Was my first thought after I got up from the wrecked sleep , the thought which I have extreme difficulty living up to. I could not get up for the satsang and meditation at 6am because of no sleep. I managed to drag myself out of the bed at 7:30 though have a bath and get to the yoga class at 8am. The teacher today was pretty good! Much better than yesterday. He was calm and patient and gentle I felt like doing yoga listening to him :). It was a good session and I felt very good after.
Brunch again was immediately after the yoga session at 10am. Whats up with that? There was way too much food for a brunch. How am I supposed to stay hungry till 6?? I obviously cant eat oatmeal and rice and dal and veggies together! whatever.
The main guy Kailas met a few of us the new karma yogis together. We were 3 of us. One girl was from France and her name Emanuela. She seemed humble and decent. The other one whom I still dont know the name of seemed doped :|. She had two stone studs attached to her lips and seemed zonked and confused and apparently she is even new to yoga. How she landed in an 'ashram' is a mystery. So Kailas started with some basic rules like no alcohol tobacco and drugs. He said no marujiana and kept looking at the doped female to confirm she understood it. "No marujiana right?" , "Why you looking at me? I have never had marujana before". (Seriously dope face?). She then said that the pillow in her mom's room smelled of marujana and she had no idea how it got there. (LOL)
He asked all of us what the term ashram meant to us. Dope face said it is a place to 'hang out' ! LOL. hang out? really?! Emanuela said it was like a retreat. I think she meant spiritual retreat but it made me think how differently the same word can mean to someone. I thought the universal meaning of an ashram is a place for inward spiritual journey. Be with nature which mirrors your true self. For me the goal was to find a space within calm and secure where I can retreat to even when I come back to the city life. A space free to expectations and filled with love and compassion even if it is just a size of a dot.
He then took us for a small tour around the area. There were some adorable cows and goats grazing. Dope face asked if they are going to spit on her if she went close. (?!) Male animals spit on female women if they got close was her fear. (.......) There was a small maze like thing made of stones on the ground a little further ahead. It resembled some japanese thing Kailas said. It reminded me of a chakravyuha. Upon asking him if it was that, he didnt seem to know what that meant or who Arjuna was (With all the satsangs and bhagavad gita books all over the place wearing an om shirt, the head of the ashram didnt know who abhimanyu or arjuna were? :|:|). He assured me though that i wouldnt be lost like in the chakravyuha when i explained. LOL.
I helped in cleaning of the boutique and the reception area and then got some free time to laze around. I went and sat in the hammock and let my mind free. I saw the cow from where I was sitting and it got me thinking about it. Why is cow revered for the hindus? Why is cow in krishna's every photo? There must be something deeper to it as all indian rituals do (just that we dont know and were never told the real significance of anything). Could it be because the cow just eats grass which is freely available everywhere but in turn gives us milk ghee cheese curd dung for manure and urine for ayurvedic remedies?. It seems to take minimum and give out maximum. Wouldnt it be good if all of us had the nature of a cow? Expect and take less and give more? Drinking cow milk is supposed to increase kapha in the body and give us more grounding and stability. As like most kapha individuals even the cow has a wider hip than the face/shoulder area. Kapha individuals also are able to give more love and seem to have more compassion for others. Cow is also called 'gomata' which is mother in hindi. I also read somewhere that in vaastu, the house should be bought such that it resembles a cow. A narrow entrance with a wide backyard. This will ensure you get the maximum out of the effort you put in, in any work.
Anyway. I did not end up going for the yoga class in the evening as my body felt a little sore from 2 days of yoga for 2hrs each. There was a drupad raag workshop though which I attended and got out pretty fast. The teacher had a tambura and a nice tabla player along with her. It started off fine. But she got into these movements and saying a sound 'HEU' which seemed very weird to me. What the hell is heu?it would have been weird to do any movements with Om itself. I doubt i would do that even. She sang 'shri ganesha sharanam' only those three words for like 15minutes. She had a good voice but it was not helpful for me atleast. A girl in the crowd asked who ganesha was. Her response was he is the god of prosperity and wisdom. Thats it?!
There was dinner at 6 and food was okay again. I have a feeling they guy cooking isnt really following any ayurvedic cooking. He is just not using onions and garlic. The sambar was decent though. There was an indian guy next to me talking about bikes and how he bought a honda and raving about it to another guy. It went on for 40minutes. What a conversation.
There was satsang at 8pm and I was already very sleepy. The basic chants some of them have a good tune to them so were enjoyable. It amazes me how the non indians learn and pronounce an alien language. It comes so easily to indians which we again take for granted. The same drupad raag female was again going to perform and I could imagine falling asleep today! She had a nice orchestra with her this time though. There was one guy on a guitar looking thing which he was playing more like a sitar. It sounded incredible! That guy and the guy on the tabla kept my attention till 9:30 after which I could not stay awake anymore. I ran to my dorm and went to a happy sound sleep. (with some weird dreams towards the end).
No comments:
Post a Comment