On A See-Saw by the Sea

I was reminded via a text message from The Englishman that my blog is in need of a serious update. Which I am aware of…

If I had Wi-Fi or Internet access in my room or anywhere in the hallowed halls of the Peacock Hotel, updates would be fast & furious. You’d feel as though it was YOU who was in India on a Yoga Teacher Training Course!

But… I don’t have easy access to Internet and during the TTC course; there is little time for anything aside from an evening shower and bedlington due to the intensity of the course load and the theory based content, which is HEAVY. My intension is to break some of the more interesting parts down and share here. Especially since Angel Wong has written a message about incorporating Chakras in the Yoga process. Something Swami Santhi’s teachings are ALL ABOUT.

Sigh… so… the good news is… I have successfully completed Level I. I did not pass with my intended goal of HONORS status but rather with “First Class” status.  We had a graduation ceremony and were presented with our certificates. I’d be lying if I was to say it wasn’t a warm and fuzzy feeling. There is so much that happened in the month that seemed to fly by. But while in it… some mornings, when my 5:30am wake up call came via my blackberry alarm, the beginning definitely seemed to come too early.

The first month was intense on so many levels. There was getting used to the surroundings. Just the sounds alone are an immersion of such magnitude. I seem to be right at home sleeping through sirens but add lizards making their distinct clicking sounds, mosquitoes buzzing around with the persistency of the beach front vendors, the random HUGE flying cockroach, dogs barking and howling depending on the state of the moon cycle, frogs croaking, rickshaws and motorbikes whizzing past the hotel with late night commuters on the dark dirt roads, and the whirring of the ceiling fan with the odd random comment escaping from Mel’s sleep talking mouth… it is very easy to lay WIDE AWAKE well into the night.

With the sonic symphony aside… there is the instant community of the students on the course. We share a lot of space together throughout the day. In total we numbered 15. Here is a list of my classmates: Edelweiss & Luis from Mexico City, Nika from Slovenia, Mischa from Prague, Mariella from Italy, David a Swiss living in Hong Kong, Suresh (a local man who has studied with Swami Santhi for nearly 4 years), Shyla (another local woman who has taken guidance with Swamiji for a couple of years), Lincoln from Pennsylvania (Lincoln achieved the highest marks in our class), Chihiro a yoga teacher with her own studio from Japan, Mami a Japanese woman who lives and works in Bangalore, Elizabeth who is born in St. Kits but lives in Washington DC and describes herself as a “recovering attorney”. She also is a certified yoga instructor with her own studio, Susan from California, she took level I already and is back for level II but worked as Santhi’s assistant for Asana practice, and Mel, my room mate from the UK. Surrey born now living in Brighton. She’s a care worker and a Reiki practitioner. To round it out, there is Me…

It was a very culturally diverse group and the women are especially of a strong character. I’ve never been a “sorority” sister type. Neither wanting or needing to do things in groups, yet the organic company of one is something I’ve always welcomed and have learned through years of experience both personally and professionally, how to negotiate my way through large group outings.

Luckily for me aside from a couple of episodes that were all self-process related, I flew well under the radar and had great relations with everyone. My dramatic episodes, were very contained yet I openly let myself experience my shifts. They are mostly physical releases that have been trapped since my violent assault on June 3^rd of 1995. Ever since my assault my hips and groin have been strained and tight. This makes perfect sense as it the sexual centre and although I wasn’t sexually assaulted it is also the location of our base chakra, otherwise known as the Mooladhara Chakra. This chakra is all about food, security & shelter. The chakra directly above it is the Swadhistana Chakra, it is to do with sex, family and creativity. I’ll dedicate an entire entry breaking down each of the chakras soon. I think it will be fascinating to learn the TRUTH about chakras and kundalini yoga as taught by a Master who teaches the 8 limbs of yoga as set out by Patanjali, the founder of Ashtanga Yoga. Ashtanga when broken down means Ashta=eight and anga=limb yoga=union/unity. So the eight limbs to unity. I’ve also experienced chest pains on my left side. A cramping of sorts. It is most definitely scary as I experience it, the first time being in the middle of the night. I thought I was having a heart attack and was gasping for air. But I’m in perfectly good health and feel more than certain my intermittent episodes of feeling stifled and gasping for air along with physical releases which include regaining feeling in parts of my body that have literally been number for years (my left foot!) is all to do with shifts taking place directly related to my assault and my current feeling of being “stifled”. I have one foot in one life and no idea where to place my other foot… or as Annette says “one foot on a bar of soap & the other on a banana peel”.

It was directly after my assault that my life and life path changed. Looking back now I can see clearly I had no idea how to crawl out of the trauma and back on a path of wellness. The violence coincided with the break up of a relationship I so adored but was in hindsight, merely a bystander in. I realize now we must actively engage and participate in our lives. Or else we will perpetually feel victimized and life will forever feel like it is happening to us. Every day I am reminded of how important it is for us to get to know ourselves so we can become a potent causing agent in our lives, the lives of others, and contribute in a world that is being contaminated by fear mongerers at such a rapid rate. Be they political, corporate or religious. So many people have a vested interest in keeping control over us.

So for me, a lot of the physical trauma, which is buried, is coming to the surface. Swamiji came to see me one day in my room because I missed asana practice. Both my feet were beyond fat and swollen; I looked like something mildly horrible had happened to me. When I walked it felt at once like walking on a bed of nails and hot coals. It wasn’t fun.  I burst into tears because I just couldn’t stand the pain any longer. There is something about Swamiji that makes me realize he SEES EVERYTHING. So what is the point of hiding or defending in front of a Master who so obviously sees all? I didn’t see any point. But I did have my resistance radar up because my ego is so involved in not wanting to be “issue girl”. Upon closer inspection of getting to know the others… I realize I am in no danger of taking first prize in the category of “ISSUE GIRL”.

I’ve been pretty open about my process, not in a Jerry Springer kind of way but to myself and if anyone asks me directly I respond honestly. I have decided I didn’t come all this way to learn Yoga (Union) and be fragmented. I don’t want to tell stories to make myself appear “stronger”. I realize my strength lies in telling the truth as it is. And besides, at this point, my assault is not happening to me now, although the pain I feel directly mimics the pain of the actual assault. Swamiji warned us of this happening in Kundalini Yoga. That when our buried issues surface, we will feel them as though it is happening now. He told us this very factor is why Kundalini Yoga is sometimes the receiver of “bad press”. He gently and quietly reminds us in a reassuring voice that the event or memory we are experiencing is in fact NOT happening in reality, that we are simply feeling all the feelings associated with the incident and all we have to do is be willing and open and just observe and acknowledge them and let them go. There is in fact nothing to work through. I think we live in a culture where we make monsters out of molehills. We turn little ants into gargantuan monsters that are out to destroy us and we scare ourselves to a place of such resistance that we hide away anything that we find uncomfortable. Feeling our feelings should be a natural part of life yet we are taught to be happy without ever embracing the existence of sorrow. Run from sorrow at Olympic speed towards happiness, but with no skills to assess what “HAPPY” actually is for us on an individual basis. The idea of identifying our “values” seems to be more extinct than the last roaming dinosaur.

My openness was rewarded with valuable feedback. Many of my classmates told me when I spoke it touched them so much that they too cried. Others commended me on my ability to be so open and said they found it inspiring. Not to mention, I received a lot of hugs. I love hugs, but not from people I barely know. Yet, I let my guard down and simply embraced people embracing me. Much as I took my 16-day intensive last October, I burst into tears at our graduation ceremony when it came time to speak. I was the only one to do so… (I have a bit of an ego issue with this but am mostly okay with it). I wasn’t expecting to cry at all, but then I did. How does the nursery rhyme go? Wednesdays Child Is Full of Woe… (One guess what day of the week I was born!) So I cried. Because I’m emotional. The journey that has led me to be here is one only I know in totality. I have shared it with some more than others but no one knows me the way I do, and no one feels me the way I do. And although my default position is one of optimism there is within me, much sadness. I am realizing this year only, how I participated in checking out of my own life and my own life goals after my assault. And when I realize this 15 years after the fact, it makes me sad. Because I always thought I knew better than to check out for that long. I allowed the assault and the break up of my relationship with Mark to ruin me.  I ran away to New York broken and drugged up on cocktail of painkillers and sedatives. Looking back I have no idea how I was able to take care of myself during that summer in New York.  It was with no shortage of well-placed guardian angels. Some of who are still in my life today and others who exist only in my memory. My 20’s were intense. I was happiest in my early 20’s and then again when I moved to London in my 1996. It wasn’t an easy time but I felt like I found myself again. Only in a “scratch the surface” kind of way. It was the first time in a LONG time I was single and I enjoyed it. I was able to foster lovely PLATONIC relationships with men and live in a city I love. But life has a way of giving us a reality check. And I had a few opportunities to wake up into my own life that I never took. Nothing like a good lump full of cancer in the arm to bring you into reality!

But let’s not talk about that here. As The Englishman often says “it’s not the work of the moment”…

So what have I realized in my five weeks in India? I’ve realized I believe EVERYONE should come to India at least for two weeks in his or her lifetime. Why? Because it is a place that just happens as life does. In all my travels to all the places in the world, I have yet to come across anywhere that could ever compare to India. There is a beauty & bestiality here that so accurately mirrors life ANYWHERE. Except here, it happens with such a gross lack of subtlety and it happens every minute of everyday in the most mundane situations. If you have control issues, and let’s face it, which one of us DOESN’T have control issues? Come to India. If you have “right/wrong” issues, come to India. If you have “good/bad” issues, come to India. If you are rigid and judgmental, come to India.

India will take all the concepts and rules you hold so dear, shake it out of you and force you to look at the world with new eyes. I bet many a foreigner has gone blind here.  Every one of your senses will be assaulted here. Never before have I been to a country that could simultaneously repulse me and revolutionize me. I die a little and am born a little each moment that I am in India.

Most of the time, I don’t understand why Indians do things the way they do. When I first came to India at the age of 19 the ways of Indians repulsed me and I immediately set out to share with them the “better” way. The way of the West. Now, I simply observe & enjoy. I am able to witness my growth in India more than any other place. Some of my classmates who have never been here before, or even if they have, depending where they are in their personal process of life, have a constant running commentary on what they see and how incredulous, confusing, down right retarded (yes! I am writing the word RETARDED) the ways of Indians in India are.

India is the slice of humble pie each of us needs to be fed at some point in our life. We all have our ideas about what is good and what is bad and we’re all experts about how to do life “better”.  I have never seen people more infected with disease as I have in India. Be it lepers sequestered to a shanty colony on the outskirts or town, or people who wear flip flops on their hands to walk because their legs are useless limbs that simply drag behind them. I am hustled every day here. By the men on the beach and the children in the lanes and alleyways.  Each time I see a child I try and find Paris, Lucien, Aaliyah or Yasmeen inside their eyes. Because I know within each of these children there is a PLAYful spirit. Every day that I walk alone I am objectified, sexualized, jostled, followed & catcalled. And every day I am also greeted with genuine hellos, curiosity & smiles. There is a little boy who knows my name and asks me every day if I want to buy a bottle of water from his shop. I think his name is Manur. He is sweet and lovely to me. In a lane that has me negotiating a cavalry worth of men who leer at me and try and engage me in conversation, in the middle of it all, I know there will be Manur. As soon as he sees me, whether I’m alone or with some of my fellow students, he releases into the ether of the lane, “Hello Sima! How are you?” His face and eyes light up and I always make sure I look at him when I return his sweet salutation. Sometimes I’ll touch the top of his head and smile. He doesn’t always ask me if I need water. But he always says hello. Now that I am no longer afraid, I look into the eyes many but not all the Indians who look at me. Yes, even the men. Because they cannot take anything from me. I don’t lose any part of myself by looking back at them. By looking at them I establish that both of us exist. And I am sure to give a look of warmth, but one that also lets them know we will never exist together. Our co-existence is fleeting and regular. It happens nearly at the same time at the same place every day. When I walk by and they watch me walk by. The more I find myself within myself, the less I fear that perfect strangers have the ability to take parts of me I don’t want to give up. The more fearless I become, the more I am able to share in the human experience.

Yet I know I am at risk here. I know I cannot walk alone in the dark for long and that venturing out in the day by myself for solo adventures is pretty much out of the question. Yet all my fellow female classmates and the local girls enjoy much more freedom.

I am a bit of an anomaly here. I am a non Indian Indian. Or as the Indians like to tell me each day “you are like an Indian” or “you look like an Indian”. Each day I respond with the same answer, smiling “I am Indian!”  I am not Indian enough in India and I am not foreign enough in India. I am an attraction of curiosity in India.

I know too, it is the way I choose to present myself that adds to the allure and curiosity. I know that if I chose to wear no make up and a salwar kamis every day I could easily fly so below the radar. But I didn’t come here to be a chameleon. I came here to be myself. So I take it all and I have learned not to label any of it good or bad. They are simply interactions and some are more pleasant than others. And I cannot say that any of it has been unbearably unpleasant.

Mrs. K for years has told me I was too analytical. Always thinking everything through five ways to Sunday and then flipping it over and looking at it again. She also has told me for years that I am too hard on myself. For years, I never understood this. It was only this year that I finally started to understand the essence of what she was saying. Every time Mrs. K said, “Sima, you’re too hard on yourself” the thought that IMMEDIATELY ran through my mind was “what is she talking about? I am such a pampered lazy git!” Not at ALL realizing how I was fulfilling her observation of me each and EVERY time! Because I am NOT a pampered and lazy git (although don’t get me wrong! Because I would like to be, maybe when I grow up!). I am a VERY hard working individual on many levels. I just work hard in my own way and on my very unique time line.

So what is it that makes us feel we need to conform? We all feel this need in some way. I’ve been learning a lot about “social conditioning” from Swamiji’s teachings. The pressure from the outside gets so much attention that the inner voice, that intimate friend of ours that lives deep within us and stirs our soul, that whisper we hear, the beauty we feel when out in nature, the peace we feel when listening to a musical composition that soothes our soul, the din of silence that allows us to hear our own thoughts and the rise and fall of our breath… we push all of this aside, to immerse ourselves in the pressure cooker of life. And all for what? Status? A false sense of security? To maintain our “image”? What is all this posturing for?

India is not immune to this. But there is something special about this place. So many spiritual Masters have come from here. Buddha was born in India. Westerners flock to this country seeking spirituality only to realize they are seeking a REUNION with their lost self. Every time I encounter someone who offends me or annoys me or someone I have a strong negative judgment towards, I try and picture them as a baby and then a little child. I first did this with my very own father. To better understand all the parts of him I simply couldn’t understand or accept. I began really trying my father on as a little boy. What it must have been like for him to be the eldest of four boys in a home that was erratic with violence and chaos due to alcohol. And even what the good days must have been like. What were his happiest memories as a youngster and what was his favorite food and favorite games to play? I don’t know what it is like to have walked in my fathers’ shoes. I’ve never known him as a young boy or a teenager. I have no idea what shaped his personality or why. Yet I have judged him on his actions with no insight as to the cause of them. This is what we do. We come to a country like India and bestow who we are on everyone around us. I am a work in progress. As Swamiji says, “You are the path and the goal”. If I can be gentle to a leper in the slums on the outskirts of town and the man with perpetually blood shot eyes on the beach front who leers at me and offers to show me the rooms he has for rent each and every day, then why can I not tame my violent feelings and behaviors to those I love the most?

If India is a zoo I am both the caged animal on display and the Zoo Keeper.