Bit by bit

I love Sundays here. Just like in NY, there’s a luxuriously leisurely pace to everything I do (ie just short from comatose, being that stuff gets done pretty slowly here as it is), with everyone starting together for 5am Primary Series practice (led by Sharath), then a chance to watch the big boys and girls play as they go about Intermediate Series (led by Guruji). Home for a freshen- and tidy-upper, then off to the organic market at the Green Hotel, which is like the NY Stock Exchange with a bell that is rung with pomp right at 10 and a crowd eagerly awaiting to start buying from the vendor of choice. It is hectic, again by Mysore standards, with Indian ladies polyphonously directing their servants at one booth as they haggle at another, and yoga students not-aggressively poised to pounce on stall of choice. Usually buy my wholegrain bread and crunchy peanut butter from the Western lady who’s been here for my lifetime and run for the cover of the patio, where full breakfast is served and I enjoy a mammoth fruit platter of bananas and papaya and apple and tangerines and pineapple with small bucket of curd.

In the afternoon, we have conference with Guruji, which is a formalized weekly version of back when he used to sit at the old shala and read the paper and yogastudents would go and sit with him and sometimes ask questions. Now we all get together and see each other in non-sweaty clothing and catch up and sit around the low stage where Guruji’s chair is, Sharath seated to one side. Guruji waits for questions and usually speaks on one or two topics that invariably lead him to at some point include “you take practice, practice, practice…”. The neighborhood noise and his unique command on English ensure that one can get every other word, but since he tends to speak on some of the same subjects, between a few sessions you end up with a more or less complete picture. Today he spoke a little of the three gunas and ended with “99% and a half practice, only half percent theory”, ending with “you take practice, practice, practice”… It feels sweet and special, having the chance to be here and hear him speak and see him smile and say to him, “Thank you, Guruji”. And, “Thank you, Sharath”. Thank you.