Third trip to India

Well, on Friday I will apply to go to Mysore again and further studies with Sharath, more chanting lessons with Ranjini and/or Jayashree, and many other experiences. I am not anxious about it, I feel it will happen, but have chatted with many of my friends from around the globe who are anxious and excited and ready to register already. I am that, I am ready. I love it there and have written about it many, many times, so won't bore you again with that.

The thing that is concerning me is that this year I may not be able to afford the trip. The first trip I took I did a gofundme and made enough to cover the expenses and have a bit for my return home, it worked out well. Last year when I went I went earlier, directly after the summer where I make donations for a large park class I teach and I was on staff for a local teacher training which I had many hours in and so made enough to do the trip on my own and I stayed longer. I ended up having some money stolen and some ripped $100 bills, which are a big no no over there when trying to exchange it, so fell short on cash but had friends and family back home who helped me out with sending funds which was a godsend and I deeply appreciated it.

Upon my return home I quit teaching everywhere I had been teaching and threw all in with a new studio a friend was opening, for fresh blood so to speak. But more so because I wanted to set up a Mysore program and teach this Ashtanga Yoga that I love so much in the traditional way and give it my all. So I am making less money than usual, but have a great core group of individuals who are coming daily and am much more fulfilled by my teaching these days. But also, since I left the studio I was on staff leading the teacher training for I was not allowed to teach that again this year, which was a bigger blow to my income and to the money I could put aside for my impending trip to Mysore this fall, but also the donations at the park have been less than they have in over 5 years this summer, likely due to the state of the economy in St. Louis these days.

Don't get me wrong, I can still eat, pay rent and such so far and this is not a whining about the state of my life post by any means. My life is well and I have no complaints. I'm renting a lovely house, I have some great students and am building a great community with them outside the Mysore room as much as inside it, I'm even seeing someone which I never thought I'd want again but am enjoying it.

But I've come to realize this trip could possibly be a big trip for me and it is important for my growth in my asana practice, more importantly for my spiritual growth, and what I get from my trips I bring back home to my students and eventually hope to start sharing in workshops more and more and not just in St. Louis, but maybe could travel and teach a bit here and there in addition to maintaining the home Mysore program.

So, I have a question. If I were to set up a gofundme account again to help differ the expenses for this upcoming trip how would you feel about it? I'm considering it and almost might not have a choice in the matter if I want to go.

Thank you for reading!

Lately...

New moon

No class today, no practice either, in honor of the new moon which is something we do in the Ashtanga Yoga tradition. I still meditated, did pranayama and chanted my usual morning mantras and the sutras in the afternoon, but no asanas this morning. So because of that and not having to teach I stayed up later last night and then when I awoke this morning I lie in bed much longer than I ever normally would be able to. It was blissful and for these moon days that fall in the middle of the week I am forever thankful!

Now, there is a lot of hoopla going on within the online communities of the Ashtanga method since Sharath changed the rules and said that anyone coming there has to have practiced with an authorized or certified teacher of this system for at least two months prior to being accepted into his classes, and that they also took off the option for you to choose to study with him or with his mother on the online registration form.

There are many differing opinions about this and many of the ones saying the most have not even been to Mysore nor seem to want to go, so I'm not so sure why they would be in such an uproar, and many are also those who are naysayers of Sharath and have been ever since he took over the title of lineage holder from his grandfather. First off, he was the next in line for it and could have refused it, but it was not his choice to be next in line. He did close the shala for some months after Gurujis passing using the time to decide if he wanted to open it up again, and he chose to do so.

I was at first viewing of Mysore Magic (a movie made by students who regularly go to Mysore about going there and interviewing many of those where were there and have been going for some years) a bit upset because he had taken over and was thinking, no, Guruji was the guru, not him. And then I kept practicing and it became clear to me that he was the one to take over, Guruji wanted it, and had worked with him daily for some years to groom him to be the next in line, his mother even encouraged him to work with Guruji. And he fell in love with it.

Then I realized that if I was going to continue to be serious with this practice since coming back to it in 2012, that I'd have to go over there, there was no other way and when I met Sharath and heard him speak in conference with such passion and love for the system, and for the students and for the teachers whom he and Guruji had authorized to teach it I knew he was my teacher and fully accepted him into my heart.

So he's practicing and gleaning insights from this, this is what we all want to happen correct? And then he's sharing these insights with us weekly in conference and trying to keep the system as pure as possible in the wake of astounding numbers of people trying to come over there now, numbers triple or more of what was coming when Guruji was alive, so the decisions he's making seem to be upsetting to some, but it also seems like he's supporting his teachers with this latest one by requiring newbies to have studied with them first and that is great.

I'm excited to go back this fall and to see him and to work through this system once again in it's place of origin, and to be with all those I know from around the world and the locals that I've grown to love and appreciate as friends and family. I'm excited that this continued on after Pattabhi's death and I got the chance to go, because when I was originally going to go I was too chicken and never did it back in 2001 and after.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, just laying out some thoughts so that I don't have them polluting my mind anymore really. So, talk to you again soon!

Marriage

So, those who know me well know I'm probably just not the marrying type. I've also because of this never thought of the fact that gay couples not being able to marry was an issue. It seriously never entered my mind, until recently, and then I thought god, most couples I know aren't together very long at all and so if it does become legal we (the gays and lesbians of the land) will just jump start the economy with divorces!

I'm not one to give anyone relationship advice. I've dated many people, god knows I've had sex with more people than one human every should, but I've really only had one "real" relationship and we lived together for almost two years and talked about getting married, even looked at rings, but were doing it before our friends and family as a record of our love not concerning ourselves with the legality of it, but then we broke up and had sex for another 8 years until I legally changed my name when I became Sikh, that was too much for him and he cut me off, which was fine because it wasn't something he had any say in and for it to bother him more than it bothered my own mother, well that was just silly. I also dated or lived with a few couples, even dated a triple and had much more success with those although they were short term. I think it was because all the focus was not on me, it was split up and so it was always less intense to me than just a one on one relationship.

So at one point I wrote them off. I just said fuck it, I don't need anyone else. In yoga the idea of equanimity factors greatly. Meaning to me that no matter what state you're in, or rather what you are besieged with in life, you can be okay. It's all in the mind anyway, so we can control that and choose to feel okay. So I decided I would always be okay, I have my yoga practice; asanas, pranayama, meditation and chanting, to help me cultivate fulfillment in my life and so if I never had a boyfriend or lover again I'd be just fine, and for the most part that has been the case.

Then this morning when I started seeing all the announcements on Facebook about the Supreme Court passing the law that all couples can now marry I was at first unsure of what I was feeling, then it started to formulate into a feeling of being more whole. Of course, I've always been a whole person, but for it to be legal now for me to marry another man which was something I thought I'd never want, to now be a possibility... it just made my heart sing a little bit. I was very surprised that it made me feel this way. But I guess we, meaning all humans, have become so used to the restrictions put on us as a species by our own kind that it doesn't even register that we are repressed, and so when just a layer, albeit a very thin layer (yes, there is still much work to be done for all of us humans to truly be equal to one another in each others eyes), is removed it can feel so interesting that it doesn't even register what that feeling is. But as I passed through my day it dawned on me that I feel just a tiny bit less repressed than I did yesterday, an interesting thing for sure.

I read a meme online one day that made fun of humans for being the only species on this planet that has to pay to live on it and that said a lot to me. It was meant to be funny, probably ironic and yet it is also the truth. We enslave all sorts of animals in order to do our bidding so we can make money off of them, not paying them anything for it, and hell we enslave each other and yes, slavery does still exist on this planet as does repression of the sexes, sexual orientations and races and much than we even know I'm sure. We also enslave them to live with us, keep us company, have trained them to be with us for so long that I doubt they could ever survive in the wild again. And we have kind of done this to each other with the dependency on corporate America for almost everything we use daily. Lost my track on this paragraph, but the point is, that just now for one day, many of us feel just a tiny bit more free.

And that's a good feeling...

How do you feel?

I myself have not been feeling so good lately. Not feeling badly either, just neutral. Neutral is like death, there is no energy pulling through you at all and in order to have that you must feel inspired, excited, drawn to do something.

But for months now, since I had to move shortly after arriving home from India probably, I've felt neutral. I love teaching Ashtanga and am doing it in the way that I love to teach it and there are many who are enjoying that along with me, even though it is much more intense than they knew it would be. So that part of my life is fulfilling, but for some time now I've felt there is more. More what I don't know. But I had a glimpse of it this past Saturday and a few other times but this time I recognized it for what it was.

I taught the park class in the morning and many loved it and it clicked with them, so I heard that a lot which is great. I spent time with some interesting and new people to me who were putting new thoughts in my head about life and how it's to be lived and the adventure that it can be. Then I taught a workshop that was well received and the students who took it seemed to get what I was teaching and are now able to apply these things to their practice. Then the next day I realized, after spending another day teaching Mysore and chanting, but also spending a lot of it with my students, that this type of connection was what I'm looking for on a bigger scale. Not saying I want hundreds of followers, but saying like minded individuals that can support and care for one another as we move through this practice and how it affects our lives, because no one else really gets it the way that we do, well because they aren't doing this practice.

That led me to think of the many people I've met in Mysore and how close I feel to them even though I don't see them daily or speak to them all that much, so I sent a few messages and chatted with a few people. Then today we found out that Sharath is going to open this season and the date, and when we'll need to apply to get in and so much excitement came over me that my morning practice almost cruised by and seemed simple and easy, then later in the day all the messages I received made me feel even more excited because this group is also excited and this means we will all get to be with one another again and in only 5 months, if we all get in.

So, I know Abraham says you should be able to maintain this kind of feeling all the time without external circumstances being the cause of it but that we've all been trained to look to the external to keep us feeling good, so it's a new training we have to do with ourselves to get to the place that it's possible. I say that it is possible because I've been there much of the time in my life recently. Ok because I chose to be, feeling good because I chose the thoughts that led me there and didn't allow the ones that typically drag me down to do so. But sometimes, just sometimes that community spirit is alright too I think. If you can't do it on your own utilizing those who are like you and know your inner strength to help lift your spirits is just okay too. Not that Abraham would disagree but they just encourage us to be self sufficient and strong. I'm happy I've found their teachings for sure, it's changed my life, but I'm also happy that I've found a great group of people in my life, both locally and worldwide that can inspire me and help me stay higher up in my vibration.

So, I'm feeling pretty good today. Teaching this morning a great group was inspiring and helped me stay there and I chatted with a few of those great friends during the day today and I just finished a really great show on Netflix, so moving from inside to out in the feeling good arena is a pretty great and I'm glad I'm able to access that, but also when your inner being isn't feeling so amazing, using the outside to stimulate better feeling thoughts that lead to better feeling emotions that lead you to generally feeling good is okay as well.

So, how are you feeling? Can you make a choice to feel better and follow through with it? No? Then wanna hang out? Maybe I can help...

Asana

There's a lot of debate in the "yoga" world lately about asana. Mostly around all the Instagram posts of everyone and their brother posting photos of themselves in asanas, hard ones, easier ones, many upon many handstands. All of which seems to many that it demeans the yoga practice down to a set of asanas, rather than the deeper teachings that are there and meant to be behind the practice of moving through postures and and breathing.

Personally I had heard of yoga in the 80's while watching That's Incredible. They would occasionally have a skinny, little Indian man curl himself up and get into a clear box so we could see him and be amazed that he stayed in there in an extremely awkward position for the entire show and so my interest had been peaked in my teens. But upon actually beginning to practice in late 1999 and early 2000 I quickly realized there was much more to it than just moving the body and trying to breathe while I did so, that in doing this there was energy awakened and awareness coming about every aspect of myself including my thought patterns and noticing which things were serving me still and which no longer were serving me. So to understand what was going on a bit more I bought some books and read the philosophy behind the yoga practices I was doing.

I still don't think I got it for many, many years. I was practicing they physical discipline of Ashtanga Yoga for 8 years before I decided to leave it for another physical discipline in the Hatha Yoga lineage, but also I took up Kundalini Yoga, which used physical means to achieve energetic goals, but this time I could feel the energy move and clear out areas of my body, physically and subtly. So when I came back to Ashtanga Yoga as a physical discipline almost 4 years later I was able to feel and get the same results but was also feeling my body come back into a better physical state as well.

Now I've traveled to Mysore, India to study with the current lineage holder of this practice and in doing so I encountered Indians in their own culture for the first time, and the one thing I can say about them that's affected me more than even the asana practice I experienced over there is the level of faith they have. They just surrender to the now all day, every day. Where we Westerners seem to always be struggling to find happiness or something more in life, they are content with the way things are and move through life with much less worry and anxiety. Life is accepted the way it is, they are happy no matter what's thrown at them it seems. So this affected me and made me take to the yoga differently than I would when I was at home, with much more surrender and contentment in where I was, not looking to where I was going all the time. Once you find peace where you are, you open up the door to where you're wanting to go anyway in my opinion.

The Ashtanga Yoga practice of asanas is very intense, there is a certain breath for each movement to be followed, there is a certain place to gaze with your eyes as you move through each posture, there is even a set sequence of postures to follow, one harder than the last, not to be changed. But the approach to these things can be different. I used to push and in the pushing would harm myself. Now I surrender and its still hard but in the surrender I'm finding peace and within that peace is the deepest connection I could ask for. So now after my asana practice, and sometimes during, I'm finding myself in a still place. I've seen it called the still point or zero point, in Sanskrit it's called Shuniya which is the experience of absolute stillness within and without. It is the oneness with all things, it is the zeroing out of anything that keeps you from experiencing your divinity. And lately after practice I've been able to reach this place, this deep inner space that I can observe everything going on and feel not of it, but still be in it and not apart from it.

It's a good place to be. You feel happier when you're there, less easily agitated over small things, more calm and decisions are easier to make and thinking becomes more clear and open, less judgmental. I can also more quickly notice when I'm not there and that is a good thing too.

So, asana to me is a part of my sadhana (daily practices that lead to connecting spiritually, to yourself and to others). I know there are many in the East who poopoo asana saying we don't need it, we should just be able to sit and achieve this state of being, and maybe as I get older and move through more and more asana practices I will need it less or eventually not at all, but practicing for me is healing my nervous system so less worry and anxiety is there throughout my day. It's a burning off of the rough edges that are still held over from my previous life of drinking too much and worrying about everything. I do think people can have fun with them and use them for things other than connection, that's not really why I use them but many do and post about it on Instagram lol, btw I'm not on Instragram so only see posts as they also post onto Facebook. I do have a few friends in the Ashtanga community who post on there incessantly bit many of them type very strong and encouraging words about an aspect of yoga that has been cultivated through their asana practice, so that I don't mind and the others I try not to mind as well. It's all yoga and it's all affecting people where they are and where they are is most likely not where I am and so it's good just as well.

Hope that wasn't too much rambling, have a great day, feeling love and sending it your way!

Random thoughts...

Now, I don't believe anything is random really so I guess I named this entry that because there are many things going through my head right now and I'm planning on touching on some of them randomly, depending on what comes up while I'm typing. I tend to write things stream of consciousness-wise anyway but it's been quite a while since I wrote and have been having trouble each time I sit down to type the past two weeks or so, so we'll see what comes out.

The other day I read an article about the "Three things that deepen your yoga practice" or some such a title, which got me excited because a friend of mine and I have been having many discussions, actually a couple friends and I (you both know who you are), about the silliness going around within yoga these days some of it involving Instagram, some not. And so this article seemed like something I would enjoy reading. I open it up and its talking about Tapas, Svadhyaya and Ishwarapranidana and if you read the sutras or as I'm doing almost daily (to keep up with my homework from Ranjini in Mysore I'm chanting the first two padas of the yoga sutras and a few other scriptures and mantras most days)chanting the sutras you know that the first sutra of the second pada is tapahsvadhyayaishwarapranidanani kriyayogah, which translates that tapas, svadhyaya and ishwarapranidana together form kriya yoga, or the yoga of action. But the article disappointed me in that it only took each of the qualities at their physical level and went no further. In its defense that is probably where most people are and so it touched on things most people could relate too and therefor probably received more shares on Facebook. But I think to its detriment it did this. Since most people may come to their asana practice as only a physical event maybe if it had went deeper it would have brought the idea to more people that the asana practice is so much more than just a physical thing happening, of course it is a physical thing but it can be so much more, if one has the awareness of that introduced to them.

Tapas can be only the physical workout that the asanas provide, but tapas, which roughly translates as "to burn" really means igniting the fire of transformation, or agni in Vedic Sanskrit, which is located around the navel center or solar plexus in the subtle body and can also apply to the digestive process in the physical body. So when you're doing the asana practice if you're thinking of it as detoxification of the physical being, that's taking it a step further, or as igniting that fire within that can burn away the layers of "you" that really aren't you and begin a transformation from the inside out. Now that is something I can and do put myself into daily, transformation, sure of body, but more so of mind and spirit using the body to facilitate aspects of that change.

Svadhyaya is self study, which this article touted as listening to yourself, or getting to know yourself on a physical level. Hearing when the body is at its edge and so forth, which is a really good thing so I'm not disputing that. But also there are deeper levels one can take this idea to. My teacher Sharath says one aspect of svadhyaya is when your teacher mentions something but doesn't really expound upon it, it's your job as a good shishya or student/disciple to go and research that thing so you know what he's talking about for future reference, so literally studying things yourself. But I like the thought of it best as being that deeper level of awareness one can achieve through the asana practice, through pranayama and meditation too, also through observation of the emotions as they arise, paying attention to sensations in the body as it comes up, but most of all noticing how you feel while you're thinking of different things. If you can tell how a thought makes you feel then you'll know when to start to change your thoughts processes to move in a different direction when you're heading down a negative path in your mind.

Ishwarapranidana is surrender to god, or if you're like me and believe that god or the energy of the divine is all that there is in this realm then just surrender, because anytime you do you are surrendering to god, or allowing the universe, or source, or the bigger picture, to take the reigns and when you do that you're allowing things to move in their natural flow and slowly teaching yourself how to let go and go with that. I've written a lot about surrender on this blog, especially in my time in Mysore this past trip so I'm not going to type too much more here on that. But suffice it to say, this one could be considered the most important, for when we're allowing or surrendering we are not identifying with our resistance within and therefor are letting the natural flow of life happen as it should and would work if we weren't always interjecting blocks in its way with the stories in our mind.

So, all that being said, today I didn't do to much in the way of these three lol, I actually slept in later than normal with the intention of practicing after I got up and before I headed out. But last weekend I had practiced on Saturday and so yesterday, Thursday, was my sixth day of practice in a row already and i just couldn't do it, so I just did pranayama and chanted and sat for a bit. Which all felt nice, it's also my one day off of the week so I had plans to see the new Mad Max film and had tickets already to boot, so taking the morning of the asana part of my practice was nice. Tomorrow is the typical day off and Sunday is a new moon, so another day off and yes that means I would've have two days off in a row but I'm okay getting up an practicing tomorrow and then taking Sunday off as well, that will feel good.

I did see the new Mad Max and it was phenomenal, lots of action but with so much heart, I loved it. Then I got out, went and got a smoothie, looked at times and went and saw the new Pitch Perfect film, which didn't hold a candle the the first installment. The singing sequences were great but otherwise it was jumbled and didn't flow well, so you could like it or not depending on what you're looking for.

Also this week I've been thinking of Mysore sooooo much and it seems from the posts I'm seeing on Facebook that many who also go over there yearly are as well, so I'm not alone. I've been dreaming of it and thinking of periodically throughout the day each day and that's making being here hard but oh well, I'm here and need to surrender to that (see above).

Maybe these thoughts weren't so random after all, they actually seem coherent when I scroll back up and look around too. That's great! lol

I hope they've made you think a little bit and if they didn't, that's okay too. I can't affect everyone and the writing is really cathartic for me so I'll be doing it whether it clicks with you or not!

Enjoy your weekend, see you soon, maybe if the rain holds off I'll even see you in the morning at the Tower Grove Farmers Market class I'll be teaching!

Namaste