The next to last blog post from India

Last night we attended the Gurupurnima celebration. It started around four with Geeta leading a recitiation of the 108 names of Patanjali and the entirety of the Yoga Sutras. Prashant then gave a lengthy discourse on the philosophy and religion of yoga. Highlights from his talk: the importance of letting yoga work on you, not just doing yoga, but letting yoga be done to you, being receptive to the metaphysical aspects of yoga. Yoga is about the soul and so we must be interested in that. The different stages of learning and linking that to various stages of life. We have to move beyond preference in the learning process. The importance of being discerning about what and why you are practicing, more on the outfit of the mind, many jokes about sticky mats, water bottles, and yoga shorts. He spoke for almost two hours. At this point, Chandru had people move even closer together so my claustrophobia began to set in as an additional obstacle to overcome (beyond legs, buttocks, and hips falling asleep in many and varied excruciating ways). Then Guruji addressed us directly. He spoke of the importance of tapas in practice, of searching for awareness and life force in every cell of the body, of the ongoing nature of practice. He mentioned that he has been teaching for 73 years. What a profound influence he has had on the lives of so many. He is the embodiment of what Prashant was talking about. Yes, tons of doing he did, but what is so remarkable about him is what the yoga practice has done to him. He is radiant, luminous, vitally aware and almost ninety years old.

Then, he opened a variety of gifts: the most recent Yoga Rashaya (publication of the institute), and Abjijata had arranged for a special order of t-shirts to commemorate the event.

I'm very glad we got to be a part of the festivities. A very auspicious ending to our time here.

This morning we practiced some, though we also bought many t-shirts for ourselves, and various teachers, friends, and students. We also ordered Pune Blankets and got Randy's CD all figured out with Chandru.

Tonight is our last class with Geeta and then we are going out to Vashali with Muriel and the California girls.