It was a sunny Autumn Morning. I had just taught an early morning yoga class and was walking in the sun kinda sun drunk. I spotted a shop owing friend on the other side of the street getting into her van. I waved while calling out, ”You got time for a coffee?”

I saw her nod and clamber out of her van and walk to the pavement as I crossed the road to join her. In the mean time a blond woman with a Labra-doodley dog started talking to her.

I waited for them to finish their conversation with my face turned towards the sun and got even more sun drunk. Finally they separated and the blond woman with the lively Labra-doodley dog turned to me and said, “She’s a complete control freak.” I presumed she was taking the mickey and replied, “I’ll have to speak severely to her about that.” Then she said, “No, really she’s a control freak.” My sun drunk reply was. “And you know that’s one of her best traits.”

I turned and my friend was staring at me with a massive grin and said, “You know she really thought I was a control freak.”
“I thought you knew her.” I said
“No.” She explained, “ Her dog was peeing in all the shop front doorways and I asked her not to let her dog do that.”
“So, she was just a random dog owner.” I said.
“Yeah, but the strange thing was, after I’d asked her to stop her dog, she followed me across the road and let her dog pee on the wheel of my van, then when you saw her she was trying to tick me off about my control freakiness.”
“My my what an unhappy camper then?”
We walked into the coffee shop garden chortling and generally having a jolly good time.

I thought about this and decided this was a Zen moment, where the disarming inadvertent intersession of humour made the adversary impotent. I was not attached to being right, I only saw a friend where others might see an enemy and treated her to a little, on my part, at least, good natured banter. The marshall Art Masters in Aikido suggest that you don’t fight an attacker you take their attack as an invitation to dance. This is perhaps the first inclination I have had as to how this actually feels.

As soon as we see someone as an attacker we defend and their weapons get discharged and you and they are wounded. In the Blond lady and the Labra-doodley dog incident, the most damage was to my mascara as I wept with laughter and the Blond lady with Labra-doodley dog was left bemused but undamaged.

I have an Irish temper and attempt to not let fly with snaky comments but my attachment to my own opinions and my illusion of separateness from others can sometimes get away from me, but now, maybe just maybe, I have an idea of what it might feel to be at one with the world. Good heavens the spiritual pundits were right, happiness, begets happiness, begets wholeness. So watch this space and on any day turn your face to the light.

A Foundation Yoga Class for beginners is starting on Wednesday 21st May at 6:00pm.Contact Maggi on 0403095779 to enrol. Venue Central Balmain
Maggi Nimmo is not like other yoga teachers, she works with simple postures that are safe and effective to do, yet challenge and strengthen your core
and joint support muscles.
Her emphasis is to teach you simple effective regimes that you can do throughout your day to keep your limbs and back strong and pain free. She will train you to stand in a poised and easy manner and
move with athletic grace.
She will challenge your support muscles until they quiver with increasing strength and the only thing you can do is dance a little or a lot for the joy of movement.
Maggi is a therapist and an expert in yoga rehabilitation. Even though the postures and movements are simple, they strengthen your legs and render your arms and shoulders mobile and lyrical. When your legs are strong and the arms graceful then the process changes and your arms and torso are made long and strong and your legs graceful and strong.
It’s a journey to calm your mind and activate your right to health, vitality, calm and graceful ease.

The Most Sublime of Meditations

Let’s not pussy foot around any more, life, as we know it, is not infinite. We are full of delusions, ourselves, beliefs, habits that apparently have effects way beyond our ability to discern. Our habits drive our life’s decisions and directions.

Does this mortal coil have meaning beyond the next meal? Too bloody right it does and that meaning is your choice. To mean something or not, that is the question.
The new buzz sicknesses are Life Style Illnesses: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle_disease. Yep the civilised world and its accoutrements are killing you more slowly, in increasingly varied ways but prolonging your suffering.

I reckon I can do something about this:
Simplify your food, drink more water, exercise with pleasure, practice yoga and breath modifications and take action towards meditate or inner peace.

The state of meditation is one of loss of your “I-ness” and you become aware and are absorbed by and in the world around you. The I becomes us, the ego dissolves and your awareness opens into something within you that you’d forgotten existed and the world around simultaneously changes, (i)llness becomes (we)llness.

Let’s start somewhere quiet.
Sit upright on a chair or the floor, kneel if its comfortable.
Lengthen your spine by gently extending your buttocks into the floor or chair, place your hands on your legs with the palms down and the tip of your thumb and index gently touching.
Place the tip of your tongue gently on your upper palate just behind your two front teeth and relax your throat.
Lengthen your neck by pulling your chin down and in, a little.
Inhale, being aware of drawing energy from the crown of your head, down your spine to your tail bone, making the inner sound Sooo…
Exhale up your spine and let the energy exit the crown of your head while imagining you are saying Hammm.
Gradually slow and lengthen both your inhale and exhale.
10 minutes will revive and relax you.
More than that it will calm your nervous system and leave you responsive rather than reactive to life’s vicissitudes.

This practice will make changing habits, monitoring impulses and managing choices easier and will help you avoid bad life style diseases.

Anxiety

1. believing that your own thoughts are real and 
2. taking another person’s behaviour or actions personally. 

1. Learning to relax, the practice of Yoga Nidra is a systematic application of tried and true techniques to calm your life. Listening to music or reading can also be relaxing.
2. Certain foods can hype you up or depress you, learning to observe your food habits and the affects of food and perhaps alcohol can help you to make better dietary choices.
3. Dehydration can wreck havoc with your nervous system. Drink more water at least 2 litres a day can cool your reactive systems down
4. Get help with physical and emotional issues
5. Do not ignore your body’s pain signals, that is often the first sign of chronic stress or imbalances that can really deplete your energy
6. Have  regular checkups. Make sure you have appropriate medical tests for your age, heritage and situation. Knowing you are well is calming, knowing you have a specific illness or problem is a good step towards fixing it.
7. Connect with your family and friends, they are the wellspring of your health and happiness.

I have just returned from an extended trip overseas. I went to an Ayurvedic ashram in the tiny village of Hariharapura. Unlike western allopathic medicine systems it depends on time for the treatments and consistent application of herbs, medicated water and physical treatments.

In classical Sanskrit literature, Ayurveda was called “the science of eight components” (Sanskrit aṣṭāṅga अष्टांग)

I went to treat a general inflammatory process inhabiting my body.

Ayurveda stresses the use of plant-based medicines and treatments. Hundreds of plant-based medicines are used. Some animal products may also be used, for example milk. I experience the use of milk heated and suffused with herbs that was systematically poured over my body, creating a nourishing effect on my skin and relaxing every nerve.

I went to experience Panchakarma which is a therapeutic way of eliminating toxic elements from your body. I was saturated with medicines that removed the toxins from my very cells and steam cleaned, cleansed and nurtured. I deliberately limited my use of the internet and daily practiced yoga nidra, and yoga. After 6 weeks, yes 6 weeks, I felt gentler, relaxed and unable to respond impulsively to anything. I felt empty and had a feeling that I was being guided, nurtured and that feeling lingers even as I subject myself to the Western radiant field of noxious electric bur-ha-ha.

I have started to teach yoga again in Sydney, quietly to small groups and I focus on earthing asanas and relaxation.

My favourite God in the Indian Trinity is Shiva, yes the cobra king himself. Though he rules destruction and death, it refers to the death of your ego. I crossed a river wading through the water thigh high in front of a Shiva shrine and slipped catching myself in a graceful turn that righted my hip, aligned my spine and exposed me to the Tandavar the Dance of Shiva, for a moment that is eternal I was dancing as a god. Heavens above you gotta love that, I did.

When you practice yoga dance to the rhythm of your breath and slow your strong legs to support your graceful arms while your spine decompresses and all your senses open.

India can be overwhelming. As a nation and as individuals there is less of a sense of boundaries than perhaps other countries. There is a strong sense of connection to history, cultural history, the gods time is evident in the number of temples and the religious observances practiced by the people. The national and state boundaries have always been a moveable feast. There have been boundary disputes over the centuries based on language, religion, philosophy the standard excuses for territorial incursions, when the underlying theme is often an area’s resources. On a personal level, there is no excuse to be by yourself, Indians are usually surrounded by people, at home 3 or more generations live under the same roof, Indian work practices are people heavy, so there too people abound, and in their own place Indians often share rooms, or sleeping areas with family members.
From the little child demanding to know your name, to the elderly gentleman on a stroll or outing with his family you will be inquired upon. I have been given some very good travel advice sitting on temple steps and taken to lunch places or temple pujas by random strangers all extolling the virtues of their very good country, must admit I totally concur. Still it’s difficult to get a quiet moment in this land whose main export is the quiet of meditation and the symbol ॐ (om). I am fortunate to be staying in a quiet village near a river. Every day I walk to the river and watch and draw the washer women (dotis) flaying garments, children playing, sadhus from the temple washing themselves and the younger men wash the temple ornaments daily. I sit under a sacred tree dedicated to the god Shive, the lord of the dance, master of yoga, lord of destruction, friend of snakes.
One day a great commotion erupted in a nearby well house, a worker had found a king cobra in the well. A snake guy was called and in due time he arrived, by this time, with a large retinue. The forestry guys arrived in a jeep and more villagers. The snake guy was a bit of a rock star, slim, longish hair, no facial hair ( in this country of nonsense under the nose he was a blessed relief) and handsome. He was wearing jeans and a red long sleeve shirt. Our rock star went into the well house alone and emerged a few minutes later with a five foot cobra in his hand. His attention was on the snake and I watched his arm and hand turn with the snake a dance of poise and relaxed attention. The crowd was pressing and the snake needed to be dealt with so our snake rock god man walked off down a nearly path, flanked by the forestry guys in their karki uniforms, a few jolly men and a large woman carrying what looked like a load of washing, she of course may have just been on her way home, but seemed to be, from my view point, an integral part of the group. I suppose they walked until they found a spot to let the cobra go, quiet rightly after all he was found near lord of the snakes shrine.   Patanjali Yoga Sutras (I Sutra 47) “Nirvachara vaisharadye adhyatma prasadaha” Nirvichara = thoughtless, a state of being hollow and empty; vaisharadye = undisturbed pure flow; adhyatma = spiritual; prasadaha = grace
“The experience of the state of thoughtlessness, being in the undisturbed state of hollow and empty, spiritually brings the grace of the being.” This sutra arrived in my mail box the day after the snake incident and I couldn’t help think of the focused attention of the man and the grace with which he handled the cobra.  It took my yoga practice to a new level and my meditation inspired by rock god’s focus was quietly empty for which I am eternally grateful. Have a fabulous new year, the year of the snake is nearly over.

For me entered  India  is like falling into a dream. A bit Maggi in wonderland,  the dream has of course, nightmarish bits. Arriving at Bombay airport at midnight. You’d think that the Indians might sleep occasionally but the international terminal was teeming.  After exiting the airport itself I entered an arena, then the weirdness really kicked in.  All the hotel drivers stand around a wire fence, (mind you there used to be no fence) as we the exhausted travellers look for our name, our hotel or something that will wisk us away from this dusty, sultry field to clean sheets and a horizontal stretch.
My other arena companions soon found their lifts to the next phase of their life.  Me I didn’t, I had the hotel name and knew it offered a shuttle but I was not on anyone’s list.  I found my hotel’s man on the ground but the nightmare continued.  Okay I thought, can I get a cab to this airport hotel, ” No madam will be waiting here for 5 minutes.” It’s been a while since I entered Indian space and five minutes means anything over a half hour. FYI if anyone says to you ” Madam will be waiting 2 minutes,” it is usually closer to 15 minutes.
So I sat amongst the chaos of Indian men in suits, uniforms, and casual attire waving their arms, swapping stories, cigarettes, playing computer games, talking fast and loudly.
I should be relishing this my first taste of Indian in 6 years but you know I was really grumpy, go figure, hard to imagine eh? 
Suffice to say that after a sufficient time had passed to temper me and habituate me to Indian time I was whisked away to heavy cotton sheets and air conditioning.
 A week later I sit on a cool balcony at Arogyaniketana Ayurvedic Ashrama  http://www.arogyaniketana.com in the village of Hariharapura. I have undergone a treatment to remove toxins from my body that was difficult, but with time and that I have in spades in this quiet corner of the world, I’m starting to feel lighter.
I have been reunited with my beloved Ayurvedic doctor Dr Ashwin Sastry his care is, as always, careful and intelligent and he’s one of the most pleasant men to be around.  
I am in the after math of my time as a conduit for toxins and am about to walk to the river.
My time here is unstructured other than the actual treatments, there are no classes, lessons, demands other than healing. I have produced some watercolour paintings and am exploring an abstract art form called Tattwa that symbolises the five elements, aether (space), air, water, fire and earth.
India is a teeming country, colour defines it and ugods move over its dusty surface. The ages of gods seem real as dark eyes gaze at my feral whiteness with luminous curiosity.  The school girl giggles and asks, “What is your name?” The round faced boy asks, ” Coin, madam.” “Golly,” I reply, ” We haven’t even been formally introduced.”
India is becoming more modernised, sort of middle class, with better housing and education yet in its humming atmosphere the ages hang in every breath, I feel dwarfed by its visible and invisible history. Time stretches into eons, each cycle of time a Maya-Yuga covers over a million and a half years and the creator Brahma’s day is made up of a thousand Maya-Yugas. 
We struggle through a sub cycle now a Kali Yuga, a dark age when ” property gives a man rank, when wealth is equated with virtue,when passion becomes the sole bond between men and women, when falsehood brings success. ” ( Sauman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children)
My day is just beginning, I can hear prayers sung, deep voices intoning, birds and the moon moves towards full and is twisted a full 180 degrees, the constellations have upended themselves and I sit stretching time into folds of my personal history that is inexorably linked to this teeming continent. 

“The past beats inside me like a second heart.” (The Sea by John Banville)
The process of Pancha Karma the medicine of India is a revealing journey.
The treatments take time and each individual needs different treatments in different order to others. The food you are given plays as much a part as the medicines and treatments. I have been blessed in my choice of ayurvedic physicians and the place and time of my healing. Here I sit in the fourth week of my stay in Hariharapura and every day I’ve eaten a plant based diet. Breakfast today was water pancakes and a mild accompanying samba made from sweet potatoes. The water pancakes are made from finely ground rice, mixed with water and made into a fine crisp pancake, followed by a fine  sweet chai, I ask you, how good is that?
I have bought myself a rather colourful cotton nightie, it has scary big sunflowers on it and covers me from neck to ankle. I wear this passion killer to my treatments in the early dawn. I ‘ m also kitted out in a kinda cross between a nappy and a thong that covers my lower rude bits.
A large table awaits me and I throw off the flower robe and lie down. Within minutes very warm medicated sesame seed oil is poured over me in a thin almost continuous stream, toes to neck over and over again, I can feel my body letting go, my mind stops and my nervous system registers relax, relax, relax. Then I am basted on my back. I can tell you now it’s a splendid way to begin the day.
This is called Shiro Pizhichil. When I first arrived here  four weeks ago I was given a massage and Shiro Pizhichil for 3 days until I was relaxed enough to start cleansing my body and that is a whole other story.
The actual ins and  outs of the treatment are individuated and I hope each and every one of you reading this gets a chance to experience them. The thing that intrigues me about the over all experience is how much of the past is teased out of my body. We are born and at the moment of our first breath our spirit, soul and body are fused meshed together into a being of senses, mind and intellect. Our life  experiences and conditioning tease together into our awareness, our beliefs, our traumas, yet these experiences are not the essence, the entity experiencing is the true self.
In the Bhavgad  Gita 3:39-40 it says just as a fire is hidden by smoke, or a mirror by dust or a foetus by the womb the living entity is covered by the desires. The seat of these desires are the the senses, the mind and  the intellect. These desires hide the living entity, the true self, if you like, causing bewilderment and confusion.
The different stages of our lives create different desires, our cultural experiences create desires and expectations. It is difficult to discern, through our misperceptions, projections, imaginings, yearnings and illusory beliefs just what is real. Our progress through the world is clouded by the past, our unexamined beliefs, chemical state, age.
Discerning any truth is as much an individual journey as the Ayurvedic treatments and your response or reaction to them. 
If you are young then it is very difficult to tease apart the cause and effect of an event. You are caught up in hormonal surges, physical fluctuations, and habitual responses. With time, experience and deliberate choices you can move towards inner equilibrium and acting on those choices you cannot not move past the smoke and mirrors towards a different concept of yourself, each journey takes as long as it takes.
Here at the ashram, (http://www.arogyaniketana.com/) old injuries are examined, old, perhaps, outmoded behaviours exposed and a deep sense of physical ease, relaxation and mental freedom means it is easier to come to the final barriers to self awareness.
For me it is embracing an emptiness that years ago might have been terrifying. Now I can sit with myself and slowly pass through barriers of self judgement and emotion that formerly might have agitated me. It’s not that I’m in any way enlightened it’s just that I’m less likely to see things that are not there, illusions if you like, that can cause my snaky nature to bite. 
My past histories, my past stories have been sifted through and refined until maybe there is some modicum of truth in my experience of now. The beating heart of my past is synchronised with the real heart of me.