I've arrived to India 5:00am after a solid day and a half of travel. Number one thing suggested always to do in India is wear a seat belt. I got into the shared car after landing at Mumbai airport to find that none of the seat belts work. And so the four hour car ride south to Pune begins. That same day in the apartment the water pipe breaks as well as the front door lock not working. I unpacked then packed again and then finally unpacked. Wasn't sure how this would go but miraculously after 5 hours everything was fixed. And I say miraculously because in India fixing things may take days . Finally my apartment mate Marianne from South Africa arrives and we have a lovely reunion after two and a half years. I met Anthony from LA who is visiting the institute for the first time. I run into him at the institute later the same day and he has lost his water bottle and looks thirsty, hungry, and sweaty as we all feel for the first 48 hours upon arriving.
It's Mango season here in Indian so Marianne and I went for a half dozen mangoes today and showed each other the various ways to cut the fruit. See below. We also visited the sweet shop to pick up our Curd or Dahi. We decided to get some sweets as well and ate too many for dessert and I am now writing this blog at 3:00am trying to make use of jetlag. In two hours the yoga courses begins and things may normalize or not. Its very hot here usually between 90 and 100 during the middle of the afternoon. I experience my first class and its Prashant who lectures while we do our poses. Some of you might remember Prashant, who is Mr. Iyengar's son, from the last time I was in India. I mean no disrespect in describing him as a Homer Simpson like character wearing his white tank top, and black shorts with one wondering eye and balding. But today he lectures about what yoga Asana is and is not. He claims that we practitioners need to use our practice to learn rather then to use our yoga practice to just do. For example use the legs for learning something. This corresponds to the Niyama svadhyaya or self study. Perhaps we keep the legs very straight by lifting the quadriceps and we learn what happens to the spine from doing that. Or perhaps we bend the legs using them in this manner to lengthen the lower back. In both cases we are using the legs to learn how to create certain lower back and spinal action and extension. Another example of using a limb is the hand on the hip in trikonasana triangle pose. If we use the hand and thumb on the hip with an opening in the wrist it can help to rotate the top shoulder back. Here is a metaphor likened to this idea that Prashant shared. If you are a true cook then the meal that is produced will be very tasty whether the kitchen is fully stocked with groceries or whether the kitchen has only a few groceries. The true cook knows how to use what is available to its full potential. In contrast the so-called cook could have the highest quality groceries in their kitchen and the meal turns out badly. This cook doesn't know how to use the ingredients. So we need to use our limbs, breath, and spine to learn to make a wholesome mind and body no matter what our limitations.
The final picture is of our little shrine to Ganesh that we set up. Our beutiful cook lent us the Ganeshes and we can buy fragrant beautiful flowers strung into malasanas(garlands) from the stalls off of Hari Krishna Road.
One final Prashant metaphor that I will leave you with. It's meaning lies in our use of the yoga postures. We can buy a new dress and appreciate it's beauty in two ways:
1) we put the dress on and we say to ourselves this dress looks fabulous on me
2) or we appreciate the dress for its beauty, fine stiching and craftsmanship.
If we replace the dress with the asana (posture) we begin to understand the use of the posture as an archetype. We put ourselves in the posture and may wonder if we are wearing it correctly . How do we look in this posture? we may feel we aren't doing it well and so it doesn't fit us etc. But if we think of the posture as an archetype that we put on we begin to understand and appreciate the lesson each posture possesses. And we observe ourselves while in the posture to see where we can tuck or press or lengthen a little bit more to align ourselves into the posture. The posture itself is unchanging in it's shape, it is us who needs to pour ourselves into the posture as my south Afican Yogi so eloquently says.
Until next week
Namaste
