Word: yoga
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Rosemary sleeps all day. But "when the sun goes down, I come alive," she says. In late afternoon she slips into jeans and meditates. "I've done yoga for years. It got me through the worst times. I can activate the third eye now and feel the light above my head. Meditation gives me the feeling of being part of the universe." At suppertime she sits down to breakfast, and about 8 p.m., with the roar of the sea and the light of the moon streaming through the windows, she flicks on the stereo system and plays mood music...
...hard-nosed talent for surviving without giving in to unnatural conventions--above all, to society's surrogate for the basic biological needs, money. There is after all one philosophy which Miller has honed to ingenious and good-humored perfection: the art of borrowing and lending "as with Yoga exercises, that is to say, wholeheartedly, without squeamishness or reservations of any kind...
...your fingers do the walking and these days they stumble at almost every step over yoga parlors, t'ai chi ranches, Scientology centers, Subud temples, Sufi congregations, TM ashrams, Hare Krishna missions, Zen monasteries, astrology academies and tarot prophets. The flyways from East to West are dense with flocks of migratory swamis who come bearing wisdom and go lugging gold. A bazaar of the bizarre if ever there was one, and its most exotic merchandise, the pearl beyond price, is something known as brahmacaryam, samadhi, marafat or, in plain English, the mystical experience...
Bharati also jostles some halos in his discussion of mystical procedures. The swamis like to pretend they can snap into samadhi whenever they want, but Bharati says it just is not so. "No determined set of actions, no planning for mysticism, guarantees its occurrence." But surely yoga and meditation help? Brusquely, the author crumples yet another cherished Occidental illusion. In the finest Indian monasteries, postulants are taught that there is "no causal relationship" between spiritual exercises and the mystical culmination. At least half of all mystical experiences come un-summoned. Then why bother to do the exercises? Bharati...
...discourse is not high. It is also likely to be hortatory and derisive. "Watch the ball, dummy. Watch the ball!" According to Gallwey, such self-abuse is highly destructive. So is what he calls the "Oh-Oh Experience"?as in "Oh-Oh! Here comes a backhand." Gallwey pioneered "yoga tennis" (or Zennis, as some people call it). From his Inner Game Institute above Malibu Beach, Calif., he has urged hundreds of thousands of students, TV viewers and readers to improve their game by shutting up that judgmental and frightened voice. Stop trying so hard, he argues. Let the body...