Kult wrote:I wanted to see how you would respond!
Interesting choice of words. This is different than saying "I wanted to hear your answer".
Kult wrote:...if I found myself in the woods without a computer, boombox, drugs, or a drum, I'm sure I could alter my state through prayer, breath, and contemplation.
Yah, I get that and there are worse places one could find themselves in where such skill might be even more valuable to have. Everything that enters my brain is psychoactive in some sense. Life is psychoactive. Pranayama is a profound practice. You know of my interest in Reich. I came to Reich via RAW.
From The Great Beast- Aleister Crowley
RAW wrote:V -- The Hierophant
Be thou athlete with the eight limbs of Yoga; for without these thou art not disciplined for any fight.
– The Book of Thoth
Early in February, 1901, in Guadalajara, Mexico, the Beast began seriously working on dharana, the yoga of concentration. The method was that long used in India: holding one single image in the mind - a red triangle – and banishing all other words or pictures. This is in no wise any easy task, and I, for one would have much more respect for Aleister's critics and slanderers if there were any shred of evidence that they ever attempted such self-discipline, and, attempting it, managed to stay with it until they achieved results.
For instance, after three weeks of daily practice, the Beast recorded in his diary that he had concentrated that day for 59 minutes with exactly 25 "breaks" or wanderings from the triangle: 25 breaks may not sound so great to those who haven't tried this; a single hour, however, will convince them that 3600 breaks, or one per second is close to average for a beginner.
Toward the end of April, the Beast logged 23 minutes with 9 breaks; on May 6th, 32 minutes and 10 breaks. I repeat: anyone who think Acid or Jesus or Scientology has remade his or her life ought to attempt a few weeks of this; it is the clearest and most humiliating revelation of the compulsive neurosis of the "normal" ego.
On August 6 the Beast arrived in Ceylon, still working on daily dharana – oh yes, in Honolulu he'd had an affair with a married woman, later celebrated in his sonnet sequence Alice: An Adultery, published under the auspices of his fictitious "Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth": his critics always mention that, to prove that he wasn't sincere; one sometimes gets the cynical notion that these critics are either eunuchs or hypocrites.
Under the guidance of Sri Parananda and an old friend, Allan Bennett, now the Buddhist monk Maitreya Ananda, he plunged into the other "seven limbs" of yoga. I say that his mountain-climbing involved less self-discipline. I will not argue; I will give a hint only. Here are the first two steps in beginning to do pranayama:
1. Learn to breathe through your two nostrils alternately. When this becomes easy, practice exhaling through the right nozzle for no less than 15 seconds and then inhaling through the left orifice for a like time. Practice until you can do this without strain for 20 or 30 minutes.
2. Now begin retention of breath between inhalation and exhalation. Increase the period of retention until you can inhale for 10 seconds, retain for 30 second and exhale for 20 seconds. This proportion is important: if you inhale for as long as, or longer than, the exhalation, you are screwing up. Practice until you can do this - comfortably - for an hour.
Got it? Good; now you are ready to start doing the real exercises of pranayama. For instance, you can add the "third limb," asana, which consists of sitting like a rock, no muscle moving anywhere; the Hindus
recommend starting with a contortion that seems to have been devised by Sacher-Masoch himself, but choose a position that seems comfortable at first, if you want - it will turn into Hell soon enough.
All this has a point, of course; when pranayama and asana mastered, you can begin to do dharana without constant humiliating failures. Congratulations: now you can add the other "five limbs." Of course, the temptation (especially after your foot is no longer merely asleep but has progressed to a state gruesomely reminiscent of rigor mortis) is to decide that "There isn't anything in yoga after all" or "I just can't do it" and maybe there's something in Christian Science or the Process or probably another acid trip would really get you over the hump.*
Footnote: *Oh yes, brethren and sistern, we have known people capable of much rationalization. Back in 1901, even, the Beast discovered that some of the "lesser yogis," as he called them, used hashish to fuel the last gallop from dharana to dhyana; and he later recommended this to his own disciples - but always with the provision that the results so obtained should be regarded as an indication and foreshadowing of what was sought, not as a substitute for true attainment. The Beast achieved dhyana, the non-ego trance, on October 2, 1901, less than 8 months after beginning serious dharana in Guadalajara.
I have attempted Dharana and similar practices (one is found in Gestalt Therapy). I am nothing if not patient. Discipline.... bumping up against one's limits. I liken it to a blind man feeling his way through a tunnel. I'll take shortcuts when I discover them. We don't live long enough not to.
At the moment I am trying to make my way through Taoist Yoga- Alchemy and Immortality by Charles Luk. Do you read the comments of Jeff's blog? You might enjoy Drew Hempel (Great Galactic Ghoul). I'm reading this damn book on his recommendation. I really must be nuts.
"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." - Martin Luther King Jr.