Yoga teachers training: how I stopped resisting, and started living.
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| Ben, Vijendra, Sacred mountain |
It’s coming towards the end of January, 2001 – and the end of my one month Yoga teacher’s training course in Kerala, India.
It’s been the longest month of my life – bar none. I’ve been ill for most of that time with bronchitis, tonsillitis, and flu (yes, simultaneously) and I never would have believed that it was possible to feel quite so useless. Having never been seriously ill in my life, and having come here with the idea that I would become God of Asana, it’s been a humbling experience, to say the least…
When I first arrived here a month ago, jetlagged beyond belief, I shared a room with a 52-year-old French guy who, a few days into the course, accused me of stealing his money. I was evicted from the room, and since then the whole French contingent have been giving me the evil eye. Standing in line for morning ‘chai’ and feeling fifteen French faces burning a hole in my guilty until proven innocent back didn’t make me feel better…
Next, I shared a room with a 52-year-old Serbian chap (Rade) who accused me of sitting on his pillow. I may well have done that by the way, as I admitted openly to him – I’ve been feverish to the point of hallucination, and some days didn’t know my own name, let alone my own pillow. However, this upset him so much that he wouldn’t speak to me (until recently)… needless to say the atmosphere in our little room hasn’t been all that amiable. That didn’t make me feel better either… nor did the fact that said Serbian snores frighteningly loudly, and gets up an hour early each morning for an extra hour of meditation. So his alarm goes off at 4.30, and then he does Neti in the tiny toilet joining our room. Most days I am just drifting off to sleep when his alarm goes off, so I have an hour of sleep interspersed with the sounds of his snot hitting the toilet water. Nope, that hasn’t helped much.
One of those mornings, when Rade’s alarm went off, I started crying. I was really at the end of my tether, so to speak. I didn’t think I could handle any more of this relentless hardship. All I wanted was to be home, and get a hug from my girlfriend. The thought of that hug… well, at that moment, I was closer to quitting than I’ve ever been in my life. I cried for a while while Rade cleaned his nose out very thoroughly nearby, and decided to stick at it. I steeled myself for more days and nights of misery, but I wouldn’t quit. I decided. That decision didn’t help me to feel better anytime soon, but I think it might have almost saved my life!
I really haven’t slept much. We work and study each day ‘til late, then have homework, and by the time we get to sleep it’s almost time to get up. Together with the jetlag, the snoring, the early starts, and the mosquitos…
Oh! I didn’t mention the mosquitos. Well, let’s just say that they are big; ubiquitous; and hunt in savage packs, like maniacal rabid dogs.
So, all in all, I haven’t had much sleep lately.
The schedule itself is relentless! We have two asana classes a day (two hours each), meditation and chanting twice a day, endless lectures on the Bhagavad Gita, Kirtan (chanting), anatomy, yoga theory… an hour of Karma yoga, which for me entails filling a large barrel of water with buckets from the lake. That would be fine normally, but since I can barely raise my hand, carrying buckets of water is pretty difficult.
We only get two vegetarian meals a day. I’ve never heard of that before. Where I come from, everyone says that ‘breakfast is the most important meal of the day’. Well, here there is no breakfast. They also say that you can’t survive without meat, because you won’t get enough protein. Well, we’ll see won’t we!
Speaking of which, I’ve just remembered a funny conversation I had with my Dad. I called home after about a week, and told him about the food situation. He told me that he’d read an article on cults. Apparently, cults brainwash people by starving them of protein – or so he read. ‘Watch out’, he said. ‘If you start feeling weak and susceptible, come right on home’.
Thanks Dad, very encouraging!
Recently though, I have been slowly feeling better.
I think that the massage helped a bit – the one where I lay naked on the hard stone floor while a fat, hairy Indian man walked up and down my arms, legs, and body, grinding my joints into the ground with his heels – he narrowly avoided breaking me in half by hanging on to a rope that hung from the ceiling. Perhaps when he massaged my genitals with his feet… yes I believe the sheer shock of that moment did me some good after a month of strict routine.
The chanting has definitely helped. When I first arrived, I was surprised to hear a chorus of strange, loud sounds coming from the building in the middle of the Ashram. Unlike any music I’d ever heard before, it was alien and uninviting. When I was sat in the middle of that hall the next day, and for the following weeks, and urged to join in the chanting, I couldn’t get past the fact that I didn’t understand what the words meant (what if Dad was right?!).
But slowly, the words of one of the teachers here began to sink in: “stop resisting”.
And one day, I found myself chanting with the best of them, lungs pumping like pistons, and tears streaming down my face as I somehow felt myself yearning for something that I didn’t understand. That yearning, that yearning… yes, that made me feel better.
I’m sure all the asana practice has helped too. When I arrived, I thought I was pretty damn good at the old asana. I figured I’d be one of the best here, and they’d probably be asking me to demonstrate stuff, and might even want to photograph me.
However, I was shocked to see that some of the people here can do things that I’ve never heard of and probably won’t ever be able to do. At first, I was pretty peeved about that. But soon I was too ill to think about it, and after a while the asana practice just started becoming, well, less competitive really. I stopped thinking about what I looked like, and what they looked like, and I just started breathing deeper. Deeper than I’d ever thought possible. It was like my whole body was one big lung! And each cell was breathing in harmony with every other cell, and the inhalation and exhalation were flowing into each other, and well, even though I could barely do much at all, what I did do felt great.
I’ve decided that I may not ever be able to do those asanas where you get your legs behind your head and then walk around on your fingertips, but I’m going to work hard at doing what I can do, and I’m going to master it. Setting myself that kind of goal without being ‘attached’ to the result, felt good.
I know the meditation helped. Sitting still for 30mins, observing my breath, repeating the mantra until my mind becomes so focused that all other thoughts dissipate and there is only this vibration happening, which is my life, my breath, my self, now… doing that twice a day has definitely helped. I’m going to keep on doing that, because when I do, I feel great.
And now here I am, up a mountain. It’s 6am, and the Sun has just risen. We all walked up this mountain together this morning, in silence, in the dark, and meditated while the sun came up and warmed our faces. Then we chanted to the sky, to the jungle, to the universe.
They say this mountain is a holy place. I believe. There’s certainly a sacred feeling in the air now. I feel as if I can do anything here. I feel no animosity towards anyone, for the first time in my life. If the devil himself were stood in front of me I’d wish him well. I certainly don’t have any ill feeling towards Rade: I went to him and apologized yesterday, and guess what? He apologized right on back. We didn’t say much, but there was such a feeling between us that it didn’t matter.
I don’t hate the French guy either. I guess he was having a hard time too in those early days of the course. I reckon he really did believe that I’d stolen from him, and he’s entitled to believe what he wants. Anyway, I’m too busy feeling great to worry about what he thinks now.
I stand here at the top of this mountain, and want to sum up how I feel in one word: it’s a word that I would never have used before I came here to India.
It’s a word that I used to associate with religion, and religion was one of the things that I used to think I hated.
But the word that comes to mind is Faith. I am full of faith. I stand here, full of faith. Not faith in God, or faith in a religion, or an institution like the church, or another person… but faith in myself.
I’ve been to the darkest of places in my self. I’ve wanted to quit, and I’ve had to find out what I’m made of. I found out that I may not be who I have always thought I was. Actually, I know I’m not. I’ve realized that nothing is what I thought it was. Nothing is for certain anymore, but I think I can handle that: I’ve finally stopped resisting.
I take off my sandals. I’m so full of faith that I know I can walk down this jungle mountain barefoot. Something in me tells me to do that, and I don’t question it. It just feels like a good thing to do, so I do it, because I don’t need any other reason. As I walk, I feel the rocks and soil and tree roots beneath my feet and between my toes, and somehow there is no pain. Somehow, it’s as if the earth moulds itself to my feet, and my feet find their way. I don’t even need to look down at where I put them – my feet just find their way. That’s faith, and that’s what I’ve found this last month.
I wonder where it’ll take me next.
LIfe is a wave; surf it elegantly, or cling to flotsam?
The only thing that is constant in this life is change.
Nothing stays the same. Nothing lasts. Nothing is guaranteed.
The world – by which I mean the body; mind; emotions; senses; desires; atmosphere; season; environment; climate; people; economy; society; the family; the earth; the WHOLE WORLD – is constantly changing.
That change is very simply the nature of the world we live in. The universe is expanding, and we have learnt to think of ourselves as a static point within a changing world, but what is that static point really?
We are also changing all the time. Every cell in the body, right now, as you sit reading this, is either regenerating or decaying. No single cell, no single part of your body, will be the same now as it was when you began reading this sentence!
It’s almost as if we are riding on a wave of change. Can you feel it?
There IS a point of stillness – a static point within all the movement – but it’s not what most people think it is. It’s not the human being that we think we are, that we associate ourselves with, that’s constant. It’s the awareness behind the human experience that remains unchanged, and untouched by the world.
This human life is a wave that we ride for a short while. The more we allow ourselves to be aware of that, the easier our lives become. Because whether we like it or not, the wave rises and falls. Whether we like it or not, the world around us changes, unpredictably, relentlessly, inevitably. How we accept that change; how we surrender to it; and how we learn to love it as part of the nature of this life, depends entirely on what we cling to.
We are each of us riding the wave of our life, in an ocean of unpredictable, inevitable change.
Most of us cling to the belief that we are the body; or that we are the mind; that we are our work; or that we are our personality. If so, at some point that little ‘life-raft’ that we cling to will disintegrate, and we will be left alone with the realization that the wave is all there is. Then, we either surrender and go with the flow, or, we start looking desperately for something else to cling to!
Usually, our suffering is the result of our clinging – and life brings us the perfect lessons that we need to stop clinging. I don’t know why, but it seems that life itself is a lesson in detachment. Sometimes it can seem very harsh, but that’s usually because there’s simply something we don’t want to let go of !
In the Bhagavad Gita, it is written: “Yoga is skill in action”. I believe that surfing elegantly over the wave of life, without attachment, without clinging, is skill in action; the ultimate yoga.
I’d love to know what you think…
With love,
Ben
A TRIBUTE to my Father
2 years ago today, my Father died.
I don’t like looking back – I too much enjoy being present to this momentary NOW, and it took me a long time to get here!
But sometimes it’s necessary to acknowledge (to recognize and to accept) that part of the present is our connection with the past. Sometimes it’s necessary to look back and reflect upon where we came from. Today feels like one of those times…
My Old Man died of a rare neurological disease called Motor Neurone Disease (or ALS if you’re American, or sometimes it’s known as Lou Gehrig’s disease – that’s how rare it is: no one can agree what to call it!)
It’s a particularly bad disease to get (in case you’re planning on getting a disease) because it’s basically a slow burning death sentence. Bit by bit, the body stops working. And the medical establishments have no idea what causes it, and less idea what to do about it.
My Dad’s disease first showed up in his throat – one day his speech started slurring. He told me about a phone call he’d had from an old work colleague – who asked him if he’d been drinking. He wasn’t a big drinker – actually, he was one of the most sober people you could ever meet. So this old work colleague was surprised! But he hadn’t been drinking. It’s just that his vocal chords were wasting away.
In the end, his body packed in completely. I had a phone call one day from my Mother – if I wanted to see him again while he was still alive I should come home soon. So I got on a plane the next day, and spent the weekend with him. It was one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen in my life – the man who when I was a child, seemed super-human; my hero, reduced to a skeletal ‘bag of bones’.
I’ve seen footage of the American G.I.’s who liberated the Nazi concentration camps, and they were crying like babies: those men who’d fought their way through the second world war, openly crying their eyes out at the sight of the camp prisoners. That’s how I felt. But this was a man I knew. My Father.
I spent the weekend with him. He couldn’t speak, so there wasn’t much communication. He couldn’t even hold eye contact, because his neck muscles couldn’t support the weight of his head. He was very weak. But when the time came for me to leave, he made a huge effort to sit up, and we hugged. I whispered in his ear,
“I love you Pops”.
He looked at me for a long moment, and gave me a ‘gesture’, like a nod, that I’ll never forget. That simple gesture expressed all at once encouragement, love, and respect. And in his eyes I saw that he was at peace.
We both knew, He and I, that we would never see each other again.
Seeing the peace in his eyes that day was one of the most beautiful moments of my life!
The saddest and most beautiful moments of my life, in one weekend. What a rollercoaster ride!
Why was that moment beautiful? Because for years he’d been fighting with life. He was quite a fighter too – he would fight on and on until the bitter end (which is exactly what he did then), and never admit defeat. There were only two choices for him – victory or defeat, success or failure.
In life, he couldn’t see another way – it was only in the manner of his death that he knew peace and acceptance.
I’d been trying for years to get him to see that sometimes we have to accept life on it’s own terms. Sometimes we have to bow down to a higher power: god; destiny; spirit; a deeper wisdom – call it what you will. Sometimes, LIFE has plans for us, and the only way to be happy and healthy is to YIELD to those plans. To ‘go with the flow’.
I’d been trying for years, and of course my trying mirrored his fighting! My Father’s son! So the more I tried, the more he fought, and the more frustrated I became. And we grew apart a little…
But in that moment, when he looked into my eyes and I saw that serenity, peace, acceptance… in that moment he taught me what I had been trying all along, in my vanity and ego, to teach him!
It’s not easy – to surrender control. To surrender. But it’s so important. I believe that the disease my Father had (Motor Neurone / ALS / Lou Gehrig’s disease) is caused by that refusal to surrender. I believe that it probably happens mostly to people who want to CONTROL life, and can’t stand to admit defeat.
(I would love to have the opportunity to work with someone who has MND – I’m a healer – to see if I’m right: to see if I can heal them. If you know anyone who has it, and has the courage to fight it in an alternative way, to try something new, point them in my direction please.)
Nothing is incurable if you know the cause.
So here’s my tribute to my Father: my first hero, and a wonderful man. He taught me in life the importance of honesty and integrity; and in his death he taught me the importance of surrender and acceptance. What a great teacher!
He died two years ago today, but he lives on in my heart.
If you enjoyed this post, you might particularly like this – the story of what happened after I hugged him goodbye, got in a taxi, and went to the airport. The story of the longest, hardest day of my life, and probably also the single biggest lesson I ever learnt.
Before you go, please spread the love – share via FB, Tweet, Stumbleupon, etc… and leave a comment.
HAPPINESS
1. Realise consciously that the only thing you REALLY want is to be deeply happy.
2. Understand that happiness is an inner experience. It is inside yourself, or nowhere! Therefore nothing and no one can give it to you.
3. Look inside for that happiness, and cultivate it consciously, doing (as much as possible) only things which make you happy!
4. Accept your mistakes, failings, and so on… don’t resist them, it will slow you down (in other words, if you have a bad day, and you really struggle to be happy, don’t worry!. Tomorrow is another day: every day you get better and better in every way)…
Most people spend ALL their time trying to either: seek pleasure, or avoid pain.
This is because we remember pain in the past. And we choose (obviously) not to repeat that pain. And we imagine pleasure in the future (also based on our memory of it in the past), and choose (obviously!) to repeat it.
However, memory (past) is not real. It is just an idea. It has no substance. Two people remember the same thing differently – it is not fixed. So our memory of pain is also not real. Trying to avoid pain is like running away from your shadow – it’s pointless.
And the same can be said for the imaginary pleasure – imagination is not real, in the same way that memory is not. So, most people are living in the past or the future, and not being present.
Happiness is not outside you. It is not in the new car, the beautiful partner, the lottery which you might one day win – actually studies have shown that amongst the highest risk groups of suicide are those people who suddenly get rich!
It is either within you, or it DOES NOT EXIST in a meaningful way. It is an experience. Our motivation for avoiding pain and seeking pleasure is that we really want to be happy. But we didn’t stop to think – where and when is happiness? Is it in the future imaginary pleasure, or the past remembered pain?
If we really think about that question, the only possible answer is – it is here and now, inside us. Or not. But it cannot be anwhere, or ‘anywhen’, else!
So, if happiness is what we want, and happiness is HERE AND NOW, what to do about it?
BE HAPPY! Do what makes you happy! Follow your JOY! Let go of all else. Buddha said: “There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.”
Is it easy? No, not if, like me many years ago, you have a habit of doing pretty much the opposite. But if we practice it, it gets easier and easier, like anything.
And imagine a world (this is what the imagination is REALLY for!) where everyone did only what made them happy… every person would be PRESENT. That means that there would be no room for jealousy, resentment, anger. All the negative emotions are in the memory or the imagination of pleasure and pain… they DO NOT EXIST here and now. To be present; to BE HERE NOW; is to experience peace, love, and simplicity: true happiness.
10 years ago I was in India on a long train journey. At one station a young boy, about 10 years old, came along cleaning the floor with a cloth – the dirtiest cloth you’ve ever seen! He was wearing only a filthy pair of pants, and was begging for money from the people whose feet he was cleaning around. They were mostly paying him no attention. All of my western education and conditioning led me to ‘feel sorry’ for him – “poor kid, no money, dirty, probably hungry, no future, what a terrrible situation”… and then he came to me, and I saw his eyes. To this day I have seen very few people with the joy and happiness and shinging light in their eyes that he had in his. I deeply realised in that moment that external circumstances are unimportant. All that matters is to be happy.