Helpful Summary of Principles of Kashmir Shaivism
I was looking for other things and came across this helpful summary of the general principles of Kashmir Shaivism.
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- Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc) | Meditation | Photos
Why to Practice (Signs Around Town)
Because we don’t know what is next or when it will come.
- Asana, Pranayama, and Yoga Practice | Community and Family | Food for the Mind (Yoga Philosophy, etc)
Lord Murugan and the Peacock Yoga Pants
A few months ago, I succumbed to the brilliant marketing at one of those yoga studio boutiques filled with enticing outfits that make one feel like part of the in crowd and bought a pair of leggings covered in an allover peacock feather print that made me think of Murugan whose temple we visited on the trip to South India and whose steed is a peacock.
One of the stories about Murugan, who is Ganesha’s brother (Ganesha being the beloved elephant god and remover of obstacles), talks about a competition between Murugan and Ganesha for divine knowledge. (Let’s leave aside for now the question of why a divine being would need to enter a competition to gain divine knowledge as too big a question for a blogger who has no academic or priestly expertise in the Hindu pantheon). In the story, as I have heard it (and as described in the Wiki article that I have shamelessly linked to above, despite all the disdain one might appropriately have for one who cites to a Wiki article), Murugan loses because what he does is try to show off his prosaic prowess by tearing around the world three times. Ganesha wins by quietly circumambulating with quiet worship Shiva and Parvati, the god and goddess, the essence of being, the pulsation of opposites.
When we were out walking in the woods the other day, my friend ER took an incredibly insightful picture of me trying too hard to look like the yoginis who grace the magazine covers and can do the most magnificent asana. The brilliance of the photo is its revelation of the empty ridiculousness of my posing like the beauty I am not, and of pointedly demonstrating how neither wearing wild peacock pants, nor being able to do a tolerably deep backbend reveals anything to the self about spirit. But perhaps it also shows, in its candid and ironic look at an all too human yogini, that like Lord Murugan, who despite of or perhaps because of his absolutely flawed nature is actively and devotedly worshipped, I in my laughable striving may still have in my human being something of the divine. I can only hope.
Looking Within
The great texts and teachers of meditation exhort us to look within with the promise that by so doing we will find great peace or bliss or splendor.
For many, though, initial attempts at meditation are just as likely to reveal troubling aspects of the self or agitating thoughts as any sense of beauty or quiet and the reaction can be a dismissal or disbelief in such teachings.
The exhortation to look within is not directing us to introspection or the self-examination of therapy (which are also useful in appropriate circumstances), but rather is inviting us to open to seeing that the beauty and specialness that we might believe of and recognize in others is also within ourselves.
Only when we can first look inside ourselves with love and empathy, can healing, change, growth, and compassion begin regarding those things that make introspection scary and challenging.
Peace and light, E — Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.
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This Night Empty of Moon
The sky emptiest of moonlight, the darkness of the absent moon of mahashivratri lets the stars reveal themselves and illuminate the fullness of possibility. That it is also the first day of meteorological Spring and was the State of the Union feels like quite a confluence.
