aaaaaaaaah! that’s me breathing a whole lot easier because someone else–some Serious Yogi, some Highly Admired and Deservedly Respected Yogi–doesn’t like kirtan. i will always thank you Sjanie, for plumbing the obfuscating depths of the hoodoo with the iconoclasm of the ‘hood, for breaking the syndicate of coordinated-spandex-wearing/ hypnotically repetitive faux-philosophy/ noxious cheery cheerleading of the yoga turf. You’re the Eliot Ness of Yoga, and I love you for that. And for the fact that your heart is always sitting right out there, perched on your sleeve, bleeding and shining and f@#*ing wide open, for all the world to see. You are a thing of beauty, Sjanie: powerful, committed, eyes wide open.

Aaaaah! Hope! Thanks for breaking the comment-ice, I’d been not posting for so long I was afraid something terrible was going to happen if I told the truth. You know, I have been to kirtans that I enjoyed, they just appear to be the exception to the rule. Could be a jazz-school hangover; I’m not comfortable when the jam goes astray [Ween reference]. Also: You’re awesome. Not least because “obfuscating” is lexical bread and butter for you

Re yur post: I agree.

Though I like Kirtan, just not as an everyday thing like say… CLONE WARS !!! \^^/

The man charging down the street screaming for peace is putting out a set of vibrations that is, in effect, causing war.

I do not come before you to proselytize, but I suggest that ranting with fury, or furious ranting as it were, perhaps isn’t balanced action at all. This isn’t to say that we should surrender to the patriarchy and materialism and the raping of the rainforests and genocide and all of the darkest darkness, but we can’t be truly socially responsible if we are mechanically acting out of past hurts, whether real or perceived.

We may still go ahead and rant with fury, or furiously rant as it were, if the ranting is intended to wake people up. Just watch that you don’t get caught in the melodrama. The problem arises when we take it all so personally. The darkness of humanity is the darkness of humanity. It’s not “us against them”. Their darkness is your darkness is my darkness is our darkness is the darkness.

Kali + Kali = KaliKali. Thats alot of Kali. Maybe we should add more Kali and see what we get: KaliKaliKaliKaliKaliKaliKali. Doesn’t look balanced to me. The true balancing of this esoteric chemical equation would be Kali + Saraswati + Lakshmi. Use Fury to Organize a foundation/committee/society to bring Abundance to a people/place/thing in need.

You are doing this already, by the way. Committing to the path of a yoga teacher is a balanced action in a world of suffering and excess and blahblahblah. But maybe teaching yoga is not enough of an outlet for someone with so much power. What then to do? What then to do…?

to Oliver: or TILT TO LIVE!!!1!!

to Steve: Right, and how I know that I’m not actually using “balanced action” is when my misapprehension of what constitutes light paralyzes me with fear of judgement. The true balance of those 3 is not “a 3rd each”, it’s moving around all the time, and I can tell by the way I had to draft this comment so many times that it’s really hard to manifest ANYTHING if I can’t first be myself. But thanks for the critique, glad to see you’re reading.

Liking the Kali comment, being Durgamaa and all…
Shakti always needs Her Shiva… Presence, Peace, BEING… just to EXIST, just as He needs Her to Manifest Him in the World…
Yellow Humans NEED to let it flow out… so they can find the Yin. And I agree – you’re a powerful being, here to influence people. Don’t LIMIT yourself in the ways in which you live and manifest your dharma – your true Nature.

Namaste

P.S. Can’t resist addressing the KIRTAN thing (which is not Bhakti), and the real reason I came here to post in tha first place!

Chanting is no more holy than listening to the murmur of a stream, counting prayer beads no more sacred than simply breathing…If you wish to attain oneness with the Tao, don’t get caught up in spiritual superficialities.
~ Lao Tzu

Word ‘em up Sjanz. indeed, a third of each is a tad ridiculous when considering the nature of the tao. I really meant us all to consider the balance that comes with the interplay of these three forces of creation in comparison with the potential imbalance of unchecked Kali. You catch the drift. Probably better than I do.

Keep up the bloggin’ you blogger you. In the immortal words of everyone’s favourite Ogre, “Better out than in, I always say”.

Much love and peace and harmony and goodwill toward men and all the children of the world joining hands and singing in the spirit of tilt to live.

Actually, I thought the balance of Shakti was purrfect, except that you left ME out of it! Bhagawati is where it’s all at: Saraswati in the morning, Kali at noon and Durgamaa in the evening… Lakshmi at night.

P.S. Kali NEVER goes unchecked. If it’s unchecked, it’s not Kali.

To Posterity
by Bertolt Brecht (1898 – 1956 / Augsburg / Germany)

1.

Indeed I live in the dark ages!
A guileless word is an absurdity. A smooth forehead betokens
A hard heart. He who laughs
Has not yet heard
The terrible tidings.

Ah, what an age it is
When to speak of trees is almost a crime
For it is a kind of silence about injustice!
And he who walks calmly across the street,
Is he not out of reach of his friends
In trouble?

It is true: I earn my living
But, believe me, it is only an accident.
Nothing that I do entitles me to eat my fill.
By chance I was spared. (If my luck leaves me
I am lost.)

They tell me: eat and drink. Be glad you have it!
But how can I eat and drink
When my food is snatched from the hungry
And my glass of water belongs to the thirsty?
And yet I eat and drink.

I would gladly be wise.
The old books tell us what wisdom is:
Avoid the strife of the world
Live out your little time
Fearing no one
Using no violence
Returning good for evil –
Not fulfillment of desire but forgetfulness
Passes for wisdom.
I can do none of this:
Indeed I live in the dark ages!

2.

I came to the cities in a time of disorder
When hunger ruled.
I came among men in a time of uprising
And I revolted with them.
So the time passed away
Which on earth was given me.

I ate my food between massacres.
The shadow of murder lay upon my sleep.
And when I loved, I loved with indifference.
I looked upon nature with impatience.
So the time passed away
Which on earth was given me.

In my time streets led to the quicksand.
Speech betrayed me to the slaughterer.
There was little I could do. But without me
The rulers would have been more secure. This was my hope.
So the time passed away
Which on earth was given me.

3.

You, who shall emerge from the flood
In which we are sinking,
Think –
When you speak of our weaknesses,
Also of the dark time
That brought them forth.

For we went,changing our country more often than our shoes.
In the class war, despairing
When there was only injustice and no resistance.

For we knew only too well:
Even the hatred of squalor
Makes the brow grow stern.
Even anger against injustice
Makes the voice grow harsh. Alas, we
Who wished to lay the foundations of kindness
Could not ourselves be kind.

But you, when at last it comes to pass
That man can help his fellow man,
Do no judge us
Too harshly.

“I’ve actually been afraid that somebody would come along and think it was a terrible idea and that I was a jerk and that I was wrong in my passionate instinct.”

I’ve totally known this feeling. I’ve been a figure head for a local subculture as well, there is pressure, and we are human. We are not MACHINES, working in and being influenced by the machine. Like our yoga, we are shooting at a moving target. But the plus side is that everybody who is shooting as us is doing the same thing.
Manifesting what is in my life is my responsibility. And I do it with a controlled passion, most of the time. And sometimes I get what I’m looking for even though I’m not sure why I was looking for it. You know, those things that don’t look like they’re in our best interest when view from the out side. Those things where we wish they would just go away. And they will go away, just as they will come back if we don’t…, or if we do…
All of us, everyone, rumbles around in their head. And I will alway come out with a different spin on the same thing someone else is thinking about, if we’re that close. And if I am passionate about what I’m about, which I am, I have a list of actions that are attached to my mind.
We work…
We achieve…
We learn…
We grow…
We inspire…
We are looked at…
We are judged…
We judge ourselves…
Are where do we find the time to balance on that “balanced action?” Why is it always a moving target too?Could it be that I just keep looking at from a different place so it looks like I’m looking at something new entirely every time I try to get back at it?
‘“balanced action” -sapped the zeal and fire out’ Then I ask, is it in balance if it’s draining? I love your fire, the energy that pours from you heart all over your students, one of which I am proud to be. I’m trying to imagine me attacking you with this such force, and you just taking it and backing down, and I can’t see it. Nor would I ever want to.
As you say, we are the balance to this counter action of the world. The pendulum of growth swings, pushed from all directions. BRING ON THE POWER!!!
I think someone could write a song on that reference.

“I get a lot of juice from the dark” As the light is brighter at sunrise, you are the contrast that people come to learn from. I am interested in your contrast, because I am the same such thing, light coming out of dark. I want to shine on as may people as want it, just as you do. I get my power from the dark as well, but power can be shape shifted by the person that wields it, possibly how we got out Big Red Machine in the first place.
I think that the catch to all of this dark hating is, if all of the light shines on all of the dark, there will be no dark anymore, and what contrast will we have to now the light for what it is? Will we let the dark in again just to better appreciate the light?
“I wish you enough,” my most heart felt de-greeting, a gesture for enough of lifes’ everything to sustain everything that is love in you.

“and frankly I’m more comfortable there.” Maybe we’re neighbours? flick your light switch really fast, I’ll look out the window

The master piece:
“I balance that action of fear/emotional dishonesty/self-hatred/hardness/smallness with something courageous, authentic, loving and grand, even if its grandiosity is derived from excess and folly.”
BALANCE…
I love you S

“My pain is my power, and I REFUSE to believe I’m the only person like me out in the world, the only person who feels MORE lonely in the fake light.”
I love you S

Your voice is the inspiration of many. Do you think that any revolutionist, at any level had more then only a couple days of sound undisturbed sleep in a row? No f*&$ing way. You use your heart for your army. There is going to be casualties. And you are going to have people align with you! There is a movement, and there is no way that there wouldn’t be. Our hearts guide it, and the universe is our general.

See you soon,

Jordan M

[crying, happy emoticon]

You are able to touch many where only a few can…

‘A smooth forehead betokens
A hard heart.’

too bad the Brecht didn’t ever get to Know that a smooth forehead actually reflects a Heart burst wide open… that has finally found Peace.

Passion, passion, and passion unchecked and unbalanced with consciousness ALWAYS ends in burnout… and burns up EVERYTHING in its path, leaving only ruin and empty words.