I breathe, I eat, I pray

Usually at this time of the year I would be heading for my winter stay in India; a combination of NLP programmes, cycling tours, yoga and rest in the tropical warmth of Kerala and the craziness of Mumbai .. this year it will be the crisp winter of the south of France and the delight of the online programmes which I do love .. and in discussing whether it is OK to eat while on a Zoom call recently I was reminded of some important learnings I have had whilst in India. And while I was tidying up I found some old newsletters .. this one about my friend Swamiji in Cherai .. and so I share it with you ...

I breathe, I eat, I pray

Sue Knight January 2007 

“I breathe, I eat, I pray” answered the Swami to the question from a visitor to the ashram who wanted to know what a Swami ‘does’ with his time. “I breathe and I eat and I pray” said the surprised visitor. “Ah yes” replied the swami “but when I breathe I breathe, when I eat I eat and when I pray I pray”.

As I write this I have been in India for 6 weeks and I am increasingly aware of the unexpected changes that are taking place in my thinking and way of being. On December 31st I greeted the delegates for the second of the three intensive programmes that I run here during the UK winter. Listening to these new arrivals I was shocked by how much of the life and work that they wanted to leave behind for a while, they brought with them; their excess baggage. Here we were surrounded by coconut palms, caressed by the sea breeze and presented with the fragrant delicately spiced food that is so typical of this deep south of India, and they were talking of flu, redundancy and financial crisis. I do understand why, yet it still did not fail to shock me how much some of the delegates were still carrying when they could put it down and just ‘be’. My teacher today on the Yoga course that I am doing said “Our minds are like drunken monkeys trying to climb a greasy flagpole”. The challenge is to still our mind and our body. Just to sit cross legged unmoving for half an hour was a huge challenge for me at the start of this training. Only after one week of daily practice can I just about manage this now.

And back at base at dinner one of my programme delegates sitting next to my Indian colleague – Ashok, turned to him at dinner and said “Are you busy?” (curious about the impact of world events on his business) “I am eating” he replied.