India's Immortal Tale of Adventure, Love and Wisdom

the Ashtanga room at the shala is changing as Christopher took with him the picture of Guruji as well as many other framed deities. Change is the only constant.

We now have a new statue of Shiva. It is huge and golden, and pretty, and scary. I am always scared of Shiva as he is quite keen in showing me my defects so I will work on them, and he does it in a loud way, and, I suspect, secretly laughing at my sorry humanity.

Just this morning I had been chanting the om nama shivaya chant, and last night I read in the Bhagavad Gita that Krishna says we must dedicate everything we do to him (to God he means). So during practice and aware of this wonderful coincidence (my chanting and the statue appearing), I kept turning things over to him. Whenever my mind wondered away I kept on dedicating it all, even the distraction to Shiva.

On my way out I found Greg and asked him about when did Shiva arrive. He said he had been there since Monday. Interesting I had not noticed.

Then we talked for a while about dedicating everything to Shiva, and Greg, who speaks a mix of Sanskrit, humble-man-language, and New Zealand English, told me, among Sanskrit verses, of the "Rmayama" (pretty much the only part I understood of the conversation), a book of epic proportions of which I had not heard.

He suggested I read it as every yogi should.

I found it in Amazon described as India's Immortal Tale of Adventure, Love and Wisdom. May the adventure begin.