This is the last night of the workshop. As always, I feel like I’m taking a lot back with me – things I may not even be aware of yet, but that will manifest themselves in my practice, my studies and in my life.
Something I really like about classes at RIMYI is that they aren’t so much about learning asanas, but about the wisdom woven into the teachings. Students often ask
How do I practice?
How do I know I’m doing it right?
How do I sequence?
There’s a pigeon who has laid eggs outside the window of my bathroom. Every time I open the door of the bathroom, no matter how quietly, she gets disturbed. I feel bad, acutely. When I was shown into this room Dheeraj told me they noticed the eggs for the first time when they came back from Diwali break, and they didn’t have the heart to push them out. Every time the pigeon flutters in alarm and walks away from her eggs I feel an ache in my heart. I know how the pigeon feels. I don’t want to be responsible for its fear, I want it to know her eggs are safe.
In 2019, on my last trip to the Iyengar Yoga institute in Pune, I would have never thought it would take me 6 years to come back to the Iyengar institute in Pune. Over the years many visitors I was in touch with have told me about the changes – there’s a new entrance, even a waiting area. The old order (Pandurang Sir), has given way to the new.
A pandemic and a baby later, here I am, back in Pune’s verdant climes awaiting the commencement of the weekend workshop at the Iyengar Yoga Institute in Pune.
We’re almost done studying the Kena Upanishad in my Vedanta class. The Kena Upanishad is the third upanishad we’re reading (after the Katha and Mundaka) and the 5th Vedantic text (including the Bhagavad Gita and Tattvabodha). This text delves into the nature of Brahman, and through the dialogue format common to Hindu scriptures, helps the reader understand that the Self is Brahman. For the last few weeks we’ve been discussing a story that comes in the third canto of the text. It’s a story about the demi gods becoming proud of their strength after winning a battle. In this story the Guru appears as a woman, Uma Devi. This story is relevant during Navratri, when we worship the various manifestations of Durga. I was also pleasantly surprised to find a literary example of a female Guru.
I’ve been studying Vedanta since 2020, when I began my master’s program, which is where I met my teacher. The first text we studied was Tattvabodha, then the Bhagawad Gita…and a couple of Upanishads later, we’re now almost done with the Kena Upanishad. My Vedanta study is in the guru-shishya style – Subhadra ma’am is a direct disciple of Swami Dayananda Saraswati, and she teaches us just like she learned from him. When she asked me to start teaching, her directive to me was the same – teach everything I’ve taught, just like I’ve taught you. Learning in this style is slow but steady. Brahman, Aatma, guru etc are some of the the cornerstones of Vedantic philosophy, and my understanding of these ideas continues to evolve as I deepen my studies.
Subhadra ma’am often says that the subject of Vedanta is the Self. Everything we study, every concept, every story is relevant to our experience as human beings. Once this is clear, then Vedanta becomes a lived subject. Here are a few concepts that are the cornerstones of the Vedantic path. These concepts form just a small part of what we explore in class, and I know my grasp of them will continue to mature as the study unfolds.
I’d love to say that now, when my daughter is one and a half, I have a fixed routine for yoga practice. Pre-pregnancy I would wake up at 4.30 to practice. Now those days seem like ancient history. Today my days are a disorganised mix of teaching, practice, working out, trying to get a full night’s sleep, writing, school runs…I’m grateful I can practice with some regularity, but often pine for those days when I turned in at 9 and woke up at 4.30, ready to give my practice my all.
I have started attending RIMYI online classes again, a practice that feels especially grounding during Navratri. More often then I’d like, I end up following along with the pre-recorded Iyengar yoga sessions. I’d love to say it’s an hour and a half I have to myself, a time when I can immerse myself in the yoga. But the truth is Kalindi often joins me on the mat, and wants to type on the keyboard or play with the TV remote. She clings to my legs when I’m in downward dog, or lies down on the mat, making me want to cuddle with her. Often I find myself speeding through a class to avoid interruptions.
This morning’s class was a restorative session, and at the end of the class when we were lying in supta baddhakonasana with our arms stretched out and chests wide open, Raya spoke about Navratri, drawing our attention to Durga’s strength. What he said was perhaps the most relevant thing I’ve heard in a long time.
In my continuing quest to understand motherhood and become a better-informed parent, I’ve been reaching out to yoga teachers who can shed light on this path for me. Recently, I had an illuminating conversation with Rosa Santana, a mother of three daughters and a lifelong yoga practitioner.
“You never stop being a mother,” she says. Her own journey is inspiring—she was a gym rat long before she stepped into yoga, and she took her first yoga class while six months pregnant. She admits it was a terrible experience at the time. Up until then, she had taught step aerobics, which gave her fitness discipline but didn’t prepare her body for the nuances of pregnancy.
As people who can provide for their children, we’re constantly grappling with the question: how much is too much when it comes to things? I believe that’s at the heart of conscious parenting, making intentional choices rather than giving in to excess. From the moment Kalindi was born, there’s been no dearth of clothes, toys and general stuff. I remember thinking, we had enough things to last until she started school. A year and a half later, I know that to be true.
A friend of mine used to lament that her family was plagued by ‘the problem of plenty’. Every time I heard her say that, something inside me would instinctively recoil. I wondered how she could complain about having too much in a world where people struggled for the basics. I’d flinch every time I heard, hoping one day she would see the light and find a solution for her so-called ‘problem’.
Now that I teach Vedanta, many students ask me how I got into it. Most are surprised to know that I didn’t grow up with the stories and mythology of Hinduism. In fact, I grew up in a house where even rituals weren’t given too much importance. Religion was always present, but always in the background. It was quiet in its dignity, accepted and unchallenged.
I believe this gives my teaching a freshness which is what prompted my teacher to encourage me to teach, despite a life lived largely away from the culture and birthplace of Vedanta darshana. My approach to Vedanta is shaped by my approach to literature, where we endeavor to understand ourselves and our lives though the characters we are reading. A student of literature analyses and empathises, and in the process learns how to to think critically about human values and behaviour and to even make allowances for human nature.
Which is why when we started studying the Bhagavad Gita and my teacher told us to put ourselves in Arjuna’s shoes, I slid seamlessly into them. And once I did, the Gita came alive for me.