Who am I, who am I, who am I, who am I, WHO AM I? Do not ask yourself this twenty times in a row. Ow oeps, I was only repeating that to myself over 40 times while sitting in a comfortable seating position and trying to meditate. And to meditate..lets call it sitting still and asking my thoughts to please shut up and be quiet! And then the thoughts even start shouting! Then I feel the silence. Let the noises and the sounds around just be, same with your thoughts. This is probably the hardest for me, and probably for most of the students here. Trying to get your thoughts to be quiet and find stillness in the mind. Teacher guides us with the words: Let the thoughts come up, face them and let them float or fly away. Seventy percent of my thoughts are about food and its sort of really hard to face them and let them go. Its all about staying in the present moment, with awareness. Do not think about the past nor about the future. Live with the present. Be aware of where you are, what you are doing and the most difficult question: WHO the hell am I?
If you get to know me, you will most likely describe me as a really down to earth person, one who does not like to talk about my own feelings, yet can not be quiet and is always thinking about the future. Many ideas about starting a small business! I would prefer to take the easy path to not face any (personal) feelings or problems. So what brought me here to Hridaya Yoga in Mexico? First of all, I was dealing with the hole I got in after being away from my own country for a while. The famous hole that everybody is talking about. Yes I know, it's the hole. The gap, the empty feeling back in the Netherlands I had. What to do with my life. And then friends and family will try to give me advice saying to me; It will be alright, it will take couple weeks and everything will be as how it was. Find an easy job, rent a place in the city, go out again. You will be fine. Then I ask myself, do I really want this? Easy to answer. NO. I want to get out of here, and soon. What brought me to Mexico? This single ticket for 150EU! I had some money left from my working time in Australia. Mexico is cheap right? I can live 2 months with that and after we will see again. Then Hridaya Yoga came by on Google search words: Budget Yoga retreats Mexico. YEAH, I had already been practicing yoga for two months every morning and knew, ¨ok, this is it! I will get so fit and will understand what I am doing! Let's go.¨ I arrived at the Yoga center in this beautiful super laid back town, Mazunte on the Oaxacan coast. I still had my doubts and was thinking these three weeks are going be three REALLY long weeks. Now I am writing this and its almost finished. I now feel the other way, these three weeks flew by! Even though the yoga is becoming a bit boring and slow and it feels time for something different. I really get sad when I think of the moment I have to leave this special place. Special place, where are you talking about? This is going be really hard to describe. To describe how these three weeks passed by. How, what happened, what changed, did I see the light, can I interpret my dreams now, can I be outside my body and face myself, can I medidate for hours, singalong with Bhajans, know how to purify my body, can I be silent, can I feel the energy of the chakras in my body? Can I talk without using words, can I see ghosts, can I do the hardest yoga postures now??? Well, this is easy to answer, NO to all. I have to say I expected something else. I expected to become seriously super fit because the yoga, and to be able to meditate and be in stillness. To give my crazy thoughts a place somewhere in my body and find inner peace. (I don't even know what inner peace is) Also totally the other way. I found out im not that flexible, my knees hurt from sitting in meditation seat. I still cannot find my silence and I am not able to see paranormal things. These three weeks is just a beginning for me. It sparked something inside of me though. I was really not AWARE of how much more there is. There is so much more. I started realizing this. There is much more than just work, money, party, making friends, family, travel all around. You would not expect this out of my mouth. But I would even say most people are not developed how to become aware of what we actually are, what we are doing, how we are ruining our lives without knowing. I realized we all want one thing. LOVE is this one thing. To give love and to be loved. It has nothing to do with money and possessions. If we can let go of all of these things, we can really find out where to find the love. The self love. Go back to the nature, purify ourselves and become aware of our true nature. Step by step it is really possible to get layers off the body. Layer by layer. This is what they taught me, how to do this and how to practice this. Getting rid of all those layers to finally reach the heart. And open the heart. Open the spiritual heart. I feel I´m such a beginner to talk about this and for me its really hard to find the words to describe it. In these three weeks there was probably more than 300 words I have never heard before. Maybe heard or read once, and then to find out what the meaning is for this word. I still feel there are so many words that I heard and have no idea what they mean. We are talking about words in Sanskrit. (Indian language) Chakras, Asanas and other spiritual words and stuff. Maybe I should do something like this in fully dutch, would that make it much easier? Regular day would go like this, and 21 days that followed. First week I woke up around 6.00 am and would do my own practice of Ashtanga for about an hour. I would make a coffee for myself and my new best friend from the course, Justin. He is from Canada. I brought my own coffee machine. I got used to my own little coffee machine, so I won't travel without it anymore. Then at 7.00 in the morning there is a Meditation hour at the Yoga center, you can choose to go there. Tried 5 times. But its really hard for me to sit still for one hour and in 3 of the 5 meditation classes I attended, I opened my eyes and I was full with tears. So I did not feel happy after an hour of meditation. The teachers would say, this is fantastic. This is the purification of your mind. You come up with thoughts, face them and would see them fly away. Maybe they are actually right and I will get better in facing these thoughts and dealing with them and will purify my mind! Great! So to purify and to finally reach your heart we got into some purification methods. So also literary body purification methods. I can make this story short by saying purify your body through drinking more than 12 cups salt water early in the morning and then stick your fingers in your throat to clear everything you just drunk. Probably not only that. In my pyuk was also other disgusting stuff. I have to be honest. This is not a method what I would do more often. Sorry but this did not felt that naturally. After 4 days we went a bit further in purification of the body. Drink, drink, drink (salt water) make some simple movements, before you know you will pooing water!! All clear down there in the stomach right. To be honest again. I would not do this again as well. Did not felt that great after. I felt empty and I just wanted to have nice healthy food. Like fruit and vegetables. What was not allowed for the next 48 hours! Just a bowl with olive oil and some rice grains swimming in it. I cheated.. I did eat a nice meal later. And even a peace of chocolate tart. My stomach was a bit upset. But probably because I did not follow the strict diet for after the purification. I don't know what it is, this place is so peaceful and has a really open and pure vibe. The center is on the top of a small hill, has a beautiful view over the ocean. Has 4 organic toilets, bucket showers, dormitories, private rooms and the Yoga holes. We use the big one the most. This hole gives a peaceful, quiet atmosphere. I love this environment because the people where I am with are here all for the same thing. The same thing but also everybody have different things what brought them to this place. All the students of this module are open. Or are getting open during the time here. You can share everything together, sharing thoughts about the way people look at each other. The way they talk about home. The issues where everybody is dealing with. I heard stories from students what was really shocking for me as well. And that makes my own life different as well. What am I complaining about. When I say, I don't know what do to with my life or I want this or that. Some have lost brothers, have suicides story close to them. I got a bit closer to some people in particle. I'm not a big group person. I will get closer to some people, where I feel good with and then I feel safe and good to open my self for them as well. In the class there are around 35 students. Everybody is different. They come from all over the world. But some people really talk a different language. Then I am talking about a spiritual language. What can be a bit hard for me. So for the rest I dont have much to say.
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Cancun 20/04/16
Full with nervous feelings I step into my flight to Cancun, Mexico. As soon I sat in the plane the nerves were over. I'm going and let things go. Go with flow. I arranged a couch surfer to stay with. One I fully trust is safe and sweet. Next to me sat a German lady, she was traveling alone as well. Traveling... lets call it holiday. I said, yeah this flight was really cheap right! I don't know, it was all in the package. When she will arrive everything will be arranged. 15 days, luxury hotel on the beach. A little organized tour through Yucatan or the ruins and then back to Cancun and fly back to Germany. All inclusive! Sound great :P Not for me ;) I took the cheapest way to get to Cancun, by bus. I thought to walk to the place of my couch surfer (Carmen). But I wasn't expecting it would be SO hot. It was like 35 degrees. unk. OK full sweat I arrived, cleaning lady opened the door for me. Carmen was still at work and would be home soon. I felt so comfortable straight away. She is so sweet! Really easy going, funny, interested and has funny stories to tell. And she knows everything about Cancun and can give me advice about my trip through some parts of Mexico. First day in Mexico! Was hard to get in the travel modes again. This time I was having a hard time to say goodbye to my family and friends. First day and I was already missing them. Had this before and I knew its gonna be alright. My first night in Cancun! I met a Mexican girl from Cancun, who took me to her friends place. Surprisingly we had a lot of fun and this was a good Mexican experience to start my trip. They were funny, really easy going and are able to show me more in Cancun:) Like last night, we went to a sort of underground chill out place. A place with good food (Italian though), alternative beer. And it smells like this is the place where you are able to smoke a joint without being scared to get caught. And go to jail or whatever. On the daytime Carmen drove me to THE Hotel area in Cancun. A 27K strip full with all inclusive and timeshare hotels. Hard rock hotel, Hyatt, Rio..they got it all. All hotels next to the beach or the lagoon. Prices I cannot afford as a backpacker. Carmen works for one of these hotels and tells me where to go and what to see and were to find good Fish tacos! Yamm. First time I saw the beach it was a breath taking. I have seen beautiful beaches in Philippines and Australia. But this beach was different, so amazingly long, white sanded beach and the ocean is crystal clear. Welcome to the Caribbean! I chilled on the beach for the day, had a look at the ruins of Cancun and we went back together. Yesterday I got on a flight to Mexico city, I transfered here to a flight to Huatulco. When I arrive in Huatulco I overwhelmed by taxi drivers. I asked one good guy to tell me where I can find the local bus. I walked out and there was a mexican couple I met on the high way. They were going to the same beach town! Great, I follow. Two small taxi buses further I arrived in Mazunte. This is the place where I will spend the next 3 weeks in hopefully a lot of peace. Hope it is gonna be relaxing and not frustrating! Maybe it will change my life :P See ya! |