Hiking to Natural Bridge in Red River Gorge
past weekend, reminded me the common analogy in spiritual teachings including
yoga that uses reaching to the top of the mountain as the goal of the “journey”.
There are different routes to reach to the top, just like the different hiking
trails. Some routes take longer, some promise to be short cuts, in some you can
get completely lost or even hurt yourself. However, they say, those who reach to
the top enjoy the same view.
I’ll leave it to the end what I learned in this
journey but I can give a hint here and say there is no mountain top to reach…
My journey started 9 years prior to my
first official yoga class., in the summer of 1992. I took
a “stretching” class in a resort during a summer vacation in south Mediterranean coast of Turkey and loved it! As soon as I was back from vacation, I started looking for stretching classes at gym’s. At that time, Step was becoming very popular, none of the gym’s had a “Stretching” class. I went to different gym’s relentlessly and tried to explain the routine: stretch, breath and relax at the end. Nobody knew what I was talking about. They tried to sell me Step and Aeorobics classes and I gave up. I didn’t even know it was called Yoga. LOL
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| Summer 1992 |
a “stretching” class in a resort during a summer vacation in south Mediterranean coast of Turkey and loved it! As soon as I was back from vacation, I started looking for stretching classes at gym’s. At that time, Step was becoming very popular, none of the gym’s had a “Stretching” class. I went to different gym’s relentlessly and tried to explain the routine: stretch, breath and relax at the end. Nobody knew what I was talking about. They tried to sell me Step and Aeorobics classes and I gave up. I didn’t even know it was called Yoga. LOL
Years later, my sister-in-law,
talked me into trying a yoga class. She talked about breath, grounding,
stretching and that it was very relaxing. Sounded interesting.
2001-2004: First
Years
In September of 2001, I took my first official yoga class at Courtyard
Tennis Club in West Chester, OH. I immediately realized this was the
“stretching” class I took years ago. After the class, I was almost in tears. I
went to the teacher and said, “You don’t know what this means to me, I was
looking for this for 9 years” The teacher laughed and said, “Glad you found us”.
I felt so at home with this practice. I started going weekly. Then something
really weird happened at my 3rd yoga class… I heard a voice that said “You will
teach Yoga”. It wasn’t a desire to teach or a wish. No, it certainly wasn’t. I
was literally told that “I will teach Yoga”, short and simple. It was such a
clear knowing that it was undeniable. I told myself, If one day I’ll really
teach this, I’d better learn it properly.
I also realized I liked elements of
yoga all along since young age, I liked stretching in gym classes and hanging on
the bars upside down in high school. I took a 9-month breathing class when I was
pregnant with my son and I was amazed at how one can control the body with
breath during natural childbirth.
Couple months into my practice, in 2002, my
once-a-week class at Courtyard became twice a week. My daughter was a baby. I’d
put her to bed sat 7:30 pm and rush to an 8 pm class. My first teacher Robin was
a FitYoga instructor but she was true yogini. I still feel so lucky to have
started off my practice with her. We did shoulder stands, head stands, the whole
proper asana practice. She even had focused classes on inversions, backbends,
etc. I felt excited about the idea of teaching yoga but was equally scared.
One
day, when my teacher asked me to teach a portion of the class, it was
terrifying. It felt as if the whole world stopped and no words came out of my
mouth for minutes. Apparently, no one else noticed. Probably the most terrifying
thing for me was to teach in another language, but I was so certain that I had
to teach this one day, so I had to get over that fear.
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| Lake Cumberland 2003 |
In the meantime, I ordered my first yoga book, “Sivananda Guide to Yoga”. I inhaled that book inside out and was surprised by the philosophy element. It all started to make sense. This was very much a holistic practice. The physical aspect (asanas) brings strength and balance to the body, meditation brings peace and clarity to the mind, breath is a bridge in between body, mind and soul, and you can take the practice to everyday life with yogic principles (yama and niyamas). I loved it.
Towards the end of 2002, I started investigating other yoga studios in town
and there weren’t many. There was Cincinnati Yoga School-CYS in Blue Ash, Shine
Yoga in Erie, It’s Yoga which was an ashtanga practice in Ludlow and there were
independent teachers teaching at churches, libraries, etc. There was an
Apprenticeship program at CYTA- Cincinnati Yoga Teachers association, but I
wanted to take the 200hr Yoga Teacher Training (YTT). I started going to
different studios, trying different styles and teachers around the town. I kept
going back to CYS, especially to Diane Utaski’s Kripalu class and Donna
Covrett’s Anusara inspired class. I loved both of them. My next few years passed
by reading and becoming more fascinated. I also started attending workshops
offered at yoga schools.
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| Lake Cumberland 2003 |
My first meditation workshop was on February 2003 with
Julie Lusk. That summer, I explored yoga classes in Turkey, with Semra Elmali in
Izmir and Ersin Ananda at Kaivalya Ashram in Istanbul and Adnan Cabuk to name a
few. I met with dear Ayca Gurelman for the first time on July 2003 in Istanbul.
I’ve read many books during my first years, but I need to emphasize one that
changed my life. I’m still in awe how these events happened. First of all, it’s
very rare for my husband to buy me a book because I’m a book worm and like to
choose my own books. Yet, he was in Half Price books and he saw a book called
“The Path” and grabbed it for me. This I can’t thank him enough, he changed my
life…
It was during Christmas break of 2002 and I read The Path in just a few
days in awe. The book was written by Swami Kriyananda (aka Donald Walters),
about his Guru Paramahansa Yogananda. It was such a sincere book written with so
much love for a Guru, I envied him. Secretly, I wanted a Guru too. The second
thing this book led me was to buy the Autobiography of a Yogi, the masterpiece
and spiritual classic by Paramahansa Yogananda. When I read the Autobiography of
a Yogi, I said two thigs, 1) If Yogananda were still alive and 2) if I didn’t
have kids, I’d leave everything else and go to his feet to accept me as his
disciple. Well, he wasn’t alive and I had kids so I started investigating this
path called Kriya Yoga. The SRF, the organization founded by Yogananda was in
California, there was no way for me to go there. There were other off shoots of
Kriya lineage. I found a Guru in Canada, one in Chicago, but none of them
resonated enough for me to travel to see them. I let it go, yet I carried a book
of Yogananda’s Metaphysical Meditations with me. I think my Kriya Yoga
experience deserves a whole other blog post, so I’ll leave it here for now.
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| Summer 2004 Cesme |
I remember my heart was pounding when Diane, owner of CYS at that time, mentioned
there will be a Kripalu Yoga teacher Training in Cincinnati in 2004. I didn’t
feel like I was ready yet. I had so much more to explore. It’d be another 2
years for me to take my YTT. When I took my first Bhagavat Gita class at CYS, on
March 2004, I set a new goal for myself, I wanted to teach Bhagavat Gita one day
(a yet to be realized goal). Through this epic story depicting a war, made me
clearly realize, the war was in fact in our mind. Surrendering attachments,
judgements and duality: Surrendering was the way.
In 2004 I took my first
Anusara workshop (means flowing with Grace) with John Friend and I fell in love
with Anusara even more. I wanted to take their YTT but they had such high
standards then. One had to be teaching for 2 years before they could apply to be
an Anusara Yoga teacher. Anusara was based on a certain Tantric tradition, using
Action (natural flow of energy in the body) to express the Attitude (power of
the heart), through Alignment. The attitude of each asana moved from inside out,
making Inner Body Bright. My heart still breaks for what happened to this
lineage and John Friend and I feel for those who are impacted.
I was convinced I had to meditate.Every book I've read talked about the need to tame the mind, and that a serious practitioner should meditate and contemplate. It was so frustrating and it took me few more years to figure out how.
My first Kirtan
was at Shine Yoga in 2004 with Dave Stringer and many more Kirtans followed
after that (Thanks to Wendy Anderson). I started discovering the Bhakti
path-Devotional path of yoga. My first Kirtan with Dave Stringer, chanting Om
Namah Shivaya, over and over again, without even knowing, I felt my first
significant state of expansion. I was miles and miles tall and miles and miles
wide. I couldn’t tell where I began and where I ended. I wasn’t everything but I
was everywhere. I knew how I would ground myself and come back to my body but I
didn’t want to; this must be what masters were talking about “you’re more than
your body”. Indeed, my body was only a small part of me, and my consciousness
was the real thing. I stayed in that state until the next morning and finally I
was back at this little body again.
One of the next Kirtans, again something
interesting happened. A song, Shivo Hum, stood out and sounded so familiar. I
felt like I will almost utter the words and understand the lyrics. I couldn’t.
It was in Sanskrit. After Kirtan, I purchased the CD and ripped the cover to
look into the translation of the lyrics in the dim studio light. Adi Shankara…
who the heck is he, such a wisdom and truth resonated with my heart. That’s how
my Advaita Vedanta journey started…
Advaita means non-duality or no-otherness,
it’s the Vedanta school of yoga that believes, just like the essence of a gold
ring is gold and you can’t take gold out of the ring, our essence is God/ Pure
consciousness/Supreme Awareness. There is no other but God, or the Pure
Consciousness. Advaita also believes we can realize this true nature in this
lifetime (moksha). It resonated with me probably because it resembled Sufism,
mystical Islam, where God can be seen everywhere and everything.
Here is an
excerpt from Nirvana Shatakam by Adi Shankara and a poem from Rumi a Sufi
master.
I am not the mind, the intellect, the ego or the memory,
I am not the
ears, the skin, the nose or the eyes,
I am not space, not earth, not fire, water
or wind,
I am the form of consciousness and bliss,
I am the eternal Shiva...
Adi
Shankara 8th century
Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi,
or Zen.
Not any religion, I am.
I am not from the east or the west,
not out of
the ocean or up from the ground,
not natural or ethereal, not composed of
elements at all.
I do not exist, not an entity in this world or the next,
did
not descend from Adam and Eve or any origin story.
My place is the placeless, a
trace of the traceless.
Neither body or soul. I belong to the beloved,
have seen
the two worlds as one and t
hat one call to and know, first, last, outer, inner,
only that breath breathing human being.
Sufi mystic - Jelaluddin rumi - 13th
century
Next 2005-2010: spiritual pilgrimage to India, how I saw God in Ganga, YTT and more…
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