Author Archive

The Psychology of Yoga

Written by kalabin. Posted in Articles

yoga-psychologyIntroduction

All ways are similar: they lead to nowhere… Does the way have a heart? If it does, it is a good way; if it does not, there is no sense in it. One way makes traveling joyful: no matter how long you may travel, you and your way are inseparable. The other way will make you curse your life. One way gives you power, the other one destroys you. (Carlos Castaneda. “The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge”)

The notable peculiarity of Don Juan’s Teachings is the presence of thoughts which are simple for understanding and strong in point. “The way of the heart”: these two ordinary words being united give the sense of life. For thousands of years, people have been looking for the sense of their existence: they invent predestinations or state that life as it is has no sense, but there is a sense in the quality of its living. But everything genius is notable for its simplicity. The main features of the heart’s way are easiness and burst of energy. On the right way of life, there is no place for hesitation, breakdown, fear, ambitions. Difficulties inspire but do not drain one’s spirit. You feel what ‘living your own life’ means.

The main philosophic regulations of sanhya system

Written by kalabin. Posted in Articles

Lotus positionYoga Philisophy. Part 1

Introduction. Patanjali’s “Yoga-Sutra”

The theoretical basis of Yoga classical philosophy is the small aphoristic work “Yoga-sutra” of Patanjali, an ancient Indian man of wisdom (before IV AD). With the advent of this paper, it wouldn’t be exaggerating to notice that every Yogi won the respect of all his mates after his translation and commentary of “Yoga-sutras”, or at least of the 2nd sutra “About the methods of Yoga implementation”. Vyasa, a middle-aged Indian Yogi (IV cent.), was the first to write the commentary for “Yoga-sutras” known as “Yoga-bhashya”. Below, we will consider the works of these philosophers together.

Objective reality (being), Nature and Space

Written by kalabin. Posted in Articles

Yoga Philisophy. Part 2yoga_04

Sanhya and Yoga belongs to the number of orthodox directions of ancient Indian philosophy (darshanas). The other four darshanas are: Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Mimansa, Vedanta. They all share the main visional concepts if Vedas, but are different in methods of liberation from sufferings and acquiring True knowledge. Beginning from the epoch of Upanishadas, all the main features of Indian vision can be expressed in three words: sansara, atman, moksha, or ( since some theories used other terms to express the same ideas) the circulation of living beings in the wheel of births- deaths, ‘Ego’ (selfness) and liberation.

Structure of the Universe

Written by kalabin. Posted in Articles

yoga_03Yoga Philisophy. Part 3

In Yoga philosophy, there is a concept of the multidimentional Universe. Like the other philosophic doctrines of orthodox direction, Yoga-darshana grounds the existence of scores of being spherea among which there are both material and purely spiritual ones. In this case, the earth world is only one of the worlds of the multidimentional Universe.

The world hierarchy in Yoga looks like the following. There are seven main worlds: the World of Earth, The world of intermediate space and the Sky world comprising (uprising) the world of Mahendra, the world of Pradjapati, the triple world of Brahma (World Dzhnana, World Tapas, World Satya) All the sky worlds together are called Worlds-Svar.

Yoga’s and Shaman’s Universes: their similarity and difference

Written by kalabin. Posted in Articles

yoga_01Yoga Philisophy. Part 4

Since Columbus’s time and even earlier, we have known that the earth is a sphere supposedly flowing somewhere without sense, in the insensible emptiness of cold Space. In reality, no one uses this knowledge in everyday life. During burying, the soul is sent to the sky, and the body is dug in the ground. God lives in the sky and devil in the ground, and newer on the contrary.

The structure of Yoga’s world outlook, where the Meru mountain like the linking bar structures the hierarchic spheres of being, surprisingly resembles the Space of shamans, where the World Tree has the function of the Meru mountain. In the world space model of different nations, Centre is the universal symbol uniting all the spheres of the world outlook.

Eternity and time in Yoga conceptions

Written by kalabin. Posted in Articles

yoga_02Yoga Philisophy. Part 5

While considering the categories of eternity and time in Yoga, we will first touch upon the ancient Indian understanding the historic time what is best expressed in the following: ”There was earlier, there is now – what difference does it make?”. It is connected with two mutually conditional circumstances. Firstly, there existed a cyclic model of time and the theory of kalpas – the space cycles of beginnings, destructions and following reconstructions of space. Secondly, the Indian culture thought in terms of astronomic numbers in space scale which devalued the historic time transforming the time intervals between historic events into almost unobserved ones. Actually, whereas the length of one space cycle is estimated in milliards of years, the intervals meaningful for humankind become insignificant and lose there value.

God and Spiritual Beings

Written by kalabin. Posted in Articles

yoga_07Yoga Philisophy. Part 6

In Sankhya philosophy, among 25 main metaphysical elements of the Universe God is absent. The philosophic world picture of sanhya didn’t need any supernatural creature in order to explain the origin and development of the world. World is not the creation but the result of the natural evolution of spiritual and material elements, as the followers of Kapila, a man of wisdom. That is why sanhya-darshana is called the realistic philosophy or atheistic sanhya.

Though the classical Yoga borrowed the philosophic fundamentals of sanhya system, nevertheless, it took the other stand concerning God’s existence. That is why sanhya-Yoga is called theistic sanhya. God (Ishvara) and gods (various spiritual Beings) are present in classical Yoga. But it cannot be referred to the traditional theistic theories, much less to the polytheistic one (declaring a lot of gods).

My Tambourine, and first of all, what I made my Tambourine for

Written by kalabin. Posted in Urban Shamanism

DSCF1098Making the tambourine and its animation is a mystical process and closely connected with its owner’s life, in particular with my – Vladimir Kalabin’s – life. At the moment I can assert: we have each other. I have born it. My tambourine is alive (hereinafter I’ll call it Tambourine) and it has a name. My Tambourine’s name is Khors.

I have never loved Andersen’s fairy tales, particularly about the everyday things which talk to each other. They always end somehow with nothing: some dish is broken, or a miserable Christmas tree is burnt after the celebration and its being lost for a year in the attic. The author can’t do without the torture of the girl having matches who is being frozen near the rich house.

About My Granddad Pavel and Grandmother Stepanida

Written by kalabin. Posted in Urban Shamanism

tambo2Shaman’s Stories. Part 1

In 1928, my maternal grandfather, Pavel Petrovich, of 12, together with some other boys stole a 5-liter bottle of self-made alcohol from the adults, first tasted the 100-grade-drink and went to test each other: who was a true male and who wasn’t. The test was cruel, but the alcohol boldness supported the deliberate bravery. They put a corroded shell found the day before into the fire. They stood around the fire waiting for the first boy to show his fear. The boys tried to summon up courage as none wanted to be a coward. A branch deafeningly crackled in the fire, and everyone twitched, but then laughed with relief, “The danger is past!” At that moment the shell burst up. Granddad was contused; a shell splinter cut off his right arm up to the elbow. The others died.

Childhood, diseases and magic recoveries

Written by kalabin. Posted in Urban Shamanism

tambo3Shaman’s Stories. Part 2

My roots sprouted into Siberian land as follows. My mother bore me at the age of 37 from a married man with whom she didn’t communicate any longer. When I asked about my father, I was answered that I had never had any father but had three mothers: Aunt Larisa, mother Lyuda and grandmother (Granny). I believed in it until the age of 13 but then began to hesitate. My friends explained that children are born because of “coition” and not of the Holy Ghost. After asking about the details I made sure of it. Then I first tried to escape from the nest in summer when I went to the sports-labour camp. And at the night before the leaving my mother told me who my father was (not to let guys torment me when asking about my father). But I stopped believing my relatives completely. I tried to forget about grandmother’s stories for a long time and become an independent person, but I failed. The three unhappy women’s love was suffocating: they tried to find in me a father, a brother, a husband-defender and a son – the only continuer of the Clan and the successor of the Veda knowledge. It pressed my breast and throat: bronchial asthma, spinal trauma in the breast section, follicular tonsillitis at the least cold, hemorrhoid.