YREC's Yoga News 2002 (Page 3)
International Conference on Science and Meditation
 Swami
Veda Bharati
and Georg Feuerstein
Swami
Veda Bharati (formerly known as Pandit Usharbudh Arya, D.Litt.) is
organizing this conference at the Himalayan Hospital in Jolly Grant, Uttaranchal,
India, on November 10-12, 2002. Guests will be staying at his two centers.
Swami Veda is the author of many books, including Superconscious Meditation,
Mantra and Meditation, and God, Meditation and the Art of Dying,
as well as the single most detailed commentary available on Patanjali's
Yoga-Sûtra. Further information is available at www.icsmindia.org.
Swami Veda recently taught at YREC's headquarters in Santa Rosa, California,
and promised to return when YREC's new retreat center is operational (which
should be in the fall of 2003).
 YREC
Welcomes Erich Schiffman
Erich Schiffman, author of the widely read Moving Into Stillness,
recently joined YREC's Senior Yoga Teachers
Council. Erich is a highly regarded Yoga teacher, who studied with
Krishnamurti at Brockwood and subsequently with Desikachar and many other
well-known Western Yoga teachers. We cordially welcome him to our team.
Swami Satchidananda Left the Body
 Swami
Satchidananda, spiritual head of Yogaville
ashrama in Virginia, came to the United States in 1966 for a two-day visit
and stayed for good. In the same year, he founded the Integral Yoga Institute,
which has since grown into a worldwide organization. We are sad to announce
that Swamiji (aged 87) left his body on August 18, 2002, while visiting
India. He will be missed by thousands and will long be remembered for
his untiring ecumenical efforts.
A Yogic Siddhi Replicated (and Thus Demonstrated) by Science
 For
centuries, Yoga has known of the possibility of bodily disappearing from
one place and instantly reappearing in another, purely through perfect
control of the mind. Science fiction invoked technology for a similar
effect—that of teleportation ("Beam me up, Scottie"). It
is not widely known that in 1998, a team of physicists at the California
Institute of Technology succeeded in teleporting a laser beam over a distance
of one meter. An Australian lab duplicated this phenomenon earlier this
year, which is excellent news. Atoms, as we have learned from quantum
physics, are not discrete solids but show an uncanny interconnectedness.
The cosmos is indeed as extraordinary as the yogins have made it
out to be.
Sarasvati Resuscitated?
The Sarasvati
River is described in the Rig-Veda as the mightiest stream
in the heartland of the Vedic people, flowing all the way from the Himalayas
to the Indian Ocean. It dried out about 1900 B.C. In early 2002, the Sarasvati
bubbled up again in a small local area, demonstrating that it was still
flowing underground. Now the government of India is making plans to tap
into this significant water resource by drilling wells and collecting
the water in reservoirs. This comes at a time when it is becoming increasingly
clear that the rapidly melting glaciers of the Himalayas will cause severe
flooding in Northern India followed by the drying up of further rivers,
which will prove to be one of India's most serious ecological problems
yet. May the Sarasvati flow again!
The Buddha's Birthplace
 Researchers
are questioning the traditional birthplace of Gautama
the Buddha. They now think that it was Kapileswar near Bhubaneswar
in Orissa rather than Kapilavastu in Nepal. This revision is based on
a rock inscription of Emperor Ashoka dated 240 B.C., which names Kapileswar
as the Buddha's place of birth. The distance between the two towns is
only a little over 400 miles (as the crow flies), but this discovery (if
confirmed) would have major implications in terms of tourism, livelihood
for the local people, and perhaps also national pride.
Sir John Woodroffe Revealed
 Sir
John Woodroffe (alias Arthur Avalon), who pioneered research on
Tantra in the 1920s, has long been one of the more enigmatic figures of
Indology. Why would a High Court judge in Calcutta become involved in
Tantra, which was then a taboo subject? In her new book Sir John Woodroffe,
Tantra and Bengal, Kathleen Taylor has spared no effort to find an
answer to this question. This fascinating book was published by Curzon
Press in Richmond, England. It's difficult to track down, but the effort
is worthwhile.
YREC's Distance Learning Course . . . a Tsunami
of Interest
There has been an overwhelming interest in YREC's distance
learning course on the history and philosophy of Yoga. The current course
is full and will be offered again in January 2005. To read more, click
here.
Ahimsâ University
Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujarat, announced on June
27, 2002, that a university dedicated to studying all aspects of nonharming
will be established. This is connected with the ahimsâ-yâtrâ,
or pilgrimage for nonharming, currently undertaken by the Jain master
Mahapragna and 150 Jain sadhus. In recent years, Gujarat has been
plagued by violence between Hindus and Muslims.
 108
Shiva Temples Found
Recently in Jyothi village on the Pennar River (also called
Uttara Pinakini) in South India, five ancient temples have been found
buried under sand dunes. This discovery led to the further discovery that
as many as 108 such temples are thus hidden. Apparently they were erected
by King Rakkasi Gangarayadeva in the early 13th century A.D. The number
108 is symbolic of completeness.
City from 7000 B.C. Discovered Underwater
In the course of an underwater survey in the Gulf of Cambay
(or Khambat), Gujarat, researchers came across the ruins of a large city
dated to c. 7000-8000 B.C. at a depth of c. 75 feet. The find was made
public on May 19, 2001. In the meantime, about 1,000 artifacts have been
retrieved and are being studied. Dates for India's ancient civilization
are constantly being pushed back, and Sumer has long been left in the
dust (so to speak). A real revolution in the chronology of antiquity is
occurring, yet the Western media—perhaps still under the spell of
pharaonic Egypt—are amazingly silent about this.
Complete Text of the Hatha-Pradîpikâ
Found
The Hatha-(Yoga)-Pradîpikâ of Svâtmârâma
Yogendra is one of three classical Sanskrit manuals of Hatha-Yoga. Until
now only manuscripts containing five chapters have been available. Recently
Dr. Manmath Gharote, the director of Lonavla Yoga Institute in India,
and his team were able to locate a manuscript that contains all ten chapters.
He and Parimal Devnath have edited and translated the text, which is now
available in book form. YREC has ordered a limited number of copies from
India, which are available now. Unfortunately, only a few copies have
survived the journey. For Georg Feuerstein's
review of this publication, click here.
Gravity in India Is to Be Taken Lightly
Scientists mapping the gravity of the Earth have discovered
that India's gravity is nearly one percent less than elsewhere. So far
they have not found an explanation for this intriguing phenomenon, though
they speculate that it might have to do with unusual tectonic features
due to the collision of the Indian subcontinent with the Asian mainland.
For more information, click here.
Melt Down
 New
scientific studies show that global warming—until recently denied
by the US Government—is causing Earth's 160,000 glaciers to recede
at a greatly accelerated rate, and many will disappear within the next
twenty years. This not only will raise ocean levels by one or two more
feet, it also will lead to drying up of rivers that now irrigate densely
populated land, especially in Northern India and Western China. Other
studies have alerted us to the rapid melting of the Antarctic ice shelf.
The consequences of this worldwide melt-down are far reaching—ranging
from flooding in some areas to severe drought in others. This will profoundly
affect the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world. Some
experts conjecture that water will be the trigger for World War III. As
Yoga practitioners we need to be aware of this and other similar critical
environmental (and political) circumstances and prepare inwardly and outwardly
as best we can.
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