Yoga

Yesterday we graduated. We all wore white (it's a Kundalini thing) and had a small puja (fire ceremony) along with a pretty spectacular gong meditation. While our teacher was giving us our bindis, she said "you are now teachers of yoga... you are now in union with the universe."

Yoga means "to yoke." So it means to tie two things together, to bind one thing to another thing. Ideally, this would be a person in union with the universe, or the eternal, or the reality, or god, or God, or whatever the person desires to be in union with (yoga's not picky, in my admittedly limited experience). Our human minds, connected to the infinite god. So nice (and optimistic) of our teacher to say, but so not true.

Yesterday while we did 108 sun salutations at 6:30 in the morning, I was trying to think "okay sun. You've done a really great job of coming up every day for my whole life. This is the least I can do for you." What I was really thinking, though, was "oooo boy, my triceps are going to KILL tomorrow."

It's not that I haven't been there before. I have been in that place of communion, and I'm fortunate enough to say that I've experienced some pretty great moments lately... not samadhi, but not bad either. But I obviously have a long way to go. I have a very, very erratic mind to calm, and I have big decisions to make about my life, and I have a life to live. That means that I will always struggle to maintain the balance, and that there will always be something that I haven't done that I need to do. It's not me to live a monastic life, so I'll be balancing these things until I give up my body, and that means continual work on my windy (vata) mind, on my sluggish (kapha) body, and my (pitta doesn't translate well) temper. I'll always be working on yoga.

It made me think about other ceremonial "markers" in my life... college and grad school graduations, for instance. They always seemed like a smoke screen to me. Like a silly trick to play for your family... "X is now educated! X can be sent into the world now to do things that are hopefully good." Marriage too, seems to me to be a misleading ceremony. Like your relationship hasn't really started yet, or like it will substantially change for the better. As if the learning and growth is over. As if the work has stopped. As if yoga has been achieved.

Maybe we need that, as people... maybe we need to stop in time and appreciate how far we've come just for an hour or so. But it seems so dangerous and misleading. I know my education hasn't stopped, and I definitely haven't "finished" yoga.

In any case, I can teach in a studio now, and am looking forward to continuing to teach the little brood I have already. Here's to a lifetime of yoga.