Surrender

Pictures: Woman at the ghats in Pushkar drinking holy water from the lake for purification. Armless man sits at sunset and draws amazing pictures of Gods and Goddesses. Brahmin performs morning ritual, applying oil to body and head and dressing.

I have been talking to people from all over the world about their experience of India. It seems to me, and has been written in travel books, that the first city one experiences seems to leave a residue of overwhelming culture shock in that person's mouth for that particular city. So for Daniel it was Chennai (Madras), for me it was Delhi, and for another woman it was Bombay.

Our nervous system is the computer within us that interprets the outside world through our senses. With our sense of sight, sound, taste, touch and smell, our nerves react by taking in information and then transmitting it to the brain. So, just imagine how our nervous system becomes overwhelmed when it comes in contact with all new information, all at the same time, into every one of the sense organs.

With this in mind, as our system begins to assimilate the new information, our experience of it softens and lightens, as we begin to flow with the rhythm of India. So the next city feels less crowded and more comfortable. Our next encounter with a leper doesn't shock us so much and we simply turn our heads and continue on. And the smells become sweeter as we recognize samosa, amber incense, and masala dosa in the air.

This is true for all experience, whether we are starting a new career and have a nervous stomach the first day, or we are hurt after losing someone we think we can't live without and then find ourselves in a whole new relationship with the love of our lives. This is the flow of nature, the flow of India. And if we can just let go and let it happen, to trust that we are not in control of anything except ourselves, and to understand that it is all good, even when it hurts.

Myrtle Palm, one of the first yoga teachers to come to Bemidji over 15 years ago, explained yoga this way: "Yoga is like honey, I could tell you all day long about the taste of honey but, until you experience it yourself, you will never really understand." It is the same with India and with all experiences. To taste the food, to smell the air, to see the faces of its people: joyful, hungry, glowing with the grace of God, no matter the outer condition. India reeks of spirituality in its everyday life and this is how it sustains itself - through prayer, daily ritual and faith that all is exactly as it is meant to be.
Namaste!