Mangalore University

I'm back in Gokulam, in Mysore, after a week teaching on the West Coast.

The university there has a department called Human Consciousness and Yogic Sciences, which is great considering I would never imagine one could get a degree in such a thing. They also offer a PhD program which is great as well. It's in Yoga Therapy, they follow the teachings of Krishnamacharya as learned through the man who created the department by his experiences of studying yoga with K. Pattabhi Jois.

My friend Pavithra, who owns the Green House here in Gokulam, has his PhD from there. So last year when the department head invited him to teach Ashtanga Yoga at their week long collaborative workshop with a Korean online university, he went. This year they called and asked him and he was not able to go, so he asked me and I spoke with the university and it all worked out, so I went.

Now, it scared the shit out of me to think of this, but also I knew it would be an interesting experience at the very least.

In the mornings I taught a physical asana practice to about 30 or so Koreans and 20 or so Indians who attend the university. So at first I was freaked out that no one would be able to understand me since English is my only language and not their first language, none of the Koreans spoke anything but their own language by the way. But their teacher was on hand to translate for them and many of them knew the practice and all of them knew about vinyasa practice as well, so it was much better than I thought it would be.

In the evenings I would teach something different for a shorter period. One night we went over moola bandha, one night we did a question and answer session which at the end devolved into each of them taking photos with me, and the finally evening session we did pranayama and a little chanting.

One of the PhD students picked me up from the train station, two others rode there with him as well. Not yet to my knowledge we became quite close, he and one other fellow drove me around everywhere, picked me up for classes or dropped me back to the guest house and neither of them would let me pay for anything! lol, I must say its nice to have a personal driver and not to have to spend a dime oneself, but it also makes one very lazy and therefor I napped twice a day every day!

Those two I mentioned above both I became close with and both are interested in further practicing Ashtanga Yoga along with a couple others, so I hope to have done Sharath well by inspiring some local Indians to come to this practice. One of them, Mahabala, even mentioned how great he thought it was that a westerner was teaching them their own forgotten traditions back to them, he loved it. It made me happy last night when he said that and how happy he was that it happened that way. I never want to feel like I'm appropriating their culture, which is such a big debate these days it seems. I want them all to understand their culture really enriches my life and I'm living it as fully as I can so that it can become my life, not just me posing that it is.

That I think is a big reason I come to India to learn the traditions in this particular yogic lineage, not just create more of my own thing back home. It feels important to honor and respect that it actually started here and continues to flourish here under the same circumstances it began in. I only hope to do it justice, and am glad to see positive results like happened this week with natural Indians along with others.

So, it was an interesting week full of great people, they also made us some great, healthy food and many other great experiences. I got to ride on a motorcycle daily, which has been something I didn't realize I'd missed. My dad rode a Harley all my life and riding on the back is always something I've enjoyed, I'd just forgotten how much. On the train there as I was about to get off I met a man and he ended up being the head of the English department at the very university I was heading to teach at, so one day he came to visit me for lunch where we talked for quite some time and then came by my apartment that evening to bring me a book by a Swami from the Shankaracharya lineage in Sringere, India, that he thought I would enjoy since it had helped him so much in his life. I appreciated that a lot, it reminded me how awesome real human connection can be. I got to watch a production of the story of Vishwamitra (which I had just recently read) in the local dance/drama form called Yakshagana. The participants dress is very expressive Face paint and costumes and do dance moves specific to this type of theatre, it was very good and entertaining. If I could understand Kannada I would have enjoyed it more I'm sure because most of the audience were laughing out loud quite often throughout the show. I got to ride in a car which is not something that happens often in India, but also the driver whom is a dear friend, drives crazily and that was an experience in itself! lol... I got to take cold showers each day since there was no heater for the water, which they call a geyser (pronounced geezer). I used to take them a lot during my Kundalini days, and had forgotten how much I don't like it hahahaha. There are so many little things I could say about my time there and about how many people took an interest in me and I got to know but I can't pull all the info out of my mind just yet, but one more thing I'd like to talk about. The train... Westerners are spoiled, spoiled rotten actually. And many would not appreciate the sleeper train experience, nor would they ever even be willing to give it a try, but I must say it is one of the more pertinent experiences in my life showing me how much we value our personal comfort levels, and are not willing to traverse even the slightest bit outside them... I'll write more about that later, but that is enough said for now. I also got to visit and get a private tour around a plant where everything is still done by hand, they employ maybe 500 people, in which they take naturally fallen leaves from the large palm trees here and press them into plates to eat off of. I've used these plates many times, but never knew what an environmental thing it was that they were doing in making them. So proud of that, and sad that these practices are not more employed in the U.S. but there are many other ways we do things to help that they do not do here, so in some ways there is a lot of balance.

Just a bit of my week, as I process more and more of it I'll write more and more I'm sure.