arriving and leaving

I was telling a friend about two losses in our family, and she said, "It was time to leave, so they left. Philosophically, it is easier to see that, but we still miss them." I began thinking about the way we use language to describe the appearances and disappearances of people or animals. We generally use words like "birth" and "death." Both these words assert a definite beginning and an end. But my friend's word "leaving" stayed with me. Arriving and leaving offer the sense of coming and going. They give us the sense that there is no border between the here and the there. We appear out of nowhere or somewhere and leave to nowhere or somewhere (depending on our faith). We are like passengers on a train, getting off at the stop called Planet Earth, and taking off one day on a train to another destination. But the leave taking seems to have the suggestion of return; it is more like an au revoir than the goodbye that death suggests. Death gives the feeling of all the memories, imagination, and aspirations coming to a grinding halt. Whereas, leaving gives the feeling of those memories, imagination, and aspirations of the one who has left still lingering. The other side of the tracks is vaguely visible through the mist. The images of the departed lean into our dreams as if they have never left. They sometimes come back in the birth of a new family member, a friend, an angel. The mist lifts, thickens, or thins; it becomes part of our world, veiling and unveiling itself.

renovation

Have you ever experienced getting your home renovated, if not the entire house, perhaps a room? Well, home renovation is a time of disarray; dust, noise, clutter, and loss of personal space are its hallmarks. When I had my kitchen refurbished over the summer, I pretty much lost much of my valuable summer time meant for relaxation and soaking in the wonders of sea and sand or hiking in the woods perfumed by lilac. I lost the silence, the cleanliness, and the homeliness that are important for creative thought. The dust, the microwaved food, the piles that got higher in the adjacent rooms, made me feel I was in a war zone. The open architecture of the house did not allow for doors to be locked shut. The prospect of a haven became a chimera.
But, of course, all renovations, hopefully, come to an end. Ours did too. And then began the arduous task of cleaning up and putting things in their respective places. As I began to do this, my cheerfulness returned. It felt wonderful to bring order out of chaos, create a clean space, fill it with the required material and trash junk.
Renovation is a great metaphor for the making or remaking of the spirit. I observed my transition from despair to relief, from deprivation of beauty to finding beauty. And it does not have to be such a huge undertaking as a renovation to experience this. Emptying out the refrigerator, cleaning, and putting back the essential usable items and trashing the rest gives us the comforting and satisfying feeling that we get when we have cleaned out an old issue that has nagged us and have begun to have a fresh perception about this issue. Clutter and renewal, I guess, is the stuff of life.

present tense

A cool September wind blows through my yard as I open the door to let my dog out. I take a few gulps of this fresh morning air.
Thoughts are in heavy traffic the first few minutes of my meditation practice before they disperse, but not entirely.
The fall sun is spectacular. It is a Midas lighting everything it touches, the floor, the bamboo carpet, the orchids by the window, the slats, walls, pictures, and all.
Trees and plants are making an ocean sound.
Shadows dance on the lawn.
Where are the birds this morning?
Steven links emptiness to Leonard Cohen's song about love.
I love this sentence by Barbara Stoller Miller: "The aim of yoga is to eliminate the control that material nature exerts over the human spirit, to rediscover through introspective practice what the poet T.S. Eliot called the "still point of the turning world."
I carry this sentence in me as I begin my day.

Yoga Sutra #2: citta vrtti nirodha

When Patanjali wrote this sutra, he must have experienced the basic human need to quiet the mind.  Even the machinery around us, although they are inanimate, need to be shut off for a bit, so they last. Although he must have been surrounded by less noise pollution, the frenzy of daily living must not have been alien to him even in 3rd century A.D. He must have sighed, and in that sigh he must have felt the slow quieting down of the body and the mind. And this first epiphany of how vrtti (movement)  of citta (thought) can indeed be nirodh (controlled) must have made him utter this sutra, the lynchpin of the entire philosophy in Yoga Sutra.
When I begin my yoga practice for the day with adhamukhasvanasana, my legs are stiff and my hands begin to feel tired. But as the turnings of my thought are quieted into the breathing, then each time I come into this asana, the limbs feel lighter and lighter, the back gets straighter, and my asana looks as effortless as my dog makes it seem. Breathing is the key to get the monkey mind tethered.  Once quieted, for half hour or so, then the world looks newer and we feel glorious.
Patanjali found this jewel of peacability lies within us.

What are the things in life that make you joyous?

Things that make me joyous:
Waking up at dawn and listening to the silence, watching the sky change color.
Meditating with my dog in the early hours.
Sipping tea and reading a book.
Admiring the alabaster orchid blossoms blooming in the window.
Listening to classical music.
Going for walks in the woods and stopping now and then to make a painting with my portable watercolor paints set.
Practicing music.
Listening to the full-bellied laughter of my family.
Relaxing in the down dog asana.
Relaxing in shavasana.
Watching the moon rise among the maple leaves outside my bedroom window.
Eating pani puri, relishing each round liquid filled puri melt in my mouth.
Handling greens at the supermarket.
Dangling my feet in a swift, cool brook.
Traveling to interesting places around the world.
Walking barefoot on the cold marble floor of the temple.
Circumambulating the shrine 3 times.
Getting lost in the sound of the ocean among the leaves.
Walking on the beach, my heels digging into wet sand.
Sitting on my favorite rock on the beach and watching the rippling water and the arctic terns.
Enjoying the comfort of pranayama.
Putting words on paper.
Following a thought.
Savoring a word.
Playing scrabble.
Dressing up to attend a concert.
Stretching out in bed and surrendering to sleep.
Talking to the goddess.
Reciting the names of the goddess.
Watching the birds come and go.
Musing.

blood pressure

I made a remarkable discovery some years back.  During one of my visits to the doctor, my blood pressure was average but higher than it was during previous readings. At the time, I was just beginning to practice meditation. I was working on taking slower and longer inhales and exhales, making them as effortless as possible.  For several months I continued with my meditaion practice every morning as soon as I woke up. My dog sat by me and meditated along with me. Ultimately, at a subsequent visit to the doctor, my blood pressure was remarkable lower than it had ever been, but within an acceptable range. What I had read merely in theory I was experiencing in reality. Longer and slower breaths calm the mind; I could visualize the blood running like a steady brook into the heart and out; there was no sudden rush making my heart beat faster. The heart beat like a steady African drum, the beats mysterious and far enough apart. And when I came out of my meditation and proceeded with my day, I could focus clearly on any task at hand, whether it was solving a complicated family issue or unraveling a puzzle in a poem.

bhakti yoga

People in the United States ask me if I have been doing hatha yoga since I was little. The question comes out of the assumption that since yoga is an ancient Indian practice, most Indians must be familiar with it as part of their daily life. I wish this were so, but the reality is quite different. When I was growing up in India, I never saw anyone practice hatha yoga. I used to occasionally see one of my uncles stand on his head whenever I peeped into his room early in the morning during my visits. But I put that down to his weirdness. 

Years later, when I had my first baby, I came upon a friend who was offering yoga lessons and I thought it might be a good idea for me to practice with her and get my body back into shape. I enjoyed the body-mind connection that is so intrinsic to yoga, for it helped me with any postpartum depression I might have had. Now that I look back on my childhood and adoloscent years, I realize that my family instilled yoga in us--a yoga that is central to Hinduism, called bhakti yoga.  Bhakti translates as devotion. But the English word does not capture all of what bhakti means. Bhakti is a devotion to the divine that involves surrender and transcendence of self. It aims toward a total embrace of the divine other.

Now as I practice yoga everyday, I realize how essential bhakti is in hatha yoga.  Without bhakti, hatha yoga is simply a set of physical exercises (as we see some teachers teach yoga in the West). For example, if I am doing an asana and I feel after a while that my limbs and my breathing and my mind are so coordinated that I make no effort but the asana does me rather than me doing the asana, then that is the experience of bhakti.  The body and the mind have surrendered to this other. We usually get a glimmer of this experience. Imagine if this glimmer got brighter and longer and stayed with us, we would reach nirvana /bliss.

Earl's approach

In the last few days, TV channels have been abuzz with news about Hurricane Earl's approach. Long Island, we are told, is bracing itself to face Earl's rage. But our class this morning seemed unperturbed by the weather reports, much less the calamities brought on by nature or humans alike. What a great metaphor, I thought to myself as I sat up after shavasana (corpse pose): the yogi undisturbed by the buffetting winds!
Now as I sit here by the living room window in an equanimity brought on by my morning's practice, I note that the "hurricane" is a weak rain. It is soothing to listen to the dripping leaves and the flowing gutter. Perhaps the storm is gathering strength further below us and the worst is yet to come. But the yogis know what to do.