Weeklong Highlights

The school year is about the begin. I only have like 3 days before I'll start waking up at 3:30 in the morning again and will be sitting for more than an hour on a bus to go to school. Aside from this routine, there will be more hurdles to take..textbook writing, PhD classes, papers, students problems and all that. This is life for me then for another year. I bet I dont have the right to lament for now.

Anyway, the week has given me so much. I have all the emotions felt.

Shocked over the death of a dear student. Just like that, she's gone so soon after being hit by a bus. I relearned something. I am very temporal therefore i need to detach, detach and detach from all that will make me lesser than a good person.

Grateful yet sad for I just culminated my practice at the Makati shala with teacher Arne. I have missed the heat, the energy, the warmth and the teacher's patience, gentleness and firmness all rolled into one. I wrote him a thank you message and this is his reply.

Teacher Arne

           

It has been a pleasure for me too
Thank you Jennifer for your kind message.
Keep up the good work and remember that the asanas are just a vehicule, not the goal. With patience and dedication everything will come. "Practice practice and all is coming" Guruji used to say.
Sending you a big hug and hopefully you will find a time to come practice one day on the following weeks or in the future.

Take care.
Big hug.

Arne.

Ahh, such a sweet one.a true guru.

With Ate Gina

                          

Happy and Grateful for the encounter with simple folks at Cabuyao. The few hours of living with Ate Gina's household reminded me that we are all connected. Our troubles are similar. We could always learn from each other and that we are all created by one and the same God therefore we are all special.


I am a bit tired too. Womanity again?!:)

This is it. I am bent to have some busy months ahead. Despite this , my practice will continue. This is after all what matters most.

Namaste.

Richard and Amy

Yesterday,  as I was with the whole university community for a recollection, my dear student Richard sent me identical messages telling me he's tired of crying. He told me his wife of more than two months died and that the pain was just too much.

It was a numbing experience for me because the first thing that came  to my mind was to see him and just hug him but I couldn't. It was so sudden and I haven't had any inkling that his young wife was sick.I found time to go out of the session hall and called him.That was the first time I heard him so vulnerable.He was crying still and I really could not say anything more than just asking him what else can I do for him.

Richard is 22 and I guess his wife was 26. Theirs was an arranged marriage but it was a blessed one.He has started loving  her since then.

This young gentleman has shared a part of his journey with me even until the semester ended. I am thankful that I was one of those he had trusted of his decision making..his dilemnas, his growth as married man. More than anything else, we are not just into a teacher-student relationship but we are friends.

With the sudden death of his wife, I cant imagine the pains that he's into. A more than two-month old  union  which was so full of hope and promises for a great future just ended like that.  At 22, and is still beginning to understand what loving beyond love is, I could not envision how he would cope with the loss. Yet, because he's got a strong back up from HIS GOD, there is also no doubt that he would survive and would become a better man.

We had thoughts of meeting together with his wife but I guess it wont happen anymore. All i would have would be more lovely stories about her from a husband who's now bereft of a great loving woman. As I write this, there is heaviness in my heart.

I wish I could visit the wake and if I couldn't the UNIVERSE will certainly bring them my prayers for comfort.

Death is a physical parting, I believe so. It is breaking people's hearts, yes. It is going to be a foe for a while but in the long run too, death will serve as a reminder that this is not our home here and we don't actually own the people we care about. It will allow us then to give what we can to those around while we can. We don't know the hour it will take us but death...is just here.

We need therefore to love beyond love just like what the young wife Amy did to Richard. It is all that matters in life.

I just wish I were as sublime as her. May she rest in peace and I am grateful to her to come into my dear student's life.

Namaste everyone.Let's take care of people we are with.