This week, yours truly humbly apologises to the sixth form students of Speyside High School for not being able to reach their school to engage in a discourse on the presence of Africans in this part of the world before the coming of Columbus.

Being still a 'foot soldier' in the African redemption struggle, it was difficult for me to work out my return from Speyside even though the trip to go was organised.

Be that as it may, I still feel duty bound to share some information on the subject matter, not only for my youths of Speyside High School, but also for African youths wherever they may be. It is quite evident that the state of the African mind-set in this post-colonial period needs to be reset.

Just two weeks ago, I made the trip to Skinner Park in South Trinidad to support some of the artistes from Tobago who made it to the National Calypso Semi-finals. What happened there was reflective of the state of mind of the African Trinidadian. There was an African Trinidadian artiste Sugar Aloes on stage performing his song and he was showered with 'toilet paper' by African Trinidadians, because of their belief that he was no longer supporting a supposedly 'African' political party.

How can adult African Trinidadian or Tobagonians preparing to go to a show where the African art form of calypso is being featured, pack rolls of toilet paper in their bags to wave at and insult a fellow African artiste who they perceive does not support their views. If that is not fascist behaviour, then I do not know what is. How must the African Trinidadian youth relate to such behaviour by their adults? It is not hard to understand why the African Trinidadian youths are so prone to violent behaviour against each other.

A major part of the mental and psychological problem facing the African Tobagonian and Trinidadian is their lack of historical knowledge of their fore-parents' contribution to the development of world civilisation. Many of us grew up with the belief that the African motherland was always a place of backwardness which contributed absolutely nothing to world civilisation. In fact, even though in Trinidad and Tobago, we were governed by a supposedly 'African' government for over forty years, African history has never been taught in our schools. So generations of African youths grew up in total ignorance about their peoples contribution to Planet Earth.

It is now an established scientific and historical fact that humankind first existed in Africa. From Africa, they moved to various parts of the planet, such as Australia, India and other parts of Asia. They also went to Europe. Some historians even claim that Africans got trapped in an 'ice age' in Europe and 'mutated'. Africans also came to the Caribbean and the Americas long before Columbus. Hence the reason why I am recommending to the students of Speyside High School and other African youths that they get and read a copy of the late Guyanese Professor Ivan Van Sertima's book, 'They Came Before Columbus.' In that book, the monumental contributions of Africans to the development of the Inca and Aztec civilisations in Central and South America are well detailed.

In fact, the diaries of the crew on the ships who came with Columbus to the Caribbean revealed that they saw Africans in Caribbean islands such as St Vincent and also on the Central American coast. The truth is that historical research has shown Africans establishing civilisations as far back as ten thousand years ago and such research is ongoing. Such civilisations were not only in North Africa but also in Central and South Africa.

We do not know that in architecture, science, astrology, medicine, governance structures and spirituality to name a few were areas of development which early Africans focussed on. Those early African civilisations placed emphasis on the development of the human being. In other words, the human being was central to forward movement of the society. Their search for knowledge was constant and much time was spent on acquiring knowledge on all matters escalated to Planet Earth and the wider universe.

It was in Africa where Jesus Christ and Greek scholars such as Aristotle, Plato and Socrates got their knowledge. African thinkers and scholars established vast libraries for study and research.

See the rest here:
To Speyside High School youths with love

Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi during his address to UN General Assembly on September 27, 2014 asked the world leaders to adopt, June 21, as International Yoga Day.

Yoga is more than a 5000 year old physical, mental and spiritual practice having its origin in India, aims to transform body and mind.

In suggesting June 21as the International Day of Yoga, Narendra Modi has said that the datum one of the two solstices, is the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and has special significance in many parts of the world.

This initiative found support from many global leaders. More than 175 countries including USA, Canada, China have supported.

On Dec 11, 2014, The 193-member U.N. General Assembly approved by consensus a resolution establishing June 21 as International Day of Yoga. Bikram Choudhury, joins the Yoga community to congratulate all the Yogis and Yoginis and specially the Prime Minister of India, Indias Ambassador to the United Nations Mr. Mukherji on this historic achievement.

The rest is here:

Bikram Yoga is a sequence of 26 posture and 2 breathing ...

Hatha yoga (Sanskrit: hahayoga, listen(helpinfo) IPA:[jo]), also called hahavidya (), is a branch of yoga. The word haha (lit. 'force') denotes a system of physical techniques supplementary to a broad conception of yoga.[1][2]

With its origins in Ancient India,[3]Hindu tradition believes that Shiva himself is the founder of hatha yoga.[4][5][6]

In the 20th century, hatha yoga, particularly asanas (the physical postures), became popular throughout the world as physical exercises, and is now colloquially termed "yoga".

According to legend, Lord Shiva is credited with propounding hatha yoga.[4] It is said that on a lonely island, assuming nobody else would hear him, he gave the knowledge of hatha yoga to the Goddess Parvati, but a fish heard the entire discourse, remaining still throughout. The fish (Matsya) later became a siddha and came to be known as Matsyendranath. Matsyendranath taught hatha yoga to his disciple Gorakshanath and to a limbless man, Chaurangi. Hatha Yoga Pradipika mentions many other famous hatha yogis. Hatha yoga was thus passed down in disciplic succession.

Some of its techniques can be traced back to the epics and the Pali canon.[1] The Pali canon contains three passages in which the Buddha describes pressing the tongue against the palate for the purposes of controlling hunger or the mind, depending on the passage.[7] However there is no mention of the tongue being inserted into the nasopharynx as in true khecar mudr. The Buddha used a posture where pressure is put on the perineum with the heel, similar to even modern postures used to stimulate Kundalini.[8]

Many believe that Patajali, a siddha of the 2nd century BCE, in his treatise on Raja Yoga, Yoga Sutras, professed asanas and pranayam as two limbs of the practice of Raja Yoga,[9] while others assert that Patanjali's sutras do not support the practice of asanas as physical exercise at all.[10]

The Siddha Siddhanta Paddhati is a very early extant Hatha Yoga Sanskrit text which contains much content on the avadhuta, as Feuerstein (1991: p.105) relates:

One of the earliest hatha yoga scriptures, the Siddha Siddhanta Paddhati, contains many verses that describe the avadhuta. One stanza (VI.20) in particular refers to his chameleon-like capacity to animate any character or role. At times, it is said, he behaves like a worldling or even a king, at other times like an ascetic or naked renunciant.[11]

In medieval times, teachings on Yoga were systematized in several texts:

The practices of the Amtasiddhi and Datttreyayogastra are used to raise bindu or prevent it from falling.[1] The mudrs of the Vivekamrtaa work on bindu, not kualin, even though raising it is an important part of the yoga it teaches.[1] The mudras of the Goraksaataka and Khecarvidy are used to raise kualin (they mention bindu only in passing).[1]

See the original post here:

Hatha yoga - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Yoga Stras of Patajali are 196 Indian stras (aphorisms) that constitute the foundational text of Ashtanga Yoga, also called Raja Yoga. In medieval times, Ashtanga Yoga was cast as one of the six orthodox stika schools of Hindu philosophy.

The Yoga Sutras were compiled around 400 CE by Patajali, taking materials about yoga from older traditions. Together with his commentary they form the Ptajalayogastra.

The Indian tradition attributes the work to Patajali. Much confusion has been caused by the late medieval traditions of conflating Patajali, the author of the grammatical Mahbhya, with the author of the same name who wrote the Yoga Stras. Yet the two works in Sanskrit are completely different in language, style and subject matter. Furthermore, before the time of Bhoja (11th century), Sanskrit authors did not conflate the authors, and treated them quite separately. And modern scholarship shows that these two authors are separated in time by about six hundred years. A third Patajali is sometimes also invented, an author on medicine, in order to fill out the meaning of Bhoja's verse that said a single Patajali cured speech through grammar, the mind through yoga, and the body through medicine. However, no major work of medicine by a Patajali is known to Sanskrit literature.[note 1]

The most recent assessment of Patajali's date, developed in the context of the first critical edition ever made of the Yoga Stras and bhya based on a study of the surviving original Sanskrit manuscripts of the work, is that of Philipp A. Maas.[6] Maas's detailed evaluation of the historical evidence and past scholarship on the subject, including the opinions of the majority of Sanskrit authors who wrote in the first millennium CE, is that Patajali's work was composed in 400 CE plus or minus 25 years.[6]

The Yoga Sutras are a composite of various texts. They resemble the Buddhist jhanas.[note 2] According to Feuerstein, the Yoga Sutras are a condensation of two different traditions, namely "eight limb yoga" (ashtanga yoga) and action yoga (Karma yoga). The Karma yoga part is contained in chapter 1, chapter 2 verse 1-27, chapter 3 except verse 54, and chapter 4. The "eight limb yoga" is described in chapter 2 verse 28-55, and chapter 3 verse 3 and 54.

Patajali's composition was entitled Ptajalayogastra ("The Treatise on Yoga according to Patajali") and consisted of both Stras and Bhya.[6] According to Wuyastik, referencing Maas,

Patanjali took materials about yoga from older traditions, and added his own explanatory passages to create the unified work that, since 1100 CE, has been considered the work of two people.

This means that the earliest commentary on the stras, the Bhya, that has commonly been ascribed to some unknown later author Vysa (the editor), was in fact Patajali's own work.[6]

Patajali divided his Yoga Sutras into four chapters or books (Sanskrit pada), containing in all 196 aphorisms, divided as follows:

Yoga consists of the following limbs as prescribed by Patanjali: The first five are called external aids to Yoga (bahiranga sadhana).

Excerpt from:

Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

ROMULO: My enthusiasm for yoga has never waned even after 12 years.

MYSORE-STYLE yoga develops strength and encourages independence.

Peopleget into yoga for many reasons.

A friend dragged me along to my first yoga class several years ago, and I felt lighter and happier for the rest of the day. But the reason I really liked it was that it gave me relief from the pain of a broken heart. There was something inherent in the yoga practiceabout the experience of breathing while moving my limbs into posesthat helped me let go.

Slowly, over time, with consistent practice, yoga sorted me out physically and emotionally. It made me strong enough to confront my fears. It helped corral my mind, so that I stopped being a prisoner of my unrelenting thoughts. Soon, little (and even big) things stopped bothering me, and I grew less and less concerned about what people thought of me. Overall, I became a kinder, gentler personor so Ive been told.

Today I feel I am more myself, or who I was meant to be, and not so much who I thought I should be. But I still have a lot of work to do. Going back to my mat every morning to do the postures is certainly an important part of the work, but theres more to it than that. Ive got to go deeper.

Manila had its yoga boom sometime between 2008 and 2011, with studios sprouting all over the city; so Im guessing longtime practitioners want something more substantial by now. Like me, you might be curious about the inner practices, even if your reasons are self-serving. If yoga can piece together a shattered heart, imagine what will happen if I do more of it.

Some of you might seek to understand the foundational philosophies, or you might be experimenting with pranayama breathing. Maybe you know some words in Sanskrit and have added a sitting practice to your routine.

After noticing the feelings and sensations that arise when you shape and twist your body into poses day after day, it is not surprising that youve sharpened your awareness. Strange as it sounds, by bending your spine this way and that, you somehow stimulate interest in things that didnt matter to you beforelike the concepts of truth and suffering; and how you relate to yourself and others.

Clarity and purpose

More:

When yoga goes beyond the mat