The Day After, Take Two

It's now the day after The Day After. That's the way things have been going on around here. After our 5am led practice this morning, Vivian went to her Sutra chanting class, Yarrow and I rickshawed our way to the Green Hotel's farmer's market, where we totally scored some peanut butter and guava jelly. Sandwiches are apparently still a staple for us, India or not. We just had lunch at Anu & Ganesh's place. They do lunches and offer internet. All this for about $6. In a few hours we will go to Guruji's Sunday Conference, where he breaks it down for us mortals. Of course there is a lot of sitting and staring until somebody asks an intelligent question. As the sun sets we will be in a rickshaw once again for a group trip to see Mysore's Palace lit up with literally hundreds of thousands of lights. Whew! But enough about the future, here's what I wrote yesterday---

It's now the Day After.
We paid Guruji for our next month, asked about the arrival of our teacher David, and approached the topic of our own practices, when to come earlier, that sort of thing. There was some confusion while talking about David's plans that should have tipped me off as to how the next conversation was about to go. Nevertheless, we pushed forward and asked:
"Guruji, we do second series at home, when do we start to add poses with you here?"
The following sequence is a bit of a blur. While he didn't say NO, he didn't quite say YES. It was like an enigma wrapped in a burrito-shell of innuendo with a hint of mystery and a dash of confusion. OK, it was dunked in confusion. But Guruji's burrito was hard to take. He spoke of "primary series is perfect" "you come 5am" "January Changes" "I look, I see"... and it was in some sort of Hitchcock Vertigo spiral and I grabbed Vivian and said 'what was all that?'
We tried to get clarification, but this guy is good. It was like Q & A quicksand in there, I ask and we struggle and get more stuck. It was like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern trying to 'glean what afflicts' Hamlet and learning that he can tell a hawk from a handsaw when the wind is Southerly... Half of everything he said meant nothing at all, and the other half meant something entirely else!
We had a quick debrief with fellow students who helped with the translation. At the end of it all, I am still confused, but in some ways unchanged. This is still my practice and I will get out of it what I need. And I might check in with Saraswati, I might not. To be fair, I should wait for Guruji to 'look, see' before I add poses (something others are doing in Sharath's absence)at least for a bit. I am hearing that January is about to get crazy around here. Maybe that's what he was referring to. Many students have recently left to study with Sharath in Goa, and many aren't coming until after the shala re-opens. And at that time I'm told this place will be packed. With Sharath back, there's no telling what peoples series' will look like. The bottom line is not to get too attached to anything now or for the next couple of months. In some ways we picked the worst time to come in terms of Sharath-based acknowledgement and advancement, but we are spending more time with Saraswati and Guruji. So maybe this is the best of times.