Rajanaka Newsletter February 11 2023

Saturday, February 11, 2023

Aho’Rajanaka,

I hope this finds you well. I’ve been moving books, opening old files, doing veritable archeology in the back office where we’ve been Zooming since March 2020 and also on a carousel ride through more than 30 years of notes and books I’ve keep at the University. For someone so committed to ~~hoarding~~ archiving, I find myself rather chary when it comes to peering deep into the athenaeum. Who lives at the bottom of that well?

There have bee notable unsurprises like the mice who share my Rochester office. Bless them for keeping watch and eating only the odd Pez that lingers in the Yoda Pez dispenser from 1997 that still seems, you know, not too bad in a pinch. Grabbing a decades old Pez from Yoda's throat-cakra may count as a new kind of yoga. But then you know how it is to open a drawer filled with ~~mice~~ photographs and letters and all of those sorts of things? Yikes would be the operative seed-mantra. It might even require ALL CAPS. As in, YIKES. Something about ALL CAPS is really different than that insupportable use of capitals.

Unless it’s the Year of Their Lord 1651 and you’re Thomas Hobbes publishing the interminable polemic called TheLeviathan. You gotta love a guy who Capitalized the First Letter of Every Important Word and who is also known to have spent considerable Time trying to Square The Circle. For reals. You don’t even have to Make Things Up to wonder about that sort of life collecting intellectual obstruents. But then again, here’s a fella who conversed with both Galileo and Descartes though the latter thought Hobbes “aiming to make his reputation at my expense, and by devious means” (Descartes 1641b, 100). Mon Dieu!

Then there are the yogis or Their Spiritual Sources what use use capital letters trying to make Things Somehow More Important? Like Consciousness or the Divine. I propose Lunch. Of course, we must oppose capital punishment on all moral grounds but such abuse of language may warrant exception. Alas, I wander into vexations that have no merit so I will blame The Weather.

There’s been plenty of actual value in what might be otherwise an ill-advised sortie down these memory lanes. I have found dozens of unpublished translations from Tantras buried in dust so thick and recondite that no one else has looked at them since my barely 30-something-self took up this antiquarianism. You, my Rajanaka friends, are the Only Reason I have to believe that someone else might care, even a little, about this Long, Strange Trip. I welcome the future but not without the past. And we have more than a few Strange Trips still left to make.

Here is some of what is coming:

· The Rasa Sessions CONINUE THIS EVENING, Saturday February 11^th, 5pm Eastern. Zoom in. All Saturdays are at 5pm Eastern and always use the same Zoom link: https://rochester.zoom.us/j/95057662268

· Special Weekend Session, The Trimurti, on February 26^th with our hosts Open Sky Yoga, a registration at www.openskyoga.com

· NEW Spring Courses, on Zoom, beginning in March. More about subject this week!!

· Rajanaka Summer Camp, July 6^th-11^th in Bristol, New York. Details VERY SOON.

· India Pilgrimage, December 27^th-January 10^th (dates to be confirmed but start planning here.) Costs will be very very very close to our last trip three years back. We mean to be as affordable as possible.

A minor plea: If there is going to be Summer Camp I need folks to register and offer a down payment to secure our place in the shade. That pre-registration is $200, payable using PayPal or Venmo @ svcourses@gmail.com or PayPal at nallapaampu@gmail.com. Our total cost will not rise from last year and our new venue at Bristol Valley Vineyards is a sure winner. Planning for summer seems almost as impossible as leaving for India after Christmas eleven or so months from now but We Gots to Plan. PLEASE, take a moment, think about the Great Good Fun that is ahead, and Join Us if you can. Worth it. Like nothing else ~~but in a good way.~~

I will return midweek with another newsletter with details of new courses for March, Summer Camp, and India. So’kay? In the meantime, have a Pez, look out for mice and Tantras, and see you very very soon, like tonight for Rasa, tomorrow for Mahabharata, and Thursday for the last Session on Pancamukha Hanuman.

There is a NEW FREE One Hour Conversation this week on the Archive entitled Prana and the Five Pranas, Origins, Meanings and Mudras. (Please download directly from Dropbox, you need not ask to join the folder.) Link: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/qcc7o1wxw69v55iyt5nlf/h?dl=0&rlkey=6jhxlo0i6zp2o69kuoxe8mkh5

ALL Newsletters are now also available on the Kalliyam blogspot. Look here:https://www.blogger.com/blog/posts/382690512817812933

More below the line, all sorts of things to listen and learn. Enjoy the ride.

More soon, /Douglas

**

Sunday Mahabharata has been soooo good, even I think so. I think two weeks back really turned us all inside out (in a good way) Please take that Session for a free download, any time. Here’s the link to that Session: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/nkvjy0o2rsitc0wgmjk1i/h?dl=0&rlkey=p0izd73629z8g54ads5l97hjg

With Mahabharata you get a great story every session whether you have been with us regularly or not even once. We are on break THIS weekend and resume February 12^th.

Sundays are always 5pm Eastern, Zoom links same same:

https://rochester.zoom.us/j/314987250

On February 26^th there will be a special seminar hosted by our pals at Open Sky Yoga on Zoom. Our subject is the Trimurti: Brahma, Visnu, and Shiva and this will be the sort of thing good for both beginners (like your students) and more advanced yogis (umm, you). You can register for this on the Open Sky website: www.openskyyoga.com. Do make time for this one. You’ll dig it like a chuckling.

Below the line are the correct links for the Archives. And all the information you need to download. Tuition is on the honor system. Please use svcourses@gmail.com for Venmo or PayPal or use nallapaampu@gmail.com for Paypal. If you don’t use either send a check in snailmail and we’ll be grateful too (make it out to me, 7296 Gregg Road, Bloomfield, NY 14469). And if you don’t, can’t, or just won’t that’s cool but send me a postcard with your return address and I will send you one back. Who doesn’t like to get a postcard? I love postcards.

You can find all of our Newsletters on the Kalliyam Blogspot here:

https://kalliyam.blogspot.com/2023/01/rajanaka-newsletter-january-10-2023.html

And so much to read on the Rajanaka Sammelana, Rajanaka Adesa, and the Contraiety [SIC] Blogspots, links here:

https://rajanaka.blogspot.com/2023/01/a-story-in-news-rajanaka-past-and.html

https://rajanakadesa.blogspot.com/2023/01/vrata-resolutions-and-new-year.html

https://contraiety.blogspot.com/2022/08/what-you-havent-earned-is-more-important.html

That should give us something to talk about.

See you zoomer or later, and please please take good care, as ever, write to me, I always love to hear from you

Douglas

douglas@rajanaka.com

· *MidWinter Thursdays: Pancamukha Anjaneya, The Five-Face Hanuman of the Tantra

Time: Six Sessions on Thursday Evenings, 7pm Eastern

Dates: January 12 we begin! Jan 12/19/26, then February 9/16/23
ZOOM link for all Thursdays: https://rochester.zoom.us/j/98183733328

Description: No form of Hanuman is more important or less understood and studied than the great Pancamukha. Here Hanuman bears the visage of Varaha the Boar, Garuda the Raptor, Hanuman the Monkey, Narasimha the Lion Man, and Hayagriva the Horse. We will bring this character to life in mythos, mantra, and mudra, in theory and practice, and there will be new stories and work that extends far beyond what we have done before with the Tantric Hanuman. Everyone is welcome. We start at the beginning and we go deep.

Tuition for Six Sessions is $150, payable over time if you need, use PayPal (svcourses@gmail.com or nallapaampu@gmail.com) or Venmo (douglas-brooks-8 or svcourses@gmail.com) If you can’t afford full tuition, talk to me. Your access is guaranteed. Tuition further promises unlimited access to the Recorded Dropbox Archive that will allow you to listen whenever you like. Registration for all is by attendance and tuition is on the honor system.

· *MidWinter Saturday CORE: Rasa in Theory and Practice.

Time: Six Sessions on Saturday Evenings, 5pm Eastern

Dates: January 14 we begin! Jan 14/21/28 then February 11/18/25

ZOOM link for all Saturdays: https://rochester.zoom.us/j/95057662268

Description: Rasa means essence, taste, liquidity, flavor, sentiment, elemental feeling and emotion. At the heart of the study of poetry, Rasa Theory is a remarkable, rich, and complex method of analysis and appreciation of artistry and aesthetics. But rasa is also a roadmap, a process and practice, a method for understanding and exploring our most elemental feelings. Rajanaka has among the most developed and useful rasa traditions of yoga. At the center of every yoga is engagement with feeling and the development of “taste”: rasa is the core of our being and here we learn the way through that labyrinth of essence.

· SUNDAY MAHABHARATA.

EVERY Sunday is a new story, every bit of it makes sense no matter when you choose to attend!

Time: Sessions on Sundays at 5pm Eastern.
Dates: Begins Sunday, January 8^th. Schedule will take us through the winter: Jan 8/15/22/29, Feb 12/19, March 5

ZOOM link is the same for all Sundays:

https://rochester.zoom.us/j/314987250

Tuition: $20 per Session or $15 if you buy a lot of them. Your call. Complete Archive INCLUDING a free Audio book is here:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/bfqt15y3n0uglir/AAAB_89LiCOob0hJI1w8BK7_a?dl=0

· SPECIAL EVENT with François Raoult and Open Sky Yoga

Please pre-register on-line at www.openskyyoga.com

TRIMURTI: The Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva

Time: February 26^th, 9am-1pm EST, $108

Description: The three Hindu gods known as the Trimurti are often cited as providing a model for organization of the universe. Brahma Creates, Vishnu Sustains, and Shiva Destroys. But this very elementary beginning is only the bare outline of a much richer understanding that leads us to a more refined and elaborate vision of the worlds in which we live and the practices of yoga through which we might engage our lives. There are further extensions of the mythic structure that provide relationships with sublime feminine in the form of corresponding goddesses and more far-reaching connections. Within this essential structure is a wealth of symbols, strategies, and concepts that mean to guide us to deeper appreciation and practices that inform a life of yoga. Our seminar will engage the Trimurti imagery to create a foundation for understanding the power of myth and its useful application in our study and practice of yoga. No previous understanding or exposure is required, just an open mind and a willing heart.

Gayatri Mantra

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/r58rwnp3ryxgi6a6y8yme/h?dl=0&rlkey=59kbd7hjdrl8n809zv8becmdi

Lalita 1000 Names

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/18o5rtle7p91hz2/AADQnph8ofpPAX5mtW7mX-L4a?dl=0

OM Autobiography

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/11jd30d14ibjjtv3wauaj/h?dl=0&rlkey=1wugbag9m7myo1c50gt6qoa6d

Shakuntala for India

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/osx5n6i9vrz5vi5ek9vch/h?dl=0&rlkey=pa7akqysgrauu07mw9te61yb1

Pancamukha Hanuman

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/d62llefrjvyidefn3uequ/h?dl=0&rlkey=p774e7zbme37d8cc49ocysog2

Rasa Theory

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/d4uwwjw17seca2livd6r2/h?dl=0&rlkey=nh4g7xj6x7skeghw4x6tcsk2c