Sunday, January 29, 2012

Pune, India, Week IV - Vidya

My husband John has joined me. This is our final week in Pune coming to a close. In two days we begin our pilgrimage north east beginning with a 5 hour drive north east of Mumbai to Aurangabad area where we will visit the Ellora and Ajunta caves http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmQP69exo1o

We have hired a car and driver for two days for this section of our journey. On Wednesday evening he will drop us at a train station where we embark on a 15 hr overnight train trip to Varanasi. We will spend 3 days in Varanasi and then another overnight train trip to Agra where we will be picked up by a car/driver to tour the Taj Mahal, Fort Agra, find a shower :) and finally drop us in the Temple city of Vrindavan where we will stay at a spiritual studies institute and spend two days visiting temples. Our last train trip to Delhi is a short one, arriving in Delhi mid day for two final days of site-seeing and maybe some shopping before flying home.

No idea how easy or difficult it will be to post during these next 12 days but pictures will come.

I am sorry to say goodbye to Pune. This city has so much to offer. I will miss the yoga immersion and my friends whom I have stayed with this past month. I will not miss the pollution and look forward to respiratory recovery!

Prashant Iyengar said that only after profound spiritual knowledge can true meditation (dhyana, samadhi) come. This has been a journey of seeking, to deepen my knowledge - vidya, of yoga and of spiritual life and studies - svadyaya, of discipline - tapas. Onward now to further deepen my spiritual knowledge in this tradition, as we continue on this journey. Ohm nama shivaya, ohm nama Ganesha.

Shanti, shanti, Leigh

Pune Lake house







Portrait of Pune, India









Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Pune, India, Week III - Go with the Flow

Mid way through week three and I've come down with a head cold. Almost inevitable with the pollution and exposure to so many other people, especially all the yogi travellers who tend to be more vulnerable to germs and pass them around like school kids. So I am taking a rest day and using this opportunity to blog. 

This week at RIMYI is officially back bending week. A week where we open our chests and hearts and lift ourselves up and up. A little manipura chakra, anahata chakra, vishudi chakra required. Monday evening Geeta Iyengar discussed the throat and the tongue in sirsasana/headstand. Surprising to find I was indeed thrusting my tongue forward rather than allowing it to release back into the throat. How did she know that? Wonderful subtle class. How does Geeta make back bending so soft and subtle? We spent a great deal of time on standing back bends, dividing the buttocks horizontally into three parts. The middle moves in, the lower draws down towards the back of the thighs. The skin over C-7 moves downwards. Once we moved on to Urdhva Dhanurasana/Upward bow pose we were already there, floating up. Well, for the first few... Geeta also spoke a great deal in this class about studying with her father guruji BKS Iyengar. How at eight years old she was merely doing the poses and by adolescence she had begun to "see", that she has a life long imprint of the study. Interesting karma, both burden and grace to have one's father be your guru...

Last night Prashant Iyengar taught us the difference between action and conduction. We learned to set our intention and conduct ourselves in asana. He also spoke of spinalyzing the poses. Saying he was teaching Spinology, Spinosophy and Spineics. He spinalyzed our minds in Trikonasana.

Last Sunday went to Laxmi Rd to the Gandhi Khadi shop to purchase homespun cotton for John's shirts. This is special cotton hand spun according to the economic and cultural philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi. Lovely stuff. Then to the spice market and purchased fresh coriander seeds, fresh mace husks, aromatic cinnamon bark and .dried figs. Promise pictures to follow of large baskets of dried tumeric, chilli's and herbs. I have been lazy about going some place that I can transfer my photos on-line.

John arrives late this Saturday and I look forward to our time together in Pune as well as our coming adventure. We will be travelling to Aurangabad to visit the Allora and Ajunta caves and then train to the holy city of Varanasi. From there we will visit Agra and the Taj Mahal followed by two nights in Vrindavan, city of temples. Then Delhi where John departs for home and I go on to Dehradun for three more weeks or fly home with John depending on whether or not I have straightened out my visa. Yup.

They say the British invented Bureaucracy and India perfected it.... I'll let you know as I take this unwanted journey into "the system". Going with the flow on this one. "The harder we grasp the more we suffer" Dalai Lama.

I am also making smaller posts on Face Book. For those who receive this by email if you follow me on FB you will receive more on day to day events.

Shanti, shanti, Leigh





Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Pune India Week II - Entering the River

India, the country that brought us Buddha, pajamas, bungalows, shampoo, Gandhi, email and is revitalizing our stale fashion and music sensibilities. India is cool... Daily exposure to poverty, death and disability; wealth, music and fashion; religion and spirituality, in a city that has grown, since my first visit in 2002, from 2.5 million to 5 million in population. The increased density is palpable. I thought it was crowded in 2002. A rapid and tumultuous river of life that I must bolster the nerve to enter daily... The cultural initiation is to cross the street without leaping out of your skin. One has to surrender to the slipstream like a fallen leaf and float across on the diagonal amidst honking horns and vehicles that come close enough to clip you if you hesitate.

The attraction to this well educated successful and densely populated city is the Ramanai Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute. Ramamani was Guruji Iyengar's now deceased wife. She died in the mid seventies before the Institute was completed. On the same property as their home, now in the heart of the city, having been engulfed by the expanding population many years ago. RIMYI draws as many as 300 students daily to the practice of yoga. With morning and evening classes, open practice time - used largely by the foreigners, and five medical classes a week. The Friday evening class taught by Geetaji had 180 people in it. Our mats were overlapping!! I thought I had already experienced the maximum number of people doing yoga in a room but this was something new. In the Wednesday women's class we were told to stand two to a mat but when the German woman living in South Africa who was next to me stepped over to my mat I told her to get off :) In the end there were enough mats and space for all of us.

Due to circumstance ( a yogi friend and Professor at Converse Collage South Carolina passed through Pune last weekend with 14 eastern religion and yoga studies students and I met up with them) I was appointed by RIMYI administrator Pandu to give them a tour.  Inspired to do my research I can share with you that the Institute was designed on three levels representing the outermost to the inner most sadhana (practice), eight columns representing the eight limbs of ashtanga yoga and 88 steps for same. It is 71 feet in height 7 + 1 = 8. The 7 spaces between the eight columns symbolize the 7 kosas or sheaths of consciousness from the anatomical body to union with Atman. Pictures are not allowed to be taken at RIMYI or I could show you a metaphysician's private library not even Harry Potter sets can rival. The medical classes are fascinating, how I wish I could take photographs! In the evening I make notes and draw diagrams.
Students attending RIMYI are both local and international. Foreigners (that's me) make up the bulk of the student population. Recently I had tea with a woman from Italy, another from Germany and a fellow from Chile, such is the nature of things here. I am just grateful that English is the dominant language and ever humbled by the language skills of others. I know of 5 Canadians attending this month. There is always a large group from Russia and others from Germany, Spain, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Netherlands, England, Australia and the USA. This is just a sampling of the range. Classes are taught in English.
I have been assisting in Medical classes 5 days a week, attending classes 6 days a week and daily practice. I also volunteered to do some work on the archives so I have been spending as much as 6 hours a day at RIMYI. The remainder of the time I eat and rest. And shop, but not much time left in the day for shopping. India is exhausting and rest time is essential.

Guruji Iyengar, 93 as of this past December spends time in the morning practice session doing his own yoga practice (yup, no reason to ever give it up) and he is an inspiration to all. This morning he was giving a lesson to his grand daughter Abhi who is a teacher at RIMYI. Abhiji is in her twenties and is being groomed by Guruji to carry on his legacy in yoga. It is wonderful to watch this sacred transference of knowledge lovingly bestowed  How wonderful for them both and for all of us to have Abhi carry on the teachings..
I am staying with friends of ours. We met Geeta and Sunder Bhujwani here in 2002 and look forward to seeing them every time we return. John is not here now but her is joining me later this month. Last weekend I went to the Bhujwani's lake house 45 minutes outside the city. The air was much fresher and the view spectacular. They are across the lake from an ancient mountain fortress once belonging to King Shivaji. King Shivaji fought the British and is a much revered historic figure. We spent Saturday evening watching the full moon pass across the mountainous sky. where King Shivaji once ruled from.

Pictures to follow once I have the technology :) Shanti, shanti, Leigh