Pooja Pooja Everyday

We started out the day in a bang – it was the anniversary of the Ashram's Krishna Temple, so the temple of course held a pooja. It was beautiful and the murthi is very beautiful. At the end of the Pooja, the pundits dressed Krishna Bhagvan in beautiful clothes and add the detail of his flute as well.

In my asana teaching class today, I learned a few ways to correct postures, especially Halasana (the plough position). I can't wait to try it out on my sister because I am confident that I can get her to touch her toes to the ground. I practiced the correction on my partner, Ghanaya (she's 17 or 18, a good friend and really cheerful), who prior to today could not get her feet to touch the ground. We were both so excited for her accomplishment today. She was beaming :*)

It so happened that not only did we do a Pooja for the Krishna temple today, we also started our Gita classes. A lovely, bigger British women with a few missing front teeth set the stage by telling us the story of the Mahabharat up until the Gita. The hour flew by very quickly and most of my classmates really enjoyed the story. I really enjoyed the stories also and want to go back home and watch all 100+ episodes of the Mahabarat on video.

In our philosophy class today, I along with a few of my classmates almost lost composure. Swami Mahadevananda (French Canadian with big belly) is not a very good teacher. I believe he has good intentions, but teaching is an art and if not done with compassion it loses its lust. Swami was going all over the place and our lecture included 20 minutes of taking roll to figure out why so many people were coming in late, a 5 minute bathroom break (for him), discussion of the earth's elliptical orbit and commentary on US modern history. Much of it I wasn't able to piece together, but read the lesson on my own and extracted what I believe I was supposed to get out of the lecture.

I could feel my negative energy brewing, so I broke my own rule, closed my eyes in class, tuned out and meditated. It calmed me down, but not my classmates. The negative energy was in the air, but was more than filtered with our incredibly strenuous asana class. We held positions for a very long time and I realized why people were saying we would be more sore the second week than the first. I think we held Sarvangasan (shoulder stand) for almost 4-5 minutes. Saying it was intense would be an understatement, but we all willed ourselves and meditated through it.

Aside from surviving the asana class, the highlight of our day was being served spaghetti for dinner. We ended the day with yet another Pooja – this time it was for peace in Sri Lanka and to send good blessings to the Tamils. Many of the local Tamil community was present. Though it had been raining all day, it had stopped raining and the havan was conducted outdoors on top of a mountain, where the ashram has built many small temples for many South Indian gods I haven't heard of. This time, we poured ghee (butter) into the fire. As soon as we finished the Aarti, it started pouring again. Apparently people said that it is considered very auspicious when it rains after a havan.

And I believe it – Mary Kay saved my life today. The rain had made the trail back to the ashram very slippery. So as gay as this sounds, Mary Kay and I held hands the entire trail down. She saved me from a major major fall. A fall that left at least one of my classmates with a spranged ankle. Despite the scare that incident gave me, it was very beautiful to walk through the woods in the mist of the rain after the sun had set. There was a calming and mystic feel to it that was accentuated by Mary's (crazy, British girl who I call "Pakajam") Indian flute playing. She's "quite good" (in a British accent).

Day Off (Thank Goodness!)

Today we had the day off. That meant that we still woke up at 5.30am for meditation and satsang. Swami Mahadevanand (I believe he is French Canadian, with a big belly and very very boring) made his half hour talk into an hour, meaning he was eating into our time off. He realized how over time he had gone and said, "How many of you are thinking I wish this stupid Swami would shut up so I can go outside and enjoy this beautiful day?" Bert, a classmate of mine and true character (imagine drama kid from high school, who is Canadian and plays the sitar and sings Persian songs) raised his hand. Mary Kay, one of my closest friends here (more on her later), blurted out "hell yeah." These reactions should give you a sense for how desperate we were to be let loose for a day.

Me and nine others drove to Mount Tramblanc national park. It's one of the most famous ski resorts in Canada (after Whistler). It was the most beautiful days! We all rented canoes, kayaks or pedal boats and just took off. Four of us ended up sticking together. We didn't quite figure out the steering and zig zagged our way to the nearest beach where we set up camp. I started reading a bit and listened to non-sattvic music for the first time in a week refreshed my hears. Then I put my book down and just relaxed my brain. It had been a tough week – the food and sleep I was deprived of was a tough transition, but giving up mind space was the toughest.

Though we are all going through this amazing experience together, our days are so hectic, we hardly have any time to really get to know each other. Everyone here has such an amazing story. Abel is from Spain – he's father was given a book by his boss on yoga that he found fascinating and then took the opportunity to learn yoga from Swami Vishnudevananda himself in Val Mornin some 30 years ago. After that, his father not only took up teaching yoga as his profession, but also started the first Sivananda Center in Spain. He grew up vegetarian, meaning he doesn't eat most of his own ethnic food. Yohan is from the Philippines and wants to teach yoga and surfing in his home country. He was reading the Power of Now and we all got into a philosophical discussion. It was so cool that four very different people who hardly knew each other could sit on the banks of a random lake in Canada and have such amazing conversations and connections.

There was no way we were going to leave the park without indulging in some junk food – we ALL bought ice cream! It was blissful to enjoy it while basking in the sun on our day off ;*)

Almost as soon as the eight of us loaded into the Sivananda minivan and took off, Bert (sitar boy) suggested that we practice reciting the sanskrit mantras we are required to learn. So there it started 45 minutes of Gajananam Bhutaganadi Sevitam….Three minutes into the chanting the group realized that I could pronounce the Sanskrit fairly accurately and so for 42 minutes, I lead the minivan in sanskrit chanting, and taught them a total of one mantra. It was tedious and I practically lost my voice, but it was really touching to teach a bunch of somewhat random people who sincerely wanted to learn part of my heritage.

Pakorda and Katak

It has been raining for the past few days. The rain has not only created a somber mood that makes us in even more anticipation of our day off, but also has caused me to catch a cold. We take off our shoes before entering any room, therefore I wear slippers and my feet have remained wet and cold for practically the past few days.

However, the sun came out today so we practiced yoga on the outdoor platform today. Having spent two full hours outside, now my allergies decided to sneak up on me. The combination of a cold and allergies took me down, and I skipped my asana class today and slept the best two hours since I've been here.

The highlight of the day was definitely the spinach pakorda we had for brunch. We were all so surprised that we were being served fried food, I ate three of them even though I wasn't hungry.

Generally the food here is good enough, though for me it is a strange combination of Indian and white food (sorry to offend anyone). There will always be some kind of daal or lentils/bean soup but then there will also be some boiled vegetables – vegetables with no spice or sauce?! Usually there is a heap of mixed greens and dressing available as well, but I never see the point of eating grass. And there will usually be some kind of carbohydrate – rice, noodles, or something I've learned new – millet. I look forward to brunch everyday because I load up on my childhood favorite peanut butter and jelly on wheat bread. Yummy yummy in my tummy. Other than the PB&J, to be honest, I put the food in my mouth because I need the nutrition. We eat only two times a day. So though I wake up at 5.30 am, my first meal is not until 10am. And boy is that brunch an important meal.

Tonight, after meditation/satsang, we had a former Padmashri (award winning) Katak dancer, Uma Sharma, perform for us. Upon hearing the first few notes, I remembered my dancing days. I really wished I had had the opportunity to learn a classical dance. Maybe someday I'll take lessons…..She was good, but she was old. Perhaps it was the drugs, but I was ready for Aarti and Prasad after her first dance.

Vedic Knowledge

Instead of our usual 6am meditation session, today we mediated on the move – We went for a silent walk through the back roads of the St. Laurent Mountains within which the ashram is situated. It was very peaceful 20 minute walk through nature. We’ve been told that nature is a natural (pun intended) rejuvenator of the body, mind and spirit. We broke the silence with our usual 30 minutes of chanting – “Jai Ganesha Jai Ganesha” – and prayers. Our teacher gave us a few words of wisdom – “The mind is like a monkey, drunk and bitten by a scorpion.” Apparently he thinks I’m a good singer - he casually asked me if I was a classical singer…uhmmmm, yeah right….but I think he just hadn’t heard anyone pronounce the Sanskrit properly in many many years.

We had our first lesson on how to teach a yoga class. I am not one to give anyone boasts of compliments until they prove themselves to be consistent, but I have to say, this organization is exactly that – organized, succinct, thorough and really good at what they do. Incorporated in the curriculum is “how to teach beginner’s class #1-8” and by practicing on each other we are really gaining a lot of confidence, not to mention I am learning so many things about teaching itself. It was very exciting for us all since it is the main reason most of us are here. And our instructors is awesome. He strikes the perfect balance between authoritative, humorous, compassionate, encouraging and stern. In fact I’m learning a lot about leadership from him.

In our main lecture class we discussed the basic philosophy behind yoga and really Hinduism – the concept of Brahman, Atman, Maya, Uphadis, Gunas, etc. And though I’ve grown up with these concepts, learning them in a succinct and systematic way has helped to put the philosophy in perspective and reinforce my beliefs. The philosophy is very appealing to me personally, especially in its intellectual and logical approach to “religion” or belief.

We ended the day with a guest lecture on Vedic Mathematics. Examples include the following:

Equation 35 x 35 56 x 54
Step 1: Multiply Last Digits 5*5 = 25 6*4 = 24
Step 2: Add one to the first 3+1 = 4 *3 = 12 5+1 = 6 * 5 = 30
digit, then multiply
Answer 1225 3024

While it was really interesting, I quickly realized that basically we were being shown shortcuts to doing long multiplication that is much more efficient than the way we currently have been taught to calculate them, but what was so intriguing about the lecture was to find out that this knowledge (i) has been around since before the Vedas were written and (ii) research is only now being done on the full system of vedic mathematics.

Om Namah Shee-va-yaw

Swami Vishnudevananda, the founder of the Sivananda ashram system outside of India, designed this TTC program in a very thoughtful, thorough and traditional fashion. This TTC program is sticking to traditional values to the “T”. First, we are working under a gurukul system of teaching which has been followed since ancient times in India. We sleep, learn and work in the same place as our teachers, as one community. They even gave us bags from India that are used in India to carry around our books. Supposedly the yellow color, representing knowledge, and white color, representing purity has an effect on your mindset and ameliorates learning.

Also included in the curriculum is chanting and kirtan. Everyday we sing for 2-3 hours a day. We sing kirtan for about 30 minutes in the early morning and evening satsang and actually have an entire 1 hour class every day dedicated to chanting that Swami Ambika (the elder, boyish Brit, that my friends and I have agreed reminds us of Rafiqi from The Lion King) leads.

That’s right, Christians, Quakers, Buddhists, Atheist are chanting Hare Rama Hare Krishna for 2 hours a day. (Part of my Hare Rama Hare Krishna syndrome is that the mispronunciation of Sanskrit really drives me a bit nuts, especially as now I myself am saying Shiva as “Sheeva”). But as the days have passed the mispronunciations are getting harder to hear.

We chant Sanskrit mantras to open and close every single session we attend (6 session every day) to invoke Ganesh, Sarasvati, Swami Sivananda and Mata. This means that all 80+ TTC’s are required to learn these mantras along with the hindu chants that we sing. We spend our class period (1 hour per day) learning not only the meanings of the daily chants, but the pronunciation as well, word by word. To be honest, I’m really impressed at how quickly my classmates are learning the shlokas. I clearly have a head start and am able to digest the chanting easily, but I have a lot of admiration for my classmates many of whom, are being exposed to Sanskrit and hindu gods and concepts for the first time. I also am realizing how lucky I am and grateful for my parents, grandmother and aunts for painstakingly taking the time to teach my sister and me so many Sanskrit mantras. There are only a handful of mantras that I do not know by heart and haven’t heard of.

Chanting (singing is known as kirtan) is very powerful. A classmate of mine, Ashley, asked me the other day in the bathroom, “Do you find yourself singing these chants randomly as if we aren’t hearing them enough?” And that’s what’s happening. These songs are so catchy and we are repeating them so much that they are being embedded in our subconscious. When I’m eating, showering, walking to and from the satsang hall, I am chanting. Another classmate of mine disclosed over brunch that she is gaining the most benefit from our kirtan during satsang. She said she’s crying the entire time. No it’s not from the pain, but from the release of emotion.

Even myself. There is something very touching and beautiful about the kirtan - the sounds, the simple, yet deep meaning and the vibrations that bring tears to my eyes as well. I know this sounds really cheesy and like I’m going off the deep end, but this isn’t the first time that I am feeling these sensations (though admittedly, it has been a while). There were a few moments when I was growing up and would feel the same feelings, the same devotion, while singing a bhajan or the Ramayan. It’s powerful, it’s purifying and it’s real.

In our chanting class we sang a particular bhajan in English which really annoyed me at first. Singing these chants in English just don’t resonate the same way and sound really stuffy and cramped to me. But once I stopped judging and actually listened to what I was chanting I realized how much meaning there was:

Serve, Love, Give, Purify, Meditate, Realize
Be good, do good, be kind
Be compassionate
Adapt, adjust, accommodate
Bear insult, bear injury, Highest Sadhana
Bear insult, bear injury, Highest Yoga
Enquire Who am I?
Know thy self and be free
Om Shanti, Om Peace, Om Shalom Om

It struck me how counter these philosophies are to what I’ve learned in the corporate world and in B-school. The question I will be pondering upon for the next few weeks is that if I truly believe in these values, how will I carry them into my world practically?

Today is Gurupurnima, so the ashram hosted a pooja. We crammed ourselves into the main Krishna Temple and began chanting bhajans for another 2 hours straight while every single attendee, of which there were over 100, participated in the traditional ceremony of pouring milk over the idols of the lineage of gurus tracing back to Lord Siva himself. A Bhramin pandit from Kerela was conducting the Pooja – he’s the first priest I’ve seen with actual dreadlocks in his hair. I’m sure it’s really bad to say this, but he looked really dirty and had the biggest belly. I really wanted to take a picture of him, but didn’t feel that was appropriate, so just trust my description. The ceremony was actually very beautiful. The temple was full with a very mystic energy as every single person seemed to be chanting from their hearts.

Though I was exhausted from the entire day and was battling my fatigued legs from sitting cross-legged on the floor for over 7 hours all day, by the end of the Pooja I was completely rejuvenated, as were my dorm mates. We usually come back to the dorm and immediately hit our beds, but tonight we were really jazzed up from all the singing – We stayed awake until 11 pm (which is an hour later than usual) chatting away and laughing.

Day 2 Oh boy! It’s starting

Today was the first full day of the course. I woke up at 5.30am and showered (unlike most of the others). We walked about 300 yards to the place where Swami Vishnudevananda lived in isolation to conduct a havan (fire ceremony) prior to kicking off our first official day. All 80 of us were clad in our yellow and white uniforms singing “Om ganapatey namah” while making offerings into the agani (fire). The weather was lovely – 60 degrees with the sun coming up. The havan kund was situated on a platform of rocks located on the bank of small stream, which sang in our ears and cut through a forest of slender pine trees.

The people here are really nice – I’m sure some of it will wear off, but overall the people here really do seem nice. Of course there are a lot of “alternative” people here – at least they are from my MBA eyes. Lots of nurses, dancers, therapists, naturalist. Only a few people with what I would consider a “traditional” job. It’s kinda cool, but many of these people just seem kind of lost. The ashram is an estrogen overload – I am not used to hanging around so many women – so I’m hearing a lot of vetting of insecurities , analysis entirely unnecessary things, nagging, nagging and nagging, a lot of “ahhhh’s” etc.

By the end of the day, I would have paid someone to just simply let me go and sleep. We had done 4 hours of yoga – I actually fell asleep during sivansana in my first class, something I have never done. The crazy thing is that I am actually not that sore, but so incredibly tired. I think what is happening is that all the yoga and spiritual stimulation is releasing a lot of toxins that is really making me very sleepy. I actually told someone in confidence that I straight up wanted to skip satang (the evening prayer). I had woken up at 5.30am and fell asleep at 10pm – with only a 1 hour break in the middle of the day.

I set three goals for myself to attain while here at the ashram:
(i) Avoid chatter and thereby negativity – I have noticed through my travels and experiences that in group settings it takes one negative person to bring the energy level of an entire group down. Somehow, women tend to be the usual suspects. I am determined not to get caught up in this downward spiraling cycle of negativity.

(ii) Conquer the Headstand

(iii) Committ to the Moment & Learn – No dazing off in class, no thinking of to-do’s while in asana class. I want to be in the moment, be present and learn all I can from this experience.

Day 1 Inaguaration

July 5, 2009

Today we had a very relaxed schedule with the option to attend asana class – I opted out of the 6:00am and 8:00am class. I figured I wanted to get well rested. What did however get me out of bed was that one of only two meals is served at 10:00am.

We got a tour of the ashram facilities and some of the temples by Swami Ambika Saraswati – a tiny elderly, white, British woman in her 60’s likely, who looked more like a boy in her baggy orange clad – elastic pants and t-shirt – and short hair. She has the funniest sense of humor and exudes sincerity when she speaks.

I attended my first yoga class today. It was held outdoors in the middle of the ashram. It was really nice feeling the sun tingling my skin cells, though many of us also got sunburned from resting in sivasana with the sun on us. More than anything I attended the optional class to do a little damage check – I definitely wasn’t at peak performance, but was able to get through the class with dignity, although, I have to say the hour and a half class felt like the longest class I’ve ever attended.

At night we had our official inaguaration ceremony. It was quite nice actually. Each one of us were called to the front of the auditorium/satsang hall and were handed our uniforms and TTC manual – aka our Bible - for the course by Swamiji’s who blessed our upcoming study with tilaks of ash, sandalwood and kum kum. The class is HUGE. There are over 80 of us in the TTC alone. It is a bit overwhelming, but seemed more manageable after each one of us introduced ourselves in front of the entire class. There are some great stories here – someone who’s husband promised them he would allow her to attend a TTC on their wedding day 20 years ago; a former policeman who combat depression after two tragic murder and hostage incidences that left his partners killed; and a man who is suffering from polio that was able to stave off death through yoga. These people are here with a mission and a vision.

I’m taking my time to get adjusted here, and I will definitely need the time. This place feels very strange to me in a Hare Rama Hare Krishna kind of way. There are only three Indians in my TTC class and two Indian instructors. All these white people are named after hindu gods and goddesses and sing bajans like their lives depend on it. It’s a bit creepy and weird, but I’ve caught myself analyzing the experience through this lens and stopped.

The other thing I caught myself doing is comparing things here with what I had experienced in Uttarkashi. I feel the main difference around the food. In Uttarkashi, we sat on the ground and ate in silence with our hands. Here people are chit-chatting away, eating with utensils on picnic tables. Before the food is served, we all hold hands around the room and sing Hare Rama Hare Krishna. Once again, I caught myself judging the ashram and my experience stopped myself. This was a new experience and I wanted to take it in with an open mind and an open heart.