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In a way I suppose what he meant was that when you redact the conventional behaviors and beliefs of your culture, you’re regarded as a nutter. But who are you, stripped of those things that tell you who you are? Your job, your car, your husband, your kids, your favorite TV show, that pasta dish you do that’s just so mmm? All these things that will one day go with death if not before. With death if not before. Good to find out who you are with nothing, because nothing is really what we have. During this pajama time I was doing a lot of meditation and a lot of yoga, kundalini yoga. Kundalini yoga is the crack cocaine of yoga. If hatha is a mild weed high, iyengar is a deep hash glow, and ashtanga is amphetamine, kundalini blows the fucking doors off. Technically it is distinctive because of its use of “breath of fire”—this is a rapid, rhythmic, usually nasal inhalation/exhalation that you motivate from the abdomen. This is accompanied by mantras and movements and definitely changes the way you feel. A cynical person might call this change wooziness brought on by hyperventilation, but I think that’s reductive. What is the alteration in consciousness that occurs during inadvertent hyperventilation? There are several yoga positions that induce in me (In me? Is there a me?) a state of awareness that is cracked open with sudden abundance. Like the filters and commentary are suddenly flipped off. I don’t in these scarce and beautiful moments have a conventional sense of self, I don’t know my name, I don’t know what I want or what I’m afraid of—all that data is wiped. And I fucking like it. (en) |
