Learning with Swans

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 hence my 7am yoga class and not know the cause of the inertia or lack of inspiration within me. If it wasn't for my work, my colleagues (and friends) at my workplace I would've mostly skipped work on most days (and of course lost my job in the bargain). So what I do when I encounter a difficult person or a difficult situation at my workplace? Now I started to dread bumping into this person that has destroyed whatever little semblance of peace I had left in my life. I would groan whenever I saw my inbox beep with an email from them. This eventually got so bad that we couldn't work together anymore.

But, who gave this person the right to "destroy my peace" or affect me the way they affected me, so negatively,  so much that I almost had an intense sense of dislike inside of me. I have moved away (and above) from using the word hatred for people, or situations, but was what I felt for this colleague hate? Where had my yoga practice and meditation gone? Why couldn't i deal with this rationally? Why was closing my eyes, counting back to one with slow deep breaths not working?Why did kapalbatti pranayam no longer suffuse me with energy whenever this person decided to be deliberately berating or disrespectful or mean? The answer is, because I allowed it to get into my head. I allowed this person the power to affect me the way they affected me, to define my experience at work, to make me go from "I love this place" to "What am I doing here?".  Now of course, some of these questions came from a deeper sense of change that I was going through anyway, but i aggravated the mental stress I was already under by letting what a third person, someone who I may not even remember a few months down the line, dictate how I feel about my job and the quality of my work or the effectiveness of my performance.

Instead of being thankful of being around such wonderful, helpful and gracious people at my workplace, this one person started coloring the view with which I now approached everyone and everything. So unfair to me and to these other gorgeous human beings I worked with. I am being harsher than I should be to myself here. I did not create a scene and as far as I can remember always handled it gracefully (because my parents didn't teach me any other way), but the fact that i was so majorly disturbed by it, speaks to me of miles I have to go in my walk to finding inner peace. The experience taught me not only how not to treat others when I have any version of 'power', but also to have more faith in myself. The way my body and mind reacted to this situation showed me that I was fearful of the wrongs I might have done or my supposed inability to carry out tasks. I myself distrusted me. A praise never sticks to me, but a wrong word does. How unfortunate is that? But how also reflective of what we see all around in the world : Why does gossip spread more quickly than acts of charity or deeds well done? How unfair was i being to myself, when I had others telling me in so many beautiful ways what an asset I was and how i added to their work, but what i choose to focus on was a 'here's what you didn't do' email?

And above all, how did I lose my calm? Why did I have to consciously pull myself down from a place of disgust and anger every couple of hours to a more serene state of being. Wasn't the whole point of a yoga practice the ability to take your practice and your meditation and that calm from shavasana to the outside of the mat, into the 'real world' and not have yourself forcefully impose that on yourself? Have i not then failed the test life threw at me?

Maybe. But maybe not. I didn't go mad, or breathe balls of fire or tear my hair. Yes there were a few tears of frustration that i shed, but that has to be about it. Maybe the whole reason for this thing / event / person to happen to me was to bring me closer to my practice, was for me to realise the strength that lies within me. Maybe it was to use all those balancing asanas to remain calm in the face of a storm. If i could stand on one leg for a couple of minutes and not lose my breath, balance or smile, then surely I could deal with a difficult situation in life, or force a smile in the face of an adversary. And after all, at the end of the day, I won't remember this time or occurrence at all, and that maybe this itself is my achievement as a yogi. That I realise the un-importance and impermanence of these things.

I am at home and my mom has swans in our pond in the garden. I was marveling at how spotless and pristine these birds were, even though they were walking on gravel and mud and swimming in a pond that isn't super clean. And my mother said to me : the surface of their feathers is slippery, nothing dirty sticks to it, it all slips off. And at that moment, I had this :  I should be a like a swan :  look on my face. How wonderful it will be, if you could take what matters from life's situations and the people you encounter, hold onto what serves you and let go of what doesn't? If you can do that all the time with perfection, you will be nothing but pure and pristine : you could be among anything and any people in the world, but you'll attract only that which helps you grow.

The rest will slip away.

So this diwali, may I be victorious over this evil that threatens to take me away from a place of peace to one when I am more self-assured, more forgiving and more in control of how a person can make me feel. Only when I am capable of eliminating the darkness from within me will I be truly on my way, to light.