Yoga Practice in Mysore, India

    Why do we practice yoga?  We may have come to the practice for a myriad of reasons, each of us with different intentions.  But at some point, when you’ve practiced long enough and with consistancy, you realize that the practice of yoga is about going inward and learning about the Self.  Who am I?  That is the question, and yoga has the answer.   Within the experiences of the body we come to our first road blocks, our first obstructions and learn that these can be overcome.  Yoga shows us our habits, over and over again, until we learn new methods, retraining our bodies and developing a deeper awareness of how the body moves.  While recently spending a month in India, I realized that India herself offers the same lessons.  She shows you to yourself, without sugar-coating or perfume.  Any patterns or habits become clear and unavoidable giving you the opportunity to react differently and to learn something. 
    Our ego, only a distraction, though a strong one, is a way of identifying ourselves with things outside of the Self.  The true Self is beyond labels or competition, it is present only in the moment of the experience.  Doing an asana practice, we learn that we have the strength and awareness to work through physical pain and resistance.  Through consistent asana practice over a long period of time we work from places of tension and stiffness or weakness and fatigue to places of freedom and release, to strength and stability.  As we overcome the obstacles of asana, we learn that the negative voice of ego resistance can be silenced or at least turned down significantly, and we can keep moving.  The way we look at our bodies and our practice begins to change without our even trying.  No matter the pose we are working on or our abilities regarding that pose, the real lessons are about how we react to the challenge.   
    In the same way, spending time in India has been for me a magnifying glass, putting into glaring perspective my tendencies.  Mysore, India is home to Ashtanga yoga and Guruji, Sri K. Pattabhi Jois.  It is the base of operations, the heart and soul of the Ashtanga practice and a location of pilgrimage for those that practice the method.  Mysore is a place apart from the real world.  As a yoga student preparing and planing for practice in Mysore, you detach and isolate yourself from your life.  Leaving behind your job, family, obligations, routines and schedules, you land in this community where the only thing you have to do, the only thing you are responsible for is your yoga.  In a culture so different from what we know here in the west, the only thing you know that has any familiarity is yourself, or at least who you know yourself to be. 
    Like being on your yoga mat, while in Mysore, India, you are given the freedom to be completely self-focused and directed inward.  When the only thing you have to do each day is get up and practice, the rest of your time becomes an opportunity to do only that which you choose to do.  You learn about how much time you need alone to feel comfortable socializing with people you hardly know.  You learn of your tolerance, acceptance and compassion for anything different from what you are familiar with just by walking to breakfast or going to the nearby chai stand.    You begin to see the patterns of what you are drawn to.  Where does your pleasure and your inspiration lie?  When you have complete freedom, what do you choose to do?  And most importantly, what does this tell you about who you are?  If you find you are making choices out of some sense of obligation this becomes crystal clear as well.  There is no boss watching over you, no parent or spouse, no child to create a model for, no one to judge you but yourself.  So what do you value?  What behavior feels right?  And what behavior that feels wrong do you choose to do anyway?  Then you ask yourself why.
    With no one having expectations of who you are beyond your presence and earnestness on the mat, there is freedom to do differently, whatever that is.  You learn what you expect of yourself and you learn compassion.  Just as the truth of your bind in Marichyasana D is not something you can fake, also the truth of who you are in the world is not easy to fake when presented with the conditions of Mysore.  There is no hiding.  Negative or unhealthy patterns become obvious as well as those you simply no longer need.  Now you are faced with the choice to change or not.   Our thoughts extend into new worlds of possibility and we accept the challenges that come our way as opportunities for growth.
    If the ego identifies, falsely, by the way, with things outside of the Self, to what does it attach when you are alone in a foreign land focusing on your yoga?  Where does the ego try to find its strength when it is cast adrift?  Without the patterns and habits for the ego to fall back on, you are able to identify with what is more immediate to your experience and to what is more proximal to your center.  When you can release the world of the familiar where your attachments breed expectation and judgement, whether by stepping onto your mat or by traveling across the planet to Mysore, India, you can find the truth of who you are.  You identify with what is more true to the purest Self.  That is a gift of this practice and a gift of going to Mysore, to Guruji, and to the source of Ashtanga yoga.