The La Mision Hotel was beautiful and we had a beautiful space for yoga. Heather Watrous was a wonderful chef who prepared all our lunches and dinners and was so adroit at handling all our food allergies and diet restrictions in a delicious way!

Michael and Heather also took us on some great hikes.

Then there is the infatuation with the weightless body. This is not confined to the runways. The act of being light and the steps necessary to get light are part and parcel of yoga practice, and have been for centuries. The impulse to be thin is rampant throughout yoga studios in West Palm Beach, Santa Monica and Scottsdale AZ. Fasting, holding your breath, balancing on your arms, and doing kapalabhati ( a breathing technique where the abdomen is pumped while exhaling forcefully) all suggest attempts to defy gravity . Levitation, being completely weightless, is the quintessential yogic device to demonstrate accomplishment (siddhi) in classical Indian lore. Stories of the levitating yogi were abound in the mid 20th century, as described in the popular Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. The third chapter of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras suggests that the yogi who has gained mastery can float “as light as a tuft of cotton”. Today, yoga on sweat drenched sticky mats, juicing fasts, raw food diets and power yoga work-outs are intended to drive the body into obedience and to make it weightless. Yoga, like anorexia, is driven by an impulse to gain control over physical (and mental) limits.

So when Isabella was told that she was ten pounds over-weight by an agent, and she was a mere 100 pounds at the time, the impulse to please, the impulse to be successful and good drove deep into her soul. A soul that turned out to be great in size, as she demonstrated the fortitude and deep care to ‘advertise’ her disease, so that other women may not suffer. The objectification of the female body, from both male and female perspectives, whether in yoga or on the runways, can become all- consuming. And today, the yogini models. The reams of yogaesque positions evident in the market place have women posing for the camera, all bendy in tangerine leotard or yogi lingerie. She may be a model posing at yoga or a yogini posing as model, but either way the boundaries are blurred.

Take the three-page spread in last week’s NY Times on Tara Stiles the NYC model turned yogi. Her shtick is a familiar one by now: a pure yoga free of inner reflection, spiritual or textual reference or self-inquiry. Her book is aptly titled, “Slim Calm Sexy”.

The infatuation with the slim downed body leads to a pre-occupation with the outer image. The death of petite Isabella speaks to the profound suffering that can surface when the body is pushed toward the ideal of ‘fit’ and beautiful. Striking a yoga pose lends itself to the snapshot flash. Yet when image drives yoga, it is a strange fit. When the outer look pre-dominates, the felt-sense within the interior gets over-looked and can drive her to fits of obsession. Denying the flesh, defying the flesh is tied into acts of self-punishment and abuse. Self-acceptance is critical. And what is necessary is a critical eye for what the industry—yoga or fashion, displays as slim, sexy or perfect. This is what really needs to be defied.

Here is an interview Isabelle Caro did with CBS on anorexia:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTIjRxT_Y9g

Designed by Tias Little, Zen Motion is a unique walking meditation part of Prajna Yoga’s Session III Teacher Training. This movement piece is a living meditation brought into a group form where people are engaged with each other creating a singular consciousness.

Tricia is our host here in Orleans and runs Everybodies Yoga. We had devoted students travel to the event from New Hampshire, Boston, Vermont and Providence Rhode Island. The event was made even brighter by the help of our 2 assistants, Kristen Darcy from Boston and Christina Hatgis from Brooklyn (who co-directs the Mala studio ). We love presenting in the local Orleans church, for it has a wood floor and beautiful vaulted timbers on the ceiling. The event is one of our favorites of the entire year. The North Atlantic is just nearby and the salt water air is so purifying and the vast dune beaches just around the corner form the venue.

Historically, the art of Sanskrit chant was the avenue in which the ancient teachings of yoga were passed. Through Fire in the Heart, you may heighten your daily yoga practice and awaken the sacred sounds within. Chant along with Surya and Tias Little and learn the accurate pronunciation and meaning of the devotional chants and mantras of India. Enclosed is a booklet so you may practice the 26 divine chants to incorporate the resounding power of prayer for Shanti.

26 songs, 41 minutes

Please listen to a sampler of our new CD, “Fire In the Heart: Prajna Yoga Chants” by Surya & Tias Little. You may purchase the CD from the Prajna Store here on our website. Enjoy!

Fire In The Heart Sampler

This morning Eno and I went across the street to the local “Bakerie” to buy croissants for breakfast. Eno has become an accomplished scooter rider and can weave through foot traffic and stop at the street corners ahead of us. There are numerous cafes along the square and last night we had Italian food with Veronique our host, as the warm June sun set over the plaza. Earlier we had visited the magnificent Dom Cathedral built in the 13th century along the Rihine. Apparently it was spared during the American bombing over Cologne during the WW II. Its massive spires completely dominate the city and can be viewed from miles around. On our recent bike trip we went far down the river Rhine along a long bend in the river and could see the Dom Cathedral stand out as the center piece of the city. Anna and Eno and I walked to the top the day we visited—all 533 steps. The ascent took us above the belltower (Eno and I recalled the story of Quasimodo in the belfry of Notre Dame in Paris) as we surveyed  the 7-8 bells grand bells atop the Dom. The view over the Rhine was breath taking and the sheer height of the look out turret was astounding. Eno and I loved the gargoyles hanging from the eaves with dragon wings and pointy ears.

By extension, not only do we perceive and filter the world in our own private ways when travelling, but all of experience, is filtered by our perspective. That is, all is “mind” made. Not only all that we experience in the outside environment, but all thoughts, perceptions and dreams that surface in the inner environment of the mind. In the yogic training, we must continually reflect on how we conjure up our experiences. When we are alone and inhabit the familiar landscape of our thoughts, it seems  that our time to our selves is “real”, apart from the flux of circumstances that fills our days. Yet we must see our internal monologues as illusory. There is nothing solid or “real” about our time in private thoughts. This time in private seems to be the time when we can really be true to ourselves. Yet in the yogic study, as we perceive that all is ³mind-made², then we see that all thoughts within our inner dialogues are fabrications. The more I practice and reflect on the heart of the yogic path, that is, seeing the individual self as empty and insubstantial, the more I see the vision of the path as totally radical. That there is no solid I or me, that all is but bits and pieces of personal viewpoints, perspectives and interpretations is a radical and frightening realization. At times I feel like Arjuna on the battle-field when Krishna reveals his true being and Arjuna is overwhelmed by the vision. Upon seeing that the “private” is not real, but that thoughts are but projections of various attitudes and view-points conditioned by times and circumstances we find ourselves in, the pervasiveness the totality of the vision is mind-blowing. We realize the extent to which we have invested in our own drama, as the narrator of our own story. When we realize the narrator is a fabrication what is left?

It is critical in “practice” to see again and again the limits of the narrator’s point of view. In as many ways as possible, and through out as much of our experience as possible, it is necessary that we expose our self-centered perspective to be, in the words of the Buddha, “like phantoms, hallucinations and like a dream”.

This evening troupe of musicians started up in the café, all men in their mid years played traditional Turkish music. There was a violin, zither, two musicians playing hand drums and the clarinet-like wind instrument. The horn sound was plaintive sounding, invoking the desert and nomadic wandering. The horn and dumbek drums were layered one atop the other, as a distinctive Middle Eastern sound emerged‹one that brushed the bottom of the heart, a sound of longing and search, excavating the soul.

Istanbul is a living archeological urban-scape. Remnants of the Roman era when the city was Constantinople, skirt the fortresses or the Ottaman Empire and the Arabic rein of the sultans. Today the city is has the cosmopolitan feel of Paris or London blended with the look and feel of a traditional working class and religiously inclined population.

As the band played on a group of women began to dance in swaying circular movements. Their undulating turns suggested a kind of mesmerized trance that pulsed back though centuries and suggested the migration, conquest and diaspora of multitudes of people throughout this middle east region.

May 29th:

The fading sunlight over Istanbul gave the densely clustered homes and apartments a glow of red embers. A veil of grey pollution draped over the city muting the light and giving the rooftops a worn, burnished look. The cries of seagulls mixed with the blasts of freighters out in the sea. The din of the city was constant, a city of 13 million people packed along the strait that links the Aegean Sea to the south and the Black Sea to the north. We are fortunate to be staying just a 25 minute walk from the old city and the view of the megalithic mosques –the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque– can be seen from good vantage points in the neighborhood. Istanbul feels to be a city that is a hybrid between Mumbai and San Francisco. The vistas overlooking the Bospherus Sea to the “Asian side” of the city are like views from the Marina in San Francisco over to the East Bay. It is like Mumbai, for the streets are littered with traffic, horns blaring, taxi drivers racing at the edge of life and death, vegetable hawkers push their carts through narrow cobbled streets, metal scrap collectors calling to homes for used appliances, the smell of stray cat urine, elderly couples idle on park benches, and the sound of Turkish pop music blares from neighborhood loudspeakers.

Unique to the city are exquisite neighborhood mosques that are embedded within thickly populated high-rise apartment buildings. These are the local mosques that unload the plaintive call to prayer from tin megaphones, set atop one or more of the spire-like minarets. We visited the royal mosques, built by the chief architects of the sultans in power in the 16th century.

The Hagia Sophia has a formidable presence. On the exterior the mosque is somewhat drab, and yet on the interior the concave dome structures feature elaborate, colorfully rendered mandalas.  Floral patterns wrap like vines along side stylized Arabic calligraphy  and ornate tiles (in the Blue Mosque) ring the perimeter walls. Looking upward into the vaulted ceiling is a delightful aesthetic experience and a mesmerizing display of splendour.

Prior to entering the mosque all remove their shoes (Eno liked the idea of carrying his shoes around the mosque¹s interior in a recycled plastic baggie) and the women cover their heads. Prior to entering, I coached Eno on what we were going to see‹or rather what we would never be able to see. “This is where people pray to the God that you can never see his face. In churches where there are pictures of Jesus Christ they believe that God could be seen, but here in the mosque, if you see the face of god then something really scary could happen.” This drew Eno into the story. “What could happen?”  He asked.
“Well, it would be dangerous”, I said. “if you see the face of god it would be really frightening. However one time, someone said they just saw the back of him, just a little bit of his long capes but no one has ever seen his face.”

The interior mosques are even more resplendent than the interior of the Christian churches, I think, given that Allah is celebrated without representation. The circular patterns on in inside of the onion shaped domes resembled images of chakras or granthis (energetic knots) in the yogic systems of practice.

The small bar was set along one of the ubiquitous side cobble streets of Istanbul. My host David Cornwell (from Belfast), who directs the studio Jahangir Yoga with his Turkish wife Zeynep, was my guide and we climbed into chairs at a small table. Fortunately there was no smoking within the café. In Istanbul it is difficult to be free from the scent of burning tobacco. For instance, the air was stifling in the yoga studio today and so the windows were open. Accompanying the blaring sound of Turkish television in the adjoining apartment building, the smell of smoke wafted upward from the street below and in through the open window.

This evening troupe of musicians started up in the café, all men in their mid years played traditional Turkish music. There was a violin, zither, two musicians playing hand drums and the clarinet-like wind instrument. The horn sound was plaintive sounding, invoking the desert and nomadic wandering. The horn and dumbek drums were layered one atop the other, as a distinctive Middle Eastern sound emerged‹one that brushed the bottom of the heart, a sound of longing and search, excavating the soul.

Istanbul is a living archeological urban-scape. Remnants of the Roman era when the city was Constantinople, skirt the fortresses or the Ottaman Empire and the Arabic rein of the sultans. Today the city is has the cosmopolitan feel of Paris or London blended with the look and feel of a traditional working class and religiously inclined population.

As the band played on a group of women began to dance in swaying circular movements. Their undulating turns suggested a kind of mesmerized trance that pulsed back though centuries and suggested the migration, conquest and diaspora of multitudes of people throughout this middle east region.

Our hosts Rebecca and David the directors of the yoga center say that there are active Sufi communities here in Istanbul. The town where Rumi and Shams spent much of their time together Cognac, is just outside Istanbul, between Istanbul and Ankara.  Tonight the full moon rose over the “Asian” side of Istanbul.  ”From the Asian side of the Bospherus you can walk on the land all the way to China and on the European side you can walk to Paris”, David said today. Istanbul is such a multi-layered city, a living archeology of the mid point between East and West.  The moon light  rolled playfully over the sea and the evening air was thick with a feel of romance and longing. The moon conjured the poetry of Rumi:

Last night my teacher taught me the lesson of Poverty:

Having nothing and wanting nothing.

I am a naked man standing insida a mine of rubies,

clothed in red silk.

I absorb the shining and now I see the ocean,

billions of simultaneous motions moving in me.

A circle of lovely, quiet people

becomes the ring on my finger.

Then the wind and thunder of rain on the way.

I have such a teacher.

Rumi

Now four weeks since we left the United States and after staying a week in each of the countries Belgium, Britain and Finland, our travels feel as if they have taken on a life of their own. Any hesitation about being away from home or halting emotion regarding the why or the wherefore of this trip have since worn off, and so now it feels like we are streaming through time and place. I am reminded of some of my travels as a young man—hitch-hiking across Canada after high school and travelling to India for six months in 1989. The extended travel serves to slough off outer layers of expectation, inner and outer judgment, hopes and fears. At this time in my life the journey is not only a personal one—it is familial and professional. This adds layers of complexity. The needs and demands of a 5 yr old are large enough, combined with the wishes and demands upon Surya and I as a married couple (we had our 10 year anniversary last week in Helsinki) combined with the demands upon me professionally to teach and guide students are all significant. However despite these demands, we have found our travel rhythm together.

Surya asked Eno last week, “do you miss being at home in New Mexico?” and Eno responded, “No this is good right here”. Eno has a remarkable capacity to adapt, given the multiple transitions we have undergone on this trip so far—in and out of taxis, trains, elevators, hotel rooms, people’s homes, different kitchens and bathrooms, doorways, foyers and street corners. On an intuitive, cellular level this trip is such an education for Eno to be in the world, to move through the world and to experience such array of language (Flemish, Finnish, Turkish and the English with their charming accent), sounds (the police sirens in Helsinki, the sound of the approaching tube in the London underground, the blasts of the Black Sea barges here on the Bospherus in Istanbul), to be received by all of our hosts (Nicki and Dex the South African studio owners in Antwerp , Graham and Elizabeth in London, Eija and Anouska in Finland and Rebekka– from Berlin– and David Cornwall– from Ireland –here in Istanbul). I think of how this travel for Eno establishes a karmic sense of reaching out into the world and embracing it. This karma, too is something Surya and I share. Upon arriving in Turkey, as Surya was reminiscing about her days in Saudi Arabia, Kathmandu and Goa, she said,  “I have such a strong wander lust streak in me”. And so this trip is a manifestation of our impulse as a couple, to move—to roam and explore and experience of ongoing difference.