Like the sound made without the striking of two things, my love is pure, attuned with the source and knows no opposite.
I have had many teachers throughout my life but one who illuminated my shadows around male/female relationships. He made me question everything I knew about how to engage with the opposite sex and taught me the meaning of divine love. Not through romance but by the example of his presence.
It was 11:30 and brunch was almost over. I sat down on the floor of the dining hall and was served the usual rice and curry. I begin to eat with my right hand and observe the people moving about. My gaze was directed to a man dressed in all yellow with his back to me. I watched as he served food out of a huge steel pot into to plates of students of the ashram. His movements were ethereal and he seemed to be floating on air. His skin had a radiant brown glow and his hair was lustrous. The moment I saw him, my heart jumped into my belly. The overwhelming butterfly sensation almost made me burst into giggles. We didn’t make eye contact and I soon left the dining hall. For the rest of the day, my mind returned to this beautiful and mysterious man.
A few days went by before I saw him again. He was teaching a yoga class to the guests of the ashram where I was taking a teacher training course. I was too shy to go near the yoga hall so kept a safe distance to avoid my awkward feelings. I soon learned that he was a brahmacharya and was visiting the ashram to assist with teaching. I wanted to know more about him but couldn’t bring myself to approach him. One night before evening satsang, I was sitting in a temple practicing meditation. Through the corner of my eye, I noticed a man watching me through the temple window. It was him! I thought, “He must be interested in me!”
My mental programming was set to a view of western mating rituals that had zero foundation in reality.
That evening after satsang, he came up to me and begin to speak. I almost fainted. Rather than speaking what my habituated mind was expecting to hear, he explained to me about my sitting posture he observed through the temple window. He recommended that I use the provided rice sacks to sit upon to help with comfort and energy movements in my body. As he spoke, it was as if God Himself were speaking to me.
I told a friend of mine, “I think he loves me!” She replied, “Yes. He does love you. Just not in the way you think.”
Over the next month, I found ways to place myself in his line of movement in places he would be, which was not hard since we were living in the same ashram. I relished every opportunity to hear him speak and to see the light in his eyes. I finally decided to write about the feelings that were coming up for me. It turned out that there was nothing sexual there. My desire was only to know him. To be intimate through gazing into his eyes and receiving his wisdom. It was a turning point in what I considered to be worthwhile interaction between myself and another human being.
Over the years, I have spoke to him many times over the phone, corresponded through email and have even went back to India to assist him in a yoga teacher training course. The feeling that his presence invokes 9 years later is that of electrifying connection with my pure essence nature. He makes me want to be more of myself. To find new ways to express love and appreciation. I honor him as I honor myself which is how I honor the God/dess in all.
I thought I fell in love with my yoga teacher. It turns out, I fell in love with the One who was always at the core of my being.
