Being "At Home"

Raise your hand:  Who remembers encyclopedias?  

When I was kid, we had shelves full of these gorgeous bound volumes, and I would spend hours getting lost in them.  At the end of most articles was my FAVORITE part:   "See also...fill in the blank", directing me to further exploration. 

Now, we have the internet as a seemingly infinite "see also" encyclopedia directive.  A search on the phrase "at home" revealed uses familiar and antiquated:

• Present or here
• In one's own place, community or town 
• A sports team's venue
• Comfortable, relaxed, content, confident, safe, 
• At ease in one's surroundings
• Ready to receive visitors and entertain (think British period dramas)

We spend much of our life "at home"...in our comfort zone, if you will, and when out of those boundaries, naturally, seek to find our way back in.  

As yoga practitioners, however, we are by nature explorers, expanding the boundaries of awareness.  We learn through the practice of asana that the feeling of place is wherever we are today in a pose.  The more we practice a pose, the more we learn about ourselves in it, and the more comfortable we get...until we spy that little reminder to "see also" in that asana where we are again faced with the opportunity to know more. 

And in this way we expand our awareness of and openness to the idea of a greater sense of the infinite within.

Traveling and learning to live away from home offers that same opportunity for expanding the sense of what "At Home" can be.  Here in Pune, we took care of the necessary first [food, water, shelter, internet :-) ] and now are looking around to appreciate the setting.  More on that in another post.

Classes will start today, but yesterday was spent settling in and of course, that means PRACTICE.  I truly do feel at home in the practice hall at RIMYI now.  I chose to do a sequence Guruji gave for Jet Lag (I'll share it in another post).  And even though one really CAN stay in one's own place during a practice in a busy room full of others doing the same, it is lovely when something unexpected draws you out.  Toward the end of my practice, the sounds of Guruji's great grandchildren's laughter in the courtyard came bubbling up through the grilled windows.  

On the way out, I noticed among the shoe shelves something I had missed coming in...a reminder that the Institute is not just a place of learning, but also a HOME!