Day 9

10:00 AM

"The darkest and the most heated room is the one between our ears."

Our yoga teacher said that, last night during class, and I woke up this morning with that thought buzzing in my head. During a Yoga class, it is extremely hot in the room. Very humid, so for a beginner it is sometimes unbearable.  It makes you think, what in the world am I doing here?  This can't be good for me or my body.  Its just too hot and I can't breathe...  After some time, you learn how to control your breath, and your mind quites down, so you realize that is not that hot and unbearable inside that room, after all.  It starts to feel good actually.  You find yourself welcoming the heat, and the sweat just running down your face. So it is not the actual yoga room. It is not the heat. Or the humidity... It is the room and the heat between our ears.  That's what makes this class sometimes too hard and too hot. After a while the room is not as hot, the class is not as hard.  What had changed... Nothing... The room is still the same temperature. The class is still the same. Everything is the same... However, the heat between the ears is lower, and there is light in that room now. Small light, but still light.  Its not so dark and hot as it used to be. Its more open, different lights are shining inside now, the monkey has calm down a bit... And that makes the world of difference... When you realize that and experience it, than, just for a fraction of a moment, you are living.....

2:00 PM

Not a very good class today.  I was a little tired, but most of all my focus wasn't there.  I couldn't hold my balance as my mind was wondering too much.  Nothing specific but still wondering.  Once we got into the second part of practice, then I was fine again.  I regained my strength and focus, and finished a class on a good note. In some areas of my body I am improving and I can see it clearly, but in the other areas still no progress.  After all, its just 9 days I wasn't expecting anything better. To tell the truth I don't really know what to expect.  Thats a good thing about this journey, doing it and not knowing the result.  What will my body be like after 100 practices?  How flexible, balanced, strong am I going to be? Yoga experts say that 60 yoga classes in a row will redefine your body...
How do they know that for sure...?  Everybody is different, so the body is different, too.  Some more flexible, some more balanced. Some improve faster and some slower. Some change quickly and some hardly even change... Different...  So how can you make that statement then...?
If you look at this from another angle, then this statement makes perfect sense.  All bodies are the same.  The difference is just on the outside, but on the inside its all the same. If you peel a human being like you peel an onion, under each layer you will find the same things. Same organs, tissues, bones...  Most of all its the same energy.  One big energy.  All of us, all the bodies. No difference... One energy.  Boundless.  Boundless, if one knows how to become one with it.  Of course most of us don't even know that this one energy exists. So we think that we are different that the person next to us.  And then we compare, judge, envy, hate... So if one can just shift the outlook on life, the outlook on yoga practice and the body, then it is all possible.  Then everything is quite possible...
Which of the two arguments is the correct one? Am I going to see major body change after this journey, or its going to be nothing special...? The only answer one can give is the best answer.  The only true answer.  The answer that answers it all.  DON'T KNOW....

11:00 PM

Ninth step of my journey...  Other than the freezing rain, making driving absolute hell, it was a good day. Maybe it was a good day because of the freezing rain.  Who knows....  What a good day anyway?  I have to stop calling it a good day.  What is the deciding factor that makes a day good or bad? It can always be better and it can always be worse.  In reality there is no good or bad.  When one realizes that there is no "I", that its false and not real, then there is no dualism.  You can't differentiate good from bad, pretty from ugly, love from hate, because there is no "I" to compare, to judge, to hate... Then its all just what it is.  A day is just a day.  Its not a good one and its not a bad one.  Its just a day.....
So my opening line should have been more like this: "Ninth step of my journey... It was a day today, with freezing rain and hard driving.  Just a day..."