GRAHAM WALLAS on CREATIVITY : WORTH REPEATING

GRAHAM WALLAS on CREATIVITY

"According to Graham Wallas, a sort of re-ordering process takes place in the brain during creativity, which he calls incubation. A creative person develops interest in a particular subject, gathers supporting material, and studies everything possibly related to it. He calls this first stage preparation. After some time, the accumulated material reaches a boiling point and something incomprehensible goes on during the period of incubation that forms a prelude to the next stage, illumination. In three stages - preparation, incubation, and illumination - the creative person receives a new insight and finds a solution to the problem, or can rearrange the accumulated material to put it under an all embracing principle."

As mentioned in THE KUNDALINI BOOK OF LIVING AND DYINIG
Gateway to Higher Consciousness
Ravindra Kumar and Jytte Kumar Larsen

Worth Repeating:  First posted September 25, 2010

AWAKE : THE LIFE OF YOGANANDA : CHRISTINE TRZYNA DOCUMENTARY FILM REVIEW

Excellent - simply.

 

CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD (1939 - 1942) DIARIES

CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD  - Published 1939

Isherwood was a British ex-patriot who came to Southern California with his friend W. H. Auden on the eve of World War II.  These excerpts are from his DIARIES.  He became interested in the Hindu gurus  who were here and was once an attendee at the Vedanta Society (as I once was.)

Page 233) From 1939.

..." Krishnamurti was a slight, sallow little man with a scrubby chin and rather bloodshot eyes, whose face bore only faint traces of the extraordinary beauty he must have had as a boy.   He was very quiet and modest man and never talked in ordinary company about philosophy or religion.  He seemed fondest of animals and not at least with children.  Gerald complained that he got violently upset about trifles - like catching a train - and showed little sign of inward calm.  Certainly, he didn't impress me as Prabhavananda did; but he had a kind of simple dignity which was very touching.  And - there was no getting away from it - he had done what no other man alive today has done; he had refused to become a god.

Page 237) From 1940

..."Garbo was at tea with us today.  I think Peter is right when he says she's a "dumb cluck."  She actually didn't know who Daladier was.  If you watch her for a quarter of an hour, you see every one of her famous expressions.  She repeats them, quite irrelevantly. There is the iron sternness of Ninotchka, the languorous open -lipped surrender of Camille, Mata Hari's wicked laugh, Christina's boyish toss of the head, Anna Christies's grimace of disgust.  She is so amazingly beautiful, so noble, so naturally compelling and commanding, that her ridiculous artificiality, her downright silliness can't spoil the effect.

Page 243) From 1942.

Yesterday. the Swami drove down to visit us.  The day passed off quite pleasantly, although there were some embarrassing silences.  The Swami, as always, was very quiet and polite.  We drove him up to Trabuco.  "Is smoking permitted here?" he asked.  It isn't.  But he smoked.


From
Writing Los Angeles
A Literary Anthology
Edited by David L. Ulin
Library of America publisher
Copyright 2002

TAI CHI IS LOST ON ME by Christine Trzyna

TAI CHI IS LOST ON ME

By Christine Trzyna

If you've ever needed slow paced gentle exercise, you've probably been recommended to a Tai Chi class. Tai Chi seems to have more of a guarantee than Yoga does that it will remain slow paced and gentle. Twice now I've studied Tai Chi at low cost classes taught by dedicated devotees. The exercise is said to help you heal faster, keep aging at bay, and prevent major illnesses. Of course many people who practice Tai Chi are also dedicated to healthy lifestyles, careful of what they eat, avoiding smoking, alcohol, and drugs too, so who can say for sure it's the Tai Chi? The other benefit of Tai Chi is that it's supposed to be relaxing.

Unfortunately I've never experienced relaxation by practicing Tai Chi. I am one of those "Monkey Brained" people who gets more bored the slower it goes. "What's next?" I want to know. I quit one class after learning the form over months of time just about when we were to start learning the form backwards. I just didn't see the point. I buy that new circuits wired for Tai Chi develop in your brain after practice. I can probably still do the form years later, without practice. But I never seem to be inspired to do so.

I think mental - intellectual - stimulation is very important to my overall happiness, so I don't want to be bored. That's why it perplexes me that the crossword puzzle set is taking to Tai Chi at senior centers.

Often you hear that Tai Chi is the basis of all martial arts. It was the first monastic means to self protect without harming, a Buddhist traveler's mode. So originally it must have been practiced singularly. Maybe what appeals to the seniors is the Group Mind of it.

Watching a group practicing Tai Chi in unison, the silence of it, is more relaxing to me than being one of the group. Yet Group Mind makes me want to rankle for very Westernized individualism.

I like yoga classes where you can keep your own pace if you fall behind or want to go more slowly, where you aren't stressed or strained, and the exertion of a "good" class leaves me in a final relaxation in which my mind is shut off and I can go off somewhere out there for a spell. Five minutes of this deep rest can be energizing as well, once you come back and go off to a productive day.


C Christine Trzyna 2008