Some impressions from the first few days

The Practical

Well, we arrived in Mysore on Saturday morning after leaving Michigan on Thursday afternoon. The time difference is ten and a half hours ahead of Detroit, and I am still trying to recover from that. We didn’t have our accommodations arranged ahead of time, but with a bit of asking around we quickly found a room with a local family right around the corner from the shala.

We are in a residential neighborhood of Mysore called Gokulam. I wouldn’t call it quiet, exactly, as there are a few bustling main streets, but it is a far cry from a boisterous big city. The commerce is a mix of street vendors with carts, open storefront stands with handpainted signs, and some more fancy, formal establishments. The streets are busy with pedestrians, scooters, bicycles, motorcycles, autorickshaws, and cars, with the occasional cattle-drawn wagon thrown in the mix. Then of course there are the free-range cows, which appear to just wander the streets according to their whim. There are also lots of street dogs just hanging out, and random herds of goats on occasion. And hey, why not?

Here is a day in India so far: we wake up and meditate at home, then walk down to the shala for our 8:15 practice time. After yoga, it’s off to the coconut stand, where the seller hacks the top off a coconut for you and you drink the water inside. Then breakfast; either at one of the yogi hangout cafes for a Western breakfast, or at a little storefront restaurant for the iddly vadai plate and tea. Yesterday we started a Sanskrit class and a class on the Bhagavad Gita and Hathayogapradipika at the shala, those will meet three times a week for the next month. We will also be doing vedic chanting three mornings a week.

Otherwise I’ve just been wandering around, soaking in the sights and sounds and smells and loving every second of it. My experience in the Peace Corps inocculated me from shock at how most of the rest of the world lives, so without having to make that adjustment I am free to just enjoy the different pace of life and everything there is to discover.

The Practice

Practicing in the shala is an amazing experience. The energy being generated by so many people together is intense, and some of the more advanced practitioners are just awe-inspiring. I am already finding my sense of ease and steadiness in many postures and transitions increasing. It’s like you come here and plug into something, it’s really incredible.

Tuesday as I was getting adjusted in backbends, the assistant had me walk my hands in and grab my ankles from behind. As I popped up from that, Sharath was standing there and he said, smiling, “tomorrow, knee!” That proved to be overly optimistic, but he did help me to grab my calves without touching the floor first. All of my knowledge of Guruji quotes is second or third-hand, but one of my favorites is, “every day, new body is making”. Indeed.

The Path

The best definition I have ever heard for spirituality is, “the practices and tools that keep me grounded in Reality”. For me those practices are ashtanga yoga and vipassana meditation, both of which come out of India. I feel so blessed to be able to be here to really get immersed.

Our host sister, Impa, is in her first year of studying engineering at University and is writing her exams this week. When she found out that we sit an hour at a time, she asked the other day if we would teach her to meditate when her exams are over. Crazy how the world works, a girl who grew up hanging out in malls and diners in New Jersey finds herself in India being asked to teach meditation. We can’t teach her vipassana, but she is going to try to sit with us for 20 minutes at a time and do a simple breath observation. Simple in theory, of course, but as anyone who has ever tried it knows, far from easy.