Change–Musings on My Trip to India
“Everything changes, and nothing remains still; you cannot step twice into the same stream”
I remember as a child, even though I was constantly growing and changing, I expected the world around me to stay the same. It was during my freshman year of college that I truly realized that the world I was living in was vastly different from the world I grew up in, in a tiny town where nothing seemed to change.
When I visited India this past fall to the birthplace of Ashtanga yoga, I was actually surprised by how much the city of Mysore had changed.
As I made my way through customs, I immediately noticed the airport in Bangalore, or now known by the Indian name Bengaluru, looked totally different. My driver nonchalantly explained that the airport had a new terminal, not yet built when I had last come to India. I had traveled to India for four years in a row and thought I knew what to expect and then Covid happened. My work at the hospital somehow tripled, children were graduating and seemed to need more support, and six years had passed.
The signs along the highway from the airport all read Mysuru–a name change from the British name of Mysore that the Indian government approved in 2014, but one that was not as widespread the last time I had visited India.
I asked a friend who lives now in the US but who grew up in Mysuru in the 1950’s and 60’s, what he thought of the name change. He said he knew the city as Mysore. He couldn’t call his city Mysuru.
What was different about Mysuru?
Well, Covid had an impact. Many shops and restaurants I had frequented had closed or moved. Other shops and restaurants had opened. There was less open space. Actually, one thing that was striking was how many restaurants serving foods from other regions of India had popped up. Southern Indian food is different from other parts of India. But now you can eat at restaurants featuring foods from Punjab, Gujarat, Kashmir, Bengal, Goa and so on. There were more pizza places. More Chinese food. I preferred the more traditional thali, dosa, sambar and idli.
I was in India for Mysuru Dashara, a 10 day festival starting with Navaratri and ending on the 10th day with Vijayadashami.
This festival celebrates the triumph of the Goddess Chamundeshwara (Durga) over the demon Mahishasura or the triumph of good over evil. The city was festooned with lights. Indians from all over the country had poured into the city to see the elephant procession and visit the brilliantly lit Mysore Palace. I went to the Palace with a student named Aditya who takes my Feldenkrais class online from Ahmedabad in Gujarat. He had traveled down to Mysore to see me in person, along with his mother Shveta. The traffic and sheer volume of people was astounding, and the tuk tuk ride to the Palace was maybe a little more crazy than previous trips to India though somehow I felt very safe as we careened down bumpy alleyways to avoid honking cars.
What was different about Gokulam–the part of Mysuru where most Ashtanga practitioners stay when they visit Mysuru?
There were actually few foreigners. Sharath had moved on. While I always practiced with his mother Saraswathi, the atmosphere was different. I met only a couple people from the United States. There were Europeans and East Asians, as always. But the group was smaller. There were more Indians practicing in the room which was nice to see. Only a few people gathered at the coconut truck outside the shala where the vendor hacked off the top of a coconut with a machete and popped a straw in from which to drink.
In Saraswathi’s shala, there was now a lovely large portrait of Sharath hanging on the ancestral wall of photos next to a painting of his grandfather. When I arrived, the paintings and photos were adorned with garlands of flowers.
However, when my friend Lakshmi had to return to Chennai to care for her husband who had caught typhoid fever, no one else seemed to buy the garlands. I had never purchased flowers so wasn’t sure what to do. I later stopped at a flower vendor down the street with my friend Sat Inder who bought them for a temple we were visiting and of course, buying the garlands was super simple. But somehow no one was doing it. Sat Inder, who is originally from the Midwest, but has been living in India for over 10 years, told me old students used to teach new students the ins and outs. How to register, how to line up, how to buy flowers.
Now people just look online and the traditions are lost.
I fortunately did have a friend explain all these things before I went the first time. She even made me meticulous maps showing where to live, where to eat, where to catch the bus, where to shop. They are now obsolete.
How people dressed seemed different. The women who sold the flowers in the carts along the roads and who did housecleaning wore sarees. Most younger women wore jeans and blouses. In the city most men had on jeans and long sleeve button down shirts. Traveling outside the city, I would see men wearing panche or dhotis as they walked along the dusty roads in leather sandals.
The first time I went to India, it was well known that tourists should respect the culture and cover their arms. No yoga clothes walking around. However, on this trip people seemed less concerned about covering themselves and they did not stand out.
I was definitely a different person this trip to India. I was there on a mission. A mission to have time to do all the things I don’t have time to do at home because my work, whether as a surgeon or yoga/Feldenkrais teacher, fills every waking minute. I needed time to think. I stayed more to myself, avoiding the group at the coconut stand and going for walks in the evening to shop when the sun was setting and it was cooler. I did visit some temples and made a trip to Kerala with Aditya and Shveta to explore the traditional Indian martial art Kalaripayattu found only in southwestern India.
When people go to India to practice yoga, it is generally a time for people to focus on their own practice without other demands on their time. There are people who work remotely from India and people developing new careers like the woman I met who was organizing yoga retreats for artists and musicians.
However, it is the yoga that takes precedence.
There are opportunities to study Sanskrit and Hindu philosophy, learn chanting and how to do pooja, visit temples and seemingly develop a more spiritual life.
My middle daughter who accompanied me to India on previous trips had once commented that the spiritual is everywhere in India, interwoven into daily life. The veil between the spiritual and mundane is transparent.
When I was in Kerala visiting Athma Kalari to learn more about this martial art form, the leader Vindas Gurukkal commented that through practices like Kalari that connect the physical and mental, the spiritual happens naturally. This is certainly true about yoga. We prepare the mind and the body to connect to the energy that flows through everything. The spiritual happens naturally.
On this trip, I realized that practicing yoga is not what makes me spiritual. Through yoga and connecting to my body and to my mind, I discovered what being spiritual means to me. For me, being of service to others is key.
Helping people reach their full potential in all aspects of life has been and continues to be my life’s work. This can be supporting my kids and husband. This can be having a conversation with a patient, beyond whatever medical advice I give. It can be through replacing a hip or knee. It can be through teaching yoga or Feldenkrais.
Yoga is not what makes me spiritual. Practicing yoga helps me do my life’s work. And that is spiritual.
As the world changes around me, and I change with it, helping others remains the primary focus of my life. Yoga helps me be the spiritual person I am.
People often ask how Ashtangis can practice the same practice every day. And those who practice Ashtanga know each practice is different. The constant of the practice helps the Ashtangi notice the differences.
Practicing yoga is the constant that brings me back to myself, helps me stay constant in my intention to do good in the world. Practicing yoga doesn’t make me spiritual. It allows me to hold onto my spirit and let my life unfold from there.
I invite you to do the same.
