Ramayana

I am completely in love with this at the moment. 
I love epics and stuff of the past - Mahabrata, Ramayana, Bhagavad Gita, The Purana's, The Crusades, The Illiad, Odyssey, stories of the Greek and Roman Gods and my favourite of favourite Chinese epic stories on film! Crazy for it, my friends will tell you :-)

This retelling is BRILLIANT! It is easy to read despite the many sanskrit words used- but this, i love too. So maybe in the first few pages, you will have to keep referring to the glossary for their meaning but you get a hang of the words after awhile and will start enjoying the language itself. I love this retelling because he tells it like a fairy tale- you can really get into it- and you will!

Best part about it is that I have not even had to reflect too hard on the philosophy of the story. It just stirs me and i just FEEL the whole essence of the story. Dharma has never been clearer! The Bhagavad Gita gave me that as well but this- i felt in my heart. 


haha 
Please excuse my enthusiasm- I hope not to raise the expectation too high- I have read other versions but for me- this is just awesome! It has made me cry from being heart broken to being elated, to being inspired and humbled, and to being "enlightened" (ie: eyes / heart opened!) 


For epic lovers... enjoy :-)

Rubbish

Often, I would cross someone thoughtlessly throwing their rubbish on the ground. I wonder.... do they believe that someone will pick it up? I know in some countries, that is the general belief! I reckon they just don't care. 

How sad that some of us fail to see the great earth as our home? 

How sad that we can only see the things that we can hold and keep... 

How sad to have such limited sight..





Earth is like the body..
& we are just a cell within that body..
why do we pollute our own body? 
We know that one bad cell can make us quite sick...

Such a shame how we treat the organism that supports us...
the mother that provides us with all that we need to survive..

But shame on me!
Most of the time, I pass and say nothing..

not so early yogi

early birds

he he he
o.k. maybe I gave that impression, so I apologise if I did.
I do not wake up at the crack of dawn to practice. I am a terrible morning person! It has always been so. I wake up at 7:30 and if not, get woken up at 7:45. It takes me some time to get out of bed- a bit like my dog... it takes a few stretches and some dialogue with my brain before I roll out of bed. I also like getting up when my husband has gone. He is a morning person and is very hyper in the morning. His quick movements in the morning disturbs me LOL. I am on my mat at around 8 and do a few sun salutations and stretch out my hips and back; they normally feel tight in the morning (actually, everything feels tight in the morning for me- like wood!) . I don't stay long- breakfast beckons. Practice for me really happens in the afternoon. Most days, at 3pm. If I have clients scheduled, then practice happens at 8 in the morning and I only get the one session in. 

I am often asked how long I practice. The thing is, I have stopped imposing time on my practice. Some days, I can go on for 2 hours or so and some days, barely make one. There used to be a time when my time on my mat was all about how much time I spend on it and what I achieve on it physically. I would set targets and will push at a pose every day until I get it or it gets me! Then inevitably, there came a time when I did not enjoy my practice anymore and did less and less of it. I have managed now to let go of that kind of gripping and reaching. Practice is much more about space now and can report that I look forward to be on my mat every day. If you want to take anything from this experience, I would say to you, 'enjoy your practice'. To sustain a regular self practice and more importantly, to be able to receive the beautiful gifts of the practice, you have to enjoy it. Surrender the reaching and gripping, trust the practice, and all will come eventually. 

Having said all that, I go on about morning practice because I love getting up at the crack of dawn to practice. When I am on holiday, I look forward to this. It feels great and the whole day that follows is just great. It is a wee bit challenging on a work day for me to do this. I get back at 9:30pm at the earliest and it would take me some time to wind down. It all sounds like an excuse really because this week, I have had to get to bed early and have been waking up at a glorious 05:30 to get some practice time in before heading out to the wonderful yogi's at 07:00. I miss my night time reading but I love it! It feels great! Even the dog has been delighted to see me this early (and I can tell you, he is no morning bird either!) There is always a way if there is a will...

So anyway....my dear yogin friends, no, I do not wake up at dawn to practice. Maybe I will keep at this now that it is also getting light quite early. I really recommend it ;-)

we love zzzzz's in the morning