A yogology concept: 4 branches of avidya

Avidya literally means “incorrect comprehension”. Avidya is expressed and experienced in 4 different ways:

1. Asmita (ego): “I have to be better than other people”.
2. Raga (attachment): We want something today because it was pleasant yesterday, not because we really need it today. 
3. Dvesa (refusal): We have a difficult experience and we are afraid of repeating it.
4. Abhinivesa (fear): We feel uncertain. We have doubts about our position in life.

The goal of yoga is to reduce the film of avidya. Yoga means acting in such a way that all of our attention is directed toward the activity we are currently engaged. Where we are attentive to our actions we are not prisoners of our habits; we do not need to do something today simply because we did it yesterday.

It is a classic yoga concept, very close to ecology. Yogology = yoga + ecology.

T.K.V. Desikachar, The Heart of Yoga

4 Rs

Reuse, recycle, reduce, refuse.

The Long Tail

An Amazon employee described the Long Tail as follows: “We sold more books today that didn’t sell at all yesterday than we sold today of all the books that did sell yesterday.”

Mr Woo’s robots

Cited in Idearium

Heinz von Forster’s Cybernetics and Circularity

A selection of Heinz von Forster’s aphorisms:

The Hermeneutic Principle: “The hearer, not the speaker determines the meaning of an utterance.”

Jean Piaget’s Epistemological Postulate: “He who organises his experience organises the world”.

The Constructivist Postulate: “Experience is the cause, the world is the consequence.”

The Realist Postulate: “The World is the cause, experience is the consequence.”

The Logic of the World Principle: “The logic of the world is the logic of descriptions (of the world).”

http://www.cybsoc.org/heinz.htm

A koan cited by Stephan Micus

Koans are short stories used by Japanese Zen masters to confront their students with the limitations of the rational mind and experience the liberation that results from approaching the world with an insight that goes beyond it.

“Believing to have understood something about the essence of life, a monk left his monastery at a young age to travel through China. After many years, on his return his old master asked him: ‘Tell me about the essence of life!’ The monk answered: ‘ When there are no clouds over the mountain the moonlight penetrates the ripples of the lake.’ The master looked at his former disciple in anger: ‘You are getting old, your hair is grey, you have just a few teeth left and still you have no understanding of life.’ The monk lowered his eyes, tears streaming over his face. After a few minutes he asked: ‘Please, would you tell me the essence of life?’ ‘When there are no clouds over the mountain,’ responded the master, ’the moonlight penetrates the ripples of the lake!’