Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Sri Sri Yoga with the best

Every course I have attended with the Art of Living foundation so far, started with a disclaimer “all sessions are mandatory, miss one and you are out”. But here was one course that was a complete exception to the policy. This course had the policy, ”if you feel motivated and would like to come, please do. Else, not a problem (we already got your money :))”. At the same time here was the course that I was so motivated to attend and I wouldn’t mind waking up at 5:00AM on a Saturday just to be on time and not miss a single moment. Wondering what I am blabbering about, it was the Sri Sri Yoga with Dr. Sriram Sarvotham.

If you can, imagine a perfect blend of a yoga practitioner, an Engineer and a gifted teacher with an amazing sense of humor then you will probably get somewhere close to Sriram. A yoga practitioner who can bend and twist his body as though bones only exist for mere mortals, a genius who recites the yoga sutras of Patanjali and offers commentary on the same, a teacher who leads by example and can make you do asanas for nearly 2 hours and in the end you would wonder was it really that long?. I can keep talking about him but can’t do justice. I think Sriram should be called (Dr.)^2 Sriram Sarvotham, one for his PhD in electrical engineering and other for yoga studies. 

Now to the course itself, I was apprehensive when I found it was a “yoga” course and split over 2 weekends. The impulsive reaction and the follow up action so far had been to avoid the same. This time around I acted differently and I am happy I did the same. The course was a complete package and had everything for all the layers of existence (want to know more, do a YESPLUS or an Art of Living course). The postures were not new but what was new was the sequence and what kept it fresh was the teacher. The discourses were very original and I was blown away by the way (Dr.)^2 was putting the knowledge across to us.

By the end of the course, I now have a clear understanding of the Gunas(Rajas, Tamas and Satva) and the Doshas(Vata, Pitta and Kapha). I now know a few more pranayamas I have also become very aware of the importance of rest period after an intense yoga session. I loved the way Sriram led the yoga sessions and how he would indicate that some poses as pre-requisite poses for the next level tough poses. The answers to the questions would come out spontaneously and the knowledge flowed effortlessly. On the last day, most of us had sore muscles but all of us had soaring spirits.

Here is a piece of free advice, next time when Sriram is in town and teaching the Sri Sri yoga course, don’t think twice, free up your weekends and just jump in.

On a lighter note, wonder when will the name of the course will change to “Art of Yoga”, hmm . . . we will wait and watch.   

ps: if you thought yoga does not build body/muscle strength, next time when you are around babies/kids observe them carefully.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

The secret ingredient is salt

Sandhya does not believe in getting ghee from the Indian store but prefers to get butter from the local grocery store and make ghee out of it. She has been doing for a while now and is an expert in the same.

Couple of days back I decided to giver her a break and embarked on a project to make ghee out of butter. I thought, I have seen her do it and it is just a matter of patience and no magic involved.

Thus after nearly 2 or so hours of waiting to generate ghee from butter, I figured I have accomplished the task and asked sandhya to help me filter the ghee to a different container. For those novices (like me), butter after being heated on a low flame for so long should leave out a solid substance which needs to filtered out to get ghee. In my case all I had was a colloid and no solid. So, when filtered I had the ghee and the colloidal substance together.

I kept scratching my head wondering what must have gone wrong, in my mind I blamed every possible thing. Meanwhile, I noticed that Sandhya’s face was beaming end to end and I figured I must have missed something very elementary. She said add a few grains of salt and a bit of turmeric and re heat the ghee + colloid for a few minutes.

Once I did that, bingo! the colloidal substance became solid like and was easy to be filtered out. I had finally made ghee from butter.

In this case, one can argue that salt being the catalyst is not completely proven, but my gut feeling is that it is the salt and not turmeric.