It's been over a week... it feels like I've been here for a very short time and a very long time at the same time. It's not that difficult to understand why: everything is such a sensory overload so it feel like there is a million things going on at once but then every small experience is so rich that it passes like Christmas morning when you're 8!
I have to admit something, I think I've been too hard on India for it's bad smells... it's the neatest thing, I've been washing all my clothes by hand and letting it dry outside and interestingly enough the comfort smell of outdoor air dried clothes is exactly the same as in Canada :) The other thing is that I've notices is that once you get use to the sensory overload as I called it earlier you start decifering the various smells and you start identifying the rich smell of inscence everywhere in the air around the markets and the sweet ripe fruit everything you go. I'm starting to get what people say about the richness of this country.
Another example of this is the way people drive here, it seems compeletly random. They have their hand on the horn and are constantly looking for a small crack in the crowd of people, vehicles, cows, dogs etc to slide right in whether it is a bike, a car, a truck, a tracker, a motorbike, a tuktuk, a rickshaw, a bus, a horse drawn cart, a ... you get the picture. There are no hard and fast rules on the road. It's easy to look at that is say that the Indian are nuts but it's not the case. They live on faith and function with a intuitive sense of flow... and very loud horns. Everyone gets where they need to be in one piece and it's extraordinary to watch. They apply this way of functioning in a lot of areas of their world and it works. We Westerners live according to order and set rules, which also works but we much seem very anal to them :)
The training has started and we have been exposed to a cast of oddly wonderful caracters! This week we had a class thaught by a man who is 103 years old, has perfect eye sight and weighs 86 lbs. It's funny to note that most of his sequence was designed to deal with constipation :P And he could do things that impressed the crap out of us, literally I guess!!! We spent a lot of the time trying to keep ourselves from collasping onto the floor from laughing so hard from his jokes and taking pictures... and he was LOVING it! We had another guest teacher, an uncle of VishvaJi (our master teacher), who was at one time the strongest man in India 20ish years ago. He taught us a power yoga class and it was so awesome, he's like biggest buddha ever. As opposed to Mr. 103 years/old, this second man must weight like 280lbs with a huge jelly belly. Jelly belly or not we struggled to follow his lead, never saw a man so rolly polly and so healthy and spry! The common element in these 2 as well as all people here is their insane sense of humor: you want a good laugh? Come to India! We also had an priceless opportunity to joint up with a massive international Kundulini According to Yogi Bhajan festival for the day. If you know anything about this tradition you might be of the opinion that it is... a bit cultish (or maybe not) but it is rather too organized for my liking. Regardless it was fun and we got to listen to many of the leaders speak. It's good to be exposed to what you don't buy into once in a while, it keeps you on track ;)
The yoga philosophy portion of the course has been fascinating. There are many words but in the end it's really just summed up in one sentence: be kind to yourself and others and live in the now. Seems easy doesn't it? It's not! We have 4 more weeks to get that through our thick sculls. I'll keep you posted on how I'm doing with that :P We've also talked about how to deal with people that think yoga is a challenge to their religious belief. Yoga is not a religion, it's just a way to be happy :) I haven't come across that myself but I'm going to suggest to any hard core Christians to chant Amen instead of Om... problem solved :)
Tomorrow we have a day off. I'm going to be searching in Rishikesh for the remains of an ashram that was once run by the father of transcendental meditation, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. I want to find this place because it is where the Beatles wrote most of the White Album... how terrifically cool is that! The more I find out about Rishikesh the more I am stuned that I somehow ended up here. Many (if not most) of the great yogi teachers that have inspired yoga in the modern era were born and raised here and it has brought influencial artists to this place to find themsleves and their inner creative spirit. This source of spritual awakening is why so many Indians come here as pilgrimmage as I mentioned in my first post. I just thought that it would be kinda cool to be in India where I would fit in with all the other weird people and their weird eating habits :P Turns out to be the most magical places on earth... Disney World can eat it's dust :P
Namaste :)
I have to admit something, I think I've been too hard on India for it's bad smells... it's the neatest thing, I've been washing all my clothes by hand and letting it dry outside and interestingly enough the comfort smell of outdoor air dried clothes is exactly the same as in Canada :) The other thing is that I've notices is that once you get use to the sensory overload as I called it earlier you start decifering the various smells and you start identifying the rich smell of inscence everywhere in the air around the markets and the sweet ripe fruit everything you go. I'm starting to get what people say about the richness of this country.
Another example of this is the way people drive here, it seems compeletly random. They have their hand on the horn and are constantly looking for a small crack in the crowd of people, vehicles, cows, dogs etc to slide right in whether it is a bike, a car, a truck, a tracker, a motorbike, a tuktuk, a rickshaw, a bus, a horse drawn cart, a ... you get the picture. There are no hard and fast rules on the road. It's easy to look at that is say that the Indian are nuts but it's not the case. They live on faith and function with a intuitive sense of flow... and very loud horns. Everyone gets where they need to be in one piece and it's extraordinary to watch. They apply this way of functioning in a lot of areas of their world and it works. We Westerners live according to order and set rules, which also works but we much seem very anal to them :)
The training has started and we have been exposed to a cast of oddly wonderful caracters! This week we had a class thaught by a man who is 103 years old, has perfect eye sight and weighs 86 lbs. It's funny to note that most of his sequence was designed to deal with constipation :P And he could do things that impressed the crap out of us, literally I guess!!! We spent a lot of the time trying to keep ourselves from collasping onto the floor from laughing so hard from his jokes and taking pictures... and he was LOVING it! We had another guest teacher, an uncle of VishvaJi (our master teacher), who was at one time the strongest man in India 20ish years ago. He taught us a power yoga class and it was so awesome, he's like biggest buddha ever. As opposed to Mr. 103 years/old, this second man must weight like 280lbs with a huge jelly belly. Jelly belly or not we struggled to follow his lead, never saw a man so rolly polly and so healthy and spry! The common element in these 2 as well as all people here is their insane sense of humor: you want a good laugh? Come to India! We also had an priceless opportunity to joint up with a massive international Kundulini According to Yogi Bhajan festival for the day. If you know anything about this tradition you might be of the opinion that it is... a bit cultish (or maybe not) but it is rather too organized for my liking. Regardless it was fun and we got to listen to many of the leaders speak. It's good to be exposed to what you don't buy into once in a while, it keeps you on track ;)
The yoga philosophy portion of the course has been fascinating. There are many words but in the end it's really just summed up in one sentence: be kind to yourself and others and live in the now. Seems easy doesn't it? It's not! We have 4 more weeks to get that through our thick sculls. I'll keep you posted on how I'm doing with that :P We've also talked about how to deal with people that think yoga is a challenge to their religious belief. Yoga is not a religion, it's just a way to be happy :) I haven't come across that myself but I'm going to suggest to any hard core Christians to chant Amen instead of Om... problem solved :)
Tomorrow we have a day off. I'm going to be searching in Rishikesh for the remains of an ashram that was once run by the father of transcendental meditation, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. I want to find this place because it is where the Beatles wrote most of the White Album... how terrifically cool is that! The more I find out about Rishikesh the more I am stuned that I somehow ended up here. Many (if not most) of the great yogi teachers that have inspired yoga in the modern era were born and raised here and it has brought influencial artists to this place to find themsleves and their inner creative spirit. This source of spritual awakening is why so many Indians come here as pilgrimmage as I mentioned in my first post. I just thought that it would be kinda cool to be in India where I would fit in with all the other weird people and their weird eating habits :P Turns out to be the most magical places on earth... Disney World can eat it's dust :P
Namaste :)
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