Playground

(just add a bit of color)

Theme park. 

That summarizes my idea of Ubud. An unoriginal thought. As unoriginal as any tourist spot in the world. Stretches of shops and convenience stores. Grownups spending the time and money they’ve saved up to make up for lost time and selves. And I’m in it for two whole weeks.

One thing that makes it so fun is that Ubud is not that big. Took me a couple of hours to walk from Jalan Sandat to the very end of Jalan Bisma, then around the Monkey Forest then all the way back up to Sandat again. Ubud is like a theme park but with beds.

Old habits don’t disappear just because you’ve moved places. The most persistent of my habits, in spite of all the good intentions in the world, had to succumb to afternoon naps. So we’ll start there. I know I did yoga sometime in the morning, but it was the nap that started my first day in Ubud.

Because, after the nap, I would be giddy with invincibility. Like I could do everything in that one evening. A state of inspired. We don’t argue with gifts like that. We accept and treat it gently. Allow it to build and balloon. Allow the muses to calm their chatter and receive our offering of selves.

I’m still time managing, albeit absentmindedly. I know now that mornings are for yoga and writing. And that noon times are for naps. And that evenings may or may not be for laundry. But one thing for sure is that, at the strike of 3 PM, management bites the dust and that state of inspired restarts.

That’s when things get really, really nice. The tilted sun sprinkles magic dust all over the place, making everything golden. And all that gold is within walking distance. And walking distances are easier to traverse with motivational bragging rights. And bragging rights are easily earned with GPS enabled toys. And toys are more fun with friends. And friends create peer pressure.

Peer pressure consists of Valin, who is eight years my senior and hikes across the Alps. And Mamad who, at my age, runs five kilometers at a breeze, every morning. And the people in my yoga classes who bend and twist and hold impossible asanas in spite of deep wrinkles and angry ankles.

No apologies. That’s the point to this reminder. I’m not going to apologize for half-minded blog posts and uncharted ramblings. I’m not going to apologize for leaving home and indulging in the banality of touristy attractions, for two whole weeks. 

And I’m definitely not going to apologize for naps, due in 23.2 minutes from now. 

Time: Big Ideas

That another way to deal with worries is to get to know them better.

The Writer's Altar

Worries, in order to cause actual harm, must have a physical form. Physical forms are controllable. Which means that our worries can be broken down into measurable dimensions: Time, space, other kinds of resources (money, food, books to read, community support, etc.). 

Time: Big Ideas

We know where we’re going with our time by knowing where we’ve been. 

• Long Term.

I’m almost forty. Considering my genetic build, my smoking and exercise habits, and the fact that I’m basically trying to be a generally happy person, I should have another quarter of a century to degenerate naturally into senility.

Twenty-five years are just three-hundred months, or seventy-five annual quarters to divide between the short- and midterm plans.

 It may seem like not much time. Or it can be just enough time if I do it right. Or it can be too much time if all I do is squander it. But if I do it right, if I watch the clock and try to adhere to the general flow of the Universe, it can be plenty. 

• Mid-Term.

This is hard to write up. To be able to think what the next five years is going to be like, I need to understand what the last five years haven been spent.

 We’re not short on basic sustenance, that’s one thing to be grateful for. We have shelter and clothing and infrastructural support. We’re not under immediate impact of war or disease or famine, and that is a lot, a huge lot to be grateful for. For, it’s the security of our basic sustenance that has allowed us to think creatively and thrive. It’s only by having a reserve of psychic energy that allows us to enter the flow, the closest state of happiness.

If there is anything more paralytic than being an illiterate woman living in a slum, then it would be being an educated affluent woman with too many choices to pick from.

Too much freedom of choice, then, became a burden. The abundance stability and routine gave little incentive to stay put. Having too much psychic reserve made me too easily bored. Getting too easily bored meant that I tend to start projects and drop them again. To come and go as I please.

What’s wonderful/terrible about the reliability of karmic law is its timely effectiveness. Privilege, when it’s not carefully minded, backfires. I broke my heart and bank a lot by mistreating myself and privileges. It’s only natural, and I wouldn’t have learned otherwise.

 Likewise, the karmic laws are very generous at giving rewards in the event of good behaviors. This isn't a philosophical as much as it's a direct result of watching the clock. The Universe has this way of SHOWING UP AND FILLING ME UP WITH BLINDING LIGHT when I least expect it and most need it.

It's easier to bring on the Universe's more meaningful presents by sticking to its laws, than not.

 So I picked up yoga and meditation to keep me physically grounded. I picked up the idea that staying in this auditory hell of a village can keep my heart from drying up, as long that my master is comfortable. Then I picked up seventy books to read in the last six months. Which led me to writing and blogging again.

 Isn’t karmic predictability a nice thing?

• Short-Term.

How I got to break down a year into hours came in the course of six months of practice, at least. Not to mention the frustrating years of trial-and-errs between overreaching and underachieving.

 I can't emphasize enough how important it is to take things slow. Took me years to understand HOW I'm physically bound to the supremacy of seasons. Took me months of watching my mood swings to understand that, Hey, maybe "bipolar" isn't a mere diagnosis, but a symptom of something meaningful and useful.

At the end of every experiment, one idea kept glaring at me: That I only needed one person to believe in me at a time. One person to keep me afloat. And that person can come in the form of a conversation, a character in a story, a Like on one of the social media applications, or an awesome wordcount in my journals.

This is why I can do this daily writing thing. I am connected and loved and anchored in my society and habits and beliefs. In return, my people and beliefs and practices keep me afloat and hopeful on a daily, monthly and yearly basis.

And when I run out of steam again, and see that I need a break again, I know now that I can do that. And nobody is going to sue me for it. In fact, I don't see how anybody could wish me anything else today but the best of luck.

Yoga: A Relationship

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Teacher

My old Mysore Ashtanga teacher used to kick me out of class by the middle of the Primary series. He used to say that I'm too weak, too fat, too unsteady in the mind to advance anywhere in the series. And for the longest time, I believed him. Every time I got to practice on my own, I stopped around the part where this teacher would tell me to stop and leave the class. This went on for years.

Few months ago, a guest teacher came from India. Attending his classes meant that, unless something urgent is happening, we don't leave class until we've done the entire series. I ROCKED IT!

He didn't push or holler or tell us to do things. Mysore Ashtanga Yoga is SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THAT, a guided practice. If the student is able to reach 50% into the asana, the teacher will help make room for the student to reach 55%. If the student is able to reach 99% into the asana, the teacher will help make that 99% last longer. And if the student is able to perfect the asanas, a good teacher will set the stage for the asanas to turn into a practice: A tool for strength and meditation and guidance.

When my fat obstructed my hands from reaching behind my back, this new teacher sat behind me and guided my breath. When my mind chattered, he stood by my head and asked, "What are you thinking about?" - Not expecting an answer, but reminding me to leave the world and return to the mat. And when our breaths softened, he said, "I don't hear anything," to remind us of our Ujayyi breaths. 

I've been practicing Yoga for a gajillion years, but it was only with this teacher I found the confidence to practice an unsupported headstand in a classroom: The one who didn't take himself or his practice personally. The one who facilitated our growth, instead of judging it. 

A Kind of Hell

Nothing beats the fun and ease and concentration of practicing yoga together in a classroom. 

That said, ideally, the practice should remain with us wherever we may be. The reason why I chose to stick with this Yogic path is for its convenience. I don't need weights, shoes, or too much room to practice. I can practice yoga even if there is no driver to take me to the gym/classroom. With a teacher around or none, with a sparring partner or none. 

And there is no competition in Yoga, not with others, nor with yourself. There is no judgement, nobody's asana is better than another. There is only the practice: The body recites the sequence's mantra, the breath is the mind's anchor for stillness. Since there is no winning or losing in Yoga, there is no material reward, no compliments or criticism. You practice for the sake of the practice. 

Which can be very hard on someone who was raised to compete. Which can be very hard when your society expects you to impress. Which can be ridiculous when your face and legs are flat on the mat and there is nothing but your breath as sole company, day in and day out. 

This is a kind of hell, I tell myself on the 123rd breath into the practice. And that is when I usually quit. I usually blame the exhaustion or lack of focus for quitting early. 

But I can't get away with those excuses anymore. Not after I've had so many teachers. Not while practicing on the best mat in the market. Not after half-a-dozen 10-Day Vipassana courses. Meditation and strength and flexibility are not my weaknesses. 

Truth is, I can't bear the thoughts that come forth when I practice alone. 

Focus

If we react to what arises through the practice with aggression, injuries or physical and mental exhaustion may result. If we try to avoid or run away from the difficult postures by breaking the rules and skipping poses or practice, we will fall into the opposite extreme: laziness or inertia. Finding the middle path is usually what we all learn in Ashtanga, discovering our mental, physical and psychological behavior and getting to a place of acceptance and loving kindness towards ourselves and the world around us. 

From Ashtanga: Maintain Focus  by Alexia Bauer

Storage

• The body we have today is nothing but the accumulation of our past thoughts, emotions and actions. 

• Asana is the method that releases us from past conditioning, stored in the body, to arrive in the present moment.

• Practicing forcefully will only superimpose a new layer of subconscious imprints based on suffering and pain. 

From Ashtanga Yoga: Practice and Philosophy, by Gregor Maehle

Setback. Well, kinda.

Few days ago, I did the entire Ashtanga Primary Series. The whole thing. With Vinyasas between the forward bending sequences, and continuous Ujjayi breathing. From Aleph until Khatam. Even did a long, unsupported headstand. 

Then hell broke loose and my hemorrhoids went crazy. 

In the Ashtanga book by Gregor Maehle, there is something about anger being stored in the hamstrings and grief in the chest. During that last practice, I had managed to disregard all the feelings that came forth through the asanas. (I don't know how. I still have to figure out the right combination of eucalyptus balm and sleep to regain that kind of unflinching and continuos focus.)

And the universe just couldn't let too much of a good thing going. Maintaining focus for that long and disregarding the emotional influx backfired on my ass, literally. 

The good side of having an inflamed bottom is the sudden concentration on liquified high-fiber diet. I never thought it's possible, but easy pooping is not a myth, you hear?! It's possible with just enough papayas and apple vinegar! I may never get to do the Primary series ever again, but I CAN POOP!

Ahem. 

Fluctuate 

I had a hard practice this morning. I knew everything I needed to do to keep at it. I just couldn't. By the end of the forward-bends, I couldn't pick myself up anymore. No asana is too easy once the thoughts set in and take over. 

To make things worse, I took it hard on myself. I had to cuddle up with my master and succumb to defeat. 

What should I do?

He patted my head. "Keep at it. Try again tomorrow. It'll get easier with time. Everything does."

So it does. 

Afterglow

Come

You know that feeling?

For a second, everything is blurred in jarring, pleasant blankness. Thoughts muted. Senses peaked. Conscious but void of identity. You are nobody. You are the world. The world is you. And it's is okay. And you understand everything and nothing. And that doesn’t matter. This is just how everything in the world works.

All that brouhaha with not a hint of kink, in a room full of fellow meditators. Or on a yoga mat, exiting a long practice. Or on the prayer rug, after the closing salams.

English and Arabic use the same words for both sexual orgasm and religious ecstasy. Probably because it feels the same. And it looks the same from the outside. The methods might differ, but the experience is basically the same.

That’s pretty cool for a hermit with anti-social tendencies. And for anyone who would think that ecstasy is only available is for those who are sexually fulfilled.

(Compared to sex, asanas and sports might sound as fun as masturbation. I'm not complaining, though. Cheap, careless sex can do worse damage than masturbation.)

(Oh, quit smirking. I'm trying to say something here.)

Catch

I might be pushing the no-sex tab a bit far. But it I’ve been indulging in too much talk. And I need to strengthen my faith in the solitary nature of fluent work.

Qusai nags about practice. Practice that builds momentum. The goal to physical exertion is to calm the mind. The calm might lead to orgasm/ecstasy/rainbows.

Yoga isn't just a physical exercise. Meditation isn't just "not thinking". Repetition builds fluency. Fluency leads to easier immersion in work. You don’t talk when you’re immersed. And when you don’t talk, there’s a better chance to reach the calm. The calm might lead to ecstasy. Ecstasy needs a build up. Build up takes is repetition. Nothing happens just from a single stroke.

First that moment of jarring blank. Then orgasm or ecstasy. Then the happy, floating afterglow. It looks tedious and impractical, but the afterglow is always awesome.

If ecstasy justifies the past, then afterglow is for things to come.

The ecstasies have the same effect, however it arrived. A systematic restart. And like all restarts, it's only a button's press then it's gone. But, the afterglow that follows. Ah. That.

Cohere

Remember when the afterglow lasted all day? Everything we touched and did felt prettier and smoother. Like we are loved through and through. Like we can handle it all. A renewal of faith. A glimpse of God.

And what in the world is beyond us with a spark like that in our souls?

Muslim Note: I like to think that the positions in a Muslim prayer is a meditation designed for build up. A build up for the calm to arrive at the very end. When the person, the prayer and the universe come at the tip of a finger, testifying Unity (شهادة).

Yoga Notes: Asanas and Feelings

Last week, coming back from a month-long rough trip and a while of not practicing, I entered seated forward bends and had to stop practicing because I could not stop crying. It raised the “WTF is wrong with me?” alarm. I blamed all the possibilities: travel weariness, meditation, fasting, PMS, dairy-product-withdrawal, etc.

Few days ago, I tried practicing forward bends again. And of course, the feelings reemerged. Though not as overwhelming as the last time and I thought, “Hey, absence of crushing social pressure really helped.”

What more, I managed to hold it down until the end of the forward bends variations, enter the twists, and whatever weepiness I felt were washed away. I felt cleansed.

Both forward bends and twists are like internal massages for the back and core muscles. Massage causes a rush of fresh, oxygenated blood into the massaged areas. It made sense why feelings (either physical or emotional) emerged after twists and forward bends; because of the mental and physical bruises stored in the muscles.

But why the contextual difference between the two? Why did I feel grief and fear in forward bends, and then felt cleansed and rejuvenated during twists?

It’s hard to go into details about body-mind connection without sounding too hippie or New Age. Enlightenments, ecstasies and orgasms are private experiences; the only measuring tool for them is the rhythmic meter in a poem. Eastern medicine is richer in vocabulary and theories about how food, feelings and form relate to each other, but the more I talk about them, the shyer I relate to things as jarring as sudden, uncontrollable bouts of weeping.

Physiology and anatomy, however, are tangible enough to dwell writing about. And the closest biological explanation to the emotional rush in deep back extensions starts from the Psoas muscles.

Buried deep within the core of your body, the psoas (pronounced "so-az") affects every facet of your life, from your physical well-being to who you feel yourself to be and how you relate to the world...Intimately involved in the fight or flight response, the psoas can curl you into a protective fetal ball or flex you to prepare the powerful back and leg muscles to spring into action. Because the psoas is so intimately involved in such basic physical and emotional reactions, a chronically tightened psoas continually signals your body that you're in danger, eventually exhausting the adrenal glands and depleting the immune system.

- Yoga Journal, The Psoas is

Since forward bending requires the kind of muscular extension that is counterintuitive to stress-reflexes, it challenges our sense of security. Getting that hurdle over with, forward bends brings forth a submissive kind of peace, kind of like the one we feel right before an orgasm. (And we stayed in that asana longer, we might, actually.)

And twists are just awesome stretches: they open our chests and bring out the booming, happy soldier in us. Try it. Try releasing your psoas. Try yoga. And experience the swing. Just be safe. And make sure you go over the weepy hurdle.

Crash, Diet

The month I spent on Yoga teacher training was (mostly) supported on vegetarian diet, and getting off that diet felt like the Kurukshetra War in my intestines.

Mostly vegetarian. I can't tell you just how much exactly because I think that my teachers read my blog and they might have slipped a microchip in our digestive tract to monitor and report to the yoga fairies whether or not we behave yogic enough. I think.

I hated vegetarian diet from the beginning. I did not work all the way up the food chain just to end up eating vegetables. I have always been a proud carnivore; and if the custom of a certain area celebrated by serving roasted blue whale, or sautéed panda medallions, then I'm all for it. The bloodier the better this yogini shall banquet, see?

And I hated vegetarianism more because I had to fake it for a whole month in return for validation. I have been practicing yoga for a LONG time. What cow has the mind to object and tell me that I am not good enough to practice or teach Yoga because I like having her cousins for dinner, medium rare, with mashed potatoes on the side?

Of course, once I was formally off the leash, I indulged: For three days straight, everything with a formerly beating heart was swallowed, consensually or with regrets.

On the fourth day, glory!, right after a highly caffeinated breakfast with Oreo cookies, my stomach said its Hail Marys and took me aside for undivided attention in the privacy of the furthest bathroom in the house.

Me: "I don't understand! I thought you had the guts to digest skewered crocodiles and baboons."
Stomach: (Incoherent grumbling and bubbling and bursting.)
Me: (Flushing defeat.)

***

Still confused at my stomach's rejection, I had to take the car for a tune up, because the car isn’t yogic enough to care about environmental disasters like we do.

It was lunchtime, and there was a mall near nearby. The mall, of course, had always been like my second home. I have grown up and napped and ate and took my writing degree (MBA: Mistress of Blogging Arbitrarily) at the mall. Leaving the car at the mechanic, I decided to hit the mall's foodcourt.

But my stomach gave a warning rumble at the sight of every food item on the menu. In every restaurant. In the entire mall.

I'm sorry for sounding so hyperbolic. I have never been aware how every minute we spend at the a mall with our mouths open is not dissimilar to mass culinary suicide. Anything you eat or drink at a mall is either overly-sweet, overly-caffeinated, or just plain insulting to the evolutionary dignity of having taste buds. The longer I stayed there was the bigger chances I had to die from food poisoning than my a-pack-a-day smoking, and not because a woman can't smoke at the mall.

It was nearly impossible not to see a variety a cow or duck or chicken or all of it meshed together on mall food. My choices for lunch, without alarming the vegetarian demon in my belly, was left plain rice and salt. Which none of these restaurants served without the additional complimentary dirty look plastered on the waiters' faces.

I practically broke speed limits at plain rice consumption.

***

Lunch aside, I was left with another hour and fifty-five minutes to waste until I could take the car back.

Back in the days, a whole week at the mall wouldn't have been too much to bear. There's just so much to eat and drink and buy while eating and drinking and buying some more.

This isn't about vegetarianism, Sattvic dieting or being tastefully stingy. The microchip they installed in my digestive tract was too patent that the alarm went off everywhere I tried to sit. I was turning into an involuntary healthy-eating hippie because wanting to deepen my Yoga practice has indirectly lead me there.

To sit at a mall meant to do justice to that precious space that your bottom needs to rest upon, and without getting the complimentary vicious looks from your chairowner's herd of underpaid peons, you need to order something more solid than water.

But what is there to consume in a mall without risking napalm explosions in whatever is left of my guts?

To think of all the breakfasts, lunches and dinners that I spent fighting and/or silently cursing my diet Nazi gurus over this kind of garbage shiny-packaged faux-food?

***

By one miracle or another (and an expensive stroll into the bookstore and underwear departments), time and shopping-possessions were passed and I got the car home, humming happier than my diet shocked belly did all day.

And there, with his subtle teasing and smiling reproach, my master and adopted-father brought forth three kinds of bananas and counting, to keep me afloat until my stomach chose to regrow its guts and digest the dead.

The Priestess

We had been waiting for more than an hour in the shala when the secretary told us that the teacher was not coming.

Disappointed, we tried making up for a wasted yogaless evening by exchanging other yoga teachers' addresses. When that was done, I suggested extending the conversation over coffee.

Only one of the students, a pretty 30-something Canadian, took bait. We crossed the street, entered a crowded coffee shop and sipped on cappuccinos, conversing about our practices and credentials.

She told me about was Thai masseuse and a Yoga teacher from out of town, came all the way here to train. And I asked her the one question that I shy asking about teaching.

"Does teaching take you away from your own practice?"

She said,

"Teachers don't teach. Their role is to make themselves an exemplar of practice. That's what makes teachers worthy of their their students' time: to train hard and become powerful in their practice, so that when the student comes they can answer, 'Yes, it is difficult, but it will get easier. Yes, it seems pointless, but it does not matter because practice is faith.' So that when it is your turn to teach, you must offer it not torn with lonesome aches, but hot…"

- she sucked a passionate breath,

"- HOT, I tell you, with belief in what you do and say. That is why they pay teachers. That is why we seek teachers too. Anything else can be taught on YouTube, in books and DVDs. But the embodiment of belief and practice can only be shared in the glimpses of those hourly classes or rarer day-long workshops, and if you cannot convey that strength and confidence and faith from the first 5 minutes, then there is nothing else that you can teach to anyone."

I stared at her throughout the monologue. There were hints of enviable crazy in every word. No matter. I asked, and this was the answer I wanted.

There is a tradition by the Prophet that the Angels bless every step taken by the student to and fro the sake of learning. Perhaps, that was how the Angels found the yoga students from out of town, and the Angels wanted to assure them with blessings upon the path which these two have been introduced, whether or not there were ordained teachers and classrooms certify their learning.

Muscle Memory: Choosing What to Remember

The human body loses its ability to hold water with age. Newborn babies hold 75% water in their bodies (most forgetful of humans), septuagenarians only 50% (most defined personalities). Naturally, the lesser water a body holds, is the less flexible it becomes, the harder for the muscles to learn new tricks.

The good news is that, muscles that are used most often are usually the last that will lose flexibility.

If I may choose, I'd rather lose the flexibility to pick my nose the last. Whether it is with your forefinger or pinky, you know how great it feels to pick your nose expertly? How easy it is to breathe and smoke with a clean nostril? And how pleasurable it is to go digging for that illusive booger and … well.

What more is that I can only be an expert picker-of-my-own-nose by dedicating so many hours to it. Yes, I want to learn photoshop, painting, capoeira and singing. But if I spend time on learning those things, I'm going to have to sacrifice precious nose-picking practice hours. When and how am I going to be a nose-picking expert if I keep wasting my time with mediocrity?

So when a foulmouthed, overslept morning finds me crawling from under a crushing mountain of failures, I tell myself that, out of the remaining 9973 hours designated for yoga nose-picking, that could be the very hour that my pinky will remember how to pick the perfect booger in a single, sliding motion.

So that I when lose the rest of my water, and my muscles freeze in forgetful rigor mortis, it's going to be buried with a soft nostril, damp with its last boogerless breath.

The Music

(For the stuff we repeat daily deserve their own share of audioration.)Reps

I found that the best way to stick to reps without losing momentum or falling into a daydream between asana sequences is by playing the same song in repeats.

For example, music for

• ...Suryanamaskar (warm-up), Prodigy's Firestarter, Tiesto's Traffic.
• ...Standing sequences, Halo, Firework, or Pokerface. (Go ahead, guess the my dirty-pleasure artists.)
• ...Sitting sequences, Nina's To be Free or songs from the City of Angels Soundtrack
• ...Closing sequences (cool down), Mashrou3 Leila's Shem Al-Yasmine

Details

Say that Suryanamaskar sequences take 20 minutes, and Firestarter lasts for 4:41 minutes, then the song will repeat approximately 5 times. Yes, I can listen to Firestarter for five consecutive times. Don't judge. I acquired the taste at a sweet period in high-school.

Besides, I can have a different warm-up song tomorrow. The asanas remain the point of focus. Music is only to keep me flowing, keep me dancing between controlled reminiscences.

A Song A Sequence

I get lost between asanas and sequences if the songs changed too often. Maybe because every song carries a different energy, a different memory, a different person who introduced to and shared that music with me.

Hence, if I listened to Fatboy Slim, Eminem, Metallica and Linkin Park during Suryanamaskar, I would end up feeling like I had been gangbanged by too many memories instead of practicing yoga.

Like reciting al-Fatiha for at least 17 times in a day. Or repeating "Hail Mary". Or "I love you, have a nice day." The sounds that we dance to defines our life's rhythmic flow.

Share with me. What's your workout soundtrack? Do you change between the songs a lot? Why?

Ramadanesque Behavioral Modification

(1 hour before sunset)

Let us first set the threats under which made this article published, (let's call them my Ramadanesque Threats):

• If I don't write fast enough, I can't publish before sunset.
• If I don't make it before sunset, I have to work through the night and lose precious sleep.
• If I don't sleep at night, I can't wake up for sahoor, can't read in the morning, and worstest of all: can't be awake enough to practice yoga.
• I AM SO FUCKED IF I DON'T PRACTICE YOGA!

------------

This is what fasting Ramadan has been doing to my habits:

1. Grin-and-Bear-It-A-LOT
Before Ramadan, I made the resolution to not complain about the fasting part. Ever. With hunger, sleepiness, thirst, uncontrollable rage, the method is the same: Either I stare it down or break the fasting.

(Occasional cursing still applies, but purely out of linguistic necessity.)

2. Daily Rhythm Challenge
Feeding hours during Ramadan forced me to reset my daily rhythm. Eat, sleep, exercise according to a tight schedule, or else miss my chance and I have to wait until tomorrow to start over. This one is easier because I have social support. The only person whose schedule I have to coordinate with is a hermitic clergy, and he is already for schedules and productive Ramadan by default.

3. Sharpened Survival Instincts.
The prohibitions of Ramadan are set against natural biological needs. The needs that humans, on a normal day, are allowed to bear arms to protect and fulfill. Ramadan schedules and fasting will drive that same survival instinct to full force. It sharpens awareness and readdresses priorities. It is like warming up for a fight, but not really getting into one, because we know that the sun will, eventually, set. This does amazing things to my productivity, while the knowledge that the sun will set holds it back from running demonstrations.

4. Responsibility in Daily Choices.
There is always the "be an egg and put your head under a rock for a month" approach to Ramadan. Except that it NEVER feels as great or as rewarding as "be awesome and take Ramadan by the horns". While picking between approaches, I have to note that the "be an egg" approach is unavailable to parents with toddlers, the poor and people who actually want to do REMARKABLE THINGS with their lives.

*grumbles*

5. Applied Behavioral Modification
I'm craving a lot of things right now. The hardest to ignore is the craving to catch my servant before he leaves and hand his week's allowance. The other is cutting my nails, because they're too long to let me write.

ANYTHING TO GET ME OUT OF THIS DAMN WRITING CHAIR!

The cravings are getting worse by the letter, and I'm only able to write this next sentence without jumping out of the chair is because I had that list of consequences lined up at the beginning of this article. The HORRIBLE THINGS that will happen if I don't publish this really really now.

In applied psychology, the first rule of behavioral modification is simplifying the course from action to really, really clear rewards. Publish, go pay and cut nails. Get off before that, suffer through LONG SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS.

(With my chronic ADD, I am so glad it ONLY TOOK 30 YEARS to figure out the stuff that can make me sit through a writing session.)

------------

On the other hand, is nothing. Seriously, I'm writing without the usual cigarette in my hand.

I had always believed that I could not write or plug in my brain without a cigarette. And it's not true for today's writing rush; because if I don't write this, I am going to lose a lot more than just writing. So, yeah, my fingers are shivering from withdrawal symptoms, but I'm forced to follow this one condition: learn to write without smoking.

(Shout-out to Fina for suggesting the unthinkable.)

Now, how do I make the good habits stick on off-Ramadan months?

Yoga while Fasting

My biggest concern with fasting this year was around my yoga practice. Everyone I asked discouraged exercising during the fasting hours, and for good reason: Dehydration is hard on creatures whose built is more than 50% water.

But do I have to lose one good practice in order for the other to fit in? Yoga is supposed to be practiced on an empty stomach, and if done correctly, both yoga (or any kind of physical exercise) and fasting are supposed complement each other in flushing out bodily toxins.

In countries where the majority is not Muslim, fasting becomes simplified into what it was supposed to be: self-observation. Similar to the basic idea in vipassana: "This is how thirst and hunger and anger feels like. Do not respond. Just observe."

The underline is that if I wanted to make up excuses not to practice, either fasting or yoga, there are ways to be creative. But if I really wanted to have both (beside writing and sleep and other wonderful things), the argument becomes a lot less complicated: STFU and just do it, dammit.

So I did.

And, shit, it was awesome.

I would not suggest this to anyone unfamiliar with their bodies. I'm pretty fit for a slob and this was not my first week or month yoga-ing. In my case, doing yoga while fasting was the only right thing to do because I am wired to practice in the mornings. Besides, yoga at night means having to put up with mosquitoes and darkness and other pesky things.

It isn't like I'm training for a competition or pining to be the next Olajuwon. Remember Olajuwon? His NBA records during Ramadan settled the rest of the issues I had about training while fasting.

Fasting and yoga were not meant to be served easy; they are designed to challenge the things we that take for granted. In calling ourselves Muslims or Yogis or simply devoted, we strive on serving these offerings as pretty and as uncomplaining as the sun that sets every day in Ramadan.

The Student

Before

There is this neighbor, a lady who keeps house for my master, who asked if I could teach her yoga.

I am reluctant about teaching. Aside from feeling uncertified, teaching would take me away from my own practice; because I would have to dumb down the asanas to accommodate a student's capacity.

So we had that first class and, with my reluctance and her over-enthusiasm, it was bound for disaster. I pushed her far, she pushed herself further. And for a week after that, she steered away from my yoga area because the mere sight of a yoga mat made her cringe with phantom pain, poor woman.

Process

I told Sue about this, and she graciously offered me a yoga plan that was easy for my student to follow, and worse for me, because it was absofuckinglutely dumb for my level.

You know the argument that artists have about copyright? That if someone stole your work, you lose parts of your self in that art. That it no longer becomes yours. And you can no longer take profit out of that art. My reservations about teaching was more or less like that.

"Why should I teach if I it isn't going to give me more benefits as a yogi?" I wanted yoga to be mine. I do not care how others do it, I just want my yoga to be perfect. And I am jealous for the time and energy I have to offer the Gods of Yoga, so much that I would consider students as dead-weight to my practice.

But when I thought about it some more, I figured, who owns yoga and art? Are we not vessels and messengers for the generous fairies who inspired our bodies and minds with grace and agility and ideas? Aren't I accounted for the generosity that all my teachers have offered? Aren't I supposed to do their teachings some justice by passing it on?

After

This time I offered myself to her, my poor scared student. I swore that if she would let me teach her one more time -  with this fool proof easy plan that Sue gave me - she would enjoy the benefits of yoga.

Let's fast-forward a few weeks. My student came every morning since we tried Sue's program. Even when I did not feel like practicing. She is more aware of her body, she knows where her 80% is, so that she won't injure herself at 100%. She sleeps better. And her husband's happier.

In fact, it is me who reaps benefits from teaching. Just the sight of her in yoga costume shames me off my laziness onto the mat. My teaching-voice is more confident. And when we are in vinyasa, that flowing focus which allows no exchange of words, I know that I have her to thank. Teaching her did not just improve my asanas, it has made me a better yogi.

Did you ever hear that no money becomes less with charity ما نقص مال من صدقة? All the other yoga teachers seem to agree with that; that teaching is a gift to ourselves.

The Yoga Teachers

1.

My first yoga teacher was a thin book from Jareer. It had all the pictures, though it was not very motivating to keep flipping pages between asanas. I practiced for 2-3 weeks and then, khalas, the loneliness of doing something as unnatural as taking orders from a book bit me and I dropped it.

2.

Four years ago, I had Sue as my housemate. She was an avid yoga practitioner and teacher. She still is. And the next book, Light on Yoga, was her gift to my practice.

Nevertheless, when she left Indonesia, and I moved into the Timekeeper's house, the loneliness got on me again. The timekeeper's silence added to the not-doing-anything-else depressed me. After a year of struggling, I couldn't stand the silence and dropped yoga. I figured, I was doing fine without the added sadness, so why tip the fragile balance?

3.

Last year's long process of renewing my Saudi passport and Indonesian residence permit brought one of the most awful kinds of silence. The kind found in overcrowded waiting lounges; where you and everybody there are waiting for The News to arrive.

That is when I just had to invoke the deep silence in yoga. And maybe the Gods of Yoga felt pity for me that they gave me the chance to attend David Swenson's workshop and introduced vinyasa: practice flow.

While vipassana meditation brought the silence by halting everything, vinyasa brings the silence by moving. Like the silence you hear when you're sprinting: you can't think in words, and the only thing you can do is concentrate on your breath and the steps ahead of you. That is vinyasa's version of silence.

4.

Living in the Timekeeper's house while having everything provided for, is another kind of loneliness. It is occasionally rippled with meals or trips out of town, but generally the silence is constant. I thought that taking a meditation course and practicing vipassana could fix my issues with noise/silence.

You know how that went. I loved the silence. There are things that only the silence can teach, if you can understand its language and not run from its dark and intimidating depth. Or die.

Sometimes I see that the Timekeeper as the embodiment of silent practice. His life is semi-automatically sequenced, from vipassana to vinyasa to vipassana again. It does not bother him, whether in vipassana state or vinyasa. He does not question his practice, job or God because he just accepts and does what is expected of him.

How does someone grow that kind of courage and faith in his practice? Genetics?

5.

I once asked the Timekeeper if I need to find a steady yoga teacher, a security net against de-motivating loneliness. He said that vigilant practice is the best teacher.

Another yoga teacher suggested a sparring partner. Someone to make the practice feel less monotonous. Kind of like group worship in mosques and churches. It does not deepen the quality of our practice, but peer pressure can get us going.

The last yoga teacher I sat with over coffee said that teachers can only offer glimpses of their own practice. The rest if up to the student whether they want to learn and apply their lessons or not.

I wonder if the Prophet Muhammad knew this last bit when he said, "اليوم أكملت لكم دينكم I have done my job at teaching your religion…now it's up to you."

6.
Update 2012: I got certified in as a Hatha Yoga Teacher. It didn’t just help me feel more confident in teaching with minimal intrusion to a student’s practice, it actually made me a better masseuse from knowing how the human body works.

What Boobs?

A minicast.

Fueling Passion

The Passionate Do Not Go To Heaven

In all the religions, philosophies and codes of business conduct, displays of passion is discouraged. Not feeling too much is mature/formal/decent. And it’s for good reasons too.

Buddha started with blaming want as the source of all suffering. Jesus and Muhammad said, “Don’t love something too much, lest they be harmful to you, and vice a versa.” And Yoga, as one of the practices of Hinduism, presses on letting go of ordinary self to achieve the higher self. And atheists would go as far as letting go of God, forcrissake.

In formal and spiritual societies, the lesser you feel towards something is the better. Detachment seems to be God’s idea of a heaven on earth. The less you want, is the less you feel, is the closer you are to God/Self-Actualization/Spiritual kind of Awesome.

AND ALL OF THAT IS GOOD, IF IT’S NOT KINDA WHACK.

Something doesn’t seem right with religions and daily practice. The best things we create come from passion. The best love we make are passionate. The most hurtful words are said in passion. The saddest moment in life are in loss of the fruit of our passions.

Putting it simply, you can’t live on a numb emotional slate.

So was the evolution of passion a mere spiritual mistake?

Isn’t there a passion that is approved by both prophets and corporate bureaucrats?

Living on passion is like a sick emotional roller coaster ride. Because sadness sucks the life out of you. Anger burns you out of focus. Pride numbs your awareness. Shame stops learning, and subsequently halts all productivity.

So I guess the only thing left is love.

Don’t roll your eyes. I’m not talking about hormonal love.

I’m talking about a simple and undeniable kind of love. The kind that trickles in daily worship and steadfastness. The kind that is not expressed in things or words or romantic getaways, but with gentle submission to its demands.

I’m talking about the love that started all this. The kind of love that makes you want to keep writing everyday, whether or not anybody reads. The kind of love that stopped you midsentence when you were about to say something hurtful to someone beneath you. The kind of love that reaches beyond life and daily living.

The kind of love, dare I say, that trumps every other kind of emotion and want and suffering.

And if I’m angry, or sad, or lonely because of this love, this simmering passion, then the fault is not in the love, but my own. Because we’re loved as much as we are willing to give, right?

Don’t take me word for it. Try it yourself.

Unwounded Knots

Meet Teppy; a fellow "coherent rambler" who writes personal, meditative, long-ish posts on her blog Walking, Talking Contradiction. On a recent post, she wrote about the secrets that our bodies keep.

Teppy was doing a yoga position that unwounded the knots around her shoulders and skull; “where I hold my tension (and where most of us do because of constantly sitting and driving around in cars slumped over).”

After while in that position, tears welled up from nowhere and everywhere. And when she couldn’t help it, she asked for permission. And started crying.

“[The cry] wasn't hysterical and it wasn't light.  It was a continuous stream of tears of recognition (with a smile across my face from relief of just letting myself do what I needed to do: cry).  Recognition of the pain I have carried around with me, of the negative words I have put in my head…”

Our bodies hear and listen and subsequently obey our words, remember?

* * *

I once massaged a proud, handsome gentleman who was in the advanced stages of his illness. He guided my hands to where it hurt the most. And when I touched him there, unfamiliar thoughts and feelings rushed into me.

“Lord, how could you do this to me? Lord, how I envy this healthy, youthful child. Lord, I’m spent.”

My hands, as they pressed and coaxed his knots to unwind, also released the pain and words they’d been holding. Those free thoughts of his, passed into me, and went straight into the ground beneath us, in tears. As I hid my face from them and cried quietly. For both of us.

[Maybe this is one of the reasons why I can’t/don’t want to keep secrets. I’m a masseuses. And a sucker for hugs.]

* * *

Now, if our bodies store secrets, and physical contact is like stripping (parts of) our masks, I wonder if that is the reason why collectivistic societies discourage unnecessary speech. And why individualistic societies crave so much privacy (the twin sister to loneliness).

Do the quantity of physical contact can reflect the quantity of words exchanged between people? Even abuse?

Empathy Pains

"The self is dear, therefore let him who desires his own advantage not harm another." ~ Buddha

Biology of Empathy

The human brain has an altruistic nerve, sometimes called the mirror neurons. When active, they make you feel what someone else is feeling. The pain that a mother feels when her children are sick. The sadness that brings us together in mourning and shared grief.  The understanding between you and your pets.

Psychology of Empathy

Mirror neurons are – in a way – voluntarily controlled. You can shut them down by focusing on your self. Which is great; because empathy takes a toll on our minds, and carrying the world’s burden of grief could short fuse any kind of wiring.

On the other hand, people who are severely self-centered are as sad as the highly empathetic. How often have we heard of people complaining about loneliness? Shutting down the mirror neurons alienates us from our surrounding. And this is the thing with lonely people; they “think” that they’re the only ones miserable.

Relieving Empathy

My question is, how do we balance between empathy and stretching too thin? How did mother Teresa manage her colossal empathy and still not lose her mind in serving the dejected? How does the Timekeeper manage listening to the weight of the world everyday without succumbing in tired defeat? How do we manage between the hope in a better world, and the realization that nothing really changes?

Unless they know something that we don’t, the highly altruistic must have secret buckets. Something like Dumbledore’s Pensieve: A place to gather the most troubling thoughts and nightmares. The Timekeeper and Mother Teresa have/had God to hold on to. Their faith in a Supreme Being is as real and sustaining as the ground they stand on.

Since we’re not so magical as the residents of Hogwarts, we have to settle with the ordinary. I vomit air after massaging others; passing on sadness and sickness back to the ground. Sue teaches yoga; sometimes to remember that not everyone is as well-grounded as her feet and hands. My brother weight-lifts; tricking his mind into believing his thoughts can never be as heavy as the steel weights on his back and in his hands.

How do you do it, Reader?

Engaging Silence

"Language can only deal meaningfully with a special, restricted segment of reality. The rest, and it is presumably the much larger part, is silence." ~ George Steiner

"There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside you." ~ Zora Neale Hurston

The silence is scary because of the thoughts that come rushing in; since movement and speech works like a dam to all the thoughts that you don't want to bring up. EVER.

With Yoga (and basically every form of meditation and solitary exercise), you're screwed. At a best, you can't twiddle your thumbs, or turn up the volume, or even shrug fashionably, at worst, you wallow in all the thoughts you can’t subside.

For all of the good reasons above, I hadn't done yoga in almost a year. Or maybe even more than that, since Sue, my yoga teacher, left (Sue, if you're reading this, I’M SORRY).

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Unfortunately, I was already in my third yoga pose when I remembered why I stopped doing yoga for so long. It was a bit too late to jump ship because I was already crushed under a pile of overwhelming thoughts, and a pinch too close to a full-blown cry-fest.

[I was thinking, in no particular order, "Dad's here, I should go and see him, but he's not going to approve of me, and he's going to start judging me and we're going to start one those arguments about the way I dress and the way I talk, and barely got off the depression from going through all of that with mom last week..."]

Around the part where my knees gave and I said "fuck this" and started sniveling, was when I STARTED HEARING THINGS.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Hearing Voices isn’t new amongst creatives and crazies. Elizabeth Gilbert filled volumes in "Eat, Pray, Love" and speeches about it, and half of the schizophrenic residents in any mental asylum have had experiences with it too.

The difference between crazy and celestial is in the quality of that Voice. A Voice that is still mine, yet sharp and decisive and atypical of me for its coherent precision.

It said, "THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN GET HURT NOW IS BY QUITTING.”

Nothing philosophical that would break my session with “Huh? What?”. Nothing too brief to fail its purpose in pushing me forward: I got up, did a Tadasana - a stand-correct pose - and managed to do all the other poses allotted for the day's session.

Woohoo.

Every time my flow jagged and thoughts reemerged, the Voice cheered without becoming annoying. It said things like, "This is going to make you feel better. One more asana. The elongated triangle pose. The Parsvottanasana." - Hey, I'm thinking in glossary terms! - "Breathe. Breathe..." and then, NOTHING.

Silence.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The Silence, what's so unfamiliar about it, didn't feel like a pause between thoughts and poses. It didn't come because the Virabhadrasna II demanded more concentration. Didn't feel like it was jammed into my head like SHOCKING CAPITALIZATIONS.

It felt like an encouragement, a gentle nudge, coming deep from within, and connected with everything else: the floor, the room, the house, the guests that the Timekeeper was receiving and even the Void.

The Silence wasn't an emptiness; it was not not-knowing what to think. It was not a blank state. It was just there. It was what Yoga, being in the moment and acts of worship and not breaking your fast for a cigarette and exercising, is all about.

For as long that it lasted, at least.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

After the final pose, while heading to the shower, I donned my leisurely self-hating thoughts again. I was "that loser I've been so afraid of becoming" again; the failed project amongst my siblings, the quirk who doesn't seem to optimize all her potentials.

And I was fine with that. It's not like a single Yoga session could fix a lifetime of issues, or even a light bulb.

The only difference is that, before that particular session, I didn't know that I could actually take a break from all my failures and accomplishments and blogger's blocks. A break, man, not a vacation, not a chocolate bar, not a rant or a moment of reward.

Just a break.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Cynically speaking, I might have been so afraid of my thoughts that I JUST HAD TO DROP THEM, to shun everything else in desperate attempt for consolation. Isn't it why I don't live conventionally?

Then again, even unconventionally, I'm not detached from what I want, and what the world wants of me. Living in a calm environment doesn't necessarily induce peace, right? Something is always buzzing in my head with articles to write, things to do and WORLDS TO CONQUER.

Yet it all came down to that first sentence the Voice had said, that the next pose is the only thing that mattered then. When I started listening and my mind tranquilized. When variables didn't matter, and my life's purpose was simple and one-pointed.

Maybe that’s what Mother Teresa meant when she said, "God is the friend of silence. Trees, flowers, grass grow in silence. See the stars, moon and sun, how they move in silence." - A glimpse of God.

Yoga

I have just spent the entire weekend paralyzed in my little hostel room, starving myself half way to insanity, missing her to a point of heartbreak.

The more reasons to do Yoga, eh?

The more reasons to hate it too, right now, in this messy state that I see myself in, Yoga's almost as good as retail banking: do-able, yet so out of context.

The God In Yoga

I couldn't ignore the need to do it anymore. I felt empty and unnecessary; as if my feet hadn't touched the ground for too long. It wasn’t just missing the absent that made me want-and-not-want-to do Yoga, but every other vagueness urged me to spread the mat, and stand like a mountain.

As soon as the sun-salutations warmed up my core, I was taken aback by the amount of feelings that surfaced up into my consciousness. Everything that I have been too busy to admit, or distracted myself from acknowledging, just poured out of my hands and feet and lungs. Small things, big things, huge things. Missing things, missing people, missing places, missing habits. Hating people, hating work, hating people at work.

Every day feelings.

What Yoga (and Prayer) Is About

Yoga reminded me why I hate silence and stillness so much: I haven't had the courage to face and acknowledge my emotional state of being. I've been suppressing everything that could cause me fear and anger, thus blocking every possible entrance for joy to slip in as well.

This is why I've been "too busy" to write. Not just blogging, but writing in general; the one habit that has provided me with relentless companionship and meditation. Just like Yoga and prayer, writing demands the same silence and stillness to produce the perfect pose and prose. To have the courage to face silence and stillness when all that I want to do is not-feel, deserves a medal on its own account.

It took me a good couple of hours after Yoga to wipe my face and inventorize my pending issues: the unacknowledged things that I had to cry for, the mess that exploded in my room from suppressed depression, the stinky ship that carried my soul…all needed proper attention to be cleaned and rearranged.

How else can you see yourself with clarity, if you do not cleanse your mirrors?

And even if not everything turned out perfectly alright afterwards, at least I had a clearer vision to where I was heading, and the better stance to take me there. For now, that's all that matters: A new beginning.

Sue

She was the first person in Meulaboh who asked about my Southerner’s accent, “Why you talk like that?”
She was my first friend in Aceh,
She’s the only person I’ve known to be so passionate about Yoga,

…she makes a pretty model, sweat and odd poses included…

Few days ago, she sent me a message from Nias,
“I’m having some serious pork BBQ for dinner tonight,”
I thought, this is the second time that she’s mentioned eating pork to us,

So I said to her,
“I’ll remember you every time I cook, just like how you’ll remember us every time you have pork. It’s nice the way we carry each other around in our daily habits, wherever we go.”

This is why nothing in the world, not even death, can separate you from the ones you love.

So remember them well.