"There is no higher God than Intervals."
- Coach Steve Ilg
1989 Journal of Wholistic Fitness®
west wall, bookcase, of my Durango H(om)e office. click to enlarge Original print by HP Yogini Susan Deterling - Granite Camp, Grand Canyon. the three books which are always ready for me to grab while enroute to either the toilet during my Slim Cap moments and my reading chair facing the Mother Animas River: from left to right: The Yoga Sutra's of Patanjali, Sibley's Field Guide to Birds of Western North America, and - of course - the Bhagavad-Gita. Nag-Champa is burnt daily as devotional offering in the Buddha incense holder. the Feng Shui of one's office is of vital import...especially to us struggling feeble Dharma Protectors! ***
"...The yoga sutras have some gems yes (including two that i have tattooed on me, so I can't be that critical:) , but they are also very clearly an amalgamation of many paths and concepts that were around at the time compiled by someone who -- judging from the writing and from his other works -- may not have even been a practitioner. He starts off basically borrowing the buddhist structure of mind/consciousness but then throws a bone to the eternalists by saying: "well, ok, ishvara (god) is important too..." and never really ties together how his concept of ishvara relates to the ultimate "goal" of yoga, aka having freedom over mental constructs. the buddhist writings on mind are more thorough, the bhakti writings on ishvara are more thorough, and the shaivite writing on achieving recognition of the ultimate reality are more thorough... his writing pretty much fails to take an actual viewpoint in the end. I never realized this until now, when I'm actually studying them in depth at the source.... Anyway, enough nerd blabber... :)" - Josh Shrei
COACH RESPONDS:
Precious Brother JS S(om)ewhere in India,
ilg realized that inherent contradiction of Patanjali's immense effort on my first read...and then again it was driven home during formal studies (University of Marymount, CA), yet, His overall astral blueprint toward Enlightenment has done a lot of go(o)d to keep many of us feeble minded neer' do wells off the streets and into Pratyhara!
Hec, my own books are 'amalgamations' of existing knowledge/techniques which i (and hopefully my own pupils) use as springboards for own contributions to the Uni-Verse.
Then, again, Words are Forms and Forms only point toward Truth which gets us all into these wonderful messes of Avidya! keep sweating, keep sitting still and THANK YOU for your offerings!
Now, this Rever-End is off to run intervals on a hot track; "There is no higher God than Intervals." - Coach Ilg, 1989 Journal of Wholistic Fitness.
