Part 26
... I found myself seated across a sparse table in a cheap plastic chair with a light shining me directly in the face. Not a literal light, but a British guy with a shaved head who emanated such a radiance I nearly had to squint to look him in the eye. It was in our first eye to eye contact that I 'remembered' that this was why I had arrived to India. I say 'remembered' because meeting Steve felt like something that had already occurred. Or maybe I just allowed myself to experience the truth of the moment with such profundity that it shook me awake from a sleepwalk I was caught in. Either way, I knew Steve as if I'd known him my whole life and immediately felt that connection when we shared a cup of tea - my first chai of India. I commented on how sweet it was. He laughed, saying how the Indians definitely liked lots of sugar in their drinks. I told him that least there no caffeine. Yogis aren't supposed to consume that poison! He laughed again, "oh I'm sure there's plenty of that, too" punctuating his comment with a sugary, caffeinated sip. We both chuckled together at the irony of it. Or maybe we were laughing at different things. I guess it didn't matter. Being around Steve we were often smiling and laughing, as if life was one great comical play. Maybe it's just a cosmic drama in which find ourselves stuck and eventually realize that taking it too seriously was a way of discounting a miracle. Either way, I recognized in Steve that day a relationship I was already committed to. His utterly relaxed way of enjoying and participating in life, exactly as it was, was obvious. I had to find out more about this man yet already knew enough; my heart was telling me to go with him but my head had its plan of renewing my visa in Nepal and returning for another six months in India. I ended up staying a few days more than expected in the ashram to be closer to him, using the two daily sixty minute long meditation sessions to question the authenticity of this heartfelt sense of connection. I felt like I was reaching, or had reached, the end of this particular road I had found myself on...
Part 27
... I asked Steve to tell me the secrets. His characteristic smile and penetrating gaze reassured me I already knew them, but he told me to meet him in the meditation hall with a notebook. At that point I was at the ashram for several days longer than expected and just felt too much internal resistance to get up and travel onward to any of my other pre-planned destinations. There was nothing extraordinary about our first official student-teacher yoga practice together and I think that was exactly what made it so real to me. It is obvious now that it's totally obsolete, but back then I must have still been holding on to some bullshit idea that there needed to be a more classical or formal meeting for the transmission of true wisdom to occur. Whatever that means.....
Part 27.5
We sat down, he shared his practice in a matter of fact way, and that was it. No chanting. No obeisances. Nothing other than a human to human interaction speaking in our native language without emotion, judgment, belief, or any other variable to influence the flow. Part of this was facilitated by my own receptiveness but this was only possible through the reflection of Steve's casual and disarming nature. I listened while he spoke, and although the incredibly powerful techniques and practices that he shared and that I still do to this day, it was the way the information was transferred that the true revelations unfolded for me. I think in these early moments of my relationship to my teacher that I started seeing what I was looking for all along. After all, it's not that we want to rely upon someone else for the knowledge we hope to obtain in our lives. We might look for it there but the inevitable thing is that we must end up accepting it as ours and making it our own anyways. Whether or not it appears externally, it is always germinated and cultivated internally, with the eternal flow of love and the fertile soil of faith. This is what it means to find your true teacher; your true Guru...
Part 28
Recognition of the inner light that illuminates our own truth and wisdom to us in every moment without the need of someone or something else to validate the truth of our own inner Guru . Let's not pretend that I abide in this light as if I've got it all figured out, but let's also not pretend that this light doesn't exist everywhere, in everyone. It is a process of remembering; of coming back again and again to the knowledge that we already know, that we've already found what we are seeking, and that to pretend otherwise is to transfer our own power somewhere outside of ourselves, only to end up looking for what was never lost. Over the next several weeks, I resisted these profound realizations, but with the alchemical effects of the yoga practices and yogic lifestyle I was living, they inevitably started to sink in more and more. Ironically, it didn't make it any easier, and I wasn't any happier about it, but for some reason I experienced the paradox of feeling more okay than ever. I didn't know what was next other than that I would end up at some point in England with Steve, so I just spent the remaining weeks at the ashram in Rishikesh without leaving or going anywhere else. Things just got more and more interesting...
Part 29
I'd been at Yoga Niketan ashram for two weeks and only had two left before I risked overstaying my visa, but it this was perfect. Steve had left for England after spending a month in his own yogic retreat there at the ashram where we met, and was taking his family on holiday for several weeks, before he was to resume the business of a yoga school running out of his home in Southampton, UK. Before he left I told him flat out I wanted to be his student, and was committed to lend my energy as an exchange in any way necessary. By the gift of grace he agreed and welcomed me to come teach and assist out of his yoga school named 'The Sanctuary', so we planned to meet at the beginning of September when he would be back from holiday. After my stay in India, I was to travel to London on my way to the southern coast of England, so I could continue my study and practice of yoga there with Steve. The juiciness of life was dripping from my chin and it felt like I was gorging myself in an orchid of God's fruits of grace and fortune. My path seemed to be becoming more defined, or at least I felt like I had finally found a track to run on, instead of my aimless wandering....
Part 30
... Even though it seemed like I'd found the whole reason I came to India or had been traveling, there didn't seem to be an end to my desire to practice. I still sought higher wisdom and universal truths in the realm of yoga. Even though I feel that the mystery of it all is not a problem to be solved, it is one of those complex puzzles that are enjoyable to piece together. It would be boring if there was finished product - because, then what? So I stayed the rest of my time at Yoga Niketan and did my practices, incorporating what I'd learned from Steve as it had confirmed a lot of my own recent discoveries and also the vague understanding I was beginning to develop in the so-called 'higher' levels of yoga. I was slowly cultivating not just an intellectual grasp on pranayama, meditation and the energetic aspects of our being, but I was beginning to experience it. Truly, direct experience is the only way this stuff can ever make sense, since it is quite literally beyond the mind. This is why in my teaching it's not so important what is said but that the practice is done on an individual level, meaning each of us discover our own truth of the matter through our own practical experience. I cannot emphasize enough on the significance of a daily practice for any one (and a practice of any type, not necessarily 'yoga' as we label it). It is critical at revealing the aspects of our own reality. Go for a walk every day for a year and this alone will start unraveling a few of the mysteries our mind has , and how it keeps us caught up in it's tricky mannerisms. Due to the nature of the mind, that it only 'perceives' what we look for, and is influenced by previous experiences, it can easily make our lives function on autopilot. If we don't set aside time to turn our gaze away from the external manifestations of the mind , then we will find ourselves looking out into a world, seeing it through layers of social and cultural conditioning and then labeling it as truth. What is Truth if it can erodes from the sands of time? Once our physical body has disintegrated back into the Earth, what meaning did our temporary beliefs have? How can we discover an eternal standard of living? Is there a legacy to be left once we are dead and gone, or does it only
matter what we do while we are here, right now? Maybe the legacy is left automatically through our dedication to upholding our own highest standard of living in each moment. Maybe Truth just is, standing still as something eternal and timeless, and that connecting to it means bringing Heaven to Earth where it has existed all along...
