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.
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