My book about yoga is taking its final shape in fits and starts. Every once in a while, I remember a piece that could be added to the selection. Or I write an addendum to a piece already in it. Each time something like this happens, I am elated anew. The book is alive in my hands. Among other steps toward completion, I have already written a preface to the book. In about two-hundred words, I do my best to introduce it to the reader. The preliminary preface appears to me finished, but I am well aware that it may change in the next few months, perhaps radically. Who knows, I may even replace it with an entirely different one. Nonetheless, I cherish it as it stands at the moment. At this stage at least, it says everything I want it to say. Neither more nor less. Anyhow, here goes:

Yoga is everywhere nowadays. Lately, it has become a staple. Who is yoga, though? It sounds like a silly question, but this selection from my Residua shows that it is no less than a crucial one, for it goes back to the origins of the spiritual quest of the human species. In time, shamanism has spawned many a path through the realm of the spirit, including yoga. As of late, these paths are marked by myriad great gurus, but underneath the august crowd is the nameless guru of us all—the animal in us. It is as old as life on earth, and it has a lot to teach us to this day. But the only way to become one with the animal in us is to abandon all thought. This accomplished, time stops and the world becomes one at long last. Arranged chronologically, the pieces included in this selection, as well as the addenda extending many among them, trace my own spiritual quest over many a year. As the book shows, it takes an enormous will to shed all the alluring but ultimately debilitating trash that goes by the name of civilization. The will to ignorance, indeed.

As is always the case with prefaces, they should say it all, and yet they should entice the reader to go for the book itself. A tough task, to be sure. But I am rushing things a bit, as I often do when I am close to completion of a project that is close to my heart. The next few months will not be about writing, but about abandoning all thought. That is, abandoning it at will. For the book about yoga still requires the final and crucial touches. The proof, as it were, is still missing at the moment. Which is why the preliminary preface gives me a special joy, and why I believe that it ought to be brought to light right now, months ahead of its proper time. With some luck, it will provide a bit of guidance on the path ahead. No matter how straight in my mind, and how well lit, that path still remains a mystery to me.

Addendum I (February 8, 2016)

The preface concocted late last year is still to my liking. And how. In fact, I will use it just as it is. Not a word will be added to it or subtracted from it. And my book about yoga is finished at last. The present decision about the preface is that magical touch. Ah, what a joy it is after no less than eight years. Phew!

Addendum II (February 4, 2018)

More than two years later, I love this preface. And I read it over and over again. Whenever I come across it, I relish it from start to finish. On occasion, the mention of the nameless guru of us all brings tears to my eyes. The blessed animal in us! Returning to the preface, what amazes me to this day is its date. It was penned more than a month before my book about yoga was finally finished. Even more important, it precedes my, as it were, definition of enlightenment by an entire month, as well (”No-Bullshit Enlightenment,” January 18, 2016). The mother of all prefaces, this one.