Sometimes…

Tags

Dhanvantri, empowerment, Fear, Ganesha, Healing, malarkey, Prayers, Recovery, Sanskrit, Spirituality, Surrender, Transformation, Yoga, Yoga teacher

I think I’m just afraid of who I might actually be, when I’m finally done with all this being afraid malarkey.

When I allow all the knowledge I’ve learned (and continue to learn), to be grafted to the very marrow of my being.

When I’ve practiced to perfection the incredible meditations and other teachings I’ve been given. When they’re as natural as breathing – so much a part of me I don’t need to think about it.

I’m afraid of that person I’ll become.

And sometimes I think… it’s the one significant thing causing most of the pain in my life.

Even while writing this, I’m avoiding doing something else right this very moment. Something I should’ve done already and that other people are waiting for. Something that’d be good for me to do. And I will eventually, just not before I’ve put it off time and again.

Til I can’t stand it any more.

At least this time though, the distraction is much more honest, less convoluted.

I want to scream, and I want to cry and grieve. For the time I’ve spent veiling my awesome, powerful, motivated and very real Self away, and letting the freaked out junior would-be super hero run the show instead.

All so I don’t have to give up my excuses.

Of course, like that smoker who knows they need to stop, I’m not ready to give my excuses up yet. Just because I can see them for what they are, doesn’t mean I’m stopping.

I’m still enjoying the whole experience too much. It mightn’t be good for me, but it’s comfortable. And it’s what I know.

Its life-changing stuff y’know, getting the things you want most for yourself, instead of sacrificing and sabotaging your own life. At least, that’s the realisation I’m coming to.

Sunday, I was at my yoga school doing my remaining cleaning hours for the week (still need the money til I get paid the week after this one). As I cleaned, and when I wasn’t chanting various Sanskrit mantras to myself, my teacher’s recent words filled the empty room.

You see, I only signed up to do the Hatha yoga practitioner certificate this year, not the first year teacher training. Mostly because I didn’t feel like I was ready. Which, as it turns out, is just more hiding and excuses, really.

As we discussed various maintenance tasks, she turns to me and says I think you should do the teacher training. I want you to teach here and help with future teacher trainings. You’re way ahead of the others on philosophy and related topics and I think you’ve got things you can teach them.

Just like that. And yes, it’s something I want. Plus, I know I’m ready now…

There alone, sweeping the floors, I thought about standing at the front of that room and… I laughed, while I coincidentally sang the invocation to Ganesha, remover of obstacles…

Om Gananam tva / ganapating havamahe / kavinkavinam upamashravastamam / jyeshtharajam brahmanam brahmanaspata a nah / shrinvan nutibhih sida sadanam…

Yes, it’s what I want. But to get there… I’m gonna have to give up a few things I’m pretty sure I know as ‘fact’ about myself. But guess what? Apparently, all I have to do is keep going towards what I want.

The transformation will occur in the doing, not the wanting of the doing… this was the message/realisation I recieved while sweeping, singing and laughing.

Okay… so, I kept singing, this time Sri Dhanvantri’s (the lord of Ayurveda/healing) prayer. It’s my very favourite thing to chant because it resonates best I find, when you’re singing from the heart.

Om sankham chakram jaloukaam dadhad amruta gatam chaaru dorbhis chaturbhih / sookashma svachchhaati hridyaam sukha pari vilasan moulim amboja netram //

kaala ambha uda ujjjvalaangam kati tata vilasad chaaru peetaambaraadhyam / vande Dhanvantarim tam nikhila gada vana prouda daavaagni leelam //

I still have my excuses and I’m holding on tight. For now anyway. I’m not even going to attempt to break them down just yet. As long as I keep moving in the right direction, then I reckon… its all good.

~Svasti

Yoga, Awards & Bushfires

Tags

blog award, bush fires, CFA, Ganesha, Hatha yoga, Nataraj, Prayers, Yoga

Yoga…

So, last night I went to my first class at the yoga school where I’ll be studying this year.

Lovely school, got to meet the principal and one of the yoga teachers who’ll be around for parts of the training. Her class was a lovely mix of Vinyasa, Hatha and Iyengar styles and very enjoyable.

There’s beautiful art on the walls – a painted Nataraj here, a Ganesha there, a Kali yantra over the other side… books that I recognise and rate line the hallway, too.

There’s an orientation on 21st Feb, and then we commence the following Saturday. Yay! 🙂

Bloggy award goodness

Okay, so the other day, Holly from Earth to Holly gave me a blog award, which I’ve duly posted on my awards page (things were getting a little cluttered in the side bar).

As I mentioned to Holly, I’ve got a kinda ‘hybrid’ approach to these things.

Don’t wanna offend those doing the offering (so I say thanks and accept them, coz its lovely!), but also get a bit exhausted thinking of blogs I haven’t passed an award on to. Stopped doing so after my second or third one I think! So, if I’m feeling inspired I’ll give them out as and when…

Victoria’s bushfires

Last, but definitely far from least – I wanted to mention the horribleness that are the bushfires Australia is currently experiencing. Most of them are occuring in the state of Victoria (where I live) and so far, they’ve claimed at least 183 lives.

I am safe – don’t live anywhere near the regions they are occuring in. And unlike the fires that encircled Sydney some years ago, from Melbourne we can’t even smell the smoke, the sky above us isn’t red and there’s nothing other than the dreadful photos to show us how bad it really is.

Sadly, it seems that a number of fires were started by people. Deliberately lit. Then with the 46C day we had last Saturday with hellish winds, there’s so many people who just never stood a chance.

There’s an incredibly vivid piece of journalism in The Australian (a rather decent newspaper here) – written by a journalist who actually fought for his house and the lives of his family. Worth a read.

Of those who survived the fire, so many families have lost everything. These fires have wiped out whole towns in country Victoria.

If you’ve got a spare coin or two, there’s plenty of ways you can donate – such as the Australian Red Cross or the Salvation Army.

But if you can’t afford to send money, spread the word to those who can and also send your thoughts and prayers. Anything is good at a time like this.

**UPDATE** Check out these pictures, which show in graphic detail the nastiness of the fires…

~Svasti

Monday night conversations

Tags

Blowing in the wind, Boat, Brahmin priest, Disembodied voice, Friends, Ganesha, Hindu wedding, Metaphors, Non-dual, Presents, Relationships, Storm, Union, Vedic ceremony, Yoga

I rang one of my bestest friends – S – last night… she’s my spiritual (if not blood) sister. There in the mail box was a surprise present from her with a little orange Ganesha stamp on the front and instructions not to open it just yet…

Rambling on about myself… I asked and how’s things with you?

In response she starts telling me how just the other week, she almost broke up with her man – they’ve been together for years now. Like, almost as long as I’ve known her. A while. Longer than any of my relationships have ever lasted (there I go, embarrassing myself again).

This is on top of a very shitful year for her. In which her man had knee replacement surgery (on both knees)… she went from full-time employment to living-on-a-prayer-freelancing. And then she was in Thailand with the rest of us (not earning any money), then went back home (to the other side of the world) for four months… again not earning much money – to look after her mum/mom… who currently has cancer and its all touch and go.

So, she wasn’t feeling that great. And yet she still remembered to send me a present. I love her to bits!! And not just coz of the present.

When she was telling me all this stuff, all I could think of was this half-baked metaphor that’d occurred to me a few weeks back, when, falling to pieces and on the way to see my therapist, I felt very much adrift…

I started relating this goofy little story to her:

So yeah, feeling adrift and just… blowing in the wind (but not like the song). Wait, make that a storm. A really gnarly storm. One with lightning and rain, and then… actually, it was this epic storm of the ages. So there’s all these currents pulling and pushing and… now I wasn’t just adrift but being buffeted from side to side. Every movement could unbalance me… in my little boat…

Then that voice, that might not be my voice (sure doesn’t sound like mine and it always says much wiser things than I can ever think of) and yet, it’s a voice only I can hear (I think)… clearly pronounces a few punchy, pithy words:

You’re not just the boat. You’re the ocean too. The storm as well.

How very… non-dual of you… oh, disembodied voice!

The boat’s just on the surface. But it couldn’t be on the surface if it wasn’t for the ocean being there too. Think about that for a second…

Surface conditions are only one set of circumstances. And they don’t affect the depths of the ocean, not really. You’re on the ocean… you’re part of the ocean…

And the storm is, well… not always a storm. Its air and… life.

Expect life to be uneven (as a wise someone I know will say), and you’ll never be taken by surprise if the boat upends for a while.

This wind and storm are the same as that filling the boat’s sails and propelling it forward. Without the wind, the storms… the boat would lie there stagnantly.

Ha! Now, I just gotta figure out how to integrate this pretty little story into the day to day…

And my friend? Well, we talked about a bunch of other stuff too. Of course. There was a little conversation about the steps they’re taking, couples counselling etc… Then, remembering the gorgeous words used in a Hindu/Vedic wedding ceremony we attended a couple of years back.

On a very quick trip to Sydney, I’d suddenly found myself invited to our mutual friend’s wedding along with S. Held at the glorious abode of our favourite Brahmin priest in way out western Sydney.

There’s a whole bunch of stuff that’s fairly standard to a Vedic wedding – invoking Ganesha, the garlanding of bride and groom, the bride wearing red, seven steps taken together as a newly married couple… but I’m yet to find the words he used anywhere else online.

There was all this glorious stuff about… revering the god/goddess within each other, promising adoration, fealty and many other beautiful things for ‘a thousand summers’…

We both left that ceremony in a gooey state of bliss. So I gently reminded her of that time and… listened to her voice perk up.

It’s a practice after all… to remember each day the things we love about our significant other… just as important as yogasana. Well, its yoga too isn’t it? Given the word yoga actually means ‘union’?

~Svasti

The pain, the pain

Tags

Bangkok, Brahma, Broken bones, Erawin Shrine, Ganesha, Incense, Ink, Loei, Mantra, Offerings, Pain, Pappy Ganet, Prayers, Puja, red eye, Senses, Sukhumvit, Tattoo, Thai tattoo

En-masse, the people of this world have an aversion to pain. Its part of the survival mechanism, is it not?

From my experience I think physical pain is easier to deal with than mental pain. That’s possibly influenced by the five times in my life where I’ve broken bones (eight in total). Plus the multiple sports injuries and operations (too many to count). Not to mention a bone graft. I feel like I can get to know physical pain. I understand what makes it better or worse. I can see when I’m getting better. Compared to years of depression and trauma, physical injuries are a cake walk.

Yet it’s amusing to think that I was afraid of getting a tattoo for years because I thought it would hurt.

Though perhaps, I was just waiting for the right one. I never wanted a rose or some arbitrary design I’d eventually grow to dislike. I hadn’t seen anything that got my attention until my Guru took his shirt off on our 2007 retreat in the US.

He had a huge Thai Singha Lion in the middle of his back and I was very attracted to the design, the style and energy of it. Very. Like, purrrr… over a tattoo.

At this year’s retreat word went ’round: we had a chance to go and see the man (Arjan Tong) who’d done my Guru’s ink after retreat. WOW!

There was a lot of interest but my Guru didn’t want all and sundry going, especially if it added to anyone’s idea of themselves as “spiritual”.

He surveyed those who put their hands up, asked questions where he thought people were kidding themselves.

I thought you already had a tattoo, he says. I say nope! He nods. That was the extent of his questions for me.

In the end there were two groups of five to go on different days.

It was important to bring offerings, not just money. In fact, we’d been asked not to pay more than 500 baht ($17AUD) so as not to risk insulting him even though it wasn’t a lot to us. But if we brought rice, flowers, fruit, sweets – that would be respectful and well received.

We took a Thai “red eye” bus overnight from Loei to Bangkok. Not recommended. There was scant time or room for sleep as we poured into a friend’s tiny unit to shower and change. And a little meditation and prayer. Aum namah sivaya.

Somehow we flagged a cab in peak hour on Sukhumvit and we were off to the outskirts of Bangkok. Somewhere!

An hour later (thanks Bangkok traffic) and a few wrong turns, we’d arrived. We wouldn’t have known we were there except for a tiny Thai lady who walked up to our cab and almost dragged us out, beckoning us down an ordinary looking lane way. Left turn into a two-man aisle.

Walking past the backs of people’s places, or was that the front? At the end of the lane was a red gate with a red embossed trishul.

Through the door, past people waiting, a sharp right turn and up rickety stairs.

Whoah! The room is alive. Its clear puja (ceremony) has just been completed with the offerings and incense spread under the wall to ceiling altar.

In fact the whole room is an altar. My heart is running a mile a minute, the back of my skull feeling like it’s been removed and is expanding dramatically. Wait, I know this feeling from my meditation practices…

We’re sitting on the floor, remembering to take everything they offer us (water, food) as we wait, so as not to be rude. All looking at each other, knowing eyes: This place is off the hook.

The altar is made up of statues and pictures, carvings and images. So many. Members of the tattoo lineage Arjan is a part of. We wait in near silence.

The monks arrive, giving us incense to make offerings. Pray to your god, they say. Everyone who comes in does this too, and soon there’s twenty or more sticks burning at the same time.

Our eyes burn as the incense is pumped around the room by a fan turned on to combat the extreme heat of the day. These are only minor distractions though.

One of Arjan’s students – a Thai man named David – speaks to us, helps us prepare. His English is excellent and he also talks to us about his own meditation practice.

An hour later Arjan himself appears. There’s no rushing this. His eyes light up when he sees our offerings, particularly the rice. He takes his snuff, makes his preparations. This is a ritual folks!

We all jostle nervously – most of us want to go first, deferring to each other. The order changed again. We are all a little bit afraid, but it was something we want regardless. I’ve been told it’s gonna hurt like crazy but I don’t care.

My eyes feel as large as saucers, the back of my head and my spine are expanding. No longer limited to what I generally consider the bounds of my body.

I end up going third. I kneel, placing my money in the polystyrene offering plate decorated with orchids. David and I talk about what I want – not that its necessarily what you’ll get! David translates Arjan’s words back to me – we’ll give you a lovely figure design, everyone will love you. No, I want to have love for all beings, I protest. Well, when you love everyone, then everyone loves you.

I lean forward and hug my knees to my chest. I have to stay as covered as possible. Three men stretch my skin, pulling it taut like a canvass. Arjan draws freehand to guide his work. Then takes the long old fashioned spear and dips it in ink. I relax. He starts and I think – this isn’t any worse than pricking your finger when sewing. And I’d done plenty of that!

This wasn’t pain, not really. But even when it felt a little sharp at times, through breathing it was possible to relax that and remain in the moment. Guruji had spoken to us about zoning out, and I didn’t want to do that.

Smelling the incense, feeling hands and the spear on me, seeing nothing externally as I closed my eyes and meditated, hearing Thai conversations of Arjan with the men around me and the whisperings of my fellow yogis. Tasting the sweat rolling down my face.

David is instructed to give me a mantra to repeat silently until Arjan is finished. When he’s done Arjan prays over his work, tangibly putting some serious energy into it. I turn and bow. I’m given another mantra that I now must do before each meal, three times a day. Every day. Good thing I like ritual!

The remaining two people in our party have their tattoos done as well. We’re all ecstatic!

We bow our thanks when the last of us is done, and farewell the now very crowded room. This time we get a cab to the closest BTS station and train it back to central Bangkok, which is much faster.

I can feel my tattoo. It doesn’t hurt and it barely bleeds, unlike western ones. But it pulses warmth and energy. It radiates and opens. There’s a sense of bliss. We go and visit Erawin Shrine (the wish fulfilling Brahma) and the Pappy Ganet (Ganesha) shrine before finding our hotels for the night.

I know some of my friends had the same experience as me – that it wasn’t painful at all. But others (including the guys) found it almost unbearable.

And I wonder. What is this thing called pain? Why does the same experience cause different levels of suffering for different people?

Is it just that some people have had more dealings with pain, and therefore their tolerance increases? Is it transferrable? Because I’ve had so much physical AND mental pain, does that mean that things phase me less and less? I don’t think I’m less sensitive, in fact I think I’m very sensitive. But perhaps I am less-so in some ways?

Does it also mean its harder for someone to reach in and really touch my heart?

~Svasti