Word: yoga
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Koestler has devoted the larger part of the book's chapters on India to four contemporary Hindu saints and the physical practices of Yoga. The author's preoccupation with the mystic and the occult, dominates the discussion of India, and there is little real consideration of deeper Indian thought. The only deductions which Mr. Koestler draws from his study of the country are some wide sociological generalizations about its people...
...bare feet, Israel's prickly Premier David Ben-Gurion, 74, celebrated the eve of the 5,722nd (since the Creation) Jewish New Year by peering into his crystal ball for a Tel Aviv tabloid. "I am no prophet," cautioned Ben-Gurion as he hunched knees to chin, yoga style, to prophesy, "but if what we call the cold war is ended-and I hope it will be without the world exploding-in 20 years America will be a welfare state and Russia will be a democratic country...
Samadhi, the trancelike bliss that is the yogi's goal, is for Koestler the closest thing possible to death, and the practice of Yoga is "a systematic conditioning of the body to conniving in its own destruction, at the command of the will, by a series of graduated stages." Koestler erroneously thinks that the "Christian ascetic mortifies his body to hasten its return to dust."* This, he holds, at least has the merit of directness over the yogi's "prodigious detour. He must build up his body into a superefficient, super-sentient instrument of self-annihilation...
...object of Zen is satori (enlightenment), and Koestler thinks this is the opposite of Yoga's aim, samadhi. "Samadhi is the elimination of the conscious self in the deep sleep of Nirvana; satori is the elimination of the conscious self in the wide-awake activities of intuitive living . . . To make the point quite clear: literally, samadhi means 'deep sleep,' satori means 'awakening.' Mystically, of course, 'deep sleep' means entering into Real Life, whereas the Awakened one 'lives like one already dead.' But cynically speaking, it is less risky and more pleasant...
...hubris of irrationality, and the messianic arrogance of the Christian crusader is matched by the Yogi's arrogant attitude of detachment towards human suffering. Mankind is facing its most deadly predicament since it climbed down from the trees; but one is reluctantly brought to the conclusion that neither Yoga, Zen, nor any other Asian form of mysticism has any significant advice to offer...