Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?!? Rumi

This quote came at me today when I happened upon a photographers Instagram page after being told about him, and it struck me.

I know I've heard it all before but when you have an aha moment, and then you have it again, the AHA gets bigger with the intention of you remembering it finally.

Everything in life is a choice. People are always complaining and I say then you can choose to change this. They make excuses about they have to, they need the job for the money, nah, nah, nah, etc... You know the argument. You've made it before, I have too! But it's just not true.

Look at my life, I make enough money to eat some meals and buy a chai, that's about it. And yet I fly around the planet and do what I love more than anything else, teach Ashtanga Yoga. And hopefully can help people deepen their ideas of practice, because I am not an asana only type person, I believe all the underneath stuff is what's important, not just the asana.

But if you're teaching people these tools of awareness and consciousness and they never use them, is it worth it? Yes, because on whatever level they are on that is where their aha moments will happen. And that's the only place it can happen for them, so maybe they just aren't ready to hear "yes, quit your job and trust that it will all work out." It's the same thing as saying take the leap and the net will appear, or even better in my opinion, take the leap, there never was a net anyway!

I guess I'm a daredevil and don't even know it. I will be somewhere down to absolutely no money and yet still be there, with no means to get anywhere else or make money, but I have faith. And then I'll get that call and fly somewhere to teach, or get some very nicely paying private lessons, or both!

So maybe the component is faith. I seem to only have that, not much else, but I believe the goddess will take care of me and she always does. Is faith of this type odd to find in people? Maybe it is, I don't know, it's a serious question. Do you know?

I have it. I remember one day when I was sitting beside Sharath in conference, and he mentioned how bhakti is a part of our practice. Devotion and faith that it will do what it's supposed to do. And another time I was with my friend Muthu Swamy in Varanasi and I said oh I'm not scared to die, I just don't care. And he said no, no you are not. And your faith shows that. So maybe I'm an anomaly.

But cultivating faith in oneself, or in one deity, or something is what works for me, and hopefully I can inspire you to do so as well. Without it I don't know how you all can live your lives. And then taking the plunge and quitting that job, or moving to another country, or leaving that bad relationship, or whatever it is you don't think you have to nerve to do, well, it's just easier to do.

I am still scared, all the time. And I always say "yes, I'm scared, but that never stopped me from doing the things."

So, how big is your prison?

If you can't love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else...?

This quote is a famous one from RuPaul, who when I was in my early 20's came out with a few popular songs on the charts as the first Drag Queen pop star. But who now hosts this show which I've mentioned before and won't get into again right now. But the point is she's saying it to these men who have created a female character that they dress up as and perform, and yet even then they need to be more aware of who they really are, more fully themselves than ever to carve their own niche in the market. And to me it's not even really about the marketing of themselves, it's more about celebrating diversity and being an individual, even if you steal an idea from someone, someway you're going to make it your own.

This is completely against the herd mentality that is prolific in the Western world, even it's creeping its way into the Eastern world as well. But how do we do this? Learn to love ourselves?

I believe the first step of that is judgment. If you are noticing that you are a judgmental bitch, always pointing out what's wrong with the "other" person, or even always pointing something out, not necessarily a "bad" thing, just a thing. Then that is indication that this same overly discerning behavior is going back to yourself. Now, to a certain degree we need to be aware of what we're doing, how we're acting towards ourself and other in public, and in private, but not for the reasons you think. Because our brain, yes the physical apparatus made up of goo and cells with electrical charges going through it, doesn't know the difference between what we're saying to ourselves or others so takes it to heart that we feel badly about something within us. Whether it be body weight, frizzy hair, judging our judgmental nature, how big our ass is, how small or big our cock is, are there new wrinkles there, have stretch lines popped up, is my back hairier than it was last week, whatever the hell it might be.

If we are judging others, we are also judging ourselves as far as our body knows.

Also, repression. Do you repress your emotions? Do you allow yourself to feel things as they come up?

I just watched a movie again last night, but this time at the theatre ( and was up way past my bedtime), Call Me By Your Name. This very different sort of love story. Not different in that the two characters in love were both men, I'm a gay man so that's irrelevant to me. But different in the way the story unfolded. Oddly enough this movie here is being embraced by many, many straight people because yes, it is just a damn good love story.

I won't get into the story right now but this Professors son has an affair with his father's apprentice who in the book the boy is 17 and the apprentice 24, not a big difference as we get older but then it could have been. But it wasn't treated that way, or as a bad thing by the boys parents. When the summer was over and the apprentice left the boy was heart broken and his father and he had a conversation that was pivotal to me. He embraced the love his son and this older man had shared and told him, encouraged him really, to embrace the things he was feeling, to let them be there in his body and not try to suppress them or bury them into a non-feeling place. It was a long conversation and as a 48 year old gay man who came out in the 80's, the era this movie was set in, this is not something I heard, or anyone I know of heard from their father. So it was lovely and really made me cry.

But it also made me think and feel and cry all the way home. We are taught so hard in our youth, usually anyway, to shut those valves off. To not let anyone see us showing these emotions. Even to not allow them to come out. And this is one of the worst things adults can do to their children. When you repress something you create a separation within your body, something your mind picks up on and believes that we are not a whole person, we are not integrated. So we act in the future from a place of disconnection. But if we were taught this, that this fictional character was teaching his son, we could integrate those emotions into our being, learn to be fully who we really are, and even yes, maybe learn to love ourself.

Would this be so wrong?

Yoga means union. So the question I always ask myself now as I'm getting more and more mature in my practice, and in my life, is does this serve the union. Now you may ask what union? I say the union of self with Self, or inner being with my physical being, or God and man, or feminine and masculine, or whatever else can be in balance, or in union with one another. To me though it's spirit and physical. We so often think they are separate, they are not, they are one thing. The spirit enables these bodies to move and walk around. Even channels the electricity to each corner as it's needed, moving the blood, lymph, synovial fluids and more to where they are needed most at each moment.

So doing the asana/yoga practice to me is about facilitating this union to happen, and sometimes not, depending on how regular you are being with your practice. And once the union is served maybe there is a little more space for you to find love for yourself, and once you truly learn how to love yourself there is no possible way you cannot love others more properly. More unconditionally.

How are you serving yoga today? Yoga as union, not yoga as an asana practice only. Or are you? Are you aware of it? If you're choosing to be less aware today, that's okay too, we all need a little break. But you'll soon find that this will be virtually impossible at some point in the future.

Once the union starts taking root, you feel better and once you feel better you KNOW when you feel the slightest bit less good, or the same, or even better. You know and once you know, it's hard to go back to just allowing yourself to feel not so good anymore.

How are you feeling today?

My life...

My life is a strange one, at least that's the impression I'm getting lately. Not that I mind being strange at all, or even that others think I'm strange. I just never think of what I'm doing with my life as odd, until I hear anothers opinion of it, which I have a lot lately.

I was chatting with someone on a dating app, in person after we'd already chatted for a bit, and it was a very surprising thing that I travel to teach yoga for a living. I guess I've been part of the Ashtanga world for so long that I don't think anything of it, there even used to be a list on the old site for the official teachers authorized by KPJAYI that was called Traveling Teachers, all of which were certified at the time.

I get asked to come, and so I do, I offer sometimes when I see a good opportunity and if they agree then I get flown in. It's very simple. But maybe to many that don't realise how important yoga is in the lives of those who practice it it's a surprising thing, and most of them only think of it as an exercise program too from what I've discovered. To me it's the norm, and what a cool norm to have I believe.I'm constantly surrounded by a language that I don't know these days. For the last two years I've been between South India, North India, Germany and the U.S. I'm now on my third time in Germany and while I still can't formulate a whole sentence I can get by with the few words I know and can figure out often what people are talking about. I am told that ability comes form having an open heart, because when you're open you can feel the intention of the person speaking, that coupled with the amount of words I do know makes it easier to get by.

In fact when I was just in the U.S. for almost 8 weeks I told a friend I was walking with how odd it felt to be surrounded by English. I was understanding every conversation and my brain relaxed because it wasn't always trying to translate what I was hearing. But at the same time I realised how loud Americans are, yes Colleen if you're reading this you've been telling me this for years! But what an odd feeling to feel out of place in your country of origin. I guess I really have grown comfortable in my uncomfortable zones.

In fact another factor I realised was that I never speak full English anymore. I'm always having to pigeon English it for people so that they understand me. And when I arrived here I was speaking as if I was still speaking to other native English speakers and they could not understand me, I'm still doing it a bit, but not as bad as this past 5 days. I had to relearn how to use big words and put them in their proper places. Many friends can attest to me asking them, "what's the word for this?!?"

In India I'm learning more and more of the local language, well in Mysore, and I'm studying Hindi very loosely, so it's getting easier. But there it's always about the hand signals, head wobbles and the intention behind it all. Then communication is very easy. In Germany it can be much the same if you're open to it, but also many people speak very good English even though they will tell you they know "just a little bit..."

There is much much more that I thought about as the idea for this entry was formulating but it's all seeming less than important to talk about now. I've been working on talking less, and when I do talk to make it more meaningful. And requiring less to be going on at all times.

I was just walking through Köln after just getting out of a movie, through an area that is having what we would call a side walk sale. Although this one is a whole area of the city, not just a block or two. And thinking how absolutely no one in the crowd was alone. Everyone was holding hands, touching shoulders and leaning in to whisper in an ear, or yelling over the music to their group of friends, or with their dog and many other scenarios. Everyone. I was literally the only one walking alone. I had spent the greater part of the day with people and took a long walk with a friend and talked, so being alone was the balance for me.

I could have felt lonely, and maybe I should have, but I did not. I just noticed it, and thought how nice it would be to be walking through this crowd with someone I cared about, in whatever capacity, and chatting randomly while doing it. But then I also realised how nice it was to be able to walk alone and enjoy myself, noticing all the little idiosyncracies in folks as I was moving my way towards the space I'm calling home for the time being. Being in India for many months at a time helped mw with this and maybe even made it seem normal. Bieng in Germany also helped me with this.

But both helped me be more tolerant, loving and understanding of what it's like to be in a place and it not be somewhere I can just take to anyone at any time. It's all good, and I'm not complaining, I have a charmed life and appreciate it. I'm just stating what's been floating around in my mind the past few hours.

Namaste...

Native place...

So when an Indian friend of mine goes home to visit family or for a wedding or just about any reason they always tell you they're going to their native place.

Well, now I've up and gone to my native place. I've been here three weeks now and realised I haven't written nor necessarily felt as if I even wanted to, or had anything to write about.

I got here and went straight to my moms for a week then came to St. Louis to stay with my friend and started teaching daily Mysore practice with a 3 hour workshop. That end of it has been going very well and it's really clearing me out so I don't have a lot of junk coming up to share with you all.

In fact after the shift I had in Goa I surprisingly was not unhappy to be here and have been enjoying myself, both with family and with old friends.

Then today after I had driven to Illinois to see a movie and have lunch with my mom I decided I should drive back through Collinsville and Fairview Heights, My stomping ground from about 2002 to 2008. I lived in Collinsville with Steve Conner, one of my best friends, in his big house that also housed a business that I'd delivered flowers for for almost a decade before I moved in there. I was surprised to find that I teared up and was feeling a bit verklempt.

See, in December when I was in Frankfurt, Germany teaching I found out Steve had passed away. How and why are not for this blog, but at the time I thought about it a lot and felt very heavy with the news. But soon as I always do around death I made my peace with it and knew he was less encumbered in the form he was in now and so felt lighter about it. So being there where we had so much history just choked me up a bit. And I realised that it was the first time I've thought of the past very much since I've been here, which is great.

In fact in general, and today in particular, I have felt just great. Almost amazing all the time. My body is feeling good since its fairly warm here, my mind has been clear, my practice has mostly been going strong and I've been able to feel the Goddess and connect here in ways I had not previously been able to.

All the work I've done over the years is finally paying off. My favourite verse of the Yoga Sutras to chant in fact (1.14) states that perfection in practice comes when one continues with sincerity and respect for a long period of time without any interruption. Not saying I've perfected anything, but I feel some fruits coming available finally, not always, but more often and with more ease than before.

Death came up again earlier this week when my friend that I'm living with for my time here had to put her long time pet to sleep and I was present as she left her body, could actually feel her energy shift and move into a happier state of being.

Death I don't see as anything more than a transformation of energy, and with this current obsession I have with the version of Kali that lives in the cremation grounds and the impermanence that death stands for, and the transformation it actually is. So to experience a spirit leaving its body at this time is very pertinent, and to have felt the things I felt this afternoon when seeing my old house were pertinent too. I feel this is symbolic of me realising that now I'm really not attached to this place anymore, and I'm leaving it for good. I'll come visit I'm sure but that's it.

So, that's it. See you soon, hopefully I'll write some more while I"m here but if not I'm going to be in Germany soon and see some of you there, or in Mysore after that and see more of you there. Namaste!

Expectations...

So, I'm at my moms house for the week before I head to St. Louis to teach for the month, after my great time in New Jersey teaching those receptive students. Did I write about my time there? I can't remember. I'll go look but if I didn't I'll have to soon. Anyhow, it's funny how you get here, which is what I'm calling it here instead of home because everyone keeps saying welcome home to me and I'm like, no, home is India! lol... but you get here with expectations that your old patterns will come up and that you will behave a certain way because of the way you were way back when you were around family on a regular basis. You also believe that what you think their expectations of you are can affect you, but then you (in the middle of the mornings asana practice) realise that what you think they are expecting you to be is just that, what you think they think you should be. All this thinking!!!! So then you realise you can be who you are, not anything else and they will love you anyway. I've discovered that this is what I do anyway if I can stay out of my head, most people can destroy things by overthinking the circumstances surrounding them and putting your ideas onto them, and that just screws everything up. Often I come and hold back, not being or acting how I usually would. Why do I do this? Do we all do this? Is this why so many of us are uncomfortable being around family? If so, then why do we do this to ourselves. So then, in the middle of my yoga practice where I was feeling tight, intense and my neck hurt from stressing myself out, I decided no, I can be me and I'm going to start just right this minute, and so I do and then my practice was better, my energy was better, my neck quit hurting, my stomach felt more ease and my appetite went down and I quit eating everything in sight. Oh my god, why are humans so ridiculous? We are though aren't we? This is why I love India, I don't do this there. Everyone I know there seems to be more in the present and if it's not affecting them right at that moment they don't put much work into it. Now, not everyone does this but what I notice is that this seems to be more the mainstream, where here in the U.S. it seems to be worrying about the future and how things should be and stress about them not being that way yet. Wherever I am I can be the same person I am when I'm in India. This is not a big revelation right? It's something we all should know but maybe we don't always recognise the truth in it, so I'm deciding to be this person. This is the person all the students come to practice with and love and so this is who I will be, I also love myself more when I'm this way, not the stressed out and forethought person I can be when I let myself fall into those old patterns. OMG, should I even be writing this blog entry? It seems like all this thinking about all the thinking I was doing and could be doing can be a mess. And yes it is, so should I delete this? Nah, it's already written, so I'll leave it...

In love...

Can one just be simply in love as a state of being? Not in a specific type of love with a person, just in love in general?

I was just driving down the street and here the cherry blossoms are in full bloom everywhere, the sun is out today, its cool and I just had a great, locally made chai. I realised I love it here, but then I loved it the last few places I've been, and I fell in love with people a lot lately, and not just romantically speaking, with people. These students here are great, the other people I've met are great.

I think my time in Goa had a more profound effect on me than I'd realized. It cleared out some things within me that I'd not worked through yet. I feel really good, even when I'm depressed or down, I know it's just what it is at that moment and will change. I know this is true about almost anything, but here I am noticing it finally.

I don't have a lot to say about it, just wanted to write it down and acknowledge it. That it is a possibility in my life. Not one I ever thought would happen, but one I've worked towards. I've always thought of equanimity as the biggest goal in my life, not that I'm big on goals but that was one that I thought yoga seemed to be about, so I set out many years back with that idea in my mind.

Maybe being in love is reaching just the tiniest part of equanimity. If you can be okay no matter where you are, when you are and how you are then that is it, right? So have I reached "IT"??? Maybe, but I'm quite sure, like everything else, it's not a permanent state, but a place to reach for at all times. There will be things that throw me out of it and hopefully being in this place now will make it easier to tap back into that when it seem elusive again.

For now, I'm feeling the love, and that is also a relative term, but for me I mean it in the unconditional sense. I've been noticing lately when I add conditions to how I feel to qualify the feelings, and I stop it and see if I can step back and feel it for what it is, it's a nice super power, hope it lasts.

Anyhow, go enjoy your day. New Jersey is sunny/partly cloudy, warm and cool intermittently, in full bloom and calm on this Sunday afternoon. Whether where you are is like this or not, can you still feel the love for it?

Open in the U.S...

It seems like everything is conspiring to keep me open these days. What does that mean?

To me it means open hearted, open minded, just open. Not closed off in my ideas of things and the way I think they should be. Don't should on yourself...

I tend to fall into patterns of "shoulding" and it's not good. In fact I think all of us do this. I'm experiencing that here in New Jersey, I experience it almost everywhere I go. Except in Goa.

In Goa just recently I was practicing with a very open hearted and loving teacher, who gives her everything to you and in her room you feel inspired to give your everything to your practice, but not in a pushing sort of way, in a allowing sort of way. Yes, I'm open to more of this happening, and so then it does once you've relaxed your mind around the idea that it can happen. But I wrote many times about my experiences with her.

My roommate there also was very open and ready to have any experience she believed god was throwing at her, and that's very inspiring to me also because I often close myself off. I may seem open to many people, but that really just shows you how closed off you are lol, I'm closed off for me, but I see it and open back up.

In Goa I met a guy that I never would have been open to meeting before, not because he was dark skinned, which he was, he is, not for any superficial reasons like that. But because I felt something stir when we chatted, which is a big sign that ohhh, this is different. We then met in person and took a long drive together, went to the sea and swam, ate lunch, spent many hours snogging, shagging, talking, more talking, snuggling, more talking, and boom. 10 hours go by and you just don't realise it. My friend there said "what were you doing yesterday I didn't see you anywhere all day long!" I said "oh, I had a date, it lasted about 10 hours." He then said "ummm, 10 hours isn't a date honey, that's love..."

Was it love? Well, maybe, but not the attached, can't live without you or I'll slit my wrists, can't let you out of my sight type of love. So maybe I'm in a new place about love. There it is again, the universe took that day to show me where I"d been closed off again and boom, took it away from me. Now you're going to be open about this too bitch, it said, hahahaha! And I am.

I am still in touch with this person, and one other who I was already dating a bit in Mysore, and the idea of being with someone now is not a bad thing to me. In fact it goes well with how my life is right now. Flying here and teaching, flying there and teaching, settling in one spot for some months, then moving again and again, then settling. This type of understanding of what love is or can be is really conducive with the traveling lifestyle. But it's not just that, it's the being open to love that's the really powerful thing, being open altogether is really where it is anyway.

After that time in Goa with Sharmila, a certified Ashtanga teacher, I came to New Jersey and lived with another certified Ashtanga teacher, Kino, both are well known and for very different reasons. But both are very valid in their devotion and dedication to this method of yoga practice and have many things to offer their students, and both are very open. So in being around them, having conversations with them and practicing in their rooms you are affected by their openness.

I originally wanted to write one entry about being back in the U.S. and how strange everything feels, and then another one comparing the two different teachers I'd just spent time with and how their teachings are amazing in very different ways, but right now in this state of being very open I'm finding I want to focus on the sameness we all share, on the oneness that is possible to see if one just looks for it. We are all trying to do our best, and we all are doing our best at that moment but the fact that it's very different from one another makes it seem less than, or more than, but it's really not. I am where I am at this moment, and I have this much to give to the moment. Whereas you are where you are and have that much to give, maybe if you qualify it it seems less than, or more than mine, but it's not. It's just yours and yours is yours and mine is mine, and even though it sound like I'm separating them in that they are the same. I can give this to you, you can give that to me and we can meet in the space where it overlaps.

But so many of us want more, I want more. She wants more. He wants more. But I really don't want more. It's not your job to fulfil me, it's my job to open up as much as possible and allow fulfilment to happen from my connection, and connection happens when we're open, not when we're not. I saw it at the Kino event, many of the attendees don't even practice Ashtanga regularly so don't have an inkling how the system really works, and it does work well, so they are wanting to talk to her and suck up her energy, and she's willing to give it. Maybe because she created this phenomenon single handedly and she knows it, but she has done her practice for as many years as I have mine and so has this openness and is connected. So she has a lot to give. Sharmila give her whole self in the Mysore room, and is a bit enigmatic outside of it. Not that she's not open and loving, but she is not a big public persona so doesn't have to be out there in the same way Kino is, but she is still out there in her garden working, accessible most of the day at her shala, or rather on the surrounding property. Both are amazing and both have much to give, but very different, but the same, but different.

So this to me is what a yogi is, someone who is in definite connection with their energy at all times, in charge of it, knowing when to be alone to recharge, keeping their practices going so as to maintain the level of energy needed to live the life they've created for themselves. And I'm working on this being my life. I'm here, I'm teaching, I'm connecting with the students quite deeply, which is the only way I know how to do it, and giving of myself, then taking other parts of my day to practice, to check out, to go see a movie, to eat and replenish this body, to be quite, to chant, to bathe, to whatever it takes to keep in balance. And whatever it takes to stay as open as possible so that I can be away which thing is needed when and how to go about it in the most efficient manner.

This entry may seem all over the place but to me it's not. I just saw a movie that made me think about relationship and the ones I've had recently, I was already thinking to write about being back in the U.S., although I didn't talk too much about that so maybe it will be another entry, and I wanted to write a post about Sharmila and Kino and my experiences with them. So I just threw it all in and opened up to allow it to come out however it did, and it feels right to me for me right now.

How open are you? Open enough to just write a stream of consciousness blog post with all your shit in it? Open enough to be a helping hand when it's needed for others, or for yourself? Open enough to know when your connection is waxing or waning? Open enough to say love to someone be it a family member, friend or someone you are having sex with, or just began dating? Love is a good word. It's been corrupted a lot lately but I still think it's synonymous with being open, if you can feel it that's a good start, if you can feel it and say it, that's even better, but if you can show it in all your deeds, that's the best. Strive to be that open!