tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670725056880541135.post6110254210260188912..comments2024-02-24T23:14:35.464-08:00Comments on shivers up the spine: And the Right Answer IS....Yoga and The Dreaded Multiple Choice Question: Mark Singleton at Yoga Festival Torontopriya thomashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17104604630551238443noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670725056880541135.post-14617075837259575322011-09-12T15:51:09.374-07:002011-09-12T15:51:09.374-07:00Thought provoking post--a question I've wrestl...Thought provoking post--a question I've wrestled with for years.<br /><br />At the risk of sounding like a banal relativist, I think the question assumes that these categories like secularism etc. (with all its various various connectives, such as separation of church and state) are not more slippery than they appear to be at a first glance. For some France's declaration of war against the niqab could be seen as profoundly religious. Talal Asad's work, I'm sure you know it, helps to at least think through these slipperiness of these terms we invoke often without questioning the ways in which they are unmarked, and almost invisible.<br /><br />Ok, so if I move away from a relativist position (which, I think, in Asad's case has a lot of merit), and start to think about religion as the formalization of mysticism--then yoga it would seem is profoundly religious because it formalizes itself into various gestures and motions, much like Muslim salat is formalized.<br /><br />-Hazrat Inayat Khan's discussion on how yoga developed from siddhi's who experienced *shakti and became so enlivened by it that they spontaneously adopted asanas. This itself seems like the mystical element of yoga, which I doubt one can learn in the context of yoga class in Kensington market (god bless them though), but in my opinion through the initiation of one who has already attained such awakening. Then in a sense we are back in the terrain of formalization (religion) although a much fresher approach (because one lives in the context, or serves a teacher)--not a tradition. One can turn to a tradition, a teacher, or teaching and at the risk of sounding like an outlandishly new age, I think most religions give us three options: submission to teaching/tradition, community, or teacher--sometimes in more subversive ways (such as sufism--where in some communities we sing songs that most mullahs would ban). <br /><br /> (not a decent of force in the frontal line, but a yogic awakening of the sushumna, and the ascent of force, piercing the chakras....)<br /><br />I don't know what the hell I wrote above. I'm just thinking. I appreciate the post, b/c I'm working through these questions in the context of my life. <br /><br />Peace sister,Jimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10848051487247507286noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670725056880541135.post-2543458041915131832011-09-06T05:47:08.563-07:002011-09-06T05:47:08.563-07:00hey crescence, good to see you here! thank you for...hey crescence, good to see you here! thank you for your thoughts. i'm really happy that you found the dialogue engaging - the thoughts you and everyone else have offered point to serious issues that i hope will generate critical (but no less playful) responses! it's also an indication that people didn't take the interview as a display of good questions/good answers...but as a way to re-engage with those questions in their own way so that the practice is better "aligned". here's to keeping the mindbody strong and bendy. worthwhile discussion everyone. thank you and hope to see you again. priyapriya thomashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17104604630551238443noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670725056880541135.post-42311032102515768032011-09-05T10:57:51.864-07:002011-09-05T10:57:51.864-07:00Priya, I was present at your interview of Mark Sin...Priya, I was present at your interview of Mark Singleton and really enjoyed the clarity of your questions and Mark's receptivity to answering them. I had attended Mark's first session at the festival and what I wanted to know by the end of it was what his own experience of yoga was because while the historical research he has done is interesting, the only container he gives it is an academic one, which is totally inadequate to answering the question I think he is asking: what is yoga? That morning I had a sense of his own honest confusion as to the answer and that he has written his book as a way to engage with it. Asking him how he perceives his own practice got to the crux of the matter, I thought.<br /><br />I think Mark's work is very helpful for sorting out what yoga isn't. If there is such a thing as an experience that lies within a body unconfined by the cultural mind, Mark illuminates the many permutations of that confinement, worldwide and through time.<br /><br />Words can tangle but the right ones can also untangle. Mat referred to UG in his comment above. Saturated in religious, spiritual and cultural concepts in his early life, he later found himself free of them and played fiercely with language thereafter. I think our job is to keep playing.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670725056880541135.post-6235450664406281682011-09-04T11:42:07.574-07:002011-09-04T11:42:07.574-07:00hi all,
carol first off thank you for the kind wo...hi all,<br /><br />carol first off thank you for the kind words, and for bringing the your issue with those words to my attention in the first place. it's an interesting point to consider...and hopefully a gateway to think about what it means to do yoga in this place and at this time... look forward to chatting more! adan - good to meet you here. thanks so much for your thoughts about creative work. and mat some provocative thoughts and sentiments...a note though - mark didn't duck the question. but his answer will be in the final transcript. so i hope you will watch for that - where as i'm sure you can appreciate, "all will be revealed" ok thank you everyone, priyapriya thomashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17104604630551238443noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670725056880541135.post-325487452789588272011-09-04T10:58:28.321-07:002011-09-04T10:58:28.321-07:00Mark Singletons entire enterprise is about answeri...Mark Singletons entire enterprise is about answering questions that no one is asking, so when faced with a real question it is little surprise that he ducked it. Yoga is nothing but religious, because spiritual is religious and secular is also religious in the strict sense of the word, which means "to adhere". There are very few people I have read that can claim to be truly non-religious, most are just anti-religious or just confused, like Singleton. Carol - If you want your yoga to be outside of the religious altogether then you need to start reading U.G. Krishnamurti, (not JJ)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670725056880541135.post-65236834678786906912011-09-04T09:29:38.559-07:002011-09-04T09:29:38.559-07:00so glad i saw this via carol horton on facebook
a...so glad i saw this via carol horton on facebook<br /><br />and very much looking fwd to the transcript, though i do think your phd wk should properly take precedence ;-)<br /><br />the questions about the multiple choice question, have waited, can wait, and be the weight they're meant to (what"ever") be -<br /><br />i like the play of ideas that, possibly, words are enough, and thus we go to art, but are the words simply not "updated" yet enough<br /><br />as a writer, an artist, and a person who loves dance and music as well, it's funny when one art form is declared insufficient to express some human experience, even so-called divineness stuff ;-) and then another art form is used as a "better" vehicle<br /><br />and then to see that happen cross-ways between the arts!<br /><br />i can "dance" what you cannot say - i can speak what you cannot move - i can picture all that moves and speaks<br /><br />i beat myself up for decades going from one art form to the other, as each art form's limitations met their current-wall-of-expression<br /><br />now, i simply accept i need all the art forms i'm capable of doing, and enjoy, to express myself ;-)adanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00710750989853277203noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5670725056880541135.post-87135618382671704282011-09-04T05:51:10.077-07:002011-09-04T05:51:10.077-07:00Thanks so much for this, Priya. It is brilliant. A...Thanks so much for this, Priya. It is brilliant. And I couldn't agree with you more. Grappling with the necessity AND limitations of the words we have to communicate our experience is, I believe, invaluable. Not as an intellectual exercise (although I must admit for someone like me, that has an intrinsic appeal), but for the processes of personal growth that it fosters. <br /><br />Rather than taking the taken-for-granted for granted, we call it into question. This increases our freedom and as such, carries a certain charge, even fear - it's stepping out into more unknown and unbounded territory. But isn't that what yoga is all about?<br /><br />I also really like your suggestion that contemporary yoga needs to invent a new vocabulary to better express what it's really about. The conventional English words are way too limited (I use "spiritual" despite the fact that I'm horribly frustrated with it, simply for lack of a better alternative). Many practitioners shift to using Sanskrit terms instead - which can be useful, and beautiful, but also carries a certain risk of reigniting colonial romantic fantasies of the "mystic East" - and in fact, I think this happens all the time.<br /><br />I hope that you'll write more of your own direct commentaries and essays as opposed to simply interview transcripts - which are invaluable but lack the clarity of your own distinct voice. <br /><br />Finally, I think that this incident in your interview with Mark was truly a "teachable moment" that deserves to be written about further - the issues involved are deep and complex - and valuable - but take time and work to absorb. Looking forward to more - thanks again.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06954595575931726418noreply@blogger.com