A whirlwind couple of days...

Raoul's mother had a stroke and so he returned to Toronto. It all happened so quickly there hasn't been time to even write about our last adventure together--at last we made the Jain temple. And by the way, the Jains are Buddhists. Kind of. This fellow memorialized at this most holy Jain site, Bahubali (Gomateshvara), was the first person (say the Jains) to have attained enlightenment. As you can see conveniently from the photo of his statue below, was so deep in meditation that vines grew over his legs. I'd tell you more but that's what's keeping me from posting to begin with, this is not at all what's on my mind and I just can't be bothered. As you can see the statue is massive. It was carved in 981. And there are a billion different legends about it, just like every other story in India. This is one of the things I love about India, the lack of need for a precise explanation. The innate understanding that life is as series of impressions that's never "accurate" or "fixed."
What is on my mind is why did I come to Mysore in the fist place? Many people I know and trust had advised had told me enough about it that it seemed likely I wouldn't much care for it, but I wanted to see for myself. So often when a thing gets popular, people disparage it for the sake of disparaging it. Like Paul Auster. But I digress. This is the epicenter of Astanga yoga, the practice that made me fall in love with yoga. I wanted to pay homage to that, and I have to say Sharath and Saraswati are extraordinary teachers. Nonetheless it's unlikely I'd come here again. The first day Sharrath stopped me at Maricaasana D because I didn't bind on one side. And here I was worried about remembering the sequence of second series postures. Since then he's let me complete the whole first series, but I haven't even bothered attempting second. Though I want to. I catch myself looking at other people and thinking, I can do that. Better! You're just forcing yourself to get into that pose. What crap alignment. But then I'm as guilty as the rest, straining and pushing to get through the whole of the series. And since I didn't breathe properly, I'm too exhausted to even get into a backbend adequately, which is crazy because this is why I've taken so to the Jivamukti style -- its emphasis on backbending.

Interestingly, the straight-leg jump-through is not at all important. Man did I waste a lot of energy my first week. Given that up for sure. Altogether this means I'm less active than back home, so I'm taking classes.

Sanskrit. Chanting. And I was taking a yoga sutra class, which was great. The teacher was going through the sutras word by word and defining the words, which brought Pantanjali's yogic code to life in a way the flowery interpretive stuff you usually see (or I've seen anyway) does not. Ironically, as we study the spiritual laws, the other woman in the class and I, are hating each other. She wants to have longer classes but I have class afterward, so she feels she's missing out because of my schedule (though an hour and a half of going word by word through the sutras seems like a maximum class length anyway). I find her pushy and resent that she shows up late or not at all. Mysteriously she asks him to go over extra sutras one day after I left for class, and even more mysteriously, he does. I've asked him to end the class at the agreed upon time. When I ask the teacher to teach me the sutras she is not pleased. She says she wants to stay late every day and get extra sutras, then show up late the next day. I have no idea where she's coming from with this plan or what the outcome is since once again I have to leave for my other class. I show up today only to learn the teacher has cancelled the rest of our classes. Somehow she already knows this and isn't even there, which all strikes me as very very sad. But for two things. The timing sucked for me too, and now I don't have to deal with her weird energy. And I can study with Lakshmeesh!

Yes, the beautiful man who teaches Sanskrit and chanting at the shala is doing a sutra class and I'm hoping he'll let me join though I can only make two more of his classes. I can't believe it but already it's almost time. First I'm heading to Bangalore to connect with some old friends , then I'm taking another vipassana meditation. No talking, no writing, or reading for three days. Sadly this also means giving up the computer I've had to rent--my Mac died here and I've been hacking away on a rented PC.

Raoul, my prayers are with you.