Silence, caves, and starnge people (Megan)

Well, I just arrived back to America last night after a lovely trip in India. Let me tell you a little about it. After leaving Trimbuk, Lucia and I took the bus through some of the back villages and had an experience with the rural villagers who wear huge nose rings and pile together on the bus in a hectic and wild mix of cigaret smoke and school uniforms. I was still drinking 6L of water a day for my kidney stone and ended up pleading with the driver to pull over a few hours in and peeing on the side of the road in true Indian fashion. We arrived to the Igatpuri Vipassana ashram to experience the pain and excitation of 10 days of silence. It was...well, it was everything you might think it would be, just times 2 million. Staying silent (okay...almost silent...I discovered a toilet paper note on my door from Luicia about one week into the course...what a relief to discover she too had felt more physical pain than enlightenment...haha). But keeping silence is actually not so difficult, it is sitting in exactly ONE position for 10 and a half hours per day that is the real test. There were only about 10 Western people there and it was really quite interesting to really live with the Indian women and observe all of their habits. Funny how you become a good observer when your only activity is meditating. The ideas put forward in the course were really great and i can definitely say that we both felt very light and balanced at the end. This is good, considering that 5 minutes after leaving the course I was nearly smacked in the face by a dead body being carried by in the train station. So, it was off to the Ajunta and Ellora caves, where Lucia and I met a very interesting New Yorker turned Indian villager who. despite his desperate attempt to be unique, actually had some great insight into the daily lives of the people in the area and gave us a faux-tour of the caves, which he has been walking daily for many months now. From here, I left Lucia to head south and went to Goa. Can't say much for the beach I went to in Goa...I think Goa is better left for summer season. I was soon ready to leave and painstakingly made my way to the train station only to discover that the ticket (which I had paid 2x the price for in order to get a confirmed seat) had accidentally been booked for the previous day. Let's just say, I spent the remainder of the night and day being awaken to move to this car or that car in an attempt not to be kicked off the train in the middle of nowhere India. I soon found myself desiring ashram life once again and headed way down south to the Sivananda ashram in Trivandrum, Kerala. After talking to one lady there I came to find out that Little miss Giusy had been there just before me...so sorry to have missed her! The ashram there is gorgeous...a huge open yoga hall, beautiful gardens with a lake (watch for crocodiles) and tigers roaring just on the other side. Met such amazing people there and experienced a much more Hindu-centered way of ashram life. Interesting to see the different variations of the yogic lifestyle. Before I knew it I was back in Mumbai and amazed by how different the big city is in India. Daily activities changed from hiking, yoga, meditation, hand-washing laundry, and jewelry making to shopping, watching movies, and shopping again. Tried some new and exciting food, including one sweet which is wrapped in a leaf and spit out before swallowing. Now I am back in America for the next two weeks and stunned all over again about the magnitude of objects people store in their giant houses here. It is hectic and crazy and soft and clean and stressful and overwhelming and different. It seems so normal and at the same time, everything I experience seems to be the complete opposite of the lifestyle I have been leading. I am anxiously awaiting my trip to Costa, where I will live in the jungle with a close friend of mine and then begin teaching yoga on a permaculture farm in near Puerto Viejo. I am so excited for this and excited to experience yet another aspect of yog life. I have realized how much there is to learn on this path and I am so grateful to have taken my teacher training course with such and diverse and interesting group of people. Above all I am just trying to stay balanced and take it all in.

Yoga Vidya Dham Website (Megan)

Check out the blog that my friend Andy has made about his time on the Ashram...there are pictures of everyone who I am taking the course with and great stories. Click flickr button to see pics:
http://www.bombast.org/omshantih/

Life on the Ashram (Megan)

Slipped out of the habit of writing posts as you can see. Since Jordan has given all of you such wonderful information about our time in Pai (and because I have a very limited internet time and I still have that little task of planning my next step to take care of) I will just stick to describing a little bit about the yoga teacher training course that I have been attending for the past month. I have essentially been doing yoga, talking about yoga, writing about yoga, and thinking about yoga most hours of every day of the past month. We wake around 5:00 am every morning for tea, chanting, mantras and two hours of yoga practice. Next, we have breakfast (the food is more healthy than you could even imagine) and then receive two lectures from our Guru, Ayuverdic doctors, experienced yogis, etc. Learning about the history of Hatha yoga and the extent to which it is integrated into this society has been truly amazing. Afternoons are spent doing karma yoga, which involves some type of service to the community. We are located in the middle of amazing green hills and rice fields, so when we have time off I am either hiking or visiting the small village nearby to investigate life outside of the ashram and heed to the insistent pleas of the local children to take their picture and show it to them on the digital camera. Late afternoon we have two more hours of yoga practice (that means more sun salutations than you would ever think possible in one day) and dinner…curry, rice, chipattis, vegetables, pomegranate salad…followed by discussions about the day/dancing/signing/storytelling/or in some cases fighting over what has happened between the crew that day. We have one day off per week, which usually involves catching a taxi to the local temples, caves, hikes, or the city (to sneak some chocolate and local fruits). This is a much needed day with all of the information we take in everyday. The environment has worked to create a HUGE spectrum of emotional experiences and has been quite a social experiment in many ways. Each person in the group has had some sort of medical issue or another and we are all in such extreme and close living space that we inevitably know each and every bodily mishap that has occurred among the other people. For me it has been a sinus infection and a kidney stone….yikes. This has surely been one of the most spiritual and self-realized parts of my journey and I can really appreciate Hatha Yoga in an entirely new way. It has changed my perception, my habits, and my mentality immensely. I have had the pleasure of relating to people from all over the world who share common interests and who have taught me so much in this time. I am nearly finished with the course and will be heading to another ashram nearby Nasik with another girl from my yoga course, where we will be attending a 10-day silent meditation course….That’s right, 10 days of absolutely no talking, eye-contact, reading, listening to music, or even gesturing to another person. You can expect quite an interesting report on that one when I am finished. Eventually hoping to meet back up with Jordan in Costa Rica for a yoga position down there, but things in my life are resisting any planning ahead at the moment, so I am just going to try and follow the path and see where it takes me…

Dear Sandot (Jordan)

This is what I wrote in the Tacome Pai guest book. It should give you an idea about my experience on the organic farm:

Dear Sandot and Tacome Pai Family,

I am going through so many emotions right now approaching my departure. I will have been here nearly 6 beautiful weeks with you. One thing certain is that at the beginning of June someone else walked through these gates. Now as we approach August I will leave the gates of Tacome Pai standing a little taller, with a bit more of a spring in my step, and with an abundant supply of knew knowledge and understanding. Tacome Pai, Pai Village, and the many forces of people and nature here in this region have all joined together to give me the best gift I have ever recieved. I have found love, spirit and power here. I leave full of this force, ready to share and spread this secret, this key, this wonderful route to honest, beautiful and honorable living. For this I thank you, thank you, thank you from the deepest most precious chambers or my heart (thanks Ayla).

Sandot, do you even know how much you are improving our world? Just by simply being you, doing what you do, being free, happy, proud, energetic, intelligent, creative, open minded, brilliant, practical, motivated, innovative and beautiful, you change the world. Oh, and did I mention you are a genius? With all of these fantastics characteristics you have this magical gift to dust a little bit of yourself on to each and every Tacome Pay visitor. Because of this you absolutely are doing a global service. I will take my little dusting of you and of Tacome Pai to Colorado and try to inspire my family. I will take this magic to Costa Rica to my friends and loved ones there and try my best to keep your spirit alive in me. This is a chain reaction that is happening all over the world. You are simply one of the key members, a central player in this web. Think about how almost all of your guests come from part of a network, 'I know someone, who knows someone, who said I HAD to come here.' This web of goodness is being spun globally and I couldn't be more excited to be caught in it. Leaving here will be extremely difficult, but I am comforted in knowing that I will always be welcomed back with opened arms, bright eyes, and big smiles. I will return to Tacome Pai and all that makes up this magical land one day again. Until then I take my memories with me in my heart to guide me on my journeys.

Love, Spirit, and all that is good,
Jordan

Ayla (Jordan)

I met a beautiful girl named Ayla, her body was 19, but her soul was well beyond mine. She wrote this song whose words comfort me on this day. My time in Thailand is coming to a close. Saying goodbye to this place is going to be far from easy. Ayla's lyrics say exactly how I feel in words more precious than I can come up with:

A red robed man said to me,
'as long as the world is spinning,
we will meet again,i will see you again'
he said 'this life,and the world as we know,
is nothing but impermanent,
so dont hold on, but at the same time dont let go,
just don't hold on.'

And the pain of saying goodbye, is something,
i'm presently learning to deal with,
and the beauty of living this life,
is something,
im pleasantly learning astounds me
im astounded by it all,i am in awe of it all
people will come and go,
and its o.k that we part because,its a piece of the whole,
and its the way things shall unfold

You beautiful beings,
that have been such blessings upon my path i will treasure you,
in the deepest most precious chambers of my heart
i thank you, for enriching my life,
with somthing i never even thought i could have dreamed of and i thank you,
for blessing my life
i thank you all
im astounded by you all
i am in awe of you all

More Pieces of Pai (Jordan)

http://colorado.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2176201&l=8b4cb&id=10211609

Pai Pics (Jordan)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2173466&l=6b906&id=10211609