shavasana – sleeping on the shoulder of giants

pravin, a wide-eyed, sunshining, yogacharaya, in mysore, and one of my teachers here, at the yoga shala, emphasizes the importance of rest, of proper relaxation - shavasana. 

“resting," he says through his kind voice, "is one of the most important things you can do for your body. but it has to be proper relaxation.”

he swipes his gaze across the large studio, where most us sit up against the mustard yellow walls and listen like we were listening to our older brother give us advice on dating. pravin has the older brother vibe, although he smiles often like he is upto something, like he is a playful younger sibling who has enough energy to stir you out of movement the way only a youngin can. 

pashupati, my yoga instructor in the morning, the quiet man with an ohm that reverberates in the surrounding chamundi hills, agrees. after an hour and a half of asanas - of going through the primary series in the ashtanga yoga hierarchy - pashupati tells us to rest in shivasana, to lay like a corpse and let go of any control, to just relax. unlike the majority of our flow, from surya namskar to sethubandasana and uplutti, when pashupati offers us gentle whispery instructions to bring us into a correct form, he lays low for shavasana. he does not pretzel us into resting as he does with murkasana or garba-pindasana, when he subtly comes over, and with a few touches places you in a position you couldn't reach. instead, for 10-20 minutes, he lets the still of the shavasana bind us. 

rumi's 11th century poetry echoes in my head as i lay jumbled in thoughts, on to-do's and damn-i-forgot-to's. “die and be quiet. quietness is the surest sign you've died.”

ramesh, our adjustments teacher, who walks in with the swagger of a 1970's middle-aged italian brooklynite, lives this in his approach to us. with his head slightly up and his eyes looking down through his nose, he swishes past us, in his sleek jogging pants and top, and in a hushed godfather tone, simply says: “sun salutations”. ramesh reviews an asana that we may already feel we know, that some of us may have been doing for years, and through his eagle eyes, observes our alignment. even the best of us, are off, but even the most amateur of us are adjusted so thoroughly, that we are in shock. 

“i didn't think this was possible,” one of my peers says as she is grabbing her big toe in adhabadhapadm-pashima-paschimotoasana.  while we are wowing and speaking 30 words in praises, ramesh says three. 

rameshji lives his art, a clear meditation that he has so deepened over his 26 years of practice so much so, that he sees and knows what is possible in you. he is the meditation our meditation-guru, chandrashekar, tells us about on our sunday morning meditation sessions in the empty of the second floor of his house. “but what technique should i use, what should i be doing to get to this meditative state,” one of my peers asks, frustrated by her inability to silence her overworked mind. 

“nothing,”  chandrashekar tells her gently, urgently. “simply do nothing and observe your mind,” he says with his hands folded, behind his back, his white dhoti and shirt flowing in the breezeless room. like some of my peers i am looking for tricks, and don't fully get how to be quiet. 

“relax,”  chandrashekar tells us, his baggy eyes far away. “quietness is a place, as if you were going somewhere, a destination, someone's house perhaps. as you are walking there, you may have some distractions, you run into some people you know, get caught in traffic, stop by a store, but you know your destination and keep on towards it.”

i close my eyes and see colors turning - purple and blue and pink. i open them, after shavasana, after our morning session yesterday. hours later i am before dr. shamasundar, a giant among doctors, the head of the biomedical department in jss medical college in mysore, the lead professor of anatomy, a researcher in neurosciences, a pioneer in plastination in india, a volunteer doctor in a free-clinic in the siddhartha layout neighborhood, and our anatomy and physiology teacher in yoga. 

as we tread through the school he has been in since it's inception, dr. shams three decades of work appears in his voice, beyond glib knowledge and show. there was something calming about walking through his lab of human body parts. there was a quiet there, a shavasana, before dr. shams returned to his meditation through helping the world understand the human body. 

shavasana is the calm in the storm and after. 

yoga - beyond flags draped over skin

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yoga, the brahmcharya with the flowing pink garb quietly tells us, has no beginning, as it is life itself. me and my peers listen with ears plastered to his whispering lips, as we sit comfortably huddled in the living room where our philosophy class takes place. i drift for a second, past the brown of my face and his. 

everyday here, i get a reminder of how yoga is Harmony, is connecting with ancestors beyond borders and nation-states, beyond claims of heritage and complexions. for me, it's a good reminder, humbling to go beyond the land of my father and forefathers and ancestors – india - to move beyond planting a flag, staking a claim, beating my chest with a national/racial pride of something that is more than skin and anthems.

the brahmcharya notes the skeptical expressions of us, the westerners, when he mentions the Controller, the One our soul is in yoga with.

"but what evidence do you have?", one girl finally asks, giving rise to a slew of doubting questions and facts on the big bang and darwinian evolution.

the brahmcharya listens, places his hand over his closely cropped hair, pausing on the tail that begins on the back of the top of his head. 

“the big bang,” he begins, placing his words before us carefully, so not a single meaning can get lost in his karnataka accent, “was an explosion.” he looks at each of us for the word to detonate. 

“an explosion destroys.” he uses his combining delilcate hands to demonstrate. “if you have a bunch of uprooted trees, will it create a chair?” he gives us pause for consideration. 

“no,” he answers for us," there is a furniture-maker who makes the chair, who shapes it." the analogy leads to slight head nods, some hmms. but we aren't convinced.

who shaped you?” he asks. he notices the doubt on our faces. 

“when a rabbit is chased by a cat, at some point the rabbit stops and binds its little hands over its eyes. did the cat disappear?” brahmcharya lets his words sink. “just because you don't want to open your eyes doesn't mean the truth isn't there. the yoga you are studying is proof of this balance, this eternal harmony.”

as i listen to him, i drift again, four years back, on a mountain in ayyanthole with my teacher santosh, a soft-spoken doctor i studied ayurveda with. santosh said the same of ayurveda –" it has always been."

“how,” i asked, looking over to the surrounding hills of mango and coconut trees, “is that possible?”

“ayurveda is life, is balance,” he said. “no beginning, no end.”

i looked at the young couples on that mountain top, holding clandestine rendezvous', pointing at monsoon clouds rapidly coming together like the end of the world, and recalled the words of my chacha, decades ago.

my chacha sat indian style, in our queens, ny living room, pulled on his beard, looked through his glasses, pensive and ancient in his sun polished face and told my brothers and i the same as brahmcharya said of yoga and dr. santosh said of ayurveda. chacha told us that God, ALLAH, has no beginning or no end, was not begotten, nor was he begot.

i thought of einstein and energy and how mr. hammerstein, my fifth grade science teacher said the same of energy, quoting einstein, or newton, or one of the heavily referenced and credited european scientists. clearing his throat, and speaking through a nasally voice at our over-crowded class, mr. hammerstein said - energy is that which cannot be created nor destroyed.

the asanas of yoga allow us to let go of our attachment to the prison that encases us, to be beyond the countries and skin and features we were born into, that we did not choose.

when entangling myself in marichasana - right foot over left thigh, left knee up, right arm around left knee and hands grabbing behind back - i am counting seconds, praying the teacher-ji will say "exhale and release". but he doesn't and instead says breathe, "take a deep ujjai breath." ujjai breathing is the breadth of the ocean, i breathe and get a little deeper in this temple i occupy, grow a little further from it, as i drift deeper in the soul that brahmcharya is talking about. i reconnect with a past and future, with eras when the average life-span was 100,000, according to brahmcharya.

“this spiritual process,” the brahmcharya says pointing at the board of charts and vedic notes he has written for us to ponder, “is your purpose in life.”

yoga: yuj with Isha

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can you meet me half way? i asked banshee, back in the day, when i was a teenager, sending secret codes through the payphone to her beeper. she said yeah.

we met on steinway street, amidst bronze shorties with nefrittiti doorknockers on their ears and dudes with high fades and flattops, pants so baggy they sailed through the music of october in queens.

it was never cold when we met, even when i was underdressed in oversized white-tees and the winter wisps cast goosebumps all over the streets.

we slid into mickey dees where my fake cuzin hap, smiled gold teeth from behind the counter, and hooked us up with big macs and fries. he smirked sly dimples and snuck in some bangla props for me on scoring banshee. didn't matter if he didn't. banshee and i were over the rainbow, on the border of venus and the neighboring seven-seas solar system.

when the light was too bright, when it didn't seem like we could get much higher, banshee and i dissolved into other galaxies. love became beyond the limit of our bodies, beyond seven-seas, beyond beyond. we disappeared from each other and briefly encountered Isha.

i saw banshee a decade later, on the ave, she was married and we barely said what's up, but i still longed for that feeling, for isha, and even hummed this song my boy moin translated for me: sanu ek pa chan na we. it's a qawwal by nusrat fateh ali khan, where he laments on “not a moments rest without you.”

i first heard the song shortly after banshee and i collided, but didn't get what moin was saying, about how the lyrics were not of a lover but of the seekers desire for the Essence. I didn't get how anyone could be singing love songs to Allah, to feel restless in their love for the One. i get it now. it was where banshee and i was.

these days i've been traveling through yoga and other galaxies, listening to meditation guru's, asana geniuses and bramcharya's dropping jewels about the soul and Isha.

the jana yoga sessions with the brahmcharya has been making me long to shed the prison uniform he says we carry. shedding it, this body that we are incarcerated by, places us in yoga, in connection with Isha – the almighy Allah – the One who is revelaed in the upanishads and purana's, who is spoken of in the bhagavad gita and reminded of through the prophecy of jesus (isa) and the revelations of the prophet muhammad (pbuh).

this is yuj, the link, connection with isha. this is yoga, the brahmcharya says with beautiful intense eyes that land in your insides and vibrate through his soft voice. the shedding of this baggage, of this inmate's outfit, through asana and mantra, ahimsa and jnana. this, he says, will set u into what the ancients call samadhi - to become One with the One.

all praise is due... 

kannur's prakruti is kapha, but her vikruti is not.

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kannur has a scorching midday sun that makes you wet like molten sox that smells like doritos. it can be light on the soul in that you don't see every tenth person blind and with a beggars bowl and without limbs, rolling down the street saying a religious phrase like you do in dhaka. you are also not weighed by cool, as you may be in new york, london, pa'ree (paris), bombay, major cities. you can walk out in culture that fits you.

kannur can be overloading to the ears – took-tooks honking, trucks blasting, buses screeching, a million cars trying to edge through each other. but the arabian sea quells the voices, leaves people speaking below the surface. 

kannur has arab-money from men in gulf jobs, returning with mid-east cash for big houses. this makes kannur focused on growing bigger, better, building up and out, becoming a player in the game, but subtly, not too ostentatious, just a matter of fact, as if the growth is just as normal as the all night theyyam dhols that play from the village temples and from houses cleansing evil spirits.

kannur is rapidly drying out. water shortages. gurukal, who i went to meet with, with intentions of studying gurugulla style with, in kalari marma and medicine making, says he can no longer host students in his house, as he used to in the past. there are only drips coming from the crusty lips of the faucet. his well is drying up. the bucket that his wife drops in the well only catches handfuls of liquid, like the sparse anorexic fish the fishermen capture in their ocean-size net.

like georgia, kannur is still on porches drinking coconut water and waving hi to neighbors. but, the city center and south bazzar, the citified towns of kannur, are making kannur aspire to becoming atlanta all over. atlanta and not miami. not yet. 

kannur is still paused by the muezzin's allahuakbars, and speeding vehicles will slow their roll for an older person walking across the road. although you hardly see older people in the cities, they are content hearing the stories of their grandkids in skinny jeans sitting around and keeping busy on their smartphones. the slow of kannur has entered the middle lane, going the speed-limits set by international monetary standards.

the texture of kannur is still soft around the sea, and in the fishermans' villages, but it is hardening in the centers. development is everywhere and the streets and buildings show it. like much of india, people, stray dogs and cows share the street with vehicles and cart pullers. if you are not indian, it could be easy to sprain your ankle.

although you still feel a sense of grounded-ness in kannur, it is growing less stable for people who aren't keeping up with the market-prices. commodified-ayurveda and the institutions that are selling it like cocaine, r bringing in more tourism - foreigners moved by the sea and beach. the slow pace of kannurites are growing fast with schemes to keep with the discovery of this gold. their goldrush has manifested into resorts and ayurveda spas and schools. 

along with kannur's erraticness is her foul-smell, in parts, like chinatown at midnight, after garbage becomes heaps for rats to triumph over.

kannur has a vata/pitta aggravation. what should be the treatment for this doshic imbalance be? what would you recommend?

water – jalamahabhoota

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lightning flashed brighter than the moon it covered up last night. rain loomed like vamana in a kapha-aggravated patient, prepared with 6 glasses of milk and two fingers down her throat. thunder kept the huddle of late-night men at bay, at home, staring out their window and watching us walk by.

after saying our goodbyes to the graduates of our ayurveda program, the four of us living in kamala, the other residence for the ayurveda school, walked in silence. our group was dwindling in goodbyes, which would end for me the next day, a final goodbye to kindred spirits.

on the almost last walk along the shore of payamollah beach, we listened to the music of the ocean tell us stories about his big and strong dad. the four of us each fell in, for moments, inside the oral-tradition of the ocean. we stopped like men stirred by the dark eyes and perfumed gaze of a brown-eyed karnataka girl. we stood there and stared over miles, as far as the eye could see - purple waves.

jala (water) is one of the panachamahoboota's. unlike, prithvi (earth) you can easily thrust your hand through it. unlike agni (fire), your hand won't burn (necessarily), during/after. unlike vayu/akash (air/space), you will have physical proof of jala on your skin – drops of water. but these distinctions are subtle.

water is holy in many cultures. there are millions who gather around the ganges each year, pay homage to the river that begins as mist above the himalaya, flows down the mountain and runs it's hands through northern india.

floyd redcrow westerman (r.i.p), a hopi elder, said that before the europeans colonized america, you could drink out of any river, “because water is sacred to us.”

water has no borders that separate it. water covers 70-75 percent of the earth. water is a liquid. water runs faster than boys with candybars (mistook for guns) from the cops. water runs faster than slum dogs for that million dollar bone, faster than wallstreet stockbrokers can lip persuasion to capture million dollar deals, faster than palestinian boys with rocks hurled at israeli soldiers with the star of death and tomahawks. water runs faster than flash gordon, if it wants to.

my little homie, bear, is water. he moves on the basketball courts like liquid, runs his hand over the rim like a tidal wave, and dunks as the ocean does to surfers getting too close, off guard. bear sits still on a park bench, like a lake, has people surround him and grow quiet. he flows to redhook in the evening and streams back to willyburgh when its time, when the moon calls.

my amma is a river, she is our holy water, holds my brothers n poppa n i together, even as we circle the city again and again, like dolphins in a bp oil-slicked ocean. she caresses our wounds, keeps her arms open, no matter how far we go away, no matter how many jobs let us go, no matter how often we quit and lay on the couch and encase ourselves in the aquarium of television and text-messages and internet. she keeps my poppa, brothers and i together like rivers bind ecosystems.

the medicine of mantras

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today i will receive a diploma for the panchakarma diploma course i have completed. today i will receive a piece of paper that will say i have completed x number of hours doing x number of things. today is another steamer, 35 degrees celsius, baked men driving buses, rickshaws n trucks will skillyfully honk n drive three lanes in a one lane, going back and forth, to and fro.

today is day trillion cubed in ayurveda. today, bombs somewhere. today the bombed will be on the news, for being savages with beards and guttural tongues. today my mama n my papa will wonder about we. today is ubuntu.

today is a wedding of a 20 year old girl down the block that the 30 year old childless/husband-less western women staying here will comment on, say how oppressed the women here are. today they will meet, run into each other, mutually curious behind kajol and language and permanently change each others lives and mine. today everything is everything.

today, after the graduation, as matthew waited for a took-took that would take him away to a train to bangalore, and as we stood around, saying goodbye and watching him pace, radha, lulu and i talked about the grades we received and whether it was fair. the conversation became cigarette smoke. a funeral processcion took over the street. a group of muslim men, young and old, walked with a coffin on their shoulder. the coffin was held steady by sticks of bamboo. the men, focused beyond our presence, seemed to look inward with their long eyes. the mantra that glided them, that gave meaning to the qaugmire of a life no longer being, that weaved me into their pause, was: la illaha illala, la illaha illala, la illaha illa.

there is no god but god.

today i chanted coldplay: we live in a beautiful world, yeah we do, yeah we do. it was my mantra, a frequency to tune into the vibration of meaning, when meaning slips from under your feet like the floors of turn of the century houses.

mantras are a road in. they can tune us into essence, into being so tuned in, we become the music. mantras are said during shivarati in temples in the south, are caroled beyond christmas on rosary beads, are repeated 99 times on muslim prayer beads hidden from view and whispering each of the traits of the magnificent.

ayurveda dreaming in a vata world

matthew and i sit eating curry and rice in the a.m, before the breakfast sun, which seeps through the harmonics of crows and banana leaves. we talk monsoon season and ayurvedic treatments. monsoon is the peak time of ayurveda, matthew says, the teachers here say, the kalari guru and his longtime disciple, who i met with yesterday, say.

after breakfast, matthew slices a mango and hands it to me, hands me a card and an invitation to visit him anytime i want, in bangalore, where he dreams of continuing the legacy of his grandfather, a kalari master. the tradition was lost with urbanized pushes to get real work, jobs that made sense for the modern frequency of rent and mortgage.

i dreamt too. last night. saw my little homie drugged and laughing, his yankee cap low, his dry and cracked hands out for handouts. went back, with my dude, to the alley hallway, where him and his friends used to play dice at; now they scratch themselves and wonder what today's treatment in the hospital will be. they are being treated for addiction. they are permanently there, stuck like a needle on the sacrum of a crackhead.

i wonder what happened to him, when it happened. did it happen when i was away, in india? was it just waiting to happen like a birthday? but i know. i knew it was coming like 2012, was sure of it, more sure than muslims and christians on the return of the mahdi – jesus.

i said nothing, watched the lines of vata scarring his twenty-something face, the deposits of kapha on the necks and throats of his friends, who questioned me being there, in that hall that stank of institution. they questioned my down-ness, wanted me to participate in the next hit to help them deal with the left lane of living – of becoming mid-twenties and moving so fast that they never moved an inch – a cyclone standing in place. but it was true, i wasn't down and i'd given up on being a star before drugs could swallow me.

left my little brother-homie, left that smile on his face. the once pitta shine in his eyes had become a vata dull, like the clouds sagging over the dry and brittle, high-on-speed-vata city. pigeons hovered like death. walked the quick strides of a vata imbalance, like i was going somewhere, knew i was running away from what he was, what i could be.

strange, but our meeting was medicine for both of us. i love him, i thought, on my walk into my ex, who was doped out and wearing staten island like a shawl of empty pepsi cans. she was truth, that's what i used to call her back then, after exhaling yellow scud in the park swings.

truth was almost as i remembered her: sattvic giggling like spirits were tickling her high, like only a gorgeous crazy woman could. we chilled under the verazano bridge, leaning on the rail looking onto the green river with bubbles from the landfill below. she was just laughing, saying spells. l hardly listened, which was odd. i usually hung on her words like she was a jyotish with the gospel of hassan n ali. not now. i was too busy wondering if being cracked out was destiny, if all of us in the city that breathes chemical breaths are fried and destined for collapse. i kept it pushing.

a little bit broken, i woke up, away from the suicidal carousal that my loved ones were riding on into an asphalt earth, stiff and cracking like a severe vata aggravation.