Adventures in India: Action, Reflection, Surrender by Rosie Richardson

Listen, O drop, give yourself up without regret,
And in exchange gain the Ocean.

Listen, O drop, bestow upon yourself this honor,
And in the arms of the Sea be secure.

Who indeed should be so fortunate?
An ocean wooing a drop!

In God’s name, in God’s name, sell and buy at once!
Give a drop, and take this Sea full of pearls!

- Rumi

In posts from previous visits, I mused about the experience of being here since Guruji’s passing. No doubt, those who have visited Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute (RIMYI) many times over the decades might wonder what is it like here without Geetaji? Colored by past experience, hopes, concerns and expectations, the tendency is to analyze and evaluate, to compare, and contrast.

Prashant Iyengar, in his inimitable and colorful style, quickly brought us to the task of undoing that tendency and relinquishing those expectations of what our experience will or should be. He reminded us that, as the earth hurtles around the sun at 67,000 mph, and our solar system at 514,000 mph, how can we ever be in the same place in space and time. Yes, the building is here. Yes, the familiar faces and spaces are here. Yes, the same “reminders” of protocols and safety and etiquette are here. But we and they and each moment are not ever the same.

Woven artfully throughout many teachers’ classes this week are similar messages inducing us to see the asana not as something to DO, but as a means to cultivate the skill of being aware on deeper and deeper levels.

Action and Reflection.

Prashant’s metaphors and stories challenge us to explore and rethink WHAT is yoga…how to be interested, for example, in whether body, mind, or breath is the Benefactor or the Beneficiary of an asana; OR to consider Our condition in doing a pose, rather than doing the pose “As Conditioned”. OR what happens when we do an asana with awareness on the jñanendriyas, the organs of perception. “Take dog pose with upper eyelid awareness”, he called out at one point…sensitivity and discrimination.

Action and Reflection.

Geetaji’s sister, Sunita, continued the thread in the Saturday women’s class. Her compassionate and emotional questioning of the WHY of our practices uncovered how fear of pain holds us back from the exploration. By teaching us examples of how Guruji illuminated the pain of others through his own practice to help those with knee and hip problems, we learned to undo and break through old habits through similar explorations.

Action and Reflection.

Abhijata’s precise and in-depth exploration of the hip joint as the root of the action further illuminated the HOW of standing poses and greatly enhanced strength and steadiness in balance and stability in inversion variations. In another class, the effort was in finding out HOW to bring more freedom to the knees to be able sit for meditation in Virasana without a restless mind.

Action and Reflection.

Ultimately, like Rumi’s little drop, we hope we can learn to let go, to surrender to the vastness of the ocean of knowledge awaiting us in this practice.

We indeed are so fortunate!

Originally published on Rosie's blog, RMR Does India, on November 12, 2019.