Learning from books and videos

[Guest guest]

Here's an interesting quote I came across

yesterday about the value of books (and videos), from

vipassana guru S.N. Goenka<br><br>"How can you explain

meditation to others unless you have meditated deeply

yourself? And even if you yourself had understood it

properly, how could you expect others to learn meditation

from a book? They would only burn themselves as surely

as children playing with fire. Better to burn the

books!"<br><br>The full article is at

<a href=http://www.vri.dhamma.org/newsletters/nl9410.html#fire

target=new>http://www.vri.dhamma.org/newsletters/nl9410.html#fire</a>

[Guest guest]

I agree: A book cannot teach you meditation

itself. But at least it can teach you the techniques (the

'how-to-do-it' stuff), or not?<br><br>Posting on books/videos, I

saw that the categorization of resources on Betty

Lai's website as 'approved by Sri K Pattahi Jois as

Traditional Method' and 'not approved' has now been extended

to the tapes section too,

<a href=http://www.ashtanga.com/videos.html

target=new>http://www.ashtanga.com/videos.html</a> . <br><br>According to the

site, only 5 videos

currently available got Guruji's blessing: Lino's

full-vinyasa video, the Yoga Moves tape on primary series, the

2 videos from Yoga Works documenting First & Second

Series, as well as Sharath's demonstration of third

series. <br><br>All the other videos, the popular ones by

Richard Freeman and David Swenson included, failed to get

Sri Jois' approval.

[Guest guest]

In a novel you get many informations, not only

about the technique of the writing itself.You can get a

whole world. - So in a book about yoga you can get also

many informations and not only about the technique. Of

course, if you prefer the book of John Scott, this one is

principally about the right alignment. Take a look in other

books (and I don't want to mention again the book from

Beryl Bender-Birch with a lot of informations, but also

that one from Geeta Iyengar or Mehta Mira...). A book

can contain more infos as some teacher has. Don't

trust books, but don't trust teachers, trust only your

body and practice. For this (long) way we find a lot

around us if we open our eys (for example in the

yoga-journal april-issue, where on side 8 Kathryn Arnold is

talking about judgement, in item that is very big in this

board! Very insightful, very inspiring! Senor PW could

really pin it over his bed; but probably he sleeps on a

mat from jivamukti...). - Lu