Blog on hiatus

My father passed away last Thursday (May 3) and my time and energy are going to be needed elsewhere.  My reading and practice will of course continue, but my project here, for the time being, must be suspended as there are just too many other matters to take care of. 

To those who have been regular readers: I wish you all well.  Please, never forget that the time allotted to any one of us is finite and its duration uncertain. 

To quote the Buddha’s last words:

Vayadhamma sankhara.  Appamadena sampadetha.

All conditioned things are of a nature to decay.  Strive diligently!

-Mahaparinibbana Sutta (D.16.6.7)

The Deeper Dimension of Yoga by Georg Feuerstein

The Deeper Dimension of Yoga: Theory and Practice by Georg Feuerstein.  Shambhala 2003.  415 pages. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  It is a veritable treasure chest of information, insight, ideas and inspiration for practice, contemplation and just about everything having to do with yoga.  

Unlike the previous Feuerstein book I reviewed (The Path of Yoga), this is not an integrated text but rather a collection of essays and musings by the author.  Even if you didn’t know this, you would quickly suspect it since, while the sections of the book are arranged thematically (general orientation, ethics, practices, etc.), the “chapters” all have a self-contained feel to them.  There is also the sense that many were originally part of some larger unit and so when they end they sometimes do so rather abruptly.  You’re ploughing into the meat of some topic, turn the page, and–wham!–you’re on to the next “chapter.”  This can be a bit jolting, but not all the essays are like this–most have a fully rounded, finished feel to them–but it’s often enough that you start expecting/bracing for it.  Because the book consists of essays you will also get a fair bit of repetition which, for some people, may be annoying, but for others, who want to drum certain points/facts into their heads, may well be ideal.   As for a more in-depth review of the book’s contents, with a collection of essays, touching on highlights is the usual approach, and that’s what I’ll do here. 

Clearly Feuerstein has thought a lot about Yoga.  As noted, there is something of a”treasure chest” feel to the book; you never know what’s up next until you turn the page.  And while the vast majority of pieces aim at being informative, many are reflective as well, though only one can be truly called self-revealing.  That would be “Crossing the Boundary between Hinduism and Buddhism via Tantra-Yoga,” which describes Feuerstein’s ”conversion” (if that’s the right word–probably not) from Hindu yoga to Buddhist yoga (ala Vajrayana).  Easily the best of the reflective pieces is #62, “Faith and Surrender: A New Look at the Eightfold Path,” a brilliant essay I would heartily recommend for multiple rereadings. 

As a scholar though Feuerstein excels at dispensing information.  He does this in breadth by touching on just about every conceivable application and type of yoga (I never even knew there was such a thing as buddhi-yoga!), and depth: for example, an eleven page essay on OM reveals this all-important seed mantra’s rich textual and cultural legacy.  A couple dozen regular volumes might be necessary to cover this much ground and there’s no way every topic can be considered in depth; for that you’ll have to seek other books.  But wait!  Dr. Feuerstein has most graciously already considered your predicament and provided an illuminating  overview entitled  “Introducing the Great Literary Heritage of Hindu Yoga”!  An excellent little piece unto itself, an annotated bibliography of books is appended to it, citing quality tomes on general yoga, the Vedas, Brahmanas, Aranyakas, Upanishads, Patanjali, the Epics, Gita, Tantrism and more.  All you incurable bibliophiles out there should do three prostrations in Georg’s direction.  (BTW, he lives in Canada.)

There’s very little one can complain about regarding this book.  Feuerstein is a writer of clarity and concision, thoughtfulness, depth and sensitivity–not to mention vast knowledge; the man may have read just about everything on the subject.   The only, ONLY gripe I might have is a slight tendency–which, frankly, coming from the pen of a scholar is rather ironic–toward a sort of textual fundamentalism.  For example, writing on the Mahabharata he repeatedly refers to the war the poem describes as the greatest ever fought on Indian soil and even speaks of ”the godman” Krishna as a historical person.  This kind of thing comes up more than once–and invariably caused my face to screw up in an incredulous squint–so I have to assume Feuerstein actually believes these things.  Suffice to say, I would grant Krishna less historicity than Moses or Lao-tzu, and as for the battle, while I suspect the story has its roots in some historical event(s), I doubt its fidelity to facts in any way exceeds that of the Iliad or the romances of King Arthur.

That being said, buy the book!  You won’t regret it; Feuerstein’s writings will lead you on to richer yogic horizons!

My Amazon rating: 5 stars

The Tree of Yoga by B.K.S Iyengar

The Tree of Yoga by B.K.S. Iyengar.  Shambhala Publications 1988/2002.  194 pages.

Now I will use the B word: “B” is for “beautiful,” and this slim volume by the still-living godfather of yoga is beautiful. 

While I find I enjoy and benefit from anything Iyengar writes, I was actually more impressed by this book than I had expected to be.  I did not go into it with any particular expectations–perhaps that helped–except the very positive reviews on Amazon.  It is not an asana book, and Iyengar not being a scholar (he does not even have a high school degree he says on page 28, and was a “dumb student”), it is not a “learned” tome of any sort.  This book is, rather, a subtle, gentle, at times revealing, and quite elegantly written series of reflections on the practice and teaching of yoga.  Mr. Iyengar may not have been much of a student (what does this say about schools, I wonder?), but this book is clearly the product of an intelligent, discerning, and dedicated life.

It is divided into five parts: (1) “Yoga and Life,” with essays describing generally the traditional Hindu view of the life process and how yoga fits in with that; (2)  ”The Tree and Its Parts,” where the eight limbs defined in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras are described; (3) “Yoga and Health,” which is pretty self-explanatory; (4) “The Self and Its Journey,” examining the higher practices of pranayama and meditation leading to samadhi; and (5) “Yoga In the World,” which has only two essays, the first about yoga as an art form, the second about the requirements and responsibilities of yoga teachers.  (This last actually had a depressing effect on me and made me question my desire to get yoga teacher certification.  First, certifications mean precious little.  Second, the amount of knowledge and responsibility required exceed what I will be able to accomplish anytime soon, if ever.  And third, I’m already thoroughly middle-aged, suffer from ankylosing spondilitis, and will never be particularly good at asanas, much less look good doing them.  But I digress…) 

Although Iyengar does quote a bit of Sanskrit here and there, I would not say any of the essays are particularly “technical,” though this is certainly not to say they are at all superficial.  Quite the opposite–this book could not have been written by someone who was anything less than a master of his field, with long years of experience and reflection.  Which leads me to say that although anyone can read this book–beginner or advanced, the merely curious to the hardcore–what you get out of it will definitely be determined by the depth of your own practice.  Many rereadings, particularly when one is at different stages of development, or when one has perhaps crossed the line from student to teacher, will no doubt yield new insights and understandings. 

I’d like to share a few points of what, for me, were highlights.  Mr. Iyengar has a way with analogies, and a brilliant one is found on page 17, where the four original castes (peasant, merchant, warrior, priest) are compared to attitudes or states of mind.  His essay entitled “Childhood” (20) was simply beautiful, and I found the description of some of his life contained in “Family Life” (27) very inspiring.  The second part of the book is an excellent overview of yoga practice as a way of meditation and illumination; I thought in particular the notion of the Eight Limbs (ashtanga) of Patanjali as a hologram (see “The Roots,” page 50) to be nothing if not brilliant.  There are, in fact, many very insightful and illuminating passages in this section, things I never thought about in quite that way.  His discussion of yoga as a healing art (especially from p. 93ff) was very interesting–I wish he would write a whole book devoted to his experiences in this regard.  I could go on, as there are many excellent passages, but lastly I will cite p. 117ff as a brilliant evocation of why the Buddhist practice of mindfulness is so easily in accordance with the practice of asanas.   Iyengar writes:

Conciousness is always present in our finger, but most of the time we are not aware of it, so the consciousness of the finger is dormant.  You should know the difference between consciousness and awareness.  Consciousness exists everywhere in the body.  When you are walking, if a thorn touches your foot, what happens?  It pricks, and you immediately feel the pain, so you cannot say that consciousness was not there.  But until he thorn pricked you, you were not aware of your foot.  The consciousness in your foot was dormant, but the moment the foot was pricked, it was brought to the surface.  To awaken that dormant consciousness is awareness.  Your consciousness is six feet long, or five and a half feet long in your body–it is as long as your body is tall.  But awareness is small.  Awareness may extend two feet, one foot, one inch or half an inch.  The yogi says that by practising asanas, you can bring awareness to an extension equal to that of consciousness.  This is total awareness.  This is meditation.

Mr. Iyengar is of course a hatha yogin, and while practicing asanas may take you a long ways, I do not feel it is a substitute for a hard-core sitting practice.  This may be the area where he comes up short, and indeed, the only passage of the book that I thoroughly disagreed with revealed this.  On p. 139 he writes:

If you work diligently on asana, pranayama and pratyahara, you will receive your reward of dharana, dhyana and samadhi, which are the effects of that practice.  They cannot be practised directly [emphasis added].  If we say that we are practising them, this means that we do not know the earlier aspects of yoga.  It is only by practising the earlier aspects that we can hope to arrive at their effects.

I don’t agree with this at all.  In fact, as a statement of the reality of meditation practice (especially in the Buddhist tradition, pick your yana), it is simply false.  All over the Buddhist world (not to mention the Christian, Muslim, Jain, Hindu, etc), people come to meditation without ever having practiced asanas or pranayama, and many of them do just fine.  Might they benefit from asanas?  Of course!  But, as Iyengar showed quite eloquently, the Path can be approached and the Goal attained through any of the limbs of yoga (though some are more direct and less time-consuming).  While I do not wish to make overmuch of this one little misstep in an otherwise superb book, I do think it points out a shortcoming in Iyengar’s approach, which appears marked by an imbalance favoring asanas over direct meditation practice.

This aside–which is just my nitpicking–I cannot recommend this book enthusiastically enough to anyone exploring the world of yoga.  Read it, practice, reflect, and reread it.  Do not read it for information, rather for grounding, seasoning, maturation.  If yoga is a tree (and since Mr. Iyengar says it is, who are we to argue?) then read it and learn to think like a tree–to make my own unworthy stab at a different sort of analogy!

My Amazon rating: 5 stars

Living Yoga by Georg Feuerstein (ed)

Living Yoga: A Comprehensive Guide for Daily Life edited by Georg Feuerstein and Stephen Bodian with the staff of Yoga Journal.  Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam 1993.  290 pages.

I confess I’m not sure why I bought this book.  It’s not like I didn’t check out the table of contents on Amazon.  So, before I bought it I knew it consisted of a selection of journal articles previously published in Yoga Journal.  And I know such books, even with a good editor–Georg Feuerstein, in this case–are rarely first-rate.  Plus, being a not overly enthused subscriber to Yoga Journal, I should have known what I was getting into.  Well, now you can benefit from my experience and know what you’ll be getting into if you buy this book.

First, concerning Yoga Journal, the source for every article.  I realize there’s a market for everything.  In other words, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.  So no doubt there are hundreds of thousands of people who subscribe to YJ and have a spiritual orgasm every time they read it.  I am not one of them.  I find YJ  hyper flashy, heavily commercial, its articles often saccharine to the point of inducing nausea.  Sometimes I wonder if I read it for the models.  That said, I am sure that with discrimination and a willingness to wade through hundreds of back issues you could find some worthy articles and that, no doubt, is what Feuerstein and Co. were trying to do. 

They were successful on some counts.  The problem is there aren’t enough high quality pieces to make a solid book.  Plus, their rather heterogeneous subjects give the book a grab bag feeling.  Consider this diversity of topics:

• Jacob Needleman on money
• An earth-based poem by Gary Snyder
• Thoughts on celebration by Carolyn Shaffer
• Reflections on mother’s love by Ken Keyes
• Gretchen Newmark on how to overcome eating disorders
• A history of transpersonal psychology
• Six illusions (or random observations) about the body by Larry Dossey

These kinds of very peripheral topics intersperse some fine and useful articles on:

• sequencing postures
• how to master the lotus
• an essay by Ken Wilber on what meditation can’t do for you
• methods of relaxation, etc

I think you can see what I mean.  There are jewels among the debris, but the overall effect is frustrating, out of focus, and a sense you are constantly starting over on page one.  Plus, even Georg Feuerstein’s introductory essays became kind of annoying after a while.

These are the pieces that stood out to me as particularly interesting (I’m sure you’ll have your own list of favorites).  All are examples of good thinking and good writing:

• Developing Your Own Yoga Practice by Hart Lazer
• A Nonviolent Approach to Extending Your Limits by Ken Dychtwald
• Working With the Breath by Richard Miller
• Asana: Basic Movement Toward Health by Judith Lasater
• How to Grow A Lotus by Donna Farhi (the model could be my mother as a young woman!)
• The Buddhist Yoga of Mindfulness by Stephan Bodian
• The Power and Limits of Meditation by Ken Wilber
• Beyond Ego by Bryan Wittine
• What Makes Spiritual Teachers Go Astray by Diana Leafe Christian
• Tantric Celibacy and the Mystery of Eros by Stuart Sovatsky
• Life As Service: An Interview with Ram Das by Stephan Bodian
• Be Who You Are: An Interview with Jean Klein by Stpehan Bodian (even though I find this kind of perspective incredibly frustrating–see Daniel Ingram on this in my review of his book)
• Who Am I? by Ramana Maharshi
• The Timeless Wisdom of Nonduality: Sayings of Nisargadatta

Now I have to gripe about the second or third-rate production value of the book.  The text, including the cover and internal photos, all look like someone took the original volume and popped off a copy down at their local Kinkos.  Actually, no–that’s an insult to Kinkos.  Kinkos would do a much better reproduction job than this.  The pictures are grainy, like something off a Xerox machine from the ’70s.  (Yeah, I remember those!)  The cover, as you can see, is denuded of life and color.  Shame on Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam for turning out something old man Gutenberg would have been embarrassed by!

My Amazon Rating: 2 stars

The Path of Yoga by Georg Feuerstein

The Path of Yoga: An Essential Guide To Its Principles and Practices by Georg Feuerstein.  Shambhala 2011.  180 pages.

This is a good introductory survey of the field of yoga by the man who is probably the most popular yoga scholar around.  I emphasize the word popular because I’m not actually sure how much cutting edge research (new translations, scholarly publications, etc) he’s actually doing these days.  Probably not much, since Feuerstein is now retired, but his books are generally so approachable that for people who want coverage of yoga’s intellectual heritage, he is often the go-to man. 

This particular offering is definitely for those just getting themselves wet in this area.  It covers the basic branches of yoga (raja, karma, bhakti, jnana etc), the guru relationship, ethical precepts, purification practices, diet, breath, mantras and, of course, all the more esoteric stuff about kundalini and left-handed sexual practices everyone loves.  Libraries could be filled by the tomes on such fare, so for a book under 200 pages this can’t be anything more than cursory, an almost bullet-point like survey. 

And that’s okay, provided it’s what you’re looking for.  Anyone who wants to do asanas will need to look elsewhere.  The same goes if you’re interested in some particular facet of yogic practice or theory, say concerning the chakras, or specs on hatha yoga, the yamas, or how to eat according to your dosha, etc.  It is what it is–a survey for new entrants–and that’s all it is.  If you’re new and just finding your way around the world of yoga, it’s a great book.  If you’re already pretty well-informed and want to start fleshing out some of yoga’s more rarefied nooks and crannies, look elsewhere–e.g. the author’s The Deeper Dimension of Yoga: Theory and Practice.

My Amazon rating: 3 stars

Yoga and the Quest for the True Self by Stephen Cope

Yoga and the Quest for the True Self  by Stephen Cope.  Bantam Books 1999.  358 pages. 

It is not often I use the “M word” to describe a book.  No, I’m not talking about munchkin books or maleficient books.  I’m talking about masterpieces.  I am not certain if Stephen Cope’s bestseller is a masterpiece.  Maybe it is, maybe not.  Either way, it is pretty damn good. 

This is one of those books that entertains and educates you in a visceral way right from the start.  Large chunks are written in immediate narrative format–as in “he said,” “I said,” etc.  It is Stephen Cope’s personal yoga story–a sort of “pilgrim’s progress,” if you will–as well as the yoga story of his many friends and acquaintances before and during his long and continuing stay at the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. 

We meet a man, a practicing Boston psychotherapist, who for a variety of reasons was feeling unsettled and dissatisfied with his life and then, somewhat to his dismay, found himself joining a religious community to do…what?  Much of the book is an answer to that and related questions: What did he want?  Why?  What was he trying to do at Kripalu?  What was–is–the meaning of yoga?  What is enlightenment?  Is such a thing possible?  Are there enlightened people in this world?  And what happens when all the things we try to keep hidden are revealed for the world to see?  

Stephen Cope furrows through all these questions and more.  His sincerity, his intensity, his intelligence, make the book a gripping read.  Its pages educate the reader even as Cope the protagonist is educated by his experiences in the ashram.  Yoga philosophy is pondered over, its depths turned up, and its many connections to Western psychotherapy reflected upon, all in gratifyingly sober, lucid prose.  This is no idealistic hippy’s tale, nor a wide-eyed New Age search for Reality.  In point of fact, it is one man’s search for himself, even as he helps us understand that the discipline, the science, the art of yoga, is there to help us lay ourselves bare to ourselves.  

“You will know the truth and the truth shall set you free.”  This book is a testament to these words, but it goes beyond them for the “truth” as yoga reveals to Stephen Cope is an ever living, organic thing, the stuff of our lives, which we either enjoy and let go of or cling to and warp, eventually to destroy. 

You will find yourself in this book.  In one of the many personal portraits Cope draws, you will find your own symptoms and neuroses, your fears, dreams and failings.  And when you do, you will know that yoga has something to offer you.  There is so much teaching here, and it is given in such generous, gentle and wise ways.  Most of all, I think the primacy of ourselves as bodily beings, as thinking, feeling, dreaming animals of earth, is borne out.  The body really is our temple, and yoga is our puja, an act of adoration, discipline and feast.  Cope nails it in what might be the defining statement of the book: “Because yoga asanas are not so much about exercise as they are about learning and unlearning, it is not the movement itself, but the quality of attention we bring to the movement that makes postures qualify as yoga” (230).  If this is so–and I know it is–then any act, any breath, any thought done with full and alive attention, is yoga. 

Bobby Fischer once said “Chess is life.”  I would say “Yoga is life,” and Stephen Cope’s book has made this truth abundantly clear.

My Amazon rating: 5 stars

The Blood of the Saints by Alan Chapman & Duncan Barford

The Blood of the Saints by Alan Chapman & Duncan Barford.  Heptarchia 2009.  355 pages.

I got interested in reading this book after hearing Alan Chapman’s interview on Buddhist Geeks.  Alan (as well as Duncan) is not Buddhist, but he is definitely a geek.  He is also a magician, meaning a practitioner of Magick (with a “k”), an expert in the Western occult tradition that encompasses Gnosticism, Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, Alchemy, etc–that is, everything Christians love to hate.  Now, I was aware of these traditions before, but my consciousness of them as a viable path to spiritual awakening was pretty dim.  But suddenly here was this guy, an occultist, claiming to be enlightened, and equating this with the Buddhist fourth path–i.e. arhatship.  Well, I had to know more about this.

I’ve come to the conclusion, after watching a lot of videos and rooting around on occult-based websites, that Alan Chapman, not to mention his tradition, is the real deal; he is what he says he is and should be listened to.  Is it Buddhism?  No.  But it incorporates many things that will be familiar to Buddhists, particularly those rooted in the Tibetan/Tantric tradition.

Consider the definition of Magick–called the “Royal Art”–offered on page 236:

Magick is the art, science and culture of experiencing truth.

This definition includes both subjective and relative truth (or perception), and objective and absolute truth (or enlightenment). 

Any act therefore is an act of magick, if awareness is brought to that action.  The practice of magick is the exercise and growth of conscious awareness, an expansion of the self in all directions and on all levels of experience.

In simplest terms then, magick is any action performed with clear awareness of intention and experience, with the purpose of experiencing the Absolute or Truth.  Assuming I’ve got this right, I’d say that as a life project it would be hard for any self-respecting Buddhist to quarrel with either the aim or method.

Central to the path of Magick is “Knowledge and Conversation With the Holy Guardian Angel.”  Briefly, the Holy Guardian Angel (HGA) is your perfected magical self, or an entity that watches over you, or your higher self, or, most likely, all of these and more.  While in Buddhism (again, except the Vajrayana), self-effort is key, in Magick the goal is surrender to the Absolute, which is what the Angel is or represents.  One invokes the Angel, asks for guidance, and this manifests as spontaneous teachings timed to your level of development.  These could come via dreams, synchronicities, oracles (e.g. the Tarot), or regular people.  Think of the Angel as one standing on the Far Shore of enlightenment, reaching out to you, and the Dark Night (called in this tradition ”the Abyss”) as the river between you and It.  By invoking the Angel, accepting its guidance and ultimately identifying with It, you cross the Abyss (=ego-death) and complete the Great Work.  This, in brief, is the course charted in this book.

The text itself is a miscellany.  Two lengthy parts start it off, each detailing a year in the magical life of one of the authors.  I would characterize these sections as exploratory, almost conversational, in nature.  Indeed, they are conversations of a sort, often being diary entries recording dreams, practices, events and interpretations of those events (i.e. magical results).  Clearly both men have gone through identity crises as well as crises of confidence, mystical experiences, illuminating dreams, bizarre synchronicities, and many other spiritual manifestations.  Out of these personal explorations come what constitutes the later sections of the book, “The Higher Ground” and “On the Path,” made up of essays on a wide variety of topics.  These include models of magickal progression, the Zen ox-herding pictures, Ken Wilber in various guises (including reviews of his books), divination, samadhi, LAM, Austin Osman Spare, why there’s a K in “magick,” Rudolf Steiner, nondualism, and many, many more things.   The book really is a hodgepodge, for the simple reason the essays were taken from what was originally a website called The Baptist’s Head where the two posted their magickal musings.  As a result, there is not much of a sense of flow in these latter sections of the book, though the articles are never dull.  In fact, I would say both Alan and Duncan are fine writers, inquisitive, insightful, with a lot of magickal/spiritual experience under their belts.  In conclusion, if you are at all interested in alternative spiritual paths, the Western occult tradition, or practices to supplement your more standard Buddhist fare, this is a work–and two authors–you will find interesting and rewarding. 

P.S. I should note also this is the first of a trilogy of books detailing their progress in their art, culminating in their completion of the Great Work.  The two following are The Urn and A Desert of Roses.  Alan is also the solo author of a primer on the Western occult tradition entitled Advanced Magick For Beginners, which was the specific topic of the Buddhist Geeks interview.  Duncan maintains a website entitled Occult Experiments In the Home.

My Amazon rating: 4 stars