Involuntary Cleansing

Went to sleep early after a lovely little meditation at the end of yoga class on Friday’s new moon. Only to wake up at 5am feeling positively strange. Heavy, churning stomach, bowels on over-drive. Then it came. The intestinal cleanse from both ends….in other words a stomach virus. Not nice. Not nice at all. It was the first time in seven years I had to cancel a whole day’s work.

Drained of energy, I slept, sipped water and read, all day and night. Reflecting on my recent dietary misdemeanors, determined to keep it more sattvic (light and pure) upon recovery.

My reading for this day of viral induced purging was ‘Guruji’, I’d been reluctant to buy it. Not sure why, perhaps worried I’d be disappointed. However to my surprise I found it such a reassuring and inspirational read. To hear the thoughts of such long term practitioners congruent with mine. To see how different people express similar concepts, how Guruji’s teaching was imparted, received and understood differently by all, and yet fundamentally the same. To see which teachers I resonated with the most.

To relate their long experience with Guruji to my short three week stint. But I think I got it, I had a taste. It wasn’t all in my imagination. That power he had, the energy I felt in the room, the energy from him just standing next to me, assisting me, petrified as I was, with drop backs, the grandfatherly warmth and love yet with the power and discipline of a guru. Looking back at this photo, I truly am beaming. I have never beamed so much. I am still so glad I scraped together my unemployment benefit and ran off to India on a shoestring, knowing so strongly I HAD to meet this man, HAD to go to the source of this yoga. It was just enough to get the hug after dropping back and the big squeeze for this photo...awwwwww...memories.

I lost 3kg in a day, amazing what that did to my stamina. The next morning’s pratice was light as a feather and all my body seemed to want was standing poses, a little forward bending, a lot of back bending and a touch of shoulder-standing and head-standing. That was enough. So shall build it up again slowly. The interesting thing in this morning’s practice, was the knee that’s been bothering me for so long slipped nicely and totally pain free into lotus. One teacher in the book said how his knee problems were also energetically a sign of fear of taking the next step, fear of moving forward. Food for thought. Motto for the rest of the year: No Fear.