Samasthiti

For those who know me, a part of my personality is inextricably linked to Bollywood or the Hindi film industry. I have often found in some of the richer stories the industry has told, a sense of solace and peace - and more often than not, I have also found a guiding light in dialogues, situations, place, characters and mostly songs and lyrics. While it is dangerous to base your life decisions to a dialogue you hear someone on screen narrate, i believe that inspiration and guidance comes from everywhere and everyone -  you only have to be open to it. A quote that is attributed to rumi says - your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.   I believe that quote can be applied to many things in life - in your search for creativity, in your journey to find the divine, in your spiritual quest for the unknowable & unreachable, in your progress towards your career or craft - everything. We merel...

I opened this blog of mine on a whim today. I've been immensely active on my other blog - just writing about life gone by and life coming up, about growing up and learning lessons. I've often thought about writing on this one - but I was frankly having a lot of fun there and I am in a very specific mood and state of mind when I write on Samasthiti and for some reason I wasn't reaching that state and hence this blog remained untouched.  Until today. Today, I opened the blog and realised I had last written here in Jan 2018. That's 8 months back. The year has only four more months to go and I have only written about yoga once. How is that possible i ask myself. Especially in what has most probably been the most rocky phase or rather uncertain phase of my life! My practice is lovely, and that has kept me sane, in fact the one time I stopped it because I got too busy with life and work - I fell terribly sick. Lesson learned I guess. This post is something I'm r...

When people realise I am yogi, the question i get is "what kind of yoga do you do?". I often want to start that answer with a smile and a long explanation- but I then think it might come across as too pretentious and arrogant and end up answering with a plain " I do all kinds - hatha, vinaysa, but the core of all  asana practice of all yoga is hatha yoga". And that's true - any kind of physical asana practice (ashtanga, bikram, power, vinyasa) is all Hatha - which is a perfect balance of the Sun (Ha) and the Moon (Tha) - the hot and cold energies, the male and female present within each of us, the need to be willful and also let go - prevalent not just in human beings, but anything you see around you in nature. Every ying has it's yang, every night circles back to a day. I see this confluence a natural way of being - for no-one and nothing can stay static in it's own form forever. This impermanence scares people - it has scared me many a time in the...

I have a fascination with Bougainvillea - they enthrall me. The only other flower/plant that does that to me is the Frangipani tree. I love it equally - maybe I love a bougainvillea more. It's bougainvillea season in Singapore right now. I was on the way to the airport last week and for miles and miles and miles there boulevard was lined with these gorgeous bright little flowers - they were even hanging off the over-bridges. After a couple of crazy days at work and personally, it was like watching magic unfold - almost like a new lease of life, which my trip to India cemented further. I connected with some very close friends and realised that distances truly don't matter that much and we promised each other that when we are in doubt of whether to call or not - we will pick up the phone and call.  Coming back to the flowers - there's something about beautiful shades of pink, orange and red against white walls or any walls for that matter, under a brilliant blue sk...

It's a holiday here today in Singapore and I'm battling a sickness that has left me without a voice for one week now. My raspy hoarse voice has gathered many comments from "this is very sexy" to "you sound like a boy breaking into puberty" - all very hilarious and all very welcome by me. I'm not a huge believer of  using strong medicine (steroids and antibiotics) to treat common colds, but this time around, I gave in and decided to seek medical help to treat this stubborn condition. Seems to be working already. So after a 12 hour sleep I woke up feeling beautiful - still without a voice though. Anyway, I digress. Over the last couple of weeks, or maybe months I have been thinking very hard about life and all aspects of it. If you've read some posts from my other blog, you'd know that Im questioning many of my friendships, I'm questioning the idea of love and I'm even questioning ShahRukh Khan - that is serious stuff. I am at that p...

If you've been reading this blog, you know my love and gratitude for two teachers who've been instrumental in my yoga journey - who've taught me more than just asanas - Daphne and Anton who started Routes of Yoga   to take their gift of teaching to the world. I've learnt from them to be graceful - to take things slow - to enjoy the process of learning  instead of focusing on the results, to be humble in your achievements and to not let failure and disappointment bog you down (not for too long anyway).  I've had a rough couple of weeks, personally because I want something so badly to happen - and realised very recently that it's probably going to continue going to be a dream - and something that i will have to let go of soon, for my own good. Maintaining the balance between effort and detachment is my theme for living life. A very dear friend of mine, once told me that usually in life between your work and your personal life, there'll always be ups and dow...

Nataraja @ The Practice , Canggu, Bali I love that line. a friend of mine introduced me to it. He came for a yoga session and told me post the class that he feels like he fits well in his skin and clarified that it was a dutch way of saying, he feels good, in a much deeper and wholesome way than : I feel good. Which is a beautiful state of mind and body to be in, but also a lovely thing to hear from your student as a teacher. I feel extremely happy when folks attend my sessions and come back to say that, there's a sense of omg, i did this for them - which is mostly an inflated ego speaking - but there is then a deeper sense of i "enabled" this for them - didn't do it - i helped create an opening or a space that they could move into and it was their choice, it was in their power to bring themselves there. They did it for themselves. Anyway, coming back to the point - fitting well in your skin.  I take that to mean a deep sense on contentment at your presen...