by Santosh Jha
CHAPTER 3
Melissa wakes up at 5.30 in the morning and gets ready for her first day of yoga session. The night conversation with the young yogi is still in her mind. The Acharya assigned him to her for all her training and anything she wished to know and learn. The old man could not speak much in English but said to her that her father was a benefactor of the yoga ashram, therefore, she would be provided with special facilities. The young yogi was assigned for her personal and exclusive training and help.
The young yogi had come to her cottage the previous night and asked her if she was interested in learning yoga meditation. He had asked her to tell him why she had thought of coming here, what she wished to learn and anything particular she wanted to know about. She had no ready answer and seeing her baffled, the yogi had asked her to tell him next morning. She thought about it. She was not sure whether he knew about her or her recent past. She could not make up her mind whether to tell him everything or not. She thought, if she told her that she was feeling very low and her father sent her here to redeem and rejuvenate in a completely unknown milieu, he might think very poorly of her. As she readies to leave her cottage to see the yogi, she makes up her mind.
Two large mats are laid under a huge mango tree, around two hundred meters away from the ashram. In the backdrop, light red shade has appeared in the sky atop the mountains. The morning light is sufficient to see the meandering narrow pathway, cleared of grass, leading to the mango tree. Melissa can see the young yogi is sitting in a meditative body posture and facing him, good ten feet away is a mat meant for her. She sits on it and feels the sensation in her heart. The breeze was comfortably cool and there was a mix of aromas around. It was a new experience for her. The elements of nature have started to nudge her senses and the resultant shades of consciousnesses make her happily baffled, as she has not met theses elements in such raw and close proximity earlier.
“What should I call you?”, Melissa starts the conversation.
“Call me Shiv”.
“No, I mean, if there is a particular norm or way to call teachers here, I shall do it. I wish to follow all norms here.”
“Shiv is okay”, he says in a low but deep voice. “There are no norms and rules. You have to follow what makes you have improved and deeper audience with yourself. You should also accept that I am not your teacher; I am just a facilitator. As I had asked you earlier, you must be sure, what made you come here, what you wish to know and attain. I shall simply facilitate.”
Melissa keeps looking at his calm face. He has large eyes and Melissa had noticed that they had a feminine appearance. He always talked in low but deep resonating voice. His tall and well-toned body had soft looks and his long sleek hands always gestured, while he said something. What amazed Melissa most about him was his lips, which moved very little, when he spoke. As Melissa had rehearsed, she tells him that she came here because her father wished her to spend time in a place near nature and learn good things about yoga.
“You know Shiv”, she says, trying her best to match his tone and style. “I am happy with this place but I really do not know what I can learn about yoga and anything else, which could be of benefit for me. I think, you have to be more than just a facilitator to me and actually be my teacher.”
“Melissa, there is an old proverb, which says; nobody can teach anything to anyone, however, anyone can learn anything. The idea is, learning is a receptive mechanism of consciousness and this reception is in the part of the receiver, not the dispenser. Knowledge, wisdom or ideas are scattered all around. What becomes your learning is what sinks in within your consciousness and that happens when you accept and happily receive something as utility.”
“You mean to say that I must have the clarity of notion about what has utility and benefit for me as this alone can make me learn something? But what about kids, who do not know what is good for them. At the start, someone must decide for them what is good or bad. The parents and teachers do it for them.”
“I agree. Being a child is considered the most suitable state of consciousness for learning. They have the innocence of objective faith and that makes reception as something very natural and spontaneous. From mind perspective, they do not have anything to unlearn and that is why anything, which is there for them, becomes their automatic learning. This too is not ideal but beautifully facilitative. A child has no option but to accept everything he or she is doled out as learning. However, when maturity comes at a later stage of life, they have more difficult task of unlearning a lot many things, which they made a part of their knowledge pool. You are not a child, though innocence of faith still holds out as a good useful facility for you. You already have evolved and matured in a particular way. For you, there are sets of utility and ideas of beneficiality, which may be subjective to you but they are very much part of your consciousness. Even when you put in an innocent faith of a child, a new learning, which does not work out to be in linearity with your already accepted domains of utility and beneficiality, cannot be accepted by your subconscious mind.”
Melissa looks deep into his eyes. She is not sure. The man is a mystery to him. His voice and mannerisms are very assuring and the way he puts in his words, seems very honest and sincere. However, what he said, she could not clearly understand and that is why, there is a sense of confusion in her about how she should take him. For a woman, judging comes natural. She has to be very sure of the deep intent of a man she would rest her faith on. It is her instinct. Nature designed her this way. Here, she is not even sure what this man is actually wanting from her. Does he want her to have faith in him? Does he intend to lead her to a trap situation, where she could drop her guard and get influenced by his ways? Is he scheming something? What is he up to?
He accepts her silence. He of course has a scheme for her; surely wants something out of her. He smiles and this makes her more suspicious. She finds it hard to hide her emotions. He is reading them all, as morning light is now good enough to make her face gleam.
“Melissa, this is the difference. A child is an option-less receptor. We as grownups are used to relying more on our intelligence than our innocence. We are adept at option building. Intelligence is all about option building over probable shades of a meaning, which a set of words install. That is why I said, you already have a wisdom in your consciousness, which has been useful and beneficial to you so far. May be, somewhere, it could not be helpful to you, in protecting and prolonging your interests; I cannot say with surety as I do know nothing about your life and past. However, I believe, utilities are neither created nor dumped overnight. If you could decide, what you think is in your extended utility, I shall have the ease in facilitating them to you.”
Melissa feels relieved that he does not know anything about her and her past. She can now make her moves better. However, she is still not sure, what she wants new in her life. She thinks, she can take a chance with him. May be, she should let him take her where he wishes to and then have a judgment later, whether she can trust him or not.
“You do not need to stress yourself over what I have been saying. This surely is not my purpose. You need to trust me on that. I must tell you that your father has been a very special person for this ashram and Acharya. We all just wish to make your stay here very meaningful and useful for you. It is good that you have liked this place and happy about your stay here so far. So, you can take your time to decide what you wish to attain out of your sojourn here.”
“Thanks Shiv, I appreciate your words. May be you are right, I need some time to think.”
“I wish to tell you something, which I request you listen with innocence and not intelligence. I told you I could not be your teacher, not because of any ego or negativity. For humanity, wisdom is not yet a finality; probably it can never be. I have been trained in many things, including yoga but I know that everything is evolving and new insights into all wisdoms are being added. Being a teacher means; I know and can give you that. This however is not true. Learning is always on for me. As I said, I can j
ust be a facilitator. You can know so many things here and from me. However, what utility they could be is what you make of. That is why I have been insisting that you decide everything. Life learning is no curriculum and cannot be institutionalized. You frame your questions and I shall attempt to give you answers to the best of my abilities. Then again, you have to come up with more questions to settle down to the utility and fruition of the answers, which you may accept as beneficial to you.”
“What if I do not have questions? Why can’t answers be accepted as surety of utility?”
“Then it shall fall in some different domain, which shall be more difficult for you and probably, this shall lead you to more confusion. It shall be the domain of complete trust and faith. You shall start accepting what I tell or extend to you as knowledge. Your mind already has lot many referrals for good and bad, right and wrong, utility and futility. The new knowledge may stand in conflict and contradiction to your referral-pool, resulting in confusion and more conflicts. This approach is amenable only for kids, who do not have previous referrals in their mind. They accept what is given. Only when they grow and mature, they prune it and unlearn as per their rationality of subjective utility. You have already matured in a particular way. You are not a blank mind.”
“Okay, but you will help me with questions too?”
“I told you, I am a facilitator. I shall facilitate everything for you but you have to be the finality on the utility of the ultimate beneficiality of anything you accept as learning.”
“Why you insist on me having to be the finality? I think, if you have acquired knowledge after years of training and persevered learning, you can confidently extend to me as good thing?”
“Melissa, what stays with you as wisdom is what your mind accepts and internalizes as utility for your larger wellness. Old wisdom says, nothing external to you actually exists and what you internalize is the only reality. We shall talk about it later. Let me say that you can start on this hypothesis of mine, to build a theory, which you can challenge later, if you do not find it useful for you.”
“Okay, I accept. So, what is next for the day?”
“Yes. Close your eyes, sit in a way you feel comfortable, keep your body perfectly erect and still like a rock. Try to switch off your mind, concentrate on your breath, feel it going deep down your body and going away. Gradually, let the feeling sink in that you are one with the nature around. If you start feeling any pain, stop and go for a walk.”
She follows the instructions. As she closes her eyes, her mind starts racing up thoughts after thoughts. She gets mired into them, completely forgetting to focus on her breathing. In a few minutes, her back starts aching. She opens one of her eyes to see what he is doing. She sees her walking towards the ashram. She rises and starts to walk away from him. She needs to address to her thoughts. Too many issues on a single day and she has to make up her mind.
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