Intervention

Day 65
Originally uploaded by Altered-Perspectives.

My blogging seems to have gone bipolar - from having nothing to write about last night to my head bursting with ideas today.

In the early hours of this morning I was being reprimanded via Skype for being up so late by my teacher Kausthub (left) who is in India. We were then discussing me and my Yoga, in fact my whole life. This all came down to something I have known and seen many times, in fact something that I have blogged about on more than a few occasions. You probably thought that all these blog entries on motivation and commitment and action were about some of my students, but in fact almost all of them are about me.

I hope what I am saying will chip away at the theory many people have that their Yoga teachers are somehow elevated above the grind of daily life, are somehow above much of the suffering that "ordinary" people go through. That they are mythical beings with flawless habits and perfect practices. Nothing could be further from the truth.

We are ordinary beings, Yoga teachers. We are imperfect and impure as the next man (or woman). We do things wrong, make mistakes, have all the vices found under the sun. At one time I took great solace from this - Kausthub told me again and again that he does not expect me to be perfect. He just wants me to be me.

I think I took it a little too far, and my acceptance lapsed into complacency. Miss a practice? Oh well I guess I am happy that I am imperfect. Not making much progress in my studies? There I go again, silly me, imperfection in all my glory. Not making much effort to go meet my teacher? Wouldn't you know it, that side of me that does things wrong is in effect again, what am I like???
I have my reasons for slipping like this, some pretty good ones. but at some level they are just excuses. I am easily distracted, particularly by the internet. What's that you say, the irony of me posting on the internet about being distracted by the internet? Okay you got me there.

Anyhoo, there eventually needs to come a point where I decide, like that quote I posted the other day, if I want this bad enough. I have talked the talk about who I want to be like as a Yoga teacher, I need to be walking the walk. I have clear ideas about how I want my life to be, but I sit dreaming of how good they would be instead of making them into reality. My reason/excuses need to meet a force so irresistable that they will crumble on impact.

They met that force last night (well, at 2am this morning to be truthful) - that force is my faith in my teacher, an element we call Shraddha in Yoga. He reflected my words back on me, and how can I not pay attention to my own advice?

So today has been interesting as I make effort to clear a path through my "to do" list and turn those dreams into action. And tomorrow, I get a chance to do that all over again. And the next day, and the next, and the next...

I guess this is the real meaning of Karma Yoga - where the Action of Yoga meets the Yoga of Action. And I get to do that for the rest of my life. It is not a task to be struggled through, it is the expression of life itself and suddenly I am so grateful at being given the opportunity to live this life. I am not trapped in some war-torn area of this planet struggling for survival.
I am not in a drought-ridden area watching my family starve to death. I am not forced to work in a dangerous mine to feed my children or working dawn to dusk until I am exhausted and capable of nothing but sleep. I live in a good home, have a great family and love my job. So it is only right that I come out of my comfort zone a little to meet these tasks, to push a little further in my evolution.

My intention is set. Yay tomorrow!