Bill

I practiced yoga with Bill. Bill had led/guided/taught 25,000 classes (according to Bill) before I showed up at the studio. He was a healer, as was his wife, Sandy. Bill was an engaging character and he made yoga interesting. I listened but kept my discernment. I healed there for 5 years.

I have plenty of insights into those years, perhaps I'll write more. The distance from time helps. Bill was very influential on my life and present-day thinking. I want to share this memory:

SCENE: class in session. Full length mirrors all around.

... as you look into the mirror, see the glass. Behind the glass is a silver coating. It is against the beige paper of the drywall, backed by a thin cardboard, next is a half inch of gypsum, another thicker cardboard, a three-and-a-half-inch air space filled with insulation. Another layer of cardboard, half inch of gypsum, a thin layer of cardboard, beige paper, a silver coating, glass... and you are in Vicki's Beauty Salon (the retail space next door).

And ding-dong- dang it, if my mind didn't explode into what I had envisioned for Vicki's. I had never set foot in Vicki's. Later I did and my mental image reflected a Fantastic Sam's or a franchise type stylist - the one I'm most familiar with. Vicki's was a beauty salon not unlike others, but not what my mind blast gave me.

Lessons can be gleaned from this experience. It isn't about seeing through walls:

a) Don't Believe Everything You Think - This is the mantra of Synanon. You can look them up. Not a fan, but a great slogan.

b) How Suggestable You Are - I was NOT in Vicki's Beauty Salon. Yogis and Yoginis realize how vulnerable you are in a deep relaxed state. Hypnosis needs to be recognized and avoided. This example was a mind exercise I willingly partook with Bill's guidance..

American yoga is at a state a notch above the 80's aerobic craze (Imagine that - MORE oxygen is better). My experience is most people did Hot Bikram Yoga for the physical work out which was considerable. You got in shape and lost weight quickly. The series of poses was developed by a weightlifter, no shapeshifting, animal-headed gods, thank you. Bill made the difficulties fun. No one went home mind-controlled, as far as I could tell.

"Do you know elephants can't wear high heels? They don't have Achilles tendons."

"If you stretch your 22 vertebrae 1/22nd of inch each day, after 22 days you will be an inch taller."

"This town is a City of Trees designee because this studio exhales so much CO2 into the atmosphere."

c) A Thinking Process - Use the same technique when looking at a tree. Bark, xylem, phloem... I don't know much from there. Doesn't it make you curious to see what is inside a tree? Do you ever intuitively sense to 'see right through' someone? On the inverse, can't take your eyes off someone? We are all naked under our clothes, striptease is always enticing. Medical drawings look so much more interesting. Chain links are all inter-connected.

Unlayering, as an analytical solution to any problem takes a cautious step-by-step process to achieve resolve. Focus cognitive skills to slowly allow the next action to complement the last. Emotion has little to do with it.

Yogis in 6th century India were considered sinister, magicians, sorcerers. It was claimed they could possess a dog and make it run ten miles then emerge, explaining how they could be seen in two different towns the same day. Yoga, it seems, is the art of merging into your surroundings, inanimate or not.

Yoga has been beneficial to me on many levels, not sinister, and I still practice daily to healthy results. A helpful example from the past,

My best wishes to Bill.

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MONDAY, AUGUST 29, 2022

Sinister Yoga*

https://escapedwageslave.blogspot.com/2022/08/sinister-yoga.html

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2022

Reality Snaps*

https://escapedwageslave.blogspot.com/2022/09/reality-snaps.html

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A Spiritual Exercise*

A Spiritual Exercise

Now I see mindfulness meditation is featured on 60 minutes with Anderson Cooper.  In the report, a congressman from Minnesota is running meditation classes with Capital staffers, crying he found the salvation of this country.  Just what taxpayers need to see when there is work to be done, everyone sitting and meditating. Suddenly, as far as CBS is concerned, America has "Woken Up".  It's times like these that makes me most queasy about how I spend my time.

Jon Kabat-Zinn was featured and his definition of 'awareness' seemed to fit into the 'more thoughtful living' mode, which I can appreciate.  Just 'being' in the 'now' rhetoric,  The issue of workplace stress and digital leashes was skimmed over as just another fact of life we must tolerate.  What is the need to highlight Google, Inc in this segment as the epitome of workplace design?  A person working for that person (Google, according to the Supreme Court) spends a lot more time at His/Hers home than their own.  They are mandated to be there and meditate there also.  My bullshit detectors are going off, Code Red.

I am a living example of how meditation and yoga helped keep the wheels on the bus.  I recommend it highly to those in need of solace from this psychopathic death loving culture.  It works, given time.  I don't fall into the 'pray privately' framework because I enjoy doing yoga outdoors and in community settings.  It is even relaxing to see someone meditating in the park.  People who think about thinking intrigue me. Developing a more thoughtful world, with yourself first, is a worthy goal.  But seeing it shilled by Anderson Cooper and corporate America gives me the willies.

There must have been an uproar at the first yoga teacher who took money for lessons.  Yoga existed before capitalism, now it's corrupted and co-opted from the original, as Mammon is wont to do to about everything.  My first yoga studio of instruction was a national chain staffed by nice people.  I'm sure a huge rush of people with the time and money will attend Kabat-Zinn's workshops after this broadcast.  People are searching and they are finding.  Now how many of those people being shown at Google meditating are just flat out getting out of work, sloughing?  More power to them.  A 14 hour day is excruciatingly dull and a time card must be filled and accounted for, a huge problem for Worker Joe.  Taking His/Hers time to meditate seems like a perfect filler, except it is Google's meditation, not yours.  Or the same meditation as an inmate in the penitentiary.  Where ever your mind wants to go is fine, but your body stays right here.

Everything gets com modified and corporatized in this society.  Even meditation is becoming the chains between the ball and ankle.  Soon meditation will be run by a state licensed practitioner, with the same script read everywhere.  It will begin the workday.  It will be mandatory and you will be missed if you sleep in.  And there will be repercussions if you do not attend.  You are on the clock, after all.   Meditation will be/is used to quiet the slaves, as usual, they will do all the work.

Podcast 0f Interest - http://www.gnosticmedia.com/bill-joslin-meditation-202/