Mentors for your yoga path

The 2012 Part 1 of the USA Yoga Alliance Certification Program at Sun Yoga Kuala Lumpur had just finished. The new cycle will begin in Sun Yoga Tbilisi in March. We have been doing this for 11 years, travelling the world to train amazing women and men from all walks of life to be Sun Yoga teachers. 11 years and 565 teachers later, Sun Yoga has outgrown me.

My main practice is Ashtanga and Bikram yoga. For those of us on the hatha path, we seek self-realization through our physical body. Unfortunately, being a former gymnast, I am stuck in that groove. I am inappropriately proud of my "perfect" body and the way I am still able to do many visually impressive postures at my age and to keep going for hours like a machine. Thus, because of these limitations, I have perhaps focused too much on body architecture, muscles of the human body and postural perfection. A large proportion of my students struggled with the physical demands I imposed on them, as well as the hard work of relating muscles to postures.

But there is another way to achieving beautiful postures.

Several years ago, I taught a beautiful man his first ever yoga class. I was blown away by his physical beauty. Though he had never been to a single yoga class before mine, Antonio's 35 year old body seemed to instinctively know what to do. There was so much grace, acceptance and quiet strength in the way he approached his first yoga class. Bare feet on hot sand, blue eyes steadily watching me, strong legs firmly rooted on the ground. Weak core and tight psoas muscles, but heck, his downward dog was beautiful, meditative and effortless.

Afterwards, when we rowed back to the main island, I desperately wanted to get to know him more. My desire sparked a long intellectual conversation on Fate and Destiny that lasted all night. Something wonderful and pure happened that night. We started going for classes together, and slowly I stopped being his yoga teacher and began to look to him for my spiritual development. And with him, I got there. I experienced the whole range of human emotions and found a comfortable place to sit within myself, to experience and to accept all of what I am. To accept that I am older, that I am physically imperfect, that I do not have a "proper" career, that I have opted out. I am able to accept and love all that I am because here's a wonderful person who delights so much in me, just the way I am.

*******

The vision of him meditating as we travelled through the snow-covered Italian countryside on the Milano-Balzano mail train will stay with me always. Here's the man who could find peace surrounded by noise; here's the man who has a yogi soul despite a high-powered career. He read to me the book that Ambrogio, his childhood friend, wrote and I found such profound meaning in that book, though the subject was war and Monte Rosa, and the book was written in Italian.

Thus, this was the reason why Antonio's postures were so elegant and lovely. It was a reflection of his spirit.

Sitting in the market today with Amanda Wright who had just completed the training with me, she asked me who my mentor is. I have a couple, but the one who walks by my side always is Antonio. We all need a spiritual mentor. He is mine, always, though he does not wear saffron robes or prayer beads. He is the pure light that guides me on, he is my Long Time Sun.

So for those of you who see me as your mentor of sorts, here's a message from me to you: love and celebrate all that you are today. The rest will come when bliss surrounds you.