Practical Philosophy Articles
VIGNETTE: The Only White Boy in the Second Baptist Church by William S Whorton
It was Sunday morning, late 1957, in Junction City, Kansas. I was walking home from visiting a friend in a part of town I had never gone. I was 16 years old. While walking by an old building, I was suddenly struck by powerful singing and piano playing coming from the building. I then recognized the building as a church. The music froze my body in place. I was stunned by the passion, power, beauty and rhythm of the music. Tears began streaming down my cheeks as the singing continued. I lost consciousness of ‘self’ in the music. Later, I understood that I had undergone the experience of ‘being moved by the Spirit’.
Lessons from India – Insight at the Coconut Stand
This is one of the things I love in India, the beauty of the people, the authenticity with which people do their work. For example, one time in my early years in Mysore I needed a button sewing on a shirt. I had no needle or thread but I knew there was a tailor around the corner. I took my shirt to him. He looked at me like I was some brutish fool and indicated that I should go up the street. He was a tailor of women’s clothing, and he was not about to desecrate his self-respect by robbing custom from a gents’ tailor.
On Truth and Trauma – with reference to the Yoga Sūtra
Atha yogānuśāsanam - and now ensues yoga. So begins the Yoga Sūtra. What does yoga ensue from? From the knowing that we do not know, from the acknowledging that we are partially (and significantly)...
Put Down The iPhone, Get Off The Bandwagon! Eight Yoga ‘Tips’
I was recently asked, ‘What’s one piece of advice you would give to someone just starting their yoga journey?’ I didn’t limit it to one thing, but offered thoughts along these lines. Forget about...
Beyond the Bright Lights
In a recent interview on the Joe Rogan experience, Sadhguru pointed out that a main reason for our human problems is because we have got into deep grooves of searching for...
On Fullness and Emptiness, Pūrna and Ṡūnya, Wholeness and Zero
Excerpt from course notes for an Indian mythology course I gave earlier this year. Here and there the text is referring to ideas we explored in greater detail in the class, but I think what I share...
Life, Yoga and Contact Improvisation AND I Want to Live in a World Where People Dance on Train Station Platforms
My friend Paul, with whom I have co-taught a few times in different places, is a long-time Contact Improvisation practitioner. We have usually taught in relation to yama-niyama, the foundational...
What Difference Does it Make?
This last year teaching online, on many of the courses I have sent out notes to accompany our sessions. Currently, I am enjoying working with the Āditya Hṛdayam hymn to the Sun from the Vālmīki...
Śavāsana – Sleeping in Peace and The Art of Living and Dying
In the early years of my yoga explorations, living in Thailand, I had the good fortune to attend āsana classes with Adrian Cox at the original Yoga Elements Studio, Bangkok. I remember in one of my...
The Bhagavad Gītā: Reconciling Paradox and Making the Whole Field Sing
Weaving harmony into the fabric of life and making the whole field sing. A few brief introductory notes to the Bhagavad Gītā. A few notes following last Friday’s two hour talk on the Gītā What’s in...
Holding Out For a Hero Why The Purāṇa-s Matter – an Introduction
Is the perennial more relevant than the single-issue, monoculture tendencies of a contemporary lens might suggest? A few years ago I was speaking with a man that some might call an elder, at the...
December 15th, 2020
Caritas and Amor Yoga means gathering together, harmonising the whole field of our being. There are many reasons I so love the sound based practices that are cherished in the Indian tradition. One...