Day off...

After a nice evening, and yes I was out after dark, with some kirtan, some great discussions, a Kali visit and some great food with friends having a day off is like a godsend. Of course most things are, aren't they? Maybe not to you but I'm seeing more and more that god is part of everything and when you're in that state of mind how different the day can look and feel.

Today I feel calm, cool, at ease and in love with everything. It's not like this every day so I'm going to relish in it for a while.

I'm at home reading after a morning of sleeping in, much later than usual, some great chanting that left me feeling connected and then temple visits. All before breakfast, usually I do the temples after breakfast but I ate so much last night that this morning I still felt fulfilled and my bowels were in a bit of an uproar since I'm not used to eating so much so late, but that is probably TMI and now its all okay anyway.

I love time to myself and have had it today, don't get me wrong I love being with people too but typically in my life the mornings are mine and today was a feeling of the way it used to be in the US when I was home teaching for the summer between trips to India. Oddly enough since coming to India I've felt it was my home and so the trips to the US felt like I was there on work detail and here was home and where I belonged. Work detail is too strong a phrase too, I loved teaching there and loved certain other aspects of my life, especially my mornings.

I would wake up at a very early hour and do my own asana practice, chanting mantra practice and sometimes pranayama, shower, eat something then go teach. Teaching for a couple or three hours then to a coffee house for a chai and a snack during which time I'd read from a book or two (yes, I used to read a fiction and a non-fiction book at the same time) and then write in my journal. Then I would go to the park for a walk, or to sit in the sun and meditate or sit in my car with the windows down and read some more, or to visit with friends. This way I was getting my fulfilment in many different ways and then would have the rest of the day to process the things that came up from my practices or from the reading. Time to process is integral to me for a feeling of a more yogic lifestyle.

And this morning, none of these exact things happened, but the feeling of the energy of the morning was the same or similar to those mornings back then. Not sure why but I'm not questioning it too much, just allowing that old feeling to be there.

This morning since I've come back home I am reading and now writing this, so some of those types of things happened. The book is about the life of Ramakrishna. I've not become obsessed with him lately, but there is an ashram here in Mysore dedicated to his teachings where a good many monks live the life he prescribed for them. They have a large meditation hall where I go many mornings and sit and just be, and absorb in the vibration of the place. I small Kali temple is there and a large photo of Ramakrishna himself, his wife and Swami Vivekananda. The energy in this space is very calm and conducive to just sitting and going into an absorbed state of mind. Within this state often I come feeling so amazing I can't explain it well here, but those who go there know what I'm writing of. It's quite special. My friend that I was traveling with even liked it so much that he's now going to join their order at the Kolkata branch, which is near the famous Dakshineswar Kali temple that Ramakrishna lived at for many years. I will have to visit him there for sure!

So reading about his life has been interesting. And even more interesting is the fact that the book was translated to English by a Swamy in his order that lives in St. Louis, Missouri, where I used to live and often would attend his Sunday morning discussions at the Vedanta Society, so another tie to my old life. But not a tie that makes me miss or feel bound to that old life, just one that's making me feel grateful for it and that it's led me here to this time I'm living in.

I have thought about St. Louis a lot lately, not this week or last but before that. I could return there and teach, there are so many great students there wanting to learn more and more. And the area is so troubled right now with a lot of things, I'll not write about that but if you're interested you can google it and see. My friend there who owns my favourite restaurant in the area and the studio I used to teach in says if I came back it would be helping to raise the vibration of the place, and maybe it would, but I'm feeling still unstable in my ability to maintain my own vibration yet. I am much better at it than ever before, but still need a bit more time. So returning really isn't an option just yet.

Anyhow, the beginning of a nice day, and many more to follow. I'm choosing my mood more and more these days and things have come up that would have thrown me off track before, but now they are not and are even helping me to refine and direct my focus including them, rather than pushing them off which is a new place to be.

We are ever changing and experiencing opposites in this life, so it's good to be able to maintain equanimity within the flux between states. That is the yogic path to me, not to be heartless and cold, as it would seem to some, but to be fully in the awareness of ones emotions and allowing the heart and head to work together to decided which would be the best direction to move in, rather than just the emotions which can be too much, or the head which is too much usually in the other direction.

All is good, and each of us are doing our best with the tools we have, whether or not it may seem so at the time, so let's all be okay with another's decisions, they are coming from a different place that we are and are not obligated to feel the same way as we do. Unconditional love is my goal, I'm not there yet but I see myself working in that direction, and unconditional means just that, no conditions put on the love that we are emitting. Once a condition has been put on it, such as expecting a certain behavior pattern from another, then it's not what I'm looking for anymore. I often do this, but I'm working towards not...