Alchemy...

There is an alchemical precept that goes something like this: Through repetition the magic will be forced to rise.

I think this applies to Ashtanga Yoga as an asana practice, probably to all the other limbs as well because as one changes ones habit patterns through repeatedly catching oneself when they are "going there" it can also create what seems like magic when eventually you no longer "go there" so easily and don't have to catch yourself, you just automatically choose to take the higher path. But for the sake of this conversation lets stick with the asana practice known as Ashtanga Yoga.

This path you are forced, if you follow it exclusively, to stick with the same sequence of postures, the same sequence of inhales and exhales, the same sequence of movements of the body, for a long time. For some its longer than others, as the body open up and relaxes new postures are added and then the next sequence is what you adhere to but then that becomes your new repetitive sequence until you move into the next stage of practice. Those of you who practice Ashtanga know what I'm talking about, this discussion is not for the technicalities of said practice.

So what happens, doing these same things all the time? First off, you are able to notice progress more quickly, also notice stagnancy or even backward movement in the body. Opening sometimes takes two steps back and one step forward, or seemingly sits still for a long period of time. This brings up your emotions about that progress, but even more so, brings up emotions that were buried underneath those physical layers, but also as those emotions come up energy starts to move and as energy moves, the body frees up or becomes energized in new ways.

During all this most of us tend to tighten up our muscles thinking we need to hold this things right back where we were because forward movement after all is not something most of us are taught as children. Holding on to things as they are is what most of us were taught, for dear life sometimes.

But if we can relax our muscles, breathe deep, allow our jaws to unclench and let go of the tension behind our eyes and between our ears, this can be the most beautiful of transformations.

Ten years ago I purchase a dvd called Guru, it was all of 27 minutes long and was about the 90th birthday celebrations of the proponent of our asana practice. Sri K. Pattabhi Jois. In it Dominic Corigliano says something to the effect of how strange it is we all go through this daily drama together and don't really even know each other but feel so close and like we all actually do know each other. He said many less words than that, but that was my interpretation of it. Also now that feeling of closeness is accentuated by Facebook and other social media avenues. I even had a lady today ask me a question while I was having lunch and said if you don't know it no one will, I see you know almost everything from your Facebook posts. I do not however know much of anything, I just pay attention to things so may have a suggestion or two.

So we're here, we're all practicing and especially if you're in the room at the same time as this whole same group for three months, or even less, but three months really creates a deep idea of what you think you know about a person. You really then feel you do know these people. I even would go so far as to say I love them. There are many who I've practiced next to for the whole time and the energy you get familiar with, even the scents of them around you as they heat up and start to sweat and release toxins, becomes so familiar. Even what someones hair looks like after they begin to sweat, or their little pattern of hesitation just before this same asana or the jump back.

Back in St. Louis I teach a Mysore program and so am familiar with the few regulars I have, and can tell their patterns just by their body movements or their expressions. So I can only imagine what its like for Sharath, or the assistants, to see these same people for months at a time and notice their "stuff" as it comes up. And people wonder how Sharath remembers everyone and what posture they're stopping at, or how they stop a little too long before back bending (this one is me) and can see the potential and can also see when that potential is not being reached. It must be amazingly fulfilling, frustrating and so many other things that I can't think of the name of right now. It's definitely an experience.

Really, what we're all here having is a major experience. It can be intense, sometimes too intense. It can be fulfilling, like when you stand up from a back bend the first time, or catch that bind you've never quite gotten on your own before, or actually cleared the floor in that jump through, or jump back, for the very first time. That sense of accomplishment and achievement. You can get caught up in searching for that, and make that your goal. And then possibly start only feeling a sense of expansion or forward movement when you "get" the next posture or finally get split and can only do intermediate series without adding it on to primary. And if you get stuck thinking that is the goal, then that's where you are.

But I'm here to tell you the real juice of this practice comes from maybe when you are stuck at pasasana for two whole seasons and are finally getting closer and closer (yes, me again) or were binding in supra kurmasana all on your own at home and after arriving in Mysore can't seem to come close to binding in it without help, but maybe the last few days have been touching fingers back there behind you somewhere (yes, me again! lol) or were given tic tocs and wonder how in the fucking hell can anyone go over backwards back to a forward bend when the going up and over into the back bend seems so accessible, or have been working two seasons to complete primary, finally do, only to have to work on standing up and dropping back and then come that third season and boom, finally stand up one time, but can't do it again for like three weeks, then can and can, then not, then can and can and can and...

You get my point? We're all in this drama together. Most of us, if we are really practicing the yoga, not just the asana, don't even care what series you're on, or what posture in said series you're being stopped at. We just all know that we're all here, doing the same things day in and day out and are slowing growing and becoming more and more of the people we want to be and noticing when you're becoming more and more of the person you would like to be.

Some of us realize we are in place and need other tools, this trip I've started chanting more and more and in doing jappa, which is another form of repitition, have seen that forward movement more easily within myself, in my mind. Or whatever it is that you might need to balance out all the asana, maybe taking an extra day off during the week (yes, yet me again haha).

Yoga means union, or I tend to use the word connection more frequently than that. Connection to what? Connection to yourself, your inner voice, your intuition. Connection to others, who are really just mirrors anyway of whatever we're putting out. Connection to god or spirit, which really to me is just our inner being or inner voice. So connection? Maybe its just realization. Realization that we are all in one way or another different aspects of the one, so the same thing in some ways? Maybe...

I often say I hate yoga, and for all intents and purposes I do. And I say that because its a hard path, looking at yourself all the time, showing others how to look at themselves all the time. But hate is just the opposite side of the coin of love. So I also love it, it has shown me where I lack, has shown me where my strengths are, has shown me how to be self contemplative which has taught me how to love both myself and turn that love outwards. When you love, you draw love back to you. When you embrace the darkness or the emotions you may not always want to admit you have, rather than bury them or run from them, they slowly slip away and are integrated into that love.

I think this is why I'm so open with how I feel and so openly share it, in this blog, on Facebook or in person, because its me being human, and even though it may be spirit or divinity animating this flesh suit, while we're in it we are human.

Yogi Bhajan used to describe human in this way hu or hue = light, man = mind, so a human is the light of the mind. Not a bad way to think of us, huh?

How I feel about a few things...

This morning my alarm went off, I'd gotten enough sleep so awakened fairly easily but my body was just done. It was sore, it was tired, so I made an executive decision to stay in bed. It was so nice so sleep in. I didn't sleep deep, just dozed really. My body and mind are used to being up already at that time but sometimes that's what we need, so I woke up eventually and rubbed myself all over with castor oil to take away all that soreness, which is did quite nicely, and just soaked in it for about 45 minutes then showered it off. Then I proceeded to do pranayama and chant. Such a nice morning, now I sit and wait for the time to leave and have a coconut or two and meet some friends for breakfast.

I could be feeling badly and beating myself up mentally for coming all the way to the other side of the planet to study with my teacher and then having the nerve to miss a day, but I'm not doing that anymore. My body is a different body than it was when I was practicing intermediate and adding on third series daily. It's a little be creakier and doing primary and adding on a bit of intermediate doesn't seem to be making it super happy these days lol, and so when I need it I'm going to take that extra day off with no judgment of self. Feel free to judge me if you like, I love you, but truly I really don't give a shit what you think of me!

This is my next to last week practicing here at the shala with Sharath and I'll miss it and him, and all my friends that I get to see but I'm excited for the next chapter on my journey. Not exactly sure where it will take me but I feel great things are there waiting for me to allow them in.

Lately many, many that I've met from these past three trips and gotten to know well, are getting authorized. Authorization, for those who don't know, means that Sharath has given his blessing for you to teach. Level one or level two, one means you can teach primary, two means you can teach intermediate. Most of them when I congratulate them ask me, didn't he authorize you yet?!? And of course it hasn't happened yet, I'm not sure why, but I'm also pretty sure my body isn't making as much progress as he'd like to see before giving me even level one but also if he would bestow this honor on me I can't afford it anyway. Yes, you have to pay for it, but that's no big deal. It's a big amount but if you're Yoga Alliance registered you pay yearly and it ends up adding up to much more. But also this is an honor and is the traditional way of learning, once your teacher feels you're ready to teach they send you out to teach.

Does authorization matter to me? Maybe, probably... Yes, but because it will be him showing his faith in me and not just me making my way through a few requirements from some company that doesn't really even mean anything and has fooled the whole planet into believing that they do (yes folks, they are an american organization, not an international one and their rules don't mean anything to your country). But that said, I know he knows I"m dedicated, he sees me practice daily (well, most days lol) and helps me often and also uses me for comedic relief with our back and forth banter to entertain whomever happens to be hearing our odd conversations about my overeating of pizza and such.

I've already been teaching since 2001 and have students that have been with me since then and I've been practicing since 2000, so I don't feel unqualified to teach what I've learned through this practice, or what I've learned from teaching this practice, which is very priceless! So eventually if I get authorized it will be nice, but for now I'm okay without it.

After I am finished at the shala I take a trip to a university near the west coast here in India and am teaching a bit there for a week. Then will do a little traveling. My goal is to check out opportunities during this time that would allow me to teach here in India and not go back to the US. I get something here that I'm not able to maintain once back there, and so would like to stay for a while until I learn more about how to better maintain that "thing" that I get here. I won't name what it is exactly, mostly because I can't, but if you're coming here regularly you know what I mean.

I can picture myself being an older yogi, teaching in the mornings somewhere here in the North, possibly West coast, where people are coming from all different places to take practice with me. Still practicing with my occasional extra day off. Going to visit Sharath or maybe it'll be Sambav by then teaching and practicing in the shala there and then making my way back to teach again, maybe visiting temples all around this continent from time to time, all the while making a decent living and eating great food and loving life, maybe with a partner, or not, but happy no matter what.

Ahhh, that sounds nice doesn't it?

Namaroopa...

This morning my good friend from Norway, whom I like to call my little brother, and I went up Chamundi Hill. It's really a mountain and in Hindu mythology Chamunda, or Chamundeswari, who is a version of Durga (or is actually Durga, in different locales in India different gods are called different names), killed the demon Mahiasura on this hill and saved Mysore from his terrible reign. There is much more to the story but that story is not the point of this blog entry.

Lately I've been drawn to Kali, or the divine feminine in its most ferocious form. Normally I'm really drawn to Shiva, but Kali is Shiva's consort, and is the ferocious form of Durga, who is the more tough form of Parvati, Shiva's wife. Yes I know, but again, not the point of this entry. So going up the hill was appealing to me and Jorn, we've both been reading about her a lot this trip. So we went.

There is a lovely, huge temple to her, behind it a lovely small temple (really my favorite one) to a form of Shiva called Mahabaleshwara and behind that is a Krishna temple. We went into all three. There is much ceremony involved and much devotion from the locals who live this devotion and believe in the goddess and her saving grace.

It was a great experience in part to being with my baby brother and in part to take part in the ritual of worshipping the goddess, in part because I got to take my first ride in a bus here in India and in part because I've been exploring the idea of moving here and want to learn more and more about the culture. And in a big part because the form of my worship is changing and I want to explore that.

The name I titled this entry with means Name and Form, to me name and form of god and how its perceived by each of us. And yes each of us is individual and see things through our own experiences and circumstances, so its very different for each one of us.

In the west we're trained that there is only one right way and that way often condemns Hinduism because it worships so many gods, not the one and only true god and his son Jesus. It pretty much condemns everyone anyway, saying you have to work your ass off not to go to hell, and basically you're going there anyway so it seems like a thankless fight, but you're still meant to keep the fight up. Not for me anymore, maybe it never was.

I'm reading a book by Robert Svoboda, a well known author of Ayurvedic informational books, and his studies with his teacher who was an Aghora. Aghora being what would be considered an extreme form of worshipping the divine by most people. But there was a passage I read today where Robert had asked him about Jesus and how does he reconcile his upbringing worshipping him and the Hindu stuff that Vimalananda had been up to that time teaching him. Considering Vimalananda talked a lot about Jesus it was throwing him off.

So his teacher asks him why would he stop believing in Jesus? Jesus was a great man, so he should still worship him. He worships the goddess himself mostly but never discounts any other form of the divine and worships each of them when given the chance and talked for quite a few pages about this. The one thing that stuck with me was this, we are really worshipping the One behind all the forms. The forms they show up in don't matter so much because the devotion is going towards the one, but we should worship the form because its easier for us to identify with a humanized idea of what God is.

This in itself is much easier for Hindus I believe because they have so many forms of god already that adding another one is not a hard concept, but underneath it all they believe they are extensions of one thing, one energy, one underlying field that manifests in many different ways, is a part of us, moves through us and all around us. Can anyone say "The Force" from Star Wars? Yes...

Now, I've heard this a thousand times from many different sources and for some reason this time it made sense and stuck. I'm not doing his words justice here, but again that's not the point of this entry. The point is that I got something, deeply understood it finally, that I've been trying to get for a long time. But it took all of this cultivation of the field before the seed being sewn actually took root.

I can believe in God in any way I want, it doesn't meant I'm not believing in God and seeing that spirit in everything. It may mean I'm offending someone who is an absolutist and believes their way is the only and right way, but it doesn't meant they're right. It just means that I'm right for me and they want to believe that I'm wrong and put their energy into worrying about that, then that is one them, but what I'm believing and living is for me. Not for them. And that's okay.

I know I've written about this before, many times probably, but just now I've gained a deeper understanding of this concept and have wanted this for years. So am feeling a bit excited about it hahaha!

This goes back to a blog I wrote not so long ago about judgment, and not judging others or myself. Now I think that may actually be possible. So I can go and worship Kali as Chamunda up on the the hill, or her consort Shiva in any of his many forms, even by reading the Shiva Puranas which I am, or I can go to church with my grandma and pray to Jesus or to my friends Zen center and meditate with her or anywhere I want to and be doing the same thing. Or I can go to Catholic mass and pray to Mary and think of her as the divine feminine form. Or go to a forest and sit against a tree and feel the god or goddess energy in it. Or I can sit in lotus in my room at the little altar I've created and chant and meditate and search for good feeling thoughts, which I do daily, and be happy with that.

As Sharath has said many a time in conference, they never went to temple. Guruji, Pattabhi Jois, his grandfather, was a priest, and so they had worship in their own home. And through the asanas which are a form of worship of the form we are currently inhabiting, he realized that this is our temple. This body. We are the spirit or soul behind all that, observing the human behaviors we are enacting all around us and living inside these bodies, which is the housing for us also called temples.

So whatever form your worship takes, enjoy it, be fully in it and do with bhavana (with heart) and don't let anyone else tell you its wrong, or blasphemous, because that's just bullshit. If you feel it in your heart, you are living and being it and they can go jump off a cliff! LOL

Pashasana...

Okay, many of you will see the name of this post and not even know what that means, but many of you who practice Ashtanga will and will have a very strong opinion or not about it.

I've been to Mysore to study with Sharath three times now, I'm still here on my third trip. My first trip I was stuck at supta kurmasana for much of the trip and then not. He told me in a meeting at the end of that trip, you go home and work on standing up and dropping back, so I did. I came back on my second trip quite able to stand up and drop back on my own, expecting big things from myself, moving into intermediate series and blah, blah, blah. My back went out for a month, he changed my practice to accommodate that and to help heal it, when it healed he kept me doing primary and drop backs for almost the whole last month. Again we had a meeting, I convinced him my back was totally better, he gave me pashasana to work on that last week I was here. Told me you go home and work on that, come back doing it and learn intermediate. Again, I'm here and have never figured this posture out. This whole trip have been working on it. I can get deeper in it than ever (at least since I began the practice again in 2012, before that I was doing it with no problem when I was originally practicing back in 2000-2008, was also learning third series then as well) and when Sharath assisted me in it the first month, it was as if I was doing it on my own and was amazing, but still I couldn't get the bind on my own, since then I've had a couple assistants work with me on it, one of which this morning got me in it with what seemed like not a terrible amount of effort, but maybe that's just my perception, they may think otherwise.

I just cannot figure out how to get the wrapping arm, the bottom arm, up high enough. It feels like there's tightness in my shoulder of that same arm that prevents it getting high enough to grab the fingers of the top hand coming down to meet it. Not sure if that is it or not, but I know I'm not too heavy around the middle to do it, I see chunky people people doing it all the time. I know its not tightness in my spine because here my spine has gotten really open and is twisting with a lot of ease. I can't keep my heels down when I do it on my own, but I can maintain the balance with them up so that's okay. I just don't know.

But I will say this, every time I'm assisted in it it feels like something is being squeezed out of me. I can only call it rottenness, lol. I guess that's an actual word because my MAC didn't try to change it to something else...hahaha. I feel more humble and relaxed and even less crabby after I've done the posture fully, than I do when I half ass it and don't get assisted in it. Which is interesting.

Coming here each time I feel like I get more and more of that inner icky stuff out, so maybe I thought there wasn't much left, but with the work I've done on this posture this trip I'm finding more and more coming out. But more and more after I do it I'm feeling amazing, and its making my back bending deeper.

Now, I say all this to basically say, I think the block to me doing this posture is completely energetic. I don't know if you know what that means or if you even believe in that as a possibility, but I do and this is my story so it doesn't really matter if you do or not! I am not sure where the block is, what its about, but if I'm able to do something with an assist and yet still cannot do it on my own but have no real reason why then I think its something I'm missing that I still need to work on.

It could completely be the fact that I'm ready to get past this posture and know that I don't have trouble with almost any of the other postures in intermediate series, or rather didn't use to when I was practicing it before. It could also be the fact that I know I used to do it more easily before and am frustrated with this older version of my body that is taking its sweet, slow time figuring it out. It could also be that I know there's a chance I may never again get this posture on my own and then will be at this point in my practice for the rest of my life.

It could also be none of those things, but the fact that I'm holding animosity towards someone or not letting go of something that is no longer serving me, or anything for fucks sake that I just don't know what it is! All I can I say is I'm frustrated. And as soon as I say that I realize that today, I'm not terribly frustrated about it. I only get frustrated when I think about it in opposition to my past practice before I took that 4 year break. Hmmmm, maybe its this comparing myself to my old self stuff? Maybe its that I'm not being fully present and embracing where I am and making peace with where I am?

Maybe, just maybe, it doesn't matter if I can ever do this fucking posture. Hmmmm, that's a novel idea isn't it???