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A Repetition of Themes From Previous Wolf Books
The title is far more provocative than the book. Most of the discussion centers on aspects of quantum physics that Wolf has written about multiple times now. If you've read his excellent PARALLEL UNIVERSES, for example, you've already assimilated much of what THE YOGA OF TIME TRAVEL has to say. Discussions of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, parallel universes, space-time, and the communication between past, present, and future have already been covered in several of Wolf's books. If you are already familiar with such concepts, you don't need 150 pages of background and foundation for what, in the long run, amounts to a very short discussion of mental time travel and its usefulness in improving our lives. Wolf does have a decent chapter on the nature and flow of time, although his terminology gets a bit dense. While the book is, for the most part, readable and accessible for the layman, it does occasionally lapse into the same complexity and disorganization so evident in his very disappointing THE DREAMING UNIVERSE. Ultimately, the thesis of the entire work comes down to the following: one may free oneself from the contraints of time through meditation, entering into the timeless realm where one surrenders the ego (and hence the endorsement by Deepak Chopra). But do we need all the repetitive scientific explanations to arrive at this conclusion, which is explained in a hundred other books? Wolf also claims that by traveling back in time--i.e., remembering--we can become happier by learning from our mistakes and forgiving ourselves and others. Okay, true enough, but this isn't exactly a revelation. For Wolf, time travel is a mental construct (short of a real time machine), a notion that seems painfully obvious. We can approach time travel through "unfocusing," thus freeing ourselves from Heisenberg's observer effect ... or we can meditate. It all comes down to the same thing. Handled differently, this could have been a great book, one Wolf is certainly capable of writing. In the end, however, I didn't learn anything new from this particular treatise.Misleading title
I may have to read this book again in say, 10 or 20 years. Maybe it will make sense then. I must agree that there were some good parts in it. In fact, I did take a few interesting ideas from the book. Overall, an interesting, riveting read it is not. If you view transcending time as akin to traveling through it, this may be a book for you.Delightfully Crazy Book
I haven't finished to read this book yet, however, it is very interesting and delightfully crazy.Excelent point of view.a waste of time
Just finished the book. Very disappointing. The intro and first chapter which I skimmed in the store showed promise, but the book didn't deliver. The title is deceptive. Aside from some token quotes attributed to the Buddha and Patanjali, there is no yoga in this book. The writer clearly has no real personal experience with meditation or yoga of any kind, and writes about these topics as if they were mere ideas which he can fit into his personal intellectual scheme, rather than practices that millions of people devote their lives to. Aside from the living, breathing practices that people DO everyday, there are associated schools of philosophy with thousands of years of history and refinement, which he also neglects. This book is really a pop-quantum physics text in the guise of a spiritual text, and despite the self-conscious hipness (for lack of a better word) of quantum physics compared to straight science, it still comes across as parochial and Eurocentric in this regard. I'd like to read a book with the same title written by someone who has genuine knowledge of yoga and its philosophies, aimed at improving the lives of the rest of us (who arent physics nerds.)A different angle on time
As a mental health professional, I recognized Wolf's context of going into the past, since I have led many clients into the past by recreating experiences that hurt them and gave a poor perception of the world. When I take them back, I can have them re-look at the experience from the ones who caused the hurt so they realize the context of the action, and that it was not meant to hurt them at all or as badly as it did. Wolf's concept of recreating the past event fits nicely with his proposed use of time travel into the past. Regarding time travel in the future, Wolf talks about being open to future ideas, and reminded me of a time when I wrote "from the top of my mind," which led to ideas I had not heard of before. The experience sounded very similar to his description of future time travel. Finally, the romantic idea of getting into a contraptions and actually going back or forward for an "in person" visit was discouraged by the book, but the realistic use of time travel became much more down to earth and usable. The experiences of reaching timelessness through meditation I have experienced and his descriptions are right on target. The reader will be pleasantly surprised with all of what goes into making up "spacetime" and how the concept of linear time came about. I have a much fuller understanding of types of time and the beginning of an understanding of it. Very readable and interesting for the non-scientist.Keyword : quantum+physic
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