Tuesday, July 14, 2009

No Cookies With Tea

Practicing yoga in India is much more disciplined than I initially anticipated.
It focuses not only on excercising the body, but the mind as well.
A true yogi has a clear and focused mind.
In attempts to achieve this, one must allow yoga to become integrated into his life holistically. Not simply for a hour or two each day, but throughout. Yoga must be reflected in our daily courses and in our reactions to obstacles or trials.

To practice self control, I have decided to give up sweets for a week.
I told my guru of my resolution.
He shook my hand.

I'm not sure how, but this is supposed to make me a better person...

Language

I have the most irritating habit of talking too fast.
The worst part of which is my inability to correct it.
It has been magnified throughout my stay in India, by the fact that English is a second language to most of the people I communicate with (or attempt to, anyway) on an every day basis.
For some unholy reason, I find it impossible to slow down, let alone simplify my speech, in an effort to grant my listeners the slightest hope of a fighting chance at understanding the rambling American girl.
They can't even understand my elementary Malayalam, because I often don't pronounce the vocabulary correctly, and once I realize this, I follow it with a frantic English explanation of my meaning (I usually accompany this step in the sequence with wild gestures in attempts to clarify. But this only deepens their fear and confusion.)


It's ok.
People in America don't generally understand me either.