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YogaIsLife
641 Posts |
 Posted - Jun 14 2008 : 06:43:20 AM
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I have a few philosophical questions I would like to share with you for consideration. These are things I have been pondering for years and the finding of the AYP lessons brought (as any new knowledge) a new light, a new perspective, a platform and, above all, of course, new, neverending, questions. Yes, I am a very philosophical person 
Well, what the hell are we, indeed, doing in this earth? What is the role f man in all of this? What is the nature of things and its purpose?
One thing that have always guided me through this questions as a joining threat is the idea of 'natural'. What is natural? Well, I see the wind as natural. The water in a river is natural. The animals and plants are natural. Natural not only in their existence but in their very behaviour: a river flows to the sea no matter what, the wind blows from high pressure to low pressure areas, the bird sings mainly during reproduction season, etc. etc. It is their natures.
So, where does man fits in all of this? For me, since I am a child, the idea that we are part of nature and we are as any other living beings was clear. Although, growing up in a conservative catholic society, I heard everywhere as an 'established fact' that man was different from all other creatures, came to the earth to rule over all other creatures as says in the bible, this did not make sense to me. More than that, it came to me as a very dangerous idea, one that made the world like it is today, full of environmental and social problems, exactly due to the lack of respect we have for nature (and hence for ourselves, as we are a reflection of everything else and vice-versa). Imagine a world in where people believed that we are like all other animals and where we respected our place in nature in the midst of this intricate and sensitive web of relationships all around. It would be a very different world, don't you agree?
So, where come spiritual enlightment and AYP in all of this? It challenges things a bit doesn't it? After all we are not like other animals, we seem to be special. Is it really so? For me it has always been like this: man is part of nature but, like any other being in this earth, has its own specific characteristics. In man, this may well be, rational thinking, developed intelligence and capacity of transforming things and - maybe - spiritual development. Of course 'enlightment', with all its promises of understanding the nature of things challenges even further this idea: if man can truly be above the laws of nature is then man special amonsgt all living creatures?
I don't know but somehow the idea doesn't fit right with me. Maybe it's a paradox like in all of creation: we are at the same time special and ordinary living beings. Maybe if I get enlightned I will answer this question! 
A related question that came to me, related to what is natural or not: are the techniques explained in AYP (and in other spiritual traditions) really natural? I mean, how much of practicing this techniques is like water flowing in a river? Water flows, that is what it does, it is its nature, it is a natural thing for water to do. And man, is it natural to sit down and meditate? And if so, why don't the majority of people do it, or children do it, espontaneously? Could culture (human conditioning from society) have an influence on this?
For example, I tell you what I feel and felt since I am a child. I call it the 'spiritual rebel' in me, or the 'spiritual stubborn child'  . If god loves us so much, if we are in this earth to realise ourselves, to enjoy ourselves, to experience ourselves in all the glory of nature, why do we seem to have to strive so much? Even to find 'god' or experience the truth we have to practice twice a day...why all this work? This doens't seem natural to me. It seems to me that a river flows natural, as a bird sings naturally, etc. Yet, man seems to have to strive for everything? Could this be something related to the fall from eden and the tree of knowledge? Are we indeed being 'punished' for wanting to know. Is this what separates man from animal?
For example, I always looked at ancient and indigenous cultures as happier and (or because of) more intune, harmonious, with nature. The amazon indians, north american indias, aborigenous, etc. - most oral cultures really - are, for me, like the animals or the rivers I talk above - they just are. They live in the midst of nature. They breath it, the wisdom of nature permeates their pores, they live it, breath it, feel it, touch it, see it every moment of their lives. Why did we lose that? For what? That for me, is the question. We seem to have traded naturality (the garden of eden) with artificiality (the fall) but for what, at so high cost? I say this because I do believe that in the past man lived, in many societies, in many parts of the world, a healthier, simpler and - above all - happier life. There seems to be a purpose in this 'human explosion' (demographically, technologically, etc.) but what is it?
Just to finnish and to emphasize my point: these ancient cultures I talk about (you can see I am very fond of!) did not seem to have a system of yoga per se. They had their rituals and their respect for nature and they had their medicine man (kind of the 'master' equivalent in yoga) but their powers (and I do believe they also understood the truth and laws of nature, so much or closely related, to what a yogi might experience - read the introduction to Don Miguel Ruiz's The Four Agreements for an example), but their powers seem to come from nature itself, rather than so much from introspection and 'abstraction' as in yoga. Seems to me a more 'natural' way, won't you agree? This people were initiated, often, by spending days or weeks alone in wild nature in order to 'find themselves' and 'know the truth of all things', usually through the help of the spirits of nature. What do you think of all this?
Thank you for your attention and sorry for the long post! Like I said, I am a bit of a philosophical person!
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snake
United Kingdom
276 Posts |
Posted - Jun 14 2008 : 09:07:26 AM
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Hi Yoga,great post.
If we have no stress in our nervous systems then we probably dont need to meditate or anything else as we wouldnt feel any seperation.
thats just my limited understanding as I see it. |
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david_obsidian
USA
2602 Posts |
Posted - Jun 14 2008 : 2:17:03 PM
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Hello YogaIsLife,
welcome to philosopher's corner.
I have asked similar questions. In time, I have concluded that the human mind is inclined to host many fallacies. Some of these fallacies are on the question of 'natural versus unnatural'.
One fallacy is that people seem to consider their 'sense' of 'natural' to be neutral or innate, while much of it is demonstrably culturally-relative.
There are other problems with 'natural' being taken to mean 'good' and 'unnatural' being taken to mean 'bad'. There seems to be a very strong human tendancy to do this, and I think it might be a useful start at the early stages of thinking about something but you have to get beyond it quickly; because so many things that are 'bad' are really quite natural, and so many things that are good are arguably unnatural that we shouldn't be equating 'natural' with 'good'.
Ask yourself -- how well-formed are the concepts of 'natural' and 'unnatural' ultimately? Are they not just approximations, often having more rhetorical value (value for convincing people) than true philosophical value?
They live in the midst of nature. They breath it, the wisdom of nature permeates their pores, they live it, breath it, feel it, touch it, see it every moment of their lives. Why did we lose that? For what? That for me, is the question. We seem to have traded naturality (the garden of eden) with artificiality (the fall) but for what, at so high cost? I say this because I do believe that in the past man lived, in many societies, in many parts of the world, a healthier, simpler and - above all - happier life.
It might be more instructive to think in terms of civilization/modernity/technology versus their absence, rather than in terms of natural versus unnatural. It is true that some of the tastes of our senses and our natural biology seems more attuned to those times than to now, which made sense since our species largely evolved in pre-civilization, tribal societies.
But ask yourself if it's really true that they were happier, or really had better lives than we do. Certainly, I think our society is largely superior (or maybe I should say more 'advanced' or 'developed') in many senses. ( I realize that I fly in the face of common policital-correct thinking here and may face attack.) Tribal societies often seem to have faced very high levels of violence and deprivation -- much, nuch higher than we face. And things like slavery were ubiquitously considered part of the natural order. While it is certainly not true that there is no kind of justice or rights in these kind of societies, I do believe that our kind of justice and rights systems are largely superior.
We're certainly paying a price for what we enjoy, in facing other things that we don't like, like maybe long working hours in offices and the like. Maybe though, in time, we'll get beyond the need to work a lot to sustain our civilized life. And live in a real garden of eden, where we don't have to work so much, and live in the kind of environment our bodies seem to like.
Just to finnish and to emphasize my point: these ancient cultures I talk about (you can see I am very fond of!) did not seem to have a system of yoga per se. They had their rituals and their respect for nature and they had their medicine man (kind of the 'master' equivalent in yoga) but their powers (and I do believe they also understood the truth and laws of nature, so much or closely related, to what a yogi might experience - read the introduction to Don Miguel Ruiz's The Four Agreements for an example), but their powers seem to come from nature itself, rather than so much from introspection and 'abstraction' as in yoga.
They had what they had, some of it good, some of it bad, as we do. Some of them did not have yogic tools just because, well, they never got them! Yoga is in a sense a technology. Societies don't drop out of the sky with a technology such as Yoga, just as they don't drop out of the sky having optics or electronics -- they get developed over time. If they don't have them, then they don't have the benefit of them and that's that. That doesn't say they don't have the benefit of some other useful stuff though.
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Edited by - david_obsidian on Jun 14 2008 4:37:33 PM |
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Divineis
Canada
420 Posts |
Posted - Jun 14 2008 : 10:06:07 PM
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Alright, let's play god. So I'm a perfect being, good and bad doesn't even exist in my vocabulary, in fact... vocabulary? haha... (well... I gotta explain it somehow... I'm kinda improvising though, but I wanna see where this goes haha). Ok, let's say you create the world, you put all the animals and the plants on the earth, and made the beautiful sunset and the rising and dying of the ocean, and it's all beautiful, it's like one big beautiful happening.
Ok, so now.. picture marylin monroe with her mole, that imperfection that's just... hot in some weird way.
We're that mole haha. We make concepts, we question, some would say to "get somewhere", but really, the questioning is that "somewhere"... that's what god intended, and it's always been that way, you can't question your way out of this one haha. You can "end all questions" and then you realise "hey, I am the question" and life goes on, and you keep on questioning but now you "get it"... that there's nothing to get (btw, if you're reading this, you're enlightened now... haha).
It was all perfect, God was probably bored or something, so he put one big question mark to see what happens, and just like Marylin, it's still just as perfect :) hehe.
There's just one problem... I don't believe in god. heh, problem.
By all means though, I wanna hear all your opinions, I like to pretend "this is it", this is far from it haha, trust me, with all the philosophizing in the world, it's never gonna be "enough". So what can we conclude from that? haha
... it's never enough.
But I still dig it anyway :) haha. |
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YogaIsLife
641 Posts |
Posted - Jun 17 2008 : 08:04:34 AM
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Hi all! And thank you for your replies and thoughts on this! In truth I guess what matters is that we are well and in peace within ourselves. These questions just come on top. A kind of toy for the mind maybe :)
quote:
One fallacy is that people seem to consider their 'sense' of 'natural' to be neutral or innate, while much of it is demonstrably culturally-relative.
There are other problems with 'natural' being taken to mean 'good' and 'unnatural' being taken to mean 'bad'. There seems to be a very strong human tendancy to do this, and I think it might be a useful start at the early stages of thinking about something but you have to get beyond it quickly; because so many things that are 'bad' are really quite natural, and so many things that are good are arguably unnatural that we shouldn't be equating 'natural' with 'good'.
I understand what you mean David but I say it in a different perspective I think. Let's say Balance instead of Naturality. We live in a world of opposites and everything searches for balance: be it water in a glass or our own behaviour. That is what I mean about what is "natural": are we moving towards equilibrium or are we forcing extremes into something that is out of balance ("unnatural")? That is what is Yoga is all about (finding balance) and I do believe the world needs this so much because it lacks balance. Humans are not very much in harmony with the natural laws. This is my view anyway!
quote:
But ask yourself if it's really true that they were happier, or really had better lives than we do. Certainly, I think our society is largely superior (or maybe I should say more 'advanced' or 'developed') in many senses. ( I realize that I fly in the face of common policital-correct thinking here and may face attack.) Tribal societies often seem to have faced very high levels of violence and deprivation -- much, nuch higher than we face. And things like slavery were ubiquitously considered part of the natural order. While it is certainly not true that there is no kind of justice or rights in these kind of societies, I do believe that our kind of justice and rights systems are largely superior.
I asked myself already ;) Yes, I do believe we can all be much happier than we are. And I also believe (of course this can't be scientifically proven) that there were societies and cultures before us - with what I call a more "natural or wise awareness" - that lived a happier, more fullfilling life. "Yoga" (although probably not in a formal way, as the societies I refer too were oral cultures, not with written language) was part of their natural process! What I say is that we can learn much from this ancient cultures, that by the way are disappearing. But I am getting out of scope here :)
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If we have no stress in our nervous systems then we probably dont need to meditate or anything else as we wouldnt feel any seperation.
that is a very valid point snake! Of course I don't believe ancient cultures' peoples were less "obstructed" than we are. They were human such as we are and were born the same way so probably also had their personal "matrix of obstructions" that yogani talks about. But what makes a huge difference is the WAY they looked at themselves and the world. In short, their world view, their view of life. Maybe - and this is what I believe - they were more intune with nature and the natural laws of life, they understood better the cycles of life (the birth and death and how everything regenerated in an endless cycle) and saw themselves as part of that. In other words, they were less "stressed" or less "resistance" to the natural laws.
I remember seeing a photograph that impressed me greatly once: a young amazonian indian woman dying of some infectious disease brought by the first europeans, for what they had no cure or prior knowledge of. Her face radiated such peace and tranquility that gave me the certainty of the immense wisdom that resided in her. No suffering or anger in her face. I thought that was beautiful and that sense of peace is attainable for us all, if we just could let go of all the resistances to life we now have. This is my view anyway of course! I confess that sometimes I get sad to see so much personal and group suffering in the world when I believe this was all unnecessary. Unfortunately I am just one more human being so after years of struggle I now concentrate on healing myself and hope that with my healing I am contributing to the healing of the world.
Uff...what a long post!!
Many thanks for listening.
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Divineis
Canada
420 Posts |
Posted - Jun 17 2008 : 1:21:22 PM
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quote:
If we have no stress in our nervous systems then we probably dont need to meditate or anything else as we wouldnt feel any seperation.
I can't really believe that. The human tendency is to strive for more. If God doesn't exist, we invented him, and for good reason. That being said... striving for more isn't really a need I guess, it's just some innate curiosity of discovery, of knowing oneself and the universe. Without much stress (I believe most "well off" countries fall under this category) I reckon it's only natural to become more curious about what goes on inside and what's way out there. Discovering oneself and the universe, what else is there? heh
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Divineis
Canada
420 Posts |
Posted - Jun 17 2008 : 1:30:15 PM
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| I guess what I want to say is... stress is just energy. Give it a healthy direction, and that can do great things. That's all I feel Zen is really tied down to haha. It's like getting pissed off to enlightenment hahaha. Stress, fear, anxiety, suffering, it's here to stay, might as well "go into it" when it comes a knockin' and allow our awareness of such energy to grow. |
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