Each day as a prayer, each day as an offering, and each day as a blessing...

I have just finished doing 108 times sun salutation.  It’s like as though I came back home after long, long journey…very sweaty and sticky, and whole body muscles are pulsating like fine ripples in a quite lake.  The heartbeat is surprisingly settled, the mind is lucid clear, and the emotion quietly surging upward with indescribable feelings of lightness, happiness and joy.

Then I remember our old yoga buddies in the Bukit Jalil center with whom we used to enjoy doing 108 times of sun salutation.  They were all in their 50s and 60s.  At first, they would get frightened (?) whenever I say “how many times of sun salutation should we do today?”  I would assure them that it’s okay to stop anytime whenever they need to.  Then as we go along, no one will stop but manage to finish till the end.  Then we would flat out in Savasana for 10 minutes or so, all sweaty and sticky, but, beaming with pride and healthy smile… 

That was heaven on earth.  That was one of those precious moments in life where we could be so satisfied, so content and so complete with just the way we are, just the way our life is. 

Then, life has to move on.  Nothing last forever and nothing can stay the same.  I moved to Putra Heights, and all those good and old Yoga buddies who felt so connected with each other, every time after sweating tons…I am not sure where they all have gone, while I am here, how they are over there…but I am sure they are doing fine and living each day as busy as they were before.

As for me, over the course of continuing this yogic path as a teacher at the same time as a student of Tao, I too go through fluctuation of good and bad days; good and fragile health, up and down mood of emotional swing, positive or negative spirals of inspiration.  While we are in the motion of riding those perpetual waves of changes, challenges, tasks that our life present, it’s so easy to forget the Big Picture feeling most miserable and constrained in the situations, caught up in the small minds.

But, like today, if I happen to remember after good dose of sweating and breathings, then, I realize the heaven is not far away.  It is always right at the tip of our nose, up and down…breathing in, breathing out…but we forget so often…

However as long as I am continuing the journey in this path, I have a place to come back home, the sanctuary in my heart, that I can count each day as a prayer, each day an offering, and each day as a blessing…

How about you?  Would you like to join me in the routine of 108 sun salutation?  You too will be able to find your heaven on earth…

Yoga Story 9. Hanumanasa (The Monkey God Pose )

                                            

This yoga story is continuation from the long overdue Yoga Story series that was last left at June 2011.  I won’t give any excuses for the disruption, but, just let me continue…

The hanuman pose, or Leg-split, is one of the most difficult yoga poses to master.  The hamstring muscles attached at the back of thighs are like the most stubborn bull.  It won’t budge one bit no matter how hard you try to pull it.  Attached like layered thick bands, hamstrings also work much the same way.  Even you succeed to stretch it a bit today, it goes right back to where it was yesterday when you wake up next morning.  The hamstring muscles are also the dumbest ones, because unlike other muscles in the body it doesn’t remember what it did before.  Every day is a new day, so you just have to stretch it every day for some years if you want to split beautifully.  That is with faith and courage like the Hanuman in the story of Ramayan.

Hanuman who is the son of Vayu (the Wind God) and the mortal woman Anjana, forgot his divine origin while leaving with the monkeys in the mountain, after the curse of the Sun God Surya.  As the son of the wind, Hanuman could do anything.  He could grow very large or very small, move mountains, and even change his shape all together.  But he was constantly forgetting his divinity.  The curse was to be relieved when he meets King Ram (the cosmic Lord Vishunu incarnate) to serve him as the main warrior in the war between Ravana (the bad guy who abducted Ram’s wife Sita) and Ram.  Sita was hidden in a secluded place of the island kingdom of Ravana.  While Ram was building bridge with his army to cross over the ocean, Hanuman was to jump over the ocean to confirm the safety of Sita, at the same time, to inform her Ram’s rescue is being on the way.  However in front of this important task, Hanuman again forgot his orgin.  So he turned to his faith, shraddha in Sanskrit, to give him the confidence to do what he knew mush accomplish.  With prayers, he was able to remember his powers and grew very large instantly.  As he flew over the ocean toward his destiny, one of Hanuman’s feet reached forward and one foot reached back like the Leg-split, hanumanasana. 

Many of us shrink before impossible tasks, even tasks that are just a bit hard, because we are just like hanuman.  We easily forget that there is a part of us that is also divine and can accomplish the impossible.  And we forget about the element of shraddha, which is ingrained in every human heart, just as it was within Hanuman’s.

Throughout human history, there has always been some form of prayer to give human beings the space and time to grow that element of faith within their hearts.  It is with faith and hope that we can go forth with confidence and leap across oceans, change the world, or simply fall back in love.

This story was somehow difficult for me to write…maybe I too wanted to forget for a while of writing too holly-molly God’s story only.  Instead, I turned to write a Korean book about Malaysia.  After devoting for solid 6 months to write, publishing it becoming another mountainous task…with high costs and work it needs…so I am turning to my prayer, shraddha…hoping Him to show me the way…for it to find its way to the deserved readers…