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- Serpent's Dance, Book One: Secrets of Self-Mastery Lessons 1–21
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- Author: Shri Yannam
- Reviewer: Sonali T. Sikchi
- Publisher: Authorhouse (2002)
- ISBN: 0759658463
- Rating: * * * Quills
- www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0759658463/scriquil
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- The title "Serpent's Dance" immediately evokes an image of snake charmers, exotic spices, vibrant silks, and all the external accoutrements of an Asian culture far removed from our lives. However, Shri Yannam's book is a direct antithesis of that image. It is a life manual on personal transformation -- internal, individualist, quotidian. Yannam hopes that his book will "…enrich your life, inspire you to knit and reintegrate your inner selves, and weave you back into our beautiful tapestry of human consciousness."
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- "Serpent's Dance" is essentially a dialog between the teacher in the form of Siddhah the cobra and the author who is the student. The premise of the story is that a tornado hits the author's home, and in the whirlwind of energy and natural forces, a vortex opens up allowing the author to perceive and comprehend a mythical, idealized, almost deific being and his teachings. Following true Zen traditions, this teaching is done through a one-on-one conversation between the teacher and the student.
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- The main goal of a person's life is to keep the yin (masculine) and the yang (feminine) in balance in all things all the time. For example, consider the serpent's first secret, "Relinquish while thou persists, and thou shall succeed." Siddhah explains this by saying that if you find yourself struggling too hard for some of your goals without achieving them, then there is an imbalance within you. The masculine has taken control over creativity; thus, relinquishing the masculine by letting go of the attachment to the goals frees up the feminine creativity. At the same time, by harnessing the persistent masculine to allow creativity full rein leads to the success that has so far been elusive.
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- In another example, the serpent says, "Become what thou seeks, and thou shall have it." By this he means that if you are trying to be happy, then all you will succeed in doing is trying. Trying to be happy means that you are searching for happiness, but are not happy at this moment in time. So if you want to truly be happy, become the embodiment of happiness. When you recognize that the happiness you seek outside is actually already present within, "you empower the feminine." When you modify your behavior to leverage this recognition, "you empower the masculine." A balance between the yin and yang results in the desired success.
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- By using fanciful protagonists and an illusory premise, Yannam enables the reader to relax into the fictitious framework he sets up, thereby allowing the reader to be receptive to the deeply philosophical aphorisms he expounds on. The presentation of the problem, the revelation of the maxim and the subsequent explanation are set forth in a logical and rational manner, without being pedantic. And this makes the book accessible to a wide range of readers.
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