From the category archives:

Yoga Philosophy and Symbology

Yoga and Nature: Good, Bad and Ugly

August 26, 2010

Class brings yoga into nature zone | mydesert.com | The Desert Sun. Yoga and nature immersion are parallel practices. There is a mysterious term in the first chapter of the Yoga Sutra – the term is prakrti-laya, or ‘absorbed in nature.’ I have been fascinated by this term for many years, since it seemed to [...]

Read the full article →

On Faith Panelists Blog: A Metaphorical Journey… of Transformation – Anju Bhargava

August 17, 2010

On Faith Panelists Blog: A Metaphorical Journey… of Transformation – Anju Bhargava. Especially with respect to yoga, I believe that Indian-Americans have a real responsibility to share  ‘in-culture understanding’ with those who are just beginning to explore this toolbox of techniques for navigating awareness through this place we call the world. Strangely, I’ve found recent [...]

Read the full article →

Is Science A Belief? Is Religion A Science?

March 4, 2010

Is Science A Belief? Is Religion A Science? Recent Research. Many intriguing and problematic things here – but perhaps the central lesson is that the brain takes posited thoughts as percepts. So for a ‘believer’ in the posited thought, what an outsider calls ‘belief’ the insider would call a perception of ‘what is.’ The difference [...]

Read the full article →

Religion Equals Morality? Not…

March 4, 2010

Psychologists Explore Religion, Morality Link | Christianpost.com. Recent research suggests that moral judgment and religious doctrine vary independently. We need not subscribe to literalist dogma to properly evaluate our actions – this capacity seems hard-wired into our social brains. But does this apparent hard-wiring take place through natural darwinian evolution, or some inheritance of social [...]

Read the full article →

Religion and Symbol Systems: How We Shape Reality (Symbolism Part 2)

March 3, 2010

The Jewish Tree of Life is a fully-integrated, multi-media mystic symbol system, comparable to the Chakra system in Yoga Religions are deeply interwoven symbol-systems. Like their component symbolic complexes, religions are neither true nor false: they are reality-creating systems. They create a cultural world as our adaptive niche, and then project this culturally-mediated world externally [...]

Read the full article →

Symbol Power: How We Shape Experience (Symbolism Part 1)

March 3, 2010

This Dreamtime Pathway from Australia is both a symbol and a map Humans are symbol-making creatures. Symbolic expression permeates our lives, giving them meaning and order. When concentrated and coordinated, symbols begin to form systems. When webbed together into systems, symbols start to function in a new way: they begin to generate and sustain the [...]

Read the full article →

Fraud and Yoga: Looking for the Real Thing

March 3, 2010

How do you tell the real thing? You infer its genuineness by the standardized marks it bears One key question lies at the heart of all human religion, spirituality, science, and even states of awareness in general: how do you tell the real thing from a fake? In ancient India, where yogic systems developed, this [...]

Read the full article →

Interrogating the Ego: Jnana Yoga and the Art of Reality Visioning (Part 3)

March 2, 2010

After all, you’re not who you think you are at all If we are to see through the jillion illusions out of which the ‘real’ world is made, it is important to be curious about and to question appearances. A powerful means of interrogating illusion comes from the tradition of jnana yoga, the yoga of [...]

Read the full article →

Playing with Fire: Yoga Philosophy and the Flames of Concentration

March 2, 2010

Jnana yoga enhances insight and brain activity – but too much can create agitation By meditating on the formulas of yoga philosophy, you can access deep insights very quickly and easily. This practice sharpens the mental capacity for focus and intention. But jnana practice is a double-edged sword, for it is very exciting. As a [...]

Read the full article →

Evolution: Yogic, Scientific and Religious

March 2, 2010

In the 21st century, science and religion are again forming battle lines. They seem to by two fundamentally different types of knowing. As we hear it, science discovers ‘truth’ inductively and first-hand through manifest data. Religion derives ‘truth’ deductively and second-hand through revealed information sources. Yoga enters this discussion in a strange situation. It is [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries