Sutra 10- WHY ... ''NAMASTE''?
This is not an update about me covering kilometers or about places and the ups and downs of my trip. It's just an observation, thoughts I had in my mind last night that got me twisting and turning within my sleeping bag inside my tent, putting my torche's light on at 2:00am to put them down to words and eventualy find some peace to sleep. There is nothing new in this read. The only innovation in it is that for the first time in my life I felt I had something to say, rip it off my chest and throw it out there. It is something you can read, agree or disagree with, add your own thoughts and concerns or just ignore and scroll further down your ''newsfeed''. It is what it is.
Have you ever wandered how many times we put everyday things on an automatic pilot? From our daily routines like waking up and brushing our teeth and shower, cook to eat, work, clean our house and wash the dishes... to how we spend our free time or moments by ourselves or with others. How many times do we actually mean the question we ask to people : ''How are you?'' and trully expecting an answer, or how many times we trully mean the answer we give back when someone asks this question to us?
As a yoga practicioner and teacher, I usually ''greet'' my students, my self, the teachers, the gurus, or anything and anyone my heart as a human being feels paying respect to, as a way to show I am feeling greatful, that this very moment I connect and I recognize that a part of ''my self'' and someone else's is indifferent. Although this word is there to remind me I should be mindful, any time I use that gesture and open my mouth to say the word ''namaste'' out loud, and try to reach deep inside of me to find the meaning behind ''the divine in me, greets the divine in you'', how many times ... do I really mean it?
We say ''thank you'' to the waitress that brought our coffee without taking a moment to look at her, still talking with our friends around the table, looking at our phone or continue reading our newspaper.We say ''namaste'' after teaching a yoga class to the students while thinking of the time we'll go home to rest and have a shower, cause the full and tiring day caught up with us. We sing our mantra at the end of our practice thinking that our asanas that day were not ''good enough'' and we need to work harder...
This week being on my trip, meeting different people passing by random places, these thoughts where running through my head, thinking of what is it we are missing in these moments right there? Where is this small ''pause'' or ''gap'' or ''space'' that disconnects our thoughts and acts from trully experiencing them. Why is this little gap always slipping away from us, unable to fill it in and fulfill the meaning of ''namaste'' as it was meant to?
Nowdays with all the info bombing our lives, I really experience it myself as the hardest practice ever. There are times we catch ourselves looking at our phone's screen when someone was just talking to us, or thinking what we have to prepare for work, how is the rest of our day gonna be ... being somewhere else. Although we have everything to be ahead of time we somehow managed to get our lives even more complicated and busier than before and created so many needs and no time to fullfill them even if we streched our 24/7 to a 48/7.
We are disconnected although we can ''connect'' with one ''click'' on our ''mouse'' within a second. Our hands, eyes and facial expressions, were made to use our body language while communicating with people but we choose to use them looking on screens, typing on keyboards and choosing emoticons.
As human beings we have emotions. We were made to feel sadness, happiness, anger, love or any kind of emotion not because it's ''ours'' and we need to cling and attach to it... but to be able to channel them through acknowledge them, and be there for someone else and for ourselves, cultivate compassion, patience and understanding. Accepting that sometimes we can all be weak and in need and deal with it. Through thousand of years we managed to forge strong minds that could rise in circumstances when emotions and lower feelings taking over, to tame them, recognize them, observe them .. let them come and go, but we choose to use our minds and intellect to feed our egos, prejudice, misconceptions, being judgemental instead, letting the ''gap'' become even bigger and ourselves fall into it.
We are falling into extremeties ''borderlining'' our own ''reality concepts'' wanting to become emotionless machines or eternal blissful superbeings.
We want to build the highest towers without setting proper deep foundations, or win a golden marathon medal without running 1 km.
We were made to use our bodies, and strong minds to understand how to stay connected with nature and use our hands to work the land with respect, protecting what surrounds us not because it belongs to us but because we are part of it.
We are complaining of our planet's future with the present circumstances and our wrong deeds against it, trying to make a change to the external world, without making the effort and hard work changing ourselves first. We would choose to change the course of any river, put cement to cover any ''rocky'' road or grass to create cities and roads to live and walk with ease, burn or cut the woods down, fight against any other country, consuming our minds to create the most leathal weapons to feel safe or strong and protect or force our strong ideas and beliefs, thinking we can control everything, just to satisfy our modern needs and desires, instead of working our minds towards clarity to be able to distinguish what we really need or not, what is the biggest picture outside our tiny little boxes and frames, restricted dimensions and borders we set to move within.
Our intellect is thriving but our ''humanity'' is losing ground.
Being on this journey, meeting people and experiencing my own patterns and flaws as a person, some times makes me put things into a different perspective and like a lot of you out there, losing hope on us!
But then, come these times I come across people trying to ''find the right direction'' of things, being respectful, accepting the course of life gracefully feeling content, asking you if everything is ok meaning it expecting an honest answer back, taking the time to smile and listen, looking at you straight in the eyes and speak with honesty that comes out of their hearts, being kind, igger to help, sharing and carring, giving without expecting back, being humble while shinning like the brightest star, make their acts speaking louder than words, catch you when you fall, swim across a river to save a dog, stop and drive 15km per hour not to kill a deer that might pop up from the forest arriving late to their destination, cycle with you to the other end of the city just to make sure you won't lose your way, warning you for danger ahead, open their garden and home for you to have a safe place to spend the night, shinning light ahead so you can see in dark places...
These qualities in people out there and in every single one of us bring not only hope, but also change. True change that comes from ''within'' and has the power to change the ''outside'' and ispire others to do so as well. True change that makes us realize we are one and we are all walking the same direction no matter the path we've chosen to take.
Next time I put my hands together in front of my heart, lower down my head and say ''Namaste'', I might not be able to find the missing answers and fill this little damn ''gap'' but I will definitely KNOW that little damn ''gap'' is there!
NAMASTE!