Samasthiti

I realised the first post on Sleep was a tad bit pessimistic, so as an apology I offer you a funny picture above. But I am only writing words that more or less represent my feelings of shock & awe as I read chapter after chapter of  Why We Sleep.  The truth is so very stark that it does make one feel fearful of the future, especially if you are one of those who has trouble sleeping or is not getting enough sleep or hasn't gotten enough sleep for a very long time now. When I was visiting England recently, at dinner one evening we spoke about how it is difficult to get a human answer the customer service helplines since it has all been more or less automated. If a human does answer the phone - it will mostly be someone from India, helping you solve your problems. The Call Centers are synonymous with India - companies can afford to outsource medium-skill tasks to countries with cheap labour for a good looking bottom line. This sadly has resulted in many many young adul...

I love sleeping and I am fortunate that getting sleep is not a problem I have to deal with. Unless I have had a very stressful day or I am particularly stressed about upcoming events the next day, I find it quite easy to get some good solid shut-eye. I am blessed. But there have been times in my life when I have tried to sleep and have been quite unsuccessful at it - leading to terribly unproductive days - not feeling good in body, mind and definitely not in spirit. Those days thankfully have been far and few. But when I have lived them, I haven't felt myself, my emotions are usually on the edge, I do not feel the flow of life as gently as I would on other well-slept days. I can not imagine having to feel like that all the time, every day, all day. And yet, there are many of us who survive with 5-6 hours of sleep daily which if my experience is anything to go by, is not ideal and definitely not happy. When I first started practising yoga at a studio in Singapore, I was so dilige...

I have never been a public speaker. It has been and will always continue to be daunting to me. When i worked in a corporate, i hated sitting in meetings where I needed to share updates, I would run through what I wanted to say in my head some ten times before finally mustering the courage to say it. If I wanted to share an opinion on a matter being discussed, I'd do the same scan in my head, but while I was busy mentally analysing content, the moment to share it would pass, leaving me quite upset about the whole scenario. And I would chide myself for not being so weak in the first place. By this time my heart rate would be comparable to me riding a bicycle up a hill. When I signed up to go be a yoga teacher, it was only so I could deepen my personal practice further. I was also falling deeply in love with Bali and any reason to spend an entire month there seemed like a good idea. I had no intentions of teaching full time or even part time. When we had our first micro lesson -...

Here's a picture of a gorgeous sunset from the balcony at Chez Boileau at 9 pm. It is heartening to realise how many people wish you well when you're starting something new. As soon as I put out a post on Instagram about travelling to Bergerac to teach yoga - I had messages pouring in, friends and family reaching out, wishing me luck for my new adventure. There are times when technology makes you smile and this was definitely that moment for me. When I signed up to work with Alpheus on the project he is building in Bergerac - Chez Boileau - I thought how different could athletes be. Turns out they are supremely different. Before I start on things I am learning from my new friends, I will share some things about Chez Boileau and my time here so far - which is literally 2 days, of which one was gorgeously sunny and the other, today, is very rainy and damp!  I arrived in Bergerac after a flight to London, a ferry to Caen and a 6 hour drive to Chez Boileau. It took...

I love my vinyasa, but there are days when all i want to do is hold a relaxing pose without stressing my muscles for a long time and allow myself to marinate in it. If there is one word I would use to describe the non-yang part of yoga, it has to be Juicy. I love the way my body feels in it - I genuinely love teaching it and hear students exclaim how something as low intensity as a slow yoga class can be pretty high intensity on the mind and sometimes even on the body. I especially love how it benefits students of mine who go to the gym a lot or are runners or are sportspeople from various backgrounds. Restorative and Yin yoga not only helps up their performance but also gives them that rare chance to slow down and heal their bodies in a more respectful manner - something that 5 minutes of "cool down" or "stretch" at the end of their sports sessions usually can not achieve.  I am heading to France (!) to teach at Chez Boileau  in a gorgeous little town cal...

After writing the previous post , I started to track my swara through the day to see how it affects my mood and states of being. My results so far have been consistent with the theory of swara yoga. My tracker is a table as below:  I start tracking at 6 am in the morning - ideally i should begin at 4:30 am or an hour and a half before sunrise. The exact time changes according to the seasons so it's easier to look up sunrise times in the newspapers and then subtract 1.5 hours from it to arrive at this time period we call Brahma Muhurta or the "Creator's Hour" since Brahma is credited as being the creator of the universe in Hindu Mythology. It is said the mind during this time is at it's stillest best and hence best for spritiual practices like meditation.  Do i wake up at 4:30 am which is 1.5 hours before my sunrise here in India - no. I am up at best at 6 am. I want to get into the 4:30 am rhythm and i know that it is a matter of time before I decide...

I know I was supposed to write on Swara yoga - I promise that will be my next post. But today I have to post on this topic because I feel so strongly about it. You would expect that the world of yoga, yoginis and yogi does not know the meaning of the word "hate" or the opposite of love. Love, is that one thing that you would expect to find in abundance in yoga. All you hear and read about yoga online is loving yourself, and this world and everyone around you. Sadly, this is not true. When people ask me why i practice asana and other aspects of yoga, my simple answer is it taught me to love myself, when I thought I was wholly unable of being loved by anyone. I found the courage to pick up certain pieces of my life and rebuild them, I still find that courage every time I step on my mat. I have had the fortune of having being taught by teachers who have inspired me to practice with an open heart. And once your heart is open, it is very difficult for it to go back into it...