I am a yoga teacher …actually I am not.

Photo Credit: Manish Doshi “Be present as you make your way”

Question: What do you do?
My answer: I am a yoga teacher.

Just that I don’t identify with that answer ever.

So what do I do?

My true answer:

I create space for people to rest their thoughts, feelings and emotions, and help them access their own clear voice that leads them to their truth and joyful living.

That is the answer that feels true to my heart. When I begin teaching a class my name, different tags of relations and society, our acquaintance if any, all that disappears. I lead you through an experience that is called yoga practice. I help you tune in with your breath, energy, body and sense of being. We take a dip in the pool of Infinite Living.

The practice helps you get clear in your mind, truly knowing and sensing what is going on within. Your time with me is a safe space to allow all that comes up in your body, mind, and emotion- no judgments. It is designed to help you be attentive and listen in.

I help you build skills to navigate through all that and listen to what your truth is and where your joy is. It is not an hour mind vacation after which you walk back into the same stress you live in. You know something about yourself or your life better than before as a result of your own attention. This happens in a group class too.

Do I continue in this relationship, or walk out? How do I find joy in my continuing relationship? Am I content with my current health status and how my doctor is addressing it? Do I quit my job, or continue? Do my food habits truly nourish me? Does parenting really have to be this difficult? How supported do I feel through these life changes and choices? What do I really want? I am worried, I have depression, anxiety, insomnia …

I facilitate these above experiences for you, as you find your own answers. We vibrate together with the joys and tears of transformation as you find your own relationship with yourself. My utmost contentment is when you need to see me less often, for our private sessions because you are now skilled at finding your clear voice and true choice. Your chronic pain has disappeared, digestion improved, or any other body issue addressed through therapeutic focus of yoga.

We are like lone kayakers in this Infinite ocean of the universe. If we are very present with the life currents, then we are skilled at the navigation. We have but this short and sweet vacation on this beautiful planet. We meet with each other, sometimes in happiness and sometimes in misery. Each one of us has our own path to carve through.

I have been blessed with teachers, with whom I continue to hone my skills. I have been blessed with students with whom I can share this powerful work, so I can pass it on just like I received it.

Teacher, student tags are just our convenience. What I do as work is create safe space for your pain, feelings, emotions – no judgment – so you feel positively empowered, inspired and supported through life and choices.

 

 

P.S. Dear wordpress friends, I apologize for my absence on your work, that are my joy to read. I will visit you soon.

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Ripples & Space

Photo : Manish Doshi, Editing : Vikram Phale

Just Being
In the body
With the mind
No turmoil
No need
No hurry
No worry
No concept
No boredom
No ecstacy
No fantasy

Just Being
In the body
With the mind
No stillness
No movement
No silence
No sound
No reality
No dream
No solitude
No relations

Just Being
In the body
With the mind
No clarity
No confusion
No plan
No action
No knowledge
No ignorance
No buoyancy
No resistance

Just Being
Space
Allowance
Contained
Content
Blank
Ripples

Just
Space
Behind the mind

Just Space

Space

 

 

Yoga – My Life & Work

What we look like

Photo Credit : Vikram Phale

All of us, what we look like
Have a story of our life
Sometimes really brave ones
And then those that we hide

When we want to change something
In what we look like
It’s actually something
That we want to change in our life …

A short reflection

The best skin you have
Is where you don’t look at it in the mirror …

With judgment.

The most affected organ you have
Is where you are not being yourself …

With ease. 

Looking through the rain

As I sit in my patio now, looking through the rain …

Rain pouring, pouring love
Earth soaking, soaking heart
Winds blowing, blowing directions
Rainlines crossing, crossing thoughts
Waterbaskets weaving, weaving emotions
Branches brushing, brushing chill
Puddles float bubbles, bubbles burst in mind
Winds stand still, stands still mind

Birds picking under tree, tree is bare
Few dry leaves hanging wet, wet desires few soaked in faith
Feel at home, home that is within me
Wide open spacious, spacious yet so full
Look through the rain more, more I get the inward pull
It keeps pouring, pouring love
Each grain of sand soaking, soaking each cell, body and soul …

Life itself or a dream …

Life is either a dream
Or this a dream come true
We talked about this, ago a decade
Comes true, milestone as we celebrate
Silent Stay Retreat though the name
Heartful conversations part of our game
Lounging under the sky and the moon
Soaking in the rain, silence of the meditation room,
Hammocks, happiness, gifts of gratitude
Expansive views, long walks on trails
Thoughts and ideas from heart set sail
Blissed and blessed
May the memories serve when stressed
Life is either a dream
Or this a dream come true.

A dear friend and I talked since long about taking time out from being busy moms, for a weekend retreat, to nourish the infinite beings in us. That dream came true to celebrate our soon approaching birthdays, not far apart 🙂 Infinite gratitude for this time to come to us, sooner than we imagined possible!

Confidence …split between Worldly & Universal

Confidence is being sure of self or free of doubt. My exploration and revelation about it has been amusing to me. In any given moment the word confidence means nothing to me. I don’t relate to it or I don’t sense it in my body. Wait, let me finish 🙂

If I were to think of times when I felt very sure of myself, they come very easily to me. The times when I am writing like this, some poetry is flowing out of me or I am with a student, my sons or friend to answer a question that I am very sure I can answer. At least I can always answer ‘I don’t know’. I am not shy of that answer at all.

Those are the times I am confident of what I am saying and what I mean. Yet confidence is not a dominant part of my body language. All I know is when I am sure of myself, I am very relaxed in my way of being. The words, actions and answers are coming through me from some place of knowing that I am unable to own. It is more that I am willing to be owned by that knowing, I have surrendered to all the Universal knowing that wants to flow through me. This always keeps working for me, as long as, I stay in this space that gives true joy in my being. That joy becomes a delight when others understand me.

The world is made of people on different gradation on the confidence scale. There are people of robust physiques and best confident body language, unable to recall the last time they felt very sure of themselves. This way of being has worked for them in the world and they have practiced it enough to feel and seem very natural. There’s people who truly embody their most genuine and very assured way of being. They inspire me.

I have spent more of my time facing myself than I have spent facing the world. I have had to reach to the core of the Universal wisdom to be able to survive some of my life moments. And I have practiced those truths enough in my way of being, to feel natural about them. I have no shred of doubt in me when they flow through me.

I can get very timid where the world setting asks for a prominent presence of visibility in the physical body. That is my learning curve to cultivate the essence and strength of knowing to become evident as a felt-sense in my being. And it is some person’s learning curve to reach to their core knowing and cultivate it, for it to merge with their well-stitched cloak of confidence. 

Where does each one of us place ourselves on the scale of confidence?
To me personally, it has 2 ends to it …Worldly & Universal. I will be working to bring them together …so I don’t feel like a split person in one body anymore …

P.S. I am sure of what I mean here, not at all sure of what it translates to you 🙂 Please enlighten me on my learning curve, either way, in agreement or in contradiction.

What we look like

All of us, what we look like
Has a story of our life
Sometimes really brave ones
And then those that we hide

When we want to change something
In what we look like
It’s actually something
That we want to change in our life …