A week shy of a month and I’ve decided to go ahead and keep a journal. It has been the most bizarre 3 weeks and I figured that if the coming 92 weeks are going to be anything like it, I would like to keep a record.
I thought about if for almost a year. Life was great. I was working, travelling, experiencing and loving it and hating it at the same time. It was time for a change. I wouldn’t have known it if not for Bonny - my witty, devilishly good looking darling brother who quietly slipped away. Leaving me with a void and a presence that I had failed to see when he lived.
People say they want to do something they love. I was doing what I loved. But I wanted more. I wanted to love what I was doing too. But I didn’t know how until Bonny’s passing.
The suggestion to get certified as a yoga teacher came quite unexpectedly, just as did a chance friendship with an Italian girl who happened to be visiting Somaliland from Kenya on work. And what an extraordinary friendship that was. You could say it marked my birth, growth and death. My eagerness grew like a rogue seed which had been hiding in the earth.
I checked out courses and found one which was being offered as a prerequisite for various academic and vocational courses in Yoga. I promptly applied for the Masters in Yoga & Journalism which was due to commence August 2010. The Deputy Registrar who had been in touch with me throughout the application process was very helpful in getting the necessary documents across so that I could get my visa. Everything worked out like clockwork despite the fact that I was up North in Sri Lanka working on a small project.
And then a couple of weeks before the programme was due to commence, I was notified that the course would not be starting as scheduled as there were not enough students on roll.
Maybe it was a blessing in disguise. After all, 2 years is a long time to someone who’s starting life over. Was I ready to make that commitment? When the Deputy registrar suggested I get on the MSc programme even as late as September, I politely declined.
But now, several starts, stops, detours and several yet more starts later, I’m finally here - three weeks into the programme, sitting in my quiet, neat little room after my first meal that doesn’t threaten to make me sick. Talk about rollercoaster rides!
I’d already been here in November of last year to complete the Yoga Instructor’s Course. Of course I had no clue that I would be in for the long haul. But I enjoyed the structure, discipline and energy that I found here. And so when after a grueling month my classmates jumped on the bus that would take them out of Prashanti Kutiram with their newly issued Yoga Instructor Certificates, I waved them goodbye. I had decided to stay on for a couple more weeks, absorb the energy, read and engage in Karma Yoga. I was at peace.
I’m sure that I’m not the first traveler who decided to change her plans and linger on. But I think I may be the first one who actually did so with no plan. I didn’t even speak to anyone about what next. I just woke up every morning, assisted with the next batch of participants for the Yoga Instructors Course, attended the morning chanting and discourse and the evening bhajan, visited the library, and made friends.
It wasn’t until almost the end of my visit and Karma Yoga was looking slightly more like Karma and less like Yoga that I haphazardly decided to apply for the January intake of Masters programmes. Having attended a few discourses on the Prasna Upanishad by the resident Swami and being entranced by the peaceful and almost transcendental quality of his glass-walled class through which the trees seemed more luminous and alive than anywhere else on the campus, I was leaning towards the Masters in Yoga & Consciousness. However, I was advised that it would not be easy as I would require a working knowledge of the Devanagri script in order to study the slokas which were in Sanskrit. Moreover, the course was offered only in August. With less than 2 days to go, I handed in my application, was lucky enough to have my selection interview early and that was that.
After 3 weeks in sunny beautiful Sri Lanka with my beautiful man, coming back to Prashanti Kutiram was surreal. It was a cold and brightly sunny morning and I remember how everyone seemed to be abuzz with theories of the end that was coming in 2012 and how we could save ourselves. My first impulse was to pack up and fly off to be with my Beau. I even turned back from the cashier deciding not to pay my course fee. After all if we were all going to perish what was I doing holing myself up in an ashram away from him? Standing at the entrance to the reception I texted him and was pleasantly brought back to the real world by him sweetly common sense response saying he was in a horrid meeting and would love for a cosmic shift right then. God bless him. This was why I needed him in my life. As much as he was able to take me soaring to the heights of ecstasy, he also brought me down to earth like no one else did.
I did end up paying my fees a week later even if only for the first semester. I’m enjoying the course. I did have a little difficulty settling in but that all seems to be in the past. I think if I can just learn to complain less and not react to situations in the coming year, I would have achieved a lot. I’m already learning because every single day has been a rollercoaster ride of emotions and if I kept a daily diary I would probably come across as schizophrenic. But I’m learning to let the emotions wash over me and though the waves buffet me, I am trying to learn how to stand my ground and not be overcome by them. So I’ll journal once a month.
Started learning the Tabla. My teacher says I’m a fast learner. I enjoy the classes though I would prefer if he let me practice by myself more rather than he giving me many new lessons everytime.
This month’s breakthrough? I mustered up the courage to tell my Dad I was sorry I was not a comfort to him in his time of loss. I told him I didn’t know what to do and asked him to take care of myself. He responded thanking me for the message and saying that it had come at a particularly lonely time for him. It is slowly sinking in that Bonny is really no more and I will never be able to see him or speak to him again. It is an awful feeling. I can’t even begin to imagine what my mother and father are going through. It’s going to be a year since Bonny passed.
I’ve been seriously thinking about cutting my hair again. This time I have even found someone who I think I can depend on to do it. But finally after 2 days of planning, I just chopped it off myself with a tiny crafts scissor. It took less than 5minutes and I like the new look. Makes me feel so much lighter and younger.
My neck hurts and my shoulders feel very tense. Maybe I should consider changing my pillow
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