Zen, Yoga, Gurdjieff- perspectives on inner work: Parabola Article

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Parabola Article

Announcing my article about Chantal Heinegg's icons, A Consonance of Feeling, in the Spring 2013 issue of Parabola Magazine.

1 comment:

Timothy MulliganFebruary 5, 2013 at 7:01:00 AM EST
Good article. Worthy topic. Beautiful icons.

I especially appreciated this: "Icons, one might say, may even surpass written texts; they become a language that speaks to us in ways that we do not understand, from depths of Being that we are at risk of forgetting in every moment."

Orthodox Christians place icons in the eastern corner or on the eastern wall of their homes, and reverence them there. I myself have icons on the eastern wall of my apartment. They certainly do convey a presence. I need all the help I can get.
ReplyDelete

Add comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.

Recommendations and current reading list

Lee's current reading list (all recommended)

Far From The Tree: Andrew Solomon. Parents, Children and the Search for Identity. Highly recommended.

Inner Yoga, Sri Anirvan—This extraordinary book is essential reading for any serious student of Gurdjieff or Yoga practice. Written at a level of both practical and philosophical discourse well above other contemporary work, Anirvan investigates the deep roots of Yoga practice, theory, and philosophy in a deeply sensitive series of insights. Of particular interest is the extraordinary and challenging piece on Buddhi and Buddhiyoga, which examines the questions of practice, life, and death with an acuity rarely encountered in other work of this nature.

Divine Love and Wisdom, Emmanuel Swedenborg. Swedenborg gives us a detailed report on Reality as received from higher sources, reflecting many Truths one would be wise to study carefully. Readers will be astounded by the extraordinary degree of correlation between Swedenborg and Ibn 'Arabi. Many fundamental principles introduced by Gurdjieff are also expounded on in fascinating detail by Swedenborg. All of Swedenborg's works are well worth reading.

The Divine Governance of the Human Kingdom, Ibn 'Arabi. Another real gem, this book ought to be read by every seeker on the spiritual path. If you can only find the time to read one book by Ibn 'Arabi, this ought to be the one. By turns lighthearted, serious, insightful, and ingenius, al 'Arabi introduces us to our inner government character by character, explains their relationships, and indicates how to bring them into a state of harmonious cooperation. Written with love, the book deftly manages to avoid being didactic, delivering instead a sensitive, poetic, and even romantic look at how to organize our inner Being.

The Bezels of Wisdom—Ibn al 'Arabi. A compendium of observations about the nature of "The Reality"—what al 'Arabi calls God— from a 13th century Sufi master. This towering work easily holds its own against—and is worthy of comparison to—13th century masterpieces from other major religious traditions such as Dogen's Shobogenzo and Meister Eckhart's sermons.

Also worthy: William C. Chittick's The Sufi Path of Knowledge, an extensive review of al Arabi's works.

Destiny Disrupted- Tamim Ansary- An entertaining, lucid, and highly readable account of history from the Islamic point of view. Every layman who aspires to understanding the tensions between Islamic and Western cultures in the modern world needs to read this book.

Inferno by Max Hastings. A history of the Second World War viewed from peripheral theaters, and the effects on the common man, where many awful things that receive little attention from historians took place. Hastings is unflinching in his criticism of all the antagonists in this catastrophic world event.

The Quest- Daniel Yergin. Yergin's investigations of world energy history (read his history of oil, "The Prize") are superlative. It;'s a long book, but no one can reasonably claim to understand today's energy challenges without at least this much reading.

The Schwarzbein Principle. The one book about diet, blood pressure, and cholesterol levels you truly need to read.