The Heckler

There is a man who sits at his 2nd floor window on Pineapple Street - white hair that could use a wash, upper 60s perhaps - and heckles.

You walk by? You're a candidate. 

Parking your car? Get ready. 

Feeling like a cup of joe this Sunday morning from the coffee shop below? Oh man, you gonna get it.

It's one of my favorite things to sit on the sidewalk bench when the weather's right on Sundays, sipping coffee and admiring the Cosby Show-esque brownstones, observing unaccustomed passersby react to his hateful comments:

"Ohhhh I just looove my coffeeeee like I've never had a coffeeeee before today it's the first time I got a stupid coffeeee oooooohhhhhhh."

"I have an ideaaa, lemme ignore the street signs and clog up the street with my car just so I can make life miserable for everybodyyyy, oh YEAH that's a GREAT idea." 

"I loooooove my phone ohhh I'm just walking around back and forth talking on the phone ohhh I'm SOOO special and have such important things to say."

The Heckler has probably had to deal with watching newbies infiltrate his neighborhood but the truth is, it really ain't that bad. You can hear the sound of crisp leaves graze the asphalt on the breeze. People typically stop their cars briefly to read the signs to avoid a ticket. Most are walking in a quiet smile to themselves just wantin' a coffee, wondering if they'll get the raisin bran muffin today. And then, they're suddenly slammed by the echoing voice from upstairs.

Sometimes, a novice thinks, "Wait, am I a horrible person?" Others furrow their brow in genuine confusion. If it's a lucky day, you get other white-haired guy who drives past and yells back up at him, "Ahhhhhhh shut up you f#@%ing nut!" Ultimately, everyone laughs.

If the Heckler takes a day off, I kinda miss him. Or maybe I miss the laughter practice. Goodness knows he's helped me learn to laugh off the dark-haired heckler, mid 30s, who echoes from upstairs in my head.

Dirty Laundry

Dear Friends,

I feel like writing from a place of pure, messy honesty. I worry about it because my cultural training is not to air any dirty laundry, but to me, laundry more often feels sweaty than clean and I believe it's important to acknowledge times that feel tough. Because they're human. The practice is not just for times of pretty, shiny stability. It's for all the times.

Research grants and savings serve me and there is no moment when I have taken it for granted. But in the next month or so, I'm down to the end of my financial sack. Somehow (how?? Ha, I love that it's unclear and yet) this last year, I have managed to pay my Brooklyn studio rent, eat, and even travel on my earnings and previous savings from work in ed reform the previous five years and until I write it, I forget to be proud of that. If you ask me how I made it work, I'm not sure I'd have an answer that would satisfy. I honestly don't know. With a lot of ups and downs on the emote-o-meter? With friends and family who have stood by me (thank you). With yoga.

For the first time in life, I have not been on a moving track. The momentum has not come with an "on" button and rubbery treadmill moving my feet. But I wanted to know what it's like. To be my own Boss. Do I have enough capacity to take on a 9th project? Check with the Boss. Want time off? I ask the Boss. HR problem? Talk to the Boss. Shit that's me.

Sometimes, my pay takes weeks or months to arrive, and when it does, it can be for $20 (thank God yoga teaching fills my spiritual well). Other times, it's for a few hundred. I dance a jig for both. I joke that I am my own personal assistant, and let me confirm on behalf of all of you who think you're crazy for suddenly looking up from your desk and realizing it's 2:00 and you haven't even begun to work on your important deadlined task but you really really swear you've been working, we greatly underestimate the amount of time it takes to email, plan, and confirm before the content creation even begins. This is not side stuff. This is entree stuff. Often, I have to follow up multiple times to see income not because of any ill will, but because I am a work visitor and the routine of pay never gelled. Travel comes from creative options- using airline miles and renting out your living space. The times when pay comes easy, well you can imagine how it feels like ice cold pink lemonade seaside on a summer day. An obnoxious, flowery description, but seriously. It feels that good. Perfectly cubed ice clinking like chimes on the side of the glass. Crisp, chilly lemony liquid sweetness. You get it.

Interestingly, though, the sensation of sharing something I so firmly believe in is what carries me. I have made the active choice to live away this year from really intensive, full-time employment that I had for a long time because I wanted to remember what it was like to sleep and eat foods that nourish me...and create. My mantra for a long time was "Nourish others, give to others," and it has slowly transformed to "Nourish self to give to others." And for the most part this year, I have really begun to understand what the airline stewardess with fake nails means when she models the oxygen mask. I wake up and eat first. Who knew? I hit the coffee shop and write. And read. And write some more. And draw. I teach. And have energy to date for fun. I practice yoga, meditation. And I jump on the train to Boston and crash on couches overnight with generous people I love. I see family. I teach some more.

Do I regret taking risks? Not even for a blink. To have the freedom to do so, well that in and of itself is a gift. And to be granted money to research and be a writer in NYC? It's been what I've dreamed of before I could dream. I have gotten to meet so many, teach from a place of relaxation, write curriculum, share myself through articles, and most importantly, practice the practice that I so often preached from a stabler, younger place and learn that it still always holds me up.

Why I write this is to acknowledge that in and throughout all of this goodness, I am also often afraid. And that is ok. Facebook, pretty shiny Facebook, how I truly do love you and also want to throw away any unintended mask or blip-free graph and just share with you. That wherever you are, I understand. And wherever I am, I know you understand, too.

Just because. :)

I’m thinking of my child self.  The days when unfilled hours were simply filled with whatever I felt like.  When the concept of purpose was not a course or a noose.  When I drew just to draw. Who cared why or if it ever got finished?

For hours, I would stare at an object, glance at paper, draw, stare at object, glance at paper, draw, stare... With friends. With family. Mostly by myself. For hours.

There was no goal sheet I set up. No tick mark to say I had done the task for the day, good job me.  No contest I was hoping to win.  Sometimes the drawings were fine. Sometimes they were great. Frequently they were bizarre and maybe not so good at all, crumpled into a ball and thrown into a bin.  Most often the reason why I drew was not necessarily to get better, but just because.

I did it just because. 

I felt like it. 

Remember when those were reasonable responses as children? 

“Hey- why you doing that?”

“I dunno? Just because?”

“Because why?

“I dunno? I feel like it?”

“Cool.”

I remember arguments with a man I loved in my 20s and considered settling down with: "but, Rina, why do you want to move somewhere new? What’s the reason?"  I never had an answer that satiated him.  “I dunno? Just because?”  I empathize with his then-frustration.

But I still can't help but feel that as adults, it is still reasonable to just feel like it.  Sometimes it seems like a part of ourselves we’ve lost.  For many of us, the inequality somewhere between adolescence and adulthood switched to Think > Feel.  

Let’s offer feeling back to ourselves. Between the duties and rent. At least sometimes.

Just because. 

On Yoga: An Indian-American Perspective

By Rina Deshpande

After receiving a call from a dear person in my life – also an Indian American – I’m seeing this as an opportunity to turn in the direction of explaining the experience of “yoga” – or at least what many think yoga is – from a cultural perspective.

Often, it is easier to illustrate by starting with a brief and true personal story.  So instead of making this harder for myself than it is, here goes:

I sat in the yoga room, signed up for a Sanskrit class with a group of fellow female strangers. As always, I was eager and excited to be in school.  And as pretty much always in academics and in yoga alike, I was the sole Indian in the room.

The class began, and the Sanskrit instructor – a kind white American woman in a woolen sweater who was so clearly invested in the power that is Sanskrit that she spent most her life studying it and speaking it – had us move through each of the areas of our mouths creating sound, projecting from our throats and next our bellies, and noticing the differences in how it feels in our bodies.  This, she explained, is the hidden, profound base of Sanskrit. Her explanation of the different sounds of the
letter “D” in Sanskrit made by placing the tongue slightly differently behind the teeth finally put into words the explanation I had been seeking for so long: why my last name of Deshpande, is pronounced more like “They-shpon-day” than “Desh-pan-day.”

Sounds foreign to American ears, the two women behind me with shiny hair began pronouncing the Indian sounds and bursting into fits of laughter.  There I sat, nearly twenty-five years out of elementary school, and I felt myself slump back into my seat the way I used to on a school bus when two white American boys (whose names I fully remember in spite of trying to shed them) would belt Indian accents and laugh into my face.  In this yoga classroom as an adult, my heart started racing. My shoulders sank. My head was hot. I worked hard in the moment to “channel my yoga” to observe myself in the situation, and my insides told me that this was unjust and unkind.

Heavy with upset through the rest of class, I did what I often do in such circumstances and decided to over-appreciate someone doing the right thing (a classic teacher-tactic).  I thanked the teacher who offered unabashed value and respect for one of the most ancient languages- if not the most ancient language – to exist. She was wonderful. And I let her know.

But now, it is a chance to speak to the other side.  Because after receiving a call from my friend who was off-put from a yoga class experience, I realize that speaking is not just for me. It’s for many.

In so many ways, it is a gift as a yoga practitioner of South Indian background to hear familiar words and mantras in yoga class in my adult life that so for so long I was ashamed to accept – being singled out for your skin color and hair and your father’s Indian accent has a longstanding effect.  For this reason, this is not meant to wave any fingers to anyone who accepts the Indian teachings known as Yoga.  It’s really to share my perspective and feelings as an Indian American practicing yoga.

Gifts are many in yoga, but it is exceptionally hard when you Google “yoga” and find people who are not Indian as the first images and stories to come up.  They are almost always white.  “Leaders” of yoga are frequently white men. “Practitioners,” “teachers,” and models are very often picture-perfect white women.

It is hard when a picture of a Ganesha is printed on a t-shirt.  As a different dear friend hadforwarded me in a beautiful piece on awareness of appropriation – we as human beings would ideally not print deities of others’ cultures or place them on our bodies as tattoos without recognizing truly and deeply what they mean.  If you see pictures or statues of such deities, it is lovely to accept them and learn about them. Please do. But there is something odd about mass productions as fun décor or sprinkling glitter as akshatha at the end of a class (experienced in yoga by yet another dear Indian friend) in a yoga class – mimicking a sacred ceremony in which sprinkling colored rice is an offering and blessing in India.

When I see a Ganesha or Lakshmi photo or statue at the front of a yoga room or on the side of a studio, I am both warmed to see my culture so vividly accepted, and yet also unfortunately off-put as I engage in yoga practice. In my family and as widespread practice in India, we do not place our feet on or toward anything we should show respect, including people. Foot-based adjustments in yoga from instructors send a discomforting feeling through my body not because I choose to feel that way or feel like the teacher is trying to offend me – my body just instantly feels that way.

Yoga is not the same as Hinduism. Similarly, not all Indians are Hindus, just as how all Indians do not practice yoga. If you are a yoga teacher as I am, please know that if we say things like, “In India, they…,” however you choose to end the statement, it is a pretty large attribute to assign to over a billion people who within the subcontinent share many likes and differences.  As an Indian American
child who was both battling with and learning about who I was alongside my sister in a sea of many who neither looked like us nor shared our culture, I made the same mass-assumptions about India and Indians as well.  India was far away. Understandably it was easy to generalize from little bits I came to hear about or see in media.  We are all capable of unintentional generalizations.  As an adult, I learn more and more each day and fill gaps and redirect myself. As humans, I’d say that is the best we can do: Educate ourselves to inform our practice of being individually and connected to others.

Mantras from Vedic texts were designed, as astutely pointed out by another dear Indian friend, with a rhythm and pronunciation system (among other things). They are by no means required for use in yoga, but many times, mantras might resonate or take you to a place of stillness or deep connection.  Where the connection might break is when Sanskrit words are strongly mispronounced or syllabic emphasis ignored, not due to mal-intent, but simply due to lack of awareness.  For others, disconnection from hearing a mantra may come from an association with religious practice that may or may not have been a welcoming or freeing experience. 

Predicting the experience of every practitioner upon hearing a mantra might not be possible, but what if we deeply study and truly “live” the Sanskrit mantras or chants if we do choose to use them – including developing as aligned pronunciation as possible? Imagine the spaciousness and welcome we might offer.  Imagine clearing away the misconception that yoga is “trendy,” rather than deeper than anything we can ever explain or understand with feeble minds.

This piece is not a cry to say “leave yoga only for Indians” or “stop teaching yoga wrong.” There is much being done right.  And yoga, I truly “know” in my heart, body, and soul is a way of being for everyone. It transforms my life in every moment. Mis-steps are suddenly opportunities for growth, and a blemish on my resume is suddenly revealed to me as my greatest teacher that shifted my course to feel an inner freedom I have never known before.

The benefits yoga that yoga can offer are therefore not solely stretching muscles in a colorful lycra wardrobe (though I like those things, too).  In my study and practice of yoga and in science research, it’s becoming clear that concepts like “samskaras” - energetic patterning and habits we create by living in autopilot that we can change with yoga practice – are similar to if not the same idea as the idea of neuroplasticity. The connections between the old world and new world, East and West, are inspiring and profound. They are yoga in and of themselves.

There is a beauty in watching the Yoga Sutras (Sutras = “threads”; don’t feel bad if you mistook this to be a negatively-lit “Kama Sutra” which has been incorrectly skewed to be a weird Indian sex book. It’s all about learning, right?) endure the test of time longer than any electronic device or fashion trend. I cannot remember where I first read it -maybe The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari? - but to call ancient yoga a “new age” trend is, well, anything but. :)

My dear friend and I hung up the phone after our conversation today, wondering what we can do to share our feelings on the matter without coming across as accusatory or whiny- the risks of speaking on a sensitive subject that you love and care about.

It was clear.  Start small, and don’t wait.  So here is my first post.

Summer, were you ever here?

The other day, I missed home.

In the midst of the emptied market corner of Union Square, I watched snow-filled clouds - the cold color of white-blue and purple – meld to cover the sky.  For an indefinite wintry spell, I’d miss the presence of the sun. I secretly mourned it inside my heart.

I grew up in Florida in a small Greek town called Tarpon Springs. There, cloudy days are also usually wet and warm. For a day or two, heavy-bellied grey clouds may unleash rains and winds might rustle or even thrash the tops of palm trees, but the sounds of thunder and claps of lightning are constant reminders of nature happening outside and around me.  The grass, I imagine, drinks up every splash happily. I feel safe and quenched inside. 

Cloudy winters are different.

Living in the northeast for twelve years has now come to be both effortless adoration and active “management.”  The ease comes from the everywhere beauty in the seasons I had always learned about in grade school: the way leaves literally “fall” in the fall (who knew?), tumbling across the street with every gust.  The way a silent winter frost brings a time for hibernation of both flower buds on resilient branches and for animals – humans, I include.  Freshly fallen snow sparkles like white diamonds as the city goes to sleep (but not without baking gooey chocolate chip cookies first). Then spring flirtatiously peeks out one day here and there toward the end of winter, tulip bulbs suddenly bursting into powerful stalks with color.  Cafes bring out their folding chairs and tables to their sidewalks and suddenly, dating is actually fun again.  The blurry summer heat seems to interrupt quickly - air conditioner sale signs taped on lampposts and PC Richards warehouses. Chilled bottles of water sold for $1 by random souls who wonderfully dis-heed the law can practically save your life.  I wait for the woman selling pre-cut spiced mango and cold orange slices in baggies. 

The burden comes from finally giving in, dropping to hands and knees to yank out the garbage bag full of heavy winter clothing wedged under the bed.  The 20 minutes of tango between yes and no before actually accepting going outside in the cold, another 20 minutes of dressing and lacing up heavy boots, looking for that damned other glove (where did I put it? Crap, did I drop it on the way home yesterday? Oh, no, there it is), checking the weather again on your smart phone after suiting up to see if you really need your wool hat, getting sidetracked by a new text message before the cold air hits your face.  Even in layered in cream and gloves, ashy and dry hands make you wonder: summer, were you ever here?

There, in Union Square, the snow clouds gathered outside of me and above me. For a moment, I felt them in my heart. I secretly worried if I would ever see the sun again.

I walked into the bodega, and the glass door jingled closed behind me.  My eyes dodged between the packets of Swiss Miss hot cocoa at the hot water station and refrigerated section where my eyes caught: “Freshly Squeezed Florida Orange Juice.”

I pulled off my gloves to open the carton and I took a swig of chilled juice. Eyes closed in that moment, I was transported home. The warm rains and sunrays just raised the oranges recently. I could feel the moist soil under my shoes and smell the citrus groves not far from my house.

Around me and above me, blue clouds.  Inside of me, sweet yellow summer.

Receiving, as much as Giving, is an act of Yoga.

Being in the "yogasphere," there's often a lot of hype or hearsay about what makes someone "yogic."

You've probably deduced that I love this topic. I get to read articles published by dear friends, peruse ancient texts (FYI "peruse" means to read carefully and not skim - who knew?), review research in science and education publications, and I get to practice alongside and under guidance of incredible yoga teachers and gurus.  But one of my favorite kinds of learning is one that unexpectedly sheds the light on all of the elements I choose to formally study: Talking to my parents.

My mom recently shared a story with me on a brief visit to Florida, where I grew up, as we drove back to our house from a yoga lecture. Her story offered a kind of purity and balance to what already was a positive experience of listening to a yogi's wise words.

As luck would have it, the timing of my pop-in home a few weeks ago was during a visit from Swami Muktananda, a man who travels nearly 9 months of the year through Europe and the U.S. before returning to India for three months of continued Kripalu yoga practice and planning.  My parents and I had just driven to a humble Hindu temple- a refurbished Tampa single-family home lined with red carpet and modest deities and paintings where the living room would have been- to listen to a lecture the Swami offered. He stood wearing a kurti dyed traditional turmeric orange at the door with a soft smile that made you feel peaceful - maybe more from his eyes than from his grin. People of Indian background were the majority (a rarity for me to experience since childhood which I've now learned to relish when it happens) though people from all races, ethnicities, and faiths were present. No exclusion. We were all there to gratefully receive his teachings.

Swami Muktananda's lecture and song hour offered insight into an inherent knowingness in all of us. How a cat can give birth to her kittens and know exactly how to care for them - no guidebook needed. Instinct is something all beings share. The swami's calling attention to this everyday knowledge allowed me to be mindful of the magic in Self. Of the profound intelligence in all Life.  The swami belted out mantras from the center of his chest, his eyes closed and happy as he swayed. It would seem that in his deeply committed offering of his own explorations of spirituality and free living through yoga and meditation were completely "self-less."  That this man, who is what I would truly call the definition of humble and pious, only gives without taking.  I thought to myself, "Man, this guy is truly yogic."

What what I now see as my half-understanding of the level of his "yogicity" or "yogic-ness" or whatever we want to call it was made more complete by a story my mother shared soon afterward as we drove through quiet, winding roads home later that night.

She told me about how on Swami Muktananda's visit the previous year, she and my dad had the privilege of driving the swami in our car to stay in one of our local friend's home for that night. On Swami Muktananda's travels for nine months, she explained, he is invited into homes to stay the night where he is given food, place to sleep, place to bathe.  When she and my dad had offered Swami Muktananda a ride to my "uncle's" (family friend's) house, he simply and graciously accepted without fuss or strangulated thank yous. When he stayed in my uncle's home and sat for dinner and breakfasts prepared for him by someone he had just met, he openly and graciously received it.

We often imagine that it is "un-yogic" to receive. That it is "un-yogic" to rely on others' for support and to allow us to stay lifted.  But what is clear from my mother's story after having viewed Swami Muktananda as only a noble giver of lectures is that the act of receiving - the art of receiving - is equally as important as giving.

We stand as individuals, yes, but we also trust and rely on one another as a collective. There is no shame in accepting when we offer in other ways.  And when we start to feel off-balance (maybe without spreadsheet evidence but more just a feeling of giving or receiving out of balance -I know you've felt it!) - to me, being yogic means simply paying attention to that.  It is a more profound and a higher level of trust than immediate 1-1 exchange of "I scratch your back, you scratch mine."  It is a trust in the Wholeness of all that is- that what we are putting out there is being received, and that what we are receiving may not look or feel exactly like what we are giving, but it is there for receiving.

We can all rest and evolve in being yogic. It is not reserved only for those who wear turmeric shirts or for those who own a purple yoga mat.  Yoga is Unity. Yoga is All. Reception is the balance to Giving. Giving is the balance to Reception.

We, Individually, make up a beautiful, intended Collective yogasphere.