15.01.2008

Don't expect the expected

I turely have been very lazy with my blog entries, so many funny moments have happened as well as some sad ones over the last week. I hit a bottom low on Saturday morning when I felt homesick for the first time. Most of my close friends whom I have been meeting here in Kovalam for the past 3 years began to return home. In a big and close group of say 8-9 people perhaps 6-7 of them left in a space of two days. Some of it was the sadness of losing them until next year but a big knot in my throat was the fact that they were going home to their routine and loved ones. I cant argue that I'm in a place to be jealous as most of them would rather be in my shoes but all of a sudden I missed the miserable weather home, I missed hugging my mum, hanging out with my brother and yappering with my dad, I missed my quiet flat, I missed meeting my friends for dinners or coffee, I missed Joey (my teacher at Triyoga)…And with such sadness when I was going for breakfast to sit on my own by the beach and tell my sorrow to the ocean I bumped into Christina who has been a highlight in my trip in Kovalam, especially with our 3pm walks down the beach. I soon found myself in her arms, crying out loud and letting go. And as Sami said "we have to go, so we can come again"…

So now 3 days later I am happy again, found my own little routine of focusing on the yoga, breakfast, laundry, beach, lunch and read/rest in my room. My friend Sally who I met in Crete in 2006 came for 5 days to Kovalam so it was also nice hanging out with her.

So why I called the title of this entry what I did was what Lino was talking about during the pranayama session. The way he chooses his topics is pretty clever, mainly as a result of what he may have observed, often in a way of passing wisdom to his students but for me often comes at the right time just as I need something answered. Having said that I do have lots of questions in general, so he is bound to answer one or another.

Anyway, the topic was about the student-teacher relationship and the fact that the students sometimes love their teacher, which is often when they get praises or get given a new posture; and yet they hate their teacher when the teacher is a little firm, tells them off or does not progress them the way they would like to be…he was talking from experience for sure, there had been times when he spent 5 months in Mysore with Guruji and he felt that he didn't learn anything knew and that he had wasted time. And yet when he returned home, he noticed that a lot had changed within him, in the way he was thinking and in his body. So I think it was his advice about letting go, not having yoga guilt for being sick or missing sessions. They were learning something regardless.

For me it will be a longer wait to return home and observe those changes but I am so happy now again that I have taken this year off. I wouldn't want to be in anyone else's shoes but my own! Well, not that I have worn shoes for the past 3 months. I love the feel of the sand between my toesJ