Last weekend, I drove 800 Kms for nothing. This is hard to explain to myself. It is harder still to write about it. It's been a week since September 23rd. That time of the year in the Isha Calendar when a kind of gathering happens around the Master. It is called Lap of the Master. I wanted to participate in it. At least I thought as much. So somewhat mechanically I made plans to reach in time and participate. However on the morning of the event, I found myself waking up in my ashram cottage and unable to find a reason to go to the event. I really don't know what was behind this sudden onset of Tamas . Almost as if to justify my unwillingness to get up, my mind is trying say that it is because of the crowd etc. But for whatever reason, I felt like not going to the event. I rather be curled up in my bed and read what I was reading. Over the next few hours, I felt a gnawing sense of disconnect and disconcert. This lead me to search for a word of what I was going through. I think t
Every day, priests minutely examine the Law And endlessly chant complicated sutras. Before doing that, though, they should learn How to read the love letters sent by the wind and rain, the snow and moon. ~ Ikkyu (Ikkyu and the Crazy Cloud Anthology, trans. by Sonya Arutzen) I remember an incident. Once I was chatting randomly with a bunch of volunteers and Isha bramacharies. This was a time when i was living in Isha yoga center. All the swamis were mentioning about their pet peeves (or their own weird limitations). One of the Maas mentioned that her biggest issue was using public toilets so much so that she was mortified to travel to North India mainly because she will be forced to use public toilets in the Indian trains. I remember it because at that time I felt it was endearing that Maa was being so honest about herself. But I also felt that it was quite silly. She was a notorious Maa known to be very strict and punctilious about many things. And grown men used to be scared of this