Stuff. It simply bothers me. It never used to, a few years ago. The first time it felt plain dumb to have Stuff was when I had to downsize my apartment into two suitcases a couple of years ago. It took me a while to sell and give away things that I owned, so I could fit all my belongings in just two suitcases to move from San Francisco to Bangalore. While I managed to downsize, I also had a connecting flight to India from Singapore. There was no issue flying from San Francisco to Singapore. I travel happy in South east Asia and when I try hopping onto the plane to Bangalore, I am told I can only take half of what I have brought with me. Nightmare indeed.

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A few yogi friends of mine and I got curious about Yoga Makaranda and decided to find it. After a long and hard search for it, we did find Yoga Makaranda. Along with that we also happened to find Yogasanagalu. Both these books are written in Kannada. I happened to leave a comment on a yoga blog about it. Little did I know that I would be flooded with requests for copies of those books. So, I want to leave a note on my blog that I will not be posting those pictures here in this blog or will be mailing the copies of these books to anyone. I am sure KYM or some organization will publish those books if so many people are interested in it. I do not want to disrespect any copyrights that come with these books. If I find time, I will write a Wikipedia article for these books.

I recently moved back to San Francisco, pretty much the Yoga capital of the world besides LA and a few other places. The entire yoga scene here feels so fake. I feel like I have been dropped into a thick goo of yoga talk, veganism, raw food, partner yoga and acro yoga. I liked it when I fell into it many years ago. Now it feels very claustrophobic, sticky, limited, brain dead and meaningless. While I agree that all forms do need to evolve, I do not want to be part of this eco system anymore. Yoga is turning into a completely different organism. I am done with this goo.

Yoga in SF is all about if one can wrap their leg around the neck while balancing calmly on just one hand or may be even a finger. Now you can do all of that with a partner, either to impress the partner or be impressed by the partner. I do think western Yoga has become a separate species, a form of its own. Yoga exists today only because it has been resurrected by the west. So, the path of Yoga evolution is completely in the hands of the west as well. I do hope it finds a balance somewhere instead of calling anything Yoga.  I have always dreaded the poses that one needs to do with a partner, a handstand or downward dog or the wheel or anything else. I don’t like involving another person in my practice. Partner and acro yoga creates a great break point for me.

Of course, I can ignore all the white noise and stick to my practice and what I believe in. I do understand I do not have to get into a tizzy just because anything can be called Yoga. The Yoga lessons that made a big impact for me were not the physical aspects at all. The Yoga sutras made a lot of sense, especially the santosha and aparigraha. The contentment and being non-greedy have been some of my biggest lessons from the Yoga Sutras among others. I do not find any of it here in SF Yoga and I will not shell out almost $20 for a physical practice anymore. Home practice it is for me, for a long time. Adios, (SF) Yoga!

The pursuit of Yoga requires a journey to go inward, which helps overcome the obstacles.

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The power adapter of my notebook computer went kaput. I cannot be online or use my computer for anything else. Just when I was getting to amp up my job search in my regular day job of software development, it goes dead. All of a sudden I have so much time on hand, now I have to figure out a different plan for my day. I cannot believe how addicted I am to the internet, it is never enough.

I can picture myself being on the internet when Mr.Yama (not to be confused with yama/niyama of  Yoga Sutras), the Lord of death shows up and tells me  that it is time to close all connections and leave. I will be pleading for 5  more minutes online. Wait, I actually hear someone telling me the time is up.  I look up, the person looks quite normal. He tells me I need to leave this terminal at the library, my time is over. Damn, I am addicted to this.

The importance of Iśvara has been explored in the last 6 sutras I.23, I.24,  I.25, I.26,  I.27,   I.28.  The previous sutra wraps the topic of Iśvara for now. We are discussing the first chapter out of four chapters in Yoga Sutras.  Patañjali is explaining what is Yoga, what is not Yoga and how to achieve Yoga.  Iśvara is one of the pathways that one can achieve the State of Yoga.

Iśvara is someone like god and that he is a special being, quite extraordinary. He is untouched by delusion, agitations, actions, afflictions, consequences and time. He represents past, present and future. He knows everything that is to be known. He is simply the teacher of all the teachers. He is addressed by a special symbol Pranava that specifies the qualities of Iśvara . By meditating on Iśvara, one can realize oneself (or go nearer). By meditating on an object, one imbibes the qualities of the object. How can meditating on Iśvara make oneself realize themselves? Iśvara is within all of us and one needs to be able to see for themselves. Iśvara is part and parcel of all of us.

You can read all the sutras that have been discussed on this blog.

Ashtanga        $20
Bikram            $20
Flow                 $14
Swimming      $5
Running          Free
Walking           Free, my favorite!

**Vancouver rates, per session

Yoga is definitely an elite activity, you got to make tons of money to spend on a yoga class.

I like this trailer a lot. May be I will watch it sometime this summer. Kung fu cult says, everything is Kung fu, just like the Yoga cult.

This move is called IruttiKaal in Malayalam. This clip is filmed in my Kalari Institute CVN Kalari, Thiruvananthapuram (as complicated as Massachusetts!).  This is one of the toughest basic sequences for me. The hip joints have to be completely flexible to sit down completely like in full splits. I could not do it completely and my Gurukkal Rajasekaran Nair asked me not to do it. Children learn this easily and adults who are already flexible can do this, for others this is quite difficult. The spine turns around 360 or feels like it. And the gurukkal will pretty much manhandle the students. He would pull the kids’s hair to twirl around. It does not look too difficult while watching it. But one gets to do this, it is extremely demanding. One needs to coordinate the right and the left, twirl and change direction. When it is time to twirl, the brain needs to adapt so quickly as to where the body is and the control is important. The gurukkal would never be happy with the students. He would always complain and sometimes hit the children mildly to ask them to keep the focus. This is something I will have to practice next time I go to my Kalari Institute.