Back to the Mat

The best part of breaking up is making up, and the best part of missing practice for a week is the opportunity to begin again. I don’t know why it sometimes seems so hard for me to do something that I love doing. I do know that practicing ashtanga, after not practicing it, makes me want to shout from a rooftop.

This morning it was fear that brought me to the mat. I am grateful for being afraid. It’s a matter of life and death. I know that if I stay on the path of increased drinking and related destruction, I will be committing suicide. I believe that practicing ashtanga is a lifeline. For me not to grab it would be like spitting in God’s face.

So I stood hungover and trembling at the edge of the mat, hands in prayer, not knowing how on earth I would be able to go through the practice, but knowing that the alternative was unacceptable. When I chanted the invocation, I meant what I was chanting. Just like the Muslims, wailing from the top of nearby minarets at 5 in the morning, mean what they are wailing.

When I raised my arms in Surya Namaskar A, I did not know whether my practice would last one minute or two hours. I did not know whether I would bind or touch or jump or do any of the things that I too often have used to measure success. I forgot all that, and raised those shaky arms in an act of simple faith. Of course I ended up doing a full practice. The sweat poured out of me like tears. When I took a shower afterward, it was like getting baptised.

Who knows what tomorrow, or even tonight, will add to this story. But I do know that it feels great now to be back among the living.

Thanks to all of you who commented and sent me emails after my previous post. I also have received unconditional support from several people here in Mysore. In fact, I believe that anyone at the shala would run over and help me in a second if I had the nerve to reach out and ask for it. What a caring, loving, and wonderfully non-judgmental group of people we have in this ashtanga community all over the world. I am so grateful.

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[Amit D. Chaudhary]

Day 11, Meditations from the Mat: Daily Reflections on the Path of Yoga (Paperback)
by Rolf Gates, Katrina Kenison "

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0385721544/ref=sib_vae_pg_16/102-9840010-0379336?%5Fencoding=UTF8&keywords=priority&p=S011&twc=11&checkSum=r1EjCz5KraMa3USp7B68Ex5q%2FNlYFUxvk2A7CUN4sXU%3D#reader-page

Amit