Exchange smiles with strangers carrying yoga mats

Azyan was out to Bangalore to visit her aunty who is staying there; am pretty much by myself this two days. Quite like that ( no offense babe!) private time for myself, doing my own stuff and getting myself into reading again. My first book is Life of Pi, that my hindi teacher insisted that i should... must read it before the movie is out... which is very soon! I've just started flipping the pages, and got pretty zone out into the story background; especially when it mentioned about Pi ( main character) spending his time in India ( Pondicherry).

I took a simple self- made lunch, and decided to head out. My internet connect is still not up, so i grab my Mac- Air and made my way down to Anu's Cafe ( they are into wireless now, the garage that was once filled with computers was closed for good).

Walking quickly, if not for the intense sun rays shooting into my pores, i would have strolled my way down. I cris- crossing the road, for as much shades from the big trees as possible. Besides the locals, there are foreigners carrying yoga mats walking by. Though we've never met, total strangers... there seems like a common acknowledgment that we are sharing--- we're are here to learn, to practice and to understand whether life or ourselves... through the tool of yoga method. We nodded head, a gentle smile as we walked passed each other.

Almost automatically, i'll be think if they are also practicing in the big shala, or are they coming from the schools in the city... when actually they are going for their practice to a school just two houses from where i am staying.

Still, we exchanged smiles. People pooled over here every single year, for many reasons. But for one search: Happiness.
To be put ourselves into a routine, under the guidance of strict teachers, to respect the culture here, to being both strong and flexible to live with this routine, to be able to experience and train what super- focus of the mind is about, to understand pain and pleasure, to laser beam into our own reflections, to dissolves the decayed part of us, to create a holistic space within us for us to grow healthily, to be at peace with whatever is happening or had happened inside us... and just live life.

Me too, being here, is where i slowly experience myself again. To keep clear for myself again, without the impressions from others who are trying to plant their seed inside my mind. I've probably allow some to grow their seeds into my garden; and i want to get rid of them... before i feel too suffocated and lost my own plot of garden.

Impressions ( samskara) are very powerful, that can leech on us and mutate into one of us. Though since my last visit to Mysore in 2010, i can still recognize my way home. Though i forgot most of them ( given my bad sense of direction), the pattern that still strongly imprinted into my mind, still is valid today.

"It is true that those we meet can change us, sometimes so profoundly that we are not the same afterwards, even unto our names."

~ a line from the storybook i'm reading this morning. Yes i agree, and that's why its important to whom we and want to meet.