Here I am, sitting in the plane with 12 months around the world ticket.
I only booked the first two hotel nights though, as I really like to have a “feel” of the place before deciding where to settle for a little more time.
I am in Bali, it is truly I beautiful place to reconnect with nature outside and your own true nature inside. The ocean, the lush greens, the inspiring people on the road as well, a combination of “holidayers” and “travelers” as it is very different to be “on holiday” or “to travel” for minimum several months. The latter is a transformative experience and not a recreation from your life. You get to really know yourself and your boundaries.
I have only a few weeks here to start with because I am registered for my first yoga teacher training in India in 3 weeks and I am feeling very excited about it!
But for now, I am enjoying the rice fields of Bali, the sweetness of this place is incredible and soothes my Soul deeply.
I settle in Ubud, which means “health” in Balinese, and discover an amazing and big yoga center with a lot of activities from yoga breathwork sound healing and other healing modalities. I had discovered this placer in an earlier travel back in 2009 (my first trip to Bali). And I have kept coming scarifying all my Banker holidays to the far away 27 h journey there.
This time is different though, the fact to not be confined into a “time confinement” or deadline really helps to let go and aligns in the never-ending present moment, where ultimately “presence” only remains.
The kirtan / bhajan (or mantra sacred chants) in group with Punu, an Indian teacher, enjoys me as I used to love singing as a child and I reconnect to a long-forgotten part, adding the sacredness of sanskrit chants and sacred instruments. Other times, I go to the evenings Sound Bath at the Barn and lie down letting these gongs and singing bowls doing their magic on my subtle bodies. Time stopped and before I could realize, it was time to embark on a plane to my teacher training in India! But I knew that I would have to be back in this special place, UBUD, where healing and magic happens so easily.
INDIA
Here we are! I cannot believe it my first travel to India….by myself, I have mixed feeling of worries and excitement.
The arrival is as hectic (or worse) as I could imagine with mama India as we call her!
After a long waiting for the driver that the ashram had organized for my pickup at Mysore airport, we embark on a 4h road trip from 1am to 5am. When I arrived at what was supposed to be the ashram, I am too tired to wonder about the strange apartment place which doesn’t look like my idea of what an ashram is but never mind. The Indian woman who greets me offers me a tiny room with a hard wooden bed with nothing else than a thin cotton mattress. I guess it is part of the ashram experience and fall asleep, exhausted by the journey.
The next morning, I wake up and meet my other roommates, an Indian woman who lives in the NL, an Indian brahman from norther India wearing the toge, and an other Indian woman from London. I ask them about the yoga teacher training starting on Monday but to my big surprise none of them seems to know what I am talking about!!!!
I am astonished and inquiry about the famous BNS Iyengar, 88 years old, and they explained me that they are indeed here to receive teachings from him but that no Teacher training group is currently happening!
I am stressed … nonetheless I venture to town to look for a yoga mat because I had decided that I would buy one in India to avoid spending for “special luggage” the huge yoga mats tube.
HOW DE URIA YOGA MAT IDEA STARTED
After spending the day for a yoga mat in Mysore in vain, I return to the apartment a bit desperate. In fat, the next morning I will finally meet with my teacher and I don’t even have mat.
The Indian woman who greeted me is here luckily, so I get a chance to ask why the roommates are unaware of the one month long teacher training and to my surprise she said that it got canceled! And the next one will be in 3 months!!!! I asked why she didn’t inform me by email before me coming all the way here. (INDIAN STYLE STORY). She said: don’t worry. We will figure something out. Come tomorrow.
When I met BNS Iyengar he was a very simple man, very strict though, old school. He laughed at me when I ask about having a yoga mat because I could fine none in town, he said: you westerner don’t understand yoga. Yoga means union in Sanskrit, so you cannot practice on anything that isolate from the floor or earth.. it’s like walking on the grass barefoot or with NIKE shoes, you don’t feel the same right?
He showed me his mat, it was a slippery rug made of cotton, I am perplexed, for sure I cannot practice yoga on a slippery rug like that…. But at the same time I understand his point about letting the energies circulate.
The seed idea was born to one day make a real authentic and natural yoga mat made non-slip for the western world!
