Turn around….

I have been giving classes at GOA for nine months now.  Every day is a privilege.  I honestly can’t believe how conducive that room is towards the inner experience of yoga.  The sea beyond, the salty, iodine-rich air, the birdsong…wait…birds?  Where are the birds?  Oh, yes, look at those windows at the back of the room.  What?  They open?  Sliiiiiide.  TA-DAH!  And thus we discovered the hidden treasure of GOA upstairs!  The gardens of the Edificio SKI behind us.  Mature trees, well-kept gardens, fresh shady corners, a shimmering swimming pool.  What more could one ask for, honestly?

I call it Krishna tricks.  The idea that you don’t know what you don’t know and that many times what you discover is humorous, tricky.  When I first came across the concept of the Trickster God (and this concept exists in many diverse cultures), it changed my relationship to the Divine.  I had been raised with the idea of the schoolmaster God – judgemental yet forgiving, but somehow always out of reach.  The trickster God likes to remind you of his presence by letting you in on the joke.  Just when you think you know something, you realise that you know nothing at all.  And so you retain the beginner’s mind, a childlike innocence.  Not all is said and done, not all is known, nothing is set in stone, especially not your personality traits or character, whatever you might believe that to be.  Life becomes a lot more fun when you think it’s conspiring to make you laugh…
Krishna played some tricks in the yoga room last week.  He reminded me that what is behind is just as important as what is in front.  He reminded me to open that back window and to look through it.  JSK.