While where I’m in my life with my inner peace and healing is nothing but a gift from the divine which I’m deeply thankful for daily. I could get here without my gurus, who continue to help me go deeper in my journey to self. The word Guru is derived from two words, gu and ru. The Sanskrit root gu means darkness or ignorance, and ru denotes the remover of that darkness. Therefore, a Guru is one who removes the darkness of our ignorance. Today, I thank some of gurus who have shown me the light
I started my Ashtanga yoga practice with Gowrisha Hoskere (gentleman with the glasses in the left), Samyama Academy of Yoga in my Indian home of Bangalore, India in 2016 January and I get to practice with him whenever I’m back in Bangalore, his oldest student, my mother joined him shortly after I did. I was fortunate to continue my practice with Andrew Bresnen, Mysore Austin in my American home, and my mother trains under Andrew when she is here. What these two gentlemen have built with their respective yoga schools gives me and many others the gift of a physical practice which makes you look within and continues to change & challenge you mentally & spiritually. While incredibly successful professionally, the chose to dedicate their lives to teach yoga and the world is a better place because of them. Thanks Gowrisha & Andrew. I did something right in my previous lives to get you as teachers in this one
Sri SN Goenka Ji, the founder of the worldwide Vipassana meditation centers where my first 10 day silent retreat in April 2019 changed my life forever. While Goenka Ji passed in 2013, the course and lectures are still taught using his taped recordings. A day doesn’t pass by without me remembering his teachings, I’m always planning my next retreat here. Thank you Goenka Ji for helping bring harmony to the world by teaching us the unadulterated practice of his benevolence, Gotama the Buddha. Interestingly, just like prince Siddartha himself, Goenka Ji was born into stinking privilege and went on to become a world teacher.
Ayahuasca/ Madre(mother) Aya – The guru you don’t ever physically meet but when you surrender to her, she becomes an omnipresent part of your life. My intention in the first trip in Jan 2020 in the Peruvian Amazonian jungles was to get rid of my chronic pain. In 7 ceremonies over 12 days with a few dear death experiences, I was reduced to a physical & mental rubble, only to rebuild myself by challenging everything I had known & believed in the next 6 months under her guidance. I also want to thank the Shipibo Shamans seen here who act as the medium to connect us mortals with the omnipotence the mother is. Oh, my pain has not gone fully and thus by itself is a teacher too. Not thanking my pain, okay, maybe a little, it is Guru Purnima after all. Something to ponder – Can your DNA get reprogrammed ? Topic for a different day.
Teachers Everywhere – I cannot miss all the coaches, energy healers, massage therapists who have helped me in my journey. Not to forget, my mother, my sister, my deceased father, all my dearest friends who do not hesitate to remind me the idiot I’m (sorry, I know it is often), my exs (any thank you to you cannot be appended without a sorry) the housekeeper in my building, the guy who cut me off in traffic, the waiter who messed up my order, the barista in Starbucks (I mean, Raja is really not that hard, right?) , my no show tinder date – Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
Please take a moment to tell/send your guru/s a note of gratitude.
May the Guru find you. May you find light.
Lokah Samastah Sukinoh Bhavantu
May everyone in this world be blissful (closing prayer of Ashtanga Yoga)
23rd July, 2021
