Does yoga have a conspiracy theory problem?

[RobB]

Not a yoga person myself but a few people I've come across in related areas seem pretty susceptible.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-55957298

 

[thelerner]

Hopefully its a minority few who tend to be loud.  They'll have their day, then the counter flow and string of nothing happenings, quiets them down.  There are only so many times one can cry Storm! before people get that it ain't happening and they bought into a load of bull.  

[dwai]

IMHO, it is ridiculous, and mostly what passes off as “yoga” is really physical postural practice, which has a tendency to create self-indulgent narcissism. 
 

To elaborate further, what passes off as “yoga” in the popular imagination in the west is not yoga per se. 

Edited February 14, 2021 by dwai

[natural]

Well 45th had some interesting postures.

I wouldn't call them "yoga", but they certainly included self-indulgent narcissism.

Throw the fools off and under the bus?

[RobB]

But at what point does an inclination towards questioning accepted narratives and towards independent enquiry ( quite common amongst the martial arts/meditation community) become a vulnerability to nonsense? When you spend years or decades cultivating wisdom, discernment and insight - why are some people not proofed more effectively against this stuff? 

[natural]

It is harder to swim against the current, than to go with the flow.

[Nungali]

2 hours ago, RobB said:

But at what point does an inclination towards questioning accepted narratives and towards independent enquiry ( quite common amongst the martial arts/meditation community) become a vulnerability to nonsense? When you spend years or decades cultivating wisdom, discernment and insight - why are some people not proofed more effectively against this stuff? 

 

Well, somewhere we have  a long thread on this .   A shame about the search engine here .  It is about how many systems teach a type of awareness / competence/ etc ... but virtually none deal with    ' self balancing psychology ' .   So its not really an 'objective ' awareness .  Its a type of 'subjective awareness' specific to  certain fields .

 

I made a few posts in it , including  about Israel Regardie - a western hermeticist ,  who was once a student of Crowley's , until Crowley bitched on him, was instrumental in making something much better out of the whole Golden Dawn system , a popular (and sensible ) author of many books on the occult and was also a trained psychologist  and favoured the Jungian system . He later taught a version of 'magick' combined with psychology, but very underground  ( as the government had recently, at that time, imprisoned  Welheilm Reich and publicly burned his books ) .

[Vajra Fist]

3 hours ago, dwai said:

IMHO, it is ridiculous, and mostly what passes off as “yoga” is really physical postural practice, which has a tendency to create self-indulgent narcissism. 

 

I've always thought the same way. But I've had some pretty powerful breakthroughs in western yoga classes. Even now, when I get the time to move through a vinyasa sequence I can arrive very quickly into a mental quiescence I've only ever encountered in long meditation sessions. Despite the practice being, on the surface, merely a postural class, yoga leads the mind inwards, if practiced sincerely. Of course, there's definitely a lot of narcissism, for instance people feeling the need to take a picture of themselves in a particularly challenging asana for social media. 

 

Regarding the original question, I noticed this too in other online spiritual communities. Some notable qigong teachers have also turned into full blown conspiracy theorists. I had to leave a few Wim Hof Facebook groups because of the quantity of anti-vax posts.

 

I guess they feel through their practices they are able to develop a level of health above the baseline average, and because of that, they feel less vulnerable than the average person. In their mind, if everyone did what they're doing, the virus would be cured naturally. On a deeper level, perhaps having to have a vaccine would challenge their sense of superiority - having to have the same treatments as the unwashed masses would effectively mean they were no better after all than the average person.  

[dwai]

1 hour ago, Vajra Fist said:

 

I've always thought the same way. But I've had some pretty powerful breakthroughs in western yoga classes. Even now, when I get the time to move through a vinyasa sequence I can arrive very quickly into a mental quiescence I've only ever encountered in long meditation sessions. Despite the practice being, on the surface, merely a postural class, yoga leads the mind inwards, if practiced sincerely. Of course, there's definitely a lot of narcissism, for instance people feeling the need to take a picture of themselves in a particularly challenging asana for social media. 

I don’t deny that. But people like yourself can do something about the quiescence once it arrives, because you have grounding in the meditation arts (broadly categorizing all of our internal arts under than label for the sake of convenience) — imho. 
 

Most people can’t handle the silence/stillness of meditation without proper background instruction. I don’t know if that is very prevalent in most asana classes.

[Nungali]

A while back , I asked the '  Indian contributors '  on a history forum if yoga was popular in India  and if many people there practised it ;

 

 

 

"  This leads me to another question ; Is yoga popular with the 'average person' in India nowadays or has it become like kung fu in China where not many people do it much any more ?

 

" No, yoga is not (or should I say was not) popular in India. Very few people did it or even the monks. Meditation was more popular. With all its poor people, who had the time to engage in Yoga or even meditation ? The working day of an Indian was usually long and did not leave any time, job and then family and then relatives. Our driver gets a hair tonsure nearly every two months because some near or distant relative has died in the village or around and it is customary to do so.

 

But now, yoga is the in-thing with the educated after Baba Ramdev and PM Modi. It is taught in schools. It is performed on mass scale on special days. "

 

 

International Yoga  Day in India ;

 

 

- which is a good thing , Yoga is part of India's cultural heritage    and its good  and healthy for society and individuals to preserve and protect cultural diversity .

 

 

.

 

 

Edited February 15, 2021 by Nungali

[RobB]

15 hours ago, Nungali said:

  So its not really an 'objective ' awareness .  Its a type of 'subjective awareness' specific to  certain fields .

 

 

Yes, I think you've got it there. I suppose it's also reinforced by having previously found things of value by plunging down rabbit holes that no-one else was interested in.

[manitou]

I don't know how or why yoga became a Thing, but I do know that as a kundalini-active person, there are times when the body only gets relief from crazy stretches or positions.  I've wondered if this is why yoga came to be.  Just to give some relief from the electrical excitement happening down the spine.  Sometimes the K will sit in one place, feeling like it's burning under the skin.  Just last night I had to stretch my head as far forward as I could for an extended length of time, just to relieve the electrical pressure and tingling from the upper back.  Downward dog probably would have helped, or definitely a shoulder stand.

 

I know some folks practice kundalini yoga to get the K to arise.  But I wonder if it didn't actually start with someone who already had it and was looking for ways to settle it down.  It makes sense to me.

[dwai]

1 hour ago, manitou said:

I don't know how or why yoga became a Thing, but I do know that as a kundalini-active person, there are times when the body only gets relief from crazy stretches or positions.  I've wondered if this is why yoga came to be.  Just to give some relief from the electrical excitement happening down the spine.  Sometimes the K will sit in one place, feeling like it's burning under the skin.  Just last night I had to stretch my head as far forward as I could for an extended length of time, just to relieve the electrical pressure and tingling from the upper back.  Downward dog probably would have helped, or definitely a shoulder stand.

 

I know some folks practice kundalini yoga to get the K to arise.  But I wonder if it didn't actually start with someone who already had it and was looking for ways to settle it down.  It makes sense to me.

Very interesting idea. Master Liao tells that even daoist martial arts, qigong etc came from students observing the effects of certain manifestation of spirit and energy in the old masters (during/after deep meditation). 
 The theory is that students who were with the masters were in essence reverse-engineering the process they observed in the old masters. 

 

[liminal_luke]

The yoga that can be studied in most western yoga studios is not the eternal yoga.  Not even close.  But if the benefits pale in comparison with the real thing so does the required commitment, and I think lots of folks benefit.  Yoga class is the only place where many of us are asked to be aware of our body and breath.  While physical asana classes may not get people into the inner sanctum of the temple, for some they open a door.

Edited February 16, 2021 by liminal_luke

[manitou]

22 hours ago, dwai said:

certain manifestation of spirit and energy in the old masters (during/after deep meditation).

 

 

I'm not sure meditation is a causative factor in K arising.  Maybe the meditation the old masters did (and the people observed) in getting to the place where they could receive the K-energy would be a possibility.  But the K-energy is with you constantly, 24/7.  I find it bothersome, although after my awakening I did receive some abilities I didn't have before.  All in all, I'm used to it now.

 

As I think of the yoga postures, it seems that many of them would alleviate the tingling.  The ones that involve a twist at the waist would be very helpful too - it would give the inner impression that one was being wrung out.  But downward dog, upward dog - anything that involves that long stretch from the neck to the bottom of the spine - that is the thing that will spread it out so it's not so bothersome.

[dwai]

3 minutes ago, manitou said:

I'm not sure meditation is a causative factor in K arising.  Maybe the meditation the old masters did (and the people observed) in getting to the place where they could receive the K-energy would be a possibility.  But the K-energy is with you constantly, 24/7.  I find it bothersome, although after my awakening I did receive some abilities I didn't have before.  All in all, I'm used to it now.

From deep stillness, movement arises. That's what my teachers and their teacher (Master Liao) were referring to. The story goes as follows --

 

In the Daoist mountain temples, old masters would be in meditation for extended periods of time, deep in meditation, and there would be spontaneous movement arising out of that stillness. Those spontaneous movements were reverse engineered to produce qigong movements (also called Daogong/Shengong). 

 

IIRC, there are three kinds of kundalini awakening  -- what you describe is prana kundalini. From stillness another kind of kundalini, called chit kundalini usually arises. The third kind, called para kundalini is beyond the human form. 

3 minutes ago, manitou said:

 

As I think of the yoga postures, it seems that many of them would alleviate the tingling.  The ones that involve a twist at the waist would be very helpful too - it would give the inner impression that one was being wrung out.  But downward dog, upward dog - anything that involves that long stretch from the neck to the bottom of the spine - that is the thing that will spread it out so it's not so bothersome.

Does going beyond the physical body help?

 

[manitou]

35 minutes ago, dwai said:

Does going beyond the physical body help?

 

 

No.  Not in the least.  Sometimes during meditation it's full on.  I'm not sure if the ear ringing thing is part of it - but the ringing has gotten as loud as standing under a tree with a bunch of cicadas in it.  It's just ON all the time.

 

 

 

Edited February 17, 2021 by manitou

[dwai]

9 minutes ago, manitou said:

 

 

No.  Not in the least.  Sometimes during meditation it's full on.  I'm not sure if the ear ringing thing is part of it - but the ringing has gotten as loud as standing under a tree with a bunch of cicadas in it.  It's just ON all the time.

 

 

 

I've been living with the ringing for years now...grown accustomed to -- and ignore it for the most part, except for when it tells me something about a specific situation.  

 

What I mean by going beyond the body is, have you considered raising the flow above your crown point? 

[manitou]

On 2/17/2021 at 10:06 AM, dwai said:

I've been living with the ringing for years now...grown accustomed to -- and ignore it for the most part, except for when it tells me something about a specific situation.  

 

What I mean by going beyond the body is, have you considered raising the flow above your crown point? 

 

 

A meditative technique?  Please go on---

[dwai]

30 minutes ago, manitou said:

 

 

A meditative technique?  Please go on---

Becoming aware of "centers" that are above the crown, one being about 18 inches to 2 feet above the crown point, let the kundalini/energy naturally rise there from the crown point.

 

After that also become aware of a flow going out from each of your two big toes. Then observe the flow from your toes curving upward and merging into the center above your crown. 

 

Basically what it will be is like a 3-D torus. This will complete a larger circuit and should activate a larger circulation (with the Universe). 

 

 

[manitou]

Thanks Dwai.  I've seen some diagrams that show 2 or 3 extra chakras above the head, and down under the feet.  I like your exercise - I'll definitely give it a try.

[manitou]

On 2/19/2021 at 11:34 AM, dwai said:

Becoming aware of "centers" that are above the crown, one being about 18 inches to 2 feet above the crown point, let the kundalini/energy naturally rise there from the crown point.

 

After that also become aware of a flow going out from each of your two big toes. Then observe the flow from your toes curving upward and merging into the center above your crown. 

 

Basically what it will be is like a 3-D torus. This will complete a larger circuit and should activate a larger circulation (with the Universe). 

 

 

 

 

Not getting the toe action yet, but I'll keep at it.

[dwai]

13 minutes ago, manitou said:

 

 

Not getting the toe action yet, but I'll keep at it.

Try to feel it while seated on a flat chair. 

[Nungali]

2 hours ago, manitou said:

 

 

Not getting the toe action yet, but I'll keep at it.

 

 

 

pick a leaf  , and drop  it your feet   ;

 

 

 

11th post

 

[manitou]

Okay, I finally got it.  I was just now relaxing back in a chair sort of meditating, and my hands happened to be placed right over the dantien.  After about 30 seconds of doing nothing but not-doing in my mind,  I felt a swirl of that tingly warm presence of energy and knew immediately that was what you were talking about.  I was easily able to channel it to the invisible upper chakra.  And the toe action??  Doggies.  I've never tried channeling it like that before.  Actually, my toes are still tingling as I type this. ( Dwai, you could try that in a bus station on a group of nuns)

 

It was as though it formed an arc of sorts in my mind's eye, becoming four rounded quadrants within a circle, much like looking into the split pit of a cumquat.  (If there's anyone on this forum that actually understands what the inside of a  split cumquat pit looks like, I dare you to step forward!)