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...

Little deaths...

What does little deaths mean? To me, right now, it means little parts of you that are no longer serving you have died symbolically. So it's really an internal, mental and emotional thing. Not a "real" death but they say in the world of consciousness your body cannot determine if it really happened or not, it just feels the way it feels.

So in my morning practice for some years I've been struggling to again achieve this posture named Pashasana, to spell it phonetically. The biggest part of the problem was that I used to be able to do it easily many years back and after a gap in my Ashtanga practice have now come back to a different body trying to do this posture. Now though I've finally figured it out and am doing it again.

This morning though I felt like it might kill me, I was still able to do it and breath was good and all but afterwards I got the feeling I'd just let go of something. Symbolically allowing one of these "little deaths." Well, maybe I didn't allow it so easily and thats why it felt so intense lol, and it was intense.

I also think of Shiva, or Kali, who are destroying things, often only in one's consciousness, but it always has a physical or mento-emotional effect and dealing with it can be like dealing with a real death, and your body and mind often don't realise the difference, so flip out just a little bit. I'm not flipping out today, just noticing things. I'm in a really good place right now, so another time I might flip out, but so far today I'm not.

This isn't a bad thing, many will automatically think that it is. If something, some pattern, some emotional disturbance or mental impression, is no longer serving you why on earth would you want to hold on to it anyway? Let that shit go, and do it fully and this can change your life.

Often times in the life of an Ashtangi we can have the posture doing that work for us, so rather than the mind affecting the body, the body stirs up and awakens a samskara that we didn't necessarily know we'd held on to and then that affects you mentally or emotionally, or both, then you can just let it go, or deal with the problem Or just take a break and do whatever is needed to feel this thing move out of your body and mind and off into the wilderness.... So far today I'm not feeling anything needs worked through, just that a little part of me is gone. In a good way...

Part of my habit of going to temples each morning after my practice is to feel the energy there and allow that to sweep over and through me which can help in this process, today I went to a couple usual ones and then two Narasimhan temples, one Lakshminarasimhan and the other Yoganarasimhan, one in which he still is identifying with the world and the other where he is meditating and mostly dealing with the real of spirit, so it was symbolic in itself this journey this morning and I feel better for it. Ahhhh...

Do you notice this, or have anything similar?

Pilgrimage...

I had many ideas about what would happen as I left the north of India and headed to Mysore, the second home I'd established and now possibly the first home, or just home. But none of it came about. I didn't really have definitive things laid out that I actually expected, more like general ideas of some simple things.

Coming to Mysore is very normally a pilgrimage to practice with my teacher from the U.S. But this time I wasn't thinking of it this way since I knew I wouldn't be practicing with him, and really when I look back on it I shouldn't have had any idea of what to expect.

This trip has been anything but whatever it was that I thought was going to happen. It's been much more and in very different ways than I thought it would be.

In the regular seasons that I come I'm expecting much inner work to be done alone with the asana practice, always. It is sometimes very disarming and I expect it to be. In our idea of a pilgrimage, especially when we come from the West and there really is no pilgrimage that is thought of as a normal thing within the community there, you hear about them... people who go up into the Himalayas and have all these insights happen and shifts and changes go on in their body, their mind, their life and often they don't return or when they do they are a very different person than when they left.

That is what I often expect when I'm coming here to practice, and many changes and shifts do happen, but they never seem to stick. This time I came here expecting nothing except getting some insight from my teacher possibly, and practicing at home. But when I come here in the regular season I have many, many friends also here, so I'm occupied with social engagements and the like, have great discussions, learn a lot about a lot of people, and only think I learn a lot about myself.

But being here no, with almost no one I know here other than those I've met since I've been here, and with almost no social engagements leaves a lot of time alone, and a lot of quiet time to sit with oneself and listen to those voices that are so often silenced by the conversation over a meal, or on temple visits. This I have discovered is when the real work happens. When you sit with yourself. Now in theory I've always known this, always respected the idea of those yogis who went into the mountains to meditate and gain insight into the world, or themselves, or for whatever reason they decided they were going away for. And so now I realise when you're going to a place to be alone, to be alone with your practice, to be alone with your chanting, to be alone with your pooja, to be alone with your own mental fluctuations and almost nothing else, then that is the real pilgrimage. So I believe now, for the first time, not the fifth, I'm actually experiencing this. This long elusive thing that I thought I'd encountered before.

Maybe even writing about it in this way diminishes it in some capacity. But when I think about it I've gone long weeks, or days, here without writing at all and just sitting with the things that come up. And I have been sitting also after my evening pooja I feel led to just be in the energy of it for a while, sometimes short, sometimes long, and it's wonderful, disturbing, annoying, amazing, and crazy what is there to be observed. Now for the first time in my life I find myself curios and wanting to embark in a sitting practice. I don't think twice a day as prescribed by vipassana is for me, but possibly at least once a day.

To be with the things that come up and notice them, see how they affect the body and mind physically, emotionally, and still yet just be in observer mode. I'm approaching my asana practice in the mornings in this way already since I've come back to India and it has changed that practice fundamentally, so now its time to expand on it in other ways. Odd to be saying this, and maybe it won't last, and maybe I'll find that this state of being is where I can reside even when I'm walking around town, having a conversation, riding my scooter, etc. Maybe I'll find it's just the way to be in life, in the things but not of them.

Hmmm...

No complaints...

Seriously, did I just write that? Yes I did, and I can't believe I did because I complain more than almost anyone I know. I can be the most negative person on the planet, at least that's how I feel inside quite often.

So what am I writing no complaints about? Well, my life. But you're wondering if I complain more than anyone I know how is that possible? I know, I'm a conundrum. To myself even, so I'll just write and let you see what you think, okay?

Almost everything I've wanted to do, I've done. And no, I'm not a daredevil type person wanting to jump out of planes and shit, but I wanted to go to India, it took me 14 years but I made it and now I've been here 5 times and live here.

I was always so shy as a kid, painfully so. I remember being in my room and feeling like I couldn't leave it, it would give me a literal panic attack thinking about leaving my room, but then I did it, realised I was fine and went on about my way. It was always like this. And as I got older it didn't get better

I remember once I'd started "going out" which we said to refer to bar hopping, whether with our friends or not. I would be driving to St. Louis and getting sick the whole drive thinking about all the socialising I was going to have to do and how awful it feels to first walk into that bar, at least for me until the drinks kicked in, then I was fine. Yes I used alcohol to overcome my shyness. I was always like this.

Now I've mostly overcome it because I know I'll be fine, just the initial getting out the door is the thing. I've been home most of today and am having the feeling to get out and get a bite to eat and this came up, its why I'm writing this, partially to express some things, but partially to delay the getting out of the house that is coming!

The point is that even though I was scared of everything, I still did it. Whatever it is.

In the late 80's when I first started going out to bars or clubs I saw my first drag show and became very interested, I even had drag queens come up to me and tell me how pretty I'd be in drag. So eventually I tried it, I found out what a nice escape from reality it was and so did it for about 9 months. Now, I finally realised that I was doing just as an escapist thing, not to enjoy the artistic qualities of it, or to enjoy myself, but to be someone else for a whole night (and often having dropped a hit of acid as well) and when I was someone else I could behave however I liked. That realization is what made me quit doing drag after just under one year of it. I knew that somehow I had to figure out how to be more brave whilst being myself, I did but it took a great many more years.

Some years later after having a near decade obsession with strippers (partially from watching Showgirls too many times) and experiencing the seedier side of life I was with my partner at a new place that had opened which featured male strippers performing for the men and women in the audience, when the owner came up to me and expressed his interest in having me audition to perform at his club. I thought about it for a while and my partner talked me into it, again I had to drink a lot before doing so, but I did audition and started dancing two nights a week for him there. My partner knew how little self confidence I had, and he was right in thinking that doing this might help me gain some, and it did. I danced exactly one month before I quit and felt better having done so, for dancing and for quitting both.

These are just a couple examples of things I've been scared shitless of but did anyway. Coming to India was another one, traveling around India was another one (because each area is so different), teaching yoga (which involves speaking in front of people) is another one, teaching in Europe, traveling around anywhere I've been, and so much more. These may not seem like big things to you, but at the time to me they were huge and there is a lot more. Including the impending doom of me having to leave my house when I'm finished typing this! lol

Anyhow, do you let fear paralyse you? Do you do the thing anyway? or not? Either way, take a look at it, see how it feels on both sides of the coin and which you'd be able to live without. Why not? What's the worst that could happen? You'd die? Well so what, then you don't have to pay bills anymore! hahahaha, so just go do it!

Struggles...

I'm reading an account of Iyengar's experiences studying with his teacher and going out to teach on his own, his marriage, his kids, etc. I'm reading the first volume, didn't know I was actually going to read it, I thought I was just going to glance through it because there are 8 volumes, many of which have his yoga techniques and such in it. He states at the beginning that these volumes are a compilation of all the written work he's done, recorded lectures and such, so they just compiled them into these volumes for posterity. But it is interesting stuff.

The first thing that caught my eye was that it took him 35 years before he made a living teaching yoga, or rather made a decent living. Now he didn't come up in the yoga age, where everyone in the west was doing a teacher training program and each yoga shala was pumping out 50 or more teachers each year. He came during a time in India when yoga was not popular, nor would it be for quite a while. He even in his own words states that it is mostly due to this efforts of traveling around and teaching that made yoga so popular. I would agree with this because all of the yoga in the US comes from the YMCA and they hosted him the first times he came and so our asana practices over there, whether or not they were breath oriented like Ashtanga or what have you, are permeated with alignment cues and advice throughout the practice, even in the Ashtanga shalas over there though our practice has no alignment in it.

So this immediately makes me think that I should go back to St. Louis, something I've been thinking a lot about lately. Not that I'm going to do it, but that there I was well known enough to make a decent living, not a great one, but I had everything I needed. I taught there from 2002 until 2016, that was long enough to get most people to know my name in the yoga community in that town. BUT, is that the right reason to go back? Because you're well known and you likely can make a decent living? Why does that mean I can't make a decent living elsewhere? It doesn't, I've just not made a name for myself anywhere else just yet.

And not that I need to make a name for myself, this isn't my point. I am a teacher who's been authorised by Sharath to teach and so that in itself has a little bit of clout. But maybe I'm having doubts right now. Yes, of course I am. My money is almost gone, I've been in the duldrums lately and having a hard time pulling my mental state out of the rock bottom place it's finding itself.

This is not something I'm used to. I'm used to feeling very self confident, very at peace and strong in the knowing of what I can do and ought to do at any given moment. But at this moment, well maybe not exactly right this second (because I am feeling better or else I wouldn't be able to write this) I'm feeling unsure of myself and my abilities.

I had this idea that when I left to travel and teach I would make waves all around the globe and never seek for work again. Yes, I know that's very very of myself but I was feeling very confident and in the know of what I am capable of. But now that I'm sitting in Mysore with not to much to do and no money to leave and get my mental state back in a good place I'm feeling less so. I'm also not writing this make any of you feel sorry for me, not at all. I don't want that nor do I need that. I write as a way of processing where I am and allowing the wisdom of how to move forward out of said place to the next and better feeling state of being, and only for that reason. It always works, and I've been thinking these thoughts for a while now but am just now able to put them down on the page so to speak.

As I'm feeling these things and thinking these thoughts and still reading his book one other thing that sticks out is that he never gave up on it, he believed in yoga so much that he kept with it even though it was barely keeping him alive because he knew that one day it would. This sentiment I feel in strong agreement with as well, there's just no way for me to do anything else. I love teaching yoga and even more I love practicing yoga, feeling each posture, how it feels as I place my breath in different areas of my body, align myself differently and where the benefit comes. Then I love sharing these things with others, it makes me happier than almost anything else, sharing it. I'm missing that really badly right now.

So I need to figure out where I want to live and check into the yoga community in that area and see if it is possible to go there and start a Mysore program and slowly build it up. Or maybe there is already some practicing together in an area that would gladly bring in a teacher and the program would already have a base. Or check out websites, see who maybe already has Ashtanga but needs an authorised teacher to bring that extra added thing to it, or pick an area based on that there is no Ashtanga there but the area is ripe for it to blossom. Hmmm, so many options. I think I get stuck in the thinking that there are no options when my money is gone and so my personal options are inhibited, yes, this is exactly right. So now to work on this state of mind and get it together. Yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind after all, YS 1.11...

No more sitting around and allowing my mind to get into the negative space of there isn't enough. When I catch myself doing this get up and move, or go somewhere, or chant, or read, and get the mind distracted away from these thoughts long enough to allow in better feeling thoughts that can only lead to change and good opportunities.

Get online and search. There are never ending places around the globe, let alone in India, that can use a long time practitioner of yoga to come and teach there. So put it out there, see what your options are and don't give up, keep looking. Yes, now I've started talking to myself in this entry! HAHAHAHA...

Okay, time to go do some of these things, thanks, you've helped me...

Awakenings...

This is not going to be an easy entry to write, because I'm not sure how to say what I want to say but I also don't want to make anyone uncomfortable, so just keep in mind this is all about me and my experiences in life, not anyone else's, and it's from my perspective, sooooo...

For many years in my life, in my yoga practice, in my study of ancient scriptures, etc... I have worked towards equanimity. I've even had some great discussions here about this topic and it's something that's always been of interest to me.

Within the context of equanimity I always worked to make myself feel good and be happy and comfortable in my relationship life, or lack thereof. Now, to me relationship doesn't just mean a boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or wife, but anyone that you are in an exchange with. Exchanging and talking about emotions, your life, their experiences, etc. So just keep that in mind.

I am in relationship with very many people. Meaning that I know a lot of people and I fully engage with each of them when I am with them, if I'm distracted then I will cancel a lunch or something we have scheduled because I believe each person I'm with at that moment deserves my attention. I am human, so will occasional check my phone when I get a message, or if I need to, answer a call, but for the most part when I'm there, I'm there. Even if its a group of people, and this past few weeks I've been involved in a few group dynamics usually revolving around eating a meal together, which is often the best way to relate to one another and have a great conversation.

The biggest part of explaining all this is to tell you that at a very young age I knew I would be alone most of my life, not alone in the sense that I believe a deep connection to something bigger is possible, and I do a lot now to maintain this connection, but alone in the sense that I would never have a partner or husband (yes I'm gay for those of you who STILL don't know this lol) and since I've worked very hard on equanimity (which to me means being okay within whatever context comes up in life, with a partner or without, broke or abundant, happy or sad, all are states of being that are possible to navigate well and with ease with the right state of mind...) I've always been okay.

But recently I met someone, and this post isn't about this someone so don't worry about that, it's about the effect this had on me. In the meeting of this someone I've come to realize that this thing I thought I was feeling equanimous about I was actually just squelching and burying the emotions surrounding it. I've had some of these old feelings awakened and I've discovered that feeling them again is actually not a bad thing, and that in the feeling of them I've realised that having someone in my life could be a very lovely and beneficial thing. I always wanted to say, No, No, I don't need anyone, and that that is probably still true for the most part, but now I know that if it does happen it could also be a great thing and feel very okay and even good for me in many ways.

It's been an interesting weekend observing all these old feelings I had around old relationships and had buried, come up and be seen again. I was just surprised because I thought I'd processed them and moved on, well I had but the energy surrounding them hadn't been assimilated, so the thing was still there. Like a wound that never healed but had scabbed over, the wound was still under the scab. Now, I'm not wounded so that terminology might not be the right one to invoke, but it's as close as I mind would find to the things I'm feeling right now.

Even during my practice this morning some old things I had around an ex floated to the surface and got the chance to make peace with them and let them go on. Stuff I was sure I'd taken care of long back, but there it was. And maybe even now it's not gone, but again just kept in reserve as a reference point to remember, look, this is not what you want, or this is what you want.

In any case, I feel a new level of awareness has arisen and a new level of expansion/growth as well. As I've been made aware of the emotions that never got worked through now I'm able to make peace with them and allow them to integrate into part of the whole, rather than remain all alone and stay an open wound. So the past five days has been interesting and as this person leaves today for home the next days promise to be interesting as well as I observe if this thing is centred around only the one being or if it's just in general and that being was a catalyst in the process of growth and expansion of my spirit, or a bit of both? Maybe that feels like the right thing.

Life never gets less interesting, it only changes and shifts, especially within the context of yoga and how we process things through our ever deepening awareness and hopefully doing so in a way that is also beneficial to those surrounding us, friends, family, students, teachers, or just anyone that we touch in any way, including social media.

I know I've written of being bored lately but that is mostly because I want something external to do with all this new information coming up from within, and it seems I'm not so bored now, I'm quite occupied with the inner emotional life I have, even though I wanted to deny it for years. But there it is, looking at me and poking me so that I can no longer ignore it...

Patterns...

I'm noticing a lot lately that the "normal" patterns of my life haven't been being followed and so I'm adjusting a lot lately and embracing that things don't stay the same. This is something that maybe I've noticed before in a smaller way but now it's just hitting me.

I'm used to being back in St. Louis at this time of the year, and spending time at my favourite parks there, seeing my students at least weekly but often daily, struggling with saving money so I can make it back to India, meeting friends of many years for great conversations over lunch, or over a snack, or at a movie or for a walk in the park, etc.

I'm used to the patter of being in India for the winter and heading back there at the very beginning of spring and seeing the things change, the flowers starting to bloom, the relationships come out into the open and the days getting longer.

To teaching my weekly park class and meeting tons of new people there, being the centre of attention is not usually my favourite thing but in this class I always felt it was more of a group effort and we got to hang out after and eat some great food, take walks, enjoy the weather, etc.

To having my family be a short drive away and getting to hang out with them. To many things. Many things that I'm not experiencing right now.

Now, I'm not bitching about it. I'm just observing that there are some different feelings going on in my body this year, but now I've started to understand why I felt different.

I love India and the regular grouping of people that I'm usually here with are none of them here, but there are some great people here who I've enjoyed getting to know. Many of whom have made me some great breakfasts, dinners, shared meals with where someone else is making the food, and always had great conversations, that is a given here. We are all lined up within our ashtanga practice and so have that shorthand without having to explain things to each other, because we all get it.

It's a great time with the weather too, raining often in the evening, but that keeps the temperatures down and its cool and great sleeping. I'm actually loving it and wouldn't change a thing. I've just been having feeling of certain things that I'd just noticed are usually there this time of year that are not there this time of year, many of which I listed above, but there are many more that I've just not given a name too.

My life is in an interesting shift and I'm going with the flow of whatever is coming around the corner...