shoshin wrote:Yes, everybody IS superior! There's a chapter in Harari's new book ("21 Lessons for the 21st Century") called "Humility." Did you know that the Abraham invented yoga? Yes, those poses are all derivatives of Hebrew letters! Among other delicious insights, it's a wonderful read.
http://www.jewishindependent.ca/oldsite ... 22-08.html
Feb. 22, 2008
Abraham - Hebrew letters - Yoga / Bible animated by the body
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Rabbi mixes kabbalah study with the Indian practice of yoga.
KELLEY KORBIN
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Kabbalah refers to a series of mystical teachings and interpretations
of the Torah and Jewish practice. At first glance, it might seem that
kabbalah and the ancient Indian practice of yoga are an unlikely
match. Not so, according to Audi Gozlan, who will be coming to
Vancouver at the end of the month to present his alef-bet yoga
technique.
Gozlan, a Montreal lawyer and an Orthodox Chassidic Jew with an
interest in kabbalah, began to develop his uniquely Jewish yoga
technique five years ago, after he had been practising traditional
yoga for many years.
He told the Independent that he had a revelation one day while he was
doing the Warrior II pose, or Virabhadrasana II, that he was actually
shaping into the Hebrew letter aleph. From that point, he said, he
began to see other Hebrew letters in the poses and, eventually, over a
long period of time, he developed a full set of poses that formed the
entire Hebrew alphabet.
In alef-bet yoga, participants use yoga positions and the traditional
yoga focus of breathing, meditation and posture to express specific
Hebrew letters or words.
"Not just the Hebrew letters, but we do a sequence of meaningful
words; for example, we'll do the words lech lech'a, [which] means
'discover yourself inside out.' I saw the letters that spelled lech
lech'a in the yoga salutations," he said.
This is where the kabbalistic aspect of the practice comes in –
because, as Gozlan explained, "the Hebrew letters, this 5,000 year old
tradition, is not just for reading, writing or learning, but it is
something that can physically heal us. And we know this about the
Hebrew letters – kabbalah tells us that the Hebrew letters are the
energy channels that created the world and that these letters are
constantly creating and animating everything out of nothing.
"According to kabbalah, the way the world was created was by God
pronouncing these words like mantras and the letters themselves became
the existence of everything in heaven and earth. So kabbalah says that
these letters are energetic and kabbalah yoga teaches that when you do
yoga according to the Hebrew letters you are energizing your body with
the power of the Hebrew letters."
Although the concept is different from usual yoga practices, anyone
familiar with some of the more than 1,000 yoga postures will recognize
many of Gozlan's poses – some of which have slight variations from
their Indian forms.
So how does Gozlan reconcile ancient Jewish beliefs with the Indian
traditions? He has done a lot of research and even penned a book,
entitled Gifts of Abraham: The Untold Story of Brahma, where he
details the theory that, after Sarah died, when Abraham sent his six
children away from Isaac, he sent them to the east, to India, and that
Abraham was actually Brahma, the Indian god of creation and the father
of the Brahmans. Brahma, by the way, had a wife called Sarasvati
which, you have to admit, sounds a lot like Sarah.
Rabbi Shmulik Yeshayahu of Vancouver's Ohel Ya'akov Community Kollel,
who is bringing Gozlan to Vancouver, said that when Abraham sent off
the six children, he sent them with a gift – the gift of wisdom.
"The Zohar explained that Abraham was teaching them a lot of the
kabbalist secrets, like meditation and wisdom," said Yeshayahu. "We
know that a lot of the eastern religions like Buddhism and Hinduism
have a lot of parallels with Judaism, like meditation. We know through
the sources that all the prophets reach prophecy through meditation
... if you want to be a holy man, if you want to be in touch with
yourself and you want to have communication with the holy power, you
need to know how to meditate."
Yeshayahu explained that in ancient times these mediation techniques
and secrets were known only to certain holy people: "Now, for the last
500 years and, especially, the last 40 or 50 years, kabbalah is being
known to more people because today we understand that the Western
world is so challenging we need meditation in order to remember who we
are and to get some kind of peaceful moment in our lives." That's
where yoga comes in.
As Gozlan explained, "It's a great way to rediscover your roots as a
Jewish person because you're learning the Hebrew letters as you flow
into exercise. I think at the end of the day really what the Torah is
about is not just a wisdom for the mind but a way of living....
Through kabbalah yoga, you're actually becoming - physically –
everything that the Torah is in theory."
Gozlan travels and gives workshops to groups around North America.
Many of his groups include men and women, a situation that he says
took a while for him to get used to as an Orthodox Jew.
"It took me years to just gain the courage and the focus [to teach men
and women together].... I look at my work as something that needs to
be done and that it's healing and when it comes to healing I think a
doctor, a physiotherapist, these people, whether they're Orthodox or
not, will fulfil their work. Yoga is a healing of the body; it's not
just a social activity."
To learn more about alef-bet yoga visit Gozlan's website at [1]kabalahyoga.com.
Kelley Korbin is a Vancouver freelance writer.