What is the alternative? Thwarted warped people condemning the order of things, cripples condemning the upright, autocrats slumped in expectant coronary attitudes, the tragic spetacle of people working out their own imbalance & frustration on others.
Yoga, as practiced by Mr Iyengar, is the dedicated votive offering of a man who brings himself to the altar, alone & clean in body & mind, focussed in attention & will, offering in simplicity & innocence not a burnt sacrifice, but simply himself raised to his own highest potential
In a dispassionate view the ardour for reform, improvement for virtue, for knowledge, and even for beauty is only a vain sticking up for appearances as though one were anxious about the cut of one's clothes in a community of blind men. Life knows us not and we do not know life -- we don't even know our own thoughts. Half the words we use have no meaning whatever and of the other half each man understands each word after the fashion of his own folly and conceit. Faith is a myth and beliefs shift like the mists on the shore; thoughts vanish; words, once pronounced, die; and the memory of yesterday is as shadowy as the hope of to-morrow -- only the string of my platitudes seems to have no end. As our peasants say : "Pray, brother, forgive me for the love of God." And we don't know what forgiveness is, nor what is love, nor where God is. Assez.
Karl and Davies, The Collected Letters, 2:17.
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Yoga, as practiced by Mr Iyengar, is the dedicated votive offering of a man who brings himself to the altar, alone & clean in body & mind, focussed in attention & will, offering in simplicity & innocence not a burnt sacrifice, but simply himself raised to his own highest potential
- Yehudi Menuhin 6-16-2003 5:15 pm
In a dispassionate view the ardour for reform, improvement for virtue, for knowledge, and even for beauty is only a vain sticking up for appearances as though one were anxious about the cut of one's clothes in a community of blind men. Life knows us not and we do not know life -- we don't even know our own thoughts. Half the words we use have no meaning whatever and of the other half each man understands each word after the fashion of his own folly and conceit. Faith is a myth and beliefs shift like the mists on the shore; thoughts vanish; words, once pronounced, die; and the memory of yesterday is as shadowy as the hope of to-morrow -- only the string of my platitudes seems to have no end. As our peasants say : "Pray, brother, forgive me for the love of God." And we don't know what forgiveness is, nor what is love, nor where God is. Assez.
Karl and Davies, The Collected Letters, 2:17.
- Joseph Conrad, 1898. (guest) 6-22-2003 9:48 pm [add a comment]