Yoke yourself to the battle!

One of the important books in the yogic tradition is the Baghavad Gita. It is one of the most respected and read hinduistic texts. Baghavad Gita portrays the pangs of conscience, Arjuna must go trough, since he is forced to fight against his own famiy. In this work, "yoga" is used as the english word "yoke". It is mostly used in situations, where Arjuna connects himself to his warwagon and chariot, the hindu god Krishna - and thereby another part of himself. “Yoke yourself to the battle!”, Krishna says to Arjuna. In the Baghavad Gita, yoga is a symbol of the preparations before the battle. It is the act of building strenght, bravenes and agility to face the world - and to face oneself.

I introduced my yoga class today with the story of Arjuna and Krishna. I asked my class to prepare for the battle. Life isn't easy, and my class wouldn't be neither.
During my introduction, I tried to do what I could to camouflage, how much I was actually asking my students to join my own, personal battle. But I knew, they knew. I knew, they knew that today was one of my tough days. But i don't think that they knew much more than that.

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This summer, I began the biggest and hardest cleasning process, I could ever had imagined. I had the hardest time of my life. Slowly, but definitely not gently, all my old displaced stories and feelings started making their way back to the surface.
It all started with a body treatment. I asked a body therapist to help me release the sorrow that was hiding under my skin. He sure did. After my 2nd treatment, I couldn't stop crying. In fact, I cried for three full days, before I slowly started to calm down again.
This episode led to a serious yoga crisis. I started wanting to run away from the shala during my mysore practise. At first, I started practicing less. Then even less. And in the end, I wanted to run away so badly already during the first 5 minutes of the practise that I just stopped coming. After this, I didn't practice yoga myself for more than a month.
By digging into myself, my muscles and mind I was facing the parts of myself, which I have been hiding away for years. That made me want to run away very badly. All the time. Living with the man, I loved, who just walked right into the very center of my being with his bare precense, definitely didn't make it less intense. I often found myself planning to take the next flight to India or Istanbul, just to get away as far and as quicly as possible. But there was no where to run away from what was within myself. Just like Arjuna, I hade to face the war, however cruel it might seem to be. I couln't choose anything else than to meet it with honesty and respect - and yoke myself to the battle.

I slowly found out that I had to break myself compeltely down, before I was able to build myself up again. The old, ousted stories had to be rediscovered, before I could begin to move on. There was many stories. It took a long time. And it costed me more than a river of tears.

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Every little victory in life makes us stronger, and after the class today I wanted my students to know that completing a yoga class like mine that was quite a victory. However, I soon lealised that I was having a breaktrough myself during that very moment. Something had changed.
As I led the class to rest in Savasana, I sat for a moment in silence, breathing - preparing. And then, suddenly, I let a low, soft voice grow out of the silence. I started singing.
I sang the moola mantra.

It was the first time, I had been singing for many years. Now, I suddenly found myself singing with the vulnerability of my heart and the strenght of my presence. I sang the most beautiful words, I knew, and I sang to show my appreciation and thankfulness to my students, as well as to the whole battle of life. I honoured every step of the process, and now I understood that I had finally fought my way to my next level of living.

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Om
Sat Chit Ananda Parabrahma
Purushothama Paramatma
Sri Bhagavathi Sametha
Sri Bhagavathe Namaha

Om - We are calling on the highest energy, of all there is
Sat - The formless
Chit - Consciousness of the universe
Ananda- Pure love, bliss and joy
Para brahma --The supreme creator
Purushothama -Who has incarnated in human form to help guide mankind
Paramatma -Who comes to me in my heart, and becomes my inner voice whenever I ask
Sri Bhagavati - The divine mother, the power aspect of creation
Same tha- Together within
Sri Bhagavate -The Father of creation which is unchangeable and permanent
Namaha- I thank you and acknowledge this presance in my life. I ask for your guidance at all times

(the above simpilified version was supplied by Felicity Barrington of Canada)

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