Joga w kontekstach kulturowych 2
Yoga in cultural contexts 2
Contributor(s): Anna Gomóła (Editor), Kamila Gęsikowska (Editor)
Subject(s): Social Sciences, Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Sociology, Health and medicine and law
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: yoga; culture; religion; sociology; psychology
Summary/Abstract: Yoga in cultural contexts 2 is a publication associated with a joint project (realised since 2013) of the Department of the Theory and History of Culture of the University of Silesia and of the Department of the Management of Sport and Tourism of the Jerzy Kukuczka Academy of Physical Education in Katowice. Within the framework of this project annual scholarly interdisciplinary paper-workshop conferences are organised (since 2014). These are meetings of researchers who represent inter alia the humanities, social sciences and the sciences of physical education) with the people who practice yoga.The conferences are followed up by publications; although these are not conference volumes strictly speaking; the articles which are featured there are considerably extended versions of papers and the works which are submitted to the editors. In 2016 Wydawnictwo AWF in Katowice published the first volume: Yoga in cultural contexts 1 (ed. Janusz Szopa, Aleksandra Budzisz).Yoga in cultural contexts 2 is also an interdisciplinary work; it contains the works of specialists in the field of cultural studies, indologists, specialists in the field of religion, sociologists and psychologists. There are texts which are devoted to yoga as a complex system of beliefs and practices which are deeply rooted in the cultural context of India as well as to yoga as a phenomenon which gains increasingly greater momentum in the culture of the West. The monograph is supplemented by a dictionary which familiarises the reader with concepts which are important for the problems in question.
Series: Nauki społeczne
- E-ISBN-13: 978-83-226-3114-0
- Print-ISBN-13: 978-83-226-3113-3
- Page Count: 190
- Publication Year: 2017
- Language: Polish
O kontekście kulturowym
O kontekście kulturowym
(The cultural context)
- Author(s):Ewa Kosowska
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Social Sciences, Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Sociology, Health and medicine and law
- Page Range:9-16
- No. of Pages:8
- Keywords:yoga; cultural context
- Summary/Abstract:The concept of the cultural context became firmly established in the anthropological discourse in the second half of the 20th century, inter alia as a result of the inspiration furnished by linguistic pursuits. Contextual research, both in linguistics and inanthropology, refers by the very nature of things to the patterns of behaviour which were formed in the past. The development of the particular ethnic languages which generated peculiar systems of communication of a particular group of users was associated during a relatively long period of time with the development of relatively dissimilar cultures, whose carriers quite frequently recognised familiar solutions, transmitted from one generation to another, as the only legitimate and worthwhile ones. The principle “one’s own – foreign” demanded to honour not only the output of one’s own community but also to treat it as model output, which was supposed to be disseminated among other people (cultural expansion) or at least to be protected against foreign influence (cultural safeguarding). Inter-group contacts, which resulted in the percolation of subjects, patterns of behaviour, and ideas between cultures, which were familiar for a long time, which assume various forms, and which nowadays are disseminated on an unprecedented scale, were not held in all periods in such high estimation as they are today. Therefore the development of the particular cultures, relatively isolated ones and left to their own devices to a considerable extent, proceeded at various rates and brought about the diversity which on the one hand the adherents of globalisation attempt to minimise, and on the other hand – to use in pursuit of optimal, commonly effective solutions. The accomplishments of scientific and technical civilisation continue to unify the material layer of many cultures of the world, suggesting in an indirect way that in other dimensions such unification is not only possible but even inevitable. However, we are dealing with processes and mechanisms whose functioning eludes control and sometimes makes itself manifest in unexpected ways.Therefore as we examine closer this complex phenomenon, which became the object of the attention of the participants of the conference and as we study the possible range of adaptation of yoga in Europe, it is worthwhile to remember about the diverse cultural contexts which nowadays influence the extent to which its particular elements/aspects/ dimensions are understood and accepted.
- Price: 4.50 €
O mudrze khećari i pierwotnym obliczu hathajogi
O mudrze khećari i pierwotnym obliczu hathajogi
(About the khećari mudra and the original image of the hathayoga)
- Author(s):Dagmara Wasilewska
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Social Sciences, Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Sociology, Health and medicine and law
- Page Range:17-36
- No. of Pages:20
- Keywords:the history of hathayoga; the practice of the mudras; khećari
- Summary/Abstract:At the beginning hathayoga was an ascetic discipline which was not associated with any specific school of philosophy. The oldest forms of hathayoga which appear in textsconstituted practices which might be referred to collectively as mudras, literally “seals” i.e. physical techniques by means of which the first hathayogins controlled the life forces in the form of breath, kundalini and semen. One of the more important mudras of this original canon was the khećari mudra, which enabled the apprentice to calm his mind, to stop the life substance identified with the nectar of immortality (amrita) in his body and/or to relish this nectar, which was supposed to ensure health and immortality and induce him into a state of profound mystical integration.The article presents the early yogic practice of khećari mudra and on the basis of this example indicates the particular features and the purposes of the early hathayoga which included, among other things and apart the attainment of supernatural powers (siddhi) and corporal immortality – liberation. The article also directs the attention of the reader to the misunderstandings, present in the social consciousness of the West, in reference to the nature of hathayoga and its formative influences, among other things, the belief about its purely physical nature, and the act of putting hathayoga in opposition toward Patanjali’s yoga or ascribing to hathayoga an exclusively auxiliary role in reference to rajayoga, for the most recent publications of such researchers as James Mallinson, Jason Birch or Mark Singleton cast a completely new light on the history and the development of this branch of yoga.
- Price: 4.50 €
Joga klasyczna a joga posturalna – czy coś je łączy?
Joga klasyczna a joga posturalna – czy coś je łączy?
(Classical yoga and postural yoga – are they linked in any way?)
- Author(s):Natalia Stala
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Social Sciences, Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Sociology, Health and medicine and law
- Page Range:37-49
- No. of Pages:13
- Keywords:classical yoga; hathayoga; postural yoga; asana; samadhi; liberation
- Summary/Abstract:The famous commentator of the Yogasutras, Vyasa, compared this treatise to a medical manual which describes a disease (involvement in the wheel of birth and death i.e. the samsara), the cause of this disease (a cognitive error consisting in the failure to perceivethe actual self, the purusha), the state of one’s health (absolute freedom, kaivalya), which may be attained already during a yogin’s lifetime, and the remedy against this disease (yoganga). Therefore at the heart of yoga there lies the assumption that it is a practice which is a remedy, it has its therapeutical application. However, when we discuss yoga, we must take into consideration the notion that it is a radical therapy which causes a complete disappearance of suffering, which is equivalent to liberation from the bounds of the wheel of birth and death. The article discusses the problems associated with the reception of yoga in the West, with its deformation and departure from a radical therapy toward a therapy of the body and the mind. The author makes reference to a researcher of this problem, Mark Singleton, who performs an in-depth analysis of the process of the development of new trends in yoga. He claims that the only common element which links classical yoga with modern varieties of yoga (he refers to them as instances of “postural yoga”) is the use of the term “yoga”.The great tree of yoga consists of many branches. One of such branches is hathayoga, which developed by assuming the form of modern postural yoga. It refers to Patanjali’s teachings, but if we examine it closer, it turns out that it constitutes a system which departed considerably from the teachings of its supposed originator. Patanjali emphasized primarily meditation; the most important practice was constituted by sanyama i.e. the three last parts of yoga: dharana, dhyana and samadhi. The modern trends in postural yoga emphasise above all asana, thus making yoga a particular form of gymnastics. The emergence of postural yoga is associated with the influence of tantric hathayoga which revived in the 19th century, and with the gymnastics and body building practices which were fashionable in the West and in India at that time. However, postural yoga is not an esoteric practice which requires initiation. Moreover, the relation with the teacher is irrelevant.
- Price: 4.50 €
Wczesne informacje na temat jogi w wielkopolskich periodykach medycznych
Wczesne informacje na temat jogi w wielkopolskich periodykach medycznych
(Early information about yoga in Wielkopolska-based medical periodicals)
- Author(s):Kamila Gęsikowska
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Social Sciences, Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Sociology, Health and medicine and law
- Page Range:51-66
- No. of Pages:16
- Keywords:Poznańskie Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Nauk [The Poznań Association of the Friends of Science]; “Nowiny Lekarskie”; Franciszek Chłapowski; Wacław Zaremba; Yoga; hypnosis; ayurveda
- Summary/Abstract:The first pieces of information about yoga in the Polish lands are associated with the figure of Witold Lutosławski and his work Rozwój potęgi woli [The development of the power of will] (1909). However, the information about yoga appeared slightly earlier in Poznań-based medical press. “Nowiny Lekarskie” – a periodical of the Medical Department of the Poznań Association of the Friends of Science, appeared since January 1889. It featured articles by Wacław Zaremba and Franciszek Chłapowski. In an article by Zaremba which was part of a series known as Pogląd na stan sztuki lekarskiej w Indjach starożytnych [The opinion about the state of the medical arts in ancient India] and which appeared in issue no. 8 published in 1890, mentioned yoga in reference to ayurveda, when it compared the medical methods and practices of the East and the West concerning the materia medica (the knowledge about the medical properties of substances). Chłapowski (Sen Yoga fakirów indyjskich, issue no. 3 published in 1895) described hypnosis as a therapeutical method, comparing it with the states of awareness attained by practising yogins.
- Price: 4.50 €
Listy o jodze. Wincenty Lutosławski do Williama Jamesa
Listy o jodze. Wincenty Lutosławski do Williama Jamesa
(Letters on Yoga. Correspondence of Wincenty Lutosławski to William James)
- Author(s):Agata Świerzowska
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Social Sciences, Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Sociology, Health and medicine and law
- Page Range:67-92
- No. of Pages:26
- Keywords:Lutosławski; James; yoga; Vivekananda; correspondence
- Summary/Abstract:Wincenty Lutosławski (1863–1954) – the Polish philosopher, writer, publicist, andabove all social activist, whom – as he believed – the providence entrusted a special mission – to lead the Polish nation to freedom, maintained a long‑term friendship with the American philosopher and psychologist William James (1842–1910). The eloquent, though still unexplored evidenced of this relationship are the letters that Lutosławski wrote for almost seventeen years to his friend. Lutosławski’s letters cover many various issues ranging from the mundane, though for the Polish philosopher important, financial problems to the sophisticated philosophical issues. One of the important themes appearing in the correspondence is also yoga, which Lutosławski discovered and, at least for some time, thought to be the solution for all his and his nation’s problems. Although James was never a yoga enthusiast and did not share Lutosławski’s passion for this discipline was well acquainted with the system, personally met Swami Vivekananda (recognized by Lutosławski as one of the best exponents of yoga) and was a sensitive and sympathetic reader of the Polish philosopher’s “yogic confessions”. The article is an initial attempt to present the main yoga themes appearing in the letters addressed by Lutosławski to James. They were placed in a wider context of Lutosławski’s thought to show the gradual emergence of the idea of yoga as a system designed to enable rebuilding and reviving the Polish nation, the system described by the Polish philosopher in his pioneering yoga book Rozwój potęgi woli [The Development of the Power of Will] (Warsaw 1909).
- Price: 4.50 €
Nieśmiertelna dusza, rytmiczne oddychanie i posłannictwo narodu. O podręczniku Wincentego Lutosławskiego
Nieśmiertelna dusza, rytmiczne oddychanie i posłannictwo narodu. O podręczniku Wincentego Lutosławskiego
(The immortal soul, rhythmical breathing and the mission of the people. Wincenty Lutosławski’s manual)
- Author(s):Anna Gomóła
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Social Sciences, Sociology, Health and medicine and law
- Page Range:93-120
- No. of Pages:28
- Keywords:a yoga manual; Rozwój potęgi woli; Wincenty Lutosławski; the will
- Summary/Abstract:The article is devoted to the book entitled Rozwój potęgi woli by Wincenty Lutosławski (1863–1954), a philosopher and a national activist. The book, considered the first Polish yoga manual, appeared three times in print during the author’s lifetime: in 1909, 1910and 1923. If one is to study the problem of Lutosławski’s attitude to yoga – and the authorused to change his attitude – one must take into account the chronological sequence of editions.In Rozwój potęgi woli Lutosławski treated yoga as a method and not as a main educationalgoal, although he admitted that the exercises which were presented enabled him to recuperate. He crafted scholarly reflection about yoga by means of the study of a few people who managed to “remodel and transform their bodies”, but he was interested above all in the problem (which was relevant at that time) of the will of man in the context of his capabilities. He also planned to prepare an extended edition of his work (in two volumes), but after the first edition published in 1909 achieved success he decided to publish further editions which featured slight modifications (1910).In order to familiarise the Polish reader with the yogic system which arose in other cultural traditions he argued that Polish elements and Hindu elements, even though they were apart geographically, shared points of convergence. The fragment which is devoted to this is featured in all editions. However, in the edition which was published in 1923 its tenor was undermined by three new chapters (Fasting, Prayer, Divine service ) and the Preface to the Third Edition, in which the author explained that he agreed to Rozwój potęgi woli to be published on condition that the earlier text would be extended. The Preface to the Third Edition lacks emphasis of similarities; it emphasises differences; Lutosławski warned his Polish readers against choosing methods of action which are peculiar to other cultures, for these methods would prevent the realisation of the thing which he referred to as the national mission. In the Divine service chapter he stated that the yoga of the Hindu is not appropriate for Poles. The preface and the last three chapters of the third edition undermine the value of the recommendations provided by the author in the chapters which were developed at the beginning of the 20th century. In spite of this, due to his activities associated with publications and lectures, Lutosławski influenced the interest in yoga in the inter-war period.
- Price: 4.50 €
Perspektywa światów społecznych w interpretacji świata hathajogi
Perspektywa światów społecznych w interpretacji świata hathajogi
(The perspective of social worlds in the interpretation of the hatha‑yoga)
- Author(s):Krzysztof T. Konecki
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Social Sciences, Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Sociology, Health and medicine and law
- Page Range:121-148
- No. of Pages:28
- Keywords:Social World; symbolic interactionism; hatha‑yoga; legitimization process; arenas
- Summary/Abstract:The goal of the paper is analysis of the current situation of the practice of hatha‑yoga in the Western countries with the use of the sociological perspective of social worlds (the concept of Anselm Strauss). The social world is a form of social association basedon shared interests and some primery activity that is performed by individuals, and theprimary activity defines their attachment to the world. The social world of hatha‑yoga isdescribed on the basis of studies and analyzes carried out in 2008–2012. The paper deals also with the issue of influence of traditional Hindu culture on the present form of yoga and controversies related to the “dogmatic” interpretation of the direct transmission of hatha yoga from India to the Western world (the paradox of “mutual influence” presented by Mark Singleton). One part of the article describes the intersection of the social world of yoga with other worlds and sub‑words: mass culture, sports, the world of mountain climbing, business, medicine, etc.
- Price: 4.50 €
Wybrane aspekty zbieżności i rozbieżności antropologii jogi z antropologią Zachodu
Wybrane aspekty zbieżności i rozbieżności antropologii jogi z antropologią Zachodu
(Selected aspects of the instances of convergence and divergence between yoga and the anthropology of the West)
- Author(s):Mirosław Harciarek
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Social Sciences, Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Sociology, Health and medicine and law
- Page Range:149-156
- No. of Pages:8
- Keywords:yoga; philosophical anthropology; the anthropology of yoga; Karol Wojtyła
- Summary/Abstract:The work features an attempt at comparing the concept of man, which was developed by the system of yoga, with the approach to this problem offered by the cultureof the West. Attention was directed to the convergence of these propositions, within which the bi-aspectual understanding of man and a phenomenological approach to the cognition of his psyche was classified, whereas the differences within these systems include anthropocentric, subjective and soteriological understanding of man within the framework of the system of yoga and the natural science and a third-person approach to the study of man proposed by scholarship developed in the West. A comparison of the systems that are discussed indicates, on the one hand, the complementary nature of these approaches, and on the other hand the anthropological universals which are visible in the instances of convergence of these perspectives. The latter is pointed out in the conclusion.
- Price: 4.50 €
Słownik wybranych pojęć, tekstów i osób
Słownik wybranych pojęć, tekstów i osób
(Słownik wybranych pojęć, tekstów i osób)
- Contributor(s):Anna Gomóła (Editor), Kamila Gęsikowska (Editor)
- Language:Polish
- Subject(s):Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Sociology
- Page Range:157-175
- No. of Pages:19
- Price: 4.50 €