Devis and other things

A new installment of the Tamil Nadu saga was ready but alas, my laptop (newish, just out of warranty period) is showing signs of distress by way of a damaged hinge. I could not take it with me to ashram when I was there for Mahashivratri and since my return to Hyderabad, I've been ill with one thing or the other. 

Since then, Sadhguru has consecrated the Devi Linga Bhairavi in Nepal, and she appears to be a magnificent entity, housed in a most exquisite temple. I am most excited about what her presence will do for that region.

Over the Navratri in 2022, a most wonderful thing happened. I was in Bodoland for most of Dussehra and on Saptami, I found myself in Guwahati, the land of the Goddess Kamakhya. It was a particularly crowded day but I was simply fortunate to be there. After almost 9 hours of waiting in queue, I was able to offer my homage to the lady. Now with Devi Linga Bhairavi (in a slightly altered variation) joining forces in the northeast of the subcontinent... it will be interesting. Nepal is lucky indeed.

***

Are the various overlays not interesting? From seeing this land as a political entity, with its rise and fall of kingdoms, I had moved to being interested in its physical nature – the lush fertile plains of the Ganga, the mountain ranges, the rivers that crisscross our Hindustan. Now it appears that the more subtle map of our spiritual hotspots is the thing to follow. 

Where are the radiating hubs? Why are they there? How do they tie together? How do they work together? Is it a boundary, or a network? Where are the holy men and women? How are they dotting the geography? Which shrines are still strong? Which took the brunt of invasions and lost their power and relevance? What idols are lying in wait, hidden in streams, farmers' fields, under rubble... just biding their time to emerge? Wouldn't it be wonderful to able to see these subtle connections? Till my perception sharpens, a lively imagination and conjecture will have to do.

Picking up the thread

It has been a month since I updated last - the gaps between posts that are supposed to be part of a travel series is much too wide. I had really hoped to write up the Tamil Nadu travelogue at a fast clip.

Work intervened, however, and I went on assignment to Bodoland, the beautiful Autonomous Territorial Region within Assam. 

The Wild Side of Bodoland
(Created by me with Dall-E)

Those stories had to be written and this blog series got pushed down the queue. Then Sadhguru consecrated a wonderful Naga shrine in our new, upcoming center at Bengaluru, which was an unbelievable experience. It rained through out the consecration and there were about 16,000 of us, sitting in the wet, beyond midnight, witnessing the descent of a celestial serpent being. 

 

After we attended that, I seized the chance to spend a fortnight at the ashram in Coimbatore. 

Long story short, we had left the story at Kanchipuram and will pick it up there again. If nothing, it gives me an excuse to pore over pictures and dwell on the trip.

TN Tour 4: On the road to Tiruvannamalai

Our route to Tiruvannamalai, the first night-halt, was punctuated by stops: Nerur, the samadhi sthala of the great saint Sadasiva Brahmendra; and Salem, where lies the jeeva samadhi of Mayamma, the wonderful avadhuta of Kanyakumari. Both places were magnificent.

Sadasiva Brahmendra finds a place among the six panels leading up to the Dhyanalinga at Isha. We have often heard and read stories of his life, his complete dis-identification with his body, we have heard his songs, typical in their laconic phrasing. His resting place I found restful, more silent than energetic. 

Mayamma’s samadhi – a smallish shrine off the Law College Road in Salem – was a place of loving sweetness with an undercurrent of buzz. Fittingly there were dogs here, Mayamma’s most beloved constant companions.  

***

One motif running through the entire trip was the rivers, in particular Cauvery whom we encountered time and again, crossing her course several times. Again, a special interest for us. Cauvery Calling, the massive on-ground movement to revive the river is supporting farmers to make a partial shift to agro-forestry. The mission is to plant 242 crore trees in the river basin, revitalizing the soil, and in turn, the river, which has been seeing dangerously depleted levels. We saw first-hand the truly heartbreaking state of the river and the smaller rivers that drain into it.

Near Karur, we went to the fascinating Agatheeswarar Temple on the banks of River Amaravathi, near the confluence of the rivers Kaveri, Amaravathi and the now-dead Thirumanimuthaar. The location was magnificent, the sunlight was brassy gold, birds chirped and flitted, not with the frenzy of dawn but with all the languor of the midday warmth. We’d gone prepared to take a dip in the water but the riverbed was dry, the water just a silvery trickle in the distance. It wasn’t even summer yet. We could see for ourselves what Sadhguru means when he says our rivers are dying. This is not how it’s supposed to be. A river is a huge presence, a life of its own… we have let things go too far. 

The temple – built by Rajendra Chola I – is in a state of disrepair. The inner shrine (the linga is said to have consecrated by Agastya himself) was barred. We couldn’t go in but we met some officials there, I think they were from the Department of Archeology; restoration, I learned, is on the cards. In the yard, we found a Shivalinga, a samadhi and a pair of hobnailed padukas*, belonging to a yogi who had lived here, and also left at this spot. How wonderful if the temple and the river are restored together! Can you imagine the powerful serenity that could once again emanate from such a combination?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Edited to add: I unthinkingly called them hobnailed padukas, which doesn't describe them correctly. Hobnails were typically driven under shoes or boots, of course. These are nails or spikes embedded into the wooden base, on which the yogi walks.

TN Tour 1: The Obligatory Grand Tour

As I’d said many weeks ago, the ‘South Tour’ is pretty much an inevitable high school excursion in our parts and I don’t know how it came about that I missed the grand tour of Tamil Nadu’s temples.

But still, the desire came and the plan formed itself. I am glad to have waited. Not to have wasted the first breathtaking glimpse of all this grandeur on a callow, self-absorbed teen but instead to approach it in adulthood with at least a modicum of appreciation and a certain capacity for awe. And also a certain ripening of Bhakti.

Ours was not an overly devout upbringing. Certainly not the temple-hopping kind. Yes, there was a puja room in the house and a certain openness to the Divine, but I was as confused as the next person about religion and spirituality. I remember puzzling over Ganesha. Was I to take him literally? Or as a reference or pointer to something more subtle? Now, after being initiated on the spiritual path, I have evolved into an even grander canvas of confusion.  

So was this a pilgrimage? Yes. Adventure? Most certainly. A mission? Yes. We were setting off just as Sadhguru had left for the Caribbean for the Save Soil Movement. For the arduous, extremely demanding 100-day journey that he was embarking on, we were excited, concerned and eager to beseech the benediction of the gods. 

Once we decided that we were going to do this, Shweta and I sat down to planning in a hurry – we had to do all the biggies, we had to include the four pancha bhuta sthalas in TN, we had to visit the Devis, we had to go to Rameshwaram, we had to go to Palani. Tamil Nadu being Tamil Nadu, there are a host of samadhis too and Shweta had a parallel list of various places of high energy that we had to include. And then what about all the spectacular architecture… it was a mission! But we managed to simmer it down to a workable circuit.

And this, more or less is how we went about it.

***

“When God is your tour guide…” Shweta muttered once.

That’s how it felt.

It seemed like every step was charted out for us. Everything seemed to fall in place. The timing, where to be at what moment, where to go, where not to go. You will feel, as we did, that these are an extraordinary number of lucky coincidences for anyone to have. And yet, that’s how it was.

For those who came before us

It is amazing how something can stay hidden in plain sight. How nothing exists perhaps till you turn towards it and shine the light of your attention on it. I have said before that I only first paid any heed to death rituals when my mother passed away. Since then, there has been a further deepening of awareness how meticulous this land, this Bharat has been in dealing with its dead.

The dead are dead, you may say; better to turn our energies towards the living, you may insist. You’re right, but there is no dichotomy. Catering to the dead also takes care of the living. You are both assisting the disembodied as well as giving your own life ample room to maneuver and express itself.

Yesterday was Mahalaya Amavasya – a phrase I have been hearing for most of my life without knowing the significance of. We have so many festivals and special days in our culture, it seemed just one of those things elders made a grand fuss about. Plus, a somewhat morbid concept – a fortnight to address the needs of pitrus… generations of dead ancestors who lived centuries ago. We don’t even remember their names – what then is the need to make such a shoo-sha about offering them balls of rice and sesame? Wasteful symbolisms! Doubtless this must’ve been the frame of mind that prevented me from even observing this rite with the consideration it deserved.

Sadhguru says, “Your body carries trillion times more memory than your conscious mind. Will you remember your great-great-great-grandfather? You don't, but his nose is sitting on your face because your body remembers. Your body remembers how your forefathers were a million years ago.” I now dimly understand that we are a continuum. The latest but not the last in a series of pop-up lives on this planet. Pitru Paksha is a way of paying homage to those who came before us, and it is also a way of distancing the influence of these pitrus over our lives – loosening, in a way, their genetic hold over ourselves, so that we may live free-er and fuller lives.

In recent years, Sadhguru has been paying inordinate attention to this aspect. His book on Death is an explosive one, a revealing treatise on a range of aspects that were hitherto veiled. Also, I have been thinking a lot about Kashi, the maha smashana, where death rituals are a way of life. [Of course, any excuse to remember Kashi will do. When can I go back there, I wonder?]

Yesterday, around midnight at the Isha Yoga Center, there was a rather magnificent ceremony – they’ve done it for years but the scale this year was a bit grander. This was in preparation perhaps for the Kala Bhairava deity that my Guru is in the process of consecrating.

Some pictures:

(Pics: LingaBhairavi.org)

Class: Insecta

Thanks to the lockdown, this is the longest I've been at the Isha Yoga Center and I've never been here during the summer. I tend to come for Guru Purnima and stay for "the annual fest of the wind", a time when gales from the Velliangiris lash at us at the foothills. On the other side of the year, I come during the winter solstice if my Sadhguru has something special planned (many of the consecrations are conducted around that time), but definitely around Mahashivratri, padding my visit with a few weeks on either side.

I was dreading the summer a bit, but we've had a simply gorgeous one this year. It has been hot, but the really muggy days have been broken by refreshing thunderstorms. Bountiful heat and residual moisture - what more does life on this planet need? The hills are lush green, and life in the ashram is thriving.

For a few weeks, we've been privileged to cicada concerts. All of a sudden, the occupants of one entire tree will set up a loud din, and soon tree after tree takes up the song till it stretches across the expanse.

In other delights, there are the butterflies. There are a variety of species but the most spectacular sighting is the Common Emigrant (Catopsilia pomona). The ashram must have some millions of them, I should think - and what a sight it is. Along any path or road, we see streams and streams of these pretty yellow gossamers flitting along some mysterious but cohesive route.

One akka signaled furiously to us the other day as we strolled along to brunch. We peered through the foliage to see where she pointed. By the stream were hundreds of butterflies puddling in the mudflat, moving their wings restlessly in the golden sunlight. A pied wagtail hung about, making darts into the kaleidoscope for an easy meal. Soon a few of us had gathered, including Viji akka, with her handy camera.

(Photos by Viji Ranganath)

Of course, the baddie is around in large numbers, and a host of other crawlies. Well, they're more useful to the planet, so we'll shut up and not complain.

Living on the Wild Side

One of the exciting things about living on the edge of forests, is the wealth of insects that we share the space with. A variety of ants (in large numbers) are a constant presence and the occasional ant-colony raid can be a massive event, bringing the lizards out in a feeding frenzy. The other day, a mud dauber tried to make a nest on our window shelf outside the mesh door. It was not to be. We ourselves disturbed it a bit halfheartedly in trying to regain territory, and then a treepie decided to peck at the nest and help itself to the larvae. The mother wasp tried to fix the problem but it was an uphill task. She then attempted another effort in the corner behind the balcony door. But that very night alas, it rained in torrents and the mud was swept away.

In another curious affair, Shweta would end up with mysterious bites and scars – painful red blotches or trails that would, over a few days, well up in virulent suppurations. These took more than a week to subside but the scars take months to fade. At first she suspected the spiders. She then examined the problem, applying her Holmesian skills of detection and deduction and having eliminated the spiders, zoomed in on one particular specimen – a black and red bug about a centimetre in length whom she has named (with charming simplicity) ‘Baddie’.

She thought my response to her various injuries a bit lukewarm, and so was very much delighted when I woke up one day to a similar abrasion on my face. Since the wounds are often mirror-image lesions, we concluded that we weren’t being bitten or stung, but in fact, squashing or squeezing these Baddies in our sleep, except of course, when one had clearly walked over us, leaving a trail of burning, corroded skin.

The mystery is now solved – and our attacker is no mean personage. It enjoys many names and has a Wikipedia entry and several scientific papers dedicated to it. Say hello to the Rove Beetles of the genus Paederus aka Nairobi Fly, Acid Fly or Kenya Fly. There have been huge outbreaks of this creature and one paper suggests that at least two of the ten plagues of Egypt mentioned in the Bible were in fact massive breeding of Paederus.

Anyway, these creatures secrete a toxin called pederin, more potent than Latrodectus spider or black widow venom. So... err.. basically YIKES!!!!!!

You don’t discover the contact immediately but as soon the redness appears, washing the area with cold water and soap is a good thing to do. From my own experience, I have found that rubbing a pinch of common salt over the moistened abrasion is helpful. Then I tend to the wound with a thin layer of turmeric mixed with a drop of coconut oil, or aloe vera gel, crushed tulsi juice, sandalwood paste or rose powder paste.

For now, I have a new gash over my shoulder from last night. Here we go again.

शून्य सन्नाटे टपकते जा रहें हैं...

The virus outbreak interfered with my plans to go back to Hyderabad, so here I am, still at the Isha Yoga Center, going with the flow.

When we shut off the premises to visitors (days BEFORE the nation-wide lockdown ordered by the government), it was a very different ambience for us. In my previous post, I had remarked (with some percipience, you’ll admit) that I loved it when we were thin of company. But never had we imagined that we would have this entire beautiful space to ourselves. Adiyogi, who is always thronged by worshippers, admirers and selfie-takers, now reigns over sprawling emptiness.

These pictures are from a walk two weeks ago.

Sarpavasal

Adiyogi in the distance

Malaivasal, the stunning portal into Isha Yoga Center

It is called Malaivasal because this huge boulder that forms the arch comes from the sacred Annamalai.

Shweta at the side entrance

Looking out at the mountains

...And this is the view

The trishulams and snakes that are a recurring motif at Isha

More detail

Leaving you with this beautiful, goose-bumpy song (written by Prasoon Joshi, sung by Kailash Kher) extolling and entreating Adiyogi.

Isha Yoga Center Diary

Isha Yoga Center has many moods. You’ll hear people describe in many ways. Many will rave about how blissful it is to be here, others find it stunningly beautiful. It is paradoxically the most exciting and yet the most calming of places.

When there is an event or a program, it is bustling – with long queues at the temples, the restaurants and everywhere else. But if you outlast the crowd, like I manage to do sometimes, it is thinly populated with only the residents and a few visiting guests.

But these periods of quiet are nowadays becoming rarer. I went into the Dhyanalinga yesterday hoping for some post-Mahashivratri calm but it was a Sunday and there was such a throng that people were allowed to walk through, only sitting down for a while if they wished. I should explain that there are usually slots at this wonderful Yogic Temple. People can walk in or out only at 15-minute intervals, which are indicated by a bell. You are required to be silent and quiet in all movements, and there is always a hush in the air – only part of which is due to the regulations in place. The real hush emanates from the subtle energy body in the centre – a magnificent linga with all seven chakras at their peak.

+++++

People have a lot of questions when they come to the yoga center. They are struck, of course, by the architecture, the unique aesthetic of the place. Then they stare a bit at meditators who have spread out their yoga mats here and there – some slumped over their shoonya meditations, some engaged in pranayama, some finishing off their hatha yoga practices... and they want to know more about the Devi, the Dhyanalinga, the Naga at the Suryakund, the Teerthakunds themselves...

However, there is one other element that very few can pass by without exclaiming or pointing out to their companions. There is a citrus tree within the Dhyanalinga compound that fruits somewhat bountifully – this is the pomelo, a variety of Citrus maxima or Citrus grandis; it is called Bablimaas in Tamil. So profuse and so startlingly large are these greeny-yellow fruit that the security guard who is stationed there is asked a few hundred times a day, “Idu yennadu!?”
They say that yoga helps you become calm, and just being in this energy space is transformative. If it has worked for any of us, there can be no better evidence than our team of security personnel. Diligent, unflagging but with an unvarying sweetness of temperament. “Adu bablimaas anga”, “Bablimaas akka”, “Bablimaas anu solluvanga”: they explain over and over.

Photography is not allowed in that area, so I can’t show you that particular tree and have to settle for a picture found online.

+++++++++

It is getting hot here. As my grandfather used to say, the chill seems to cry “Shiva, Shiva!” and leave after the Shivratri. The water tank and pipes in the stay area are exposed to the afternoon sun, and hot water is being dispensed already from the cold water taps. In the open area nearby, a large ostentation of peahens is pecking about, squawking occasionally. Summer is coming.

Rally ho!

So I'm off.

Ever since my Sadhguru announced that he would be undertaking a massive nation wide rally to save our rivers, I have been wanting to go with. Rivers, travel along the length of my sacred land and my Master's presence... could you imagine a more appealing prospect?

It seemed difficult but when he wishes it, difficulties fall away.

I'm about to join the rally in Coimbatore. It's going to be crazy. And crazy-fun!

Velliangiri diary

I’ve said before how much I like to spend a little time here, at the foothills of the scenic Velliangiri in the windy season. I’m lucky to be summoned here again and what a glorious time it is!

We’ve not had too much rain in these parts the past couple of years. The green hills had been showing brown and farmers were worried. But we’ve made a promising start this time. A couple of days of howling winds, gray days with intermittent drizzle and perpetually misted hilltops... the slopes are slowly turning emerald. Straight from my balcony, at about four or maybe five kilometres as the crow flies, is a hill stream and waterfall. It had slowed to a trickle but now it has turned frothy white again. Occasionally, when the wind dies down, you can hear the water thunder down onto the rocks below. The stream that flows through the ashram is swelling.

+++

The gales howled so much the other day, I became a little fraught. Door hinges strained to hold their own and the walls felt constantly under siege. How long could mere brick and mortar hold out against such purpose? If not today, or this week, but sometime, something would give! 
I leaned out of the window to feel the wind on my face and found that the peacocks in the valley were having a wind bath too. They each had taken fence to perch on, and they sat all braced and hunched up, enjoying the drama of the gusts.

+++

Wildlife sightings are very possible here, and ever since my sister saw a leopard in the valley before us, I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled. Even so, it was a casual scan last week that yielded a gray presence push through the scrub. A lone tusker wound his way through the jungle, revealing only the trunk here, the body there as he walked towards the water. Barely two minutes and he was gone.

I spied three wild boar babies scurrying in the bush a few days ago, and today, a black-naped hare came out into a clearing to give himself a thorough wash in the pale morning sunlight. He would start every now and then, turning his long ears to the sound that had alarmed him, but it turned out to be nothing. He stayed so long, I even dropped my binoculars to go and get myself something to drink.

+++

I remember once wringing my hands over my urban life, wishing for a forest full of trees to love. The trees here are not old, but the tree jasmines (the fast growing Akasha Malli - Millingtonia hortensis) that line our perimeter are very friendly indeed. My Sadhguru loves them and although they obscure the view of the hills from the windows sometimes, I cannot resent them.

Fursat ke raat din*

It has been a fairly hectic fortnight, one way and the other. Sadhana has been somewhat time and energy-consuming – at least compared to the pace I tend to keep.

So today, quite consciously, has been relaxed. A nothing-day. I ate a lunch of masala oats and salad, washed up conscientiously, which left me feeling virtuous. This winter afternoon, the surroundings are quietish but for a land-mower in the distance. I have been sitting at the balcony door, sprawled out in the accommodative bean bag, doing nothing more strenuous than reaching for the binoculars when a bird happens into my ambit. My rules don’t permit me to haul myself out and totter up to the railing even... even if the passerine in question happens to dart below the view span.

My window of opportunity

In this desultory manner, I have spied white-headed babblers, house sparrows, bee-eaters, sunbirds, sundry LBJs, a white bellied drongo and bounding squirrels. The sparrow in particular flitted within view for several minutes, and therefore, I watched him for as long as he stayed. Shweta’s excellent binoculars allows for a 16x zoom, which is handy indeed if you can find a stable prop for the elbows.

Every now and then, I swing the lens towards a small clearing in the thicket. This is a bit like dropping your keys on a moonlit night and then looking for them only in patches where the light falls. But silly or not, this brown patch draws my attention because this was where Shweta fortuitously saw a leopard once, sauntering majestically into her binoculared field of vision.

There is a Brown Wood Owl that comes to this spot but I haven’t seen it yet. And no elephants either, this visit. But the thing that is most exciting about this perch, as, I daresay, with life, is that it teems with possibilities.

______
* The title of this post is from Ghalib's sher:
jee dhoondta hai fir wahi fursat ke raat din
baiTHe  rahain  tasavvur-e-jaanaan  kiye  hue

जी ढूंढता है फिर वही फुर्सत के रात दिन
बैठे रहें तसव्वुर ए जानां किये हुए

The heart seeks again those days and nights of restfulness,
Once more, simply sitting, contemplating the beloved

Running Wild

prairie grass
a mustang runs
with the wind
~William Cullen Jr.

That's how I've been feeling this year - like a wild thing let loose, rippling across the surface of life with the wind spurring me on. Speed, such speed. Exhilaration too. And galloping in any direction of the wind's choosing.

I wanted to say a little of the many many things I did - the travel, the singing, the genuflecting, the flying... but really, who cares! I might still, but what matter what I did, when it's all about what is. And then, about what isn't.

Making Hay

Whatever you do, do it in style. But not necessarily in one particular style.
–Sadhguru

It’s been a happening kind of a summer. My sister came home and, in a first since she left to live in an ashram at the foothills of the Velliangiri, she stayed two whole months. So many things we did... some more of the same, some new, some necessary, some just for the heck of it – and all of it was fun.

We went to the Simhastha Kumbh. We met friends, welcomed back old neighbours. We bought a TV. We watched a few movies, ate a lot of mangoes. Stock-taking of many kinds. A learning and an unlearning experience. A conscious sampling of life... so that we can let go.

She’s gone off now and the house seems a bit too quiet. It’s time for this evocative haiku by Carolyn Coit Dancy that describes the fun and purpose of this summer that went by:

creek-side rope swing
learning the art
of letting go

Watching the wind

Did I say this place was windy? Yes, I did. Let me say it again. W.I.N.D.Y.
Doors are opened with great circumspection. Some wind corridors are so gusty, I sometimes can't advance till the currents let up. I tried to hang a few clothes today on the clothesline and had to stand IN the bucket to keep it from flying away; and what a struggle it was to keep the sleeves from lashing at my face!

I was sitting on a stone bench a couple of days ago, at dusk. The gales dropped for a bit and then, as I watched, I could see the breeze approach. It reminded me of this pretty, very appropriate haiku by Brad Bennett.

watching
the wind arrive
tree by tree

That's more or less what I've been doing this month.

Winds of Change

So, I blog from a new home. After four years with Isha Foundation (at least three quarters of which my sister spent at the Isha Yoga Center at the foothills of the magnificent Velliangiris), we knew this was going to last. We applied for more permanent lodgings at the ashram and we moved in this month. I will now be able to come oftener, stay longer and not wait for an occasion to visit this blessed place. I have indulged myself by coming to stay without a return ticket booked and I can’t tell you how chuffed that makes me feel.

The Velliangiri hills are a wild place. Wild holy men, wild elephants, wild winds. And our building is quite at the edge of habitation. Our bedroom window opens eastwards, looking upon a brook, fields, wilderness, coconut groves and hills. Last fortnight, Shweta had a wild boar sniffing under the balcony, and spied a black-naped hare twice; yesterday I caught sight of a mongoose trundling along the wet mud. Lots of birds – bold white headed babblers, swifts, bee-eaters, robins, bulbuls, lapwings... and an abundance of butterflies.
And of the Grace that cascades down these mountains, I cannot speak, because it is beyond speech.

Today is the summer solstice. This season – I’m so lucky to be here at this time! – Sadhguru calls “the annual fest of the wind”. He says, “Sometimes, the winds are coming down from the mountain at 120 kms per hour. These are winds of change; we are shifting from Uttarayana to Dakshinayana. A significant change in the way the planet’s energy spheres operate. The winds are significant as a symbol of blowing away the past and beginning a fresh cycle of sadhana. Very significant for all spiritual seekers.”

And believe me, the gales are very purposeful. This is the first time I’ve actually heard wind howl, the doors and windows are being rattled constantly, we’ve lost our doormat, we've had to retrieve our dustbin from the floor below, and I’ve had to reassemble our coconut-stick broom after the winds had hacked it quite furiously. Anything that isn’t nailed down goes with the wind. It's exhilirating.


A few views:

View from the balcony

From the bedroom

Dawn breaks over our patch of the earth

Rain so dense you can't see a thing

Yogaratova...*

In his address to the United Nations, PM Modi yesterday suggested we have an International Yoga Day. The idea is still trending on twitter and I added my mite by linking to a couple of things Sadhguru has said about yoga.

(Oh, wait, why don't I link to it here? The Isha Foundation Blog has a section called Yoga and Meditation and there is super stuff there - on why yoga, the technology, the lineage, the technique, why the the nitty-gritties matter, the approach, what's wrong with the way it's approached, taught and practiced these days.... in fact, everything you wanted to know about yoga.)

I am, of course, a neo-convert to yoga and consequently rather fanatical about it. It has worked magnificently for me - the kriyas and Hatha yoga together keep me so well lubricated in body-mind-spirit, that one day without feels like I haven't bathed. But this is now.

When I was initiated in 2011, some time after, I met a close childhood friend who had been doing and teaching Hatha Yoga for years. And for all her enthusiasms, Pri hadn't infected us with the passion and now suddenly I seemed to be advocating it to HER and I think she was a bit nonplussed. We were meeting after a gap of a year or two, and she said, "I didn't realise you were this much into yoga." I told her, in a burst of candour, "I'm not into yoga, per se; I'm into this man. If he asks me to stare at my big toe, I will." That was why I went into yoga - because my Guru said it would help me, it would help him help me.

But seriously, I think it is time to bring it back. With due respect, for the right reasons, with the right attitude. Enough, I think, of sidelining of this heritage. We need to reclaim it before this knowledge disappears altogether, before the links evaporate in the harsh climate of cynicism and neglect.

PS. It is a pity to have to add a disclaimer but perhaps I should say my views are not about right-wing Hindutva. It's not a religious thing, it's not about Hindu Chauvinism. Yoga is the path this land's heritage shows us towards higher consciousness and it works for ALL human beings.


__________

*From Adi Shankara's Bhaja Govindam:
Yogaratova bhogaratova
Sangaratova sangaviheenah
Yasya brahmani ramate chittam
Nandati nandati nandatyeva
By way of yoga, or by way of bhoga, through the path of discipline or the way of pleasure, in company or without... somehow make it. It doesn’t matter how; the important thing is you get there.