Читать книгу The Book of Rest - James Reeves - Страница 19

There is a history to the teachings and the terminology we are sharing with you (and then asking you to unlearn), but more importantly there is a mystery. Some traditions of yoga consider consciousness as being personal or separate from life itself, while other teachings called this theory into question and after further exploration determined it to be a quality that seems all pervasive. The yogis’ experiences of awareness brought the insight that it was utterly impersonal, though entirely inclusive; that what we are at our most essential is actually universal, all pervasive and utterly unified.

If you enjoy particle physics (and what’s not to love?!) then you’ll know that science is forever changing and shifting its theory on what, ultimately, we’re all made from (and by ‘we’, we mean us, the planet, the solar system and beyond – everything ever). Some theories are moving closer towards determining that we are all one and the same thing, flashing in and out of existence, in a space that is bound neither by space nor time. This is interesting in relation to what we’re trying to point you towards in this book, but it’s still just theory.

We cannot write about rest without discussing its apparent counteragent, energy. In the traditions from which many of our teachings come there are certainly references to energy that do not marry with the scientific observations on the subject. Science defines energy not as a ‘thing’ but as a measurement of an object’s capacity for doing work, whereas new age and esoteric communities talk about energy as though it were a separate entity – a ‘life force’ or ‘qi’ – capable of moving through time and space and affecting objects as it does, perhaps charging them up ‘positively’, or healing them somehow.

Some people expect yoga and meditation to take them on a journey where they will eventually experience some kind of heavenly fanfare and this life force will reveal itself to them. Some people believe they have special powers that enable them to see such forces. We can entertain the idea that they possibly do (and possibly don’t), but that doesn’t help the vast majority of us who either don’t believe in such energy or do but have never witnessed it. We like to work with observations and enquiries that anyone can do right now.

Therefore, with a nod to a tradition that’s at least 3,000 years old and a thumbs up to the science that is excited by the fact that everything might be the same thing, even though we have no idea what that thing is, we have permission to lean into the vast mystery that resides beyond current knowledge and reason.