Guest guest Posted March 9, 2001 Report Share Posted March 9, 2001 Why do ashtangis avoid practice on moon days? I had a great practice this morning (started ashtanga 6 weeks ago)and was thinking that I was carrying an extra peaceful and centered feeling, when I noticed the full moon on the way into work?<br><br>I don't remember any avoidance of moon days when I was doing Iyengar-type yoga. Is there a rationale?<br><br>Namaste,<br><br>Jim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 9, 2001 Report Share Posted March 9, 2001 <<Why do ashtangis avoid practice on moon days?>><br><br>tradition. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 9, 2001 Report Share Posted March 9, 2001 yogimac,<br><br>That's a question I asked myself too many times, because as far as I know, you will find no mention of a moon-day rule anywhere in the ancient yoga texts.<br><br>So I can only speculate - two reasons why astangis avoid practice on moon days come to my mind:<br>1 - Sri K Pattabhi Jois' father was an astrologer.<br>2 - K.P. Jois was born on the full moon day of July 1915.<br><br>It follows that astrology had an important role already in Jois' family since his birth, which may have led KPJ later to make it part of his own hatha-yoga system.<br><br>The moon-day rule may seem quite irrational to our modern western minds - but then, every hatha-yoga style has its own pecularities, and ultimately it's those seemingly irrational rules which add charm to the practice of yoga. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 9, 2001 Report Share Posted March 9, 2001 A great way to understand why moon days are avoided is to experiment on yourself. You can feel the energy change if you practice on these days. I tend to push too hard on full moon days, thus making myself open to injury, and new moon days make me feel too lethargic to finish my practice. This is my experience, so after many months of ignoring "tradition," I have become traditional. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 9, 2001 Report Share Posted March 9, 2001 <<A great way to understand why moon days are avoided is to experiment on yourself.>><br><br>That is impossible, unless you are 'blinded' so that you don't know whether it actually is a moon day or not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 9, 2001 Report Share Posted March 9, 2001 I read somewhere recently (have had my nose in so many books about yoga in the time i'm not practicing - please forgive that i don't recall which one) that astangis do not practice on moon days so that there will always be a time to practice non-attachment.<br><br>Something to ponder... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 9, 2001 Report Share Posted March 9, 2001 I wonder if we'd feel these effects of the moon days if we weren't aware of the calendar, and how we're supposed to feel.<br><br>Personally, I think astrology is a wonderful way to open the mind to the Cosmic. However, I have very little belief in any of the specific claims of astrology to predicting human behavior or even human energy levels. As far as I'm aware, not one scientific study has ever borne out the notion that human behavior is any different during the full or new moons than it is during any other time of the lunal phases. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 9, 2001 Report Share Posted March 9, 2001 Scientific study, there's your problem right there. How many scientific studies bear out the benefits of yoga either? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 9, 2001 Report Share Posted March 9, 2001 Just off the top of my head, you have M.D. Dean Ornish's observations of the healthful effects of yoga and diet on cardiovascular disease.<br><br>What we do not have is anything (except certain marginal evidence detailed in Ken Wilber's book ONE TASTE) to corroborate the idea that celestial bodies have any effect on us.<br><br>If it were true that -- to cite the grossest legendary example of celestial influence -- the phases of the moon affected the psyche, then science could *easily* tell us this were so.<br><br>But there is no statistical evidence that this is so, whatsoever. Contrary to legend, crime rates do not go up near the full moon; crime rates do not abate near the new moon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 10, 2001 Report Share Posted March 10, 2001 anecdotal perhaps -- but emergency room and police precinct personnel report heavily increased activity during full moons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 10, 2001 Report Share Posted March 10, 2001 anecdotal perhaps -- but emergency room and police precinct personnel report heavily increased activity during full moons. <br><br>Not just anecdotal, but mythical and incorrect:<br><br><a href=http://www.mwsc.edu/~psych/research/psy302/spring96/larryreno.html target=new>http://www.mwsc.edu/~psych/research/psy302/spring96/larryreno.html</a\ > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 10, 2001 Report Share Posted March 10, 2001 So Srewgee, When Patanjali speaks of siddhis for instance do you consider this superstition also? Perhaps Dr. Dean Ornish will find the chakras soon too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 10, 2001 Report Share Posted March 10, 2001 "When Patanjali speaks of siddhis for instance do you consider this superstition also?"<br><br>Yes. Unless you consider hopping in lotus to be levitation!<br><br><br><br>"People believe most what they understand least" -- Eric Hoffer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 15, 2001 Report Share Posted March 15, 2001 If you are doing your practice 6 days a week you will welcome the extra days of rest the moon days provide.<br><br>When you sail a boat, as long as the pressure is even against the sail, the boat is stable and moves along steadily. When the boat turns and comes about to tack in another direction it is momentarily quite vulnerable and off balance. That moment is analogous to full and new moons, when the effects of the moon shifted.<br><br>In my humble opinion, of course. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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