Zorg's path to NādaYoga
My journey with NādaYoga (The Yoga of Sound) began with mantra meditation. As an undergraduate, I studied Sanskrit and Pāli at Oxford, and then spent a year in India, ending at Swami Lakshmanjoo's ashram in Kashmir. After returning to Oxford, I wrote my PhD thesis on a 10th Century text from the Kashmir Shaivite school of Tantra. A series of chance events led me to become one of the students on the first ever MSc course in AI at Sussex University, which I finished in 1985. And another series of chance events led me to my current job the Berkeley AI Research laboratory on the Dharmamitra project, helping to train an LLM to translate Sanskrit texts. Here's a short piece I wrote about how AI can and will change our sense of self. It was written in late 2022, shortly after ChatGPT and MidJourney exploded into public awareness. But the philosophical themes are unfolding on a much longer timescale...
I have a deep interest in the ways that music can be used for meditation, healing and ceremonial consciousness-raising. I studied Bata drumming with Carolyn Brandy; trained as a TaKeTiNa teacher with Reinhard and Cornelia Flatischler; learned to play jazz on bass, guitar, and keyboards; and practiced co-creating improvised music in a wide variety of settings. My favorite large-scale events have included Pagan Fire Circles and multiple Burning Man performances. Sometimes I also enjoy practicing polyrhythms in the woods!
Dance and movement is almost as powerful a motivator for me as music. I began recording my blessings for Health, Happiness, Love, and Wisdom several years after learning to spin fire poi on stilts. The video below illustrates some of that learning process. In particular, it is sometimes very obvious that wisdom is our highest goal, and health is a very immediate priority!
Click image to play on YouTube.
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