today’s learning

today i was called up on stage to be tested on pranayama.  i didn’t know this when i was called up to the stage.  i was asked to inhale retain, and was timed, then to exhale and retain, again i was timed.   we have been practicing for a few days, this is a different approach than I’m used to.  it was interesting to notice my reaction.  being watched by 40 pairs of eyes while i hold my breath.  all of a sudden it was much harder to do.  i could feel my hear beating, i could feel my pores beginning to sweat.  i guess i passed the test.

later on i decided to go to see Jayashri & Narasimha.  Somehow I had felt like I had too much to do….working on an online course, keeping up with studio, long lunches & breakfasts, creating slides for retreat….then i was also feeling like something was missing.  i do miss the energy of guruji in the shala.  hard to really express.

walking into jayashri’s house felt like coming home.  ever since my first trip i’ve always studied with jayashree:  yoga sutras, sanskrit grammar, devanagri writing, yoga philosophy.  I almost enrolled in a master’s in sanskrit, which jayashree had agreed to help me with (that was a crazy idea, even she thought it would be too much).  Maybe that is what was missing.  Both she and her cousin Narasimha embody all that I love about Mysore….they truly love to teach their subject, they do it for love of spreading the knowledge (classes by donation), and they are so patient and kind.  So I spend 1.5 hours chanting the yoga sutras and listening to Narasimha’s eloquent discourse.   “Growth and purification of the body must happen while working also on a mental and emotional level.  By the practice of yoga, we work on the emotional mind and the body has to be ready.”  He was talking about the tendency also even in yoga to only work on a physical level, while ignoring the higher states of consciousness, while giving an importance to asana for its preparation of the body.    One other gem:  all things must be looked at in their context.  Ahimsa (non-violence):  if you take a medicine for a cold or an antibiotic, you kill off lots of microbes in your body.   As another of my wise teachers says “Adopt the attitude of save the most and kill the least.”  if to save the body you have to cut off the hand, so be it.    I don’t feel like i’m giving justice to their wisdom, probably the best way is to try to go out and live it.  Tomorrow is a new day!