Samasthiti

prayers and wishes written on miniature torri gates at the Fushimi-Inari shrine in Kyoto. You know every time I become arrogant about my yoga journey : physical or spiritual, life throws a challenge at me and I'm back to being what I should've been in the first place : humble. If I celebrate and go to town about some cool looking asana I have cracked or have come close to cracking, my knee will start to ache or my tendinitis will re-surface and I'll have to take a step or two back and not go deeper while knowing that I can. Similar with life. This year has been tough. Tougher than the last couple of years for me personally. And each time I thought I was close to getting out of this rut, I would be pulled right back into it. Life had turned from a series of ups and downs to downs and deeper downs and deepest downs. And I'm not exaggerating. At many instances through this year, I literally would lay in bed in the mornings and purposely miss my morning train and henc...

I just returned from a lovely trip to Tokyo and Kyoto. And the trip was everything I needed and so much more. If Bali has a gentle calming effect on me, Kyoto had the more absolute zen vibe to it. When I travel to places, I want to do much more than just tick off the 'must-see' places. Ideally, I'd love to walk around streets or neighbourhoods that aren't frequented by tourists and live like how locals would. And I got to do a lot of that in Kyoto, which also led to me not seeing everything I should have, including the Kinkakuji, or the Golden Pavilion temple, which I agree is a very shameful thing to say! But I walked loads, drifted into the woods and followed trails that lead nowhere in particular. Irrespective of sun or rain, I slung my Bourke Street Bakery bag over my shoulder and started the day being super excited about everything that I was going to experience that day. More detailed version and experiences of my trip will most probably feature on my othe...

People often ask me how are you working on your headstand, can you do koundinyasana now? how does one progress from crow to side crow to side crow with split leg variation etc. Are you taking Hatha 1, 2, 3, Vinayasa 1, 2, 3 etc. At times I contribute to the hype around getting into these asanas and of course I want to be able to do them, every little achievement and progress towards these 'advanced' asanas makes my heart soar, I immediately brag about it to my yogi whatsapp group. But more often than not, I often find myself thinking, yes, well I am working on my side crow, but I am also working on living wholly, and that to me is real yoga. You can stick to the very basic of asanas and the most basic version of suryanamaskar (forget A, B, H or what not) and never do a chaturanga and still be a yogi. I've had the privilege of having teachers who teach me how to be a better me through yoga, irrespective of me being able to stand on my head or not. I'm also grateful ...

Wow. Its been ages since I've written something on this blog. Actually, it's been ages since I've written on any of my blogs. A combination of things : being busy with work, travel, hunting for and moving into a new apartment, more travel. Fortunately my practice hasn't suffered all that much. On some days, I go only once (instead of my usual twice a day practice), but I made sure I get some yoga in. As always, I'd stumble on these massive realisations during my practice and make a mental note of sharing some of those eureka moments here or make a story out of it for my other blog, but I just didn't around to doing it. I also didn't bake as much and that actually would prick me. A part of me knew I was unsettled to a certain degree, because I wasn't baking as much, well I wasn't baking at all. And since I consider it my meditation, in a way I wasn't meditating.  I moved into my new place last week, and the pic above is from my new house...

I don't think I have spoken about the anusara invocation on this blog. Since Emily and Nanna, my teachers in Bali, were from the Anusara lineage, we would recite the anusara invocation often during the training and it was Emily's default shavasana song as well. It is a beautiful chant to surrender to. I found myself chanting it on my ride to the airport from Jati homestay. And it has stayed with me since. I was wearing a red maala on the last day and had rubbed the Joy oil that Emily dabs on our palms into the tassels of the maala. Scents are my thing.  guess they are everyone's thing actually. A whiff of a scent can take you back on time to moments, people, places, feelings. So throughout the cab ride and even on the plane, I would pick up the tassels from the maala to get a whiff of the Joy oil and chant the anusara invocation in the back of my head. That's the power of certain mantra, after a point in time, they become a part of you. You don't even have t...

The group browsing through our manuals and schedules on our first day, we had 28 more days to go! Sigh. The lovely walkway from the main reception area to Lotus  Flower Rangoli on our first day Me, doing what i do best, taking a million notes Very delayed this post. Wonder if I'll remember all that goodness at Locavore! Mie and I spent 3 hours eating and talking, the food was exquisite. The restaurant had an open kitchen, so you could see the chefs and their team work. The staff was so attentive and so knowledgeable about the food they served, not as if they were reading out a menu, but literally like they'd prepared it themselves as they told us what each dish had. So lovely the whole experience. My favorite thing was this oxtail dish, that had the exact same flavours as my grandmom's mutton curry and it transported me back in time. Then there was this tomato sorbet dish, with clear tomato soup. I never take pictures of my food, but Mie took load...

The lotus in the pond right outside our shaala. That's the title of the blog, simply because that's the mood I was in the last few days. In some way we all were. It doesn't really make sense since it was exam week and we were supposed to be freaking out. But Emily had refused to call them 'exams', so in our heads we were very relaxed about it as well. On Tuesday, our last day off before we got done, i woke up really late, because i'd slept really late. carried my notes and notebook and handouts and laptop down to the breakfast area. Made myself a lovely cup of chai in my mug and sat down to work. I knew I was doing Yin. But unlike the last time around, my theme wasn't flowing to me. I knew the asanas i wanted to do. I was definitely putting my group through anahatasana, that painful crazy little asana that i makes me winch every time i come into it (still), that was definitely in there. Then there was child's pose, of course, how is any yin clas...

गणेशा  Yes. And I can not believe it. I'm here in Singapore. Sitting on my couch. After a day's work and a yoga class. And I'm dazed. Overwhelmed by all these shiny lights. Still adjusting, it's so hard, only because a huge part of me doesn't want to adjust to this 'reality'. So since I'm at the end, I 'll have to talk about the last week in reverse. My friend Andrea was here for a day. She arrived really late on Friday night, it was Saturday early morning rather. I had class on Saturday, so she went and did an art class (her painting is beautiful) and we had dinner at this beautiful place : Fair Warung Bale , which is a actually run by a youth foundation and the food was lovely, we treated ourselves to two lovely cheesecakes at Anomali after that. And walked back slowly enjoying the streets of Ubud. She left at 8 AM on Sunday and I said bye to her before heading out to class at 6. On Sunday, we did a practice teaching session, where all 30 ...

I love star gazing. If you let me be under the sky, I can stare up at it for a very very very long time. I might start humming if I'm alone. I might start talking about something absolutely random, go off on a tangent most times, or I might just stand and stare. There's that poem right, I can't get the name for some reason, what is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare ; or something like that. Star-gazing, gives you that opportunity to just stand and stare. There's something about that. :) I remember, when we were young, mom, dad, Aiyappa and me went on a road trip through Kashmir - Leh - Ladakh, and we stopped at Dras for the night and the sky from there was such a brilliant sight. I could just watch the sky full of stars the whole night. That image has stayed with me all these years and will be with me for the rest of my life I think. Today was a tough day at class.  We were coming out of an off-day. I was super tired. I didn't realis...