Mysore...

Feelings this morning while I was doing my practice that I was in the shala in Gokulam practicing with Sharath watching over me during led class. I kept my pace and didn't lose any time fidgeting and was finished in 1 hour and 10 minutes.

Then later I open Facebook to see my friends little video she made about what's really going on in Mysore, the Mystery of Mysore. Some say just their physical practice, but I've always had an easier time practicing at home alone than in the shawl.

The energy in there is intense to me and it makes me lose my focus, so I have to work that much harder, with my mind, to keep my focus and then that alone brings up all the buried emotional baggage I have. We have. And then we have a chance to work through them rather than keep them buried, or to just rebury them again and have to deal with hem later in life. I prefer to deal with them when they come up these days. Many years of burying shit allows for a lot of stuff to come up now, and it seems to come up in Mysore more than anywhere else.

This was the gist of most of the conversation in the video but it also got me thinking of m own experiences. Which are mostly the same but of course different because they are mine. So all of us seem to have it and that is why we go there, to learn more of the physical practice, which then brings more of the inner stuff up and then we work through it.

My little brother and I went most days to Santosha to eat breakfast, but we called it recovery. We had practiced, we had went home and showered and/or slept a bit then went there first thing in the morning and sat on their purple couch, allowing all the things that came up to just be there and sometimes we'd talk through them, sometimes we'd just let them be. It's the beauty there, everyone understands because they're also going through it so they don't pry or push, unless they're brand new sometimes, they just let you be where you are. It's good.

So when I wrote about having no clarity, then I actually got some. Part of that was that I want to be in Mysore, and when me and my travel companion bought our tickets I felt this immediate relief, my body and mind were like, yes HOME! So then more came as I looked at the dates and realised it was two weeks before we leave and arrive there. That made me realise we should just go to Uttarkashi, then when I see Sharath I can have some experience of the place to talk to him about it with more information. So I have someone checking on places to stay and Swami already checked on how to get there from here, so that is in the works. It may only be a little over a week, but It think the time will be better served up there than just lying around here.

There's not too much to do here in Rishikesh, if you're not doing a 200 or 500 hour level teacher training program. That is literally the majority of what goes on here. And you know I'm not doing that! I even thought about teaching here and put the word out a bit and there is some interest but not enough, so I'm not putting a lot of effort into it. Sharath told me maybe I should teach in Uttarkashi so I want to see it there and if I think it will work, it's a remote town and not a lot of tourists there, so we'll see.

In Mysore I can see him and talk about all this, work out what is the best to do and maybe stay a few weeks and enjoy the feeling of home. My temples are there, many people I know and love and the energy of Sharath, the energy of Ashtanga is there, so that drives my practice nicely. Pattabhi worked long and hard to establish this yoga method there and you can feel it.

I'm ready to teach though, I'm missing it. Teaching in Germany was very fulfilling and it gave me a new drive for it, so it feels like there's a little hole there. My own practice, then teaching, then going about my day. Hopefully that will change soon, not sure where, but I feel it coming.

Okay, going for a dip in the Ganga, it's hot here and she is cold. Then lunch after. Catch you later!

Clarity is coming...

So, I wrote about having doubts and lack of clarity and I got all sorts of private messages and support. I appreciate it from everyone, but I was really writing to just clear the cobwebs and let go of the shit in there.

Varanasi really fucked me up and I couldn't get my brain to work, then when I came here to Rishikesh I immediately started having sinus problems, but its all stuff coming out from the crap in the air in Varanasi, so I was having sinus pressure and pain and my head felt like it was 50 lbs.

After I wrote I felt better, but then the sinuses started to clear up and coughing started as its coming out more and it's all good.

As a result of this my mind started working again and I got clarity, we found an app that I was referred to that has cheap flights to Mysore from a town that's only about 20 minutes away. We were able to get two tickets and are flying to Mysore on July 7 just in time for the Guru Purnima celebration and immediately when I woke up this morning after buying them last night I looked at dates and realised oh, that's two weeks away. So why can't we go to see Uttarkashi between now and then?

And so we're working on that. We found out how to get there, which isn't so easy but it is accessible, then online is showing only really high rates that equal $581 for the 13 days we'd be there, which is not going to happen. But everyone keeps saying oh you can get rooms there for 300-500 rupees, which is doable, so again, we're still working on it.

Once the mind clears up the body follows (and both are a result of spirit feeling lighter I believe) so this morning my practice was quite energised and amazing and I did a lot more than I've been able to do since I got back to India, even drop backs were great.

So then of course other things followed as well. I was sitting at this little quiet spot on the ghats I like that's sort of hidden, but has some little temples and things that just make it special and these local guys were playing the guitar and singing, and the djimbe, so it was quite lovely. Then this father and his three sons and daughter came down and just hung out, one boy asked my name, so I asked his, the other offered me a tic tac, the father told me about his store up on the main road. Then it was time to leave.

So I went home and took a nap, wrote some emails and decided around 4pm it was time for my daily dip in the Ganga so I headed back to that same place and got undressed, went it, came out and was sitting there meditating and I could hear these little feet all around me, walking from one side to the other, looking at me I could feel too. I opened my eyes and looked at him, it was the son who'd offered me a tic tac and so we sat and talked for quite a while. He's 12 but I would've guessed 8 but man his intelligence and English almost rivalled my own. He was telling me about his families shop and gave me a card so I could decide it I needed anything from it. And really wanted me to swim for him since his parents won't let him. He's very sweet and it was another lovely experience.

As I was walking home from eating just after this two Asian ladies on the street recognised me from my Instagram account as an Authorised Ashtanga teacher and asked me to teach them since the yoga here isn't so good, their words, and every studio here has Ashtanga, Iyengar, etc, etc, but not taught by people who actually study these yogic traditions authentically, usually young boys who've went to another class somewhere and come there to teach after hahaha. Anyhow, so I got a teaching gig now!

Then I got to chat with Jody from back home, not too long because the wifi sucked but enough.

I'm not a big proponent of bitching and moaning because I believe if you get in the heat of the emotions then you just keep drawing that same stuff back to you. But writing it all out with a letting go of any connection to it can work. I just proved it to myself, as I let go of it more room was made for the other better feelings that I know I am capable of and so they swept in and the clarity was there to smooth out the path for them.

I love this stuff, this yoga stuff, this consciousness stuff, this deepening our level of awareness stuff. Sometimes it seems so dark that you can't possible imagine coming out from it but if you stick with it, even embrace the dark and just be with it, make peace with it really, then light starts to come in, or rather the veils covering the light are removed and boom, there you are again.

I'm feeling more myself again, and I'm grateful for it. When I'm being authentically me I like myself, when I'm pinching myself off from that inner light, not so much...

Doubts...

So, I'm back in India and not finding that place that I find inside me when I'm here. I know that place is accessible no matter where I am, I found it in Germany even, but I'm unable to get back to it.

So maybe I'm wrong, maybe I was saying India is my home, India feels like home, maybe it's just Mysore that is home? I've been daydreaming about Mysore a lot lately and have been told to come down there for Guru Purnima on July 9th so am thinking about going. But I really do want to check out Uttarkashi too. So do I stay here in Rishikesh until closer to time to go there or go there now, or go on to Uttarkashi and check it out, then have that extra time to get back to Dehradun and then fly down there?

I'm also used to having easy access to my instincts and they just are not clicking in at all. My brain feels like it's in a fog most days, some days are clearer than others but some are not. What is going on?!?

I've also been thinking about St. Louis, so maybe I'm just supposed to be there. Sharath originally told me he wanted me to be there teaching and maybe that is just where I'm supposed to go and teach. I do know it well, I do well there as far as my teaching goes. I have amazing friends there, but I also have amazing friends all around the globe that I could potentially find a place to teach in. My family is also there, most of them anyway. And they speak English.

I've always done fine with my English and slight knowledge of Kannada in Mysore, so another point for going there. Here it's okay but Hindi is the language mostly spoken, and English, but I also did okay in Germany speaking mostly English and a couple of their words.

OMG, just bear with me while I work through this in writing lol, and sorry but with the body/mind instinctual connection not kicking in so well seeing this stuff in writing is the only way I can do this!

So, Uttarkashi maybe, see how I feel about it. I know how I'll feel about it already, it's beautiful there, and peaceful and in the mountains and on the Ganga, so surrounded by nature which I now know I cannot be without. But then to Mysore? Yes, I really want to go to Mysore, so I should. Maybe at the ceremony for Guru Purnima I can see Sharath and talk to him about me working for him there, which we did briefly discuss when I met with him last December.

And then if none of the things work out, then St. Louis or another place to set up a program, or to take over a program and settle in a bit, make some money and find a rhythm.

That's it, I'm missing my rhythm. I'm unable to find it here, forget Varanasi, there was no way for me to find it there, but here I've found more peace and more connection, but still not my rhythm which is something I'm very used to having access to easily. Hmmmm, maybe typing this out has been a good thing, even though for you reading it may have been annoying!

Back in India...

Well, here I am in Rishikesh. I haven't written in a while and there's a reason.

I was in Varanasi. A city I'd been drawn to come to for some years. I hated it. Every moment of it.

Now, when I realised I was sabotaging myself, which is always the case, I chose to change my mind and see things differently it got better and I was able to enjoy myself and the odd experiences there more. But it was still so hot that my brain wouldn't work. Also my laptop was too powerful for the wifi there, so I couldn't use it either. So the heat and that are enough to keep one from posting anything or writing too long of a blog, or a blog at all hahaha...

I am a temple whore. I love to go into temples and feel the energy, especially if its a deity I know about and have a love for their stories, but in Varanasi, maybe in the north of India as a whole, they are very different. In Mysore the deities are tucked safely away in their own sanctum sanctorum, or alcoves, the people are very respectful. They are open armed and welcoming and there is a certain protocol. These things don't exist here in the north, or in Varaasi anyway.

Once in the Kala Bhairava temple I was even yelled at and made to feel less because I wasn't giving enough money for this little ceremony they'd done for me which involved being beaten with a black stick btw, so it was not pleasant!

I wasn't even allowed in the Kashi Vishwanath temple, one of the oldest in the land, because I didn't bring my passport. How was I to know that would be needed?!? But after an aggravating night trying to get in there I went to a lovely temple on the way back home and the night felt redeemed. The people were lovely, welcoming and didn't bug us for cash.

The temples weren't my only experiences for sure, but they are some of the most dramatic. There was a lovely dosa place, there is Baba Lassi which uses a very old school family recipe to prepare and make different flavored lassis and boy I could use on right now! There were the ghats that led to the Ganga. There was this little South Indian temple in the lineage of Shankaracharya that was quiet, and felt like home. There was even a great Hanuman temple in the city more that was so quaint and the priests really involved us in the ceremony.

Then there was the night after that, we'd gotten full flower malls around our necks from this Hanuman temple and as we were coming home at dusk decided that they would just die in the room because it was so hot in there so we decided to put them in the Ganga. I was looking at these kids so happily playing in her, splashing and making lots of noise, that I neglected to notice there was a hole that the shit and urine from the above hotels was creeping out of there about three steps up and I stepped right into it, slid and landed on my left hip, elbow and shoulder. The same side I'd hurt when I was in my wreck in Mysore last fall, and the same areas again got injured. I bounced/slid down almost into the Ganga which is so filthy here that as a Westerner I would get sick from getting in. I was sort of in shock but all these kids came swimming over, oh, you are our friend, here, lets wash it off of you, and they helped me clean up as best as possible. But it still took three washings to get the shit and the smell of shit out of those shorts! After a few days practice the bruises were going away and only my shoulder now still hurts in the same place from the earlier mentioned wreck, but it's okay too.

Anyhow, my travel companion and I left early. Were able to get train tickets leaving this past Tuesday and came to Rishikesh.

Now the train ride was 24 hours, which is a miserable amount of time, but I met an older couple coming here for a meditation retreat at an ashram and a French clown who teaches children to juggle and is an avid meditator. He is staying in the same guest house as us, but the other two are are Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's ashram until today, then they go back home. Retired now they are enjoying pursuing the spiritual life and what it's bringing to their daily lives.

So even though its a long time to either sit or lie down it could have been worse.

Now I'm here in the foothills of the Himalayas, and with a clean Ganga to bathe in daily and many sadhus walking around and far too many Westerners walking around too! It's a bit too commercial for my liking with a yoga school on every corner offering Iyengar, Ashtanga, Vinyasa flow, tantric, and all other sorts of classes taught by 22 year olds who've not practiced much in their life. Very judgmental of me, yes, I know...

But its still better than my last location, and the trees, the temples, the people, even though used to seeing white faces are still a lot more soft and easy than in Varanasi. Not like in Mysore at all ,very different, but still nicer than that.

ok, off here to go to the Ganga for a swim and I hope you're enjoying your summer!