual de filozofie, compendiu de texte etc). Sigur, oricine are si numai un scai de cultura generala stie ca in Grecia filozofii se dedau unor exercitii spirituale, si ca la origine aceste doua componente (practica si produsul intelectual) nu erau deloc disociate. Dimpotriva: era marca specifica filozofului!!
Aceasta "neintelegere" pare sa fie cauza problemelor (ca sa nu mai spun ca atunci cand un Heidegger sustine sus si tare ca textele indiene -la care a avut el acces si Dumnezeu stie in ce traducere si ce a inteles din ele - sunt niste bazaconii...). La aceasta se mai adauga un paianjenish care ne duce de la programa scolara la politica editurilor etc.

Oh well. Astazi am vrut sa-i dau de capat dar nu m-am urnit cu lectura. In schimb am petrecut majoritatea parte a zilei ascultand muzica clasica, de la Rachmaninof, la Tchaikovski, Sibelius, Fauré, Prokofief si altii. Ce bogatie!!! Si cand asculti "muzica" de astazi te apuca batzul nu alta. ********************************************************************

Despre evenimente

2009-09-13T19:39:00.003+02:00

In Le chemin des flammes Pierre Feuga zice asa:

"Il y a un moment où on cesse de croire que les choses vous arrivent. Rien n'arrive en tout cas de l'extérieur. Les événements jaillissent de nous et ils nous expriment, ils nous ressemblent, ça se déroule, ça se développe à partir de notre centre, comme l'araignée qui secrète sa toile. Même quand les événements apparaissent injustes, pénibles, ils ont leur raison d'être. Tout vient à son heure, quand il faut et où il faut. Cela ne veut pas dire qu'il faut être fataliste, résigné, soumis, prêt à tout accepter. Tu peux lutter, dans certains cas tu dois le faire mais en sachant au font de oi que même ta lutte, te révolte, ta non-acceptation font partie du déroulement, du jeu. "

Le Yoga du Shivaïsme non-duel du Cachemire

2009-09-08T15:14:00.005+02:00

Eric Baret pentru revista Génération TAO:

"Le yoga cachemirien est un des aspects de la tradition non duelle du Shivaïsme. Même si sa technicité peut sembler être indépendante de son origine traditionnelle, ce n’est que lorsqu’il s’inscrit dans l’enseignement global du Shivaïsme cachemirien qu’il trouve son intégration la plus étendue. La spécificité de cette approche repose sur l’absence de but quant à la pratique et la maintenance d’une activité neuro-musculaire réduite au minimum pendant sa réalisation. Au lieu d’utiliser le corps comme moyen d’accomplissement, celui-ci est reconnu comme expression de la conscience et la pratique consiste à l’amener à résonner de son origine.

De même que le taiji ou le qi gong coupés de l’essence de la tradition taoïste restera souvent une activité artificielle, la pratique des asanas coupée de l’enseignement non duel créera des capacités qui, au lieu de faciliter la mise en question du pratiquant, cœur de l’enseignement traditionnel, favorisera l’acquisition d’affirmations égotiques qui ne sauront s’harmoniser sereinement avec la globalité de la vie. Néanmoins, il est possible d’utiliser certains exercices apparemment libres de leur contexte essentiel pour stimuler une amélioration corporelle ou mentale. Cette direction ne concerne pas l’approche traditionnelle, qui est libre de tout arrivisme.

Le yoga est célébration, remerciement au principe suprême de son actualisation psycho-corporelle. Comme la danse ou la musique, la pratique se vit comme une expression de gratitude à la vie de nous avoir permis d’explorer les espaces-temps si prodigieux de l’existence."

Chant diphonique

2009-09-07T17:16:00.003+02:00

Am gasit un documentar fascinant despre acesta tehnica vocala ce se practica in special in Asia Centrala, Siberia, Mongolia, Tibet si in care interpretul reuseste sa cante la doua voci! Muzica polifonica la o singura voce! In plus, se poate combina vocea de cap/gat/piept etc cu diferite pozitionari ale limbii si buzelor.
Genul asta de muzica este folosit in muzicoterapie si in tot soiul de alte practicii care folosesc vocea ca mijloc de explorare.

YOGA: Desikachar, Jois, Iyengar

2009-09-05T20:31:00.011+02:00

Toti trei sunt discipolii lui Krishnamacharya, dar transmit Yoga in moduri foarte diferite. Iyengar avea probabil o constitutie mai sensibila si a fost putin traumatizat de Guruji, Jois pare genul de persoana care nu pune nimic sub semnul intrebarii in ceea ce priveste firea lui K., macar ca si el admite ca era "dangerous" (mi se pare si cel mai traditionalist dintre toti trei), iar Desikachar se pare ca a avut parte de un maestru (care din intamplare ii era si tata:) )mult mai cald si afectos, iar metoda lui e departe de a pune atat de tare accentul pe lucrul cu asanele. ceea ce e de inteles: P.Jois se pare ca preda exact asa cum o facea K. cat timp a fost elevul sau; Iyengar nu a primit de la acesta decat instructiuni legate de asane si restul l-a descoperit singur.

Aici un articol foarte interesant in care reiese destul de clar abordarea fiecaruia.

Art

2009-09-05T01:26:00.004+02:00

Una din tehnicile mele preferate din arta plastica este aquarela. Gasesc ca are ceva foarte feminin in ea datorita puterii ei de sugestie, a finetii desenului si formelor, a mediului acvatic.
Iar Milind Mulick este fantastic.
Si in plus de asta mai e si foarte yogin!

"The thing that makes one artist different from another is attitude, and what makes an artist different from a non-artist is attitude. By attitude I do not mean growing a beard or acting in a certain way that one might expect of an artist. Rather, it is one's way of looking at things and observing the world in a kind of detached sort of way. While I am sketching or painting outdoors, a sensation arises as if I am watching a movie or dreaming. I am fully involved with the scene, but somewhere inside, I am different. It is like being relaxed in my armchair. The beauty of the world becomes enhanced. This is a very pleasing sensation and, I think it is one of the best gifts of being an artist."

Meet Swami Yogananda!

2009-09-01T23:40:00.003+02:00

Nu e vorba de Paramahamsa Yogananda, ci de un "mosulica" de vreo 99 de ani care de fapt nu este mosulica deloc daca stai sa vezi ce poate sa faca!:)
Cica nenea asta a practicat mai toata viata systemul lui Kartikeya Maharishi (apoi Dhirendra Brahmachari) numit "Sukshma Vyayama". (Acuma, chiar nu stiu daca K. Maharishi l-a inventat, dar oricum, prin D. Brahmachari a fost "popularizat").
Un articol despre el aici.

Hidroterapia colonului

2009-08-27T17:04:00.002+02:00

Am descoperit astazi doua site-uri care m-au cam cutremurat.
Este vorba despre asa numita hidroterapie a colonului care reuseste sa spele in integralitate intestinul gros ceea ce e absolut incredibil. De cand suntem mici se aduna resturi acolo si se solidifica din cauza alimentatiei (care pentru majoritatea dintre noi este predominant acida) si a tratamentelor medicamentoase (antibiotice si alte traznai). Rezultatul?
Colon dilatat (poate pastra deseuri de pana la 5 kilograme sau chiar mai mult!!!), dopuri care se tot inchisteaza si care degajeaza niste toxine extrem de nocive care afecteaza in special ficatul, formare de polipi apoi cancer... perspectiva nu e roza deloc. Multe multe probleme fizice -circulatorii, de ficat, oboseala, lipsa de energie etc - si psihice - ex chiar depresia!! - decurg deasemenea de aici.
Din pacate, nici cei cu tranzit regulat nu scapa de aceste chestiuni. Poti elimina zilnic si asta nu reprezinta deloc o dovada cum ca nu ai avea materii fecale incrustate in intestin pe care nu le poti scoate.
Terapia asta din cate am inteles a fost inventata de americani. Este simpla si deloc dureroasa, insa al naibii de costisitoare (100 euro pe sedinta!! iar in mod normal iti trebuiesc cam trei). Cica se utilizeaza cam 70 de litrii de apa pentru 45 minute de spalat!!!!

Mai multe aici. Si aici pentru poze (apasati la rubrica "néttoyage de l'intestin grêle"!!

Vipassana

2009-07-25T11:20:00.003+02:00

Un interviu fain cu Henepola Gunaratana, calugar budist Theravada, despre meditatie. A scris o carte pe acest subiect pentru incepatori si gasesc ca e una din cele mai bune pe care le-am intalnit.

TOTUL e posibil

2009-07-18T19:28:00.004+02:00

Am gasit un mic articol foarte ciudat in revista Planète, din septembrie/octombrie 1964. Directorul revistei a fost Louis Pauwels, iar in comitetul director cu multe contributii, Jacques Bergier (autorii cartii Dimineatza magicienilor).

Iata articolul:

"Médecine: Un mystère au Japon

On a trouvé au Japon des malades sur la peau desquels il pousse des fibres de coton. C'est tout à fait impossible scientifiquement, mais pourtant cela est. On a analysé ces fibres dont près de trois kilos ont été déjà ramassés. Elles ont été photographiées et ont même fait l'objet d'un film en couleur. tous les truquages possibles ont été envisagés: on connaît en effet des cas de folie où les patients s'injectent les produits les plus invraisemblables sous la peau. Mais aucun truquage n'a pu être décelé. Le docteur Ziro Nikuni, de l'université d'Osaka, a émis l'hypothèse que dans le corps humain et dans certaines conditions, le glucose peut se transformer en cellullose. Le savant japonais a défendu cette théorie à un Congrès international de la chimie des hudrates de carbone en Allemagne. cette théorie a le défaut d'être absolument inadmissible scientifiquement. "C'est de la magie", a dit alors l'éminent savant japonais, le docteur Tamotsu Tajiri. Il est certain que la transformation d'un être humain en loup paraîtrait moins invraisemblable à la science que la transformation d'un être humain en plante ( :)) ), et pourtant ce dernier phénomène a été bel et bien observé.

...intotdeauna am spus ca traim intr-o lume ciudata rau...

Legenda descoperiri cafelei

2009-07-18T17:41:00.003+02:00

Am gasit intr-o "revista" (o carte in toata regula:) ) din 1834 un articol despre Istoria descoperirii cafelei, despre influenta ei, si anecdotele legate de introducerea ei in Europa si in Antile.

Iata inceputul articolului ce contine partea legata de originea descoperirii (notati similaritatile cu legenda descoperirii ceaiului!) :

"Le café, comme chacun le sait, est originaire du royaume d'Yémen, dans l'Arabie-Heureuse. ce pays fortuné qui, en échange de ses précieuses productions, voit affleurer dans son sein l'or de toutes les parties du globe, reagarde avec raison le café comme une des sources les plus abondantes de sa richesse.
Le premier qui fait usage du café est, selon Schehabeddin, auteur arabe du XVe siècle, un muphti d'Aden, qui vivait au commencement du IXe siècle de l'hégire. Mais, selon la tradition vulgaire, on serait redevable de cette découverte à un mollach (religieux mahométan) nommé Chadely ou Seyadly, dont le nom est encore en vénération dans l'Orient.
Ce saint personnage se voyait souvent surpris par le sommeil au milieux de ses prières, imputait ses assoupissements à la tiédeur de sa dévotion, et sa conscience timorée était tourmenté de pieux scrupules; le hasard, ou, selon la légende, le prophète, touché de sa peine, lui fit rencontrer un pâtre qui lui raconta que toutes les fois que ses chèvres avaient brouté des baies d'un certain arbrisseau, elles restaient éveillées, sautant et cabriolant toute la nuit. Le mollach voulut connaître ce singulier végétal: le pâtre lui montra un joli petit arbre à écorce grisâtre, au feuillage d'un vert brillant, presque semblable à celui du laurier-amande, et dont les branches déliées portaient, aux aisselles de leur feuilles opposées, des bouquets de petites fleurs blanches comme le jasmin, entremêlées de petits fruits les uns naissans et verts, les autres plus avancés, et d'un jaune clair; d'autres, en parfaite maturité, de la grosseur, de la forme et de la couleur de nos cerises anglaises. C'était le cafier ou cafeyer.
Le mollach voulut éprouver par lui-même la vertu singulière de ces baies. Il en prit une forte enfusion, et il passa toute la nuit dans une sorte d'enivrement délicieux qui n'ôtait en rien à la libérté de son esprit. Il fit part de sa découverte à ses derviches, et bientôt le café fut recherché par les dévots musulmans comme un présent divin, apporté du ciel par un ange à un vrai croyant."

Lilian Silburn

2009-07-12T08:35:00.004+02:00

Lilian Silburn este (a fost...) nu numai pioniera in domeniul Sivaismului non-dualist Kashmirian (membru de onoare la C.N.R.S.) cu o groaza de traduceri si publicatii la activ, dar si o mare practiciana!!! In cartea ei despre ku.n.dalinii spune ca ea a dus la bun sfarsit practica asta cu ajutorul gurului sau, Mahatma Radha Mohan Lalji (vezi poza), maestru sufi (si nu Swami Lakshman Joo!) care cica a descoperit noi centri energetici (alte cakrasuri) in corpul subtil (corpul imaginal dupa Padoux). Date fiind afiliatiile yogai cu sufismul in India, acest lucru nu e deloc surprinzator.
Nimeni insa nu stie mai nimic din viata personala a autoarei. Ahem.. nu, sunt convinsa ca mai sunt cativa care sa stie destul de multe lucruri despre ea, dar pana acum nimeni nu s-a incumetat sa publice oarece despre cine a fost acest personaj. Se pare ca ea a lucrat prin imprejurimile Parisului cu un grup de oameni care cica mai transmit ceea ce au primit de la ea.
Am reusit sa gasesc insa o mica referinta intr-un interviu cu Irina Tweedie in care povesteste cum l-a intalnit pe gurul sau -acelasi Radha Moham Lalji- gratie lui Lilian! Aici.

Alexis Sanderson a criticat traducerea lui Silburn a Siva Sutra, spunand ca din cauza afiliatiilor sale cu sufismul a interpretat gresit anumite pasaje, mergand chiar impotriva a ceea ce spunea Swami Lakshman Joo. So what? Daca ea chiar a dus la termen genul asta de practica, atunci chiar prea putin conteaza. Orice traducere este deja o versiune personala. Aici macar vine din experienta.

La final, un pasaj interesant din Silburn:
"J'aurais aimé dédier ce livre au Swaami Lakshman Brahmacaarin qui m'a toujours soutenue dans l'exploration des textes, ou encore à mon guru, Shri Radha Mohan Lalji Adhauliya, dont la pure efficience mystique m'a fait vivre sans l'intermédiaire ni moyen la grande expérience de la ku.n.dalinii. Mais n'ayant guère reçu d'encouragement à publier cet ouvrage - entreprise bien téméraire à leurs yeux -, je le dédie au serpent abyssal qui attend impatiemment depuis des millénaires un signe de reconnaissance."

Sfarsitul anului universitar

2009-07-07T00:58:00.004+02:00

Tocmai am realizat ca am inceput sa scriu acest blog la inceputul anului universitar.. de fapt la anului EPHE-ist:) si ca nu de mult acesta s-a terminat si eu nici nu l-am vazut trecand!
Stau si ma gandesc la perioada asta si nu-mi vine sa cred. Imi aduc aminte de momentele de stres intens din iarna si de acum din mai-iunie, de zilele petrecute la biblioteca, de momentele de exaltare sau de dezamagire din timpul cursurilor, de discutiile cu colegii, de gramada de bani pe care am dat-o pe fotocopii de capitole dintr-una din cartile pe care trebuia sa fac o fisa de lectura (ieseam mult mai ieftin daca o cumparam, dar cum e epuizata editia... si cum nici una din bibliotecile pe care le frecventez nu imprumuta acasa...), de nervii pe care mi i-am facut din cauza cursului de Practici Alimentare din cauza lipsei surselor...
Cu ce m-am ales de pe urma acestui an?
hmm.. stiu mai multa sanskrita ca inainte (ceea ce nu e greu deoarece inainte nu stiam deloc:), orice e mai mult decat nimic); incep cu adevarat sa-mi dau seama de ce inseamna sa lucrezi in acest domeniu (si inainte stiam ca e muuuuuult, dar nici chiar asa!!!); mi s-au mai pus in ordine niste chestiuni care erau incalcite in neuronii mei (pardon, printre moleculele jumatatii mele de neuron:)) ) -lucru foarte salutar!:); am inteles ca subiectul in care m-am bagat este mult mai interesant decat credeam dar si muuuuuuuuult mai complicat si complex. Si am mai invatat multe lucruri care nu pot fi descrise - de fapt pot fi descrise dar nu merita - pentru ca fac parte dintre acele elemente, detalii efemere dar care te ajuta sa intelegi ceva mai profund, dar care functioneaza diferit pentru fiecare dintre noi.
Singurul lucru pe care-l regret este ca din cauza ritmului foarte alert parca nu am avut timp sa ma bucur pe deplin de ceea ce faceam.

Au si ei falitii lor...

2009-07-06T18:49:00.004+02:00

Am asistat astazi la o sustinere de teza de doctorat la Sorbonne despre timp si eternitate in teologia lui Abhinavagupta. Am ramas cu gura cascata. Personajul principal, adica cel care sustinea (nu-i fac public numele) a ajuns in intarziere: tot juriul era la locul lui, noi spectatorii la locurile noastre si el lipsa! ajunge intr-un final si nici nu se simte sa ceara scuze juriului pentru intarziere.
Protocolul vrea ca mai intai sa vorbeasca cel care sustine timp de vreo 15 minute, sa-si expuna lucrarea, motivatiile care au stat la baza ei, dificultatile pe care le-a intampinat, liniile de forta, pentru ca intr-un final sa mentioneze niste posibile deschideri de cercetare. Dupa ce si-a terminat prezentarea, membrii juriului iau cunvatul pe rand (incepand cu indumatorul lucrarii) si-si exprima punctele de vedere asupra operei: ce le-a placut, ce au gasit interesant, ceea ce nu le-a placut, care sunt punctele slabe, ce poate fi imbunatatit etc, dupa care (in general dupa fiecare membriu al juriului) candidatul are voie sa dea explicatii cu privire la reprosurile facute.
Ajunge deci candidatzelul nostru in fata juriului si incepe sa povesteasca una alta despre lucrare. O prezentare nepregatita dupa parerea mea (si a lui André Padoux), si lansata intr-un stil de parca omuletul nu avea nimic de aparat/ justificat in fata acelor oameni. Parca era la bistro cu ceva amici. Tot ce reiesea din discursul sau era o atitudine plina de sine, iar dupa spusele juriului, si din lucrare. Problema nici n-ar fi asta daca ar avea si calitatea care sa sustina acest gen de atitudine: TOTI membrii juriului au vorbit apropae exclusiv numai de problemele lucrarii: nenumarate graseli de franceza, de exprimare (asta dupa ce indrumatorul lucrarii corectase un numar impresionant si star-ul nostru nu se sinchisise sa faca corecturile!!!), citate fara referinta(!!!) sau fara precizarea editiei din care au fost luate, traduceri aproximative.......Torella i-a cerut sa-i spuna unde Dumnezeu a invatat el sanskrita!! deci omul asta face o teza pe gandirea lui Abhinavagupta si traduce textele sale (care sunt intr-adevar oribil de dificile), se lanseaza in tot felul de speculatii filosofice in conditia in care nu are o buna cunoastere a sanscritei!! Nu numai ca nu o stie suficient de bine sa faca traduceri bune, dar nici nu a dat-o cuiva sa o reciteasca!!!
Altele: prea flou, prea multe repetitii, reluari, argumente neconvingatoare, lucruri inutile, comparatii care de fapt nu sunt comparatii si in acest fel nu duc nicaieri si cate si mai cate alte defecte.
A fot prima data cand am vazut ca un doctorand nu se sinchiseste sa ia note in timp ce se fac comentariile!!! el statea asa si se uita la profi si mai ca asi baga mana-n foc ca nu auzea nimic din ce i se spunea. La un moment dat Padoux chiar i-a spus (era legat de remarcile sale asupra formei) cand a vazut privirile de lehamite pe care le arunca in timp ce el vorbea: "Poate aveti impresia ca sunt lucruri inutile (ex. o bibliografie bine facuta nu un rahat care nu paote fi folosit pentur ca lipsesc date importante), dar va asigur ca este important. Sau, nu stiu, poate ca am eu o viziune neadecvata asupra a ceea ce inseamna o teza de doctorat...". Noroc ca ironia nu ucide.
Deci am stat acolo patru ore si am auzit critici de la specialisti unul mai tare ca altul (nu au fost NUMAI critici, avea si parti bune lucrarea): pe langa Padoux si Torella, mai erau Françoise Bonardel (da, cea care a scris Filosofia alchimiei), Bettina Baumer, Michel Hulin si Chenet. Dupa asta au urmat deliberarile.
Revine juriul si ne anunta ca i-au acordat doctoratul cu mentiunea "foarte onorabil". La faza asta mi-am spus ca am pierdut un episod. De altfel cand m-am uitat la membrii si erau toti cam nelalocul lor.
Cand se anunta deliberarea, publicul si juriul aplauda. Publicul a aplaudat, juriul ceva mai putin: Padoux a dat de vreo 2-3 ori din palme, Torella nici nu s-a sinchisit. Se vedea clar ca nu li se parea normal asa ceva. Padoux de altfel a spus ca el nu ar fi acceptat asa o teza!
Baumer cred ca e o tipa mult prea draguta si blanda ca sa refuze pe cineva, Bonardel l-a incendiat destul de bine, dar ea e specialista de filosofie asa ca banuiesc ca i-a gasit parti compensatorii, pe cand Chenet si Hulin s-au implicat in coordonarea tezei asa ca nu puteau sa o refuze...
Deci, vedeti, se intampla si pe la case mai mari. Sigur, o puteau accepta cu mentiunea "Acceptabil", dar nu.

Museul Albert Khan

2009-06-30T16:50:00.004+02:00

Am fost astazi sa vad o expozitie care dureaza de vreun an de zile cu fotografii din colectia lui Albert Khan, facute in India la inceputul secolului (1913, 1927-1928). Toate sunt autocromuri (primul tip de fotografie color) si arata diferite personaje si peisaje din partea centrala si nord-vestica a Indiei. Sunt aproape convinsa ca multe scene prezente acolo cred ca se mai pot intalni si astazi. Altele reflecteaza clar o anume epoca pe care tare mult mi-ar fi placut sa o cunosc.
Pentru cateva poze, aici.
Spre surpriza mea, expozitia nu a fot singurul punct de atractie: muzeul are si o gradina imensa, iar o buna parte din ea imita gradinile japoneze! Ba mai mult, exista si case japoneze in stil traditional (fara indoiala acelea ca de pe vremea lui Albert Khan)! Si un lac cu pesti aurii si cu creveti!!

BD

2009-06-29T11:30:00.005+02:00

Am avut norocul sa descopar o serie excelenta de benzi desenate: Jonathan de B. Cosey.
Lucrul care m-a atras mai intai a fost ca povestile se desfasurau in Asia, dar pe masura ce avansam cu lectura, desenul a inceput sa-mi placa din ce in ce mai mult, asa incat am citit cu placere si albume cu tente occidentale. Cateodata desenul sau seamana cu cel al lui Hugo Pratt (Corto Maltese, alta minune!!) - Cosey a recunoscut ca descoperirea lui Pratt a fost o adevarata revelatie.
Ma tot gandeam la norocosii care au talent la desen!:) sau cei care incep suficient de devreme ca sa poata sa se perfectioneze in timp. Daca asi avea acest talent, m-asi lasa de scoala si asi face benzi desenate: posibilitatile de expresie pe care ti le pune la dispozitie sunt absolut fantastice! E suficient sa ai putina imaginatie.
Si ca tot veni vorba de desen, lucrul care mi se pare cu adevarat fascinant este expercitiul pe care-l impune: trebuie sa lucrezi cu partea dreapta a creierului si nu cu stanga. Cu alte cuvine, trebuie sa percepi linii, spatii, forme si nu masa, creion, carte, vaza... lucru destul de anevoios. A desena inseamna a vedea ceea ce ESTE si nu ceea ce stii tu ca ar trebui sa fie.

Re-growing rainforests!

2009-06-26T17:35:00.002+02:00

O video conferinta foarte foarte faina!!! deci se pot face lucruri pentru a salva planeta!!

O alta prezentare foarte interesanta despre bacterii si noile antibiotice: Turnul lui Babel, aplicatie la nivel microcosmic!!:)

Quote from Meister Eckhart

2009-06-16T09:58:00.008+02:00

Prin peregrinarile mele pe valurile netului, am dat de un articol care cita acest fragment si care m-a facut sa ma gandesc la Cartea Tibetana a Mortii.

Eckhart writes : "If you find yourself frightened of dying... (within a so-called, so thought 'hellish nightmare') know this..." The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of your life; your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they are not punishing you, he said. They are freeing your soul...If you are frightened of dying and holding on, you will see devils tearing your life away. But if you have made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the Earth." (Rubin 1990, p.82)... (please note that this is "symbolic" language !)

un fragment interesant dintr-un documentar despre primii crestini in franceza + o conferinta a lui Jon Kabat-Zinn on mindfulness:). E incredibil cat de mult seamana cu Richard Gere!
Si Alan Wallace.

Paroles

2009-06-16T00:07:00.003+02:00

Un extras dintr-un "articol" scris de J.-M. Eyssalet, doctor in medicina chineza. Restul aici.

"Si je me présente comme «le grand thérapeute» qui va induire en vous un état extraordinaire, je ne vous aide pas, au contraire. Si, par contre, je dis: «Voilà, sur la base de cet échange que nous avons autour de votre vie, à partir de vos demandes, nous allons aborder les choses différemment, essayer de voir au fur et à mesure comment on progresse, comment on chemine, comment on simplifie le rapport à soi...», là on se rapproche de la méditation, de la possibilité d'écouter pour le plaisir. On n'écoute pas pour le plaisir quand on est cerné de toutes parts par les douleurs, les limitations, les conflits et les images. Il y a un minimum de déblayage à faire mais, ultimement, la responsabilité nous revient d'écouter. Personne ne peut rien pour personne au niveau le plus profond. Nous ne pouvons rien pour nous-même, sinon écouter, sinon inviter la transformation. Et, à mon avis, si toutes les démarches de développement ne sont pas spécifiquement et nommément thérapeutiques, elles vont inévitablement vers une perspective spirituelle, au sens le plus radical du terme, au-delà de et comprenant toute religion. Le fait même d'exister est un mystère extraordinaire, recouvert, banalisé, constamment occulté par la projection que l'on fait de l'idole «ego» que l'on nourrit et dont on craint la mort.

Un site cu poze magnifice.

Docs to download

2009-06-03T10:40:00.004+02:00

PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America) pune la dispozitia utilisatorilor si articole gratuite, dintre care cateva sunt axate pe rezultatele obtinute in urma practicilor meditative. Lectura placuta!:)

S-au facut si se mai fac multe experiente pe subiecti care sunt novici in arta meditativa. Acestia trebuiau sa mediteze timp de 30 de minute timp de 8 saptamani.
Observatiile au aratat ca acest gen de practica are efecte semnificative asupra tensiunii, anxietatii, rezistentei la durere, sistemului imunitar sau a calitatii atentiei. Stresul e diminuat, riscul de recadere in depresie e redus cu 40%, procesul de vindecare a psoriarisului e marit cu 30%.

NB: Ideea nu e neaparat sa meditezi foarte mult, ci sa o faci in mod regulat. Creierul trebuie solicitat in mod repetat: are nevoie de vreo 30 de zile pentru a prezenta modificari ale functiilor neuronale (vezi neuroplasticitatea).

A little bit of literature

2009-05-20T10:34:00.005+02:00

Pe fostul meu blog, chiar al doilea post a fost despre un roman numit in franceza A la recherche du Yoga (sau The House of Fulfillment) de L. Adams Beck. Mi-a placut mult pentru ca autoarea a reusit sa imbine adevarata literatura cu lucruri mai.. ciudate:) (spre deosebire de Eliade de pilda care si el scrie despre lucruri ciudate, chiar bine, dar asta nu inseamna ca face literatura). Mi-am adus aminte ca sunt accesibile pe internet si cateva nuvele tot bizare de-ale ei regrupate sub numele de The Ninth Vibration and Other Stories si mi-am spus ca n-ar fi rau sa apara un link si aici. L.A.B. (1862-1931) a calatorit mult prin Asia, a fost budista si o vegetariana stricta. Mi-ar fi placut sa o vizitez:) In plus, se pare ca avea o casa absolut halucinanta, cu tot felul de obiecte venite de peste tot de prin lume.

Online books and articles

2009-05-17T14:38:00.004+02:00

Am gasit astazi un site excelent cu o groaza de surse -multe inutile - dar printre ele puteti gasi The History of Indian Philosophy a lui Dasgupta (!!!), Abhidharmakosha 1 a lui Vasubandhu (plus altele tot de el), Light on Yoga a lui Iyengar, Mudras a lui Hirsch si multe altele.

Un alt site foarte fain e portalul Persée: contine numeroase articole si review-uri din diferite reviste de stiinte umane si sociale.

Autour de la Bhagavat Gita

2009-05-15T01:06:00.009+02:00

A venit ora mea obisnuita de cugetari (nu ca restul zilei asi fi fara ganduri, n-am eu norocul asta:) ), iar in seara asta ele circula in jurul acestui text incredibil: Bhagavad Gita sau "Cantecul Preafericitului". Nu pot sa ma intreb cum anume a fost dat lumii... cine a putut sa compuna asa ceva? Traditia spune ca este un text revelat: m-ai ca asi crede-o. E unul dintre acele texte care aduc o caramida in plus la edificiul fiintei umane.

Rasfoiam o traducere a lui impreuna cu comentariul lui Abhinavagupta, si am dat peste urmatorul pasaj (capitolul 7 śloka 3):

Manuṣyāṇāṃ sahastreṣu kaścidyatati siddhye

Yatatāmapi siddhānāṃ kaścinmāṃ vetti tattvataḥ

"Among thousands of men only a few strive to attain perfection, and of those who strive and succeed, only a few know Me in truth."

"Me" in text este Kṛṣṇa, insa pentru Abhinavagupta el reprezinta Fiinta Suprema si nu vreo anume zeitate sectara. De altfel e foarte interesant de vazut cum Abhinavagupta, un sivaist, se apuca sa comenteze un text visnuit, si nu numai ca il comenteaza, dar il considera ca facand parte din textele de baza ale sivaismului kashmirian non-dualist! Asta arata -printre altele- tocmai ce spuneam mai sus, adica faptul ca nu suntem in hinduismul sectar.

Comentariul sau zice asa:
"Not all human beings are fit for the attainment of the highest reality, i.e. jñāna (cunoastere) and vijñāna. With this verse, the Lord makes it clear that one should make a serious effort to attain jñāna and vijñāna because they are not easy to attain."

Va aduceti poate aminte de postingul despre ignoranta in care spuneam ca pentru sivaismul non-dualist numai cunoasterea duce la eliberare (prin gratia divina - alt posting). Despre asta e vorba aici.
Insa citatul asta m-a dus cu gandul la primul capitol din Tantrāloka in care Abhinavagupta spune o chestie foarte interesanta legata de vidhi, injunctie (sau cum i-o spune in romana) si care mi se pare ca explica mai bine fraza citata. Injunctia este un soi de ordin, de invocatie pronuntata la inceputul cultului vedic sau al diferitelor culte destinate zeitatilor tantrice si care are menirea de a face sa advina actiunea sacrificiala. Cu alte cuvinte ea este performativa. Dar, argumenteaza Abhinavagupta, nu e deloc nevoie de aceasta invocatie daca adoratia este adresata Constiintei, "Eu-lui" absolut, pentur ca in realitate Constiinta este sacrificantul si sacrificiul. (totul este Constiinta)
Abhinavagupta spune ca din punct de vedere al Realitatii, orice cult destinat unei zeitati se adreseaza de fapt Fiintei Supreme pentru ca nimic un exista ca fiind separat de ea. Insa zeitatile respective fac parte din planul manifestarii chiar daca se aflta pe niveluri subtile. Abhinavagupta spune ca poti foarte bine accede la puteri supranaturale sau alte nebunii prin genul asta de cult, insa atrage atentia ca atata timp cat invoci fiinta suprema sub o forma (oricare ar fi ea) -deci ceva limitat - , si rezultatul va fi limitat: adeptul nu va ajunge sa realizeze identitatea sa cu Divinul, "scopul" principal al omului in aceasta traditie. Un alt citat din BhG spune ceva de genul "Cei care nu Ma cunosc in realitatea Mea, se departeaza de mine".
Nu vreau sa fac pe Gica contra, dar o astfel de explicatie mi se pare mult mai de bun simt decat porunca din Legile lui Moise in care ti se ordona sa nu-ti faci chip cioplit ca-i vai de mama ta si gata.

Magique...

2009-05-13T13:25:00.003+02:00

Am gasit un documentar excelent pe youtube, in 10 parti, despre Kashmir.

Multe teme sunt abordate: monumente, viermi de matase, safran, ceaiul kashmirian, boats, pipa, Shalimar (Garden of Love), materiale/ shaluri, vopsire, patterns, papier maché, design, carpet weavers, covoare.
Absolut magnific, ca sa nu mai vorbesc de peisaje.

Despre ignoranta si ceai

2009-05-13T01:10:00.006+02:00

In Sivaismul Kashmirian ignoranta sta la baza limitarii fintei umane. Insa ea este o composanta ontologica: sigur, din cauza ei suferim, din cauza ei nu vedem cine suntem cu adevarat si tot ce decurge de aici, insa este si conditia sine qua non pentru ca noi sa existam (cand spun "noi", nu ma refer doar la noi oamenii, ci la creatie in diversitatea ei cu absolut tot ce cuprinde ea, stiute sau nestiute, planuri subtile sau grosiere). Insa Creatia nu este sadica, ea pune la dispozitia omului si posibilitatea cunoasterii, singura care poate anula efectul ignorantei.

Stateam si ma gandeam, de ce s-ar uita Fiinta Suprema pe ea insasi (cum spun kashmirienii) ca sa ne creeze pe noi (aici luat la sensul restans)? Why bother? In secunda urmatoare am vazut ceaiul meu verde japonez minunat care ma accompagnaza noptile (daca tot nu pot dormi, macar sa lucrez, iar pentru asta am nevoie de o minte cat mai limpede cu putinta, de unde rolul ceaiului), si mi-am spus ca totusi exista pe lumea asta niste lucruri magnifice care merita sa existe. Rolul omului pana la urma este de a se bucura de jocul acesta al diversitatii, de a se minuna in fata lui si nimic mai mult! Cu alte cuvinte, daca am rasarit pe lumea asta nu a fost pentru nimic altceva decat pentru a ma bucura de un ceai bun! :) (luat ca figura metonimica).
Da, dar CUM anume faci asta cu adevarat... aici se complica povestea. Si ar trebui sa fie atat de simplu.

Super Brain Yoga

2009-05-06T02:21:00.001+02:00

:)
daca ajuta, de ce nu?
But what's with the title?!

Sanskrita : surse

2009-04-28T16:38:00.001+02:00

Aici.

Inouï Inuits!

2009-03-25T08:43:00.010+01:00

O stare ceva mai efervescenta ma face sa ma scol in dimineatza aceasta ceva mai devreme decat de obicei: proiectia unor multiple activitati menite sa-mi umple bine ziua si sa o faca "semnificativa".

Bineinteles ca a iesit cu totul altceva, si trebuie sa spun ca bine-mi pare.:)

In cautarea unei anumite surse bibliografice, un gand imi da tarcoale, si anume, sa verific in ce stadiu se mai afla noua Biblioteca Universitara a Limbilor si Civilizatiilor (care va fi finalizata in 2011) dar din cauza careia, institutiile (care-i vor dona fondurile -gen INALCO, EFEO...) incep sa impacheteze.
Ei bine, pe site dau de anuntul ciclurilor de conferinte lunare organizate de BULAC, si raman surprinsa sa vad o inregistrare online, La Parole inuit (Inuitii reprezinta o populatie/ii care traieste/sc in Alaska, Arcticul Canadian si Groelanda).
Am dat pe play ca sa vad ce si cum, si nu am mai reusit sa ma desprind de ea! Michèle Terrien este absolut magnifica.
Asa cum indica numele, in conferinta e vorba despre conceptia asupra cuvantului, a vorbirii la populatiile inuite (populatii care pana in anii '50 aveau o cultura exclusiv orala -bineinteles ca ne-am bagat noi occidentalii picioarele prafuite in universul lor inzapezit sa-i crestinam, sa-i invatam ce trebuie sa faca, in cine si in ce fel sa creada si altele de genul asta - lucruri care au avut efecte devastatoare: vezi mai jos).
Implicatiile pe care le are aceasta tema sunt absolut fascinante. Am scos niste idei razlete, dar conferinta merita ascultata in totalitate:

-suicidul este legat de faptul de a nu povestii visele si o gestiune proasta a cuvantului;
-visele sunt cuvinte silentioase;
-gandirea este teritoriul veritabil al interioritatii, ea nu trebuie exhibata (e foarte nasol perceput faptul de a incerca sa extragi o confidenta, sau de a manipula, impune propria ta viziune asupra celuilalt);
-isi incep discursul in general expunand faptul ca sunt constineti ca au o vizioune limitata a realitatii;
-visele trebuies impartasite asa cum impartasesti mancarea (suntem intr-o comunitate de vanatori);
-problemele tinerilor (delincvente, abuz de alcool, droguri si alte nebunii) vin din faptul ca nu sunt capabili sa stapaneasca cuvantul;
-cuvantul nu e de natura divina, el vine de la spirite sau de la defuncti;
-conceptia lor asupra justitiei nu este una axata pe pedeapsa (ca la noi), ci pe reconciliere;
...

Aici o alta conferinta (video!) asupra conceptului de "extrema" la inuits.

Despre gratia divina

2009-03-23T18:47:00.011+01:00

Astazi am avut parte de un curs foarte fain. Tuturele meu (o ea de fapt), specialista in Shivaismul din Cashmir, a decis sa faca un curs despre gratia in acest context, si cu ocazia asta l-a invitat pe Hubert Bost, specialist a-l protestantismului sec 16-17-18, sa vina sa ne vorbeasca despre gratie in contextul crestin.

Va rezum viziunea pe care o regasim in Shivaismul cashmirian (sau "Trika" in sensul larg al cuvantului), apoi in context crestin (simplificand absolut barbar problematica):

Termenul sanskrit pe care indianistii il traduc prin "gratie" este "shaktipaata" (literal: caderea de energie). acesta e cel mai apropiat termen pe care l-au gasit macar ca atrag atentia ca nu trebuie luat in sensul crestin al cuvantului (macar ca nici in sensul crestin nu stim cu adevarat la ce se refera...).
Notiunea de "gratie" deci, este centrala Shivaismului cashmirian. ea poate fi regasita ulterior si la HIriyanna si Raamaanuja (autori vishuiti), dar cam atat.
Pentru Trika, omul nu poate deveni un jiivanmukta (alt concept cheie) fara gratia divina. De fapt, gratia determina calea, maestrul, initierea pe care o va avea adeptul. Iar gratia nu este altceva decar libertatea Fiintei Superioare (Siva, Unul, Constiinta Suprema, Dumnezeu, cum vreti sa-i spuneti).
ideea e urmatoarea: daca ai parte de multa gratie divina devii iluminat pe loc, daca ai parte de mai putin, atunci ai ceva de lucru, daca ai parte de si mai putin, atunci ai mai mult de lucru si tot asa (intotal cica sunt 9 grade diferite ale gratiei). Booon.
DAr tot textele spun ca aceasta categorizare a fiintelor in functie de cum se manifesta gratia la ei, este una artificiala pentru ca in Realitate (adica din punctul de vedere al Fiintei Supreme), gratia divina este neconditionata, este aici pentru toata lumea. Ce inseamna a fi conditionat? adica ai parte de gratie daca faci X fapta buna si daca eviti Y, Z fapte rele. dar asta inseamna ca Absolutul ar avea o capacitate de diferentiere care i-ar contrazice tocmai statutul de absolut! Si deci ce inseamna asta? Pai inseamna ca problema e cu noi oamenii.
Si Trika imparte oamenii in 3 categorii in functie de cat sunt de deschisii la actiunea gratiei:
la o extremitate este jiivanmukta: maxim
la cealalta este fiinta umana care se crede limitata, si care este insensibila la actiunea acesteia;
iar intre cele doua este aaruruksu sau mumuksu, cel care aspira la realizarea naturii reale.

deci gratia pe care o revarsa Fiinta Suprema nu releva de vreo cauza, ci de natura fundamentala a Acestuia, adica de Liberate.
IAr acest concept de gratie e important (mai ales daca aveti notiuni despre contextul indian) pentur ca exclude orice calificare/abilitare rituala: oricine se angajeaza intr-un efort continuu, are parte de gratia divina si poate ajunge la Eliberare.
De fapt Eliberarea asta e DEJA prezenta, dar trebuie sa devina manifesta (e normal sa fie asa ca doar suntem intr-un sistem non-dualist, adica nu exista diferenta intre fiinta limitata si Siva)

Acum , in contextul crestin lucrurile sunt muuuuuuult mai flou decat ne-ar placea.

Am retinut urmatoarele idei cam "décousues".. recunosc:

la origine, termenul prin care se desemneaza gratia este unul foarte material (gratie feminina, a face o favoare, a gratia (de la moarte)). Dumnezeu (in vechiul testament) se implica in mod politic in istorie (elibereaza pe evrei din Egipt etc). Gratia se traduce prin evenimente istorice ia forma eliberarii, a iertarii, a insanatosirii, a abundentei recoltelor etc.

apoi de aici lucrurile s-au mai subtilizat:)

pe de o parte biserica orientala care e axata mai mult pe mistica, vede in gratie modalitatea prin care Dumnezeul il face pe om sa participe la proiectul sau divin, sa beneficieze de proximitatea vietii in Dumnezeu.
gratia se manifesta prin Isus care aduce pe drumul drept umanitatea;
gratia originara: famptul ca Dumnezeu l-a creat pe om
prin gratie se ajunge la "divinizarea/deificarea omului" fara insa a intelege prin asta ca omul devine Dumnezeu. ( Va intrebati cum vine asta? si eu...)

Patristica latina (catolicismul) este mult mai axat pe ratiune si speculatie.
aici e vorba de instaurarea unei noi relatii juridice intre om si Dumnezeu.
Omul a pacatuit, este prizonier a-l pacatului original, si deci cauta salvarea. Numai Dumnezeu i-o poate da prin gratia Sa.
Aici intervine Sf Augustin care spune ca omul este absolut pasiv, nu poate face nimic ca sa capete gratia: este decizia lui Dumnezeu.
Altii spun ca da, asa e, dar omul mai trebuie sa si colaboreze, adica nu poate sa ramana cu gura cascata si sa astepte. (Pélage, Cassien)
Gratia precede absolut orice actiune umana.
pana la urma, catolicii spun ca Gratia este aici, insa e nevoie de actiunea omului ca sa devina operanta.
(Protestantistii spun ca nu, actiunea omului nu are nici o legatura cu decizia lui Dumnezeu de a o acorda sau nu. Dar ca asta nu inseamna nu trebuie sa infaptuiesti lucruir bune: daca ai parte de gratia divina trebuie sa te porti in consecinta adica sa faci fapte bune... )

Acuma impresia care mi-a lasat-o conferinta asta, si care nu reiese din ce am scris eu pentru ca am rezumat-o cat am putut de mult- e ca exista o mare mare complexitate. Si asta nu numai in ceea ce priveste gratia, dar si salvarea si mutle alte concepte. De fapt, oamenii nu prea stiu despre ce vorbesc. Sau ca sa ma exprim altfel, trebuie intotdeauna explicitat din ce curent ne inspiram cand facem anumite afirmatii. (de pilda, exista curente in interiorul catolicismului care sunt absolut contrare in ceea ce priveste doctrina gratiei divine).
Gratia in crestinism nu poate sa nu fie asociata salvarii. DAr cand a fost intrebat ce inseamna "salvarea" de fapt, a trebuit iar sa faca acest amendament si anume, ca trebuie sa ne replasam intr-un anumit context, nu poti scoate din burta un raspuns: crestinismul nu a ajuns la un raspun in legatura cu aceste lucruri!!!!!!!!!!!
De fapt, marturisea H. Bost, crestinismul nu a fost capabil sa aduca raspunsuri la intrebarile pe care le-a ridicat. Intotdeauna a ajuns la niste aporii pe care nu le-a putut depasi.
Insa a mai spus o chestie care mi s-a parut interesanta si pe care am auzit-o astazi pentru prima oara (legata de "pacatul originar" si "caderea"): faptul ca Adam si Eva au vrut sa manance din fructul oprit, din copacul cunoasterii binelui si raului, a fost tocmai pentru ca au vrut sa devina perfecti, sa renunte la starea umana care prin definitie este imperfecta. Ori "caderea" de fapt, nu e o cadere, ci obligatia de a accepta statutul uman.

Souvenirs

2009-02-28T19:26:00.013+01:00

Cu multi ani in urma, datorita lui Indiana Jones si Templul Blestemat (fiecare cu reperele proprii:)) ), m-am apucat sa caut informatii despre Hinduism prin Encarta. Si tot clicaind pe diversele linkuri atasate numelor de zei, de concepte si mai stiu eu ce, am aterizat si peste un articol intitulat "Lamaism". Primul lucru care mi-a trecut prin minte a fost: "ce legatura sa aiba patrupedele alea din Anzi cu Hinduismul?":))))))) Am aruncat un ochi peste articol si am inteles repede ca nu era vorba de animale ci de numele dat de occidentali budismului tibetan. "Hm!" imi spun.

In partea stanga a articolului era o poza cu o manastire (pe atunci nu stiam, credeam ca e un soi de casa mai ciudata --- e chiar poza din dreapta), si deasupra ei se afla un mic fragment audio (vreo 15 secunde). Si cum una din placerile mele teribile din acea perioada (...never mind...) era sa ascult partile audio din Encarta (mai ales din alea cu sunete de pasari sau de diferite triburi : "ha-he-haaa, sha-la-la ha-he-haehaehae...") am dat "play". Si raman cu gura cascata la propriu. Acela a fost momentul care a declansat pasiunea mea pentru Tibet. Intotdeauna am fost foarte sensibila la sunete, iar pe vremea aceea mai faceam si muzica. Probabil ca de aia am fost atat de socata de ce auzeam. Erau niste sunete care ieseau pur si simplu din orice norma, orice mi-asi fi putut imagina.

Din acel moment toate lecturile mele s-au orientat spre India si Tibet (de fapt, cel mai corect spus e ca asta m-a facut sa incep sa citesc, ca pana in acel moment nu ma atrasese deloc aceasta activitate:) ).
Nu mi-ar fi trecut prin cap sa scriu despre chestia asta, numai ca mai inainte, in timp ce cutreieram youtube-ul, am descoperit un video (pe care habar n-am cum de am ajuns sa-l deschid: a priori nu ma atragea) al carui sunet mi-a adus in minte situatia asta.
Fie vorba-ntre noi, de atunci am auzit sunete si mai si decat acestea (ale unui saman, dar nu stiu de pe unde era), dar, recunoasteti si voi ca e tare impresionant!

A bonus video in a somewhat different area:)
oh, and this one as well. It's great!

Links

2009-02-25T17:40:00.007+01:00

Asta e un post care intra la categoria "nu-mi vine sa cred ca nu m-am gandit mai devreme" (de fapt m-am gandit, dar mai demult:) ), si anume, n-am pus linkuri la forumuri! Sigur, pe forumuri gasesti oameni si informatiile de TOATE tipurile. Dar intotdeauna sunt foarte instructive intr-un fel sau altul.

iata cateva care-mi plac mult:

Language Learning Forum - pentru cei care iubesc limbile, aici se gasesc o droaie de informatii interesante, de linkuri despre aproape orice limba de pe pamantul asta:) Cred ca in ziua de astazi, cu Internetul la dispozitie (o gramada de resurse online si gratuite!), e mare pacat sa te limitezi la limba materna si eventual la o alta invatata pe bancile scolii. Lumea e mare!!

Buddhist Forum - imens! Contine o groaza de topic-uri care variaza de la diferitele scoli si orientari din budism pana la nutritie, yoga, si limbile in care a fost vehiculat budismul (sanskrita, tibetana, pali...). Trebuie insa sa va inscrieti (gratuit) ca sa puteti citi postingurile.

Yoga Forum - in franceza.