inquiry to go in

This months, I am in Berlin doing a teacher intensive with Maty Ezraty and Chuck Miller. As always, these kind of intensives bring stuff to the surface, raise issues within oneself and within the circle....

First of all it has been great two weeks with Maty. Now on, it will be another two weeks with Chuck. Maty was a joyful and a very good teacher. I think she has a genius with the way she works with the students. She is very sharp to see what is going in ones' body... and she does not hold back from any student, she teaches and tries to serve everyone of her students with the same enthusiasm... That is I guess one of the most important qualities in a good teacher. Being interested in every student, approaching to every students with compassion and positive intention...

Being really mesmerized with Maty, I also began going some kind of inquiry... and I can be wavered very easily, what is this called, himmm.... anyways... Of course there is discussions about the system and teachers to practice with when you are in a group like this. There is always dichotomy within systems and then there is that I am better than you among systems... so it goes, " why meditation is not recommended in the ashtanga system; it does not really encompass it all; ashtangis do not meditate; most ashtanga teachers are not good, Mysore is not good etc..." Well I think everyone has to decide for themselves. You can go on talking about this stuff forever but this is pure waste of energy and more of our insecurities creeping up. I think the think is doing just what is right for oneself and being comfortable with that, not having the need to justify yourself. If you want to meditate, meditate, do not weep that system is telling you are not read to do. As a matter of fact, the first time I became interested in meditation was because of one of my first Mysore style Ashtanga teachers. and she was an Authorized, dedicated student of Mysore, so no need to generalize... If your heart is into meditating, then why not do it, figure out for yourself. One person cannot have all answers for us, but then if some others are ok with what they are told to do , then I guess that is what sings to their heart; therefore, one also need go be accepting of those who is comfortable under the wings. We can argue a lot of things and then at the end of the day it can come to the same point. For instance, Maty is very concerned about teaching with safety and she is not comfortable the way most ashtanga teachers teach... She has a point, a very good one but then I also experienced that a teacher claiming to be non violent with their approach to teaching can be violent with their words and attitude to the students to an extent that the student feels discouraged and belittled and all these emotional wounds began happening as if that person needed more to what they have been already caring on... then perhaps we need a balance. One can try to "fix" someone in a posture to perfection but on the way, if it is forgotten that there is a person there, then what does it matter. Would that yoga bring freedom because it positioned the body to perfection?

All systems have their short comings... I have been into Osho's teachings and done Osho groups and meditations since I began practicing yoga. Yoga and Osho also have their little dance going on in between. Most Osho sanyasins find yoga to be too rigid, too much discipline.... and the most yoga people sneer at Osho. I have been thorn between the two for quite a while. And now I see that why think over so much, get into a schizophrenia... Some Osho stuff is not suitable for me, especially in the community, I do not like, i do not feel comfortable with, but is is only some of it, then there are really nice, beautiful people who are willing to listen to your heart no matter what it is, whether you are in rage or bliss, they accept the being. I have to say that many of his meditations, I practiced daily for a while, they brought me to my center, connected to myself. I am sure there are many who do not regard them as effective techniques and think if one does not sit in vipassana for 10 days, they do not know mediation... well what is there to know anyways...

Now I try to bring myself to my center with sharing all this, coming to samasthiti....

and I thank Maty for her great teaching and presence during these past two weeks!  She was wonderful and lots of fun.