“Savasan today?”

“Savasan today?”, smiled my teacher as I rose from the pose and all I could say was “Thank you”.

It’s been about three weeks since I began a beginner’s class again and about three months since a savasana at the end of a session. A small transformation experience, shared between teacher and student.

Five years ago, I found my way yet again to a yoga class in my neighbourhood. That’s when my yoga journey really began. Subsequently, I became a student at RIMYI and progressed through the years until a couple of years back when I had to move to a medical class. And in the last three months, it was more of a therapy session for my heart and head as they struggled beneath the weight of the little self. All the asanas that were prescribed in those weeks worked on grinding through the little ego that suffered. That little ego lived in a never ending loop of memory. Guruji says it very simply and beautifully in Light on Life.

We are in our minds, in our memories, in our senses, in the future, eating so that we are in our stomachs, and thinking so that we are in our heads. We are always in one bit or another, but we never occupy all our inheritance. To experience the totality of being is to be in every room of the mansion at once with light streaming out of every window.

My mansion was a dark tunnel and there seemed no way out. All I knew is that if anything could help, it would be yoga. There was a faint sense of embarking on a painful journey but nothing would have prepared me for how difficult it is to confront oneself. Now that some time has elapsed, I can look back and see that in the larger scheme of existence, three months barely shows up, not even a blip. But, in the reference of human time as experienced by the body and mind, it seems unending. It’s been a short while since the shifting began and perhaps it is safe to say that the wheel is turning. There is a fledgling home practice, more reading and a little more light. Every time memory threatens, I remind myself – forward, not behind. Fear and grief belong to memory. Living demands presence in the present, like in asana. Attention to the here and now.

Standing poses today and it was a different experience to work within the limitations of a sensitive knee. Our reference was the pelvic girdle and it was easier to approach the standing poses from that point, kinder on the knee too. Earlier, I did not know where and when to stop. Now, I’m exploring how far to go and when to press pause. It calls for a revision of all asanic memory and finding their space within the context of a changed mind and body. At the end of class, there was fire ignited in the pelvic region, as though there was a revitalization.

Today’s savasana for me was an exploration of pushing beyond memory and allowing space for pause. A baby step in relearning savasana. Not an easy pose but one that I could stay until the end without being overwhelmed by the weight of dead memory. Every time, I shut my eyes in savasana, I would find myself in a mini panic mode and my eyes would fly open. It didn’t happen today.

Reminding myself again of what Guruji says,

A cleansed memory is one that does not contain undigested emotions from the unconscious but that deals with feelings in the present as they arise.

In gratitude