My journal notes from India

Recently, my teacher from India, Arunji asked me to send him my notes from my studies with him last year in India. As I read through them, I cried softy, missing India, the people, the smells, colors, authenticity, and of course, classes with him. I was so inspired by my own notes that I decided to share my letter to him from me.

 Picture Above of me and Arun at Yoga Niykaya, India January 2011

Dear Arun,

Here are some of my notes--as promised. These are just my notes specifically about you from my journal I kept while in India. If they are not exactly what you are looking for, feel free to let me know and I can write something more formal.

First Day:

"Yoga class at 6am with Arun was well received and attended. His studio in Bangalore located above his house was packed full with students. The smell of India, of the cool, fresh morning along with the colors and beautiful people was sweet, new and wonderful. We began class with an invocation to Patanjali. I cannot describe in words the experience of a full room of yogis, in India, actually chanting Om with just conviction and passion. The sensation of the vibration went right down to my soul and felt so exhilarating and justified after such a long journey.  Women and men seem to practice in separate parts of the room--interesting..."

Same day, afternoon class:

"Argh, such a great practice with many twists, but I am just too exhausted from the long journey to keep up they way I want to and can't remember the entire sequence. I will pay more attention tomorrow so I can better document the practice."

Quotes and Gems from Arun during pranayama:

"Be doubly careful. If you do not practice pranayama properly it will eat you, and you may become sick."

"Be silent first to practice anything"

"The exhale is important. Life begins with exhale, ends with exhale. We sneeze, cough, talk and cry all with an exhale. And if you have good karma in the end your friends will cry for you."

"If your heart is dry, you become depressed as the chest closes."

"The inner teacher arrives during personal practice."

"The inner tambora comes out during pranayama; the inner vibration."

"Accept what you are and enjoy it."

"Practice kindness; have no enemies."

"We learn how to conquor our own sorrow through the holistic practice of yoga."

"Muhtita"

"Be content with what you have. Do not be greedy. Accept what your teachers give you without questions or wanting more."

I wish you well Dear Arunji. And thank you for asking me to do this. It brought tears to  my eyes as I read through my journal and reminisced with the teachings from you. I feel truly blessed and privileged to know you and have you as my teacher.

With love and light,

Sandy

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The meaning of AUM, Om, Ohm...

This is a short video of my beloved grandson who is a special needs boy. He doesn't speak much at all--it is a real challenge for him. In this video, we are trying to get him to brush his teeth in a playful way. He has a charming, sweet way of wiggling around things he doesn't want to do, and chanting 'Aum' is one of them. Notice how he pronounces each sound with perfection. We never taught him this, somehow, he just knows. Which supports all the evidence out there of what 'Aum" really means.

The mystic symbol "Om"or "Aum" represents pure consciousness, the true source of all that is manifested in world, the sound of absolute reality. The individual syllabic sounds of "AUM" is said to each represent a different state of consciousness--(A), waking, (U), dreaming, (M), the state beyond the mind and spirit, and the silence after Aum, the true essence of absolute reality. The dot about the symbol Aum is the fourth state which combines all three states and transcends them.

Aum conveys the concept of omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence. Aum is said to mean the best prayer, or the best praise. The letters A,U,M, symbolize speech (vak), mind (manas), and the breath of life (prana), while the entire symbol stands for the living spirit which is but a portion of the divine spirit.  The three letters also represent the three genders, masculine, feminine, and neuter. They stand for the three gunas or qualities (sattva-balanced, rajas-light, tamas-dark). The letters correspond to the three tenses-past, present, future, while the entire symbol itself stands for the Creator, who transcends the limitations of time. They also stand for the three teachers--mother, father, and Guru, and the three stages of yogic discipline--asana (poses), pranayama (breathing regulation), pratyahara (regulation of the senses) while the entire symbol stands for Samadhi--the goal of these three disciplines. They represent the triad of divinity--Brahma (the creator), Visnu (the maintainer), and Shiva (the destroyer), but the whole symbol together represents Brahman from which the entire universe emanates.

The letters A,U,M, and stand for the mantra, "Tat Twam Asi" "that Thou Art." And so we may conclude that the word Aum might be too vast, too abstract to define it into one thing. It is all things. It is beyond definition, beyond tangible. It is everything.

And so, as I listen to my grandson chant it as a way of skipping out of brushing his teeth, it gives me another meaning, another sweet meaning and understanding of inclusion.

Aum, Shanti!

Good Night Moon! Good night Ganesha!

Do you remember that children's story, 'Good night Moon?" Do you remember George Burn's old line at the end of his show, "Say good-night Gracie"? And are you feeling the influence right now of the shorter nights as Summer Solstice approaches? It's hard to say good-night, because the light is growing longer each day, and maybe we all feel a little off balance. But right after the Solstice, the influence of the moon will start to roll in and the days will grow shorter, the nights longer. Everything has a cycle, a season, a natural pattern of processing, and we are no different.

So, this little old yogini is coming of age--50 is just a few weeks away. And, yup, I'm a moon child--continually waxing and waning, rising and falling and trying all the while to keep balanced. On June 21st, I'll ring in the Solstice with Sun Salutations, but then I think I'll celebrate by doing 50 Moon salutations of June 28th (my birthday). I love Moon Salutations, I love them much more than Sun Salutations. And I love the story of Ganesha and the Moon, which allows us to understand the intentional energy of the Half Moon Pose (Ardha Chandrasana). Do you know the old story?

First, let's look at the pose itself, as "a picture is worth a thousand words." This is a pose of balance. We strive to find balance between strength and flexibility. We stand on one foot and one hand, and eventually look toward the sky. This takes practice, and the ability to do this pose waxes and wanes everyday.

Me in Ardha Chandrasana on the Albion River, Mendocino

Ok, so here's the mythical story.
Ganesha, the elephant God adored by so many for his gift of creating new beginnings and clearing the path was said to have a love for sweets. Many times you'll see him pictured with a bowl full of prasad (blessed sweets) and his belly full. But he was also a master of yoga, (of course he was, he had no choice with his father being Shiva!) and was usually adept in balancing indulgence. One day after stuffing his belly full of sweets (out of balance) and mounting his trusty steed (that tiny mouse you always see with him), a cobra slithered in front of their path and frightened the mouse. The mouse darted one way, and Ganesha (off balance from over-indulgence) fell the other way. When Ganesha hit the ground, his belly exploded and the sweets scattered everywhere. He got up, dusted himself off, gathered the treasured sweets and stuffed them back in his belly, grabbed the cobra and tied it around his belly to keep the sweets in. Chandra (the moon) had been watching this scene from above and exploded into laughter. This upset Ganesha to no end and in a fit of rage he broke off his right tusk and hurled it at Chandra. The hole in the moon made its light go out, and so the earth was stuck with continuous sunlight. They say, that with this action, love was lost. Everything became scorched and romance had no place to reside. A group of gods pleaded with Ganesha to allow the moon to shine again, and he agreed, but with a compromise. The moon would have to wax and wane, and only mature to its full potential every four weeks. The moon would never laugh at Ganesha again, and Ganesha would always carry his broken tusk with him as a remembrance of when he lost his balance and became enraged.

This story is a paradigm for us. As we live through our stages of life, we are given lessons. We carry these lessons with us, as scars, as 'baggage,' as shifts in moods, changes in our bodies, changes in relationships and the elegant simplicity of growing old. We need opposing halves to keep in balance. We need both light and dark energy. Without these two opposing energies, we do not half a halfway point, the perfect balance between light/dark, male/female, prana/apana, etc. The practice of yoga keeps us in balance and allows us to recognize when we are tipping off balance. When this happens, it is our yoga practice that sustains us and illuminates the path back to the halfway point, back to balance. Stay Human, stay real. Open your heart to peace, love and happiness.

Namaste'

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Studying the self within the sound of silence...

The Buddhists have a saying about the practice of silence;  before saying something that may potentially harm, "Make like a block of wood." In the eight branches of yoga, the first branch (Yamas) has five principals, one of them being truth (Satya) which includes the practice of right speech. Right speech embraces controlling what is said by not committing the four sins of speech, which are: abuse/obscenity, dealing with falsehoods, calumny (telling tales), and ridiculing what others hold to be sacred. And even though the list of written texts about the importance of impeccable speech is indeed vast and profound, we still struggle with it. Why is that?

I've had an interesting past few days in silence, not by choice but because I am in the midst of an acute case of laryngitis. Every other year or so I come down with laryngitis, and even though it might begin with a little help from mother-nature (allergies or cold), it's really just a way my body forces me into silence because I am to busy 'running like a chicken with its head cut off' and can't be stopped. I know I'm not alone when I say that I like the rush of busyness. There's sort of a justification to the ego of importance when one is caught in the rapture of 'too much to do, not enough time'. The dictionary defines laryngitis as "an hysterical reaction." I remember my sister, (an R.N.) telling me years ago, when I lost my voice, "you are having a hysterical reaction." WHAT! Me! I am not hysterical! What do you mean! And then I actually looked it up in the dictionary, and there I was! I swear, if I squint my eyes and look sideways at that page in the dictionary, I can see my picture! hahaha!


But there is this transformation that happens when one is silent. You get to be with yourself. You are stuck with yourself and that allows you to study yourself. The people around you sort separate from you--truly like oil and water, and the result is this vast, open space surrounding you. Now since I've become somewhat of an expert at it all these years through 'practice' it doesn't bother me at all like it did in the beginning years (this has been going on for around 30 years now). But in the beginning I remember feeling really alone, really alienated from my circle. I didn't have the right tools to cope with it. But over the past 20 years, as my yoga practice and matured, I actually have come to embrace the gift of silence. As the old axiom goes, 'Silence is Golden,' but the self digging, or mining one has to do to get there is indeed a journey or work. It's like riding a bike. At first you stumble and fall, and don't understand that this is a great thing, but then you have that 'aha' moment; it all makes sense! And then, when the bike presents itself later on down the road, you happily get on and enjoy the ride.

Sandy sitting in silence Banglore, India

I think the practice of silence serves as a great paradigm for many other opportunities we stumble upon, but don't 'see' right away. Life is hard, but life is a gift. Loss is hard, but loss is a gift. Pain is hard, but pain is a gift, Love is hard, but love is a gift. And yes, the true, full embrace of yoga practice is hard, but indeed it IS a gift. So maybe, just for today, you can make like that block of wood, sit back and pause before you use the gift of speech, study yourself, embrace all your gifts, and LIVE this day to it's absolute fullest. 

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