The world capital of yoga
On Friday, after extensive reading of Harry Potter, I started to see a small aura like before having a migraine headache (Not around trees though, that is to note ;-P). At the same time I got a heavy headache but I was quite sure that it was no migraine because the aura didn’t advance but stayed there. That worried me and I decided to stop reading. After a few hours of hanging around bored, I fetched my backpack and walked to the bus station, got a (ordinary) bus to Rishikesh. (It took about 9 hours to arrive and cost me 130 Rs = 2 Euro) The travel was not too bad because I got one of the front seats with more legroom and my neighbor could speak proper English.
Before I reached Rishikesh, I met some other Westerners that turned out to be practitioners of Yoga. I am really glad that I met them, I learned a lot and attended one Yoga class with them and they told me a lot about Yoga and that it is much more than stretching. Now, I bought a lot of books and am eager to read them through. There are a lot of Ashrams and course offers in Rishikesh, the atmosphere is unique.1 It invites you to stay and learn more about spiritualism, meditation, yoga etc. and it is hard to just leave there again in such a rush. (Only spent one and a half days there.)
Of course, for such a religious person as me, it’s sort of difficult to believe in things other than science. But I am trying my best to be as tolerant and curious as possible. After all, it is not about the ultimate truth (whatever that is) but about what I want to believe and how I want to live my life.
Spiritual things like mystic energies, chakras, waves contradict mostly to modern science for it can be scientifically proved that there are no mystical waves flowing through the body etc. However, I think you can’t take those things literally. You have to view them as (abstract) models (every software engineer or natural scientist should know what I am talking about). They just attempt to describe certain processes and reactions (inside our body) and make predictions. Just as models in “proper” science, these can turn out to be more or less correct, exact and useful. For example it is proven that Isaac Newton was not right with his classical mechanics – You can’t go faster than light. Nevertheless, it is considered as sufficiently precise to describe most movements.
If we try to describe our body physically, we will end up with a big and complex biological machine whose exact mechanics are yet to discover (because it is so complex). That is a pity but shows us that we still got a lot to research an learn about our body in the future.
But well, as said, there are partly ancient sciences that have researched the human body, describing it effectively by various models. I think it is no wonder that sciences like this already existed in so early times (see the Vedas) of human history. The center of all science should be the human, after all.
Ah, and by the way, the auras either vanished or I learned to ignore them.
1 A bit – but only a bit – like certain parts of Altona or Schanzenviertel in Hamburg only that it is more “alternative/esoteric” than “alternative/punky”.
Ferry on the holy river Ganges
Instant enlightenment, this way. Possibly TM ;)
“Shiva is also known as ‘the one that is easily pleased’, that’s why he is so popular” – Sachin, student of medical science and devotee of Shiva
Lakshman Jhula