really want to see you, lord, but it takes so long, my lord (12. 114)

The first chart-topper of a former Beatle, George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” (previously) began a four-week run at number one in the US market on this day in 1970. Originally given to fellow artist under the same label, Billy Preston—session musician who played keyboard for Little Richard, the Everly Brothers, the Rolling Stones and the Beatles whom was recognised in his own right for his funk and gospel compositions (“Will it Go Round in Circles” and the Joe Cocker hit “You Are So Beautiful”)—which Harrison produced for his record Encouraging Words in September of the same year, the song’s author included it on the triple album All Things Must Pass, engineered by Phil Spector (see above) and given the Wall of Sound Treatment (see also) to highlight and enhance Harrison’s signature slide guitar. Intended as a statement against religious sectarianism, the modern and inclusive hymn is a reflection of Harrison’s yearning for a direct and unmediated relationship with God, in line with the teachings of philosopher and teacher Swami Vivekananada who introduced yoga and the Vedas to the western world in the late nineteenth century (see also) with the maxim “If there is a God, we must see him, and if there is a soul, we must perceive it,” echoed with a degree of impatience, later reconciled, in the opening verses.

kāla (11. 280)

Via ibīdem, we enjoyed contemplating this display that shows the passage of different units of time side-by-side advancing relative to the observer. Named for the Jain concept of that which brings forth change (also meaning death), the second is the smallest practical measurement, made up of countless and indivisible samaya—like Planck time though the zeptosecond or one sextillionth of a second is the smallest fragment of time that can be reliably calibrated—and itself representing about forty-eight seconds and the kşaṇa about forty-eight minutes. Aside from the more familiar units and the Hindu-Sanskrit tradition of describing the cosmological cycle, from microseconds to trillions of years, there’s also the milliday, invented by the Swatch company as one-thousandth part of a day or a .beat, the lustrum to mark the five-year interval between Roman censuses, the indiction for the fifteen-year requirement for tax assessments in the Empire, a ghurry, the time it took a water-clock to empty, gauged to divide the day into sixty intervals or rather twenty-four minutes and the chelek (חלק) one eighteenth of minute from the Babylonian for one degree of celestial rotation and a momentum, a medieval reckoning of the hours by the sun-dial, about forty moments for each twelve-hour solar day—as well as more informal but countable units.

mariä himmelfahrt (10. 947)

Observed on this day as either the Feast of the Assumption in the Latin Rite or the Feast of the Dormition in Eastern Orthodox tradition, Christians celebrate the translation of the Virgin Mary, either wholly, bodily taken up or having gone to sleep without suffering a mortal death. While this elevation to eternal life has some singular aspects (Mary is said to enjoy the fullness and autonomy of the afterlife that the other saints will only experience after the Last Judgment), there are other instances of the phenomenal honour in Judaism and Christianity, with Jesus and Enoch, the patriarch and father of Methuselah “who walked with God: and was no more” and the prophet Elijah and Pharaoh’s Daughter (see also) who found Moses (himself taken up after his remains were fought over by Satan and the Archangel Michael) amongst the reeds with other instances of being raptured in other traditions. Many figures in Hinduism, kings and swami, are said to have merged with God, essentially dematerialising, Islam teaches that Muhammed was similarly taken up into Heaven and Hellenistic tradition recognises ascendant masters like the thaumaturgist and philosopher Apollonius, a wandering sage who travelled in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia and drew many latter day comparisons to the reincarnated Christ.

songkran

Known by several names throughout South and South East Asia influenced by the traditional Hindu solar calendar, this marks new year’s day. As opposed to the tropical year of the Gregorian reckoning that is based on the cycle of the seasons, the sidereal year is determined by the motion of the Sun relative to the celestial sphere, with the beginning of the new year synchronized to the Sun’s transit into the constellation of Aries (meṣa saṅkrānti—named for twin gods, the Ashvins, “Aja” and “Mesha” and the Sanskrit term signifying the act of transhumance—that is, when the livestock is brought to pasture).

अन्ताराष्ट्रीययोगदिवस

Celebrated annually since 2015 after its nomination and adoption by the United Nations General Assembly the year prior, this day has been set aside for reflection on the ancient practise and its practitioners of healthful and mindful, spiritual aspects of yoga. It is an occasion to perfect one’s exercise and perform essential asanas—poses—and the meditative quality of the session. See if you can improve your form and awake body and mind.

maṅgala or interpretatio romana

Also going by the name Lohit (meaning red) the titular name (मङ्गल) occurs in ancient Hindu texts and identifies Mars, which in that pantheon is also the god of war.
As in the Greco-Roman tradition where Tuesday is dedicated to the Red Planet (dies Martis / ἡμέρα Ἄρεως—that is Ares’ Day) reflecting directly in most Romance languages with the English designation likewise deriving from Tiwesdæg, the day of the week sacred to the Norse god Týr (Tiwaz, ᛏ), understood as Mars Thingsus (the Thing being the legislative seat of Germanic communities though there’s much danger in forcing the equivalence) and the counterpart deity of combat, so too is the word for Tuesday on the Hindu calendar, Mangalavara, derived from the same godly attributes. The Korean (화요일) and similarly the Japanese (火曜日) words for Tuesday also translate to Mars’ day. Though far from a universal association, one does wonder what the prevalence and the astrological connection came from.

posture pals or the whispered ah!

During the late nineteenth century—well before yoga and mindfulness enjoyed a resurgence in Western medicine and overall thinking, there were some important and seemingly organic precursors that came in campaigns to promote mind-body interventions through postural awareness methodologies. While many of the exercise regiments may have been modish for a time to be subsequent forgotten and while none have been accorded the full faith and credit of the health insurance industry, one technique in particular developed by Australian Frederick Matthias Alexander, later expanded by students of his method, medically and scientifically described in neutral terms and which still has adherents struck me as rather intriguing.
Motivated to help himself during moments of debilitating stage-fright, absent a somatic cause, Alexander believed his habitual patterns of tensing up and seizing up certain parts of his body and physically recoiling from anxiety was disrupting his oration and probably similar conditioned patterns in stance and gait were either aiding or hindering other aspects of his life as well. Alexander believed that careful self-observation (noticing how one flinches and deports one’s neck, head and gaze when confronted with a stressful situation) and the will to change, he and others could restore their natural statures and after some testimonials from celebrities of his day, Alexander formalised and shared his method, encouraging students to explore a wide range of motions but prescribed no specific exercises so as not to suggest that bodies were built the same and that there was a best way to do things, save two: lying on one’s side at about a forty-five degree from the supine to learn how to rest constructively before a session and the “whispered ah!”a way to get rid of bad habits that inhibit our innate abilities to breath properly. The unlearning has a few steps, first calling for one to think of something funny to elicit a smile (so one is not pulling downward on the facial muscles as we’d be apt to do otherwise), let one’s jaw fall open and place the tip of one’s tongue on one’s bottom teeth, where ever one is during inhalation or exhalation, whisper “ah!” (that is a refreshing beverage!)  as long as one can until feeling the breath squeezed out of one. Once the whisper has become ragged an unsustained close one’s mouth and the breathing reflex triggers one to draw breath through one’s nose and the expansion of the lungs.

Repeat as much as one cares to on exhaling and reap improvements in vocal and breath control. The rest of Alexander’s technique focusses broadly on refining one’s sense of intention and discipline in recapturing an efficiency of motion in accord with gravity and how one is built and is apparently a proper and popular coaching technique. Health care providers and science takes issue with what’s lumped into the category of alternative medicine—as they should—when gurus, either the originator or latter day promoter, begin to make extraordinary or downright dangerous claims that erode trust in sound and rigorously-tested procedures and make suffers think that asthma or sleep apnea is condition that can only be solved through willpower. Resetting to factory-mode (or at least the attempt to question one’s own defaults), however, does not seem objectionable and worth the self-investment.

twitch and tantra

Though I’d venture that the benefits of yoga don’t come in the form of a perfect pose and could even prove harmful (I embrace the fact that I’m an awkward mess and don’t get discouraged), a wearable technology clothier is introducing (with consultation by instructors) a pair of leggings—yoga pants and the athleisure industry comprise a multi-billion dollar market—that has a suite of sensors embedded within the textiles that can detect in conjunction with one’s mobile device the position that one is trying to assume and gives feedback with battery-powered pulses to correct one’s posture and stance. The company is designing other interactive sports apparel (which would be a potential leveller of handicaps for other games) and though I have a few reservations concerning the appropriateness of bionics in yoga, I’ll bet that the system would be beneficial for a beginner without the ability or means to seek out a yogi.

long ambients

We here at PfRC are celebrating the milestone of our four-thousandth post—this episode informed by the always excellent Nag on the Lake—with four hours of outtakes from musician and DJ Moby free to use however one sees fit. A year ago around this time, the artist arranged the unused riffs from other projects into an extended background ensemble that’s really an inducement for yoga, meditation or just rest and relaxation and active twilit dreaming.

5x5

hop’n gator: interesting trivia about Gatorade and beer and their short-lived unholy merger

enter the dragon: the philosophical notebooks of Bruce Lee

 lullaby: parent finches signal to the unhatched broods about global warming

unwaxed: maybe there are benefits to flossing after all, if our simian friends are so keen to do it

history, ink: an interesting look at the last surviving tattoo parlour in Jerusalem that original catered to medieval pilgrims to the Holy Land 

samapātti or avatar

Partially motivated out of neglecting to graciously receive the Dalai Lama when he came to me and missing a yoga session in succession but mostly out of a curiosity for reverence, I took a detour north during the weekly commute to return to Limburg and attend a meditation session with Mutter Meera, an incarnation of the Hindu mother goddess, Shakti, in her home below Schloß Schaumburg in the village of Balduinstein.
Careful not to misrepresent a divinity (though there’s certainly much to be gained by that industry) and there was certainly no pressure to make a donation or elaborate self-promotion, despite a quick study, I was not sure what to expect or what was expected in terms of protocol. After I had arrived, finding the hall pretty full already—a bigger audience than I had thought, one of the ushers asked me if this was my first time and sat me nearly directly in front of the presentation place. I was not the first to approach Mutter Meera, so I watched and had some idea of how to deport myself. Unshod, row by row, we inched from the back of the hall when called up to the dais, and prostrate, the avatar placed her hands on our heads and recalibrated our chakras then looked us in the eyes for an instant. I sort of felt like when I had queued up at the Vatican to touch the feet of Saint Peter and kind of rushed myself through it, cognizant of those behind me, sort of fearful that I would start laughing hysterically or manage to spill the contents of my pockets as I arose and couldn’t really immerse myself in the experience—regrettably.
Something sank in, however—not an immediate bolt that made me feel that I suddenly had my head on right, but rather as I returned to my seat and held that gaze in my mind and got to watch the rest of the audience—mostly veterans, I thought, with all their anticipations and expectations to unburden go through the same ritual up close. Some had worn holey socks, like I worried about, some betrayed a little smirk afterwards, and others I believe were a little starry-eyed just afterwards from the head-rush of having crawled across the floor, but judgment was somehow absented in the quiet procession, which is no mean task. The darshan (blessing) of silence and at minimum the opportunity for reflection that admitted no trappings of showmanship was something I am glad that I sought out (despite and because of the nasty weather that precluded routine investigation of the nice surroundings) this shared experience and hopefully have some positive energy to impart.

tantric

The Daily Beast is reporting how a Russian city, with the support of senior leadership, has banned yoga, citing practitioners for cult-like behaviour. Taking the statement in a glancing, off-the-cuff manner, it does strike one, especially those among the trendy-set, as getting into a furore over jazzercise. As the article demonstrates, however, as it looks beyond the established and familiar health benefits into its holistic history with mental, spiritual and even political faces, it becomes manifest that certain regimes might find this lifestyle contentious. Though I would side with those who’d prohibit the practise only insofar as we can’t selectively embrace some aspects without appreciating what those techniques are rooted in—just as karma is no cosmic-cashbox, I would also think that those antagonists (this Russian town not being a singular instance and other religious groups object to the direct or the vaguely spiritual side of it) would benefit greatly from those treasonous influences.

iconography or graven images

A very interesting set of quite different factors and historical influences came together, I recently learnt, in the fourth century to establish rich artistic traditions that allowed the Buddha, the Christ and the panoply of the Hindu gods to be portrayed in human forms for the first time and in a manner that was cultural diffuse and immediately recognisable. Though these movements took place around the same time, the religions were at different stages of development and acceptance at this point—what with the Brahmin’s gods already enjoying milennia of devotion, Siddhārtha Gautama having achieved enlightenment some eight hundred years prior and the latest incarnation of the Abrahamic faith in its fourth century.  Despite these difference, they all started adopting pictorial representations around the same time.
A maturing network of international trade is of course a contributing factor, as being able to mediate on a shared image of how Jesus and company ought to look rather than relying on more abstract translated texts and interpreted teachings would spread these big religions and ensure their survival, but it is not the whole story. Before we got to the images of the serene Buddha and Jesus Christ in his characteristic poses, the story of these two was communicated through symbolism, teaching aides that represented the bodhi tree, the footprint of Buddha or the Cross, the sign of the fisher of men. And while it does seem natural and an effective step that the adherents of Buddhism would create figures of a limited and iconic variety for the benefit of foreigners being introduced to the philosophy, for Christianity it was a break with ancient traditions and taboos of not depicting God or His manifestations.  The decision to show Jesus as a man may have happened in part because Constantine around this time declared that faith the official one of the empire, and Romans and Greeks, used to having statues of Dionysus, Hercules or Nike decorating their villas with triumphant flair, thought it was acceptable to have even more glorious statues of Jesus on display. As with Buddhism, the move was probably also good for the edification of foreign-speakers. Some three hundred years later, during the first few decades of the faith, Islam restored the proscription again representing the divine by human-hands by issuing currency for the Caliphate that only bore the word of God, instead of coins bearing the image of the head-of-state or other trappings.

Places of worship were becoming somewhat uniform in their delivery but the coin of the land was really the only mass-produced and reliable product of the Middle Ages in the West by any reckoning. Insisting on the rubic of a shared language was a powerful tool, and it is remarkable that this level of organisation developed in just as many decades as centuries it took for other religions—and without pictures. The Hindu gods and their different aspects were almost too innumerable to catalogue, but with the rise of the Gupta dynasty to power on the sub-continent at this same time, there was an ambitious and successful effort to standardise how each avatar looked and deported his- or herself. Because of this promotion and propaganda, one could communicate a certain devotion with a few accepted conceits. The personal nature of the gods and their care and custody would be instantly understood and copied.  A sketch on a napkin being equally holy as any statue in a temple, and the image is understood to be the deity itself, to be treated as a honoured guest.

think different or the great and final samādhi

Writing for the ever excellent Boing Boing, Jason Louv presents a very fine accounting of the parting gift that Steve Jobs shared with those friends, family members and associates, copies of the Autobiography of a Yogi, with a biography of the guru challenged to come to America to impart Hindu meditation to the West. The yogi’s story and success in introducing some of these practices in the 1920s and 30s have a significant legacy and have impacted many. As the author lucidly demonstrates, however, the notions of yoga and relaxation as imported—without a guru to oversee the export—become rather muddled, since the mental exercises are only aides, discipline-builders and not ends in themselves: meditation is not about self-help but rather liberation from self. The idea of abandoning one’s identity to be subsumed by the Cosmos does rather chafe at the ideals held by many Americans about self-reliance and selfhood and does seem infinitely elusive, but objectivity, tranquility and the courage to look inward is something that we can all strive for.

ajapa japa or I’m chanting as we speak, sweetie

I have managed to keep up quite a lot of routines that are giving myself a good turn, and hopefully those small virtues outweigh the vices—if I take time to count.  The yoga and taking time to meditate and relax, however, have become shadows of their former regiments.  It’s never comfortable (nor necessary, fortunately) trying to account for why one stopped cultivating a good habit, but introspection is something that I hope to rediscover.  Looking for a mantra to repeat in my head, I came across this website (one carefully and genuinely tended, which sadly seems kind of rare nowadays)that presents the fundamental mechanics of yogic meditation and rewarding practises that one ought to develop in a clear and accessible way.
I decided that I would stick with the classic mantra that I picked up—the Soham, understood to be a vocalization (though mantras are only to be repeated mentally) of one’s natural circulatory rhythm.  As a boustrophedon (from backwards to forwards), the words pose the question “Who am I?” and the answer “I am that I am,” but the sound and the its resonance through one’s mind and body is the important manner. Reaching the point when the silent chanting becomes sychronous with one's breath and pulse and one know longer thinks about the words and act, having become automatic and second-nature, is called by ajapa japa. I have some ways to go yet.  I also learned that there is a long established Christian tradition of meditation akin to Eastern practises (and not some latter day appropriation or concession). The choice sacred word, what a mantra means, has a distinctive Eastern ring and is often left untranslated in the Bible, as they original translators could not determine the stress and tone of the Arimaic on paper. The intentionally ambiguous Maranatha could be pronounced (in one's head, while meditating) as either maranâ thâ' or maran 'athâ' and so either as the prayer Come Lord or as the declaration The Lord has Come.

tadasana or yoga-on-ice

A correspondent from the local's Swiss edition gives an intriguing and inspiring review of a fusion activity taking place on the slopes that tower above the Engadine.

A veteran instructor of yoga and skiing brings her two skills together to deliver to the guests of the resort at St. Moritz a certain mindfulness and meditation when it comes to engaging in that seasonal sport that many visitors, however experienced, try to cram into one get-away weekend per year and maybe tend to be a bit reckless and rushed to get their money's worth. In addition to imparting techniques that can build on awareness and improve maneuvers (as mental and physical preparation—not that one assumes the tadasana, the mountain pose, while on a run), the pause and circumspection can also train hectic holiday-makers to take it slower and adjust their focus to savouring quality over quantity.

ped x-ing or hand-jive

The X in X-mas comes from an initialism of the Greek name for Christ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ, a shorthand employed by Biblical scholars and others to abbreviate things to do with Jesus or the Cross (writ both large and small—Celtic monks in Germany monasteries incidentally invented a lower-case script with punctuation for the Greeks to make reading easier) and these signs and signals are reflected in the iconography of Jesus and the saints in hand-gestures that amount to a sort of finger-spelling. These poses, each understood to audiences in a specific way, were in turn a traditional and long-established system of rhetorical gestures used by speech-makers in Antiquity to cue their listeners to something important or to mark a transition.

A parallel supplemental language is to be found in the mudrās of the Buddhist tradition, which while having symbolic significance in their portray are moreover a kind of digital yoga, each pose and arrangement having a specific mental and physical influence on the practitioner—not to say that these similar gestures, used as rites and sacraments, ingrained in Western depictions of religious figures do not necessarily have a more profound meaning and stimulus about them, as well, nor that Eastern orators and choreographers do not have a vocabulary for grandiloquence in speeches neither.

autogenesis or tous les jours à tous points de vue je vais de mieux en mieux

Though I am sure to count my progresses as things to be grateful for, it is a very simple matter, as fundamentally apparent as those things that are easily overlooked, to forget and forego the basic lessons. That's why people adopt, however imperfectly, dogmas and mantras because such a manner of conduct and orientation, albeit with more meaning than merely preserving one's sanity and health, can be simpler to adhere to rather than entertaining all sober and sometimes contradictory evaluations of everything at once. I know it is nothing outstanding to turn inward or transform opportunities and advantage into problems—probably because we have grown more accustomed to difficulty and means to success are biased by experience and not readily recognisable, but I try to let go and leave work for another day—when I am being compensated for it with something other than beans, despite assurances that they are magic.
I do not feel under enormous, possessing pressure, regardless whether self-imposed, and do not feel especially stressed by work and its attending worries, but there's always room for improvement. Posing an open-ended question, as it were, I got quite a bit of solicited answers, and what stuck me the most was how relaxation and coping was about striking a balance between engagement and retreat, withdrawal. One of the suggestions that rose above, on the footnotes of predecessors like Émile Coué, a trained apothecary who turned to psychology and self-help after witnessing the placebo-effect in his pharmacy—who introduced the phrase, “Everyday, in every way, I am getting better and better,” was autogenic training, formalised by Johannes Heinrich Schultz, who despite some unforgiving tenets that he was free to prosecute, like advocating euthanizing handicapped people and treating homosexuality with a war of attrition. These methods were sadly en vogue at the time. Schultz went on to devise a regime of visualisations and postures meant to exercise that balance these passive and active functions and appetites—eventually eliciting an appropriate and measured response. I'd like to learn more, I think. Some have even described this latter day extension of yoga and meditation as the breakthrough and bridge that the like of Freud and his school were seeking. Has anyone tried the original techniques, unincorporated into the programme of others?