My guru is a bitch

There are two yoga asanas o positions called with complicated sanscrit words which mean "dog streching with the head up" and "dog streching with the head down". Next time you see a dog streching up or down, you know, just look carefully, and keep in mind that there's millions of yoga practitioners around the world trying to imitate those movements.

Some yoga teachers insist that you should study the nature so that you will understand some of the positions, like the 2 mentioned above, plus some many others called after animals.


Everyday after the tough yoga sessions I go to the Ganga river for a bath. The water is cold, it is coming from glaciers a couple of hundred km up, which makes it even better, a massage for the back and the muscles in pain. At the beginning not even after the swim I was able to relax. Until I realised that there was always a dog around, a female dog, a bitch, sleeping under the sun. Then I tried to imitate its posture, not literally lying on the floor but let's say the "soul" of its attitude and itention, and it worked, I found some peace of mind. So the bitch, which never ever seemed even to notice me, there sleeping under the sun, became my guru.


One day after dinner I went back to the guest house, it was 10 pm, very late for somebody walking up before the indian sunset. Then I saw a dog running towards me. And it was it!, it was the guru-bitch, who came to say hello shaking its tail!. I tapped its head a little bit, showing respect, and excused myself since I had to go to sleep.

Of course the day after the dog did not move when I went for the bath - it was giving its class.

Nadaist principles: revision

I'm once again breaking my nadaist principles. I've joined a yoga course and I'm already at the 10th lesson.

In my defense, there's a couple of things that I can say.

First of all, I'm a very bad yoga practitioner. Whomever knows me long enough, or has played basketball or football with me, is perfectly aware that I can be more or less clumsy or effective, but anyhow my hips are like the trunk of a tree, and flexibility is not my asset. There's around 50% of the yoga positions that I cannot make, and for the ones I'm able to get closed, I suffer quite some pain. Thus it is not that I'm learning a lot.

But, most importantly, it does not matter. The point of going to the yoga class is exactly that: going to the yoga class. There is no long term or even short term objective. You go there and do your practice as good as you can and try to focus on your body and on your mind, and you have to let go at the same time. I'd say it is a sort of nadaist activity.

I'm in a very cheap but nice guesthouse by the Ganga. It's very quiet and it has a beautiful garden. I spend most of the day after my class there, I write, read, and listen to music, I go for a swim to the river even if the water is very cold. When I'm hungry I knock the door of my neighbour and we go together to the restaurant. It's a wonderful life, and even if I'm still working in the novel most of you know about, (another breach of the nadaist principles), I'm trying to do it in the yoga way, in the nadaist way if I may say, focusing on the page I'm at, even on the sentence and the word I'm at. And when I'm finished I could either throw it to the trash or try to publish it, it does not matter.

It may look as if I'm trying to find a way to excuse myself. But honesty, even if I'm kind of busy, I feel as closed as ever to be doing nothing, and it feels really really very good!.

Sadhu's fashion statements

You see the sadhus all around in India, they are the ascetics, have taken a fully spiritual path and they've given up any material possession and live maybe in a cave or go around travelling or I don't know. Buddha was actually a sadhu. Besides it is supposed to be the last stage of the live of every brahmin (higher cast). Anyhow, in particular in holy places, you see lots of them, e.g. like in Haridwar where I am now, (Uttaranchal) - bathed by the river Ganga, same as Varanasi.

I was having a tea at the (holy) promenade by the river, taking a look at the scenes. A guy came and asked for a chai. He was telling off a sadhu that sat down with him and shared the chai. I did not understand a word, but it was obvious the guy was upset. It seems some sadhus are not so genuine and try to cheat people in different ways, maybe this was one of them, anyhow the sadhu eventually stood up, said his last words, and left on his own.

Sadhus are poor since they've renounced to everything, they're dirty since they've given up soap. Their hair is a mess how knows if they ever wash it, or themselves, (except in holy rivers and lakes). They spend a lot of time in the open so their skin is really dark and some of the hair looses color; some of them look as if they've been to the hairdresser and had it done rasta style. But then, I realised that this sadhu possibly a cheater who was leaving had actually a perfect rasta hair, which could not be just the effect of dust and dirt, wind and sun, but had to be the work of a professional!!. Besides, he had several necklaces and his loincloth was shinny orange.

I started looking around at the sadhus with my new eyes, and indeed, this one had bracelets at his forearm, the other one was wearing his shabby pieces of cloth with lots of style, and most of them used that kind of bags that the westerns half mystics like so much (see previous posts, and by the way I have one of those bags myself), they all painted their faces a bit... I went for a short walk around the Ganga and yes it was confirmed, every one of them had a peculiarity, something nice even if humble, bracelets or necklaces or the hair vogue or the smartness of the rags or sunglasses.


The western half mystics don't look like indians nor western, the sadhus are actually the only indians that dress in the same wave as the half mystics. (However, of course, it has to be the other way around).


I don't know if the indians manufacturing clothes for the half mystics (there is already a kind of industry around it) have realised this fact. They should come to the shores of the Ganga as if the sadhus were on display in their catwalk and take ideas and create fashion.