In(ter)dependence Day

Found on Pinterest, tokkoro.com

This 'independence' day has been unlike any other. Perhaps some new ways of what an independence day of a nation could mean percolated through the complexity and density and shone through. At least for me. Who or what is the nation then is a question. 

My father was a military man, died a Major while in the Grenadiers. I had been about 4 and half years then. I'd been holding this narrative for a while now that his absence and my missing of this belonging to my father was something that Life and Universe chose for me to learn something about myself. Today I realised that actually he is not absent. He and his energy are very much present in me; in those parts of me that I had been rejecting all along as invalid. I held some ideals of the world, that of being military-less and of not being constricted by bigotted lines of nations. Isolated in themselves, without being in touch with reality would make these ideals into fantasies. And that is what they have been. What would bring them more into the light would be to hold them as living dreams while being in touch with reality. A living dream is an alive question that one holds within and lives it (the question). 

The reality is that there are numerous soldiers giving their life for love of this land no matter what ideas and opinions I may have about how love should be shown. My father had also been one such (though he lost his life in an accident, just a clarification). His way of loving and serving this land was to protect it, and his idea of this land was the nation and republic state as far as his public identity and official activity was concerned. 

A book on Dakshinamurthy Iyer

He married into a family for whom the nation was its civilisation. My mother's side of the family had all been part of the freedom struggle and believed in the 'Sanatana Dharma that is the true eternal religion of this land'. They believed this land to be the punya bhumi and this each of them carried within themselves. My great grandfather, better known as Annaji, had pictures of Sri Aurobindo, the Mother, Swami Vivekananda, Sri Ramakrishna and Sarada Devi right along with many foreigners (whom I cant identify) and other people (whom I can now identify as Babasaheb Amte, Sri Guruji, Baburao Moke, Eknath Ranade and many others). This was the grandfather, Dakshinamurthy Iyer, into whose ear a 5-year old me let out a blaring horn through an old agarbatthi carton (those circular cartons that are used to store agarbatthis), and deafened that ear almost literally. He was the one who gave me my love for English by insisting that I write to him in English on the post card every week, and introducing me to English works, newspapers and journals. Now when I think of it, it seems like others looked at him like he was Don Quixote much of the time when his 90+ year old self engaged with the 5-yr old child and gave her all kinds of things that she can understand nothing about, to read. And yet, these are all the people whose idea of the nation was a civilisational one that they had been fighting for.  This is what I took on. Including the grief of the Partition that they all underwent and never recovered from. They retired from an active public life of serving this land and chose to serve in retreat mode (For example, another great grandfather of mine, Sitaraman Iyer, was a ghanapati and took part in all the veda parayanam that he could). He was the one who gave me his well-thumbed and loved copy of Sundara Kandam. 

Today I am looking at it as a giving up on what one loved, in grief and despair.  I understand it and believe that this land still is recovering from the Partition and still needs to own up to this grief. This is one of the fundamental encountering and reckoning that we have not done collectively. Only this collective grieving can bring about collective healing. I dont know though how we are to do that. It is because we have not grieved truly and enough that there is such turbulence in the country. 

One way for me to start doing it is to look at reality and accept all of it first as it just is. It is only then can I even recognise that there are these two ends of me that are both holding me: 

Had-Anhad, Film by Shabnam Virmani

There is on the one side, ideas of Dharma and spirituality and Vedanta that talk of humanity and a universal consciousness, a holding of all. This has always been there within me; this is also the part of me that has until now talked of Ahimsa, as a greater love. It is this side which loves revolutionary art, music and culture like that of Kabir which dissolves borders and carries us into the no man's land between boundaries of India and Pakistan. 

There is now on the other side, the idea of a nation state that has the military and the sheer reality of the circumstances that we have created for ourselves. We have hostile neighbours and have had genocides, and it is the military might that is holding some of this at bay. Even if I dont understand the nuances of all of that, I recognise and feel the passion and love that one can hold for this land which will draw a boundary to protect it. I felt it this morning in my first Silambam class as I took a stance and gazed straight ahead. A dream-like opponent stood in front of me; I dont know who or what it was. My father stood in me.  This is the same threatening stance that I took a couple of days back in an encounter, completely unplanned and spontaneous. I had never taken such a stance before.  That moment came flooding in too. And I realised that the opponent is not the enemy.  Ahimsa is also about boundaries - as much as I dont invade the other, I also dont allow invasion. It works both ways. Compassion, as anything else true to its name, begins at home. There are no enemies, only opponents. 

Are these two ends holding me, or am I at the centre holding them both together and balancing this tension? Or attempting to. When I am holding this tension within and looking at it, my idea of the whole changes. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. And independence is about freedom. A freedom that cannot be an outcome shining at the end of the tunnel; tomorrow never comes! A freedom that is the journey and the path today. What I do today, this moment about my freedom is all that matters. That is what I will be doing tomorrow. The practice of yoga is happening now. It is absolutely the same for the nation. 

Who or what is the nation then is a question. Is it the land, the rivers, the forests and its geography? Is it all the historical twists and turns and wars that we have gone through and their numerous narratives? is it the nation and republic state with all its citizens and the Indian diaspora? Is it the Vedas, the Gita, and the Bible, and the Quran and Guru Granth Sahib and other scriptures and texts that we all love to quote out of context and for convenience? Is it all the media controversies and the struggles and movements of people on the ground? Is it our ideas of dharma, ahimsa, spirituality...? Is it our leader(s) in different walks of life, politics, media and all the different woods? Where is the nation located? 

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My reflections through this day were also watered by the following that happened today: 

1) A reflective post by a dear friend on Instagram about today & nationalism - She is a farmer, a mother, the bread-winner of the family, and truly of the earth in a way that I can only aspire for. 

2) The Centrefield Podcast on India - The Way Ahead - For me, a precise and beautiful conversation on the ideas and principles of dialogue that India holds, between Abhishek Thakore and Raghu Ananthanarayanan

3) A beautiful dialogue among friends at Purnam Cafe, holding quite a diversity of ideas and perspectives with much maitri and karuna - on the Uttarapara speech by Sri Aurobindo 

Returning

 

21st June 2021

All paths, yoga and otherwise, lead to you. 
All practice is of you.
All gifts are given by you.
All offerings are also yours. 
All breaths come from you,
And each OM exhaled returns home,
To You. 

16th Jan 2021 

The west sun welcomed me,

Settling into her own alchemy.
A friend recently spoke of homecoming-
And that's what I was humming.
A memory of what I'd left behind,
Taking form in my mind.
The sounds and sight;
Smells of dipping hands into twilight...
The taste of a sweetness,
Ageless. Timeless.
Home sweet home,
Resting quietly in chrome.
Returning to this epicentre,
Is not governed by my calendar.
I can only try to listen.
And answer again and again...
Until the epicentre,
Dissolves into its heart-centre. 

Behind

Antness of  the ant

elephantness of the elephant

natureness of Nature 

humanness of the Human

deathness of death

lifeness of life.

Plunging deep,

into the heart of form,

into the core of Earth;

into the core of me --

burning there. 

Would that dissolve form? 

Can something be created 

out of nothing? 

Clay and potter --

Her creative energy

her hands

skin and breath,

the smell of wet earth,

and its texture-

mingle on the wheel-

round and round and round... 

and breathe life as one. 

what gives life? 

the mud? 

the potter? 

the wheel? 

all of them swirling together? 

They all seem to matter,

And yet, they all are but matter;

material of life,

that move around a centre.

(What is it that breathes?) 

Who are You? 

What are You? 

Behind. 

the mind cannot but help,

take recourse to what it 'knows'

what it believes--

brilliant as that recourse is.

swirling and churning,

the material of life -- 

Words in a book,

still not what they denote.

And yet... 

Krishna tells Draupadi

in a letter-

on a thousand-petalled golden lotus: 

I am Infinity. 

I am your unbreakable bond,

with everything else.

I am your Arjuna too.

The universe is,

but a reflection of me.

I AM. 

Who is this I then? 

And what can the I create? 

I am an infant

searching for the new 

to come out of me,

while all that there is,

It already is. 

- April 2021

-------------------------------------------------------

A poem evoked by the essay, "Why Exhibit Works of Art?" by Ananda Coomaraswamy, which had been in discussion at Purnam Cafe. 

Ordinary Lives, Extraordinary Living

 Ordinary Lives, Extraordinary Living –
Also a review of the book, This Too Shall Pass, by Elango Thambiah.

A story is alive, throbbing, when it is straight from the heart and can reach deep into the hearts of its listeners and pluck strings there. This is such a story.  In first person, from the real-life incidents that took place in the life of its protagonists, it is narrated in such a simple manner, that reading it felt like drinking a large mug of hot chocolate as a young something, snuggled into the warmth of a grandmother’s love listening to her wisdom stories.

It tells the profound story of a family living through the trauma and subsequent recovery of one of its members suffering from brain hemorrhage, and how they find their way back to the land of the living.

 I read the book last week over 4 evenings and nights, of days filled with intense, meditative study of Vibhuti Pada, chapter 3 of the yoga sutra, with a group of co-sadhakas that also included the author-protagonists of the book!  

And because of this concurrence of the yoga study and life story perhaps, this book seems forever intertwined with the learning and insights from the Vibhuti Pada of the yoga sutra:

How it is possible to connect with the ecstatic joy and beauty of simply being Alive.

How just by the virtue of being this ordinary human being, he and she have the potential and possibilities of channelizing and straddling an extraordinary state of being, the extraordariness of Life, with an ordinary self simply by surrendering to that life. To the very act of being fully alive to this present moment.

Pic by Vincent on Unsplash

This book epitomizes the above for me. And brought alive an inner story for me, completing the healing process of one big part of me, and closing a very old wound. A wound that said, “Any change means loss; loss of love, loss of warmth, loss of safety, belonging… so, fear change and shun change.” A wound that did not believe that there is anything permanent and holding a terror of everything that is not.  And yet, a deeper part of me had always searched for the permanent. Is there anything that is unchanging?

This Too Shall Pass is about that which is unchanging that rests in all the dance and drama of change. And brought home to me in a primal way, that Change also means new, fresh prANA, new forms of love, new explorations, possibilities and ways of being. How fun.

It is then possible to live life with this changing, ordinary moment, every moment, being held in the lap of the extraordinary permanence within it. And as Thomas Merton says, live and celebrate the “present festival”. Like a new, tender shoot. 

Do consider buying the book, much of the proceeds from its sale will go to The GangaFoundation, an organisation for enhancing the quality of life of persons with Spinal cord injury in India, co-founded by the author, Elango Thambiah, . , 

The Story of an Evening Walk

Fields stretch endlessly,

Meeting horizon

Bringing it closer.

Egrets and pond herons

At dusk.

Doing whatever they do,

On the fields.

The harvest is over.

Ground getting ready

For the next season,

Standing immersed in water.

Sky blue glistening on the ground,

A world turned upside-down.

Shades and layers of green,

Rising in varied textures,

To meet sky again.

An evening walk,

Encounters this world,

From the road;

From the other side-

Of a barbed wire fence.

Wondering,

Will an evening walk do,

To cross over?

What does it take

To pull down the fence?

What is some blood

On the arms and palms?

There was one who bled;

Who bore the pain of humanity

And was crucified.

Cannot an evening walk,

Take some of that pain?

And yet,

The mind is a strange machine.

It wants more roads,

With just the right mix,

Of concrete and rustic

Lest it becomes too urban-

But still needing,

The comfort of a laid out path

For the elevating evening walk.

Which never crosses over,

To the upside-down world

Of pond herons and egrets.

That justs sits there

Seemingly doing nothing;

Except of course inspire

Philosophy & poetry.

What does it take

For these worlds to merge?

A merging seems the 'answer',

When both call

In the same voice.

But the road no longer

Holds a song.

It's a flat note,

That the road wheezes out.

Sweeter seem the raucous cries

Of the egrets

And the staccato hoots

Of the pond herons.

The evening walk

Swells in indignation and anger

At the upside-down world.

Is it just going to sit there--

Looking pretty

And calling sweetly?

Shouldn't it show the way,

To reach it?

Seems the least it can do!

The black comedy

Of wanting a path again

For the evening to walk on....

To the world of egrets and herons.

So near, yet so far.

And it will be so.

For all paths

Are but habits of memory.

And all habits

Are but self-deception.

The evening walk,

Can wear itself out,

And plonk on the roadside.

Watching the upside-down world,

So near yet so far.

Sitting there, watching.

The evening walk

Is no longer the evening walk.

Because..... It's not walking any more.

Well, duh!

Empty now.

Not knowing what to make

Of this world or that,

Or itself;

Sitting there watching.

And getting angrier by the moment.

Until suddenly,

The wind catches something--

The faint strains of a melody.

Is that acceptance

Wrapping itself around the heart?

Is that acceptance

Whispering in the ear?

Is that acceptance-

Like the smell of fresh earth

rising after the rains?

Who knows

What the morning brings?

But for now,

There is acceptance.

The evening is content to burn,

With the sun.

Solitude

Blissful Solitude. 

Photo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPoP7Kk7vgU
(Dakshinamurthy Sthothram)

And yet for the most part,
the world shuns it,
And ridicules those,
Who don’t.

They are afraid,
terrified even.
Of Pain.
They are even more,
Terrified
Of encountering
the heart in Pain.
The broken, bleeding heart
Is no joy.
And there is nowhere to run
in Solitude.
Perhaps the world is wise.

Blissful Solitude.
That rips me apart,
sucks me dry,
holds me Down
with the Pain.
I have no words,
to describe this.
There is no more fighting,
nothing left to fight with.
Not even my heart,
Or so I think.

The peace treaty
brings a discovery.
In his ode to Dakshinamoorthy,
Sri Sankara says,
The great lamp shines through
many holes in the pot,
shedding light in all directions.
I climb over
to the other side of Pain.

Blissful Solitude.
Is a paradox.
It takes us deep.
into the forests,
up the mountain,
the deep sea…
Take your pick.
It takes us
to find the hearts in Pain,
for they hold the treasures.
But those treasures --
Solitude’s Blisses,
can only be savoured,
in their reflections
in the Other
When Solitude is lost.
And yet it is not.
Perhaps the world is wise.

Rukku - An Obituary

Rukku stood at the Annamaiyar temple in Tiruvannamalai, blessing devotees with a caress of her trunk. She died a few days ago, only about 30 years old. Very young for an elephant.

I am selfish and wish I had had more time with her. Standing and swaying in her usual spot, she was a Vīta rāga vishayam for me. The yoga sutras say that the mind can attain a state of balance by contemplating on a pure and disturbance-free mind / object, a Vīta rāga vishayam. Alive, Rukku was this point of concentration for me. One can stand for long, just looking at her. About an hour has been my longest. Wish I had had more hours with those wise, wise eyes that took in everything around, that seemed to know exactly what's what.

She would go missing for a couple of months in a year, when she went to the annual camp for elephants at Bandipur. I used to miss her a lot then and stare at the empty space where she would stand. But I imagine she would have been having a joyful time with all her other elephantine friends. They are such social animals and would completely immerse and bask in the elephantlove at their camp.

I believe that she knew I stood there watching her. Perhaps my whimsy. But one that I would like to keep. I will now have to see how much of her I have in me that I can meditate on without her alive presence. I will miss Rukku.

Living the Question

It lay dormant for many years, ages. in the dark, comfortable, cosy. No water could reach it, and not the sunlight. the passage of time, the revolution of the planet, ushered in some moonlight, Some movement, in the worlds above.

They say faith moves mountains. Have you seen mountains move? now, a teacher’s faith! She brought in fresh air; The ground started breathing, and having conversations.

The sun reached in, and touched the shadows and questions. “Is the individual for society, or society for the individual?”

Water rushed in, ever-loyal to gravity and conversation flowed – “Does name matter? Work is work; water is the form of its container.”

One uncomfortable morning, the ground broke. And the young one peeped out, eyes covered. To discover the forest. Conversations abound nourishing, strengthening, questioning, the sweat and blood of growing up.

Yet another morning, not so uncomfortable, the not-so-young-one found purpose. More conversation, “Can there be an individual purpose? What is a wall? Robert Frost knew the secret.

‘Something there is that doesn’t love a wall’ roots uproot, here in the forest. creepers grow thick as thieves, and create gaps, walls crumble. Even the Berlin one did. and the great China one, is on its way there. Do the tourist, you will see.”

On this morning, fresh after the rains, the smell of beauty rising from the ground;

Fluttering its leaves, dancing with the breeze standing, with friends and family, and community, Here is the neem, There is the tamarind, and the peepal, the banyan, the young ones, the herbs and the flowering, the thorny and the leafy....

the direction seems clear, and yet not so much.

“My shade is for the asking, the fruits will come in season, twigs for firewood grass underneath for cows and goats. And yet, What is it that I am doing? What is just me? Kabir says to his Lord: You, are the bigness in the elephant, and the smallness in the ant,”

Asks the not-young-one,

“What makes the I-ness in the I? Fruits arrive naturally.”

- Priya

A Note about a Master-Teacher

I am sure there are a lot of people who would be writing their own dedications to this great teacher.  I also have to add mine; all these and more are due to him.  He had mastered the art and science of teaching.  This is the essence I get from all that his direct students say.  Sri. T.K.V Desikachar, son of Shri. Krishnamacarya, and teacher to many of my seniors and teachers, passed away in the wee hours of the morning today.  I have never met him or learnt from him.  But he looms large in my world and learning just because of the impact he has made on my teachers.  None of them ever fail to mention him or his teaching regularly.  All my teachers and colleagues who studied with him or learnt from him, attribute much to him.  They have one story or the other that they just have to relate.  And I have never heard of students talking of another teacher with so much reverence, and so much love, at the same time.  I have always wondered what it was in him that made him so dear to all his students. 

My first introduction to him was through my teacher, Smt. Lakshmi Ranganathan, when she spoke of him with such regard and gave me the book he had written, “The Heart of Yoga”.  The book touched me and inspired in me such a fire to study more.  It was such a simple book, and yet so comprehensive and thorough as Introductions go.  ‘Much like the teacher himself’, Smt. Jyotsna Narayan, another of his students, and my teacher, would say.  As I wrote this, I realised that each of his students imbibed so much of all that they describe of him.

The teacher who introduced me to asana and pranayama and yoga and laid the unshakeable foundation, Smt. Lakshmi Ranganathan, who holds his knowledge, dignity and thoroughness with work in great love and esteem is filled with all of that herself.  The teacher who introduced and sowed in me a such a love of chanting, and stories, Smt, Jyotsna Narayan, talks much more of his loving nature and his storytelling ability than anything else.  You just have got to spend half an hour with her to be bathed in her loving warmth and her stories.  For another one of my mentors and colleague, Saraswathy Vasudevan, it is his devotion and commitment to teaching itself that is moving.  Anyone who has even a passing association with YogaVahini will tell you that Saras is first and last, an inspiring teacher, holding such a passion for teaching and empowering students and lives.  Typical of her, her response this morning in the Sangha’s whatsapp group when asked whether there would be group classes today (owing to Sir’s demise), was “All classes are on, he taught us to teach.”  I am certain that each student of his would carry something of him. 

This seems to have been a teacher who held numerous roles and angles and all of them with ease and love.  Each one had a perspective of him, which they have taken and become seasoned with it.  I cannot but wonder what strength and depth such a teacher would have come from.  I do and yet cannot regret that I never got to meet with him, because he seems to have left behind so many manifestations of himself whom I have the opportunities to study with. 

In conclusion, I am going to quote here some words of Smt. Jyotsna Narayan from a talk she gave about her beloved ‘Vaathiyaar’:

“… the idea of a shrethrika, farmer.  But he would constantly say, if we plant a seed, then we have to water it, we have to clear things around it, and if it is a mango seed, then you need some water, then unseasonal rains, and if there is frost, then?  And if there is rain in Feb, then there would be no mangoes in May.  Then the goats may come and eat away… and I will be listening to this whole story… then it becomes a big tree, but the fruit is not for you.  It is for everybody.  To me that is the greatest teacher.  He would ask, how much can a farmer eat anyway??  What do you want from your student, beyond this?  You have sown the seed, you have taken care, and that’s all.  Also, a mango seed can only become a mango tree, not an apple tree.  So nurture them in their own nature, don’t try to change people was something also that I learnt from him.”

The dynamics of going out on a limb

Image Source: Freqmix.wordpress.com

People fail at staying with challenges all the time. I see myself and others giving up on challenges once we hit an obstacle, or there is a setback.  We either say been-there-done-that all too soon and dust our hands, or we struggle against a thick wall, the kind fortresses have.  I was trying to investigate this staying with a challenge in the context of a couple of recent challenges that I have been facing / have given myself. And wondering, what constitutes staying with the challenge, what constitutes "success" and what constitutes "failure".  For instance, if I have resolved to stick to a particular habit, and I don't do it on the second day itself, does this mean I have failed? And I restart again the next day.  What if I "succeed" now, and keep to the habit for 6 months and then it goes for a toss on my next round of travelling? Different permutations and combinations of successes and failures have happened in this realm by now, and this dichotomous way of working with a challenge fails to move me.  Plus I find that it is very limiting and not useful at all in understanding a situation / a challenge, all the elements of given instance, and oneself, realistically. What I do know is that it is Hard, staying with a challenge.

Staying.  Present continuous.  What if I looked at this as a continuous process, something to be worked upon constantly, and it is constantly changing? A work-in-progress.  There is no arriving at a destination.  There is no one point to be reached.  Looking not at the challenge as a goal to be reached, but at the staying with the challenge as a direction of movement, changes the perspective drastically and opens out many possibilities of working with it.  The shift in perception widened the canvas for me and I started noticing the nuances and details of how challenges manifest, how we define challenges and so on.  

What stands out for me is what I first saw in two very different phenomena, both of which exhibited similar forces at play, in working a challenge.  And then I could stretch my imagination and see the same forces at play everywhere. One phenomenon is the way in which children in general, and in particular reference my daughter, take risks and challenge themselves.  The second is my asana and pranayama practice, and what I have learnt from a couple of my elders, about stretching oneself to attain a posture.  

The forces at play are, one, an anchoring and two, a stretching.  The dance between these two, the balancing act of these forces (if we can manage it) is the dynamics of going out on a limb.  There is something(s) that is constant, the anchor, the grounding.  There are things that are changing, that are exploring, that are new, that are the risks, the new avenues.  I need both forces to stay with a challenge, and keep going out on that limb.  Most of the time we are caught with one force or the other, and do not even know that we need to hold both together.  Our education and our conditioning teaches us to stand polarised and negate the other force.  However, deeper truths can emerge only when we hold both ends together.  

On one end we are so stuck to our comfort zones, so enmeshed in our own complacent worlds, that we don't want to step out at all, We dont want the discomforts of challenges, and dont take risks.  We dont want the discomfort of getting up early in the morning, for instance, or we dont want the discomfort of giving up a pleasing hobby to pursue a passion and let it stagnate. We allow what could be an active, life-giving and nourishing anchor, the ground on which we grow, to become a cesspool, the "dreary desert sand of dead habit" in the words of Rabindranath Tagore. 

On the other end, we are so taken up with the new, that we follow its glitter as it beckons to us and compromise stable ground.  We follow where are feet and eyes take us, and dont pause for conscious choice.  We have such luxury of options today that we no longer know the Ahimsa and the contentment of limited choice.  We can shop for anything we want and explore all that the world has to offer and become compulsive consumers, instead of tapping into the true and deeper seeking / enlivening pursuit that man is capable of, and I believe, is born for.  To go out on a limb and find one's true purpose.  We lose this. 

Children seem to hold these two forces together with such dexterity while playing (but then they also seem to be playing ALL the time! Sigh!).  They take risks, they jump off tables, they walk into crowds and get lost, they take apart things and try to put them back together ruthlessly sometimes.  They are spontaneous, irreverent even and completely un-self-conscious with language, muddling into communication like a bull in a china shop, which however gives them enormous ability to grasp 5-6 languages in the formative years.  This is their seeking force.  While doing all this, they time and again, check back with their primary care takers, their family.  My daughter's trust is implicit, unconditional and absolute, that I or her father will catch her when she jumps off the counter. Her anchor, ground.  When she walks into a crowd, she is sure that I am keeping her in my sight (which every parent would strive to do!).  This is one anchoring for them in their early years.  You can also notice how they form other anchors as they grow.  We are not here talking of mistakes that human anchors may make and so on.  We are here talking of how children hold these two forces together, and for me this is a great learning.  How can I take care of my anchoring, find and nourish my constants in such a way that I can trust these implicitly and absolutely to hold me, when I jump off the cliff, or dive into the ocean.  Such that my anchors do not weigh me down into comfortable habits and yet do not let go off me such that I get carried away by the wind.  

Similarly, in asana and pranayama practice, I will need to stretch and twist and fold down and arch back in order for me to attain new postures, that give me greater strength and flexibility and understanding of my self and allow me to sit longer for meditative practices.   My breath is one of my primary anchors here (there can be others).  And one of my constant quests in my personal practice is to see how I can work with the stretching (the seeking and exploring force) such that it feeds into my constants, like tributaries flowing into the river.  

There is no question of 'failing' at challenges or not being able to go out on a limb, when we can bring into dynamic action, these forces at play.  It is a matter of tapping into these forces inside of us.  And this is a life-long process.  I mean, its not just one limb that you want to go out on, right? ;)  

How can the Ordinary be Extraordinary?

How can the ordinary be extraordinary as well? Simply by the quality of one's attention.  I tried to immerse myself in it, when I encountered such an attentive quality recently. 

Scene: A moderately-big^ photocopying / DTP works-binding-printing establishment in the city.

At the outset, he was yet another young guy from a small town, come to the city for work. He looked it.  I waited for a while by the photocopier machine before he came to attend to me.  I had two entire books to be photocopied and he finished with two others before he came to me, although I had come earlier.  Some typical leg-tapping had begun at my end.  I had also by then slotted him, "he attended to the men first; he is so young, looks barely 20, he's going to mess up my photocopies; he's got a cell phone that he is constantly checking on, how usual!"  I realised later that although my initial impression of him being from a small town was correct, that was also a stereotyping that I'd indulged in.  

So initially when he started the machine for my work, I kept shifting from one foot to the other and checking my phone (to look at the time of course!). After about less than a minute of this, he turned to me and smiled and said (in Tamil*), "those two people had only a couple of papers each and so I finished theirs first."  

I was arrested by two things.  First, I was ashamed that I hadn't noticed this myself because I had been too caught up in my own typecasting.  Second, his eyes.  He looked right into my eyes, directly and openly.  He had such clear eyes, such depth and stillness in them. By this time, he had already tuned into his task again, and I tuned into him.  Really looked at him. And was thoroughly mesmerised by how he was doing what he was doing. He had in the beginning itself punched some keys on the keypad to indicate standard number of copies and page dimensions and so on.  (And I realised at this point that I had been watching all this like a hawk for any mistakes!).  Now I just started to simply watch. 

Since it was not a completely automated process, he had to key in something after the machine spit out the required number of copies of each page.  He had to turn to the next page, put it face down on the fibreglass top, and adjust its orientation before closing the lid and punching the keypad. This went on continuously.  After every few pages that were copied, the screen would have moved and changed angle because of the way he was tapping the keypad (on the touch-screen), and he would move the screen back to its original position.  In a while I saw that it was exactly after 10 pages that he did this.  (I dont know whether he kept count)  Every 2-3 pages, he would check the page number of the photocopies that had just come out and the page number on the original before flipping to the next page.  Open-flip-place-adjust-close-punch, Open-flip-place-adjust-close-punch, Check-Open-flip-place-adjust-close-punch... If ever I've seen mechanical work done in style, it was this instance.  He executed that whole sequence so gracefully, that the yoga practitioner in me saw a perfect, smooth, seamless and flowing vinyasa krama** in action.  It was utterly rhythmic and hypnotic. 

This was not all.

The pictures have been taken and put up here
with his consent

In the middle of this steady pulse, there was a stream of phone calls that he attended to.  I realised by and by that he was in charge of the shop's cell phone and he was handling enquiries!  He answered an irate caller who didn't know the location of the shop; I could hear the irritated voice asking for directions, standing more than 2 feet away.  He gave some rates and tariffs to another person. and so on.  Without missing a beat - in his hands, or his eyes or his voice and smile.  I mean, he was obviously not in the middle of a toothpaste commercial - he was not smiling actively, and yet his face was a restful smile.  

This was not all.  

He also seemed to be in charge of other things in the shop. He seemed to have in his purview, two new boys handling other machines in the shop, and he was instructing someone else to go and check up on one of them who has not had the requisite training yet.  He also at some point, asked the person at the neighbouring machine, to go sit on some computer and handle work there since that person had taken leave today.  I have no clue how he knew what was happening right behind him (maybe he was listening to everything happening around him), but just as a customer was going to go to that empty computer station, asking for some particular service, he turned and redirected her to someone else.  He was also completely aware of what was happening at the delivery counter and the finished jobs that were coming there to be stapled and handed over to the right person, after the payment was made. (The payment counter was exactly behind him and I was also sort of standing there). 

Some things that came to me later: I believe now that his eyes and how he looked at me the first time changed the quality of attention I was giving to the present moment, the task at hand and the people in the present moment (because of his own attentive quality). I also realised that early on, he had pointed out the obvious without any judgement of me, or any resentment, or chip-on-the-shoulder attitude; just a clear, non-attached statement. 

I had to take his autograph

His attention was everywhere in the shop I realised, and yet his attention was also on the minutest detail of the task in his hand.  How did he catch it otherwise - that one time when he flipped two pages together, he paused and corrected it. He continued his open-flip rhythm through to the end without losing himself to any one task or phone call or person.  He attended to all of it with a quiet confidence. What is yoga if not this? 

An ordinary day turned extraordinary for me, gave me a demonstration of Attention that I will carry with me for a long time to come, if not always. And transformed me in some inexplicable way. 

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* Our conversation happened in Tamil 

** Vinyasa krama in asana-pranayama practice is an intelligent, step by step progression / sequence, with synchronising breath and movement, towards a particular goal

^ What is moderately-big though? Beats me. 

Break fast in a Bowl

The breakfast is supposed to be the king of meals, and it is said these days that we should go all out to break our fast sumptuously.

I follow an ayurvedic regimen for the most part, adapting and modifying it to suit current contexts and routines.  The ayurvedic principles advise us to have light breakfasts and dinners and a heavier mid-day meal. According to the ancients, a light breakfast or none at all if you please!  I have found through trial and error and experimenting that this does seem to work better for the overall state of health and well-being. 

Imagine you are just recuperating from a fever: you would have been having very light meals so as to ease and facilitate the digestion process when the body is weak.  At this point when you are recuperating, you wouldn't immediately load the body with rich and nutritious foods; rather you would up the scale of nutrition and fats gradually and according to how your body's strength picks up.  Breaking one's fast is something similar.  After many hours of sleep and rest, the stomach is empty, all food digested and the body is ready to eliminate what was not required / not digested by it (hopefully!).  Your body and its metabolism is waking up, and is yet not at its peak.  You ingest gradually as and how your body wakes up to its full metabolic activity.  If we have a heavy breakfast, I figure we would be overloading the system.

If we were to go by the daily doshas cycle, that is, kapha, pitta and vata - our breakfast and dinner time both plonk right in the middle of the kapha times of the day (6 to 10 am, and 6 to 10 pm) (aliens and otherworldly souls who dine at 11 pm, wake up at 10 am and so on are not included in this category, their rhythms are different and need independent attending to).  Eating heavily during the kapha time would actually build up more kapha in the body (and this also depends on what one is eating).  However, as Captain Jack Sparrow would have said, these are to be taken as guidelines - a generic guideline would be to eat light during the kapha-building time, and eat well during the pitta time, when the body's digesting capacity is at its peak (10 am to 2 pm).  The other pitta dominating time is also 10 pm to 2 am, however, I am sure this is not a time to be eating at all, leave alone eating heavily.  This is the time for the pitta to be working from the inside to clean everything and get the body ready for the next day.

Image from eatfeelfresh.com

There were times when I used to have a full-stomached, loaded breakfast and I couldn't go without it.  I couldn't bear the thought of going even a little hungry.  But then, following a consistent and regular yoga practice, the body's native intelligence took over.  I naturally started eating lesser and lesser during breakfast without being completely aware of it initially.  Later I tried various combinations and portions and arrived at my optimum.  Of course, this is a dynamic optimum and changes a little according to how much exercise and sleep I have had and the kind of activity I have been doing.  In any case, solid, grand breakfasting is a NO if one wants to feel fresh, active and light through the day. 

Three Little Words

Well, maybe not so little. There were these three words that I remember my mother saying to me all the time when I was young.  Like way back, even when I was in 3rd standard; I say 3rd standard because I remember hearing these words from then.  I dont remember earlier.  And no, they are not " I love you"!

They are "Use your discretion"!  I thank her from the bottom of my heart today, for saying them to me as often as she did.  Although I don't know where she came from (from what perspective or why) when she replied with this phrase to my questions, but  I realise how much it had empowered me and in such a dignified way.  Even as all my friends save one, were being given step by step instructions on every action of theirs, even as they had to obey commands and strategise persuasion before asking permissions, here I was, being given "use your discretion".

Discretion, I find, is quite the word.  While it means the freedom to decide what should be done in a particular situation, it also means behaving or conducting oneself in such a manner so as not to cause hurt.  This does pack a punch for me.  It seems to be holding two states of being that could come in conflict with each other.  And somehow, even as my mother said her trademark phrase to me, she conveyed the nature of this being to me.  I dont know how though, but I do know that whenever she told me to use my discretion, while she communicated to me "freedom of choice", she also communicated, "Right Action".  I remember this as one of the highlights of my student years.

And today, I realised that in all my actions I unconsciously have this phrase with me.  Even when I make a mistake, many times when I have been too hasty to stop and consider and the mistake is done, even then, somewhere inside, this phrase "use your discretion" would be flashing a signal. I want to ask my mother today how she managed to communicate this, especially now when I am with my 3 and 1/2 year old daughter, and stopping myself from giving instructions time and again, and trying to allow her to find her space of discretion.  This space carries for me, what we call "Dharmasankata" in Yoga.  Wherein the choice is not between 'right' and 'wrong'.  Discretion is a space that has two equally determining forces pulling me.  One is to manifest one's uniqueness, individuality, what one believes / knows to be true, follow one's heart - all of this is in the realm of one force. The other is to do the right thing - in my head, I would like to say it is the Buddhist right action.  And 'using my discretion' can happen when these two statements are true at the same time.

I somehow got up this morning with this phrase and it has been a constant channel of reflection since then.  It may and may not be coincidental that today is being celebrated as Mother's Day.   I decided I have to write about it when I realised what was today, and in this small way celebrate my mother and motherhood. 

Rest, An Oasis

Image from Barrybuzza.com

The necessity of resting and the results of not resting seem to be so overwhelmingly evident that it would almost seem a foregone conclusion that all of us would undertake to secure this necessary comfort for ourselves.  However, this is not actually the situation and hence the case for resting is stated, re-stated, and repeatedly and tirelessly emphasised in different and diverse contexts.

There is this (awe-inspiring for me) story in the Mahabharata (among many such) from the time of the great war.  Arjuna and his divine charioteer, Krishna enter the tight and skillfully arranged vyuham (a classical formation, strategic positioning and arrangement of the military) of their opponents - this is after the murder of Abhimanyu and Arjuna has vowed to avenge his son's death by killing his killers; they have to reach the centre of the vyuham before sunset that day.  So, after a long, hard day of intense fighting, and still some way to go before reaching their goal, and dusk fast approaching, Krishna actually says that his horses cannot go any further without their water and rest! Then, cool-as-you-please, the duo proceed to do the needful - Krishna stops the chariot, un-tethers his horses; Arjuna invokes an astra and materialises a pond full of water for the horses while continuing to fight, now on foot.  When the horses are rested, lovingly taken care of by their master (I am utterly charmed by descriptions of how much Krishna loved his horses and how he took care of them), he tethers them back to the chariot, Arjuna gets nimbly onto the chariot, still fighting.  And they continue towards the nucleus.  All in a day's work!

I was of course completely taken by the animal-care angle of the story, as well as the unflappable quotient of the scene and its protagonists.  It beats Vijay's cool-as-cucumber Gilli hands down! However, one of my yoga teachers offered yet another meaning to the metaphor - that of the vaahanam (a vehicle, that which carries). That we need to give utmost care and attention to the vaahanam. And that this body is the vaahanam of my spirit, my being.  Hence, we need to pay attention to the body and take care of it.  The body is the instrument of action.

Right in the middle of that bloody war and destruction, an oasis was created for the horses to drink water and take rest. And this is exactly what our bodies (and hence eventually minds - we are a psychosomatic unity no matter how much we try to divide and isolate parts of ourselves) need: the oases of rests, now and then, here and there.

Image from tonydering.com

One kind of rest is of course sleep, and it is well known that as human beings, we do need sleep to function. The contribution of sleep to restoring, repairing, healing, building the immune system, enhancing our creative processes and maintaining the nervous system etc cannot be overstated.  All one has to do is go without sleep for a couple of days to experience what lack of sleep can do to one, just like Shwetaketu went without food for many days to understand what happens.  However I am not sure about an optimum because this would vary from person to person according to their lifestyle, occupation, individual particularities and so on.  Even for one individual, the number of hours needed sleeping may change depending on season, his / her health conditions, foods consumed, recent daily activities and so on.  Each individual may need to experiment and observe to arrive at how many hours of sleep he / she needs on an average.

We also need other kinds of rest oases besides sleeping.  The oasis could be for a few minutes or hours or extend to rest days.  It depends on how much one needs to slow down, recuperate and recharge.  Or completely stop for the time being - if one has overused or abused the body so much.  But rest, we must.

- Taking that one, long breath and checking that you have taken everything that you need before you step out that door could be rest

- Having that cup of tea or coffee sitting, one sip at a time, could give you the rest you need rather than gulping it down as you try to finish other tasks

- A relaxing yoga practice at the end of a working day

- Putting aside everything else and giving your child your complete attention while answering his / her question

- a 15-minutes power nap

- Playing with the dogs when they are frisky and asking for your time

- Stopping in the middle of frenzied activity to sit down and do some praanayaama; you may find the frenzy melting away

-  Just closing your eyes and massaging them by placing gentle palms on them

- Sitting and folding clothes neatly and carefully, without creases, with ends meeting, no tails hanging out

- Washing the dishes while washing the dishes to wash the dishes (Read Thich Nhat Hanh's Miracle of Mindfulness)

- Listening to your favourite piece of music

- Practicing S-L-O-W motion in activity

- Giving your vocal chords a chance to be without work for some time - indulging in some quiet time

- Staring out into the infinite blue of the ocean and breathing with the waves (if you live on the coast of course)

- Taking a long walk without needing to get some place

- Bathing in moonlight and watching the moon climb up the sky

- Learning, practicing and creating Kolams in front of my house, especially pulli kolams

The above are some of my favourite oases of rest.  You would of course have / discover your own besides.  Happy resting!