The Sufi meditation retreat was oshemmm! It’s always amazing how just a few days, or even, just a moment, can change your whole life! The practice which blew my mind was the one which did not really interest me in the beginning: Gurdjieff movements. The very first time I watched a Gurdjieff movement performance on YouTube, I was like, ‘What. Da. Fuq.’ *rolls eyeballs emoticon* It came across as a very robotic, & emotionless dance which made no sense whatsoever. It did not appeal to me at all. However, now I understand the real purpose of these movements. Dayuuummm, son…I stand corrected…it is a tough practice, yooo..! Our teacher said, ‘It’s not about learning the movements. It’s about learning about yourself. Watch your habit. What is your learning style? Do you depend a lot on others, or are you able to learn by yourself? How do you react when you fuck up?’ Okey lah, he did not say the f word…but you get what I mean…heheh… Watch your habit. Those words are still ringing in my mind till today. We learn the movements in parts – hands, legs, then combine both. Each movement needs to be precise, & you cannot add any shimmies nor sashays as you like. Which explains why it looks robot-ish. No expressions either, & you are to look straight ahead throughout. The movements challenge your coordination & awareness. Even one tiny moment of distraction & bye bye, you’re out of sync with the rest of the group! Distractions? Ain't nobody got time fo dat! Oh yeah, did I mention that some movements require stepping forwards & backwards, & therefore even though looking forward, you still have to make sure that you keep in line with the others??? In my mind I was like, ‘TEACHER. My eyes so small, how???’ All those years of piano lessons, Girl Guide/Vanguard marching, yoga, weeks of drum circle & dancing FINALLY add up! Sheesh! For me, it wasn’t that difficult executing the movements separately. But when he said, ‘Now arms & legs’, I would go into a state of half shock...sometimes I wouldn’t even attempt to combine both movements, because if I did, my mind immediately went blank! Something which totally relates to my life, because I’ve always been afraid of trying things which seem daunting. Watch your habit. Each moment, watching, watching, watching. I find that this is one of the juicy things of life I have been searching for. I guess I had taken for granted this thing called awareness. Thank heavens I have been reminded & brought back down to earth. Watch your habit. When you can do the movements, how do you respond? When you make a mistake, how do you respond? Do you criticize yourself, or do you immediately try to get back into the groove? Where is your attention? What’s going on inside? So. Again, I stand corrected. On the outside, it looks like a lifeless dance. But inside each & every dancer, who knows? I see the similarities of Gurdjieff movements with yoga. In yoga, we call this looking inward: Svadhyaya - self-study. Many say that yoga is boring, too slow-paced for their liking; when in fact, a practitioner needs to be aware of a multitude of things – alignment of every body part, breath, external stimuli, internal ongoings…aiyooo..! Tattoos carry deep spiritual meanings for me. I got this one in January 2015, a few months after completing my first Yoga TTC. The intention I set into it was:
Risk everything for awareness, but never risk awareness for anything... This is the commitment of a sannyasin: that he is ready to lose his life but not his awareness; he has found a value which is higher than life. There is no other value which is higher than awareness. Awareness is the seed of godliness in you... - Osho - Lost my way, but glad that I am back on my path. Grateful for everything.
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'Sometimes I hate the words, 'still crying although you're a grown up'. The truth is, the more I grow, the more I mature, the more I cry. Crying when I was younger, did not hurt as much as crying during adulthood.' Wasn’t life much simpler as a child? When you knew nothing about consequences, & just blindly did whatever you wanted to, & then whatever the outcome was, you just dealt with it there & then? What in actuality is innocence? & how much can one afford to stay innocent? Is being innocent or 'un-innocent' a choice we are able to make, in the first place? Or is one just destined to be come into & go out of this world that way? What is the difference between innocence & foolishness? I love this meme. It made me realize that the harsh truth that, sometimes, the more I experience life, the harder it gets to just live & let live. If you have always done the same thing, without getting the results you wanted, is it mere innocence or sheer foolishness to continue on doing the same thing? But at the same time, although you are doing the same thing, in each situation, many, if not all, external stimuli differ, things which are beyond our control…so how? Try, try again? Maybe it depends on what you are willing to risk. Are you willing to risk a heckuva lot of money to invest in a new business venture? Are you willing to risk a friendship, in order to pursue a relationship? Are you willing to risk your mind, in order to gain your sanity? Maybe it depends on where your heart is? How strongly you feel about something, regardless of what is at stake? ‘No mind’, ‘be present’; yes, these are the main purposes of meditation & yoga, but dayum, where does one draw the line between right & wrong usage of brain in processing past experiences? Knowing pain & hardship, one requires much more courage to maneuver through life with a pure heart. Fear of failure & difficult emotions is hard to push aside. Sometimes life is easier when you don’t know shiz, when the whole world seems like an idyllic fairyland. But at the same time, being the person you are right now, would you want to go back in time & erase any experiences you’ve had? Considering that everything good & bad has worked to mold you into who & what you are this very moment, & if you never went through all that, you wouldn’t be any wiser? Which will you have: wise madness, or foolish sanity? - Miguel de Cervantes - Where can one purchase wise madness? & how much do I have to pay for it? Osho talks on innocence, & keeping the child within us alive.
It's been more than a week since the Melting Into the Heart meditation course ended. Man oh man, what great times... Upon returning to Kuala Lumpur, I developed a mild fever & sore throat, which gradually progressed into a bad sore throat, cough & loss of voice. Dayummm son, it was the first time in my life I'd ever lost my voice! You can imagine my horror when halfway through teaching a class, my voice started failing me! & to wake up every subsequent morning after that, afraid to even 'try out' my voice, in case it hadn't come back yet...sheesh! I even had to cancel a class due to this voicelessness! Now I know that one of the most important assets a yoga teacher has to possess is not a flexible body - it is a clear voice! Doubly horrifying was the fact that it was our meditation teacher's last weekend here in KL, & he damn sempoi (happening) one you know, so I had huge intentions of kacau-ing (disturbing) him, & had many serious life questions to ask as well. But...now no voice, then how!!! Homaigot. But then I realized, having to keep silent brought with it another blessing. It forced me to really observe my surroundings, & most importantly, myself. What I really loved about our retreat is that it was focused a lot on awareness. I will go more into detail about this in my next post :) Anyways. Going voiceless made me ponder my FIPs (First Important Priorities). Let's look at it this way: if you had a limited number of words you could use a day, how would you use them? How would you choose to react to every situation which comes your way? It was like I was forced to take a step back & just completely be in the moment, sometimes even without any option of reacting. & somehow, I slipped easily into that place of not reacting. Not sure why, because I can be a drama queen sometimes, but most of the time, things just didn't seem worth reacting or responding to. Another interesting thing I have noticed is that the mind really does create a heckuva lot of shit! I can have a million & one questions, but when the teacher appears in front of me, all questions disappear. All problems fade into the distance. This is not the first time it has happened! It just seems futile asking. Maybe it is an energy transfer or something like that, but again the mind is definitely not happy every time this happens! It goes, 'Ask lah, why you don't ask! Already thinking thinking long time want to ask, why you don't ask now!' but deep inside me, I know that there is no point in doing so. 'This teacher very bad, he always make people cry!' & no, I did not cry when saying goodbye to teacher!........until approximately five minutes later. Huhuhu... This whole experience has also reinforced my belief that silence conveys more than words ever can, & that energy is all that matters. Sometimes, words spoil everything. They are necessary, but sometimes can create a barrier too. Odd words to come from a writer. Hahahahah... So yeah, it's all about the energy, baby! & if you can be in comfortable silence with another, it is a very beautiful thing. I'd forgotten about this poem I wrote few months ago. Every now & then it is an intense struggle to express myself in writing. True enough, for the past few weeks, words have left me, & no poems are coming through me.
I hope they come back soon, but in the meantime, I'm pretty content with things as they are. :) What to say. Honestly, dear friends, one of my biggest challenges is finding balance between...between what, I don't know how to explain in written words. How does one put into words what is felt when listening to a song? Or when looking at a flower, or a sunset? Sometimes I feel that my writing is futile, because at the end of the day, what matters? Life is what it is, regardless of what my opinion of it is. Everything is happening according to the Divine Plan. The world will go on spinning, time goes on, everything keeps moving...so why should I write? & knowing that there is no right & wrong in the world, that everything is relative, that everything goes according to its individual situation...why should I present a solid, definite answer on a certain subject? Many have asked me, which religion, which discipline, which lineage, I follow....I really cannot give an answer. I thought I was of a certain religion. But it turns out, I am not. I thought I was a yogi. I thought I was a Tantrika. I thought I was many other things. But one thing which I can say is consistent in my experience: love is the binding element of all these. Everything is interconnected. In yoga, we practice love for the self. That in loving the self, we will inadvertently love others too. In Christianity: thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. In the Baul tradition: there is no need for any practice or discipline, music, dance, happiness, is the way to divinity. In Tantra, we get a glimpse of godliness through the beloved. The relationship is a gateway to spirituality. In Sufism: God is the beloved. How to explain, how to explain, how to explain, dear friends. This question has been spinning in my mind for a long time, but even more these past few days. Godliness is in everything. It is only our human perceptions of them which make them 'good' or 'bad'. Can't be labelled. Certain things cannot be labelled, no matter how much you try to. It is in the wilderness where life truly is. The mind always wants to be in control, to put things into categories, to bring order to everything. But in reality, life is organized chaos. There is no reason in love, it just happens. It is illogical, it is without cause, without preconceptions, without ulterior motives. & that's where the beauty of love lies. It is nonsense says reason It is what it is says love It is calamity says calculation It is nothing but pain says fear It is hopeless says insight It is what it is says love It is ludicrous says pride It is foolish says caution It is impossible says experience It is what it is says love - Erich Fried - The deeper I go into life, the more I realize...I don't know anything. Many paths, one love. As Romeo said, 'What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.' Similarly, 'What's in a name? That which we call a nose, would still smell'! :P :P :P Just as the petals of the hibiscus are manifold, it would be futile to count them, to inspect each & every one of their nuances, to come to a conclusion that just one petal in particular is the best, or even, the correct petal; because in the end, they all belong to the same flower! ‘The correct petal.’ It sounds so absurd, doesn’t it, dear friends. Many paths, one love. What's in a name? & what is a name but a collection of random sounds put together by us humans as a means of communication? & what a poor means of communication that is too, taking into consideration that everyone operates from their own level of understanding & perspective. The same book produces different ‘movies’ in the minds of different people. The same song creates different feelings in each person. The same lyrics are sung in different tones & rhythms. The source is the same, but its bridge, its expression, its interpretation, varies vastly. We are all seeking the Ultimate Love. There is no one ‘correct’ method. & once we have found that Ultimate Love, we praise, worship & celebrate Love through different modes of expression. Some sing hymns. Some dance. Some sit silently. Some offer service to others. What is in a name? What is in a physical object or a man-created concept? Why the insistence on labels, categories, possession, regulations, rules, etc? Are we really that simple-minded to try to reduce something so much greater than ourselves, just to satisfy our egos? In one of his Satsangs last week, Mooji said that even though your fingernail is so small, if you hold it up to the moon, it is capable of completely blocking your view of the moon. How profound. All religions, all this singing, one song. The differences are just illusion and vanity. Sunlight looks a little different on this wall than it does on that wall and a lot different on this other one, but it is still one light. - Rumi - |
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About Prabh LehriI am a yoga teacher based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I am passionate about yoga as a form of healing on the physical, emotional & mental level. I have been on a yoga journey for almost a decade and have been formally sharing my experience in the last 4 years. Archives
December 2017
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