Saturday...

As I've mentioned a few times in my blog since being back in Mysore, this trip I seem to be very emotional. I thought it was waning but alas, here I sit at home again today and it's crept its way back in. I'm not saying its a bad thing, its just there. I tend to be someone who feels his emotions but is not usually affected by them. And I've said many times, I think here in India everything is closer to the surface, whereas in America we tend to bury everything or build layers over our emotions so they aren't coming to the surface all the time, here it just isn't so. They are there and felt much more quickly and easily.

So this morning I got up to go to led class at 4:30am, as I was walking to the shala could see there was an exponentially larger number of people waiting at the gate and I had come a bit earlier than normal. It immediately put me off but still I went and sat at the gate and waited, but as the number increased again and again, I decided I might need to go home and practice. Not that I'm scared of a busy room, I've practiced in that packed room for three seasons in a row now but I was feeling, dare I say, delicate? So as everyone stood up to await the unlocking of the gate I made the decision to walk home and practice there. And I did, and it was a great practice, I also did the pranayama sequence and chanted the yoga sutras. Very nice.

Then had a great Indian breakfast with some good friends at Sri Durga. Then conference. Conference last week was lovely, brought up a lot of intention for me to focus on in my practice this week and inspired me as well.

Today it was fine too, and Sharath I think is actually enjoying them lately as well. He's laughing, cracking jokes and having fun with us. But today when asked a question about pratyahara, which is one of the 8 limbs lain out in the Ashtanga Yoga system he said some things that made me think a lot. He talked a lot about asana as his opening talk before taking questions, and then this question about how pratyahara fits into our practices comes up and he told that the first four limbs are the external practices and they only ones we can "do," whereas the last happen on their own, but from cultivating the first four. Pratyahara being one of them. Pratyahara is generally translated to mean withdrawal of the senses but he talked about it being seeing god, or rather divine (he's been rather averse to using the term god these past two seasons because, as he said last year, it has too many different meanings to too many people. So he's been using supreme or the supreme this season so far) in everything. Guruji, his grandfather, used to say "everywhere looking, God seeing. Looking wall, seeing God..."

When I first began my journey in yoga I read many times in many different scriptures and interpretations of philosophy that you should see everyone as divine. In India I know they look forward to serving others because they consider them divine, or as Ram Dass says "God in drag." RuPaul also always says "we're all born naked and the rest is drag" which to me means that how we choose to be seen in the world is our drag, it's basically all a big show and we are playing a part in it.

But this time it stuck with me. Do I do this? Do I? How do I treat people? How would I treat the divine if it or he or she or whatever was standing there before me? Am I a nice person?

I like the stories of the sages or saints or apostles from the Hindu scriptures, or from the bible, that I've read of the men that argue with God. They take God for someone they can talk to like a best friend, someone that they would argue with about a subject until they understood their point of view, or until theirs was understood, or until they came to the point of agreeing that it's okay to agree to disagree. This is the view I've always had of myself i realized suddenly.

So yes, in my way I do my best to see God or the divine in everyone. I may not always be successful, nor may I always make the other feel as if I'm treating them like they are God in drag, but if you know me you'll know that if I care enough about you to debate with you, or to argue with you, or to even hang out with you then I do love you.

Sometimes I do feel bad that maybe I could have treated someone a bit more nicely but then I realize that I was being honest about who I was at that moment. Now, that doesn't mean I can't or won't be taking the time to cultivate a stronger awareness of when I'm not being as nice as I want to be, it just means that that may be all I have to give at that moment. So lately here I've been staying to myself more when I'm feeling this way so that I don't put that off on someone else.

All in all, I'm doing my best to be the best person I can be, that's all I can do. So sorry if I've stepped on your toes lately, but that probably means I care about you a great deal and am working on not stepping on your toes so much. And sorry if I've reneged on plans but that is probably because I wouldn't be the best company at that time. Not that these excuses are good to have, just that that's where I am at that time.

Stick with me and in the end hopefully you'll enjoy the results for it will all be okay in the end, and if its not, then its not yet the end (a favorite quote from a favorite movie of mine)...