From the other side of the table

At the grand old age of 43, my yoga trainee teachers are sometimes closer in age to my children than to me, though I often have a large age spread in my groups. One evening, we gathered together to discuss yoga philosophy; there is more to yoga than jumping on the mat.

“You can’t find self-realisation, long lasting happiness and all those goodies from just jumping on the mat,” I often tell people. “There is another little piece of yoga that gives you that. And not many people know about that piece.”

That little piece is found in the 186 lines that the sage Sri Patanjali collated from the collective spiritual teachings of his day.

As an introduction to yoga philosophy, we dissected the main concepts of Sri Patanjali’s work. Central to Sri Patanjali’s writings is using to meditation to find our True Self. This is big deal, as the ‘Seer’ is often confused by what he perceives as True Self because of the distortion of his field of vision by the vortex of his mind. Even in the modern Western world, we talk about ‘finding ourselves’.

This is Patanjali 101: Put a coin in the bottom of a glass. Fill the glass with water. The water in the glass is our individual mind, called citta. Citta, the water in the glass, may be coloured by our perceptions and prejudices; often, this water is churning about in the glass because it is agitated by our mental monkeys. Colouration and swirling both have the effect of distorting the image of the coin, so that the Seer often mistakes the distorted image for the real coin. Hence the path of yoga is stilling the flux through practice and meditation so that the Seer can have a clear view of the True Self.

I urged my trainee teachers to find their True Self and to serve the True Self within (as in my princess-lawyer friend taking the brave path of being a yoga teacher), because that is our mission in life.

“What if being my True Self displeases my parents?” asked one. Three years ago, I was asked the same question by another.

I didn’t answer immediately, because the answer is brutal and I wanted to sleep over it before unleashing it. And here is the answer: you have to be true to your True Self, because it is who you really are. You cannot live your life pretending to be someone else, just to appease your parents. And if you hurt your parents by being your True Self, then it is their karma to be hurt for burdening you with their expectations. Your True Self will never hurt your parents’ True Selves, because their True Selves would not have expectations (unconditional love). It is the miscommunication of the Seer and Seen (going back to the coin in the glass analogy) that is causing the angst.

My eldest son is academically gifted. He has a law degree and a Masters in International Relations. Of course I secretly dream of him joining a humanitarian organisation as a human rights advocate (if anyone can win an unwinnable battle, it is he) and perhaps starting his own movement to address the injustices of this world. Maybe run Amnesty International one day, maybe even the United Nations.

But what is he? A shameless capitalist working for an investment bank, whose Key Target & Objective is to be a millionaire by the age of thirty (and he is right on target). And the second boy? He is a soldier with right-wing views, who is totally absorbed in climbing mountains, drinking and general hell-raising. What can I do but to love them, celebrate them and be proud of them, just the way they are?

And Georgina: “When I am the boss of Sun Yoga, I will sell burgers here.” (What to do lah.)

In time, when the mental monkeys have been silenced, their True Selves will emerge, whatever they may be.