AAAAshram

Dear reader i have become a fugitive. just for you.

i have scaled the ashram walls and outwitted the docile blonde lions (no joke. there is a lion park next to the ashram with real "native" Indian lions so they say but in reality they sound more like the MGM variety...Bollywood style) just to send you word of my wellbeing and whereabouts.

i am sure i don't stick out with my panama hat(slowly woven in panama, quickly unweaving in India) and RayBan retros. I am wearing an authentic Indian shirt..i got it at the oriental plaza. genuine. So cover your screens dear reader for only you can know where i will spend the next two weeks....living under my new name (Swami Balmy) at at the Sivananda, high in the lush hills of Kerala province. (but a great deal further from reality i gather).

To be honest, ( and i must because right now i need the karma points) it is only my imagination which runs amok in these humid hills. i have neither the time nor energy to go anywhere that requires legs. But how rude of me. i haven't even given you a tour of my ashram. forgive me if i do it zombie style as my body has recently started confusing sweating with sleeping so that by the time the 5.20am gong chimes in the trees i don't exactly feel like rising from Sealy Posturpedic advert right.

Routine is key here. Nothing changes. the food is the same, the schedule is the same. the yoga is the same And i think that's the point. when everything stays the same, the change must come from within. do not look to changing your external environment as this may not happen as you want. The only thing you can change is your internal environment (and especially your attitude) the short of it is that we have a long, unshakable daily schedule:
5.20...wake up
6-7.30...satsun (meditation and chanting)
7.30 ...tea (literally...no Ouma biscuits!)
8-10...yoga
10 ...brunch
11-12...karma yoga (chores. i take the trash to the land fill up the road and fend off the cats (small ones. not lions))
12-2 ...free time (guess what hour i write.)
1.30..tea (literally. again.)
2-3.30... lecture time
3.30-5.30... yoga session
6...dinner
8-9.30... satsun (see above)
10.30... lights out (actually you pass out way before that. until the heat or gong wakes you)

And yes dear reader, by no flight of the imagination (or Flight of the Concords) there is absolutely no "business time" here. there is actually some recycling. but that is not part of the foreplay. we are, after all, one universal Ohm of energy and light. we sway and chant as one. (partly because we are all so tired and about to fall over).

i had one surreal experience. It took place during afternoon yoga. Shiva, Kali, Lakshmi were all there, staring down at me from the 4-meter high vantage point on the walls. And i was mid shoulder stand, feeling insignificant. both for the fact that i was dwarfed (just for you Max) but the size and stature of this great hall and also because I am just me... not a mythological God
preserved in bright psychedelic pinks and drinking out of a trunk. so there i was, mid shoulder stand. sleep deprived. the blood rushing to my head, but suddenly the ceiling came rushing towards me. I swear, before it was 10 meters away and now my legs were coming out of it (like one of those 3-D posters from the 90s but with the colours of the 80s) and all their animals and arms were looking down on me trying to send me a message. Of course i wasn't in any position not to. I was upside down and vulnerable. so naturally i indicated in my trained yogi way that i very much wanted to hear what they were saying. so i decided to come down from my blood rushed position to increase my chances of remembering. which i did. but not so slowly. which meant that I released a queef (google friend) along with my posture. i think this offended them because they never told me the secret to life or even how to come down from a shoulder stand without said queef escaping..... the end.... and that, dear reader, may or may not be a true story. i told you that my mind is given to wandering when my body cant.

now i must go dear reader. the tea gong is about to sound and i must honour my stomach as much as my "contract". i will be missing in yogic action for a few days but will check in with you as soon as my limbs will allow.

Namaste to you all...