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Author: SY Jason
Sent: Monday, December 31, 2001 10:48
AM
In thinking about how to best play this role
for others, a new phrase
came to light last night: "21st Century Yoga." Yoga is designed to be a
universal system of holistic education, a process that helps one tap
into the divine energy within through intellectual inquiry, altruistic
acts, devotional practice, and the meditation and physical exercises
that have been popularized in the west. There is a great emphasis on
unity and harmony between the mind, body, and spirit. My question is
this: how is the process of this harmonization affected by the
integration of our minds with the information appliances we have begun
to integrate into our lives? Perhaps I am peculiarly enthusiastic
about technology, but I definitely see my computer as an extension of my
mind. I even run a piece of software called "PersonalBrain" that allows
me to visually map concepts, web pages, and files on my computer so that
it stores information more similarly to my biological brain. Microsoft
Outlook, with all of its tools for "personal information management" has
become a prosthetic of my memory and my communicative voice. I believe
there is a "yoga" for the new cybernetic self that emerges, a discipline
of insight into the way we organize our thoughts and our data, a
discipline of manipulating the boundaries of ego as we immerse ourselves
in virtual and interconnected worlds. In the corporate world, this
discipline overlaps with the nascent trend of "knowledge management,"
but the latter falls short.
To be a silicon yogi, one would have to master the tools of information
and knowledge management and learn how to so deeply integrate them into
one's habits and life that we would cease to know where the brain stops
and the chip begins. One would teach others about the tools and
possibilities, when to use the machine and when NOT to use the machine
as a mental prosthetic. The greatest wisdom will lie in the knowledge
of when to step away from the silicon. And I believe one would develop
the software and interfaces further to facilitate people's harmonious
use of technology for personal growth. It is to push myself in these
directions that I am currently applying to graduate programs in
educational technology at several schools of education (Stanford,
Harvard, Berkeley, and Northwestern). Exciting research and design are
afoot, but I have yet to see great efforts to develop practice and
discipline.
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I extracted words from each Yogi's web work and then summarized it as a birth day
card:
Concepts:
student, friends, listening,
life, community, practices, education, Ghana, religion.
Summary:
It's inspired by the following
incredible quote from Hoder:I'm like Iranian cab drivers who every
weekend start to work on their old Peykans, to make it nicer and more comfortable.
So I spent all of the Thanksgiving holiday reading Bakhtin's insane, but insanely good,
Discourse in the Novel, (from The Dialogic Imagination) to prepare for writing my first anthro of
religion paper.
It's called "Dialogic Convictions: How Beliefs are Constituted and Contested in Dialogue".
It would analyze blogs for traces of influence from practices in real-world settings, and
investigate discontinuities in the coherent reproduction of these practices in the blogging
community as a result of differences in the mediums of interaction and the qualities of the
communities in the real and virtual arenas.
It analyzes how the bloggerâ¬(TM)s participation in the real-world sociocultural practices
that
characterize heyâ¬(TM)at religious ceremonies and Basij student activism may have shaped
his blogging practice and the social interactions in his virtual community.
For the past two years or so I've gradually learned to listen, to engage in life as a conversation
with God.
Nataniel, my spiritual mentor, sees a fundamental equivalence between Sufism and Hassidism,
the two traditions from which we draw: both teach how to be a holy listener.
At 7 a.m., I stood on the corner along the main street through Olympia, Greece, beside two
Albanian men and my traveling Swiss friend, Christoph.
With the sun setting, the colors of the countryside brilliantly lit up, and the taste of a foreign
country on all my senses, I must admit the thought of joining these workers felt exciting,
romantic even.
We spread the tarps out below the chosen tree as Igor (one of my Albanian friends, and fellow
worker) climbed the tree with a chain saw.
It was then that the fox appeared.
It is my hope that these aspects will bear fruit for the Ghana Project and facilitate collaboration
with others at work in and around Ghana.
The events that have unfolded in the last four weeks alone are staggering when taken in their
cumulative effect: a series of meetings with top officials in the Ministry of Education, at the
community level, among local politicians, business leaders, and educators, among an unofficial
corps of international development workers whose backgrounds include work with USAID, the
World Bank, DfID, and Peace Corps, all have contributed to one another, emerging in a
beautiful constellation of incredibly capable people.
I have begun the most crucial work that will ensure a strong foundation for the Manya Krobo
Education and Technology Initiative (MKETI) project's success: gathering all relevant
stakeholders within the community under auspices of the Paramount Chief, Nene Konor Sakite
II; the Traditional Council; the Manya Krobo District Assembly; the Office of the District Chief
Executive; the District Director of Education; and the Office of the Director General (Ghana
Education Services/Ministry of Education).
There was a lot of emotion in there.
In order to do that, the performer has to discern carefully and be able to micro-manage the
subtle inflections in music in order to construct an architectural presentation.
MATT; um, yeah, I think that it would make one have to consciously acknowledge and face
their teaching systems.
I mean, and, um, at the very least it gives you three other different perspectives of the music
and if it was my student, it would give me three different perspectives of how to teach that
student.
LOU; I think it's more valuable definitely for the people who are sitting here involved, though,
than somebody, if it was just another teacher listening in.
KATE; if they're not part of the discussion group, then it would be ok.
MATT; I mean, I could see why he would do that, you know, maybe he would want people to
understand that if they make those kinds of criticisms you should expect that the same kinds
of criticisms would come back to you.
As opposed to, you know, your own personality.
My family is full of musicians, I have been surrounded by musicians for my whole life, I have
two conservatory degrees, and earn my living from playing and teaching music.
After spending many hours with this transcript and in reflection on my own assumptions, I have
some speculations.
Whether it is particular to my small circle of friends, musicians as a group, or a larger cultural
group, this kind of "critical" process is probably not good for us.
I do not think that their conversation would be particularly valuable to the student who made the
recording.
In fact, I think it might be difficult and maybe damaging (to use the panelists' word) for her to
read the transcript. |
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Alireza
is a comrade whom I work with on a daily basis. When I doubt he believes and when I
believe he doubts. Who can ask more of friendship. |
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See me and
know yourself, because through
you, I know me.
Who is this PeeP?
Thaddeus Golas: I Am I/I Are You
We are equal beings and the universe is our relations
with each other. The universe is made of one kind of
entity: each one is alive, each determines the course of his own existence.
The universe is made of one kind of whatever-it-is, which cannot be defined. For our purpose, it isn't
necessary to try to define it. All we need to do is assume that there is only one kind of whatever-it-is,
and
see if it leads to a reasonable explanation for the world as we know it.
The basic function of each being is expanding and contracting. Expanded beings are permeative, contracted
beings are dense and impermeative. Therefore each of us, alone or in combination, may appear as space,
energy, or mass, depending on the ratio of expansion to contraction chosen, and what kind of vibrations
each of us expresses by alternating expansion and contraction. Each being controls his own vibrations.
A completely expanded being is space...When a being is totally contracted, he is a mass particle, completely
imploded...When a being is alternating between expansion and contraction, he is energy...The universe
is
an infinite harmony of vibrating beings in an elaborate range of expansion-contraction ratios, frequency
modulations, and so forth.
What we need to remember is that there is nobody here but us chickens. The entire universe is made up
of
beings just like ourselves.
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To My Chavruta,
Chavruta o Matuta:
The Talmud goes so far as to say, "chavruta o matuta" -- a study partner or death. "Death"
in
this context means wasting time and opportunities.
A chavruta is a study-partner. Learning first in a large group and then in pairs, we will unpack
hidden meanings in texts about God, God’s love for us, our love for each other and what
Kedushah (holiness) is all about. A friend should be for life. Choose a friend who seeks truth,
and whose goals and values you respect.
The definition of friendship is loyalty. Choose a friend who seeks truth, for when we can
unconceal the loyalties of ourselves and in each other while in the hand of friendship work,
progress, and learning all take place.
If there has been a reason for me to come to Harvard it was so that I may finally to have a
chavruta with whom I can explore Kedushah.
Thank you Jason |
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THE FIRST DUINO ELEGY
by Rainer Maria Rilke
Who, though I cry aloud,
would hear me in the angel orders?
And should my plea ascend,
were I gathered to the glory
of some incandescent heart,
my own faint flame of being
would fail for the glare.
Beauty is as close to terror
as we can well endure.
Angels would not condescend
to damn our meagre souls.
That is why they awe
and why they terrify us so.
Every angel is terrible!
And so I constrain myself and
swallow the deep, dark music
of my own impassioned plea. |
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"It was the best of times, it was the worst
of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of
foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity..."-- |
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1. I
