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Nighttime, Day Two Motherfuck, just finished an excruciating satsang. It was the usual 30 minute meditation followed by about 30 minutes of chanting - all of which, I swear, were in the same damn melody. No matter which page in the prayer book we turned to, no matter which song, same key, same melody. I have a feeling that's not the song's fault, since a few times the poem's meter wouldn't fit the music, and the swami actually declared "There's some words missing from this one, a mistake in the book". Painful. She'd try to change the melody sometimes by ending a line slightly earlier than usual, but no one was fooled and in the response part of the call-and-response they'd sing the standard melody.
Then the swami, an occasionally severe Japanese or Korean woman whom I at first thought was Hawaiian, gave a lecture on the ins and outs of karma. I'd have to call it "fire and brimstone yoga", a simple-minded accounting of our "credits" and "debits" for which she inexplicably required a blackboard and an hour and a half. Someone fell asleep and began loudly snoring, and she made the poor guy move to the front row. Yikes.
It really felt like some attempt at brainwashing, like she was planting some seed that we'd ponder later during hard times, and we'd give up and return to live on the ashram. Her philosophy was a surrender, all about becoming utterly selfless and aspiring to an ideal of complete passivity. It's not a philosophy you can take with you in your regular "worldly" life, like Karate or Christianity. This one demands you join a monastery and give complete devotion. I'm sure this is going way overboard, but it strikes me that although the Ashram is monetarily cheap, it could cost you your soul. It's like they've devised this method, which I'm sure works, of surgically removing the self, since that's the cause of our suffering. Labotomy, anyone? At the start of her lecture, in her school marmish way, she asked "What is yoga?" She even went so far as to cold-call on someone who'd never even tried yoga until yesterday. He wisely gave the kissass answer "the search for enlightenment". I was wondering what I'd have said if she'd called on me, and I think if I could have gotten the words out in the hostile environment I'd have said something like: When we look at the world through a camera viewfinder, we see very little. When we remove the camera and look through just one of our eyes, we see a little more. When we look through both eyes, we see even more. I think yoga can help us see even more than that, somehow bringing us in touch with the massive lifeforce of the world, both as a feeling, and also through the occasional direct glimpse, like during final relaxation after a long yoga session when I can finally stop the nattering in my mind, and I see a humongous void that feels like pure bliss. But I bet she'd have barked me down if I'd have managed to get that answer out, saying "No! Yoga is devotion, it is surrender, it is extinguishment of the self." Pshaw. It's too bad most of the yoga devotees I meet, especially on ashrams, seem damaged. It'd be nice if they were living happy lives, and using yoga to augment or bring that happiness and fulfillment and strength. Instead yoga often seems like a medicine of last resort.
Something else interesting about this place is that there's no spare time ever. From the time we wake at 5:30a until after final satsang at 10:00p our time is filled. I have to struggle to find 10 minutes to flip through a National Geographic. Forget about honing a skill, forget even about reading. This is an environment where you're supposed to do nothing except receive a philosophy. If only they'd make the satsangs optional, or at least let us choose which we'll attend. As it is, tomorrow morning I'm going to have to play hookie, I just hope the truancy officer doesn't hunt me down. I am, after all, fresh meat, and fresh meat that's reasonably capable of labor.
But still, all cynicism aside, the place is great. It's gorgeous and well maintained, and for a small amount of money - less than a night's stay in a Best Western - they allow anyone to come and receive their hospitality. They're nice people to the bone, even if they have a touch of that evangelical zeal. And thank god this exists, an oasis in our corporate landscape. Soon some yoga chain will buy up all the ashrams and figure a way to dumb it down and expand their customer base. Or something like that.
Well it's time to sleep. Time to relax my tensed writing arm and my semi clenched teeth. Time to lie back and look at the full moon, which has been easily bright enough to write by. Time to smell that skunk that sprayed somewhere near me filling the air with a musk that for some reason smells thick and great. And yes, I know, time to think more about the good things about this place. Harumph.
I suppose I know that what they call positive thoughts -- "Right Thoughts", in the lingo -- would make me happier, but does that mean they're worthwhile? Should I ignore my intuition and go with the blissed out positivism? And isn't there something very good to be said about the regular old everyday angst of life?
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