Every moment, unfathomable, all the while bubbling with bizarre, strange spasmodic and unpredictable activities-this is mind.
Prashant S. Iyengar, Discourses on Yog

Prashant

When I was in India just a few months ago for July, I gained a new appreciation for Prashant, Mr. Iyengar's son.

Prashant demands that we ask ourselves deep questions that have no definite answer.
I left his classes with more questions and a sense of vast openness. A sense that nothing and everything were available to me simultaneously if I only allowed my mind, allowed my normal outlook, what I everyday think of as 'me',  to fall away. As soon as I found myself saying"I do it this way", or "that's not how I do this", I was going down the wrong road of self- definition, further and further from the vast expanse of divinity and freedom.
For what are we but slaves to our own frustrations, irritations and spells of impatience? We hold fast to our whims for new boots, fur ponchos and constantly seek a sense of final satisfaction. We lie to ourselves to make ourselves feel like we are intelligent and justified in our daily nonsense, but really we feel no real sense of completion. Instead, there is more loss, more emptiness, and we start out anew, looking toward some other object of desire, be it material or emotional to keep our ego pleased.

One class in particular has continued to have the most impact on me.

Prashant was asking us if we were 'correcting our pose' or if we 'made a correction' to the pose. He asked us to find out if we were in a state of constant correcting or if we felt like a correction had been made. "Are you doing or are you done?'

The entire class moved along with these questions being thrown out at us over and over again. When do you feel "done', what is "done"?

"How do you define done?"
"How do you decide it is correct?"

What is a correct pose?
What does it mean to be doing a pose 'correctly'?
To a certain extent there exists a level of incorrectness. Certainly, if the shoulders roll forward in Tadasana, that's an incorrect action. Depending on the shoulders, depending on the physical vessel, there may be a sway toward correctness or incorrectness. Does the state depend more on effort? What if the effort is great, but mis-directed?
Is there an absolute correct and incorrect?
I tend to think it has to vary from person to person, body to body. What our ego and our mind tells us cannot always be reliable. Sometimes our body speaks Greek, while we, for whatever reason, translate it as Spanish. Then we meet a teacher who understands Greek, informs us of our ignorance, and we either accept or reject the notions.

"The absolutes of right and wrong can never be absolute, because they are alive. Truth is worth caring about because it gives meaning to our lives, but we must watch for the high moral ground and use non-violence as a tool for connectivity and appreciation instead of divisiveness or puritanical authority."
from Yoga for a World Out of Balance by Michael Stone

Prashant would conduct an entire class without giving one instruction about a leg, a muscle or the spine. We were never told to straighten anything or tuck the tailbone. He expects that you are already in a place in your practice where you are aware of the basic doings and undoings, as well as your own shortcomings. I found it refreshing to discover that years of physical practice have finally begun to manifest somewhere beyond the physical, muscular realm for me. I was able to maintain the basics of the pose and still explore the breath, the state of mind, the concept of correct and incorrect.

I've decided to stop looking for the correct pose. Perhaps the correct pose is simply just another object of desire, when attained, we give ourselves an imaginary trophy on our mental award shelf.  Can I just practice,  uninterrupted, devoted to improving, devoted to evolving, without the trophy? I hope so.

The undisciplined man is attached to the fruits of his action and is in bondage to the desire that causes them. But the disciplined man abandons the fruits of his actions and thereby attains abiding peace.


For the delights that arise from external objects are really wombs of misery. They have a beginning and an end, Arjuna. A wise man takes no pleasure in them.
from The Bhagavad Gita translated by George Thompson


We should not be treating asana like an external object of desire to be attained and displayed. Asana is our laboratory, where our fears, frustrations and weaknesses are laid out before us to re-formulate.

The folks in India are either frightened or fascinated by all the tattoos on my skin. The ones who are frightened look away, have trouble making eye contact and are clearly disapproving.

Now, the folks who are fascinated and interested come straight at me smiling with their arms reaching out to touch me. They rub my arms, pull my hands up in the air and ask question after question. If they have a cellphone or camera, a photo is a must.

I will never forget a lady from my first trip in 2009.

"No wash?' she asked, meaning, they won't wash off.
"No wash." I confirmed.
She laughed, I laughed.
"Well", she said, "I hope you like them!"

One of the many, many tan colored street dogs.

Exorcising demons.

Fungal Adventures

So, I've been kind of sick lately.

I've learned that sickness has an effect on practice.

I've learned that practice has an effect on sickness.

I was unfortunate enough to contract a fungal infection. There are a vast array of unpleasant details that fall under the broad description of "fungal infection".  If you're reading this, it means that I probably know you and like you, so I will spare the gory details.

Unfortunately, I have dealt with this wide spread fungal panic before, more times that I care to remember. Months of diet  and life alteration ensue, sometimes to no positive end.

Is it that my entire body has become completely absorbed with this overgrown fungus? Has it truly embedded itself into my organs, causing me to become sick, depressed and exhausted?

Or is the infection more localized to a single area, with such a unique and hardy strain that whatever tries to kill it, only makes it stronger?

Or, am I so miserable that I am perpetuating this condition with my negativity?

Or, am I simply completely insane, to the point that this entire experience is my imagination, not a true reality at all?

What is true reality anyway?

All of the above?

In 15 days, I shed 10 pounds.

Feeling desperate, I took the counsel of my doctor. Her regimen includes a very controlled diet, where a small selection of foods combine in certain ways. The next part of this regimen includes a long usage of a heavy duty anti-fungal pharmaceutical.  I took a loading dose of the drug 4 days in a row, then follow that up with a smaller dose every 10 days to kill off any straggling fungi.

A day or so after the loading dose was over, I felt like complete crap. I felt so horrible that I didn't eat a speck of food for 2 whole days and starting writing a last will and testament. The drug kicked my ass.
The last time I felt like I was truly dying was almost 20 years ago. I had a second round of inhalation poisoning from paint fumes. When I felt like death was at hand, I put on my favorite album (at that time, it was  Led Zeppelin) and laid down in the dark. This time, I was a little disappointed with the whole death scenario, because my headache was so bad, that I did not even want to die to my favorite song, I just wanted it all to end.

So, I wrote a will, laid down in the dark, with no music and went to sleep. I didn't die. I woke up feeling a little better, and repeated this routine for a few days.
Now I am walking around feeling better, but weird. Has the medication I'm taking caused me to feel so different? Is there a loss of fungus? Did my body adopt the fungus, consider it a loved, integral part to the point that learning to exist without it would make me feel this odd?

My practice has become different. New sensations stream through my limbs as I do the asanas. Aches and pains as well as positive opening, expansive feelings come upon me in places and poses like never before. What was once stabilizing is now disturbing. It's kind of exciting. I always say that the body is a product of nature, and I am intrigued to be presently experiencing that. I am exorcising demons.
The inversions have become more difficult. I am sequencing poses together differently. They feel different. They start differently, they end differently, but it's all good. If I resist the change, it will only become more painful.

Here's Chris O'Brien and our friend Kara from Montreal with Granni.

This is Granni, the elephant (obviously). This photo was taken on my second encounter with her. When I first got this close to her, honestly, she scared the crap out of me. She's big.
The smiling Indian dude who strolled along beside her encouraged me to pet her. "Really?"
He laughed, bobbled his head from side to side and said, "Oh, yes, yes!"
So, as you can see from the photo, I touched her. When I have told people this story, they asked me if she had scratchy skin, they asked me if afterwards my hand might have smelled like an elephant.
Oddly, I didn't notice any of those external factors.
As corny as this may sound, as soon as my hand touched Granni, a wave of love passed through my arm into me. To me, she had the most beautiful eyes that reflected the gentle soul within. I did not want to ever remove my hand from her.
I have only traveled and stayed in India twice. But both times I have noticed how as my days there pass,  my affection for the place deepens. What at first seems filthy and unorganized, becomes lived in and well-worn.
After I reluctantly took my hand off of Granni and walked home, I started hatching schemes in my mind.
Surely, I should skip class at the Institute  tomorrow so that I might find this elephant again. After all, what's wrong with spending my day wandering the streets of Pune with an elephant?

I decided to leave the memory the sweet one that it is.