{"id":1800,"date":"2013-08-27T07:23:09","date_gmt":"2013-08-27T07:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/obyoga.com\/blog\/?p=1800"},"modified":"2013-08-27T15:45:07","modified_gmt":"2013-08-27T15:45:07","slug":"compassion-in-the-eyes-of-the-guru","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.obyoga.com\/?p=1800","title":{"rendered":"Compassion in the eyes of the Guru"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s Pranayama week in Pune, which means that (at least so far, but it’s only Tuesday) all the classes have a Pranayama theme. For those of you who don’t know, Prana in Sanskrit means cosmic energy \/ breath. According to Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali<\/em>, “Pranayama is the regulation of the incoming and outgoing flow of breath with retention.” (YS II.49)<\/p>\n

To my surprise, the medical class was shortened a half hour to allow enough time for a half hour of Pranayama. This meant that I had to quickly work through my medical class sequence so I could squeeze all my poses in within the 75 minute timeframe given. Mission accomplished, and the short, but sweet, Pranayama was fabulous.<\/p>\n

This morning I had another great 2 hour practice. I don’t ever plan on practicing for 2 hours. It’s just that once I get started, one pose leads to another and before I know it 2 hours have gone by. I just have to be careful to not work the shoulder too hard so I have enough shoulder stamina for the afternoon medical class.<\/p>\n

At the Institute, it’s customary to “prostrate” before Guruji (kneeling and touching his feet). This morning was very special. I walked up to him, looked him straight in the eyes and said “Thank you so much.” He smiled and I kneeled down to touch his feet. Then I looked at him again and repeated my thanks. His smile was so big and his face was so compassionate it brought tears to my eyes.<\/p>\n

Then, about 45 minutes later, I noticed Geetaji had entered the room and was sitting at the platform. I took my opportunity to also thank her in a similar manner, looking her in the eyes, and receiving a warm smile in return. I am so grateful for the opportunity I’ve had to study here, and for the direct medical class input for my shoulder surgery recovery, and am glad I was able to give thanks to both of them before I leave. I was also happy to see Geetaji in the asana room. She hasn’t taken part in any of the practices or classes the last two weeks because of a death in their family. Maybe this is a sign that she will oversee the last two women’s classes and Friday Pranayama class???<\/p>\n

On one of our shopping trips… Look. Pune has Domino’s Pizza.<\/p>\n

\"20130827-123241.jpg\"<\/a>And Pizza Hut!<\/p>\n

\"20130827-123454.jpg\"<\/a>As I’ve mentioned before, safety is always a priority in Pune.<\/p>\n

\"20130827-123547.jpg\"<\/a>Here’s Mohammad (from Cashmere) putting the hard-core sell on Sharon.<\/p>\n

\"20130827-123749.jpg\"<\/a>And this is a whole display of Ganeshas next door to the Cashmere shop.<\/p>\n

\"20130827-123910.jpg\"<\/a>We drove through a very nice neighborhood.<\/p>\n

\"20130827-124035.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"20130827-124100.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"20130827-124117.jpg\"<\/a>And we saw cows. I love cow sightings!<\/p>\n

\"20130827-124228.jpg\"<\/a>And this scaffolding truck (see yesterday – the construction workers across the street taking the bamboo scaffolding down).<\/p>\n

\"20130827-124342.jpg\"<\/a>I think this house must leak …<\/p>\n

\"20130827-124517.jpg\"<\/a>Waiting at the bus stop.<\/p>\n

\"20130827-124600.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"20130827-124625.jpg\"<\/a>And two women out for a scooter ride.<\/p>\n

\"20130827-124717.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On the agenda for the rest of today is another rickshaw ride with Nana, then medical class followed by class observation.<\/p>\n

Today’s final words… I think I may be addicted to ghee.<\/p>\n

From Pune with Love!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s Pranayama week in Pune, which means that (at least so far, but it’s only Tuesday) all the classes have a Pranayama theme. For those of you who don’t know, Prana in Sanskrit means cosmic energy \/ breath. According to Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, “Pranayama is the regulation of the incoming and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-india"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.obyoga.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.obyoga.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.obyoga.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.obyoga.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.obyoga.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1800"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.obyoga.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1801,"href":"https:\/\/blog.obyoga.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1800\/revisions\/1801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.obyoga.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.obyoga.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.obyoga.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}