The actual question that came from Aman when we were sitting around the fire in the Himalayas was, “Sara, you have many years on us, what are some important lessons to impart to us?” I knew that Aman was referring back to a lunch conversation we had a month before, we were in a restaurant over looking Ma Ganga in the Laxman Jhula area of Rishikesh and we were talking about money. Actually, he and his childhood friend visiting for a wedding and a conversation arose about “time off” which lead to both of them sharing the need, they feel, to “chase money.” While both of them enjoy their work, neither of them are passionate about it. Aman works to develop backend software for large healthcare companies in the US. He has been in Dehli for some time and due to the terrible, absolutely terrible air quality, he has decided to put his health first and switch jobs and locations to a different city- at the end of the month he will be moving to Hyderabad. When this came up in the conversation, his friend remarked, the pollution is going to follow. Wherever the work goes, the population grows and pollution will come.

Later that night, I was reading This is That by Anandji and I came upon these words:

“The more the person chases the less they have. So the way to prosperity is not by chasing it. It is by raising one’s deserving power.”

A message arrived for me within the text too. I had been and have been working on observing myself and noticing my actions, reactions, tendencies and habits and how I was really aware of them now that I am out of my familiar comfort zone in the USA. I read:

“Another meaning of tapah, is self-mastery, of watching oneself, mindful of not cultivating any level of dependency…. Tapah is also when we go on pilgrimages when we step out of our comfort zone, challenge ourselves……Tapah on that level is the practice of pushing the envelope, putting you out of your comfort* zone, cultivating tapah in your life because if you stay within your bubble, your bubble will, after a while consume you.”

*(As I began to type comfort I actually typed conform. Which I find fascinating… my awareness is around what I have let conform me- again, the habits, the ways, the routines the comforts.)

So when we were sitting around the fire and Aman asked, “Sara, you have many years on us, what are some important lessons to impart to us?” I was grateful and honored to think about how I would answer as a 42 (read forty-tworiffic) woman!

Sitting under the vast Indian sky full of stars in front of a fire it was easy to share the importance of being present in the moment. Many of the opportunities that have presented themselves to me have this as a lesson or theme. The only time I have is NOW. What is in the past is in the past, only accessible in my mind, in the memory of my mind. And what is in the future has not yet arrived. For when I get to that future moment, I am there, I am no longer in the previous moment. The people, the feelings, the locations, the moment- all of that has passed and is only accessible in my mind. So when I am here and I think about what has happened, I am no longer here, I return there, where I was. When I am here and I think about what might happen, I go there, no longer here. From my experience, when I am not here, when my mind is somewhere in the past or thinking about what I am going to do or say in what might happen in the future, I am missing out on the beautiful moments that are unfolding in front of me RIGHT NOW. It is important to be present, be here, in the present moment.

I have shared a bit about my desire to control. For most of my life I have had a strong desire to control, not necessary by force although there have been moments when I have raised my voice or clenched my teeth out of frustration and anger because I am not in control and all I want to do it control. Another opportunity that continues to present itself to me is being at peace with what is happening around me, since I cannot be in control.

At the yoga training, I went in to silence for 36 hours. I chose to go in to silence because I was annoyed terribly by the lack of intention folks have with their words. Mindless chatter had me seeking solitude and I am such rule follower I was even more irritated that folks were ‘breaking a rule.’ It is one thing, my mind said, to break silence for yourself, it is another, and rudely so, to ask someone else to break it. So, my rational mind thought, I’ll show them, if they cannot be quiet and mindful of themselves, I will.

In general being in silence, I found was easy, since, up until I chose to be in “official” silence (as indicated by wearing a badge) I had been really secluding myself. We (meaning most of us) were naturally in silence, because we were asked to, from the moment we woke up until after our first class, during lunch. Which on most days was around 2.

Our mornings went like this:

6:00 wake up

6:30 puja- morning mantra (Man- means heart, tra means expansion and liberation, mantra means working with the expansive energy of the electromagnetic field of the heart. Anahata, meaning the "unstruck sound," is the heart center, the beginning of sound. The first mantra was the heartbeat)

7:00 mediation

7:45 tea break (I spent time in reflection and writing along the river)

8:30 morning journey which was usually 2 hours (a journey is our morning yoga practice with asana (poses), pranayama (breath work- expanding energy as we breathe) and kriya (it literally means "to work with energy, to generate electricity." Kriyas combine repetitive movement and mantra).

10:45/11 breakfast

11:45/12/12:15 first class

2/2:15 lunch (it is at this time that we were “supposed” to break silence)

I spent the first eight (8) hours of my day in silence, and when I wasn't in silence I chose to be alone by the river, reading, walking or sitting near a tree. So on the second day of "silence," actually wearing the tag to indicate to others that I was not talking, I had an insight. I had been noticing since the first day of silence that the sign/tag kept turning around and the word silence was hidden from others and turned toward me. I would take off the string from around my neck, turn the sign around and then again, I noticed it would be facing towards me. On one occasion, I actually unclipped the sign from the string and reclipped it so the word silence was facing out.

You can see the blue string around my neck, it is holding the Slient tag.

During lunch on the second day of silence, a tree caught my eye. I had seen the tree and glanced at it many times. On this day it spoke to me, beckoning me to come towards it. I stood, walked and while standing in front of the tree, admiring its roots, its structure, its being, I received the message, "Sara, it is not about being silent to control the outside, it is about creating inner silence." Ahhh, I thought, yes, so true. I cannot control what is happening around me, not what folks are saying or doing. I. can. not. control. What I can do is be mindful of the choice I have on how to respond.

If that was not BIG enough, I also was able in the moment to acknowledge that part of what was happening in my mind was judgment and placing value on what was being said and by who..... WHOA! THIS IS HUGE!

At my 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training (that is taking me time to process. I am thinking about how I want to share that experience) graduation I picked a card. Anandji (Anand is his name, you add "ji" to the end as a sign of respect) has these cards in a deck called "Got it or not?" and at graduation we each selected a card. I chose a card with an image of a moon on it, since that morning, for my last puja, I looked up and saw the moon in the morning sky. This is what the card said:

I mean.... could it be any more fitting? This is how life has been presenting itself to me here in India. I am aware and noticing something and messages to reinforce or provide an opportunity to look deeper present themselves.... and I see opportunities everywhere.

Then, the idea of silence and controlling others came to me on my trek. I am used to walking in silence, in a contemplative place, a reflective place. And two of the three people I was with enjoyed singing and talking and they had an opinion about everything (can you hear the judgment). It was the same while sitting around the fire. And on the rare occasions I chose to spoke, I was cut off. I was struggling, big time. I had an expectation - that my trek in the Himalayas would be quiet, reflective, contemplative, present- and really it was, because I was able to chose to be in that place, not in the place where the folks I was with were. At one point Aman shared, "Sara, you look like you are in deep thought." Another opportunity to learn about myself and my expectations and my cultural norms was in the tent before bed or in the morning, when the conversation was loud, not a gradual way to wake or end the day, rather an abrupt waking with a full voice, no whisper. I could choose to be annoyed (which at times I was) or I could choose to accept or I could choose to get up and leave the tent (even when it was 5 am) or focus on my breath and go to sleep...

This idea seeking control of things externally has been coming to me, so a huge lesson that continues to present itself is being at peace with what is happening around me, knowing that I always have a choice and the one thing I can control is accessible by turning inwards and stilling my mind.

The law of Trinity comes in three and I have been envisioning a trident piercing through my old stories, patterns and ways. So in the spirit of three (and my beloved Sister, sister), another huge lesson/message that I am embracing is honoring my true Self. Being here, being alone and spending so much time with myself has afforded me the opportunity to realize (to see with real eyes) my tendencies to compare myself to others. What I am doing and what others are doing will be different. The reason they will be different is because we each have our own path and my path is my path and their path is their path. My path is not their path and their path is not my path. It is easy to say. It is easy to type. It requires a mindful practice to embrace.

My path is my path; it is unique to me. I find myself returning to this message in my journal. It creeps up in ways that try to hide themselves in self-doubt, mostly through the question, “What are you doing here?” The question has more weight when I spend time thinking about what folks are doing in the USA or what stories folks are sharing on Instagram. I am not beyond it. I am not above it. I am aware of it. I am aware of the snare that I get caught in when I determine my worth based on what someone else is doing, what I think I should be doing based on what someone else is doing or what something else thinks of me.

While sitting around the fire, Aman and I talked about this. For some moments of the trek were about taking pictures and selfies to post to say, ‘look at me,” “look where I am,” and/or “look at what I am doing.” At one point, I was told that we were no longer going on because they heard there was no snow and they wanted to see snow. Since there was no snow we were turning around (more on that message and experience later). Aman shared that for some, it is about getting a like or how many views one has that determines if something has value or is valuable. And, getting a picture in the snow so they could post it was what was of value and since there was no snow, no picture, no value, no need.

The driving desire to do something based on what someone might think or how someone might react or how someone might feel concerns me. It concerns me because it deeply resonates with me. As someone who has spent most of my life living based on what other people think of me, allowing other people to define me or to take on a false sense of identity based on someone’s misperception of me, I want to shout out loud, “ONLY YOU CAN DETERMINE YOUR WORTH! “

Now that I type this, I realize that I was resistant to writing, to sharing my experiences for putting them in to words provides an opportunity or space for someone to place value on them or judge them. And you know what, I am writing this for me. I am writing, to capture, to condense, to put into words what I am experiencing in real time, while I am here on this journey.

I am grateful for the question that Aman asked me while sitting by the fire. I am honored that he took a moment from his day to inquire, to ignite within me an opportunity to reflect on what I am learning, what opportunities are arising and what experiences I am having. So, Aman, my dear, here are three things, in writing that I would like to share with you:

Be in the present moment

Be at peace with what is happening, the one thing you can control is your mind

Honor your true Self

With a heart full of love and a soul full of light,

HUG

Sara