Life's Working Out Just Fine Without a Plan!

When I wrote the original post I was confused about whether I’ve made the right choices in life, about which path to follow, about whether to keep to the path I believe in my heart to be right for me and the path I believe I can also use to do something good in the world – or to change who I am and what I believe in because of pressures from society, from people around me, from –oh, I don’t even know from where; I don’t usually react like that to outside pressures and I don’t know why other people’s opinions on the most stupid things suddenly affected me so much. I guess it was since I was (and still am) approaching 40 (it’s getting closer now) yet did not feel like doing things women usually do when they get to this age: have kids, get expensive haircuts that make them look old, start using anti-wrinkle cream. I guess it was the shock of coming back from India to Europe. I guess it was a bunch of things: a temporary loss of identity, a period of questioning myself and my choices and my beliefs and my direction in life.

It is almost a year later and I am in Asia again. I have written my second travel book that was published last year in Finland and received fantastic reviews, and got an award for the Best Travel Book in 2011 from the leading Finnish travel magazine Mondo. I was interviewed by national newspapers and magazines, and I also got a chance to talk at the Helsinki Book Fair about the book and about my travels in India. In 2012 I have spent a few months teaching ashtanga yoga in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where I am still teaching for a few more weeks and loving every minute. I have travelled to Burma and had the most amazing time in that beautiful country. I’ve had some time on a Thai beach to think about the choices I’ve made and the direction life is taking me or the direction I am taking in life. This year I will still be heading to Cambodia to teach and I will also teach yoga in Switzerland and in London. I have met amazing people, I have learned a lot from them and I am honoured and blessed to call some of these people my friends. I am full of ideas for my third book (and my fourth and my fifth book) and I have started several new exciting travel writing projects. I keep getting emails from women who thank me for this blog and for inspiring them to travel and for providing tips and advice.

I know now what I want and I guess I always knew it, but got a little confused while trying to please others who, I’m sure, thought they had my best interests in mind but were trying to turn me into something I’m not. I almost gave up but only almost. And I am so happy I didn’t completely give up. Giving up writing and travelling and yoga would be, for me, the end of everything I am. A prison. A golden prison, perhaps, but a prison.

I didn’t give up, and now I’m having the best time.

So never give up. Never give up your hopes and dreams and beliefs and doing the things you know in your heart are what you were brought to this world to do. And even if you did give up, it is never too late to start again.

***

I was inspired to write this post by someone who commented on that famous Part 1. (You can read the comment and my reply: they are the last ones at the bottom of that page.) Someone who thought I was being selfish since I had been travelling and that I should “make something for myself”. So, having at first thought oh Lord what a twat, I now want to thank that 26-year-old boy who came to give life advice to a woman 12 years older than him. Your comment, young man, confirmed to me that what I am doing is right. Because I don’t want to give in to a  society where 26-year old kids with “a flourishing career in finance” tell 38-year-old writer/journalist/yoga teacher/massage therapist women their life choices are selfish and irresponsible. That is one current I’ll always swim against. No offence, dear 26-year-old man. I know you’re still very young and you will grow up one day.

Mandalay, Burma

I make up a story about friends that are waiting back at the guesthouse, because although Burma feels to me the safest country I’ve ever travelled in, I am still a lone blond female and he is a young man. I am conditioned by years of travel in countries where situations like this can go badly wrong. Of course this is Burma and it does not go badly wrong: the guy walks me across the street and I say thanks and goodbye.

“Only one?” is a question you’ll hear a lot if you are a woman travelling on your own in Burma (Myanmar)*. People want to know if you’re actually travelling all alone, and I’m sure they do not mean to pass judgements: they are simply curious and making conversation. Still, when they ask “only one?” they do have a look of concern and (what I interpret as) slight sadness in their eyes. Really? Only one? Alone? Do you not have any friends? Where is your husband? You’re 38 and you don’t have kids?

Bagan (Pagan), Burma

Ok : I might be reading a little too much into it. But you may want to prepare yourself for hearing that a lot if you travel to Burma.

Solo Female Travel in Burma

For a solo female traveller, Burma is a fantastic travel destination. It is safe, travelling is pretty easy and in the three weeks I spent there I did not experience any sexual harassment at all. Mandalay was the only place in Burma where I ever faced any “hassle” and even there it was very, very low-key: just a few “hello baby” comments from a passing car, and lots of enthusiastic taxi drivers, but let’s face it: it’s about 5% of the hassle travelling women experience in India so it’s not really a big deal.

The people are beautiful, intelligent, friendly, hospitable and polite. One of my most favourite things to do in Burma was sitting at a tea stall and talking to people. Having lived in India for years and having experienced very few possibilities for men and women to talk freely with each other, and never being able to sit down near a group of men without receiving disapproving looks or being sexually harassed, the cosy and relaxed Burmese tea shops became my favourite places to spend time.

Yangon (Rangoon), Burma

Tea shops are where people gather to hang out, to drink tea or coffee and eat pastries (deep-fried dough – but strangely addictive), to chat and to spend time like we do in coffee shops in the West. I would sit in a tea shop in Yangon (Rangoon) and end up having a fascinating conversation with a well-educated, well-travelled Burmese man who spoke excellent English and was keen to know what I thought about his country. A tea shop was where women who spoke little English would bring me cakes and put flowers in my hair.

It’s a Lot Like India… But Without the Hassle

It may seem stupid to compare Burma to India, but there were so many times I looked at the architecture or the landscape and thought it reminded me of places in India years ago. So many times I thought Burma is a lot like India but without the hassle. Unlike in India, there are no “ladies’ seats” in buses in Burma and there are no ladies’ waiting rooms at bus stations – you don’t need them. You can sit next to a man on an overnight bus and he’s not going to grope you. This, for me, is a novel concept after 3,5 years in India. I felt 100% safe in Burma walking around on my own any time of the day or going for a sugar cane juice at the local market late in the evening; something I would not do in India.

Inle Lake, Burma

I have written more about Burma travel on my South-East Asia travel blog. If you are planning to travel to Burma, check out Satu in South-East Asia for travel tips and photos.

*Why do I write about Burma travel and not Myanmar travel? Because Aung San Suu Kyi prefers “Burma”. Read Lonely Planet’s interview with Aung San Suu Kyi and read also the National League for Democracy 2011 statement on tourism in Burma, published on the Burma Campaign UK website.

Read More About Burma:

The National League for Democracy (official website)

Amnesty International annual report on Myanmar 2011

Burma Campaign UK: an organisation campaigning for human rights, democracy & development in Burma

BBC: Burma Country Profile

Travelling responsibly in Burma by Lonely Planet Magazine on BBC Travel.

Image from Wikimedia Commons

My lower spine also has a noticeable inward curve and my upper back/spine is hunched. If I stand up and think I’m standing straight, it actually looks like I’m pushing my belly forward and my butt out on purpose. (I swear I’m not.)

When I was younger, I had a seriously bad posture. My back was weak and my shoulders and neck got stiff, tired and achy really fast. I used to get back exercises from the school nurse… but they were boring and I didn’t do them.

Then I Found Ashtanga Yoga…

I started practicing ashtanga yoga in 2000 when living in London. I was fortunate enough to end up in Ashtanga Yoga London, run by certified teacher Hamish Hendry, from almost the very beginning. I have practiced more or less regularly since then: not always six days a week, and there were some holidays and breaks in the first few years.  But even after a break I always went back.

A few years after I had started ashtanga someone mentioned what a good posture I had. I thought that was odd because I had always believed I had a really bad posture. Around that time I also went for a massage. While working on my back, the massage therapist said, sounding a little hesitant: “Umm…. you know you have a really bad scoliosis?” She seemed a bit shocked that I had not mentioned it at all when she had been asking me about my health. “Oh yeah”, I said. “But I forgot about it”. Because I had forgotten about it. It hadn’t affected me at all for years.

After the massage I went to see my osteopath in London, Nigel*. I asked him if he thought I should be worried about this scoliosis thing. He asked me if it caused me any problems. I said no, and Nigel told me not to worry about it then.

What? Did Yoga Actually Heal Your Scoliosis?

So can I say yoga miraculously healed and re-structured my back? Well, I’m sure the scoliosis is still there. I know that my lower back still curves inward. (Maybe that’s why I like any asana that involves backbending.) However, my posture is much better and if I ever get back pain, it’s likely to be a stiff neck from sitting in a weird position on the floor in a cheap guesthouse in Asia while typing out blog entries on my non-ergonomic laptop. I think the ashtanga practice has done something that is nothing short of miraculous.

The scoliosis, and the weird curves in the spine, and the legs that are different length (seriously – if we ever meet, I’ll show you) are not a problem at all anymore. I’m not sure if there even needs to be a “cure”. What the ashtanga practice has done is this: whatever structural problems there are in my spine, they don’t define me, they don’t limit me, and they don’t stop me from doing anything – not even bending back and grabbing my calves (yes, I like to do that too). I think the daily ashtanga practice is realigning my body but I’m sure my spine will always look weird.  You know what? I don’t care because it doesn’t bother me at all.

*Nigel Castle –knows what he’s doing, a great no-nonsense approach, and also understands and appreciates your yoga practice

Photo: from Wikimedia Commons

I first wrote about yoga and back pain on the Untrained Housewife.

Chiang Mai, Thailand

4 Ways Chiang Mai in Thailand is Just Like Mysore in India:

1) Mysore now has more than 50 “yoga schools” (of varying standards). In Chiang Mai every guesthouse offers “Thai massage courses” (with varying standards). Both cities are also full of Westerners who have done a month-long course in yoga/Thai massage and are going to go back home, open a yoga school/Thai massage school and pretend to be (or actually believe they are) yoga/Thai massage masters.

2) For a relatively big city, Chiang Mai has a lovely small town vibe – just like Mysore. Both have a lot of greenery and beautiful old buildings: Mysore has its old Mysore-style houses and in Chiang Mai you can still see gorgeous wooden houses on stilts, surrounded by gardens full of banana trees. Both are nice places to stay for a while. And by ” a while” I mean “oops, I came for a month and now it’s been two years”.

3) Then there are the endless conversations in the breakfast cafes about massage, yoga, detox, raw food, healing, therapy, best protein sources for vegans and if that guy you shagged last night is actually your soul mate. In Mysore the breakfast talk is mostly about yoga, spirulina (that’s a type of seaweed for you who do not know your health foods) and the consistency of one’s sh*t.

In Chiang Mai, it being a centre for learning Thai massage, the discussions focus mostly on massage, with a bit of yoga, past life therapy, the health benefits of ginger tea, and menstruation talk (girls talking about their periods over breakfast, guys giving them helpful advice about what to eat to get enough iron) thrown in.*

4) In Mysore, Western yoga student women walk around in highly inappropriate clothing for India. Every now and then there is a conference in the yoga shala and women are urged to cover up and behave more respectfully, but it rarely helps. In Chiang Mai, Western female tourists/backpackers/Thai massage students visit Buddhist temples in highly inappropriate clothing despite signs that beg them to not go into the prayer halls in shorts and sleeveless tops, and despite being offered free clothes for covering up.

*Guys: until you actually know what it feels like to have a period, stop telling us what to eat during our period. And don’t tell us to eat spinach and strawberries. Buy us chocolate instead.

A version of this article was originally published on my South-East Asia travel blog.

.

Recently, while in Chiang Mai, I had an opportunity to join a workshop with Danny Paradise. Danny has been practicing ashtanga yoga since 1976 (I was three years old when he started!) and was one of the first Westerners to learn all the traditional ashtanga sequences. He’s been teaching over 30 years.

I didn’t take any photos: I’m crap a taking photos and I hate posing for photos. So instead here’s a link to a youtube video, filmed in Bagan, Burma (I love it because I’m going to Burma in a few days).

You may want to watch the video after reading the rest of this post. If you watch it first, youtube is just going to suck you in for the next three hours. And I’d really like it if you read my post.

Danny is often advertised as “Madonna’s yoga teacher” or “the man who introduced yoga to Sting“. That’s not what impresses me about him. (To be honest I don’t think it’s Danny who goes around talking about it, I think it’s people who promote his workshops and people who go to his workshops. Sadly, yoga people are just as obsessed about celebrities as everyone else.) Everyone’s taught Madonna. Well, not everyone, but everyone I’ve ever studied with has. I’m not sure if that says something about me or my teachers or Madonna. Probably not.

So it doesn’t really matter to me if Danny Paradise has taught Madonna. But what does matter is that after his Chiang Mai workshop, a student who had practiced yoga only a few months (and had been worried about being too much of a beginner to even go to the workshop) said how impressed he was that Danny was so good at interacting with him, even though he was “just” a beginner. This student had thought that maybe a workshop with a famous teacher would only make sense to “advanced” students. He seemed amazed at how this teacher was able to meet everyone at whatever their level or experience.

Now that is impressive.

I think Danny has figured out something about yoga that most of the Western yoga world hasn’t figured out and possibly never will. He has not created his own yoga brand even though he could so easily do it. Paradise Yoga® would actually sound pretty good, right? He could turn it into a multi-million dollar brand and he could produce a series of Paradise Yoga DVDs: if he did one of those “How to Float into a Handstand and Look Amazing” DVDs, it would sell millions, because the yoga world seems to be mad about handstands right now. He could open a worldwide network of studios, start his own teacher training programme, train Paradise Yoga Teachers and charge $5000 for a 200-hour teacher training certificate. (If you’re reading this, Danny, don’t get any ideas!) He’d have hundreds of people signing up within a day. He could do that, because people seem to adore him. Here in Chiang Mai it has been weeks since the workshop, and people are still talking about him.

So he could create a brand and a big following, but he hasn’t. He doesn’t believe in gurus anyway. This, for me, was of course a major challenge, since I think of (the late) Guruji, Sri K Pattabhi Jois, as my guru and I firmly believe in tradition and the idea of parampara. To be honest there were a few things that pissed me off… I mean challenged me in this workshop. He doesn’t believe in gurus! He thinks yoga did not originate in India! The ancient Egyptians were practicing yoga! The shamans were yogis! Or was it that the yogis were shamans? I mean what the f***? The only way I can really describe the workshop, from a strict traditional ashtanga yoga practitioner’s point of view, is that it was like being hit by a truck. A truck with long hair.

Now, to me a great teacher is not someone who constantly tells you how amazing you are and feeds your ego. There are enough teachers like that anyway for the people who need them. To me a truly exceptional teacher is someone who inspires you but also challenges you at every level, someone who makes you look at your practice in a new light and perhaps even question why you do that practice at all, someone who challenges you to ask yourself if you really are as open-minded as you like to think you are, or if you have a flexible body but a stiff mind. Everyone should be forced to step out of their comfort zone and ask themselves some uncomfortable questions every now and then. That’s exactly what I was forced to do. It’s been weeks and I’m still recovering. And that, I think, is what makes Danny such a shockingly good teacher.

Check out dannyparadise.com for his retreat and workshop schedule and for some fun photos.

The Buddhists Got it Right. Wat Chedi Luang, Chiang Mai.

There seems to be this idea out there that yoga should make you happy, peaceful and blissful, and if that doesn’t happen within a week from your first yoga class, there’s something wrong with yoga. (If yoga doesn’t do to people what they think it should do, and fast, there’s always something wrong with yoga yet nothing wrong with people’s own expectations.) I have heard it especially from people who have never practiced yoga but who have a lot of opinions about what yoga should be or what it should do. Yoga should give you inner peace. Yoga should make you smile 24 hours a day. You should walk out of a yoga class feeling calm and balanced and happy, otherwise it’s not yoga. You “should“. Yoga “should“.

Ummm… where exactly did you get this idea from?

Yoga is a spiritual practice, a science that is probably a lot older than you think. It is a path to self-realization, to enlightenment, and here’s the shocking news: that path is not always full of bliss. There might be bliss at the end of it. There might be peace, tranquillity, equanimity and detachment. But the way there is difficult, painful and uncomfortable. And I’m not just talking about the pain in asana.

Any effective form of self-development or self-improvement  inevitably involves some uncomfortable moments. At some point you will have to look at the image you have created about yourself, the personality you thought was you, and realize that it is not, in fact, you: it is just a vehicle for your soul and sometimes it is not a pretty vehicle at all. When you start any serious spiritual practice you will sooner or later end up looking at yourself, your thoughts, your actions, your ideas about who you are, and you will have to face the painful truth that however much you smile and pretend to be a good guy/girl, there’s still a lot of crap inside you.

Whatever crap there is inside, yoga brings it out to the surface.

Just like the sweat in your typical ashtanga yoga class brings toxins from your physical body to the surface, the practice brings repressed, hidden and forgotten emotions and thoughts to the surface. And if you have been walking around thinking you’re the next Mother Theresa, the practice may bring up some seriously unpleasant emotions: anger, pride, jealousy, envy, sadness. Stuff that happened 20 years ago will suddenly appear in your mind. You may walk out of a practice wanting to go home and hide in the bed and cry. You may feel like you want to punch someone in the face. And you ask yourself where all this seriously unpleasant stuff came from.Yoga was meant to make you calm!

That stuff came from inside you, from the deep dark corners where you hid all the ugly thoughts you didn’t want anyone to know about.

I asked Sharath once about this thing that was happening a lot after my practice in Mysore and was especially related to practicing the Intermediate series. After practice I just wanted to cry. Not for any particular reason: I just wanted to go home and cry for no reason whatsoever. Sharath said something about how emotions do come out after practice but the process has not been researched much. His advice was to go home, close the door, hide under the blanket and cry. He also said this emotional reaction was a Western thing – Indian students were not crying after their practice.

So here’s what I think. If you want to take just a little piece of yoga, and if you want the “gentle exercise”, of course you can do exactly that. Just go to your nearest yoga centre and choose something with the word “gentle” in it, and hopefully it will make you feel good. But if you really want to step on this path of yoga, watch out: it’s not gentle at all. It’s a kick-ass process of healing and that healing will necessarily involve purification on many levels. It’s not pretty when it happens, but it’s worth it in the end. I think. Because of course I’m still very very far from the end.

***

PS. From now on, or at least for the next few months, I’m going to write about yoga as well as India travel. I’ve tried to avoid writing about yoga, because there are enough yoga blogs out there, but I have a lot to say and I can’t keep it inside anymore. Be warned, though: it’s not all about love and light. And if you ever see or hear me use the words “open your heart”, shoot me.

Monsoon is the perfect time for a bike trip to Ladakh

In the months leading up to the monsoon season in India I always get loads of emails from people who are planning to travel to India during the monsoon and are wondering if it is possible. If you are planning to go to India during the rainy season (between June and October, or in November/ December in the areas covered by the Northwest monsoon), I hope the following posts I’ve written over the last two years help you to plan your trip:

India in Monsoon Season: read what to expect if you’re going to travel in India during the rainy season.

Where to Go During Monsoon in India: A few places where the rain is not too bad.

5 Tips for Monsoon Travel in India: how to deal with those little problems monsoon causes for travellers.

Where to Go during the Monsoon?

Some places in India get more rain during the monsoon than others. Some regions suffer from bad flooding but some get just a couple of hours of rain daily.

4 Things to Do in Mysore: the monsoon season in Mysore can be ok. Mysore gets some rain but there is less severe flooding than in some parts of India. The main problems are mosquitoes, diseases, being sick with colds and coughs from getting constantly wet in the rain, not being able to dry your clothes properly ever, that mouldy smell that creeps into clothes and bedclothes and general feeling of just being a little damp all the time. But it doesn’t rain every day and when it rains it doesn’t rain all day – you might get quite a bit of sunshine in Mysore even during the monsoon. The rainy season can also be a nice time to study yoga in Mysore.

Ladakh, India: The Land of High Passes: most of Ladakh is high altitude desert in the Himalayan rain shadow and avoids the monsoon rain almost completely. June to August is rainy season in the rest of India but this is the best time to travel to Ladakh, whether on bus, by motorbike or by bicycle.

Things to Do in Leh, Ladakh: the monsoon season is Leh’s high season andthe sun keeps shining!

A Short Guide to Goa Beaches:  parts of Goa stay open during the monsoon. Although the bamboo huts are taken down for the rainy season, the big resorts and hotels stay open. Many smaller guesthouses are open on some beaches but not every single place will be open, so do a bit of research before heading to Goa for the monsoon.

Yoga Stops Traffick 10 March 2012

On 10 March yoga students around the world take a stand against human trafficking.

Yoga Stops Traffick was born in Mysore, the home of the Odanadi Seva Trust. Odanadi has been working for the rescue, rehabilitation and reintegration of trafficked women and children for 20 years.

Mysore is also the home of Ashtanga Yoga and the Sri K Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute. Ashtanga Yoga has been and continues to be a part of the rehabilitation programme for the young people in Odanadi and it has had a huge impact in their lives. According to Yoga Stops Traffick organizers Ashtanga Yoga has allowed Odanadi residents “to reclaim their bodies: build physical and mental strength, and restore a sense of peace, confidence and self-worth”.

Odanadi runs two residential rehabilitation centres in Mysore and houses up to 85 women and young people at any one time. Odanadi residents are offered a range of therapeutic activities including psychological counseling, art therapy, yoga, acupuncture and drama. Many residents were rescued from brothel owners and sex traffickers. Some come from abusive homes, child marriages and domestic and commercial servitude. Odanadi has over the last 20 years carried out 60 brothel raids, rescued and rehabilitated over 2000 children and brought 137 traffickers to justice.

What Happens on the 10^th of March?

The main Yoga Stops Traffick event is in Mysore. Yoga practitioners will join 90 Odanadi residents in front of the Mysore Palace for 108 sun salutations (108 is a sacred number in many belief systems including Hinduism and Buddhism) to  raise awareness about human trafficking and to show support to its victims. As well as the main event in Mysore there will be international events in 98 locations in 25 countries. All proceeds from the event will be donated to Odanadi.

Check out the Yoga Stops Traffick site for information about an event near you or the Odanadi website for more information about the Odanadi’s work against human trafficking.

.

This post contains one affiliate link.

People sometimes ask me why they should go to Mysore to study ashtanga yoga in the KPJAYI. Isn’t it expensive? And what’s the point now that Guruji’s passed away anyway? And there are so many good Western ashtanga teachers, why shouldn’t you go to one of them? They’re cheaper than going to India, aren’t they? And what’s the point of going to a room that has a hundred other students in it at the same time? What can you learn? How much attention can you get? How much can your personal practice progress (someone actually asked me this question years ago)?

That’s it, exactly: attention. Maybe the one thing you have to go all the way to Mysore to learn is how to not to expect to be the centre of attention. Maybe you have to go there to see all these other people who all have practices that look much “better” than yours, and have your ego punched in the face a little bit, because you thought of yourself as quite the yoga master. Maybe you have to go all the way there and practice for a month without getting much attention at all, because it is time that your practice moved away from “personal” and “attention” and “progress“. Maybe the “progress” is not about amazing handstands (there seems to be this weird handstand craze going on at the moment where people  think it is somehow impressive or a significant sign of your progress in yoga to be able to kick into a handstand against the wall… ummm, it’s not that impressive and it’s not a sign of spiritual development). Maybe the progress is not about having a teacher around you all the time to push and pull you into postures your body cannot do without assistance (while you hold your breath in pain). Maybe the progress is something that happens inside and maybe that is exactly what you need to come to Mysore to learn.

So Why Should You Go to Mysore?

Let me put it this way: if you wanted to taste authentic Italian pizza, would you 1) go to Pizza Hut 2) go to some American guy who went to Italy for a year or two and learned to make pretty good pizza, or 3) go to a small village in Italy where this old grandma makes pizza from ingredients she grows in her little garden, to the same tradition she learned from her mother, a tradition that has been passed on for generations and that produces the best damn pizza in the world?

I just watched this film about studying ashtanga yoga in Mysore, in the Sri K. Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute: Mysore Magic: Yoga at the Source.

That’s pretty much what it is like. Like most of those who were interviewed for the film say, it is not something you can really put into words. You have to go there and experience it and all the other stuff that comes with it: the crowds in the shala, the sweat, the getting up at 4 am, the cockroaches, the dysentery, the Indian visa bureaucracy, the heat and the monsoon rain, the neurotic breakfast conversations about the health benefits of spirulina (yeah, drink seaweed, that’s going to make you enlightened), the pettiness and the competition and the gossip, the friendships, the love affairs that last until the moment you get on the plane back home, the Indian neighbour who plays Bollywood hits at full volume until 2 am and starts again at 7 when you’re getting ready for your post-practice nap: all that, and the moments when you feel like this is why I came to Mysore, just this moment, this is something I was looking forward to my whole life. And when you have had that moment, nothing will ever be the same again.

You may have studied ashtanga yoga with a Western authorised or certified teacher for years. You may have an advanced daily practice. You might do workshops with famous teachers all the time. You might chant every day and read the Yoga Sutras and you might be able to recite the Bhagavad Gita from memory. But if you have not practiced in the KPJAYI, you’re missing something really crucial to this practice.

It’s like this: imagine you have spent years studying the Spanish language. You consider yourself pretty fluent. You get good marks from your Spanish exams. You even read books in Spanish sometimes. But you have not actually ever tried your Spanish with a native Spanish speaker.

Then you go to Spain for the first time. You go out and someone speaks to you on the street in Spanish. And suddenly, despite your years of studies and all your certificates, you don’t understand a word. And all you can say in response is: “huh?”

That’s pretty much what it’s like to walk into that shala for the first time.

UPDATE: I just found a blog post that describes so well what studying yoga in Mysore is like that I have to add it here: Departures (Or the Mysore Mind F**K)
on Svadhyaya, Caroline’s blog.

Yeah, that’s exactly what it’s like.

.

I recently took a tram in Bern, Switzerland’s capital, at eight o’clock one Monday morning. It was full of truly miserable people. You would have been forgiven for thinking they all had lost their families, their homes, their friends, their jobs and all their possessions, and on top of it had just been diagnosed with a terminal illness that gave them just a month to live.

Now, I know that if you take the tube in London at 8 am on a Monday morning, the passengers will not exactly be whooping from the joy of going to work on a dark winter morning. Most of them are nursing their hangovers and comedowns after a wild weekend and are not really too excited about another boring working week. But there is a difference between that slightly hungover Monday morning feeling and the all-encompassing misery that hung over the tram in Bern. (I know what all you Swiss readers say now: you can’t judge us based on just one tram journey! No, I can’t, but this has been my experience on every bloody tram journey I’ve taken in Bern over the last two years so stop making excuses and read on).

Every passenger on that tram belonged to the richest 5% of the world’s population. With very few exceptions, everyone in Switzerland belongs to the richest 5% of the world’s population. I hear you Swiss readers scream “I’m not rich!” and I know that in Switzerland you’re considered poor if you don’t own two new cars and a personal Jacuzzi, and if your wife has fewer than 20 pairs of shoes, but that is exactly what puts you in the richest 5% of people in the world.

So why are the people in (one of the) wealthiest countries in the world so unhappy? Does all that wealth not make you happy after all?

When I walk by an Indian slum, let’s say the one in Mysore I lived down the road from for a few years, there is a smile on most people’s faces. These are people who live in huts that are boiling hot in the summer and that leak badly during the monsoon, and that do not have 24-hour electricity or running water or sanitary facilities. The kids pee in the ditch and run around barefoot without diapers or even pants, laughing as they step in pig poo. There is a communal tap that gives every family in the slum their water for cooking, for making tea, for drinking and for washing themselves. There are kids and adults and old people, there are cows and goats and pigs, there are dogs and cats and there are also rats, but most of all there are loads of smiles and laughs.

Now I’m not one of those people who think you should smile even if you get dysentery (although it helps to laugh at the shlts). But what I do wonder is why the people in the wealthiest countries in the world are so often so bloody miserable?