The Field of Krishna and Rumi
Today was a tough day. Very tough. Nothing to do with the training as such, it's just that some days you wake up with that feeling where you are drained of all energy and all you want to do is lie in bed. I woke up at 6:45AM! Way past my alarm time! Although I managed to get ready in time and make chai for the day to put in my flask AND drink a cup before heading out to my studio, i just didnt have the energy to face the day. I think it also had something to do with my neck pain. I haven't spoken about that, have I?
SO I got into headstand the wrong way, well not the wrong way, but just the way I am not used to, and I knew when I was up there that I had hurt myself. So I immediately came back down and went into Child's pose. But it was already too late. I'd hurt myself. And the pain only grew as the day went by. Chris looked into it and knew I had compressed it the minute he touched it (!) and then he said I don't have the curves in my back to support a headstand, so I should be very careful with the way I use my muscles and more often that not, I will end up putting a lot of weight on my neck when I'm upside down. Sigh. It wasn't my favourite asana to get into and now with that at the back of my head, it will be even tougher ! Have I said before, Chris called me Durga? That he saw a picture of Durga in India and thought I resembled her. Haha. So I asked him to clarify which Durga, the loving one or the fierce one. :D
(this is the sweet faced calming durga, to think about it though, they both look really calm and loving anyway, so then it's not all that bad that Chris called me that! )
Anyhow by the end of the day, I couldn't move my neck at all. AT ALL. And it creeped up on my shoulders so it hurt every time I walked. So that was the not-so-good thing to happen. The good thing was that it happened a day before my day off, so I could rest it! And I did, gave it the ice pack treatment, then rubbed loads of tiger balm onto it and covered it with a shawl and slept. I woke up feeling worse, but more tiger balm, ice pack and a visit to a doc made it a lot better, I could move it at least!
My day off was lovely btw. Lovely, I woke up really early (forgot to switch off the alarm) but lazed around in bed, the reason for which was my very very sore neck. And slowly when I had the strength i rolled off my bed, literally rolled ! Had a nice leisurely breakfast and loads of chai, wrote a few posts and got ready to go to the doc. Had a nice massage in the evening (asked the therapist to avoid the neck and shoulders) and then just chilled in the evening.
Andrea Boni is our philosophy teacher. He is here to talk to us about the origins of yoga, the Bhagwat Gita, Patanjalis Sutras, and loads of other things. I love philosophy classes. Love it. Although, I really liked anatomy with Chris a lot too, his last class was on Monday and we all miss him already! So Andrea has been talking to us about the Upanishads and the Gita and loads of other things. And today, he spoke about Krishna, and I'm not a devotional person. Like, I am not the leave it all on God and he will make it alright person. But there was just something about today or the way Andrea was speaking or the mantra we chanted or the verses we read from the Gita, that I realised that if I were to think of right NOW, I wasn't lonely at all, that I will always have this higher Being supporting me, and that if I ever felt alone, all I had to do was to reach out to this power, and it will come hold me in it's arms. And so when Andrea started speaking about Krishna and Krishna's discourse to Arjun, I just cried. Not the howling cry, but the 'tears were rolling down my face' cry. Not even the bad cry. The good, "I can't believe i've had this all along and all I have to do is look around me and inside me and feel supported and safe!" cry.
Earlier in the day I just like felt switching off my phone. I wanted to, there was this urge and I did it. I somehow wanted to be here, just here, with these people, with Ubud and not elsewhere. And while I was doing that very well even with my phone not switched off, I figured I wanted to shut it down anyway. I think, what triggered it was also that I tried reaching out to my mom and some people, because I wanted to talk. You know? Like i have this blog, I have my journal, and I have the folks at the training to talk to, but I wanted my people and I wanted to share some things with them, not type it out on chat, or put it in an email (which believe it or not is my preferred way to reach out to someone!), but instead I wanted to talk, use my voice to speak and have them speak back to me and hear their voices. And when I didn't get that, it started to make me feel low and I don't want to feel low here, because i'm having a lovely time, doing what I love! And the last thing that should bother me is that I can't reach the people back home, I can do that when I'm back home, in 15 days (we are halfway through!) And so I decided to cut all that internal noise in my own head and switch my phone off. And so it's off and I don't miss it at all.
Anyhow, so I had just done that and then Andrea made us chant the following verse from the Gita, where Krishna says this to his "very dear friend", Arjuna:
When translated it means:
The complete verse is actually Arjuna asking Krishna to tell him about the Prakriti (nature) and Purusa (the enjoyer), the field and the knower of the field and of knowledge and the object of knowledge:
He spoke about how the marriage of Prakriti (the Field) and Purusha (The knower of the Field) was our reality.
And that suddenly brought to my mind this poem by Rumi :
I've written about it in one of my other blogs I think. But I absolutely love it and here's a beautiful hindi version of it from the movie Rockstar.
There's loads of explanations I could give about this and how it connects to the various things that came into my head at that time and what Andrea told us about the Field and the Knower and how when the Knower gets busy in the activities of the mind or the Field, he loses the state of awareness that is intrinsic to him. There's just so much! It's a philosophy class after all. I'll end this post with what he said to us :
Wisdom is realising the state of purusha in everything that happens (to know and be aware of the knower), in every movement of our minds. So stay connected and be within yourself. Have that backbone in everything you do and stand still.
With that, Im done! I still need to talk about Octavio and his music and his mantras and mantralaya, next time for sure!
नमस्ते
SO I got into headstand the wrong way, well not the wrong way, but just the way I am not used to, and I knew when I was up there that I had hurt myself. So I immediately came back down and went into Child's pose. But it was already too late. I'd hurt myself. And the pain only grew as the day went by. Chris looked into it and knew I had compressed it the minute he touched it (!) and then he said I don't have the curves in my back to support a headstand, so I should be very careful with the way I use my muscles and more often that not, I will end up putting a lot of weight on my neck when I'm upside down. Sigh. It wasn't my favourite asana to get into and now with that at the back of my head, it will be even tougher ! Have I said before, Chris called me Durga? That he saw a picture of Durga in India and thought I resembled her. Haha. So I asked him to clarify which Durga, the loving one or the fierce one. :D
(this is the fierce Durga)
(this is the sweet faced calming durga, to think about it though, they both look really calm and loving anyway, so then it's not all that bad that Chris called me that! )
Anyhow by the end of the day, I couldn't move my neck at all. AT ALL. And it creeped up on my shoulders so it hurt every time I walked. So that was the not-so-good thing to happen. The good thing was that it happened a day before my day off, so I could rest it! And I did, gave it the ice pack treatment, then rubbed loads of tiger balm onto it and covered it with a shawl and slept. I woke up feeling worse, but more tiger balm, ice pack and a visit to a doc made it a lot better, I could move it at least!
My day off was lovely btw. Lovely, I woke up really early (forgot to switch off the alarm) but lazed around in bed, the reason for which was my very very sore neck. And slowly when I had the strength i rolled off my bed, literally rolled ! Had a nice leisurely breakfast and loads of chai, wrote a few posts and got ready to go to the doc. Had a nice massage in the evening (asked the therapist to avoid the neck and shoulders) and then just chilled in the evening.
Andrea Boni is our philosophy teacher. He is here to talk to us about the origins of yoga, the Bhagwat Gita, Patanjalis Sutras, and loads of other things. I love philosophy classes. Love it. Although, I really liked anatomy with Chris a lot too, his last class was on Monday and we all miss him already! So Andrea has been talking to us about the Upanishads and the Gita and loads of other things. And today, he spoke about Krishna, and I'm not a devotional person. Like, I am not the leave it all on God and he will make it alright person. But there was just something about today or the way Andrea was speaking or the mantra we chanted or the verses we read from the Gita, that I realised that if I were to think of right NOW, I wasn't lonely at all, that I will always have this higher Being supporting me, and that if I ever felt alone, all I had to do was to reach out to this power, and it will come hold me in it's arms. And so when Andrea started speaking about Krishna and Krishna's discourse to Arjun, I just cried. Not the howling cry, but the 'tears were rolling down my face' cry. Not even the bad cry. The good, "I can't believe i've had this all along and all I have to do is look around me and inside me and feel supported and safe!" cry.
(Krishna, the charioteer and Arjun, the warrior prince)
Earlier in the day I just like felt switching off my phone. I wanted to, there was this urge and I did it. I somehow wanted to be here, just here, with these people, with Ubud and not elsewhere. And while I was doing that very well even with my phone not switched off, I figured I wanted to shut it down anyway. I think, what triggered it was also that I tried reaching out to my mom and some people, because I wanted to talk. You know? Like i have this blog, I have my journal, and I have the folks at the training to talk to, but I wanted my people and I wanted to share some things with them, not type it out on chat, or put it in an email (which believe it or not is my preferred way to reach out to someone!), but instead I wanted to talk, use my voice to speak and have them speak back to me and hear their voices. And when I didn't get that, it started to make me feel low and I don't want to feel low here, because i'm having a lovely time, doing what I love! And the last thing that should bother me is that I can't reach the people back home, I can do that when I'm back home, in 15 days (we are halfway through!) And so I decided to cut all that internal noise in my own head and switch my phone off. And so it's off and I don't miss it at all.
Anyhow, so I had just done that and then Andrea made us chant the following verse from the Gita, where Krishna says this to his "very dear friend", Arjuna:
man-mana bhava mad-bhakto
mad-yaji mam namaskuru
mam evaisyasi satyam te
pratijane priyo 'si me
When translated it means:
Always think of me and become my devotee. Worship me and offer your homage unto me. Being completely absorbed in me, you will come to me without fail. I promise you this because you are my very dear friend.
And I just couldn't stop the tears from rolling down. It wasn't a breakdown for sure. I'll know when I break down :) What it was, was this overwhelming sense of love that had no other way to express itself than those tears. It happens when you hear a lovely piece of music, or watch something beautiful in a movie or read something very touching in a book. It was that kind of overwhelming. And again it wasn't because I'm hindu and I relate to Krishna as "my" god. A huge part of me believes in the divine power that is ominipresent and that is above all religions, that is present in nature, in the seasons and that which guides everything we do. It was that Being that was telling me that she/he is here for me.
There's loads of other things that Andrea touches upon here and there, that I'm sure I'll express some way or the other in future posts. But I'll talk about this other thing he taught us today. It was a verse from Chapter 13, the first one:
Here's what it means.....
And I just couldn't stop the tears from rolling down. It wasn't a breakdown for sure. I'll know when I break down :) What it was, was this overwhelming sense of love that had no other way to express itself than those tears. It happens when you hear a lovely piece of music, or watch something beautiful in a movie or read something very touching in a book. It was that kind of overwhelming. And again it wasn't because I'm hindu and I relate to Krishna as "my" god. A huge part of me believes in the divine power that is ominipresent and that is above all religions, that is present in nature, in the seasons and that which guides everything we do. It was that Being that was telling me that she/he is here for me.
There's loads of other things that Andrea touches upon here and there, that I'm sure I'll express some way or the other in future posts. But I'll talk about this other thing he taught us today. It was a verse from Chapter 13, the first one:
idaḿ śarīraḿ kaunteya
kṣetram ity abhidhīyate
etad yo vetti taḿ prāhuḥ
kṣetra-jña iti tad-vidaḥ
Here's what it means.....
This body, O son of Kuntī (Arjuna), is called the Field, and one who knows this body is called the Knower of the field.
Here's how Andrea translated this for us :
"The body is called the Field, Arjuna; the one who watches whatever happens within it - wise men call him the Knower"
Here's how Andrea translated this for us :
"The body is called the Field, Arjuna; the one who watches whatever happens within it - wise men call him the Knower"
The complete verse is actually Arjuna asking Krishna to tell him about the Prakriti (nature) and Purusa (the enjoyer), the field and the knower of the field and of knowledge and the object of knowledge:
prakṛtiḿ puruṣaḿ caiva
kṣetraḿ kṣetra-jñam eva ca
etad veditum icchāmi
jñānaḿ jñeyaḿ ca keśava
He spoke about how the marriage of Prakriti (the Field) and Purusha (The knower of the Field) was our reality.
And that suddenly brought to my mind this poem by Rumi :
I've written about it in one of my other blogs I think. But I absolutely love it and here's a beautiful hindi version of it from the movie Rockstar.
पता है ……
यहां से बहुत दूर
एक मैदान है
मैं वहाँ मिलूंगा तुझे
There's loads of explanations I could give about this and how it connects to the various things that came into my head at that time and what Andrea told us about the Field and the Knower and how when the Knower gets busy in the activities of the mind or the Field, he loses the state of awareness that is intrinsic to him. There's just so much! It's a philosophy class after all. I'll end this post with what he said to us :
Wisdom is realising the state of purusha in everything that happens (to know and be aware of the knower), in every movement of our minds. So stay connected and be within yourself. Have that backbone in everything you do and stand still.
With that, Im done! I still need to talk about Octavio and his music and his mantras and mantralaya, next time for sure!
नमस्ते
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