Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Made a website for those interested in Hatha Yoga:
http://www.bigbookofyoga.com
Enjoy...
http://www.bigbookofyoga.com
Enjoy...
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Everyone who is attracted to the notion of spiritual practice should read A Path With Heart, by Jack Kornfield. It's just great, chapter after chapter.
*****
Know that joy is rarer, more difficult, and more beautiful than sadness. Once you make this all-important discovery, you must embrace joy as a moral obligation.
- Andrew Gide
My fiftieth year had come and gone,
I sat, a solitary man,
In a crowded London shop,
An open book, an empty cup,
On the marble tabletop.
While on the shop and street I gazed,
My body of a sudden blazed!
And twenty minutes more or less
It seemed so great, my happiness,
That I was blessed -- and could bless.
- Yeats
*****
Know that joy is rarer, more difficult, and more beautiful than sadness. Once you make this all-important discovery, you must embrace joy as a moral obligation.
- Andrew Gide
My fiftieth year had come and gone,
I sat, a solitary man,
In a crowded London shop,
An open book, an empty cup,
On the marble tabletop.
While on the shop and street I gazed,
My body of a sudden blazed!
And twenty minutes more or less
It seemed so great, my happiness,
That I was blessed -- and could bless.
- Yeats
Friday, May 02, 2008
Thinking Of Attending Agama Yoga Teacher Training (TTC)?
In the past few weeks, I've had several emails from people, asking me about my experience with Agama's TTC, and whether it's worth taking. So as to save cutting and pasting replies, I'll put up my basic points here:
1) Agama Yoga is the best yoga school I've found to date, hands down, in terms of the depth of knowledge and practice it offers.
2) Agama is growing VERY rapidly. Just a few years ago, it was a little-known spot in the jungle of south Thailand, which only a few backpackers and yoga enthusiasts had ever heard of. Now it's in Lonely Planet, and attendance this year will top 1,000 students. As such, it is experiencing the simultaneous thrill and discomfort of growing up -- quickly -- as an international organization and educational institution. Mistakes get made, it's true. Everyone here is learning as they go.
3) The Teacher Training Course is intense. Three months, 6 days per week, 4-6 hours per day of class. Lots of practice, lots of theory, lots of work. It's not to be taken lightly. It takes a heavy toll on its participants, mentally, emotionally, and physically. Students go through some intense purification processes, especially if they are new to a hatha yoga which puts such an emphasis on subtle energies.
If you're thinking of doing TTC, I would recommend you at least take the first month intensive of the regular curriculum, first. See what you think and then make your decision about TTC. We have schools offering the first month program now in Canada, UK, Israel, Greece, and Thailand. Also, I'm teaching weekend workshops in the US (east coast) this summer, 2008, where we go into the basics of the first month course. Contact me for details (email listed below).
4) Agama Yoga is now registered under the US Yoga Alliance, as well as the IYF (International Federation of Yoga) as an RYT 500 certified Teacher Training school. This is good, it means that once you complete the course, you can send in your paperwork to YA or IYF and get your name in their registries. This allows you to be insured as a yoga teacher in the countries in which those organizations have some jurisdiction, which is essential for opening your own school.
5) I look at TTC as an investment -- of money, time, and energy. If you stick around long enough in the normal course program of Agama, at some point (usually around the 15th month, although lately students have been given limited teaching empowerment as early as 7th month) you may be given permission to teach, even without having done TTC. So if you're committed to practicing with Agama, then you'll probably get to teach, eventually. The only reason then to do TTC is if you're in a hurry. (Or, if you're not interested in studying long-term with Agama, and you simply want to do a teacher training course here.) When you graduate, you are an Agama Yoga teacher. It's up to you then to make your investment pay off.
If you lined up all the major yoga teacher training programs out there -- Sivananda, Iyengar, Kripalu, and the like -- and compared them with Agama, I have no doubt you'd find that the more established ones are better organized and more smoothly run, and with less of the occasional controversy. If you're simply looking for an RYT yoga certificate so you can start teaching, and you don't really care what kind of Hatha Yoga it is you're teaching, I think you could probably accomplish your goal elsewhere with a lot less effort. However, if you're looking to teach a powerful, progressive style of yoga -- granted, one that can be controversial, and even cross some lines with its methods and approaches at times -- and one which has inspired many on their spiritual journey, then I'd warmly recommend you come to Agama and see for yourself.
In closing, you might look at it like this:
Say you had a scoring system for how well an organization is in integrity with itself, meaning, how completely it fulfills what it sets out to accomplish. This would be represented by actual points vs. total possible points. So a 4 out of 5 score would mean the organization is in 80% integrity with its vision.
The same system also rates the total capacity of the organization. Meaning, what is the organization's highest potential? How much can it do for its members? This would be represented by the "total possible points". So an organization with total possible points as 100 can take its members 200% as far in its stated purpose than can an organization with 50 total possible points.
With this kind of scoring, I would propose that a more established, primarily physically-based hatha yoga organization, like BKS Iyengar's yoga, for example, scores a 5 out of 5. 100% integrity for its 5 units of potential.
Agama Yoga scores more like a 30 out of 50, by the same reckoning. 60% integrity, but even at that rate, still offering a heck of a lot more than the aforementioned category of yoga schools.
There are enough bright, positive, and focused people at Agama to make me optimistic that the school's integrity rating will gradually improve. As I said, the school is in the midst of some growing pains right now. I'll be interested to see how it turns out.
In the meantime, you choose: integrity over total value, or value over integrity? And if you really come to believe that the value offered here is as much as I propose it is, then why not make an effort to join and work on stabilizing Agama's integrity from the inside? That's essentially what I've chosen to do, as I feel there is a true gem here for contemporary spiritual pursuit. All gems need to be polished before they can shine.
And that's what I've got for all you would-be TTC'ers (and for anyone else who's interested in Agama Yoga). Feel free to write to me at dharmahound AT hotmail DOT com with any questions you may have. (It's a really busy month for me, so I may be a bit slow to reply.)
Best,
In light,
Andrew
In the past few weeks, I've had several emails from people, asking me about my experience with Agama's TTC, and whether it's worth taking. So as to save cutting and pasting replies, I'll put up my basic points here:
1) Agama Yoga is the best yoga school I've found to date, hands down, in terms of the depth of knowledge and practice it offers.
2) Agama is growing VERY rapidly. Just a few years ago, it was a little-known spot in the jungle of south Thailand, which only a few backpackers and yoga enthusiasts had ever heard of. Now it's in Lonely Planet, and attendance this year will top 1,000 students. As such, it is experiencing the simultaneous thrill and discomfort of growing up -- quickly -- as an international organization and educational institution. Mistakes get made, it's true. Everyone here is learning as they go.
3) The Teacher Training Course is intense. Three months, 6 days per week, 4-6 hours per day of class. Lots of practice, lots of theory, lots of work. It's not to be taken lightly. It takes a heavy toll on its participants, mentally, emotionally, and physically. Students go through some intense purification processes, especially if they are new to a hatha yoga which puts such an emphasis on subtle energies.
If you're thinking of doing TTC, I would recommend you at least take the first month intensive of the regular curriculum, first. See what you think and then make your decision about TTC. We have schools offering the first month program now in Canada, UK, Israel, Greece, and Thailand. Also, I'm teaching weekend workshops in the US (east coast) this summer, 2008, where we go into the basics of the first month course. Contact me for details (email listed below).
4) Agama Yoga is now registered under the US Yoga Alliance, as well as the IYF (International Federation of Yoga) as an RYT 500 certified Teacher Training school. This is good, it means that once you complete the course, you can send in your paperwork to YA or IYF and get your name in their registries. This allows you to be insured as a yoga teacher in the countries in which those organizations have some jurisdiction, which is essential for opening your own school.
5) I look at TTC as an investment -- of money, time, and energy. If you stick around long enough in the normal course program of Agama, at some point (usually around the 15th month, although lately students have been given limited teaching empowerment as early as 7th month) you may be given permission to teach, even without having done TTC. So if you're committed to practicing with Agama, then you'll probably get to teach, eventually. The only reason then to do TTC is if you're in a hurry. (Or, if you're not interested in studying long-term with Agama, and you simply want to do a teacher training course here.) When you graduate, you are an Agama Yoga teacher. It's up to you then to make your investment pay off.
If you lined up all the major yoga teacher training programs out there -- Sivananda, Iyengar, Kripalu, and the like -- and compared them with Agama, I have no doubt you'd find that the more established ones are better organized and more smoothly run, and with less of the occasional controversy. If you're simply looking for an RYT yoga certificate so you can start teaching, and you don't really care what kind of Hatha Yoga it is you're teaching, I think you could probably accomplish your goal elsewhere with a lot less effort. However, if you're looking to teach a powerful, progressive style of yoga -- granted, one that can be controversial, and even cross some lines with its methods and approaches at times -- and one which has inspired many on their spiritual journey, then I'd warmly recommend you come to Agama and see for yourself.
In closing, you might look at it like this:
Say you had a scoring system for how well an organization is in integrity with itself, meaning, how completely it fulfills what it sets out to accomplish. This would be represented by actual points vs. total possible points. So a 4 out of 5 score would mean the organization is in 80% integrity with its vision.
The same system also rates the total capacity of the organization. Meaning, what is the organization's highest potential? How much can it do for its members? This would be represented by the "total possible points". So an organization with total possible points as 100 can take its members 200% as far in its stated purpose than can an organization with 50 total possible points.
With this kind of scoring, I would propose that a more established, primarily physically-based hatha yoga organization, like BKS Iyengar's yoga, for example, scores a 5 out of 5. 100% integrity for its 5 units of potential.
Agama Yoga scores more like a 30 out of 50, by the same reckoning. 60% integrity, but even at that rate, still offering a heck of a lot more than the aforementioned category of yoga schools.
There are enough bright, positive, and focused people at Agama to make me optimistic that the school's integrity rating will gradually improve. As I said, the school is in the midst of some growing pains right now. I'll be interested to see how it turns out.
In the meantime, you choose: integrity over total value, or value over integrity? And if you really come to believe that the value offered here is as much as I propose it is, then why not make an effort to join and work on stabilizing Agama's integrity from the inside? That's essentially what I've chosen to do, as I feel there is a true gem here for contemporary spiritual pursuit. All gems need to be polished before they can shine.
And that's what I've got for all you would-be TTC'ers (and for anyone else who's interested in Agama Yoga). Feel free to write to me at dharmahound AT hotmail DOT com with any questions you may have. (It's a really busy month for me, so I may be a bit slow to reply.)
Best,
In light,
Andrew
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Time Dependent
One man dreams he lives one hundred years
Of happiness, but then he wakes.
Another dreams an instant's joy
But then he, likewise, wakes.
- "Bodhicaryavatara", Shantideva
One man dreams he lives one hundred years
Of happiness, but then he wakes.
Another dreams an instant's joy
But then he, likewise, wakes.
- "Bodhicaryavatara", Shantideva
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Divine Immediacy as Determined by the Believer (or: Joining the Quantum Speculation Bandwagon)
I have long been a critic of those involved in some spiritual or esoteric tradition, who try to establish a degree of validation for their practices by connecting them (with specious claims to accuracy at best) to modern scientific research -- especially to quantum physics. (Right off I'd like to note the admirable exception of Dr. Paul Fleischman, whose essay "Karma and Chaos" (in the book of the same title), on chaos theory and its relation to Buddhist beliefs, is really quite good. He wrote it with his son, whose name I think is Forrest.) But the other day I had a thought while meditating that seems a)interesting enough to post about and b)unfortunately similar to doze otha fools i'm always bangin' on. So this is the disclaimer -- yes, I am now one of Them. I retain my right to make fun of Us, even so.
Anyway.
Lately I have been studying both Buddhist and Yogic philosophy (some might call it theology). Tantric Yoga is essentially dualist, for the most part (Kashmir Shaivism being one notable half-exception). You often hear/read sentiments in Bhakti and Tantra Yoga along the lines of "practice is important, but you will never reach the final goal of ultimate liberation without being the recipient of God's Grace." I get this a lot at my yoga school, as well.
In Buddhism, however, I can't find an obvious (or even not-so-obvious) corrolary. Buddha is always saying, "It's up to you, on the strength of your own meritorious actions, to achieve final realization. And in fact there is no God to help you!" So what gives? Both systems have produced enlightened beings, it seems. And there is also strong indication that the highest state of enlightened existence is one and the same across all spiritual paths. The writings of Christian saints, Sufi mystics, Daoist monks -- all end up describing essentially the same thing (sometimes in eerily similar language).
So Tantra Yoga works, and it believes you need God to validate your parking ticket. Buddhism works, and it believes you balance your own checkbook. (Just to keep up the tradition of mixed metaphors.) They both get you to the same place, ultimately. But they actively contradict each other. (God vs. not-God) So this necessarily indicates that they are talking about the same thing, but one of these traditions is using a metaphor to describe the truth of the other. Or does it?
For instance, you could say, well when the Yogis talk about "the Grace of God" allowing for your ultimate enlightment, perhaps they're really just talking fancifully about your stock of karmas finally getting down to zero. And seeing as you can never be fully sure as to exactly when this will happen, when it does happen, it seems spontaneous and the likely explanation seems to point towards intervention by some divine Grace. So then the Buddhists would be closer to metaphrand, and the Yogis would be using a metaphier (to steal Julian Jayne's terminology).
But perhaps God is a bit deeper than this semantic wordplay? I had this thought the other day -- that it seems we are discovering (I use "we" loosely here!) more and more fundamentals of the physical universe that have an essential nature of dual-potential. Light is both a particle and a wave, and it only is one or the other when we look at it in a certain way. Pairs of particles spin plus and minus but they aren't either until we measure them. Thus this whole frenzy over quantum uncertainty that pops up like a Whack-a-Mole hopped up on adderall in spirituality today.
So I thought, well, what if God is like this too? Seems kind of fitting. Maybe God is unfathomable in the same way -- perhaps He (for lack of a certain pronoun) is both Personal (white beard, blue throat, bestower of Grace) AND Impersonal (shunyata, emptiness, cosmic consciousness) at once, perhaps that is His very nature. And He becomes one or the other for each individual who so casts his or her belief -- same as the role of the observer in quantum mechanics. For the Buddhist, God IS emptiness. He is Mind. There is no inherent anything, other than suchness, which is emptiness, yadda yadda yadda. That manifesting as such for the Buddhist, however, doesn't change the equally valid truth of a personal God. For the Tantrika, God IS Shiva, immersed in his Lila, aware and loving and connected to the spiritual aspirant. And there is no contradiction.
Who knows, why stop at two possibilities? Maybe God manifests -- not just in metaphor, but in ultimate reality -- in as may different ways as one can imagine Him, all perfectly true and (seemingly) at odds with one another. Voodoo, Wicca, even Jonathan Edwards (God help us) -- God IS as they perceive Him to be.
So I am going to perform an experiment. God IS Ben&Jerry's Phish Food. Oh, sweet Enlightenment! I'll catch all ya'll Buddhas somewhere around Burlington. I'll be the one with the caramel-fudge halo.
I have long been a critic of those involved in some spiritual or esoteric tradition, who try to establish a degree of validation for their practices by connecting them (with specious claims to accuracy at best) to modern scientific research -- especially to quantum physics. (Right off I'd like to note the admirable exception of Dr. Paul Fleischman, whose essay "Karma and Chaos" (in the book of the same title), on chaos theory and its relation to Buddhist beliefs, is really quite good. He wrote it with his son, whose name I think is Forrest.) But the other day I had a thought while meditating that seems a)interesting enough to post about and b)unfortunately similar to doze otha fools i'm always bangin' on. So this is the disclaimer -- yes, I am now one of Them. I retain my right to make fun of Us, even so.
Anyway.
Lately I have been studying both Buddhist and Yogic philosophy (some might call it theology). Tantric Yoga is essentially dualist, for the most part (Kashmir Shaivism being one notable half-exception). You often hear/read sentiments in Bhakti and Tantra Yoga along the lines of "practice is important, but you will never reach the final goal of ultimate liberation without being the recipient of God's Grace." I get this a lot at my yoga school, as well.
In Buddhism, however, I can't find an obvious (or even not-so-obvious) corrolary. Buddha is always saying, "It's up to you, on the strength of your own meritorious actions, to achieve final realization. And in fact there is no God to help you!" So what gives? Both systems have produced enlightened beings, it seems. And there is also strong indication that the highest state of enlightened existence is one and the same across all spiritual paths. The writings of Christian saints, Sufi mystics, Daoist monks -- all end up describing essentially the same thing (sometimes in eerily similar language).
So Tantra Yoga works, and it believes you need God to validate your parking ticket. Buddhism works, and it believes you balance your own checkbook. (Just to keep up the tradition of mixed metaphors.) They both get you to the same place, ultimately. But they actively contradict each other. (God vs. not-God) So this necessarily indicates that they are talking about the same thing, but one of these traditions is using a metaphor to describe the truth of the other. Or does it?
For instance, you could say, well when the Yogis talk about "the Grace of God" allowing for your ultimate enlightment, perhaps they're really just talking fancifully about your stock of karmas finally getting down to zero. And seeing as you can never be fully sure as to exactly when this will happen, when it does happen, it seems spontaneous and the likely explanation seems to point towards intervention by some divine Grace. So then the Buddhists would be closer to metaphrand, and the Yogis would be using a metaphier (to steal Julian Jayne's terminology).
But perhaps God is a bit deeper than this semantic wordplay? I had this thought the other day -- that it seems we are discovering (I use "we" loosely here!) more and more fundamentals of the physical universe that have an essential nature of dual-potential. Light is both a particle and a wave, and it only is one or the other when we look at it in a certain way. Pairs of particles spin plus and minus but they aren't either until we measure them. Thus this whole frenzy over quantum uncertainty that pops up like a Whack-a-Mole hopped up on adderall in spirituality today.
So I thought, well, what if God is like this too? Seems kind of fitting. Maybe God is unfathomable in the same way -- perhaps He (for lack of a certain pronoun) is both Personal (white beard, blue throat, bestower of Grace) AND Impersonal (shunyata, emptiness, cosmic consciousness) at once, perhaps that is His very nature. And He becomes one or the other for each individual who so casts his or her belief -- same as the role of the observer in quantum mechanics. For the Buddhist, God IS emptiness. He is Mind. There is no inherent anything, other than suchness, which is emptiness, yadda yadda yadda. That manifesting as such for the Buddhist, however, doesn't change the equally valid truth of a personal God. For the Tantrika, God IS Shiva, immersed in his Lila, aware and loving and connected to the spiritual aspirant. And there is no contradiction.
Who knows, why stop at two possibilities? Maybe God manifests -- not just in metaphor, but in ultimate reality -- in as may different ways as one can imagine Him, all perfectly true and (seemingly) at odds with one another. Voodoo, Wicca, even Jonathan Edwards (God help us) -- God IS as they perceive Him to be.
So I am going to perform an experiment. God IS Ben&Jerry's Phish Food. Oh, sweet Enlightenment! I'll catch all ya'll Buddhas somewhere around Burlington. I'll be the one with the caramel-fudge halo.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Reason and Faith: A Typical Tantric Relationship
I'm really happy that Derek (AYR from the previous post) has elected to respond to my last post. For one, I'm happy that he's interested in investing energy in this discussion, but I also appreciate his frankness and focus -- keeping this from becoming a "hyper-philosophized" debate. I'll admit that I sometimes tend towards the pedantic.
I'm in agreement with a lot of what Derek has to say in his most recent post. We do live in a funny place for a yogic stronghold. There is some fluff stuffed in along with the more solid yogic teachings. (To be fair here, Swami has said that he's open to review and revision of some of the aspects of the teachings here which are perhaps less verified or central to the core curriculum, and some of us are working steadily towards this end.) And it was refreshing to read his own experiences with success in some of the yogic practices which are taught at Agama. There's one issue which arises in a few different forms about which I do have a couple things to say -- it's best summarized as Derek put it:
"The danger to any individual, whether it's joe citizen or yogini sue, lies in how they are encouraged or not to use their own rational intellect."
Derek rightly points out a bit of a contradiction in the teachings here at Agama -- but also widespread in esoterica and spirituality. He notes that Swami criticized him for being too skeptical and advocates faith in the yogic system, but also has encouraged people to find things out for themselves, verify theory through experience, experiment, and generally apply the scientific method. Swami has told me as well, that my skepticism may prove a hindrance to my progress in yoga.
We can see the same sort of paradox in Buddhism: one of the "Great Fetters" of Buddhism (along with -- varyingly according to a 10-, 5-, or 6-itemed list -- anger, hatred, laziness, agitation, ignorance, etc.) is vichikitsa, or skeptical doubt. At the same time, Buddha exhorted his monks to not take anything taught to them as truth automatically, to go out and experience it for themselves. Shinzen Young, respected as one of the more "academic" Buddhist teachers, notes in a 2006 talk given in Arizona:
"[Buddha] explicitly told his students that they need not believe something merely because he (or some sacred scripture) claimed it to be so."
So how to account for this apparent contradiction? I like the Buddhist answer --
"[Vichikitsa is] doubt, skepticism, indecisiveness, or vacillation, without the wish to cure it, more like the common idea of cynicism or pessimism than open-mindedness or desire for evidence."
This, to me, hits the nail right on the head -- it's the difference between skepticism (healthy) and cynicism (pathological). It's not that doubt is bad, it's only when you start to cling to the doubting itself that you have a problem. Relating back to Agama, in my talks with Swami about this issue, he's agreed that a difference does exist here (between skepticism and cynicism), and has simply cautioned me to tread the line carefully. It's actually quite telling of Swami's support of this rational-minded inquiring approach, that his "Swami name" takes its root in "viveka", which translates as the ability to exercise discrimination!
To be fair, I see a lot of Swami-sponsored nonsense -- or I should say, a lot of very speculative assertions, often offered without a shred of reference, citation, or serious backup -- float by in the stream of lectures, essays, and discourses offered here at Agama. But I think it's premature to jump to the conclusion that all the stuff that seems like bullshit, is bullshit. Derek may remember another tall, male Israeli in our class, who began completely convinced that everything about the chakras and energy and such was a crock, and about a month or two into our course, when questioned about this, he said something like "Well yeah, I feel the energy and my chakras now, I just think that [new topic] is bullshit now instead!" Along the same lines, why not extend some open-mindedness here? I won't go through the entire list of examples you put up, but for one...
"If I rigorously practice garudasana it's not gonna help me study for a test any more so than focusing my mind during a rigorous practice of padahastasana."
Well, okay, to a certain extent, you're right. If you already have the ability to focus your mind powerfully and steadily, it won't make a huge difference even if you decide to go for ice cream rather than do yoga before an exam. But if you don't, well, just below this quote Derek says he likes a particular yoga practice for ajna chakra (governing mental power) because it helps his focus. Why would trataka on ajna help focus any more than any other practice? Is it less effective than doing trataka on swadhisthana? If so, right here we have some empirical evidence implying that things that work on ajna are better for the mind than others. Now, you could say, well why should I believe garudasana has anything to do with ajna? I should think it'd be found in the same pudding he must have gone mucking about in to verify the connection between trataka and ajna -- practice. And sure, if after a good test run, there's no connection, then I think that's completely valid to say it doesn't work for you. But to dismiss it out of hand (ie. "focus is focus") when you've already got what seems to be proof to the contrary seems hasty.
As a related personal example, I find that if I do halasana before trataka, it's much easier to hold focus in trataka. Why should being in that weird upside-down pose help me to blink less while focusing afterwards? Is there any physiological or psychological or any other -ological explanation that covers this? Sherlock Holmes used to bust this one out on Waston (if you're bored with this and in the mood for Conan Doyle, original story linked here:
"When you have eliminated the possibilities, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."
All I'm saying here is, I agree completely that people's instinct for reason and rational validation should never be quashed or even held in disdain by a good teacher. I do think that some people feel like this as a result of some of the attitudes which are encouraged here, which is unfortunate. I do think Swami makes a linguistic (if not pedagogical) error when he encourages people to be less skeptical. From all my talks with him, it sounds like he often means "cynical" instead (plus a little extra, see below). But it seems to be taking up an equally unstable extreme viewpoint to assume that doctrines like karma are primarily "soothing", or that levitation is a dubious possibility because no one who's "had a few rupees thrown at them" (paraphrased) has come forward to show it off yet. (For one account by a European scientist and mechanical engineer who's witnessed levitation, see The Magus of Java by Kosta Danaos. I have not witnessed levitation myself.) Who knows, really? As I said in my last post, if belief in an "unverifiable" isn't affecting your ability to live and act as a benevolent, kind, and harmonious human being, then why rail against it? We all believe in stuff we can't prove. In the case of karma, I'd say an intelligent interpretation of karma actually encourages you to be a better person. So what if you don't get (objective) proof -- one way or the other -- until you're dead or enlightened?
It's one thing to swallow everything that gets dropped on your plate. It's another thing to refuse any and all food without getting a good taste for it first. My golden mean is somewhere in the middle -- to paraphrase Derek again, do bite and chew, and smack your lips a bit to get the flavor! Then swallow only if all signals are go. I apologize for mixing my metaphors.
I put a little see below up there awhile back, where I proposed that when Swami says "skeptical" is bad, he actually means "cynical". This is true to an extent, but I also believe he's noting another important truth here, which is the power of surrender. Everyone's got examples of times when they fought with a particular lesson to be learned, only to find in the end that the fastest way to "get it" was to give up the struggle and let go into whatever it was that they were facing. I think it's a given that, could you be absolutely, 100% sure of the verity of a certain set of teachings, there'd be no question that to throw yourself fervently into their study would yield the most brilliant results. The problem of course is that you can never be 100% sure, at least with something so abstract as "enlightenment" or the status of one's soul. So this is where healthy skepticism comes in, to gradually discover for yourself which is the wheat and which is the chaff. But Swami (and any other similarly minded teacher) is absolutely right, when he says that skepticism -- even the healthy kind -- will slow you down. For some of us, it's a speed bump we're willing, even happy to take, to ensure as best we can that we're not headed for the edge of a cliff, or a brick wall. Eventually though, if you find through repeated verification a set of teachings you can really trust, then by all means, jump in -- you'll only be dragging yourself down if at that point you insist on more and more and more proof. This is the devolution from skeptic to cynic.
One more point to make, in response to this quote from Derek:
"There was a time in history when faith and dogma ruled people's lives... it was called the 'dark ages' and people were miserable with illness, poverty, and despair. Those days were supplanted by the age of reason or enlightenment."
Steven Levitt likes to make the distinction in his work between causality and correlation -- just because two things are going on at the same time, doesn't imply that one causes the other. In this case, I don't think that a life governed by faith is causal to misery, any more than a life governed by reason is causal to happiness or comfort. It's pretty obvious that illness, poverty, and despair were and are still rampant since the onset of the Age of Enlightenement. To be sure, modern medicine and technology has created more opportunity to live well, but that's just one side of the story.
I notice on Derek's site that the "Bi-partisan Reading List" includes both Ken Wilber and David Deida. Both of these authors stress that as you move from one stage of growth to another, in the most integral way of progress it's vital not to dissociate yourself from the positive characteristics of whatever you've outgrown. Just as much as I think reason and science has its place in the healthy pursuit of spirituality, so I think faith and surrender are equally and absolutely essential.
Speaking of Wilber, he has one book titled The Marriage of Sense and Soul (really an excerpt from a much larger work) which addresses this exact issue eloquently. The basic idea is that faith and reason don't have to be mutually exclusive. I wholeheartedly embrace this idea, as I think is also the essential message at Agama. Just like Agama pushes a "yang" lifestyle because most people are (supposedly) too "yin", but if you're balanced (or too yang) then in that specific case there's different advice given, it also encourages faith over reason with the same mindset. Ultimately, I see Swami, Agama Yoga, and the yogic path itself as embracing an attitude of growth, combining the best of both halves (split by Occam's Razor?).
As Wilber is a far better writer than I ever hope to be, I'll conclude with a quote from his introduction to Sense and Soul:
"If you are an orthodox scientist, I would only suggest that, as you have a thousand times in the past when you were working on a problem, let curiosity and wonder bubble up, but in this case don't focus it on a specific solution. Simply let wonder fill your being until it takes you out of yourself and into the staggering mystery that is the existence of the world, a mystery that facts alone can never begin to fill. If Spirit does exist, it will lie in that direction, the direction of wonder, a direction that intersects the very heart of science itself. And you will find, in this adventure, that the scientific method will never be left behind in the search for an ultimate ground."
Thanks again to Derek. Peace.
I'm really happy that Derek (AYR from the previous post) has elected to respond to my last post. For one, I'm happy that he's interested in investing energy in this discussion, but I also appreciate his frankness and focus -- keeping this from becoming a "hyper-philosophized" debate. I'll admit that I sometimes tend towards the pedantic.
I'm in agreement with a lot of what Derek has to say in his most recent post. We do live in a funny place for a yogic stronghold. There is some fluff stuffed in along with the more solid yogic teachings. (To be fair here, Swami has said that he's open to review and revision of some of the aspects of the teachings here which are perhaps less verified or central to the core curriculum, and some of us are working steadily towards this end.) And it was refreshing to read his own experiences with success in some of the yogic practices which are taught at Agama. There's one issue which arises in a few different forms about which I do have a couple things to say -- it's best summarized as Derek put it:
"The danger to any individual, whether it's joe citizen or yogini sue, lies in how they are encouraged or not to use their own rational intellect."
Derek rightly points out a bit of a contradiction in the teachings here at Agama -- but also widespread in esoterica and spirituality. He notes that Swami criticized him for being too skeptical and advocates faith in the yogic system, but also has encouraged people to find things out for themselves, verify theory through experience, experiment, and generally apply the scientific method. Swami has told me as well, that my skepticism may prove a hindrance to my progress in yoga.
We can see the same sort of paradox in Buddhism: one of the "Great Fetters" of Buddhism (along with -- varyingly according to a 10-, 5-, or 6-itemed list -- anger, hatred, laziness, agitation, ignorance, etc.) is vichikitsa, or skeptical doubt. At the same time, Buddha exhorted his monks to not take anything taught to them as truth automatically, to go out and experience it for themselves. Shinzen Young, respected as one of the more "academic" Buddhist teachers, notes in a 2006 talk given in Arizona:
"[Buddha] explicitly told his students that they need not believe something merely because he (or some sacred scripture) claimed it to be so."
So how to account for this apparent contradiction? I like the Buddhist answer --
"[Vichikitsa is] doubt, skepticism, indecisiveness, or vacillation, without the wish to cure it, more like the common idea of cynicism or pessimism than open-mindedness or desire for evidence."
This, to me, hits the nail right on the head -- it's the difference between skepticism (healthy) and cynicism (pathological). It's not that doubt is bad, it's only when you start to cling to the doubting itself that you have a problem. Relating back to Agama, in my talks with Swami about this issue, he's agreed that a difference does exist here (between skepticism and cynicism), and has simply cautioned me to tread the line carefully. It's actually quite telling of Swami's support of this rational-minded inquiring approach, that his "Swami name" takes its root in "viveka", which translates as the ability to exercise discrimination!
To be fair, I see a lot of Swami-sponsored nonsense -- or I should say, a lot of very speculative assertions, often offered without a shred of reference, citation, or serious backup -- float by in the stream of lectures, essays, and discourses offered here at Agama. But I think it's premature to jump to the conclusion that all the stuff that seems like bullshit, is bullshit. Derek may remember another tall, male Israeli in our class, who began completely convinced that everything about the chakras and energy and such was a crock, and about a month or two into our course, when questioned about this, he said something like "Well yeah, I feel the energy and my chakras now, I just think that [new topic] is bullshit now instead!" Along the same lines, why not extend some open-mindedness here? I won't go through the entire list of examples you put up, but for one...
"If I rigorously practice garudasana it's not gonna help me study for a test any more so than focusing my mind during a rigorous practice of padahastasana."
Well, okay, to a certain extent, you're right. If you already have the ability to focus your mind powerfully and steadily, it won't make a huge difference even if you decide to go for ice cream rather than do yoga before an exam. But if you don't, well, just below this quote Derek says he likes a particular yoga practice for ajna chakra (governing mental power) because it helps his focus. Why would trataka on ajna help focus any more than any other practice? Is it less effective than doing trataka on swadhisthana? If so, right here we have some empirical evidence implying that things that work on ajna are better for the mind than others. Now, you could say, well why should I believe garudasana has anything to do with ajna? I should think it'd be found in the same pudding he must have gone mucking about in to verify the connection between trataka and ajna -- practice. And sure, if after a good test run, there's no connection, then I think that's completely valid to say it doesn't work for you. But to dismiss it out of hand (ie. "focus is focus") when you've already got what seems to be proof to the contrary seems hasty.
As a related personal example, I find that if I do halasana before trataka, it's much easier to hold focus in trataka. Why should being in that weird upside-down pose help me to blink less while focusing afterwards? Is there any physiological or psychological or any other -ological explanation that covers this? Sherlock Holmes used to bust this one out on Waston (if you're bored with this and in the mood for Conan Doyle, original story linked here:
"When you have eliminated the possibilities, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."
All I'm saying here is, I agree completely that people's instinct for reason and rational validation should never be quashed or even held in disdain by a good teacher. I do think that some people feel like this as a result of some of the attitudes which are encouraged here, which is unfortunate. I do think Swami makes a linguistic (if not pedagogical) error when he encourages people to be less skeptical. From all my talks with him, it sounds like he often means "cynical" instead (plus a little extra, see below). But it seems to be taking up an equally unstable extreme viewpoint to assume that doctrines like karma are primarily "soothing", or that levitation is a dubious possibility because no one who's "had a few rupees thrown at them" (paraphrased) has come forward to show it off yet. (For one account by a European scientist and mechanical engineer who's witnessed levitation, see The Magus of Java by Kosta Danaos. I have not witnessed levitation myself.) Who knows, really? As I said in my last post, if belief in an "unverifiable" isn't affecting your ability to live and act as a benevolent, kind, and harmonious human being, then why rail against it? We all believe in stuff we can't prove. In the case of karma, I'd say an intelligent interpretation of karma actually encourages you to be a better person. So what if you don't get (objective) proof -- one way or the other -- until you're dead or enlightened?
It's one thing to swallow everything that gets dropped on your plate. It's another thing to refuse any and all food without getting a good taste for it first. My golden mean is somewhere in the middle -- to paraphrase Derek again, do bite and chew, and smack your lips a bit to get the flavor! Then swallow only if all signals are go. I apologize for mixing my metaphors.
I put a little see below up there awhile back, where I proposed that when Swami says "skeptical" is bad, he actually means "cynical". This is true to an extent, but I also believe he's noting another important truth here, which is the power of surrender. Everyone's got examples of times when they fought with a particular lesson to be learned, only to find in the end that the fastest way to "get it" was to give up the struggle and let go into whatever it was that they were facing. I think it's a given that, could you be absolutely, 100% sure of the verity of a certain set of teachings, there'd be no question that to throw yourself fervently into their study would yield the most brilliant results. The problem of course is that you can never be 100% sure, at least with something so abstract as "enlightenment" or the status of one's soul. So this is where healthy skepticism comes in, to gradually discover for yourself which is the wheat and which is the chaff. But Swami (and any other similarly minded teacher) is absolutely right, when he says that skepticism -- even the healthy kind -- will slow you down. For some of us, it's a speed bump we're willing, even happy to take, to ensure as best we can that we're not headed for the edge of a cliff, or a brick wall. Eventually though, if you find through repeated verification a set of teachings you can really trust, then by all means, jump in -- you'll only be dragging yourself down if at that point you insist on more and more and more proof. This is the devolution from skeptic to cynic.
One more point to make, in response to this quote from Derek:
"There was a time in history when faith and dogma ruled people's lives... it was called the 'dark ages' and people were miserable with illness, poverty, and despair. Those days were supplanted by the age of reason or enlightenment."
Steven Levitt likes to make the distinction in his work between causality and correlation -- just because two things are going on at the same time, doesn't imply that one causes the other. In this case, I don't think that a life governed by faith is causal to misery, any more than a life governed by reason is causal to happiness or comfort. It's pretty obvious that illness, poverty, and despair were and are still rampant since the onset of the Age of Enlightenement. To be sure, modern medicine and technology has created more opportunity to live well, but that's just one side of the story.
I notice on Derek's site that the "Bi-partisan Reading List" includes both Ken Wilber and David Deida. Both of these authors stress that as you move from one stage of growth to another, in the most integral way of progress it's vital not to dissociate yourself from the positive characteristics of whatever you've outgrown. Just as much as I think reason and science has its place in the healthy pursuit of spirituality, so I think faith and surrender are equally and absolutely essential.
Speaking of Wilber, he has one book titled The Marriage of Sense and Soul (really an excerpt from a much larger work) which addresses this exact issue eloquently. The basic idea is that faith and reason don't have to be mutually exclusive. I wholeheartedly embrace this idea, as I think is also the essential message at Agama. Just like Agama pushes a "yang" lifestyle because most people are (supposedly) too "yin", but if you're balanced (or too yang) then in that specific case there's different advice given, it also encourages faith over reason with the same mindset. Ultimately, I see Swami, Agama Yoga, and the yogic path itself as embracing an attitude of growth, combining the best of both halves (split by Occam's Razor?).
As Wilber is a far better writer than I ever hope to be, I'll conclude with a quote from his introduction to Sense and Soul:
"If you are an orthodox scientist, I would only suggest that, as you have a thousand times in the past when you were working on a problem, let curiosity and wonder bubble up, but in this case don't focus it on a specific solution. Simply let wonder fill your being until it takes you out of yourself and into the staggering mystery that is the existence of the world, a mystery that facts alone can never begin to fill. If Spirit does exist, it will lie in that direction, the direction of wonder, a direction that intersects the very heart of science itself. And you will find, in this adventure, that the scientific method will never be left behind in the search for an ultimate ground."
Thanks again to Derek. Peace.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Agama Yoga: An Imperfect Machine, A Powerful Practice...A Path To Enlightenment?
Note:
All links to the blog called "Commonsenseananda" (CSA) aren't working now. The site appears to have moved, or been taken down entirely. I'll include a few of Google's cached copies of a few of the most relevant pages; if you want to see more, you'll have to google "commonsenseananda", click on the cache of the main page, and from there when you see an entry you'd like to read, copy either the title or some of the header text, or the links themselves to the specific pages you want to view and go back to google and search again with the text/title/link as a parameter (plus "commonsenseananda"). Then click on the cache link for the pages that come up. it's a bit complicated, but I can't think of any other way to view the site until I receive notice that it's back up and running. The images and formatting don't come up on the cached pages either, so it looks a bit funny.
CSA Main Page
Post titled "Administrative Oddities"
End Note
I'm currently studying the 9th month of the course curriculum at Agama Yoga, in Kho Phangan, Thailand. The school is headed by a Romanian man, Narcis Tarcau, whose teaching cognomen is Swami Vivekananda Saraswati (hereafter referred to simply as "Swami"). I have also completed the Teacher Training Course (TTC) offered by Agama, a 500+ hour program of certification (under International Yoga Federation standards). This is my second year being involved with the school. I'm planning on staying on with Agama for at least another couple of years, if not longer.
This post is essentially written in the name of balance. There's not a lot of information on the internet about Agama, other than from the website itself (plus a few tribe.net posts, message boards here and there, etc.). Now, however, there are two blogs available online, written by classmates of mine from the TTC, which essentially stand as the primary alternative sources of info regarding Agama. These two sites espouse views of the school which, in my opinion, aren't so much invalid as they are extremely biased. I'd like to offer a view of Agama from "the other side", so to speak, and I'll encourage both Derek and Stefan to post a link to this post on their sites. Their own blog URLs are included here:
Agama Yoga Review (AYR):
http://agamareview.blogspot.com/
AYR Tribe.net Posts (also AYR for convenience):
http://people.tribe.net/669a4e62-1660-4ea8-baca-41e14999b085/blog
Commonsenseananda (CSA): http://homepage.mac.com/schneemaennchen/commonsenseananda/index.html
Now then. I'll admit that I've only spent about an hour looking over both of these sites. I've read several posts from AYR, and a couple from CSA. I feel that I've read enough to get a sense for their messages though. Ideally, this post will open a dialog between the three of us -- I'll be clear from the start that I don't at all disagree with everything they have to say! When I arrived here last year, I couldn't go a day without complaining to someone about how much bullshit there was around here, getting in the way of the actual yoga I wanted to study. Even now I refer to Agama as "The Family" or "The Cult" more often than not -- albeit not as seriously as these two do. And in the same vein, I hope they'll both be open to some of the opinions I have to share here.
It seems that Derek's (AYR) main concern is that Agama qualifies as a kind of "mild" cult, and cults have the potential to be harmful to those who choose to open to their influence. A secondary concern of his seems to be the poor quality of teaching offered at the school, especially with regards to the TTC.
Stefan (CSA), on the other hand, seems to primarily be offended with the elements of (sometimes harmful) pseudo-science and patronizing attitudes which exist in the teachings and their delivery. A shaky administrative policy regarding TTC also has his hackles up.
These angles flow together nicely, and each blog draws similar conclusions. I'm going to address each one separately though, starting with AYR.
AYR
AYR quotes Dr. Margaret Thayer Singer, a renowned expert on cultism (now deceased), in looking to define exactly what makes a cult. (I'd actually come across her work in an earlier investigation related to another Agama experience -- the workshop presented here by Jasmuheen in February.) I'll post a quote from Dr. Singer, taken from AYR, here:
"While the conduct of certain cults causes nonmembers to criticize them, the term cult is not in itself pejorative but simply descriptive. It denotes a group that forms around a person who claims he or she has a special mission or knowledge, which will be shared with those who turn over most of their decision making to that self-appointed leader."
I think that's a pretty good place to start. I enjoy that Singer noted the essentially "descriptive" nature of the term "cult". As AYR goes on to examine in depth (link: here), experts identify 10 characteristics of cults or rather, the policies implemented by cult leaders, and many of them (almost all, in fact) -- such as elitism, charismatic leadership, deception, and exploitation -- qualify beautifully to describe most political systems, capitalist business models, militaries, and even fields of academic science and medicine! As an American, I can easily identify 8 out of 10 of the cult trademarks in our current presidency. As AYR notes, it isn't even necessary to have a perfect score to qualify as a cult.
There are two parts to the Singer quote which I find a bit vague or circular. The first is "...claims he or she has a special mission or knowledge" -- if special here were "unique" instead, I'd feel more comfortable. Special by itself doesn't really mean anything. Specifically with relation to Agama, it is first and foremost a school of yoga. Yoga, by any standard, is a type of "special knowledge", in the same way that any specialized field of study is, whether it be Zoroastrianism or particle physics. It's only fair to note here that Swami does claim to offer highly exclusive yogic information. But all of it he's learned from different teachers, and all of which has at least some version or element described in classical texts (or at the very least modern literature from respected yogis). I have never heard him say that any of the teachings here is absolutely unobtainable elsewhere. Difficult to find? Yes. Does he even imply that it's restricted information and you can only get it (easily) here? Yes. But that's not nearly the same as "special knowledge", which I take to imply "...which can't be found elsewhere". For example, there is a teaching given here from the Tibetan tradition, where a certain mantra is given to students. Swami has said things like, "Even the Tibetans don't give this one out too often." That's a far cry from "I am the only person on earth who can bestow this knowledge upon you." Like I said, I'd prefer if the original quote just said "unique" instead.
Even so, it seems that this clause isn't meant to stand on its own as a denotative element for "cult", but rather it's meant to go along with the second half of the quote, which goes, "which will be shared with those who turn over most of their decision making to that self-appointed leader." This also is a bit funny to me -- I can appoint myself as leader of the United Nations right now if I like, but it doesn't mean anything until I'm no longer "self-appointed" but "elected", or in a totalitarian example, until I have the ability to force others to obey my command. A cult doesn't get formed when Joe Swami says so, a cult is formed when enough people choose to surrender some degree of power to a particular individual.
And this is one of my main theses here: Cults are defined by the attitude of their members, not by the head authority itself.
Basically, cults happen when the teacher becomes the focus, and not the teachings. From there the nastier qualities set in, when in order to maintain power, fear, coercion, various depravations, and so forth, are employed. But there needs to be a antecedent surrender of one's discernment before any of that can happen (again, unless force is employed, like the Jones compound in Guyana or something).
Back to Agama -- in a certain way, I am in complete agreement with AYR. There are absolutely people here who are devoted more to Swami (even fanatically so) than to the study and practice of the yogic system offered here. These people already live, more-or-less, as cult members. There is a definite surrender of decision-making over to Swami, by these individuals. And there is certainly a certain elitism, even totalitarianism (in the sense of non-acceptance of other views) which they abide by. It's palpably isolating to spend a lot of time with some of the people here.
I don't support any of this behavior for a second. I think it's immature and, as AYR mentioned, is largely based on fear. However, I don't think that these people and their attitudes are enough to call Agama a cult. As for the teachings themselves, here is another place where I don't think Singer's definitions are completely appropriate, because the study of hatha yoga itself (as seen in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Gheranda Samhita, Shiva Samhita, and so forth) incorporates -- as essentials! -- some of these very elements (from the "10 cult qualities" mentioned earlier). "Alienation", "fatigue" (to an extent), "totalitarian worldview", and "change in diet" are all stressed as of vital importance for the successful practice of yoga in these texts. And while it's true that you don't really need to go and live in a cave, sleep 4 hours per night, and be vegan to make headway in one's yogic practice, these types of behaviors are by no means exclusive to Agama Yoga itself -- nor are they practices required or demanded of students in this system.
To me it's pretty clear that there are cultish aspects of Agama and some of its practitioners, but that, according to Singer's standards, the school itself (including Swami's attitude about teaching) doesn't qualify as a cult -- not even a mild one. Unless if by mild, Derek, you meant just what I said -- that there is a percentage of the student population here which acts like a cult. In that case, I agree. I also agree that should this (currently minority, in my view) percentage increase to gain a majority, then unless Swami specifically addresses these tendencies, there is the strong possibility that Agama could become a cult.
I'll leave off on this topic for now. I think there's plenty more to be said, on either side, but I'm eager to continue this as a dialogue, rather than a diatribe. I should mention here before I move on to CSA's blog, that I consider the author of AYR to be a strong, inspiring individual. He's intelligent, fair, and extremely knowledgeable in his fields of expertise. He's taught me quite a bit, in fact, about contemporary methods for evaluating teachers, curriculum, and educational administration -- as well as putting forth a good game of chess! I just think there are some fundamental differences between teaching in different disciplines -- as much as I believe there are fundamental similarities. You don't see, say, Mike Krzyzewski coaching his players in the same way, not even a similar methodology, that you'd see done by an AT at a Goenka Vipassana retreat, or by a literature prof at Exeter Academy. At the heart of all these teachers and their teachings though, should be a strong desire to help people grow in a positive direction, and a clear and effective methodology to make this happen. I believe Agama Yoga has these fundamentals, although I completely agree that, evaluated from a different (I'll refrain from using generalizations such as Western or Eastern) perspective, the tools and approaches used might be determined as inappropriate, remedial, or even harmful. The question then remains, I suppose, is there an objective standard for education which can take into account all the myriad styles, cultures, expressions, and goals of all teachings everywhere? That's what I feel AYR is trying to establish, and I don't think that's very fair. Derek? Any thoughts?
Okay, that was a lot longer than I expected. I'll try to give CSA equal consideration...forgive me if I run out of steam. (Must be a weak muladhara chakra. :-) )
CSA
As I mentioned earlier, CSA, run by Stefan, attacks Agama from a more purely skeptical standpoint. Agama exhibits bad (or no) discernment or scientific integrity, it's poorly run, it's poorly taught, and otherwise intelligent individuals seem completely brainwashed by the hogwash and second-rate mysticism. (Whether or not they were like that before they got here, and that's just the sort Agama attracts, or whether they change once they arrive, seems unclear -- both, I guess).
All that is my paraphrasing of CSA's opinion of Agama. And to be honest, I more or less completely agree! This post on CSA is more-or-less 100% accurate, and well-stated, in my opinion.
The administration here is a nightmare, especially with regards to how the TTC was run this year. (Although it deserves to be said that strenuous efforts are being made to completely revamp the TTC experience for next season, and a lot of the problems most frequently encountered this year should be smoothed out for the next one.) Swami is always late, and the more advance planning made for a particular meeting, the later he comes! Last night we began a meeting scheduled to start at 830pm, at 945pm...and the sad thing is, no one really showed up (among the students) until 915 anyhow! it's an awful pattern that has been established from the very top. Apparently, Swami's own first yoga teacher would sometimes show up 3 DAYS LATE . I pray that it doesn't end up going that far here...but something needs to be done.
Anyway, CSA has already articulated most of the other rants I could go off on, so I'll refrain. My main issue with the standpoint of CSA is nicely summed up with this excerpt from the post entitled What Yoga Is:
"If you want to build a bridge, consult an engineer. If you want your computer fixed, ask a software expert. If you want to live a healthy life, live according to what your doctor tells you. If you want to know how your mind works and act accordingly listen to your psychologist. If you want to aet a healthy diet ask your dietary counsellor. If you want advice on how to act ethically, consult a philosopher. ... yoga is ... [a] method for living your life according to the laws of "the universe" ... Just check who you trust about how the universe works."
Again, no disagreements there, not explicitly at least. Implicitly though...essentially what I hear CSA saying is that he believes that if you want to achieve some result, or outcome, you should go to someone whom you believe to excel in accomplishing (or helping you to accomplish) this task. Furthermore, and this is where I must disagree, he is saying something similar to what AYR said, at its core: there is an objective standard by which all "proficiency" can be measured.
I would submit that such a belief is ultimately no more tenable than religious faith, or confidence in a system of psycho-physical/spiritual development, like yoga. Belief in "objective" scientific analysis, or whatever modern methodology is accepted as a base for evaluation, requires you to buy into some core tenets, which often stand in stark contradiction of other opposing systems. Now, okay, you can't really argue that point -- an intelligent response would be, well, if there is no such thing as total objectivity, then it makes the most sense to go for the system that makes the most use of common consensus. If 1000 out of 1000 people experience an apple falling to the floor every time it's pushed off a shelf, then it's more reasonable to believe there is some downward, inevitable, attractive force occuring, than if one or two people claim (without even being able to demonstrate to others on request) that under certain conditions they can oppose and even overcome gravity by means of levitation. I'm all for this, in this extreme example. I don't think it hurts though, to be open-minded enough to admit anything as a possibility, as long as it's not interfering with your ability to meet the outcomes you're trying to achieve, as I mentioned before. I may believe it's possible to levitate, but I don't see a problem with that as long as I don't encourage myself or others to believe and act as gravity doesn't exist (or can be easily overcome). I trust in the laws of physics while bringing my motorbike around a sharp turn -- I have direct experience that something is reliably consistent here! -- but to be close-minded to possibility is not the way that most growth, maturation, and especially scientific advancement has been made throughout history.
However, there are a few examples mentioned by CSA that don't really fall into this "upheld by standards of objectivity", which seem to instead border on blind faith! Let's look again..."If you want to live a healthy life, live according to what your doctor tells you. If you want to know how your mind works and act accordingly listen to your psychologist. If you want to aet a healthy diet ask your dietary counsellor. If you want advice on how to act ethically, consult a philosopher."
What exactly does healthy mean here? Even ignoring this important ambiguity, it's uncontestable that many doctors have been confronted, sued, even stripped of their rights as practitioners for violating certain standards of ethical and moral behavior. Endorsing medicines on behalf of pharmaceutical companies (rather than what the patient may truly need), giving ultra-conservative advice so as to avoid potential malpractice issues, giving preferential treatment to certain demographics of patients...not to mention that, just because you graduate from medical school, doesn't mean you will be a good, even sufficiently knowledgeable, doctor! I and many people I know have had personal experiences with medical consultations which later proved to be completely erroneous, even contraindicatory, to the problem at hand.
Listen to your psychologist? As the author of CSA is a practicing psychologist himself, I'm sure it's just as obvious to him as it is to most that you could have a roomful of psychologists and easily arrive at a case where each one has a different, even contradictory method (and theory) for treatment. For an example involving CSA himself, take NLP, for example, a therapeutic technology mentioned in AYR's blog as practiced by Agama. CSA's author has reportedly said that NLP is an almost completely abandoned technology in modern psychology, having no clinical studies to support its efficacy or successful use (this is also backed up on Wikepedia)...and yet, in one example in the same country where CSA practices, the incoming head of the New Jersey State Psychological Association is a staunch advocate and current practitioner of NLP!
(Admittedly, I like NLP and I chose this example specifically to defend it, although I don't think it'd be hard for either me or CSA to come up with other, less controversial examples of conflicting methods of therapy.)
Moving on...eat healthy? If there is any field in modern "science" which is more fickle and unstable than dietary studies, I can't think of it now. Alkaline/Acid, Low-Carb, Hi-Carb, Atkins, South Beach, Raw, Vegan, Vegetarian, Organic, even protein/carb/calorie basics are disputed now! 'Nuff said here.
And ethics? Consult a philosopher? What is philosophy, if not the institutionalized agreement to disagree on /everything/? Not to mention that Indian Tantric and Vedantic philosophies have both been accepted (and even found widespread in other cultures) as valid, engaging, stable philosophical standpoints for centuries...
My point, by now, should be obvious. CSA is choosing here to surrender just as much (if not more) of his "decision making" (see Singer) to supposed experts in specific fields, as the students here at Agama have chosen to do with regards to yogic teachings (and yes, even Swami's specific take on these teachings) regarding all the aforementioned topics: health, the workings of the mind, diet, and philosophy. His final sentence quoted above is, in my esteem, the most elegant: "Just check who you trust about how the universe works."
Stefan, I believe you have started from a strong system, that of scientific objectivism (which in many cases can indeed hold strong, valid argument against some of the practices taught in yoga), and you've leapfrogged (or been leapfrogged) by a set of beliefs, which, although purportedly coming from that same strong background, are in many ways just as brainwashed and ultimately superstitious as those that talk of levitation, gods, magic, and subtle energies. How many people research the pills prescribed to them by their doctors, to see if they're really exactly what they need? Do you? How many people following nutritionists' advice really go through the time to fully understand how the body and its metabolistic/digestive processes work (assuming these things /can/ be fully understood in the first place!) Do you? If so, I applaud you, but even in this case, I think your encouraging an equally blind faith in those chosen fields or professions which you've mentioned is ultimately culturally and educationally biased and not worthy of the fine standard of logical analysis which you've displayed often in the past.
All the same, I'm open to hear what you have to say, and to explore these points further. In fact, I welcome it! (We never did get to play a game of chess...)
As for now, I'm completely wiped...there may have been things I'd meant to include but whatever's there for now is as it'll stay. Thanks to Derek and Stefan both for starting up this engaging line of discussion. I'll look forward to finding ways in which these issues can be used to make Agama into a system of teaching which is more accepted from all walks of life.
Post-Scriptum: There is one more thing which I'd like to be completely open about (anyone who's read my blog much over the years will be aware of this already), which is the fact that I am extremely open-minded, and more than willing to allow subjective, un-universally-verifiable experiences to color (enliven?) my view of life and the world around me. You may see on the Tribe AYR postings one story entitled "Fire and Ice". That "quite stupid" story was about (and told by) me! And although I can't say Derek told the story exactly as I told it to him, it's more or less accurate -- and I don't think this openness to belief necessarily clouds my ability to be a logical, rational, analytical individual in any way, shape, or form. I believe really weird things are going on all the time! And more likely than not, some of these weird things ARE NOT ACTUALLY HAPPENING. I'm fine with that.
Every single person on this earth, Derek and Stefan included, is walking around, making up a large part of their experiential reality, and it has very little to do with any consensual perspective. The only thing which is consensual, perhaps, is the agreement by a majority to exactly what extent it's acceptable to be creating your reality as you go along. If I pass a girl on the street and she looks at me and I say to myself, "Wow, she totally wanted me." -- sure, I may get a few eye rolls if I pass this onto my friends, but would you label me as crazy or delusional? (I mean, seriously.) But if I walk past that same girl on the street and say to myself, "Wow, her aura is amazingly vivid and she has a little fairy following her around over her left shoulder and I think she's maybe a reincarnated mermaid." -- now if I chose to share this with the person next to me, I'd start getting looks. Consensual, or objective, reality refers here to how comfortable a group feels with any one of its members fantasizing -- or better yet, it refers to how likely other members of the group might be to share a similar fantasy of their own.
I often have perceptual experiences that I'd guess people around me don't share. Both of the "she totally wants me" variety, AND the "auric mermaid" kind. I'm open to being shown how one affects my ability to reason and discriminate more than the other -- because for now I don't accept that any particular quality of subjective experience is causal to rational thinking. Now, that some such quality, or rather, the control over these qualities, could be causal to one's ability to function in any given society is another thing entirely -- John Nash comes to mind immediately as a fine thinker and an absolute mess due to his schizophrenia. I'm happy to admit that my own subjective world would not fit well for very long in, say, the consensual reality of an corporate office job, or a branch of the military. Again, this applies to everyone I think. And I've made my point.
Thanks again, all for now.
Love to all.
Note:
All links to the blog called "Commonsenseananda" (CSA) aren't working now. The site appears to have moved, or been taken down entirely. I'll include a few of Google's cached copies of a few of the most relevant pages; if you want to see more, you'll have to google "commonsenseananda", click on the cache of the main page, and from there when you see an entry you'd like to read, copy either the title or some of the header text, or the links themselves to the specific pages you want to view and go back to google and search again with the text/title/link as a parameter (plus "commonsenseananda"). Then click on the cache link for the pages that come up. it's a bit complicated, but I can't think of any other way to view the site until I receive notice that it's back up and running. The images and formatting don't come up on the cached pages either, so it looks a bit funny.
CSA Main Page
Post titled "Administrative Oddities"
End Note
I'm currently studying the 9th month of the course curriculum at Agama Yoga, in Kho Phangan, Thailand. The school is headed by a Romanian man, Narcis Tarcau, whose teaching cognomen is Swami Vivekananda Saraswati (hereafter referred to simply as "Swami"). I have also completed the Teacher Training Course (TTC) offered by Agama, a 500+ hour program of certification (under International Yoga Federation standards). This is my second year being involved with the school. I'm planning on staying on with Agama for at least another couple of years, if not longer.
This post is essentially written in the name of balance. There's not a lot of information on the internet about Agama, other than from the website itself (plus a few tribe.net posts, message boards here and there, etc.). Now, however, there are two blogs available online, written by classmates of mine from the TTC, which essentially stand as the primary alternative sources of info regarding Agama. These two sites espouse views of the school which, in my opinion, aren't so much invalid as they are extremely biased. I'd like to offer a view of Agama from "the other side", so to speak, and I'll encourage both Derek and Stefan to post a link to this post on their sites. Their own blog URLs are included here:
Agama Yoga Review (AYR):
http://agamareview.blogspot.com/
AYR Tribe.net Posts (also AYR for convenience):
http://people.tribe.net/669a4e62-1660-4ea8-baca-41e14999b085/blog
Commonsenseananda (CSA): http://homepage.mac.com/schneemaennchen/commonsenseananda/index.html
Now then. I'll admit that I've only spent about an hour looking over both of these sites. I've read several posts from AYR, and a couple from CSA. I feel that I've read enough to get a sense for their messages though. Ideally, this post will open a dialog between the three of us -- I'll be clear from the start that I don't at all disagree with everything they have to say! When I arrived here last year, I couldn't go a day without complaining to someone about how much bullshit there was around here, getting in the way of the actual yoga I wanted to study. Even now I refer to Agama as "The Family" or "The Cult" more often than not -- albeit not as seriously as these two do. And in the same vein, I hope they'll both be open to some of the opinions I have to share here.
It seems that Derek's (AYR) main concern is that Agama qualifies as a kind of "mild" cult, and cults have the potential to be harmful to those who choose to open to their influence. A secondary concern of his seems to be the poor quality of teaching offered at the school, especially with regards to the TTC.
Stefan (CSA), on the other hand, seems to primarily be offended with the elements of (sometimes harmful) pseudo-science and patronizing attitudes which exist in the teachings and their delivery. A shaky administrative policy regarding TTC also has his hackles up.
These angles flow together nicely, and each blog draws similar conclusions. I'm going to address each one separately though, starting with AYR.
AYR
AYR quotes Dr. Margaret Thayer Singer, a renowned expert on cultism (now deceased), in looking to define exactly what makes a cult. (I'd actually come across her work in an earlier investigation related to another Agama experience -- the workshop presented here by Jasmuheen in February.) I'll post a quote from Dr. Singer, taken from AYR, here:
"While the conduct of certain cults causes nonmembers to criticize them, the term cult is not in itself pejorative but simply descriptive. It denotes a group that forms around a person who claims he or she has a special mission or knowledge, which will be shared with those who turn over most of their decision making to that self-appointed leader."
I think that's a pretty good place to start. I enjoy that Singer noted the essentially "descriptive" nature of the term "cult". As AYR goes on to examine in depth (link: here), experts identify 10 characteristics of cults or rather, the policies implemented by cult leaders, and many of them (almost all, in fact) -- such as elitism, charismatic leadership, deception, and exploitation -- qualify beautifully to describe most political systems, capitalist business models, militaries, and even fields of academic science and medicine! As an American, I can easily identify 8 out of 10 of the cult trademarks in our current presidency. As AYR notes, it isn't even necessary to have a perfect score to qualify as a cult.
There are two parts to the Singer quote which I find a bit vague or circular. The first is "...claims he or she has a special mission or knowledge" -- if special here were "unique" instead, I'd feel more comfortable. Special by itself doesn't really mean anything. Specifically with relation to Agama, it is first and foremost a school of yoga. Yoga, by any standard, is a type of "special knowledge", in the same way that any specialized field of study is, whether it be Zoroastrianism or particle physics. It's only fair to note here that Swami does claim to offer highly exclusive yogic information. But all of it he's learned from different teachers, and all of which has at least some version or element described in classical texts (or at the very least modern literature from respected yogis). I have never heard him say that any of the teachings here is absolutely unobtainable elsewhere. Difficult to find? Yes. Does he even imply that it's restricted information and you can only get it (easily) here? Yes. But that's not nearly the same as "special knowledge", which I take to imply "...which can't be found elsewhere". For example, there is a teaching given here from the Tibetan tradition, where a certain mantra is given to students. Swami has said things like, "Even the Tibetans don't give this one out too often." That's a far cry from "I am the only person on earth who can bestow this knowledge upon you." Like I said, I'd prefer if the original quote just said "unique" instead.
Even so, it seems that this clause isn't meant to stand on its own as a denotative element for "cult", but rather it's meant to go along with the second half of the quote, which goes, "which will be shared with those who turn over most of their decision making to that self-appointed leader." This also is a bit funny to me -- I can appoint myself as leader of the United Nations right now if I like, but it doesn't mean anything until I'm no longer "self-appointed" but "elected", or in a totalitarian example, until I have the ability to force others to obey my command. A cult doesn't get formed when Joe Swami says so, a cult is formed when enough people choose to surrender some degree of power to a particular individual.
And this is one of my main theses here: Cults are defined by the attitude of their members, not by the head authority itself.
Basically, cults happen when the teacher becomes the focus, and not the teachings. From there the nastier qualities set in, when in order to maintain power, fear, coercion, various depravations, and so forth, are employed. But there needs to be a antecedent surrender of one's discernment before any of that can happen (again, unless force is employed, like the Jones compound in Guyana or something).
Back to Agama -- in a certain way, I am in complete agreement with AYR. There are absolutely people here who are devoted more to Swami (even fanatically so) than to the study and practice of the yogic system offered here. These people already live, more-or-less, as cult members. There is a definite surrender of decision-making over to Swami, by these individuals. And there is certainly a certain elitism, even totalitarianism (in the sense of non-acceptance of other views) which they abide by. It's palpably isolating to spend a lot of time with some of the people here.
I don't support any of this behavior for a second. I think it's immature and, as AYR mentioned, is largely based on fear. However, I don't think that these people and their attitudes are enough to call Agama a cult. As for the teachings themselves, here is another place where I don't think Singer's definitions are completely appropriate, because the study of hatha yoga itself (as seen in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Gheranda Samhita, Shiva Samhita, and so forth) incorporates -- as essentials! -- some of these very elements (from the "10 cult qualities" mentioned earlier). "Alienation", "fatigue" (to an extent), "totalitarian worldview", and "change in diet" are all stressed as of vital importance for the successful practice of yoga in these texts. And while it's true that you don't really need to go and live in a cave, sleep 4 hours per night, and be vegan to make headway in one's yogic practice, these types of behaviors are by no means exclusive to Agama Yoga itself -- nor are they practices required or demanded of students in this system.
To me it's pretty clear that there are cultish aspects of Agama and some of its practitioners, but that, according to Singer's standards, the school itself (including Swami's attitude about teaching) doesn't qualify as a cult -- not even a mild one. Unless if by mild, Derek, you meant just what I said -- that there is a percentage of the student population here which acts like a cult. In that case, I agree. I also agree that should this (currently minority, in my view) percentage increase to gain a majority, then unless Swami specifically addresses these tendencies, there is the strong possibility that Agama could become a cult.
I'll leave off on this topic for now. I think there's plenty more to be said, on either side, but I'm eager to continue this as a dialogue, rather than a diatribe. I should mention here before I move on to CSA's blog, that I consider the author of AYR to be a strong, inspiring individual. He's intelligent, fair, and extremely knowledgeable in his fields of expertise. He's taught me quite a bit, in fact, about contemporary methods for evaluating teachers, curriculum, and educational administration -- as well as putting forth a good game of chess! I just think there are some fundamental differences between teaching in different disciplines -- as much as I believe there are fundamental similarities. You don't see, say, Mike Krzyzewski coaching his players in the same way, not even a similar methodology, that you'd see done by an AT at a Goenka Vipassana retreat, or by a literature prof at Exeter Academy. At the heart of all these teachers and their teachings though, should be a strong desire to help people grow in a positive direction, and a clear and effective methodology to make this happen. I believe Agama Yoga has these fundamentals, although I completely agree that, evaluated from a different (I'll refrain from using generalizations such as Western or Eastern) perspective, the tools and approaches used might be determined as inappropriate, remedial, or even harmful. The question then remains, I suppose, is there an objective standard for education which can take into account all the myriad styles, cultures, expressions, and goals of all teachings everywhere? That's what I feel AYR is trying to establish, and I don't think that's very fair. Derek? Any thoughts?
Okay, that was a lot longer than I expected. I'll try to give CSA equal consideration...forgive me if I run out of steam. (Must be a weak muladhara chakra. :-) )
CSA
As I mentioned earlier, CSA, run by Stefan, attacks Agama from a more purely skeptical standpoint. Agama exhibits bad (or no) discernment or scientific integrity, it's poorly run, it's poorly taught, and otherwise intelligent individuals seem completely brainwashed by the hogwash and second-rate mysticism. (Whether or not they were like that before they got here, and that's just the sort Agama attracts, or whether they change once they arrive, seems unclear -- both, I guess).
All that is my paraphrasing of CSA's opinion of Agama. And to be honest, I more or less completely agree! This post on CSA is more-or-less 100% accurate, and well-stated, in my opinion.
The administration here is a nightmare, especially with regards to how the TTC was run this year. (Although it deserves to be said that strenuous efforts are being made to completely revamp the TTC experience for next season, and a lot of the problems most frequently encountered this year should be smoothed out for the next one.) Swami is always late, and the more advance planning made for a particular meeting, the later he comes! Last night we began a meeting scheduled to start at 830pm, at 945pm...and the sad thing is, no one really showed up (among the students) until 915 anyhow! it's an awful pattern that has been established from the very top. Apparently, Swami's own first yoga teacher would sometimes show up 3 DAYS LATE . I pray that it doesn't end up going that far here...but something needs to be done.
Anyway, CSA has already articulated most of the other rants I could go off on, so I'll refrain. My main issue with the standpoint of CSA is nicely summed up with this excerpt from the post entitled What Yoga Is:
"If you want to build a bridge, consult an engineer. If you want your computer fixed, ask a software expert. If you want to live a healthy life, live according to what your doctor tells you. If you want to know how your mind works and act accordingly listen to your psychologist. If you want to aet a healthy diet ask your dietary counsellor. If you want advice on how to act ethically, consult a philosopher. ... yoga is ... [a] method for living your life according to the laws of "the universe" ... Just check who you trust about how the universe works."
Again, no disagreements there, not explicitly at least. Implicitly though...essentially what I hear CSA saying is that he believes that if you want to achieve some result, or outcome, you should go to someone whom you believe to excel in accomplishing (or helping you to accomplish) this task. Furthermore, and this is where I must disagree, he is saying something similar to what AYR said, at its core: there is an objective standard by which all "proficiency" can be measured.
I would submit that such a belief is ultimately no more tenable than religious faith, or confidence in a system of psycho-physical/spiritual development, like yoga. Belief in "objective" scientific analysis, or whatever modern methodology is accepted as a base for evaluation, requires you to buy into some core tenets, which often stand in stark contradiction of other opposing systems. Now, okay, you can't really argue that point -- an intelligent response would be, well, if there is no such thing as total objectivity, then it makes the most sense to go for the system that makes the most use of common consensus. If 1000 out of 1000 people experience an apple falling to the floor every time it's pushed off a shelf, then it's more reasonable to believe there is some downward, inevitable, attractive force occuring, than if one or two people claim (without even being able to demonstrate to others on request) that under certain conditions they can oppose and even overcome gravity by means of levitation. I'm all for this, in this extreme example. I don't think it hurts though, to be open-minded enough to admit anything as a possibility, as long as it's not interfering with your ability to meet the outcomes you're trying to achieve, as I mentioned before. I may believe it's possible to levitate, but I don't see a problem with that as long as I don't encourage myself or others to believe and act as gravity doesn't exist (or can be easily overcome). I trust in the laws of physics while bringing my motorbike around a sharp turn -- I have direct experience that something is reliably consistent here! -- but to be close-minded to possibility is not the way that most growth, maturation, and especially scientific advancement has been made throughout history.
However, there are a few examples mentioned by CSA that don't really fall into this "upheld by standards of objectivity", which seem to instead border on blind faith! Let's look again..."If you want to live a healthy life, live according to what your doctor tells you. If you want to know how your mind works and act accordingly listen to your psychologist. If you want to aet a healthy diet ask your dietary counsellor. If you want advice on how to act ethically, consult a philosopher."
What exactly does healthy mean here? Even ignoring this important ambiguity, it's uncontestable that many doctors have been confronted, sued, even stripped of their rights as practitioners for violating certain standards of ethical and moral behavior. Endorsing medicines on behalf of pharmaceutical companies (rather than what the patient may truly need), giving ultra-conservative advice so as to avoid potential malpractice issues, giving preferential treatment to certain demographics of patients...not to mention that, just because you graduate from medical school, doesn't mean you will be a good, even sufficiently knowledgeable, doctor! I and many people I know have had personal experiences with medical consultations which later proved to be completely erroneous, even contraindicatory, to the problem at hand.
Listen to your psychologist? As the author of CSA is a practicing psychologist himself, I'm sure it's just as obvious to him as it is to most that you could have a roomful of psychologists and easily arrive at a case where each one has a different, even contradictory method (and theory) for treatment. For an example involving CSA himself, take NLP, for example, a therapeutic technology mentioned in AYR's blog as practiced by Agama. CSA's author has reportedly said that NLP is an almost completely abandoned technology in modern psychology, having no clinical studies to support its efficacy or successful use (this is also backed up on Wikepedia)...and yet, in one example in the same country where CSA practices, the incoming head of the New Jersey State Psychological Association is a staunch advocate and current practitioner of NLP!
(Admittedly, I like NLP and I chose this example specifically to defend it, although I don't think it'd be hard for either me or CSA to come up with other, less controversial examples of conflicting methods of therapy.)
Moving on...eat healthy? If there is any field in modern "science" which is more fickle and unstable than dietary studies, I can't think of it now. Alkaline/Acid, Low-Carb, Hi-Carb, Atkins, South Beach, Raw, Vegan, Vegetarian, Organic, even protein/carb/calorie basics are disputed now! 'Nuff said here.
And ethics? Consult a philosopher? What is philosophy, if not the institutionalized agreement to disagree on /everything/? Not to mention that Indian Tantric and Vedantic philosophies have both been accepted (and even found widespread in other cultures) as valid, engaging, stable philosophical standpoints for centuries...
My point, by now, should be obvious. CSA is choosing here to surrender just as much (if not more) of his "decision making" (see Singer) to supposed experts in specific fields, as the students here at Agama have chosen to do with regards to yogic teachings (and yes, even Swami's specific take on these teachings) regarding all the aforementioned topics: health, the workings of the mind, diet, and philosophy. His final sentence quoted above is, in my esteem, the most elegant: "Just check who you trust about how the universe works."
Stefan, I believe you have started from a strong system, that of scientific objectivism (which in many cases can indeed hold strong, valid argument against some of the practices taught in yoga), and you've leapfrogged (or been leapfrogged) by a set of beliefs, which, although purportedly coming from that same strong background, are in many ways just as brainwashed and ultimately superstitious as those that talk of levitation, gods, magic, and subtle energies. How many people research the pills prescribed to them by their doctors, to see if they're really exactly what they need? Do you? How many people following nutritionists' advice really go through the time to fully understand how the body and its metabolistic/digestive processes work (assuming these things /can/ be fully understood in the first place!) Do you? If so, I applaud you, but even in this case, I think your encouraging an equally blind faith in those chosen fields or professions which you've mentioned is ultimately culturally and educationally biased and not worthy of the fine standard of logical analysis which you've displayed often in the past.
All the same, I'm open to hear what you have to say, and to explore these points further. In fact, I welcome it! (We never did get to play a game of chess...)
As for now, I'm completely wiped...there may have been things I'd meant to include but whatever's there for now is as it'll stay. Thanks to Derek and Stefan both for starting up this engaging line of discussion. I'll look forward to finding ways in which these issues can be used to make Agama into a system of teaching which is more accepted from all walks of life.
Post-Scriptum: There is one more thing which I'd like to be completely open about (anyone who's read my blog much over the years will be aware of this already), which is the fact that I am extremely open-minded, and more than willing to allow subjective, un-universally-verifiable experiences to color (enliven?) my view of life and the world around me. You may see on the Tribe AYR postings one story entitled "Fire and Ice". That "quite stupid" story was about (and told by) me! And although I can't say Derek told the story exactly as I told it to him, it's more or less accurate -- and I don't think this openness to belief necessarily clouds my ability to be a logical, rational, analytical individual in any way, shape, or form. I believe really weird things are going on all the time! And more likely than not, some of these weird things ARE NOT ACTUALLY HAPPENING. I'm fine with that.
Every single person on this earth, Derek and Stefan included, is walking around, making up a large part of their experiential reality, and it has very little to do with any consensual perspective. The only thing which is consensual, perhaps, is the agreement by a majority to exactly what extent it's acceptable to be creating your reality as you go along. If I pass a girl on the street and she looks at me and I say to myself, "Wow, she totally wanted me." -- sure, I may get a few eye rolls if I pass this onto my friends, but would you label me as crazy or delusional? (I mean, seriously.) But if I walk past that same girl on the street and say to myself, "Wow, her aura is amazingly vivid and she has a little fairy following her around over her left shoulder and I think she's maybe a reincarnated mermaid." -- now if I chose to share this with the person next to me, I'd start getting looks. Consensual, or objective, reality refers here to how comfortable a group feels with any one of its members fantasizing -- or better yet, it refers to how likely other members of the group might be to share a similar fantasy of their own.
I often have perceptual experiences that I'd guess people around me don't share. Both of the "she totally wants me" variety, AND the "auric mermaid" kind. I'm open to being shown how one affects my ability to reason and discriminate more than the other -- because for now I don't accept that any particular quality of subjective experience is causal to rational thinking. Now, that some such quality, or rather, the control over these qualities, could be causal to one's ability to function in any given society is another thing entirely -- John Nash comes to mind immediately as a fine thinker and an absolute mess due to his schizophrenia. I'm happy to admit that my own subjective world would not fit well for very long in, say, the consensual reality of an corporate office job, or a branch of the military. Again, this applies to everyone I think. And I've made my point.
Thanks again, all for now.
Love to all.
