Category Archives: Y
Young, Thomas (1773-1829)
Double-slit interference: Originally uploaded by Ethan Hein
Thomas Young (1773-1829) was an English scientist, physician and Egyptologist who conducted the double slit experiment in 1803.
In this experiment light was said to behave like a wave due to an observable interference pattern.
This suggested that light is a type of energy, as opposed to a collection of particles.
In 1905 the view of light as energy was confounded by the Hungarian-German Nazi Philipp Lenard, whose own experiments demonstrated that light also behaves like a particle–that is, a unit of matter.
Up to this point in Western intellectual history, a history which Richard Nisbett¹ and others say is almost obsessively concerned with rational categories, matter and energy were thought to be entirely different because, according to previously available observational frameworks, matter behaved differently than energy.
Since the discovery of the apparent duality of light as matter and energy, however, an entirely new series of experiments and theories have arisen about the enigmatic “stuff” of the universe.
This search includes what physicists have called the “God Particle.” If its existence is confirmed, this would apparently resolve some current inconsistencies in theoretical physics.
As an Egyptologist, Young also helped to decipher the Rosetta Stone.
» Democritus, Hume (David), Particle, Particle-Wave Duality, Schrödinger (Erwin), Standing Wave
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¹ Richard E. Nisbett, The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently… and Why. New York: The Free Press, 2003.
Yuga
Yuga
In Hindu Vedic and Puranic cosmology, a yuga is an extremely long time period, especially when measured on the human scale.
The Hindu conception of the yuga suggests that time itself differs for gods and humans.
In the Mahabharata an entire human year translates into a single day for the devas.
Each of the four different Yugas represent four general ages of the devas.
As with the ancient Greek and Hebraic sense of time, these ages progress from an initial, ideal Golden Age (Krita yuga) to increasingly corrupted ages.
The four Yugas and their human equivalents
are:
| Yuga | Deva Years | Human Years |
| Krita | 4800 | 1,728,000 |
| Treta | 3600 | 1,296,000 |
| Dvapara | 2400 | 864,000 |
| Kali | 1200 | 432,000 |
| Mahayuga (Great Yuga)* | 12,000 | 4,320,000 |
A single day for the god Brahma is 1,000 Mahayugas (4,320,000,000 human years). One year for Brahma is 1,555,200,000,000 human years. Brahma’s life span is 155,520,000,000,000 human years.
All this indicates that Brahma exists in an entirely different time frame than human beings.
An arguably mythical, quasi-scientific scheme like this may seem irrelevant to contemporary thinkers but it points to the notion, worth considering, that the universe contains different yet interacting regions of space-time, each region containing its own unique properties and beings. » Mahabharata, Puranas, Ragnarok, Veda
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*A Mahayuga (Great Yuga) is one complete cycle of the four Yugas.
Table condensed from Keith R. Crim (ed.) The Perennial Dictionary of World Religions. New York: Harper & Row, 1989, pp. 818-819.
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Young, Neil
Young, Neil (1945- )
The Canadian-born grandfather of grunge rock was originally a folk rocker with Steven Stills and Graham Nash in the group Buffalo Springfield (“Stop Children, what’s that sound…”).
Also a member of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, his solo career has influenced on a wide variety of musicians and some of his songs arguably demonstrate what might be called archetypal depth.
Watching Young perform live can be like witnessing a Toltec Elder harness the Powers That Be, especially when he performs tunes like “Cortez the Killer,” the “Halls of Montezuma,” and “Inca Queen.”
Other more intimate songs like “After the Goldrush” (in the 1970 showpiece album by the same title) reflect the noble, if drug induced, dreams and despair of the hippie generation, now revived by the media-hyped fear of Global Warming.
“Look at Mother Nature on the run in the 1970s.”
Well before considered fashionable to speak of alien abductions or the possibility of mankind leaving Earth to inhabit other planets, Young related a dream in that same song where “silver spaceships” take “Mother Nature’s silver seed to a new home in the sun.”
Of course, it could be argued that Young was talking about the US Apollo space program. After all, man had just landed on the moon for the very first time in 1969 and the early 1970s were all about the so-called “space age.”
In the 1980s Young parodies his hippie phase by referring to an earlier Crosby, Still, Nash and Young song in “Hippie Dream” from the album Landing on Water (1986).
And the wooden ships,
were just a hippie dream…
capsized in excess
if you know what I mean
Young has epilepsy but this has not slowed him down nor deterred him from influencing other prominent rockers like David Bowie and Avril Lavigne. In fact, Young has been described as a musical workaholic. He has released seven new albums in the new millennium. » Archetypes
Image Credit:
- “Neil Young” by JD Lasica at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdlasica/115199274/, Creative Commons License.
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Yogi
Yogi A male practitioner of yoga. The term also connotes a male saint and teacher of spiritual knowledge.
Yogis take many different forms and various complementary and competing schools can be found within ancient, medieval and modern Hinduism.
T. S. Rukmani notes that advanced yogis like Sankara are said to have some degree of perception of past and future, although they are not equal to brahman in this respect.¹
Yogis may also possess unusual spiritual powers called siddhis. However, these are generally downplayed and even discouraged because they are regarded as a distraction to the ultimate goal of liberation through union with the godhead.
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¹”Untitled Review of ‘The Role of Divine Grace in the Soteriology of śaṅkarācārya by Bradley J. Malkovsky’” in Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 124, No. 4, (Oct. – Dec., 2004: 813-816), p. 814.
» James (William), Karma, Karma Transfer, Mythic Eternalization, Rajas, Shakti, Yogini, Watts (Alan)
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Yoni
Originally uploaded by *Gabisa Motonia
Yoni In Hinduism this is the female organ of all creation.
In Hindu temple art female genitalia are often emphasized to symbolize the Great Mother’s crucial meta-physical role in giving birth to all that is.
F. A. Marglin notes that, on a more personal scale, the yoni is said to invigorate the male through sexual intercourse.
Popular Hindu Indian folk belief maintains that during intercourse vaginal fluids enter the male generative organ, symbolically known as the linga (roughly parallel to the phallus of the Western mythos). This mingling of bodily fluids is believed to give the male his wife’s spiritual power (shakti).
Ancient Kings thus had several concubines as their divine right–this not only for the gratification of lust but also, so the belief goes, for an increase in spiritual power.¹
As the yoni and especially sexual-erotic scenes appearing on Hindu temple engravings are often interpreted by outsiders as an inferior, crass type of spiritual representation, Hindus (and Jungians) tend to say that those who see it that way are merely projecting their own shadow.
The yoni is sometimes depicted as a triangle with apex facing downwards. V. K. Chari says
These geometrical figures have symbolic meanings: the triangle with the apex turned upwards (called vahni kona or cone of fire) may represent male energy, the one with the apex turned downwards female energy (yoni), the matrix of creation, and so forth-which the adept are to meditate upon.²
» Jung (Carl Gustav), Linga, Siva
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¹F. A. Marglin in The Encyclopedia of Religion. Eliade, Mircea (ed). New York: 1987, Collier Macmillan, Vol. 15, pp. 530-535.
²V. K. Chari, “Representation in India’s Sacred Images: Objective vs. Metaphysical Reference” in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 65, No. 1, 2002: 52-73, pp. 65-66.
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Yoga
The Sanskrit word yoga derives from the root yuj, which means ‘yoke,’ ‘bind together’ or ‘union.’
Hatha yoga is a set of bodily postures as well as breathing and mental exercises designed by Patanjali that ultimately aim to connect the ego and soul with God.
Although this yoga is popular in the West, there are other important Hindu yogas and the entire concept of yoga runs far deeper than fashionable stretch suits and inflatable balls.
Generally speaking, yoga for the Hindu means any technique or practice that links individual volition to the Divine Will.
The Bhagavad-Gita outlines four different but related types of yoga.
- Jnana yoga is the yoga of divine knowledge.
- Raja yoga is the yoga of right rule.
- Karma yoga is the yoga of sacred duty or action.
- Bhakti yoga is the yoga of pure devotion to God.
Depending on where the aspirant ‘is at,’ so to speak, in their spiritual journey, these four different yogas intermingle in various degrees and combinations.
For example, a hard working businesswoman (karma yoga) does puja in the morning (bhakti yoga). On returning home after work she meditates on spiritual lessons learned from the day’s activities (jnana yoga). At night she participates in a women rights group that works to eradicate sutee (raja yoga). In addition, she may also practice the bodily and contemplative postures of hatha yoga.
Another aspect of yoga relates to Tantricism and, depending on the particular path, is variously championed or denounced among the Hindu faithful. This type of yoga is generally called kundalini yoga.
Kundalini yoga involves awakening the spiritual ‘serpent power’ said to reside at the base chakra. Usually through intense and prolonged training with a spiritual master (guru), one eventually learns how to channel this power up the spinal column so it resonates within each of the seven chakras, in a balanced way among them.
The most noble chakra is believed to be located at the top of the head (crown chakra). When this chakra activates and is properly balanced with all the other chakras, one is said to be in a state of samadhi–i.e. complete and perfect union with God.
» Aurobindo (Sri), Ahimsa, Bhakti yoga, Caste, Chakras, Eliade (Mircea), Faith and Action, Jnana yoga, Karma yoga, Raja yoga, Rama, Shakti, Tantra, Yogi, Yogini
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Yoda
Yoda Wise spiritual teacher of Luke Skywalker and other Jedi knights in the Star Wars films of George Lucas.
He is powerful in the sense that he is able to mediate and manipulate ‘The Force,’ which in the greater Star Wars universe is a kind of spiritual life force that pervades the universe.
Yoda is essentially an American fictional variant of the Indian guru and, to some extent, the Siberian shaman.
His species and last name remain unspecified, although Lucas originally was to call him Yoda Minch. » Obi Wan Kenobi, Odysseus
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Yin-Yang
Yin-Yang (yin=umbral, yang= bright)
This is the Chinese idea that all transformations arise from a dynamic interaction of two basic and complementary modes of existence.
The Yin-Yang cosmology harkens back to ancient Chinese philosophers (c. 500-200 BCE) who saw the world as an organic totality in which subject and object, self and other were essentially interrelated.
As John S. Major puts it:
The cosmos was “organic”; everything was related to and affected by everything else, without regard for mathematically or mechanically demonstrable cause and effect. No distinction was drawn between physical and mental phenomena, or between the “human” and “natural” worlds.
John S. Major in The Encyclopedia of Religion. Eliade, Mircea (ed). New York: 1987, Collier Macmillan, Vol. 15, p. 515.
The Chinese characters Yin and Yang originally referred to the dark and bright sides of a sunlit riverbank.
A definite Yin-Yang school of philosophy arose around 305-240 BCE, attributed to Tsou Yen.
By the time of Confucius, the Tsou Yen school had acquired scholarly and philosophical significance.
Yin represented the Earth and, according to this schema, the associated elements of darkness, passivity, femininity, negativity and destruction.
Yang came to be associated with Heaven and all the associated elements of light, activity, masculinity, positive forces and creativity.
Kevin at GreatVessel.com adds:
I think the feminine and passivity were actually Confucian additions. Confucius was pretty much a misogynist.
A core quality of Yin in the bright and shadow / strong and subtle paradigm, was of manifestation.
A very good example of this is procreation – the man fertilises (Inspiration / Yang) but the woman manifests the life in growing the embryo. Seen like this Yin is very powerful and not at all passive. (Though of course it can be passive at times).
Similarly all the running about working and commuting or whatever that many of us do in the modern world is actually manifestation and is Yin energy activity, not Yang as many suppose.
I am not sure equating the quality ‘destruction’ to Yin entirely does the quality justice. Yin manifests and un-manifests by withholding nurture. So a harsh frosty spell cutting back the verdant growth is very Yin.
Destruction is much more a Yang principle. The lightening which the ancient Chinese believed shook into being the new was a ‘positive Yang Force whereas over done it becomes the lightening which strikes down the tree.
Both Yin and Yang therefore have positive and negative valences which are not to be confused with good and bad. That hard frost which clears the ground makes way for new growth too.
Similarly Yin is not the negative of Yang (another bit of spin implied by Confucians) – The two exist in creative harmony.
Studying the Dazhuan (The Great Treatise approx. 3rd Century BCE) clarifies a lot of this as does studying the First two hexagrams of the Yijing which are the two exponents of these principles.
The Yijing predates Ying Yang theory… indeed the Ying Yang principle probably grew out of it and in turn replaced the shadow / light names within it. This is certain when one realises that all of the hexagrams are in pairs (in the King Wen sequence which is the one commonly used). Thus hexagrams 1 and 2 are a pair as is 3 and 4 etc. It only takes cursory study to see that these are in fact Yang / Yin pairs. Pairs of inspiration and manifestation. The King Wen sequence is between 1600 and 1200 BCE depending on which historian you subscribe to. » Source
Apart from the ongoing scholarly debates, perhaps most important from a contemporary perspective is the idea of dynamic complementarity. The two complementaries of Yin and Yang are said to be in a constant interplay and all phenomena may be explained through their interaction.
One interesting aspect of this process occurs when one modality in a sense eventually flows into its apparent ‘opposite,’ which in the field of psychology C. G. Jung called enantiodromia.
To sum, the Yin-Yang cosmology underscores the unity of mankind and nature, as well as the importance of transformation. In fact, for the ancient Chinese the idea of change was key, as we find with the oracle of the I Ching (Book of Change), from which Yin-Yang theory likely developed. » Gemini, Siva, Tai Chi, Taoism
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Yantra
Yantra In Hinduism a yantra is a diagram for meditation depicting chakras, larger cosmic planes or the dynamic totality of all existence as understood within the Hindu belief system.
Yantras are also variously used in ritual worship, temple rites, astrology and to enhance one’s paranormal powers.
Concerning paranormal powers, the yanta may be used as a good luck charm, to exorcize evil spirits and avoid calamities.
Yantras are usually drawn, printed (as on note paper), painted or engraved on rock or metals.
In architechture an entire Hindu temple may take the structural form of a yantra, thus representing and emboding the sacred powers it was built for. Many Hindu temples themselves are based on archetechtural manuals that advocate the yantra design.
Perhaps the essence of the yantra is found in Oscar Wilde’s notion that
Truth in art is the unity of a thing with itself: the outward rendered expressive of the inward; the soul made incarnate; the body instinct with spirit.”
Cited in Peter Fingesten, “Spirituality, Mysticism and Non-Objective Art,” Art Journal, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Autumn, 1961: 2-6), p. 2
Primary Sources and Further Reading:
- The Encyclopedia of Religion. Eliade, Mircea (ed). New York: 1987, Collier Macmillan, Vol. 15.
- Fischer-Schreiber, Ingrid. The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion : Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Zen. Boston : Shambhala, 1994, c1989.
Image Credit:
- #14 Sri Yantra Mandala SHANKAR originally uploaded to flickr.com by shankar gallery Richard Lazzara » http://www.flickr.com/photos/shankargallery/148979213/
» Mandala
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Yahweh
Yahweh One of the names given to God in the Hebrew Torah and Christian Old Testament (OT).
Due to its unsurpassed holiness, from postexilic times pious Hebrews declined to pronounce the name in reading and only the consonants YHWH were written.
The vowels we commonly see today were later added by religious scribes.
The precise meaning of the Hebrew name Yahwey is open to debate. Some say it builds on the Hebrew word haya meaning “be, become” or “cause to be.”
In a Masoretic Text a vowel is included, bringing the word closer to donay and suggesting the meaning “Lord.”
In the story of the Burning Bush (Exodus 3:14) God reveals himself to Moses, saying his name is “I Am who I Am.” And many other names and titles are used for God throughout the OT, such as “Ancient of Days” (Daniel 7:13), “Father” (Jerimiah 3:19) “Maker” (Isaiah 17:7) and “Lord of hosts” (Amos 4:13).
» Archetypal Image, Aton, Bible, Christianity, Jesus Christ, Manichaeism
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