Transmutation...

Oddly enough I just looked and my last post was written right in the exact spot I'm sitting right now, in my apartment at Santosha Yoga here in Germany. I had so much I wanted to write in Mysore but my laptop would not connect to the wifi for some reason for almost the whole time there, which also means I didn't get to watch any Netflix or anything else either, except on my phone and watching that small screen makes my eyes hurt.

So I had a great time there during my month practicing at the shala, not my practice mind you, it wasn't so great and there were no physical breakthroughs but assisting Sharath was great and I hope to do it again.

Not only that but not having access to write everything down and get it out kind of forced me to process stuff and I feel I had a radical shift while I was there, within. So I may not write so much down anymore, as far as processing. Probably ideas and such I still will, but most of what needs to be transmuted I'll keep within, that's where the real growth happens anyway...

And there is that word, transmute. Or as I labeled this entry, transmutation. What does that mean?

To me it makes me think of the alchemists, who would change lead into gold, or coal into a diamond, stuff like that. But really it's not about the physical transmutation of any substance into another. It's more about the inner transmutation of feelings or memories or emotions into something else, something that serves you much more than whatever it was is.

So as I feel something one might label negative, then I'll embrace it, feel it, wonder where it came from. Figure it out, and then slowly make it into something beneficial, a feeling that inspires me or a movement in my consciousness that helps me move forward into the future and grow and expand. Change my ideas of things, or embrace that my ideas are just that, ideas, so to also embrace that everyone has these and they are all valid for each of us. Embracing the dark, the light, all of it and making peace with it, even becoming happy with it.

These transformations also affect our chemical balance and can shift it for the better or for the worse. Not only that they can shift our neural network into something better, or worse. We are the ones who have to decide, no one else can do that for us.

How we feel about things is our choice. Lately I've become very neutral as the sutras say to cultivate. But it's nice because then external factors do not bother me so much and immediately affect my mood like they once used to. I can just sit with something, observe it and then become okay with it that way and not react or act on it unless it's needed.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not perfect at this and I still am human and have my moments, just ask any of my friends, but it's nice that I'm finally affected less than I once was. This has helped my physical practice, my teaching, my interactions with friends, and my interactions with those who I don't know. Just in general it's a better place to be in.

When you have something bothering you, do you just leave it there and let it affect your whole day, or are you able to transform it into something more? Give it a try next time, don't act immediately on a feeling, just sit back and watch it a bit first and see where it goes, then try to make it beneficial for you and others. Not easy, but well worth the time it takes to train yourself to do this...

Do we ever stop fucking up...?

I'm at the end of my time here in Germany again and was looking forward to getting to Mysore, getting settled back in my house, even looking forward to dealing with the registration line with Sharath, often it's not so bad and the anticipation can be a lot but I enjoy being in his company so am always ready for it.

So was at the dinner with the owners of the shala I come here to teach for and they presented me with the amount of money and a chart of how much I made from each thing and what it added up to and then that I'd drawn against it quite a bit and so the actual pay I received was not very much.

Now, I knew I was drawing against the pay. I tend to always do this since I just live on what I make as I make it and don't have a storehouse of money anywhere. But this time I'd fucked up and not paid attention to a point that now I cannot afford to pay for my practice time with Sharath and my rent and living expenses all together. So, what the hell to do? Of course as is usual for me I freaked out inside, tore myself a new asshole from the inside out (figuratively) because I always give myself money troubles but I haven't done that since I've been traveling and teaching the past few years. And now I've dug myself into a hole and not sure how to get out of it. Of course I'm being a bit dramatic and realised this this morning as I'm walking down the Ring Road here and seeing all the homeless sleeping on the street. I'm okay, and I know it, but how and why do I always do this to myself? But thankfully I talked to quite a few friends who are in Mysore right now who made me feel better about the possibilities that I'm still going to practice with him and it will all work out. Then I started seeing a brighter day ahead. Then I can't check into my first flight on the route back, but it checked me into the second flight. WTF?!? Why is this happening? Am I not supposed to go back to Mysore? Maybe I'm supposed to stay in Germany, learn German and just live here and teach. Sharath listed me in Germany on his KPJAYI list anyway, maybe that was prophetic? Hahahaha. Of course I don't think it's all this but my mind goes to the drama first. Now I'm calmed down about that.

Everything else all day seemed to go very wrong, even the man making my pizza down near the Dom couldn't get the pizza into the oven, it took 5 tries lol. Again, wtf?!?

When you seeing "wrong" then you keep seeing more wrong, not anything possibly right. So you have to take the time to shift your perceptions to a new angle and then look again at it. And probably this is just the universal mother testing me again to make sure I keep letting go and allowing the flow to happen. She knows what I want and the better way to get it to me than I could have imagined so she's able to do this, get me lined back up and able to receive the blessings she has waiting for me. At least that is the way I'll choose to look at this so I can keep myself in a good place, not go down the rabbit hole of doom and gloom.

So, next time you hear from me I'll be back in Mysore typing from my bed and we'll see how this all turned out. I can't sit and worry about it anymore or I'll go crazy, and no, I'm still not sure how it's all going to work out but to go back to what I've said in previous entries, I have a lot of faith and this time it took me hearing those exact words from a friend to get me to remember that I know I have a lot of faith and it always carries me through, when I allow it to!

See you soon, live and love your life!

Hungry...

Do you ever go through phases where you're just hungry for more?

For me right now that means more reading scriptures, more reading about Kali, then putting that into play in pooja, more pooja, more chanting, can't wait to practice my asanas each morning, more intensity, more heat, more.. just more everything!

Right now I'm sweating a lot, I'm reading a lot, I am chanting louder, I am using fire and water more than ever in my rituals, I am studying more, reading sutras from many different scriptures, seeing how they feel to me, putting them into play in my life, teaching and the teaching is more intense right now, enjoying that intensity more than ever. I just want all of it and to push it into me somehow.

I know this may sound ridiculous to some of you but this is the phase I'm in right now. I often go through this phase when I'm not in India because when I'm there things are automatically more intense so I don't have to work at it so much. I suppose I don't have to work at it so much now either, I'm just an intense person so it will likely always be this way with me.

I just read an article by someone I know from Mysore and her love of the intensity of practicing there and assisting there and all of it. I have applied to assist Sharath when I'm practicing with him in August and thought I'd have heard by now if I can or not, but if I don't before I register I will ask him then and hopefully be able to. I to love the idea of this type of intensity, learning and teaching and the circle of all of that.

I teach for a living, but I also learn from each student and from each situation. I think if I was not also open to learning, that I thought I knew it all already, then I would be a shitty teacher. And I don't think I'm a shitty teacher, but maybe I'll ask some of them, maybe I am a shitty teacher hahahaha!

As I go back to India very soon, I'll be there about 2 weeks early before I get to start practicing, and will be there again for the Guru Purnima celebration at the shala. I attended last year even though I was not practicing there and so hope I am able to again this year, and this year I have a kurta to wear to it. I imagine that those same days will be registration for classes since it's near to the end of the month this year. So that will begin the process for me.

But maybe since I"m already missing India so much again that I'm bringing the intensity now? I hope so and that I can maintain it without bursting into flames, or that it calms down before I go so I can get a bit of respite before it starts again!

This next few months looks to be intense already from a glance anyway, India now, practicing and hopefully assisting Sharath for a month, then traveling around to Kolkata, Assam, Varanasi, Uttarkashi, then back to Germany for another month intensive of teaching, then back to Goa for a month or so of practicing with Sharmila Desai again, then to assist Harmony at Purple Valley Yoga in Goa. And to top it off I'm working on booking things for next year already, which is new for me, and I've already got temple tours and things booked for when I arrive in Mysore in 2 weeks, and a couple people to do private lessons with and possible taking German lessons while there. Whoo......!

I think I'll survive though, when I'm in the intensity I grow and expand and become so much more than I ever thought I could be and I glow. I thrive in this state, so I'm glad to be here.

Life is an adventure and I'm very happy to be actively moving forward in it, rather than passively allowing it to whip me around as I was when I was younger.

Thank you!

Rebirthing oneself...

Do you ever feel stuck? Like stuck in a way that feels like something is squeezing you and all your shit is coming out, hopefully not literally but only figuratively? And you know things are coming to a head, but you just don't know what to do about it?

I've been feeling this way to a small degree since I was in St. Louis, but here in Germany since I kicked my practices all back into high gear it was feeling like the pressure was on. Pressure as in coal being squeezed into a diamond, not peer pressure or something like that. Although that can end up being the same thing often.

So yesterday I was reading my new book and then wrote in my journal, all in the morning before teaching (Saturdays is at 9am so I can get finished early with all my rituals and go have a chai and chill before instead of after class). I usually just write in stream of consciousness so I never know what will come out or where I will end up, and so I was doing this and came to conclusion from past impressions that at this time I am having another growth spurt. A period where all the work I've done and all the time I've spent on integrating it comes to a head and boom, it starts making sense, or its a big transition so it feels like a very large baby trying to fit through a very tight hole and oftentimes those holes rip or need an episiotomy so that the mothers vagina doesn't rip open. Either way a very painful process and we on the inside coming out feel as we'll we might be dying.

Dramatic I know, but I am dramatic so I'm not going to calm it down for this entry haha!

So, I've been drawn a lot over the past year to just let go of everything and live as a sadhu, throw my passport in the Ganga (and yes if you've known me for the past year it's likely I told you the story about the German guy in Rishikesh who did just this, and it inspired me so I use it often) and just going to be a wild man in the Himalayas. And now that I'm reading about all this folk tantra and how they do things in the villages as Goddess worshippers who believe in magic and those types of things I'm even more inspired and this wild man that lives inside me is wanting to come out.

Often lately I've also referred to this inner being as a big, fat lady. She likes to eat a lot and she is wild and living mostly naked and by her instincts and she is a magical creature that is magnificent. So whichever you want to think of it as, it's wanting out. And to deny this part of myself is to be blocking the flow of energy in me and in my life which is not something I want to do or enjoy doing when I end up allowing myself to do so.

Teaching here has been more magical and I feel like a sorcerer moving energy around the room and am enjoying it more than usual, but my physical body has been having limitations mostly due to my mental ideas of where I am in my practice. And then I remember last summer living in India and just giving up and not caring anymore, and then boom pasasana became easy all of a sudden and I was doing it easily for 4 months, even the 5th month when I came back to Germany and it was colder and raining I still had it mostly, until I got locked up in my mind with different ideas about how my body should be, then I lost it again and have not completely gotten it back again since. Now in two weeks I head back to India again and will be there a couple month before coming back to Germany so am working on letting these ideas go again. They are not serving me and in not serving me are restricting me from serving others more fully.

Since it's my mind that's doing it, the body is the same it gets more frustrating. And when frustrated there is more and more that builds up and becomes some"thing" rather than just staying a mental impression that should be easy to get rid of...

Anyhow, this is where I am. Once I realised this is what's happening the process seems to have exacerbated, which is cool because it means the new me will be here soon. And it won't be different than the old me, it'll just be a new thing integrated into my mental emotional impressions of existence and hopefully make me better for it. We'll see...lol

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...