Himalayan Memoirs: The Summer of Love

They said the world will end in 2012. For me my world ended in 2011. Or so it looked.
2011 is when my stay in Isha Yoga Center became crazily tenable. I was taking classes in Delhi and was having a blast. Rams got married. Shanti from Home School would feed me comfort food whenever i longed for Chocolates/Italian food. I could sit in Ardha Siddhasana for an hour and not realize it! :)
However a variety of circumstances forced me to leave the ashram.
I had too much pride in me to do something which would have made lesser human beings celebrate.
Anyways, I chose to go and live in the Himalayas.
In retrospect, I really don't know how I let myself do it. What I do know is that those 6 months of my life that I spent as a nameless life walking the mountains were my proudest.
There was too much life happening in those 6 months. Too many experiences, too many emotions, too many sensations in my body packed into 6 months. I managed to get some scrap paper and maintain a journal. I wanted to publish this for a long time but I was waiting for the right time to come.

Why do this now?

I am publishing these memoirs also as an effort to create awareness and raise money for the awesome work done by Isha Vidhya.

You would be providing me positive incentive to continue to blog if you can join me in supporting this effort. The person who contributes the most in my fundraising page will be acknowledged in my next blog post. Anything will help. Even 100 INR.

Comments

Hotel California

I was dropping off S for one of her meetings. The conversation meandered into how some of our volunteer friends were talking about me leaving IYC. S was observing that we would have never got married if I was not a Isha teacher at that time. She also observed how my deciding to move to Blore was kind of thrust upon her. It was a fair observation yet painful for me to hear it. At some point, I felt the need to justify/explain/clarify that i am a seeker. Still a seeker. After I said it, I felt a moment of pause within me. Am I a seeker? I felt embarrassed that I have to claim me being a seeker in so many words. Am I really a seeker? What does being a seeker mean? Does it mean that I should be living in an ashram? Does it mean that I need to work 100% and more towards a larger-than-life goal? Does it mean that I am checking out of "Hotel California" ? i.e. I am done with the world and ready for something else? Does it mean to live a constant affirmation that I may not know every...

Shringeri

You are my baby sister that I never had. You are my daughter that I will never father.. You are my mother that I had lost forever… Let the throes of my folly remind.. Let the rapture of your embrace sustain… The scheming vagabond that I am, For all my incessant intellection, You are the perfect foil… The cool breeze that sweetens the long toil. How did you smite me? I know not. The unruly curls of your tresses – a part of your plot? What happens now… Now that I have decided to partake in this little game? Your bewitching mane.. Will I ever tame? How long will I be absorbed in the uncharted crevices of your body? Comfortably numb, Will I fall on my face? Let the throes of my folly remind.. ...

Himalayan Memoirs: Anbe Sivam

Prelude: The following was written almost 5 months into my self-imposed exile. It was written while I was staying in an ashram in a small village called Ganeshpur somewhere in the upper reaches of Tehri Garhwal . I spent my time working in the kitchen as a self-appointed cook. ------------------------------------------------------------------ It was a rare moment. Rare indeed is a moment when you clearly realize that you have lost it. It was almost 5 months since I have been off the grid. The first 4 months were really good. I had fun. I had very little money and hence for the first time in my life, I am constantly thinking about money and rationing it. But I liked it as a novelty. Physically also, it was very difficult but I liked to push myself more and more. But most importantly, my sadhana was really good. I meditated like never before. But a variety of circumstances made me impatient and eventually pissed me off. I was no longer fine with just living not knowin...

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