LETTERS FROM INDIA: MARCH 2011

Posted on March 13, 2011 by yogarasayana

In India.
This one will be for the memory books.
It begins with a flight from Dubai to Delhi and the reminder that every Indian has a cell phone. A Sikh gentleman in line to board the plane is on a long distance call to India in Punjabi, natch. A large Gujarati family is on another trying to locate one of their party in the terminal. They send a young bhatija to look for her and end up holding up the plane on the ground 10 minutes. I am on my way home…

Indians rule the airwaves

…Needless to say, the kind Sikh gentleman ends up rather largely taking up the seat next to me….

The new Delhi International Terminal is truly a collection of thoughts, all grand but perhaps not so much in their execution as it looks very much like too many personal comments, each needing to mark its owners footstep in the cement…I think in the old days we called it a “hodgepodge”

After a day or two of being with family, I take an early morning car ride to Rishikesh. This ride is nothing like either of the last two times I had done this pilgrimage but that is in and of itself a whole other story.

I am here for the International Yoga Festival being held at Parmath Niketan. After greeting old friends at Parmath I take Shiva Rea’s class. It is surreal to meet her here as I am at the Festival accompanying my friend Mini, purely on a lark. I later take Marla Apt’s signature Iyengar session and it is good to see her too.

Mini, Shiva and me on the Ganga

Marla adjusting Mini

A Panel on Women's Health: amazing yoginis, amazing participating audience

Over the next few days, and of course this is all over the Shivratri celebration, I get to talk once again to the Ganga. The conversation with this Goddess is now turning into a very intimate experience and it reminds me that if we pay attention everything in our lives reveals its purpose…even if it is years later. I am reminded that perhaps I am able to have this intimate tete a tete because I grew up watching my grandfather talk every Sunday night to God. First he would sing his heart out and then he would have the most passionate conversation with God and to me this was the most real part of him. Now, ever since she took me deep into her depths the last time I was here, ever since the Ganga filled my lungs with her sweet water and showed me a glimpse of her fierce Majesty, ever since the most intimate experience I have ever had, yes where the lines between sensuality and death disappeared into her mystery, I have been left yearning. Now I gaze at her in awe and fear. I am not ready for the second dip yet. I tell her so and she is back being a Holy River meandering through the mountains, valleys and sacred settlements.

The Ganga passing through

Here I sat to talk to Her

Shiva Shambho Mahadeva Shambho

After Rishikesh it continues as a personal sojourn to find roots and re-examine them in silence so as not to alter their value. This can be quite challenging as some of these roots require abandoning my Yogic/Ayurvedic life style. Again I am confronted with the sheer Intelligence of this Being called Nature/Ma/Universe/Shakti as she has been quietly preparing me over the last few months for yet another journey into my own psyche. I would like to say I trust you Ma, but I am afraid it will only open up another opportunity for you to teach me yet another lesson. And this trust, this perceived betrayal, this magnitude of Grace reveals past wounds that now seem trivial.
So, I teach a class in Delhi for Mini’s Yoga Studio and set up the groundwork for the next India Retreat to include a local contingency. Meanwhile I rest in the samskaras of family and watching the World Cup Cricket Events.
Soon, I head for Kerala and the next part of my own personal Retreat, now that I have my OCI card….yes, I am officially an Overseas Citizen of India!

At my Aunt's house watching the Cricket World Cup

TV Mania

The Grand Hyatt in Delhi

Layers of restaurants

Sharing tiny space on the streets of Mumbai

India's Honda Jazz: same as my new Honda Fit?!

Being in Mumbai, which to me will always remain Bombay, is again very much a personal yatra. This time I am with my maternal family. The old compound that housed the joint family I grew up in is now 3 separate properties, one a rubble waiting to transform into a 15 story apartment building. You cannot stop change. The separation from my present lifestyle is even more magnified here as I regress into the patterns inherent in childhood relationships, sometimes it seems completely untouched by the passage of time.

Evening bhajan (kirtan) in the makeshift mandir (temple)

An altar

Like my mother did, I love this painting

Family Dinner

Now, off to Somatheeram! Here is where we did the last India Retreat. Next one is now planned for Oct 2011…please stay tuned and do join us if you can!

Namaste`
Mumbai March 13, 2011

JANUARY 2011 EVENTS:

Posted on December 29, 2010 by yogarasayana

NEW YEARS RETREAT: YOGA, AYURVEDA, KIRTAN IN OJAI! DEC 31-JAN 3.

THERE ARE STILL TWO SPACES LEFT & WE ARE OFFERING THEM AT EARLY BIRD RATES: CONTACT JACKIE AT 805-798-2136 OR REGISTER ONLINE AT: New Beginnings Yoga Retreats

FIVE WEEK SERIES STARTING ON JAN 4- FEB 17: TUES & THURS: 6:30-8:30AM:

VINYASA KRAMA YOGA & THE YOGA SUTRAS: SEQUENCING & SYNCHRONICITY
$150 SERIES/$20 PER SESSION (A SAVINGS OF $50 IF YOU BUY THE SERIES)
This series will focus on the 11 sequences of Vinyasa Krama Yoga with reference to the Yoga Sutras and the relevance of Ayurveda in our yoga practice & daily lives.
DANCING SHIVA YOGA & AYURVEDA
7466 Beverly Blvd. Los Angeles, Ca 90036 • 323-934-VEDA(8332)
Dates: Jan 4, 6, 11, 13. Feb 1, 3, 8, 10, 15, 17

SVATANTRA: ALCHEMY OF CONSCIOUSNESS: SUNDAY JAN 9

Svatantra is a very powerful word that reaches all the way through to our Core Being and liberates it from the coils of Maya. Using the pathways of Ayurveda (releasing the physical being), Yoga (releasing the mental being) and Tantra (releasing the emotional being) we come face to face with our Divine Self.This awakening of awareness transcends our conditioned consciousness and brings us back to our innocent, creative and joyous nature! Svatantra: Expansion and Freedom of Self.

AT THE AYURVEDIC GARAGE: This event is limited to 15 students so please post and mail your check to Megan McCarver / 33086 Regatta Court / SJC / CA / 92675
$35/40 at the door.

ENERGY & DHARMA: Setting Your Burden Down Gently… SUNDAY JAN 30

Energy is the fuel we use to navigate our life experiences. Arising out of One Source, it has three manifestations that each move in two possible directions. Changing guises, it unfolds in seven planes of consciousness: from the mundane (as in mechanical) to the sacred (as in spirit). As it moves upwards it parts the veils of fear, anger and grief we build over our growing years, to reveal our actual innocent, joyous and creative Being.
In this workshop will do practices for each level of Consciousness and each vibration of energy so as to find out once again how to trust, believe in and surrender to the One Dharma behind each spiritual tradition, that of Love, and set our burdens down softly…

rasa: emotion/flow/taste/water/nourishment/the essence

PRIVATE EVENT: SPACE IS LIMITED TO 12. THIS EVENT WILL BE AT A PRIVATE RESIDENCE IN ENCINITAS. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED, PLEASE CONTACT ARUN AT yogarasayana@gmail.com

SVATANTRA: ALCHEMY OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Posted on February 13, 2010 by yogarasayana

Please see end of article for workshop locations, details…

In the eight limbs of raja yoga, the panchva (fifth) anga is pratyahara. Literally translated as “withdrawal of the senses”, we are left with an image that is limited in its meaning.

In fact, it is better to classify it as “double-pointed” vision. We need our senses directed outwards to negotiate our pathway through the myriad experiences they bring us. Pratyahara would then be about simultaneously looking inwards to integrate those experiences!

Pratyahara: Inner perception...

What we find within is the world of perception. Perceptions are driven by energetic forces so deeply buried within our psyche, that they manifest first as emotional responses, then mental activity and finally physical reactions.

By bringing our attention to these perceptive states, we give ourselves an opportunity to research our own nature and trace it backwards through the various layers that we are, to a place where we come face to face with the Truth of us: this is Svatantra!

This journey began for me personally some years ago when I fell critically ill. Therefore, my journey began at the physical level. Ayurveda seemed the most appropriate tool at that time.

Since Ayurveda sees us as dosha, dhatu, mala and agni, that is what I worked with: settling the winds, fires and waters of my physical being. This included building bodily tissues, firing up my digestion and intellect and paying proper respect to releasing toxins.

Reading the rhythms of the pulse

In time, I was able to deepen my self-study through the yogic vision of my anatomy- that of the chitta. It is very powerful to see ourselves as Mind and to pay heed to the various undercurrents that run through it!

Patanjali quantifies them as five vrttis: correct perception, incorrect perception, imagined perceptions, perceptions in our sleep state and perceptions that filter our memory banks. Not having the wisdom to “get it” right away, I found my work in the second chapter, sadhana pada.

sadhana...

Working with the eight limbs began to take me into heightened states of awareness but I also found that my life was still swaying precariously in tides.

And my physical being, the mirror that reflects what is truly happening underneath, was sending loud signals that there was still much work to be done.

I found the seeds of osteoarthritis, vata dushti in the blood and emotional clingings that could only be super-refined samskaras!

Continuing my practices in Ayurveda and Yoga as the stable ground upon which to build, I began to explore the meaning of Tantra.

What I found were many conflicting views on what it actually is and each person defining it seemed to speak with perfect authority!

What we do know is that tantrics are responsible for recognizing the chakra system as well as the 72,000 nadis we are said to be composed of.

contemplating the nadis...

So I knew that they were working at deeper energetic states and therefore the practice of pancha makara (a tantric practice) could be useful on my own journey.

To assimilate it with my now inbuilt models of yama and niyama, I preferred the virya pathway- that of seeing the value of the outer as well as the inner practices.

Next I began to seek the correlations between all these systems and found even more amazing Truths about our selves in the Upanishads.

swadhyaya leads to ishwarpranidhana...

Known as the Vedanta, they should not be thought of as “the ending of the Vedas” but as the unlocking of their coded secrets of who and what we are! Finding the pancha maya (later called koshas by Shankara, the 10^th century bhakta and mystic) was another amazing revelation!

Everything seemed to be coming together to form a perfect mystic puzzle.

Yet, something was missing. I knew all the answers were contained in these wisdom writings but I did not have the key yet.

At this time, I entered a tenuous relationship that churned all my emotional undercurrents and regurgitated them to the surface of my consciousness.

When she left what I had become: a frightened child; she had handed me yet another key. It was a book.

What had been missing was in this book: something similar in substance to the Upanishads themselves.

When the Vedas were no longer comprehensible, the new breed of seers: rishis, captured their essence in the Upanishads.

Now, another new breed of rising seers were exploring the Alchemy of our Consciousness and the language it was being revealed in is the one we all speak!

The language of our urbanized and conflicted world.

meeting the urban world head on...

The missing link, for me, was the correlation between the vedic shariras and the Four Bodies we are: Vibrational, Emotional (where the urgent work is), Mental and Physical and I had found it.

One other, last key-link was still not connected: the concept of the ego did not match the Ahamkara of the ancient traditions.

But in the end, with subtle clues from this very book, from gleanings in Eckhart Tolle’s “New Earth” and finally a virtual explosion of in-sight at a lecture by my guru, that connection too was made! As much of an obstacle as it can become, when it re-cognizes buddhi, it is re-balanced into serving our well-Being instead of being our un-Doing...Ahamkara become the I-former not the I-doer…

meeting the collective ahamkara...

I am awed, overjoyed, humbled and nervous about this Universal Rise in Consciousness that is being expressed by so many of the Mayan elders, shamanic leaders, writers such as Jack Kornfield, Eckhart Tolle, Michael Brown; speakers like Marianne Williamson and Reverend Beckwith, alchemists like Dr. Svoboda and gurus like Dr. Vasant Lad. And there are more, growing in number everyday!

preparing for yantra & yagnya at Ayurvedic Institute

Through them, light is also being shone on the commonality of all Spiritual Disciplines, not just Vedic. I humbly seek to add my own voice…humbly yes, but also fully alive to the Truths that I have found in my own personal journeys and the way they have shaped it into accelerated mode.

There is beauty now in all my feelings…as one of these amazing new breed of seers has put it: instead of trying to feel better, I am starting to get better at feeling!

It is now my fervent belief that a new Buddha is arising, but to meet our own lightning speed connected world, it is not a He or a She but a Collective Consciousness Buddha: a joyous, innocent, creative Buddha: Svantantraye Buddham is the Being I see it as…may we all be a part of it!

At Sarnath...where the Buddha gave his first sermon

Starting on Sunday Feb 21, I will offer workshops on how this new paradigm correlates to the great Vedic Sciences. At them, together, we will practice these Truths experientially, ending often in a powerful Yantra/Mantra Meditation!

Sri Vidya Yantra Yagnya...

Below are the Fliers for the workshop as they happen: In the Light!

Sva: of the Self/Tantra: expansion & liberation.

Sunday February 21st: Dancing Shiva Yoga & Ayurveda
7466 Beverly Bl, Los Angeles (323) 934-8332: 2-5PM $30 by Feb 14/$35 after…

Sunday March 21st: Private Home in San Diego County: By invitation: Please contact Jutta Hecht at: juttamariah@gmail.com/ 760.580.2524:
SOLD OUT…WAITING LIST OPEN…

May 1: Svatantra: Alchemy Of Consciousness: Yoga Works, Costa Mesa

Stay tuned for more in May, including Salt Lake City & Thousand Oaks!

Love Spreads Like Magic…Celebrating An Adventurer

Posted on November 20, 2009 by yogarasayana

Mohinder Sukh Deva. Born 1919 and from then on nothing but adventures of which I got to share a few as his son. And now this final adventure…
I got to Delhi after a 19 hour flight and watched the sun come up bringing on the Delhi heat that begs for a monsoon rain. Prem tells me that Dad laughed, pointed towards the bedroom, indicating he wanted to lie down. He wasn’t quite able to make it all the way and then his breathing moved into that breath. You know it once you’ve heard it and can never forget. He only managed to sit and they had to lie him down and in 3-4 minutes he settled into stillness. Quietness in a man who was larger than life. I knew right away where he had gone. Straight to my mother.
Now it is a day later. My fathers Mahabhutas (earthly remains…and that is all that is gone/left behind) sit in a matka covered by a red cloth tied with flowers on the floor of the car as we drive to the Sacred Ganga at Tapovana in Rishikesh to send him onwards.

: Being shown the way…

We is my sister from Napa, my cousin from Mumbai and me in the front seat with the driver. The A/C is greatly appreciated because it is HOT outside. It is a long ride so we talk about how he would get behind the wheel of a car, especially to go on another adventure, at the drop of a hat…and he would find a way to arrange that drop whenever he could!
So we tell stories…and even though I have a few, I want to listen. My sister reminds us of tales of tiger hunts, dacoits, of jungles and deep ravines. We stop along the way to eat and remember his passion for good food at roadside inns (dhabas) and so we eat with relish and I throw caution to the wind, eating red kidney beans with rice and pumpkin curry. Yummy!
It takes us the whole day through dusty roads, diversions and packed streets on what seems like an endless town but in reality is one town dissolving into another, and another…India has run out of open fields between towns. By the time we get to Tapovana the cloud cover allows only a fairy tale sun to paint the Ganges to life.

: At the Ganges…

By trial of memory and luck I find the very same spot where 5 years earlier I had immersed my mothers’ ashes in the sacred river.

: Immersion

Stepping into the cool water I empty the matka with prayers into the Ganga and watch him eagerly go in search of my mother. I pray fervently and know that they are back together.

In her last few years, when she was bedridden with a broken hip and severe osteoporosis she would trouble him endlessly. “Deva, raise the bed…Deva, lower the bed.” And he loved every word she said because it was said to him and he loved her so very much. As she faded, so did he. And when she died, he shut out the world. He was too strong physically to follow her anytime soon so he shut down his mind and entered into the unknown world of Alzheimers. Over the next five years he forgot everything, even his children who would visit from America bringing him gifts that went into the cupboard.
Right now, as we leave the banks of the Ganges, I have no time for tears. Those came before and will come again after and for a long time and those will be for me. Right now there is laughter, jokes, a tightening of family bonds and a beautiful drive up the hill to Ananda.

: The drive up the hill…

The sky above us is painted in shades of grey monsoon clouds, but ahead of us at ridgeline, the setting sun breaks through in its oranges and pinks and reds to soften the palette between the lush greens of the hills and the grey rain clouds. It is entirely a poem in love, spreading across the evening sky.
And that was his life…a poem. We recite “shayariss ”, precursors to elaborate Sufi poems that he taught us. He was the penultimate romantic and it seemed that this world ran out of its need for him. Either that or he mourned the “busy-ness-man” he had to become to support a family. He could not wait for opportunities to get into the car, the train, the plane, to set off on another adventure. And there would be my mom, with her “lets live it fully!” smile and bewitching laughter.

: The Ganges weaves her way through Rishikesh…

Now it is a beautiful evening at Ananda Spa in the Himalayan foothills rising above the sinuous Ganga as she winds her way through Rishikesh, a home of sages and siddhas ever since time.
We settle into the private residence of the old Maharaja at Ridgeline House. A hot bath, comfortable clothes and then back up in the dark to the elegant restaurant where I have memories of past sweet visits and of meeting the legendary Shyam Dass. We order a meal dad would have been delighted with. And then he would have burst into song. But not without a chilled beer on a warm night like this. So we order a couple with the food. This is for you, Dad. And you, Mom. I miss you both. Your romance continues somewhere, I know. Love spreads…love spreads…like magic.