The principles used in Ultimate Simplicity and Efficiency are largely based on principles learned from The Dance of Shiva. These principles are designed to help us be more conscious. To make being conscious easier this book introduces the notion of the "Idea" as a basic unit of meaning.
The main quality of an idea is that it has a meaning or creates some sort of change when connected to another idea.
We can view an unconnected idea as a potential for change.
As an example we could view a motorcycle as an unconnected idea. It is the potential for going fast. It if the potential for fun. It is the potential for a serious accident. It can be one of these potentials or more depending on how we look at it. When a person who is a motorcycle rider connects to that motorcycle and rides it then one or more of those potentials is realized. The more conscious the rider is, the more likely the change that is created is positive change.
When an idea is connected to another idea then its potential can be realized. The idea becomes meaningful, it creates change.
More than just the thoughts that we have in our heads, ideas can be the things that we do as well as the things that we see or sense around us. Thinking about ideas we can sense the potential for change. Seeing ideas around us we can see change as it is happening. Sensing ideas that are unrelated we can create connections between them. We can create more change.
We can also think of Ideas as the things that we do.
One of the aspects of ideas that makes them convenient to use is that they can be broken down into smaller ideas or recombined into bigger ideas. The only proviso is that these smaller ideas or bigger ideas create some sort of change when connected to other ideas or they have some sort of meaning outside of themselves.
This gives us a handy tool for when we are doing something. If the idea we are working on is a big idea we can break it down into smaller ideas that are easy to work on. We can also create a Big Idea to unify the smaller seemingly unrelated ideas that we are working on. Unifying small ideas with one big idea we can give those smaller ideas a meaning outside of themselves.
The more conscious we are the more ideas we can sense. Learning to think and do in terms of ideas we have a way of processing what we sense, we have a way of being more conscious.
What are the ideas that we sense around our selves (or within our selves)? What are the changes that those ideas create? Sensing ideas and the changes that they create we become more conscious.
We can ask our selves: "What is the change that we are trying to create?" Doing something while knowing the change that we wish to create we can go about doing. Using our senses as we are doing we can respond to what we sense. Whether the change we sense comes from within our selves or from outside of our selves we can respond in such a way that we can continue to create the change that we desire.
The key to responding is responding in such a way that we can continue to sense what is around ourselves while having the room to create the change that we desire.
What we learn is how to balance and how to stay balanced.
Balanced, we maintain the relationships we are in while responding to the change that is happening around our selves. As a result we can continue with what we are trying to do, whether we are creating change or simply enjoying it. Read a Preview of Basic Principles for Life

In Spirals, Transquarters and Changes we focus on learning a small set of Dance of Shiva movements. We learn the Forwards spiral and the Backwards spiral using one arm at at time. We then learn how to do movement combinations using both arms together. We learn how to have both arms doing a Forwards spiral. We then learn to to have both arms doing a Backwards spiral.
In the first case with both arms doing a Forwards spiral the movement combination is called a Double Forwards or Forwards-Forwards (F-F for short). In the second case the movement combination is called a Double Backwards or Backwards-Backwards (B-B for short). We then learn combinations where one arm moves Forwards and the other arm moves Backwards. We then have a Forwards-Backwards (F-B) and a Backwards-Forwards (B-F).
For a Forwards-Backwards the left arm moves Forwards and the right arm moves Backwards while for a Backwards-Forwards the left arm moves Backwards and the right arm Forwards.
With two basic movements, the Forwards Spiral and the Backwards Spiral we have four movement Combinations. For one arm there are four positions in the horizontal plane. When using both hands we have 16 arm positions. The single arm positions in the Horizontal plane are called 1, 2, 3 and 4. Using both hands Position 1-2 is where the left hand is in position 1 and the right hand is in position 2. In position 3-4 the left hand is in position 3 and the right hand is in position 4.
Doing the F-F we can connect 1-1 to 2-2. Learning the B-B we can connect 2-2 back to 1-1. With the F-B we can connect 1-1 to 2-4 and with the B-F we can connect 2-4 to 1-1. With these four different movement combinations we connect any one set of arm positions to four other positions. The more movement combinations we learn the more positions we can connect to each other.
Adding on to our first two moves we learn the Transquarter. We then learn this movement in combination with the Forwards move and in combination with the Backwards more. We thus have the F-T, T-F, B-T and T-B. Now we can connect position 1-1 to position 2-3 with the F-T. We can connect it to 3-2 with the T-F. With the B-T and T-B we can connect it respectively to positions 4-3 and 3-4.
We can also combine the Transquarter with itself. Using a T-T we can connect 1-1 to 3-3.
With three basic moves for one arm we have 9 movement combinations which means we can connect any position where both arms are horizontal to 9 other positions.
So what about the seven remaining positions? How do we connect to those? We don't actually do these moves in this book but they are easy enough to learn. We do the Following movement combinations: 0-T, 0-F, 0-B, T-0, F-0, B-0. With these movements (and a 0-0) we can connect 1-1 to 1-3, 1-2, 1-4, 3-1, 2-1 and 4-1. thus we have all the moves necessary to connect any position to any other position. Read a preview of Spirals, Trasnquarters and Change

Dance of Shiva has 64 arm positions and 64 possible movements from each of those 64 positions. These 64 positions and movements are based on 8 basic positions and movements for each arm.
In Formulae for Freedom we build sequences of these movements so that we can practice them in a creative way. We build sequences of four moves, eight moves and then sixteen moves. We even have the potential to create sequences of thirty-moves.
In these sequences none of the movements are repeated. So with one thirty-two move sequence we have the chance to practice half the possible dance of shiva movements. In addition we have the opportunity to see how we can build these sequences our selves.
Learning these sequences or building them our selves we can develop efficient ways of practicing the Dance of Shiva. We can also challenge ourselves. One challenge could be developing a sequence of 64 moves that repeats four times. Then in order to practice all the movements of the dance of shiva all we would have to do is practice this sequence. Another challenge would be to actually memorize this sequence. The next challenge after that would be to see how fast we could do it without making any mistakes. Another challenge, once we've learned such a sequence, is how we might choose to go about improving it. Is there a way in which we could sequence the movements so that in one repetition we visit each of the 64 different arm positions? This would mean that we repeated none of the positions in any one repetition.

In formula for freedom the longest sequence we learn consists of 16 moves but it is possible to double this sequence so that we have 32 moves. Learning a thirty-two move sequence may be a little bit daunting even if half the moves are simply the mirror of the other half. Learning even a sixteen movement sequence might be a little scary, especially knowing we have to repeat these sequences four times in order for the arms to return back to the position that they started in. While we can learn these larger algorithms all at once, in Formulae for Freedom we learn how to learn larger algorithms by learning shorter algorithms first. These shorter algorithms contain only four moves. Once we've learned these shorter algorithms we can glue them together to create longer algorithms.
While the algorithms can be fun to do, and quite rewarding once we begin to learn them for ourselves, some of the fun can also come from making mistakes and then figuring out how the mistakes were made so we can go about fixing them. Because the Dance of Shiva is made up of simple elements, even when we get to more complicated sequences it is fairly easy to disassemble what we have done so we can self correct.

Another benefit of doing the Dance of Shiva, in particular the algorithms learned in Formulae for Freedom, is that we see how to break big ideas into smaller ones so that we can learn the big idea a little bit at a time. We also learn that one of the keys in breaking down big ideas is making the small ideas meaningful. In the case of formulae for freedom those units of meaning are smaller algorithms of 4 moves each.
But even these smaller algorithms can be thought of as big ideas and they too can be broken down into smaller ideas. Those smaller ideas, those meaningful ideas are the movements themselves. And those movements too can be broken down into smaller ideas, the small ideas of movements using one hand.
We also have the opportunity to see how smaller ideas can be given a meaning outside of themselves. By gluing four move algorithms together we create a bigger algorithm and so each of the smaller algorithms becomes part of a bigger whole. And in the process a change occurs. The algorithms are the same in that the movements in each are the same but because each one starts where the other left of the position that the arms move through for each algorithm are a little bit different. And so even though we are doing the same algorithms in the context of a bigger one, we still experience change and we continue to grow.
Dance of Shiva is more that just a useful metaphor for understanding how to break things down and how to build things back up again. It also seems to work directly on the body and the mind. Making connections between positions, we learn the movement potential of our body while exercising it at the same time. Learning more and more movements we also create patterns of movements, connections, within the brain. One possible benefit, we can think faster or with greater flexibility. It's as if the more connections we make within our brain the more chance a message has of passing from one part to another or the easier it is to make connections between seemingly unrelated concepts.
My own impressions are that I feel smarter when I do the Dance of Shiva, I also seem to be more in tune with the world around me. Rather than fighting with what is around me I flow with what is around me. Life becomes less about struggle and more about joy. One of the ways of practicing the Dance of Shiva is to "see" the position before we move into it so that our mind leads our body. What I am finding in life is that I think about what I want and I get it. So as well as helping us to unify our mind and our body it also helps us to unify our mind and what is around our selves. Read a preview of Formulae for Freedom