Back to Anantha · 20 January 2010
Returned today to see the professor-yogi, M.A. Narasimhan. Office hours this season are 11-1ish (and more like 2), so I’ll make the 15-minute rickshaw or scooter ride across town a couple of days a week.
Today we did an hour of Q&A on creatively east/west topics. For example: the physics of karma, comparative analysis of Freudian and Hindu maps of self, yoga as a process of becoming an unmoved mover.
Then, to my dismay, Narasimhan’s sister Dr. Jayashree came in and for a half hour we chanted the Samadhi pada. Noooo!!! From the wafts of her voice in neighboring rooms on my previous visits to Narasimhan, and the recordings I’ve accidentally heard in woo-woo bookshops and studios around the world, I knew this woman had my siren song. But there I was, sitting in the front corner of the room and unable to get out at all politely. Trapped in a tight lotus with the MB up to 11 to contain the Delhi belly.
Oh god. You guys, she is beautiful. I can’t even tell you. There she is, a foot from me, swaying as she leads a bunch of talentless, tone-deaf foreign aspirants. Nevermind her generosity, the gift of perfect pronunciation, and the genius of the way she teaches...
Her voice is killer. There are no words. I wonder if the inner experience of asana could ever be so blissful as what she feels when she turns in to that sound.
So it’s a problem. I have intended to focus on the practices I already have – asana, pranayama, meditation. None of this language and singing stuff, which is like crack cocaine to my little hyperverbal, hyperauditory mind. But… now that I’ve had a taste of her, I probably won’t be able to stay away. There is this empty space inside my head, between the ears and the pituitary gland, that aches for her voice. My toungue curls up in my throat trying to taste it. My Q-tip fetish is getting worse. Nothing but hearing her in person will satisfy.
And once I start going in for the bliss of her wail, it’s just a matter of time before I’m compelled to understand the nonsense itself. The few Sutras I do know are a nasty hook. I’m telling myself that this Sanskrit stuff is dead language. A language which has own ridiculously illegible script: a script which ought to remain illegible! Learning Sanskrit is not morally important. Not useful. Not informative. But… sooo beautifullll....
Anyway, phew! After a half hour of the chanting, my guy Narasimhan went back to doing his thing. If he were a character in Autobiography of a Yogi, they’d have called him the Professor-Saint. I didn’t take any notes, but hours later when I sat down to write about his talk, I found myself drawing it in symbols and pictures. There was a garden gnome to recall his discussion of Noam Chomsky’s early work, a sun shining on the gnome to remind me of R. Crumb’s representation of the Abrahamic god, a balloon in the sky to denote Narasimhan’s hand motions when he talks about the ego inflating and deflating, an infinity sign floating in the sky to remind me of the number 8, a cat on the ground under a basket to recall a funny story, etc. etc. etc.
Oddly, what had seemed like random Q & A was all connected—graphically and narratively—in my mind, waiting to be made in to working knowledge. Why haven’t all the other professors in my life inspired me to catalogue them with a variety of senses, not just the critical mind?
From last year, posts on Narasimhan: one, two, three.
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Categories: science
, sound
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Yay! I loved hearing about Narasimhan last time!
The Freudian vs. Hindu self maps? Oooh, do say more…
Posted by: karen · Jan 20, 04:10 AM · #
Yes I’d forgotten all about it, but now you’re back! And there’s a new chapter too…
Posted by: boodiba · Jan 20, 09:39 AM · #
owl, tell me, how is it that there is any such thing as an unmoved mover. in order to reach that state of non-existence, there has to be existence. if movement ceases then how is it possible for it to be “unmoved?”
Posted by: charusheela · Jan 20, 06:12 PM · #
Believe me, I’m a mover. And pretty much unmoved as well, especially by cavilling metaphysicians.
Posted by: catygay · Jan 21, 12:19 AM · #
Yo CATYGAY, bite me.
Charu, truly, I have no idea. But I liked that he was using Aristotle’s term for the primal creative force. Later he gave it an ethical spin, saying something like: as yoga teachers in the west, you should strongly effect society without yourselves being swayed by it. On other words, be culture-makers.
Posted by: (0v0) · Jan 21, 04:26 AM · #
Pack some meat on your bones and I’ll be glad to.
Posted by: catygay · Jan 21, 04:36 AM · #
o owl of the tingling and dehli-ing belly: don’t owls naturally hoot? what’s the problem with singing?
Posted by: Sara · Jan 22, 12:23 AM · #
You are right. What is the problem with singing? I will go to her, and sing, and that is all. Tomorrow my housemate Regina (http://sistashree.com/) is leading a bunch of us in the Gayatri Mantra a hundred times. I’ve never been big on the Gayatri, but Regina makes everything incredible. I can’t believe I live with this person?
My concern about Jayashree is that I’ll get all wrapped up in language and the sutras as part of my practice. Which would be beautiful and full of delight, but… maybe also just another project. I feel like I’m pretty susceptible to the spiritual materialist side of language and culture acquisition…
Here’s Trungpa:
“It is important to see that the main point of any spiritual practice is to step out of the bureaucracy of ego. This means stepping out of ego’s constant desire for a higher, more spiritual, more transcendental version of knowledge, religion, virtue, judgment, comfort or whatever it is that a particular ego is seeking. One must step out of spiritual materialism. If we do not step out of spiritual materialism, if we in fact practice it, then we may eventually find ourselves possessed of a huge collection of spiritual paths. We may feel these spiritual collections to be very precious. We have studied so much. We may have studied Western philosophy or Oriental philosophy, practiced yoga or perhaps studied under dozens of great masters. We have achieved and we have learned. We believe that we have accumulated a hoard of knowledge. And yet, having gone through all this, there is still something to give up. It is extremely mysterious! How could this happen? Impossible! But unfortunately it is so. Our vast collections of knowledge and experience are just part of ego’s display, part of the grandiose quality of ego. We display them to the world and, in so doing, reassure ourselves that we exist, safe and secure, as ‘spiritual’ people.”
Posted by: (0v0) · Jan 22, 07:44 PM · #
if trungpa took refuge in alcohol, you can take it in chanting! no matter what is coming out of your mouth— speech, song, burps— it’s all, inevitably, vibration (or so i hear…)— i suppose one could boast in the proverbial locker-room that one is “accumulating” vibrations, but the absurdity would be quite apparent.
trungpa (founder, fyi, of the 100-year visionary so-called university which has given me a masters in writing…an invisible one, i might add parenthetically) also said, “it is good to be friends with a stone.” i concur.
i’m running off my mouth purely because i find singing so delightful. it is like dancing with your throat! i’d ask you to post yourself gayatri-ing it with a squeamish look on your face on youtube for my perennial enjoyment but access to that cornucopia is blocked here in turkey, so you’ll just have to come over and do show and tell!
Posted by: Sara · Jan 23, 01:34 AM · #
Yes! Good comparison! One swig and I’m afraid I’d be a goner, disguising my addictive behavior as some kind of absorption practice. Or… transforming it in to one?
I get it — Quiet down and sing. It’s happening. We’ll see if I can do that without abandoning other responsibilities to learn the Sanskrit….
Posted by: (0v0) · Jan 23, 02:54 AM · #
check out vyaas houston’s sanskrit pedagogy. very egalitarian and wonderful. plus, the alphabet is visually stunning, so you can go on an aesthetic trip too…
Posted by: Sara · Jan 23, 07:17 AM · #
Me please!
Posted by: Christine · Jan 26, 03:28 PM · #