Freedom, self-direction, truth, and blindness

"I am free if, and only if, I plan my life in accordance with my own will; plans entail rules; a rule does not oppress me or enslave me if I impose it on myself consciously, or accept it freely, having understood it, whether it was invented by me or by others, provided that it is rational, that is to say, conforms to the necessities of things. To understand why things must be as they must be is to will them to be so. Knowledge liberates not by offering us more open possibilities amongst which we can make our choice, but by preserving us from the frustration of attempting the impossible. To want necessary laws to be other than they are is to be prey to an irrational desire--a desire that what must be X should also not be X. To go further, and believe these laws to be other than what they necessarily are, is to be insane." 

Isaiah Berlin, "Two Concepts of Liberty"

Over the last few days, I have been reading Berlin, and this passage in which Berlin describes positive freedom--the freedom that comes from my imposing a law on myself and choosing to direct my life in accordance with this law out of my own autonomous self-direction--jumps out at me. Berlin himself is ambivalent about this notion of positive liberty. On the one hand, this notion of freedom as rational self-direction can be found in the works of a long line of liberal-minded thinkers (Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Marx, to name a few), and expresses the lofty ideal that being free is not just about not being restricted in one's actions, but is ultimately about being able to direct one's life in accordance with an ideal of one's own choosing.

On the other hand, however, positive freedom becomes morally problematic when one tries to translate it into a systematic political arrangement. First, if people are truly free only if they are able to live their lives in accordance with an ideal of their own choosing, then, assuming that freedom is the most important thing for people to have, having this ability to live self-directed lives must be what people really want, even if some people are too benighted/ignorant/stupid to know this on a conscious level. And it is not enough for the state to leave these benighted/ignorant/stupid people alone to their own devices; left to their own devices, these people will probably do things that are not only harmful to themselves, but might also threaten the freedom and lives of more enlightened folks. So, for the good of all, these benighted/ignorant/stupid people who do not know what is best for themselves must be educated and, if necessary, coerced into becoming truly free (Fichte: "Only the truth liberates, and the only way in which I can learn the truth is by doing blindly today, what you, who know it, order me, or coerce me, to do, in the certain knowledge that only thus will I arrive at your clear vision, and be free like you."). And we all know how the story goes from here. Much of the excesses committed in the names of the many "isms" (communism, fascism, even liberalism) of the twentieth century can be traced at least in part to what are arguably at least initially well-intentioned efforts by a group of intellectual elites to "educate" the ignorant and bring them up to shape for the new world order of absolute freedom that is soon to come.

Scary and depressing stuff, if you think about it. How can something that is so noble and lofty on the individual level become so monstrous when applied on a large scale? I don't have any easy (or difficult) answers to this question, and I don't want to gloss this issue over by spouting platitudes, so I'll leave it at this. But here's something else to think about: Aren't we subjecting ourselves to a similar process in our Ashtanga practice? Assuming that the goal of the practice is moksha or liberation, and that only the truth liberates, and the truth is presently not within our field of vision, wouldn't this mean that in doing our daily practice, we are, in a sense, blindly putting ourselves through a process of coercion--to be sure, we are talking about self-directed, freely imposed coercion, but it's still coercion, nonetheless--in the certainty (?) that only thus will we one day arrive at a clear vision, and be free like... Sri K Pattabhi Jois?

On a further note, I sometimes also wonder if this blind trust in a guru/teacher that will lead us towards moksha might be related to all those guru scandals that have been gracing the yoga world of late. Again, one can respond to all this with all manner of platitudes about how trust should not be blind, yadayadayada, that one should choose and question one's guru/teacher carefully, yadayadayada. But if the whole point of having a guru/teacher is to follow somebody who supposedly sees the light in a way that one doesn't, wouldn't this mean that a certain relative blindness on the part of the student is built into the very fabric of the guru-student relationship?   

Hmm... where is this going? I don't know. Again, I have no easy (or difficult) answers to these questions. But I guess I'll continue to do my practice tomorrow. And probably the day after tomorrow as well. Maybe the blindness will lift soon. And then what? Again, I don't know.     

Floating forward and hovering before touching down in Uttanasana, jumping through with straight legs (or not); upcoming interview with alt-rock musician Ife Sanchez Mora, and a call for technical assistance

Over the last few days, I have been playing and experimenting with some of the finer points of floating in the Surya Namaskaras. If you are not familiar with floating, here's a short video (complete with very powerful drumbeat) of David Robson demonstrating this technique:

Not to brag or anything, but I have actually been floating more or less successfully for the last year or so. What I've been working on over the last couple of weeks is to achieve that little movement where I hover with my legs more or less straight, with my feet hovering a couple of inches above the ground, just before I touch down in Uttanasana. If you need a visual of what I'm talking about, here's the Patron Saint of Home Ashtangis demonstrating this finer point of Surya Namaskara:    

Over the last week, I would say that I have been getting the hover about 7 or 8 times out of every 10 times I do the Surya Namaskaras. To be sure, there is something very aesthetically pleasing (not to mention ego-boosting) about being able to float and hover. The very first time I saw somebody float and hover was as a neophyte yoga teacher at the campus gym in Florida, where I went to grad school (for more details about my brief tenure as a yoga-teaching charlatan, see this post). One of my fellow yoga teachers at the time was this spindly guy who could float and hover effortlessly in Surya Namaskar "as if angels were lifting and moving his legs", as his girlfriend at the time would put it. And while I wasn't quite as devotionally awestruck by his floating abilities as his girlfriend was, I nevertheless couldn't help comparing it to my rather heavy-limbed movements in Surya Namaskar, and longing wistfully for the day when I myself would be able to float and hover so effortlessly, with or without angelic support. 

Well, I am happy to report that I am finally getting closer to that day, after all these years. But being able to float/hover isn't just about looking good or boosting one's ego. Being able to move so lightly demands refined control of the bandhas, breath and movement (in other words, the tristana, minus the drishti). Thus, I believe that the ability to float/hover is something that comes more or less naturally and organically as one attains more control and refinement in one's practice. So much so, that after a while, floating and hovering actually becomes easier than just flopping and throwing one's limbs around in the Suryas--or in the rest of the practice, for that matter. 

Besides floating and hovering, I've also been experimenting with the straight-legged jump-through (SLJT). As I've mentioned a couple of years ago, I've more or less settled into jumping through with cross-legs (CLJT) over the last couple of years. I think Sharath said somewhere that he always does CLJT, because that's the only way he's been taught. And I figured that if CLJT is good enough for Sharath, it's good enough for me. Case closed. 

But nevertheless, over the last few weeks, I've gotten curious about life on the SLJT side of the fence. What would it be like to be able to SLJT with perfect control? Well, here's Kino's model demonstrating this: 

As Kino points out at the beginning of the video, it is neither correct nor incorrect to jump through with straight legs or crossed legs: The important thing is to make it to the finish line, one way or the other. But I still can't help being curious about what life is like "on the other side". And besides, I was also thinking to myself: Now that I am finally getting close to being able to hover, surely some of that hovering ability would translate to being able to SLJT with better control (as opposed to the "sliding into base" kind of SLJT)? So during practice yesterday, I gave the SLJT a shot during the one of the first couple of postures in primary series. I bent my knees in downdog, took off... and landed on my feet! And then I had to awkwardly make myself sit down. It turns out that my body has been doing CLJT for so long, that the only way it knows how to jump forward with straight legs is to land in standing/Uttanasana! 

Oh well, maybe I'll have to find a way to "reprogram" my body/mind if I want to switch over to SLJT. Or maybe I'll just stick with CLJT. No harm done, one way or the other.

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On a different note, I'm presently in the process of putting together a Skype interview with alt-rock musician and fellow Nichiren Buddhist Ife Sanchez Mora. You know, the kind of Skype interview where both our faces appear side-by-side on screen as you watch the interview? I don't usually do interviews on this blog (the only person I've interviewed so far is Kino), but Ife, who also practices Bikram yoga, is a person who is so full of life and passion for her art, that I think it can only be a good thing to share her work here on this blog. To give you a taste of her work, here's a music video from her recently released album: 

Pretty freaking awesome, wouldn't you say? 

But there's a slight problem here: I have never done a Skype interview, nor do I have any experience with posting it on my blog (obviously). I know, I'm a bit deficient technology-wise. But I also know that at least some of you out there have experience with doing and posting Skype interviews. If you do, and wouldn't mind giving me some technical assistance in this area, please get in touch with me; you can find my email in the "Greetings" section of this blog, in the top-right-hand corner. I won't have much to offer you in the way of material reward, but you will at least have my eternal, eternal gratitude and over-whelming respect. So yeah, do give this a thought, if you happen to possess the requisite expertise.  

Aliens and (extra-long) yoga pants

Perhaps it's the summer and the lackadaisical mood it produces in many of this planet's inhabitants. I've found myself gathering quite a bit of information over the last week or so. But thus far, very little of this information-gathering activity has translated into much of a desire to blog. I've also been remiss in responding to comments on this blog, and feel quite bad about that, considering the fact that most of the people who comment here clearly put a lot of thought and effort into their comments.

But maybe the following piece of news might just get me out of my blogging malaise. One of the things I learned during the past few days of info gathering is that we now have strong anecdotal evidence that aliens (yes, as in beings from another planet) exist. In fact, according to the speech below given by former Canadian Defense Minister Paul Hellyer (along with a number of other former USAF servicemen) at the recent Citizen Hearing on Disclosure in Washington D.C. chaired by six former members of the U.S. Congress, at least two extra-terrestrials are presently on-planet and working with the U.S. government:

Of course, just because a former high-level government official says something doesn't necessarily make it true. But think about this: What motivation would a former top leader of a G8 nation have to say something as crazy as this, putting his credibility on the line? Unless, maybe, it happens to be the truth? And again, why else would all these former Congress members similarly put their credibility on the line by appearing at the hearing?

In any case, I am not altogether surprised at the presence of intelligent life beyond our solar system. Although I am no astronomer or cosmologist, I have always thought it to be simply impossible that there is no life anywhere else in this vast universe. Actually, a couple of years ago, I speculated in a half-tongue-in-cheek fashion that at least some of these aliens might also be practicing yoga. 

Anyway, now that we know that aliens are out there--and on-planet as well--I'm guessing that it won't be long before the yoga industry starts marketing yoga merchandise to them. After all, even if they hail from a super-advanced civilization, they are still flesh-and-blood embodied beings, and could therefore benefit from doing yoga. If nothing else, this might give Lululemon a reason to step up its yoga pants production. I hear that the species of aliens know as the Tall Whites (of whom two are supposedly presently on-planet) are, well, quite a bit taller than humans. Here's a video of nuclear physicist and ex-airforce serviceman Charles Hall giving an interview on Australian TV about his experiences working with the Tall Whites during his time in the air force: 

Isn't it funny how Hall had to go all the way to Australia just to appear on TV and tell his story? 

But anyway, coming back to yoga, wouldn't this present Lululemon with a brand-new market for extra-long yoga pants? Now of course, if aliens are really among us, I suppose we would all have much more important things to think about than yoga pants. But then again, this is only a yoga blog, and I don't feel qualified to overstep the limits of my already-limited expertise by expounding on anything else.  

The evils of online chess and meat-eating

I haven't been able to motivate myself to blog for the last week or so. Why? Because I have re-discovered the evils of online chess! A little back story here: I used to play online chess on yahoo many years ago, but stopped doing so because frankly, yahoo's interface and the netiquette of the players suck. But just a few days ago, I discovered chess.com. The rest, as they say, is history... damn, this online chess thing is truly addictive! I found myself playing every spare moment I got, compromising even my precious sleep.

Thankfully, I didn't compromise my practice. But it definitely had a very direct effect on my practice. Yesterday morning, as I raised my arms above my head for the second Surya A, I felt this "pop" sensation (the bad kind) in my right trapezius. Oh shit, I thought. I had this before: The last time this happened (last summer), I had to lay off chaturanga and most weight-bearing postures for a month. But I decided to move slowly through the practice anyway, and see just how bad the damage was this time. I got through the entire practice alright without modifying any postures, but there was this persistent soreness in the right trapezius the rest of the day. After some reflection, I realized that playing too much online chess was probably the culprit here. You see, when I play chess online, my right hand is perched on the mouse the entire time, and my right elbow is bent and suspended at a right angle. For some reason, the power that is used to hold my right arm rigidly in this position comes all the way from the back of my shoulders (i.e. the trapezius). Which results in a lot of tightness.... huh, who knew you could get injured playing chess?

Anyway, I did my practice again this morning. I took slightly longer breaths in downward dog, playing close attention to externally rotating my upper arms while in the posture in order to release the trapezius. It seems to be working: I am feeling a lot less sore today.

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D over at Savasana Addict has written a heartfelt and honest post about her feelings of guilt over being a "card-carrying Ashtangi" (I don't mean this in a stereotyping kind of way, but to my mind, anybody who has made the necessary adjustments and sacrifices to make the trip to Mysore qualifies as a card-carrying Ashtangi) while eating meat at the same time.

Her post resonates a lot with me, not least because of our similar cultural backgrounds: We are both ethnic Chinese who hail from this beautiful tropical island called Singapore. As you may or may not know, Chinese food (especially the Singaporean incarnation of it) is very, very omnivoric in nature. When I was growing up, I had this perception that the only people who don't eat meat are: (1) Buddhist monks and nuns, (2) people who have certain medical conditions, and (3) people who are simply "out of it." I mean, who else in their right mind would refuse, say, Hainanese chicken rice?

Well, me, I guess. I have been vegetarian for about three years now. It all started because of this Ashtanga thing. Well, more precisely, it started when I began studying with my teacher in Milwaukee (PJ Heffernan). Before that, many people have tried in their own gentle (or not-so-gentle) ways to get me to consider not eating meat. I basically listened to them politely, and then went on with my merry meat-eating ways. I'm still not sure what clicked in me to cause me to make the change when I was studying with PJ; I basically quit meat within a couple of months. If I have to pinpoint one particular cause of this change, I would say it was probably PJ's powerful personality (it's hard to describe his personality here; you have to meet him to know what I'm talking about...).

Anyway, it seems to me that, even outside of Ashtanga circles, eating (or not eating) meat is a topic that can lead to interesting discussions. At the coffeeshop here in Idaho that I hang out and do my work at, there are a bunch of Saudi students who are also regulars. A few of them have learned that I am vegetarian, and have asked me out of curiosity why I have chosen to forgo the delights of meat (I'm guessing that Saudi cuisine is probably also very meat-heavy). One of them, in particular, is a big, muscle-bound body-builder. When I honestly told him that I chose not to eat meat because not doing so allows me to feel lighter and more energy-efficient (I decided not to tell him about PJ), he looked at me in a funny kind of way (he might be thinking I have lost it), and tried, as gently as he could, to suggest that if cooked in certain ways and eaten in certain limited quantities, it is possible to eat meat and still maintain a certain lightness of being. I politely listened to what he had to say, replied with "interesting, I'll think about this", and then went on with my non-meat-eating ways.

But well, he might have a point there. I recently half-jokingly told a friend that the one occasion on which I might consider making an exception to not eating meat is if I ever find myself in a dim sum restaurant, because I honestly don't see how one can properly partake in dim sum without eating shrimp dumplings. But we'll see what happens. In the meantime, I see that this post is quickly going everywhere and nowhere at the same time. I guess I probably should sign off here, so you won't have to endure too much more of this rambling. More later.        

"I am full of India stories, none of which are my own"

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.  Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."

Mark Twain

Yesterday afternoon, I was trying to get some work done at this coffeeshop that I usually go to, when I got distracted by the sight of a couple of young people playing chess at a nearby table (this has happened before; see this post). I quickly convinced myself (rightly or wrongly) that I needed to take a break from work, and went over to them and asked if they wouldn't mind me watching their game. They did not mind, and I ended up watching the game, and then playing a couple of very good games with them.

During and after the games, we got into a conversation about traveling around the world. It turns out that one of my companions, a young woman who is probably in her mid-twenties, has traveled quite a bit; she regaled us with stories of her travels in Prague, Paris, and a few other cities in Europe whose names I do not remember now. We then got into an interesting comparison of different attitudes that Europeans and Americans have towards such social "evils" as drugs and alcohol consumption.

Not to be outdone, I decided to draw from my own store of stories about the world to add to the conversation. Somehow, without realizing it, I found myself relating the stories about Mysore that I had heard and read from people like Claudia and Kino. In particular, I noticed my companions' eyes lighting up when I related stories about brownouts and water outages in Mysore, and about how one needs to really plan one's water usage when in India. I suppose my companions must have found these stories compelling because they offer a valuable glimpse into a world that is so unlike the sort of relative affluence that I imagine they must have been accustomed to, both at home and in their own travels.

Which is all well and good, except that none of these India stories with which I was regaling my friends were my own; as you probably know, I have yet to make it to Mysore. Of course, being the, ahem, yogic person that I am, I was quick to own up to this fact. Immediately after telling these stories, I also told my friends that these stories were passed on to me from friends and teachers who have been to India, and that none of these stories are my own ("I am full of India stories, none of which are my own!" was what I said; which drew a chuckle.).

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Well, now you know what a popular and highly-sought-after conversation partner I am in these parts :-) But this episode also led me to realize that a significant part of my life is made up of vicarious memories taken from the lives of others. I'm not sure if this is a good thing. I suppose many people would say that it is not good to live vicariously through the memories of others. But on the other hand, in light of the fact that my present career and immigration circumstances do not allow me to travel as broadly across the world as I would like, living vicariously through others' stories and memories may well be the next best thing, or, in the words of Twain, it may be the next best way to counteract prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness.

But of course, I will make it to Mysore one day. And then all of this will simply become a nice little story. Well, actually, I like to think it is already a nice little story. But I think you know what I'm getting at...            

Might democracy in social media sometimes be an evil thing?

Here's a test case. Earlier today, I visited Kino's Facebook page, and saw that she had posted her very popular video on Yoganidrasana, which has had more than 2 million views to date. In case you haven't seen it, here it is:

On her FB page, somebody suggested to Kino that "you might want to consider turning off your comments or filtering..." This got me a bit curious, so I went on the actual Youtube page to see the video and its accompanying comments. The top two comments (which, as I understand, are ranked the top two because they have received the greatest number of likes) are a bit inappropriate to reproduce on this blog; suffice to say that they refer to particular biological functions. 

Actually, this is not the first time that this video has generated such... interesting comments; a similar incident happened with this video sometime last year. And of course, if you take the couple of minutes it takes to actually watch the video, you will know that those particular biological functions alluded to by these commenters are the last things Kino has in mind when making the video. As the patron saint of home Ashtangis, Kino's intention is to offer the video as a source of instruction and feedback for Ashtangis who are working on this particularly challenging second series pose on their own. How it is possible for these commenters to interpret the video as some kind of sex manual (there, I said it!) is, frankly, quite beyond me. But then again, I think there must be some school of postmodernist textual/video interpretation out there which holds the view that absolutely any interpretation of any media is justified and valid, so long as the interpreter can offer some kind of semi-coherent explanation for the interpretation. Ah well. What do I know? 

But since I know nothing about postmodernism, I should maybe talk about something else. Well, let's talk about... democracy and its possible evils. As I mentioned above, the top two comments on the video are the top comments because they have received the greatest number of likes/thumbs-ups thus far. Thus, we can see that the ranking of comments on Youtube is a purely democratic process: That which receives the greatest number of votes receives top ranking.

Most of us, I take it, have been taught/socialized to believe that democracy is a good thing. But it looks like in this particular case, the democratic process is a distorting influence. If the sheer number of likes/thumbs-ups is anything to go by, it would seem that the majority of viewers on Youtube (at least those who have seen this particular video) either agree with or are at least sympathetic to the views of these two commenters. But that also means that the majority of viewers have mistaken or distorted views about what this video is really about, postmodernism notwithstanding. Or maybe they know better, but they simply don't care enough to offer a dissenting opinion. One way or the other, this would seem to suggest that it is not always a good idea to put things to a majority vote, because the majority can be either wrong or not socially responsible enough with their votes. 

But maybe I am making too much out of this one case; after all, we do pride ourselves on living in a democracy, and democracy is supposed to be the best thing since, what, sliced bread? After all, if we live in a particular society or community, it is only right that each citizen/inhabitant of this society should have an equal say or vote about anything that might affect his or her life, right? But should each citizen/inhabitant have an equal say about things regarding which she might know very little or nothing about--things such as a particular pose in a particular practice of which you are not a practitioner? It might seem that the answer to this question is a very easy no. After all, how can we responsibly judge things which we have no experience in? But then again, how many of us actually have experience in governing this country? And yet we take it to be unproblematic that we should be entitled to have an equal say or vote in deciding whom we should choose to govern this country.

Ah, big questions these are. I think I am using yoga as an excuse to think about political philosophy. Or maybe it's the other way around: I might be using political philosophy as an excuse to think about yoga. Who knows? Anyway, I guess I'll stop here, before this rambling gets out of hand (it may already have). More later.            

Practice with stomach trouble, this blogging thing

I discovered something this morning: It is possible to do full primary to Sharath's count while having stomach trouble. It all started last night, when I ate an orange that had been sitting in my fridge for too long; really should have known better. About an hour and a half after getting to bed, my stomach woke me up, and I had to go to the bathroom. Nothing came out (TMI?). I made myself go back to bed, but at 3 a.m. my stomach woke me up again. This time, there was a deluge in the bathroom...

Anyway, I don't suppose you care for knowing this level of detail about the goings-on of my digestive system. In any case, when I woke up in the morning, I was wondering if it would be a good idea to do my usual Saturday morning Sharath led primary. But I decided to just go ahead with it anyway; I figured I can always stop if things get to be too much.

It turned out to be quite alright. If anything, the entire practice actually felt a little lighter than usual, maybe because of the loss of water weight. Ha! Now I wonder if this is why people who go to Mysore often report achieving great progress in their asana practice. Could it have something to do with the fact that their stomachs are continually purging the third-world food that they are ingesting, causing them to lose water weight and thus become lighter in their practices? Just speculating here: Those of you out there who have been to Mysore can tell me whether this theory of mine holds any water (no pun intended).

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I can't help noticing that I have "lost" a couple of followers in the last couple of days. I'm guessing that these people have un-followed me because of my not-so-polite reply to an anonymous commenter in my previous post. Or maybe they un-followed me because they are fans of Sadie Nardini, and are upset by my less-than-flattering treatment of her.

Oh well. All in a day's blogging work, I guess. In any case, amassing followers (damn, does this sound grandiose, or what?) is not (or should not be) the purpose of blogging. It's not like I get paid for every time somebody follows me, anyway. Hmm.... how many more followers will I lose by saying this? I guess we'll find out soon :-)

In any case, the whole point of blogging is to say what needs to be said, when it needs to be said. Besides, if one has the temerity to engage in anonymous sniping, getting shot down should be par for the course, no?  Especially if the sniping in question involves insulting somebody's teacher...

All in all, I have to say that this blogging thing is a funny business. Actually, it reminds me a little of academia: So many people's panties get bunched up over things of so little consequence. For instance, as a result of certain things I have said over the years, there are now blogs out there that I literally cannot leave comments on; the blog owners/operators automatically delete whatever comments I leave on their blogs... I mean, really? Might we not be taking our cyber-personalities a little too seriously?

I could go on and on about all this. But as they say, all not-so-good things have to come to an end. So this will be it for now. More later.