Incredible India chaos it seems- but is there more?

The yoga hall is splitting at the seams, the props are all outside, the onlookers are perched on the edge of props or anything else, and then shooed away to make space for the still pouring in late comers. Can all these people fit in and then can we really arrive and move into ourselves?

We chant following Geetaiji, sharing mats to accommodate. We go forward, as the room around us changes shape, stretching itself around us and then off we go.

Uttanasana in many ways, to en-liven our senses to our work, sharpen our observations, draw us into participation. The class is entirely forward bending’s and twisting’s, so straining the knees that can’t bend or the spines that don’t move forward, heads that refuse to budge and will only go about their own way.

All of us making our way, either somewhere or nowhere.

Guriji in his 93th year over in his usual place, under the trestle. How long was that padmasana, that badda konasana? He has his invisible suit on so he is very quiet and inward, but not so the rest of the room, heaving and grunting, laughter as Geeta tells us there will always be pain, pain with your new house, your expensive new dress, you ageing bodies.

We are cajoled and driven into ourselves, pushed and nailed down into the pool of our being. For some, forward bending’s are easier, for others they are sure their knees will break, or something else, and they will hang back waiting till they can escape this pose, this class, this life.

When I leave the room I have seaman’s legs, and rubber inside me.

But there is something else as well. If I can do everything I wish, what a mess. If I can say no, or yes, I find that yes, there is an external chaos but inside there is an internal order. There are choices in every moment and I make the choices I make because of the deeper desire that I constantly aligning myself with. There comes a strength from ‘no this is not right’, and ‘yes I will try’, I will listen beyond how I hear, I will listen and trust and believe. Not to perform and merely be a ‘yes’ person, but I will be able to bear the lack of outer control to work with myself and so work on what I can.

Incredible India, chaos that orders!