Patanjali

Information about Patanjali and his teachings are available in English.

I suspect that I can find his teachings valuable and his life interesting.

My notion is now that he was skilled in dance, grammar, and yoga.

Let me list a bit of what I think I know about about him. The following is mostly made up of guesses and fragments from a faulty memory:

• he flourished in India about 150 BC,
• he was a Sanskrit grammarian,
• he was a compiler and a knower,
• Nandhi Deva might have been his yoga teacher,
• he was probably a master of dance,
• He seems to have been interested in a meaningful and worthy life,
• he wrote a work on grammar which is still available
• he wrote a four part book on yoga which is still available.
• he seems to have a rational and intellectual approach to reality,
• his teaching and understanding seems experiential and supported by concrete referents.

As my interest, energy, and the fates permit I may post more on Patanjali with focus on his Yoga Sutras.

"Shall We Dance?"

I Just enjoyed a 1995 Japanese movie called "Shall We Dance?" Koji Yakusho played the lead with a number of excellent female actresses. The dancing was great. Dance, and relationship of the dancers to it, was the true star.

Just

Try a seed contemplation with justice as your object.

Is there a god in your Psyche? Imagine him (her, it) gladdened by by a just deed of yours. See that god in you dance for joy at the realization of that deed.

Remember, your way is beautiful, pleasant, joyful, and familiar.

The all of reality is one, Look and see.

See that you can trust the way of things and your own experience.

You are awake and alive, Smile.

See that there is a real 'law' and see that it is just.

Words of Home Farm People Remind Me

"Make of thy daily way a pilgrimage."

"Thy will be done."

"settle into more minute and detailed study of the structure of the universe..."

We refine the quality of our humanity throughout the course of our lives.

Stay awake enough.

Pay enough attention.

You may discover that a small brave act of cooperating with another lights you with quiet joy.

Relax on purpose.

Enjoy rhythmic breath and dance as I move through the brush.

Know that to which you give value.

What happens to me is created by my own actions and reactions.

Change Sweet Change

I´m back in La Paz after a very pleasant 3 days in Copacabana. Saw dancing Pacenos there and visited the Island of the Sun. Tomorrow I intend to visit Tijuanaco tomorrow. Tijuanaco is a set of ruins of the seat of important Incan and preIncan civilizations, Aymara and earlier. Pacenos, by the way, are city people from La Paz. They were celebrating a kind of religious ´madi gra.´
The present federal government here is the first to be run by Native Americas since the Conquest. They are experiencing a lot of national and internation resistance. They also have a lot to learn about their new position.