In past eras and especially in the western tradition, people would seek enlightenment through the expenditure of mental energy. This was usually done in the form of studying holy texts and philosophy. While presumably effective, one thing that increasingly characterizes the west is that we don't have very much metal energy left over after some of our jobs. This prevents us from effectively pursuing enlightenment unless we eschew other obligations. In the past there was excess mental energy and not very much physical energy, today it's the opposite; we have lots of physical energy but inadequate mental energy left. There is also a Hindu prophecy that may be relevant here about the kali yuga, or dark age, which says that in the dark age transcendence is achieved "through the body" instead of through the mind. In some eastern traditions, spiritual transcendence can be pursued through an expenditure of mostly physical energy. I have three main sources I'm referring to when I say this. The first source is hatha yoga, or physical yoga. The main goal of yoga (which means meditation) is not to get into shape or to become more flexible (although this does happen if one is practicing effectively) but to use the process of trying to get into shape as a vehicle for spiritual growth. This most obviously takes on the form of increasing one's discipline and power over their own body. The second source is Taoist texts. In Taoist spiritual alchemy (which includes physical exercises) there is an attempt to use the physical body as a template for creating what I might call a "spiritual body", or as translated by Arthur Avalon, "the immortal fetus in the state of complete serenity". A third source is zen meditations. Although primarily mental, they are not complex or exhausting, which means that they might provide a good context for this kind of thing. I don't believe physical activity in of itself can be adequate, it would also need to be contextualized mentally. A goal I have for this project is to cross reference Hindu and Taoist concepts of the chakra points in the body with publicly available information we have about health. The idea is to create a workout regimen that is not just effective physically (since that is what people want) but in practice is more than just "working out" and is really a spiritual exercise.
Got this in one of those chain emails, I thought it was interesting. Exercising until you hit your "second wind" seems like an obligatory part of a workout. Also this: The Point at Which You Hit the State of Flow Dr. Csikszentmihalyi used the graph to the left during his TED.com talk to illustrate the point that in order to achieve a flow state, a balance must be struck between the challenge of the task and the skill of the performer. On the vertical axis you measure how challenging the activity is, and on the horizontal axis you measure your level of skill at that particular task.
