Video - Happy journey in India photo slideshow (3)

This is a collection of the photos that I took while traveling in India a few years back. Thanks to India, the people, the nature, and all the animals. May all beings be happy.

Video - Happy journey in India photo slideshow (2)

This is a collection of the photos that I took while traveling in India a few years back. Thanks to India, the people, the culture, the birds, the animals, the plants, the buildings, the mountain, the desert, the scenery, the arts, the colours, the sounds, the smells, the tastes, the weather, the life, the incredible diversity and yet all mixed together as one in peace and harmony sharing everything provided by nature. May all beings be happy.

Video - Happy journey in India photo slideshow

This is a collection of the photos that I took while traveling in India a few years back.

Thanks to India and the people.

May all beings be happy.

My life stories - Part 11

My life Stories - Part 11
Stories from my past memories - childhood, family, friends, growing up, poverty, integrity, dreams come true, finding peace and happiness, Buddhism, Yoga, and now...

(Updated November 2020)

I wasn’t interested in getting into any love relationship or thought of getting married to someone, before I met my husband in 2005. I was nearly 35 years old and had never been in any relationship before, not even went out for a romantic outing with anyone. I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend or a husband.

I wasn’t and am not perfect. I didn’t and don’t intend to be one. I don’t have a nice personality or attractive appearance, and don’t know how to behave appropriately when being in a relationship. My personality and behavior were far away from ladylike and gentleness. For many people, being direct and straightforward are being seen as bad attitude or weakness for socializing and interacting in the society, particularly in a relationship. For countless times, I watched people always being friendly, polite and nice in front of other people, but they couldn’t hold their tongues to complain and criticize about other people behind their back. Of course that’s their freedom of thoughts, actions and speech. But, I would stay away from this type of social interaction and human relationship that is full of hypocrisy and back-biting as much as possible.

In the yoga practice, we keep purifying our minds until there’s no ill-will or ill-thinking about anyone, which would take a very long time for the mind to be purified. There’s nothing to complain or criticize about anyone for anything whether in front or behind their back. When we complain and criticize about others, it’s not because other people are being bad and wrong, or when we compliment and praise others, it’s not because other people are being good and right, but it’s our mind being impure and project impurities of good and bad qualities onto everyone and everything that our mind perceives through the senses, under the influence of personal likes and dislikes, agreements and disagreements based on what our egoistic mind believes what things are and how things should be like. It’s not the truth of things as it is.

I never interested to make myself or my appearance to be attractive to attract anyone’s attention and liking. I don’t need that. If anyone doesn’t like me or disagree with my way of thinking and behavior, and if people feel intimidated or offended by my presence, I’ll let them be and I’ll stay away so that they will have peace.

Those who suffer from low self-esteem will easily feel intimidated or offended by anyone and anything, even though nobody is intentionally being intimidating or offensive towards anyone. It has to come from their own effort to be free from low self-esteem, which is part of the egoism. If anyone wants to create unnecessary problems, I’ll leave immediately, and let them take the responsibility for the consequences of their intentions and actions. If anyone doesn’t appreciate me or doesn’t want to be in my life anymore, I’ll let them go. I don’t expect anyone to be nice to me and love me. I never try to please anyone so that they will love me or be nice to me. People will be nice to me and love me if they want, as they like, out of their free will. I will be grateful and thankful for their love and kindness for me. I don’t need to receive love and kindness from other people, to have love or be happy, and to love and be kind to myself and others.

Compassion is not about trying to please everyone to make them feel good, happy and comfortable, by giving them whatever they like and want, to gratify their desires of craving and aversion. But it’s allowing everyone to be aware of what is going on in their minds, and realize the truth of the mind perception of names and forms to be free from ignorance, egoism and suffering. Unconditional love and peace is not coming from anyone or anything outside this body and mind, but it’s always there beyond the impermanent life existence, the function of the body and mind, all our actions and inactions, all the good and bad qualities of name and form, and all our relationships with everyone and everything. It’s there as it is when the mind is free from ignorance and egoism.

My husband said that I am a strange person and beyond confident. I rarely look into the mirror as I don’t mind at all how I look. I also don’t mind about how other people look at me and what they think of me. I am neither highly confident nor over confident, as I don’t need to feel or be confident at all. I don’t feel bad about myself, and I don’t think I am more superior or inferior than anyone. It’s okay if others want to look down on me, that’s their freedom, but I don’t look down on anyone. What others want to think, act and say about other people is their freedom of thinking, expression, action and speech, but what others think, express, act and say about me cannot determine what I am and am not. I don’t look up to anyone either. I respect all my teachers and appreciate those who inspire me, but I don’t try to become like them. I don’t need to agree or disagree with everyone with many different types of thinking, belief, values and behavior. I respect everyone as they are, even if my mind dislikes and disagrees with them based on the thinking and belief in my mind about what is good and bad, right and wrong. And I admire nobody, even when my mind thinks that they are great and wonderful, based on the thinking and belief in my mind about what is greatness and wonderfulness. Most of the time, I don’t comment about anything and anyone. Because everyone and everything are just being what they are, and they are impermanent.

There’s nothing wrong to give praise and compliment to other people to encourage people to do good and continue to improve in all aspects, but the one who needs encouragement of praise and compliment from other people to motivate it to do good and continue to improve is the ego. By giving the ego what it likes and wants won’t help to eliminate the ego, but it’s feeding and empowering the ego instead. That’s why in the traditional yoga classes, the teacher rarely gives praise and compliment, it isn’t that the teacher is arrogant or doesn’t appreciate the students’ good performance, but it’s not to feed and empower the ego of the yoga students. Those who truly practice yoga don’t need any praise and compliment from anyone to motivate them to do good and continue to improve. Naturally, they will do good and continue to improve, intentionlessly and selflessly, without attachment or identification towards their actions and the fruit of their actions.

In many families in the modern society, when the parents want to ask the children to be doing something for themselves or for other people, the parents will try to encourage or motivate the children by giving them something that they like and want as reward after they have done what they were asked to do. It’s about performing actions in exchange for something in return. There’s nothing wrong with that. But, this is completely the opposite of the teachings of yoga. The children will grow up with the idea that they will only be motivated to do something only if they can get something that they like and want in return. Or else, they won’t be motivated to do anything, even if it’s something beneficial for themselves. In yoga, we perform actions for ourselves and others out of free-will and loving kindness, without expecting something that we like and want in return, while allowing the outcome to be what it is.

And so, it’s not easy to be friend with me, not to say, to be in a relationship with me and shares life with me. I do my best to be kind to others, but not in the way that what other people expect kindness to be like. Instead, people might think that I am being unkind to them. But that’s their freedom of thinking and reaction.

After I did my first Vipassana silent meditation retreat in Dehradun, India, I went through a serious purification process where lots of rash and pimples appeared on my face and my whole body for more than one and a half years, I didn’t feel unhappy or worry, and didn’t try to do something to get rid of them. My husband arrived in Malaysia to be with me in 2007 and when he saw me in such condition for many months, he wanted to give me some money to go to a beauty salon to get some treatments, but I said to him, “No need. They will go away one day.” And they went away months later.

Since 2009, I only use hair shampoo once or twice a month and every day I take shower with water only. I use soap only for washing my hands. My travelling wash bag contains only a toothbrush and toothpaste.

I don’t need to celebrate new years, birthdays or anniversaries. I don’t have a wedding ring or wedding photos. My husband once made a ring out of straw that he picked up from the ground while we were travelling in Varanasi in 2008, and he gave it to me and told me that we were ‘officially’ married. On another time, he secretly put three Bodhi leaves in my diary because I told him it was my first time saw a Bodhi tree when we were travelling in Rishikesh. I only realized the Bodhi leaves were there when I opened my diary a few days later. He also gave me three river stones that he found at the riverbank of the Ganges in Rishikesh. My husband doesn’t need to give me material things as presents as I am not interested in material things or presents. He doesn’t need to give me anything or do something to show that he loves me, or for me to feel loved by him and for me to love him. I love him as he is. I only appreciate life every moment, from day to day.

I live every day as it is and step by step. I don’t have future plans for life. I might need to plan travelling itinerary ahead, such as booking flight tickets, but I allow changes to happen anytime. I don’t need to own properties or things. I don’t need to have enjoyments.

People like to say that we should do things that will make us happy, but I don’t need to do anything special that would make me happy, as I don’t need to feel or be happy. I am happy as I am.

I’ll share the stories from the past as it might help others to find a way to peace and freedom. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t help anyone. But, I leave the past at where they belonged, I don’t bring them into the present. Though the past cannot be changed, there will always be changes and unexpected happenings in life in the present moment. There will be some pleasant and unpleasant experiences, desirable and undesirable happenings, and people or things coming and going. I do my best to live life as it is and stay away from unnecessary energy wasting human-made troubles as much as possible, while channeling my life existence and energy into practicing and teaching yoga, and be in peace.

My husband is very different from me. He is gentle and romantic. Once, he tried to be romantic and sang a love song to me in a cafe, but I thought he was just humming a song for himself, and I didn’t pay any attention to him and his singing. When he told me about it later in disappointment, I told him that I would try to learn to be more sensitive towards his love and affection for me.

I had been living on my own for many years, but I never felt lonely. And I fully enjoyed those peaceful quiet moments living by myself and being with myself. I have some good friends when I was living in Kuala Lumpur, and occasionally, I would visit them at their homes or go out with them to have a coffee or lunch together. In the past, I didn’t have to tell or inform anyone about how I felt, what I was doing, where I was going, or when I would be coming back home, until my husband came to Malaysia to be with me. My parents never questioned me about all these things. It wasn’t that they didn’t care, but they didn’t need to worry for me at all.

I wasn’t and aren’t skillful in social interaction or to engage in any social conversations. Most probably it’s because I was never interested in socializing, mingling or accumulating personal friendships. Socializing, mingling and chit-chatting are good for worldly social interaction and public relation, but it is detrimental for yoga and meditation practice. It stimulates the thought waves and strengthens the worldly egoistic attachments, identifications and ideas, and empowering the desires of craving and aversion. We can list out what people usually talk about in a social conversation, and see how much our minds are being influenced and affected by all those daily conversations about worldly ideas and affairs, where restlessness and tension built up physically and mentally until people need to do something or go somewhere to relax and unwind from time to time.

In most conversations, many people talk about the past and the future. Most people want to be friendly and making friendship by starting a social interactive conversation, where they want to talk about themselves and also to hear other people talk about their stuffs. People want to express their opinions and also want to hear other people’s opinions. People want to know about each other and learn from one another. There’s nothing wrong with the worldly social interactions between human beings. But in terms of yoga practice, it’s about knowing thyself. It’s not about knowing other people or want to be known by other people. Minds that are being conditioned by worldly thinking, belief and ideas might think that it is a form of selfishness and rudeness when some people don’t show interest to know about other people. As one of the basic teachings of yoga, one practices dispassion and disinterest towards worldly affairs as well as other people’s affairs. It isn’t that yoga practitioners don’t care about what is happening to the world and other people, but one must look after one’s mind first before one can care for the world and the others efficiently.

When one’s mind is free from ignorance, egoism, attachment, identification, desires of craving and aversion and all sorts of impurities, and realizes unconditional love and peace in oneself, being firmly resting in peace undisturbed by all the impermanent qualities of name and form, then naturally, without any intention or expectation, one will be contributing peace into the world by stop generating unrest and disharmony into the world. By looking after oneself and being peaceful in oneself, is actually loving and caring for the world and the society.

One must learn about oneself and know about oneself by quieting and purifying the mind through self-introspection and self-discipline, and then one will know how to love and care for oneself, before one can actually know about others, and love and care for others. The entire society will become more peaceful and harmony when everyone learns about oneself, knows oneself, and loves and cares for oneself.

Instead of wasting energy in socializing or talking about worldly ideas and affairs, I conserve energy for practicing and teaching yoga. Talking about worldly ideas and affairs won’t help anyone to be free from worldly identifications and attachments towards worldly names and forms, and it won’t make the world to be a better place. In fact, talking about this and that will stimulate the mind, and it doesn’t help to quiet the mind. Yoga and meditation practice is mainly for quieting the mind. The condition of the world will change towards peace and harmony only if each and everyone who are existing and living in the world has self-awareness and self-control, to make an effort to change themselves, to purify and quiet their minds, to be free from ignorance and egoism. The world is just what it is. It is neither good nor bad. It’s the occupants in the world that are projecting good and bad qualities into the world and contributing peace or unrest into the world. The one who is free from good and bad qualities, perceives the world as it is.

Though I am not interested in accumulating personal social friendships, I do my best to be friendly to all. I don’t discriminate people into friends or not friends. There’s no special treatment towards certain people. Those who think they deserve to be treated in certain ways that they think they should be treated, they will be disappointed by their own expectation. It’s everyone’s freedom if people want to discriminate everyone into friends and not friends, and have expectation towards how other people should act and react, behave and response according to their own thinking, belief, values and practice. If people feel annoyed or offended by other people who have different actions and reactions, different behaviors and responses under the influence of different thinking, belief, values and practice, that is their own reaction and responsibility.

In the teachings of yoga, friendliness is about being kind and compassionate towards all and everyone without discrimination, prejudice or bias towards everyone with different thinking, belief, values and practice. We have self-control over our actions and speech to stop generate actions and speech that will cause unrest and disharmony in other people or in the society. We constantly be aware of the impurities in our minds, and unceasingly purify our minds to be free from all sorts of impurities, so that we won’t hurt ourselves and others out of the influence of impurities like anger, hatred, jealousy, greed, dissatisfaction, disappointment, pride, arrogance, desires, lust, feelings of hurts, doubt, fear and worry. It’s nothing to do with accumulating personal friendships everywhere with those who are like-minded and agreeable with one another.

There’s no possessiveness or attachment towards anyone to be ‘my friend’. There’s no expectation towards friendships for getting something that we want, such as love, affection, acknowledgement, companionship, interaction, trust, care and support, or getting rid of something that we don’t want, such as loneliness and boredom. There’s no expectation towards other people that they have to be friendly and nice to us. We allow everyone to be friendly and nice to us, or not. We don’t feel offended when we don’t get the appropriate reactions that what most people expect to be getting from other people. We don’t expect people should react and behave in certain ways according to our own thinking, social ethics, cultural values, belief and practice. We respect all and everyone to be different from us for having different personalities, characteristics, behaviors, opinions, values, policies, thinking and beliefs. We don’t try to interfere with, or to control, or to change other people to be differently from what they are, to be the way that we think they should be, but allowing and respecting everyone to be the way as they are. That is real friendliness.

If people feel hurt or disturbed by other people’s action and reaction, that is their own responsibility coming from how their minds react towards all the perceptions of names and forms, influenced by their egoism of attachment, identification, desire of craving and aversion and expectation based on their own particular conditioned thinking and belief. Those who are free from egoism of attachment, identification, desire of craving and aversion and expectation based on certain conditioned thinking and belief, will not be hurt or disturbed by anything or anyone.

Being in a relationship and to share living space with another person was a great challenge for me in the beginning. There were lots of things I needed to learn, to adjust, to adapt, to accommodate, to tolerate, to forbear, to accept, and to let go selfishness and the ego. All these are indeed our yoga practice. And I am always learning.

My husband is a good man and a good husband. He is very friendly, kind-hearted and generous. It is very good karma to have him in my life. He loves me very much. I appreciate his love for me and being in my life.

Before we knew each other, I was teaching aerobics dance classes in and around Kuala Lumpur for making a living, while he was working in a refuge in the Pyrenees in France.

We met each other for the first time in the Sivananda Dhanwantari Yoga Vedanta Ashram in South India, where we did the International Yoga Teachers Training Course in January 2005.

Without any intention, we had conversation about yoga and Buddhism for a few times during the one month course. In those conversation, I never asked him where he came from, where he lived, what he did in the past, what he was doing then, or who he was in general. I didn’t even know what nationality he has. I never interested in knowing about the past, or try to know anyone about where they come from, or what they do, or who they are.

He stayed back in the Ashram for another few months after the course ended, while I came back to Malaysia, continued to teach aerobics dance classes and yoga classes. I wrote him a letter sent to the Ashram after I came back, as I felt that he needed Dhamma at that time. The letter was all about Dhamma, there’s nothing romantic at all. He told me later that the letter meant a lot to him, and he had kept the letter with him all the time wherever he went, until now.

Without any intention, we both attended the Advance Teachers Training Course in February 2006. My initial plan was to stay back in the Ashram to perform selfless service for three months after the course ended. I would stay longer if I had more money. But the savings that I had was only just enough for the course and for staying in the Ashram for three more months. I didn’t know that my plan would change, and changing my life too. A few days after we met again for the second time, he asked me if I wanted to travel with him in India learning more yoga and meditation under different schools and teachers after the course finished. I didn’t answer him at that time because I wanted to stay in the Ashram after the course, and I couldn’t afford to go travelling somewhere else. We kept a distance with each other in the Ashram as we respect the Ashram’s rule of male and female students’ segregation, and we didn’t say anything about it anymore.

Just a few days before the course finished, a spontaneous thought arose in my mind during the evening Satsang meditation session, that if he came to me right after the meditation finished and asked me to travel with him in India, then I would go with him. But if he didn’t come to me that night and didn’t ask me that question at that time, then I wouldn’t go with him, but to stay in the Ashram for the next three months. And miraculously, as everyone was leaving the meditation hall, he was waiting for me at the exit and he grabbed my hand and pulled me to the side and asked me in the dark, “Do you want to travel with me in India?” And I said yes. And so, we went travelling together in India after the course ended. He paid most of the travelling expenses and the fees for the yoga course.

We spent two and a half months together, where we came to know each other deeper. We both got really sick from food poisoning for a month from the first day we arrived in Delhi. During that time, we took turn to take care of each other at our worst condition.

Then he went back to France, while I came back to Malaysia without any expectation that we would see each other again. I mentioned to him before, that he could come to Malaysia to teach yoga with me if he wanted. We didn’t really have any contact since then.

He went back to India for the third time in the end of 2006 after finished working at the refuge, while I was in Malaysia. I didn’t go to India. Nine months later after the last time we saw each other, he called me from India one afternoon, telling me that he had booked a flight to come to Malaysia arriving the next day. He came in February 2007 and never left. We got married in the end of 2008.

All relationships and life experiences will have ups and downs. It’s subject to impermanence or changes. When two people who come from different cultural backgrounds with different personalities come together, there will be some conflicts arise from time to time. It depends on the depth of our understanding, acceptance, adaptation, adjustment, accommodation, tolerance, forgiveness and letting go, for us to be able to stay cheerful and happy in life, regardless of all the agreements and disagreements, likes and dislikes, ups and downs in life and in the relationship. But most important is that we need to know what we really want in life for ourselves.

My mother tongue is Cantonese, and my second languages are Mandarin and Malay. Before my husband came to Malaysia living with me, I seldom spoke English in daily conversations except when I taught classes I used very simple and minimal English. My husband and I had many misunderstanding especially in the beginning because my English comprehension was really limited and I also have bad hearing due to constant shouting when teaching aerobics classes under the loud music. My husband speaks very softly. I had to ask him to repeat his sentences again and again. It was frustrating for him. I used to talk very loud and fast, which was really difficult for my husband because he has sensitive hearing and suffers from tinnitus. He suffered a lot from my loud speaking. As years passed by, I started to speak more softly, and slowly. My husband had to keep correcting my English pronunciations and the usage of tenses. It took me few years to learn to pronounce words like egg, eight, three, world, girl, file, wild, duck, abdomen, buttocks, wrists, necessarily, vocabulary, probably, and etc. Even after many years speaking in English, I am still having trouble pronouncing words like thought, thigh, they and there. When I speak in English, I am actually translating directly from Chinese. And there are no tenses in Chinese language. My husband said that he couldn’t understand me and constantly misunderstood what I wanted to say because I didn’t know how to use the correct pronunciation and tenses to tell my stories or when I wanted to say something. But we understood and we learned to be patient and accommodate each other whenever we communicate.

It didn’t and doesn’t matter to me about how other people perceive me, as I am what I am. I accept and love myself as I am. I don’t live my life according to the worldly thinking and belief and the current trends, to fulfill other people’s expectation. Neither will I try to please anyone by pretending to be somebody else whom I am not. If people don’t like something or everything about me, it’s their freedom. Everyone is responsible for their own happiness and unhappiness. Nobody can make another person happy or unhappy. If people want to be happy, no one can make them unhappy. If people want to be unhappy, no one can make them happy. When people feel happy is because they are getting something that they like and want, and are not getting what they don’t like and don’t want. When people feel unhappy is because they are getting something that they don’t like and don’t want, and are not getting what they like and want. It’s not because things or people are being good or bad, nice or not nice. My husband’s personal likes and dislikes and his mind perception about me also cannot determine me or change me, for what I am and how I think, act and feel.

We are happy as we are. I can’t make my husband happy. Neither can he make me happy. We can only do our best to be kind to one another.

Most of the time, the truth is not something agreeable or pleasant to the minds that are not free from attachment and identification towards certain conditioned thinking and belief under the influence of ignorance and egoism. Most people perceive their own reality under the influence of particular conditional thinking and belief, they don’t see the truth as it is. Those who are not free from ignorance and egoism might have heard about the truth from others, but they might not like the truth and don’t agree with the truth realized by others, because it’s not their own realization. People perceive everything influenced by the judgment based on their own particular thinking and belief, and they live in their own personal reality. Those who practice yoga and Buddhism don’t blind-believe in the truth realized by others, even if it’s coming from Buddha or any saints and sages. Everyone has to realize the truth by themselves.

People want and expect the truth to be something that they like and want that is agreeable to their own personal worldly thinking and belief. Everyone who attached to different thinking and belief would perceive their own personal reality differently from one another. Everyone has their own perception of reality that is being different from one another and there’s nothing wrong with that. But the universal truth is still the one same truth whether people like and agree with it, or not, whether people think and believe it’s the truth, or not. As the truth is not a belief, or intellectual analysis. It’s the way of everything being what they are, as they are, and constantly changing. But most people don’t want things to be what they are, but they want things to be the way that they like and want it to be, or the way that they think it should be.

Things that matter very much for many people, might not matter to me at all. When people are sad and crying about something, I might not react the same. When people are happy and cheering about something, I might not react the same. I don’t expect anyone to be like me, or to accept me. I don’t expect people to react or don’t react in certain way. I don’t need anyone to like me or agree with me, but allowing everyone to like and dislike, to agree and disagree about anything and anyone, as they are. 

Most people would perceive this as ‘hard’, or ‘stubborn’, or ‘self-centred’, or ‘selfish’ according to the passionate worldly thinking and belief, and that’s their freedom of thinking. Buddha didn’t change to be something else that he was not, according to what everyone liked and disliked, agreed and disagreed with. Buddha lived in the truth and allowing everyone realizing the truth, or not. There’s no desire/intention/aspiration/ambition of “I need to do something to get as many people as possible to realize the truth.”

This also shows that how kind and loving is my husband for him to love me and accept me as I am. It’s a great challenge for him to be in a relationship with me and to share life with me.

That’s also why I am never interested in joining any ‘groups’. I am free to be who I am, as I am. And I am free from getting involve in gossips, vain talks, conflicts, condemn, criticism, argument, and so on. When we have bad things to say about others, it’s not because other people are being bad and wrong, but it’s because our minds are not pure. If our minds are pure, there’s no bad thing to say about others, even if we are aware of something that isn’t good and right about someone based on what our minds believe as good and bad, right and wrong.

Worldly minded people might think that being silent towards things that are bad and wrong is supporting all those bad and wrong things. But, what people think and believe as good and bad, right and wrong, is very subjective, it’s not necessarily the truth of what things are. By being vocally and physically violent towards something that is bad and wrong won’t change the reality of those things being bad and wrong. But everyone must develop self-awareness and self-introspection in themselves to be aware of their own minds, to be initiative to make an effort to purify their own minds, and have self-control over their own thinking, actions and speech.

By telling people that they are ignorant or wrong and bad, won’t make people stop being ignorant or wrong and bad. It has to come from everyone’s self-awareness, self-realization and self-control to be free from ignorance or bad and wrong thinking and behavior.

Although I don’t belong to any groups, but I respect everyone has their own groups, where they think they belong to, or if people feel there’s a need to attach onto certain quality and identification and to obtain certain acknowledgment, recognition and authorization to be who they are. Some people think that they need to mix into certain groups and do anything to be accepted by those groups, to feel that those are the places where they belong, to be interacting and sharing something in common among the people in those groups.

Some people join certain groups for getting some personal gains, or business exchange and benefits. But then they will complain that they are not free to be who they are, and are being ‘pressured’ or ‘forced’ to do things the way that the groups believe how things should be done. As by joining certain groups, there are some standards and qualities, or rules and regulations in the groups that the members have to comply and be recognized as being one of them, or else they will be criticized, or condemned, or expelled. One will have to be like them or behave like them, and one is not free to be oneself anymore. Oneself and one’s life are being watched and interfered by the others all the time, and is being bound to play by the rules of the games once one joined any groups.

Some people don’t like and don’t agree with the way we are, as they can’t understand why we want to keep very low profile, that we are not eager to promote our yoga retreats, and they would try to give us many advice about how we should run our yoga retreats and how to live our lives, even though we never asked anyone for any advice. We let them be free to express their minds to give their opinions. But then when they realize that we are happy with the way as we are and have no interest to follow any of their advice, they would feel offended and disrespected. This is the world, full of such action and reaction. People constantly interfering with other people and easily be offended when things are not being the way that they like it to be. In yoga practice, we refrain ourselves from the egoistic action and reaction under the influence of worldly thinking, belief and ideas.

I have no greed to get any helps or benefits from any ‘groups’ to enhance or improve our social life, or life condition, or income. If I need to do something or to attain something, I depend solely on my own effort to get things done. Or else, I don’t. It doesn’t matter if I didn’t get what I wanted. I also don’t need to attain any encouragement, acknowledgement, support, or companionship from some other people or friends to motivate me to do something that I want to do.

I do things in my own ways and at my own pace. There’s no stress or tension. I’m not ambitious to run a bigger retreat centre with higher capacity and income. We did everything by ourselves (my husband and I) within our own capacity. We didn’t need to rely on any ’employees’ to run the yoga retreats. As it wouldn’t be the same. It would become a business, with higher expenses and costs. We did all the teachings, cooking, driving, accommodation arrangement, emails response, website updates, cleaning, washing, maintenance, and shopping all by ourselves.

If some people don’t understand about what we do, we don’t expect that they should understand. If people aren’t really interested in the traditional yoga practice about quieting the mind through the annihilation of ignorance and egoism, and they don’t have the humility to learn and practice yoga as it is, but they are only interested in joining some fitness yoga exercise classes, and they are not interested in our yoga retreats or what we teach, that’s their freedom. We will suggest to them to go to some other yoga fitness centres that might provide cheap and cheerful yoga exercise classes. As these people are not really interested in learning and practicing yoga. There are many yoga asana instructors in the world that will provide fitness yoga exercise classes to these people who only interested in doing some stretching, strength and flexibility fitness workout, to be able to do many yoga asana poses that they want to be able to do, and to look good and feel good about themselves. There’s nothing wrong with that and it’s their freedom. We would appreciate very much to have the free time to focus on our own personal practice.

Many people said that they are interested in yoga and they want to learn yoga, but when they hear the teachings of yoga about dispassion, renunciation and letting go of egoism of attachment, identification, desires of craving and aversion, and expectation, either their minds will start to be opened towards what they didn’t know before, and be able to see what is going on in their minds, or their minds will be rejecting what they don’t know, or what is contradicted with their existing thinking and belief, and they want to run away from what their minds don’t like and don’t agree with. The stronger the ego is, the stronger the rejection towards the teachings of yoga about the annihilation of the ego will be. Everyone has the freedom for what they want and don’t want. People don’t have to practice yoga that is not the way that they like it to be.

I just do my best within my ability and limitation. Some people being optimistic and they think and believe that they can change the world, that’s their freedom. Even Buddha never claimed that being enlightened and be free from ignorance and suffering could change the world. Buddha didn’t have intention to change the world or had expectation that the world will be changed by his enlightenment, his presence or the teachings of Buddhism. He just shared the path towards liberation.

No doubt that the existence of everything and everyone are inter-dependent on many others. But, everyone has to work independently towards liberation. When serious Sadhaka advance in their practice, they will renounce the world and go into seclusion for at least five or six years cutting off all kinds of communication with family and friends completely. Nowadays, many people who identify themselves as ‘yoga practitioners’ or ‘yogis’, who say that they love yoga and like doing a particular style of yoga asana practice, they are not really interested in dispassion and renunciation. And that is their freedom of what they want to do with their life existence.

I believe in the one same nature in everything, which is the truth of impermanence and selflessness. I see the same nature in everything, despite all the different qualities of name and form that exist in everyone, that generate separateness, discrimination, likes and dislikes, agreements and disagreements. From separateness, there arise craving and aversion, conflicts, discrimination, fear, anger, hatred and jealousy in us. Though I do things in my own way, I don’t feel myself as an individual being separated from any other beings even though I don’t join any groups or attach onto certain identifications to be who I am. I don’t need to obtain any recognition or support from any social groups to be somebody.

What I do and don’t do is just actions and inactions, it’s not I. Whatever I experienced in the past and am experiencing now, it’s not I. Whatever qualities I had or didn’t have in the past, and what qualities I have or don’t have in the present, it’s just part of the impermanent and selfless modification of this mind. There’s no I. The many ‘I’s that exist in the entire blog about My Life Stories telling all the stories here is just the impermanent and selfless mind.

This mind has no expectation towards this life existence, or towards itself and other minds, or in its relationships with anyone. Neither will it be disappointed with itself or other minds, as it doesn’t expect anything. By having expectation won’t change the reality that it doesn’t like into something that it prefers, and this mind is not interested at all to change other minds to be the way that it thinks they should be.

And so, it’s really not easy to deal with or to live with a person like me. As I can be very ‘stubborn’ or ‘hard’ in my own way. I let people think what they want to think, and say what they want to say, and I am still what I am. I never try to please anyone and I don’t need anyone to please me. I don’t try to interfere with others’ freedom to be what and how they are. I let people to be happy or unhappy, and to take full responsibility for themselves. I have no intention to make anyone unhappy or to hurt anyone deliberately. I can wish everyone peace and happiness. I can wish everyone be free from unhappiness and suffering. But I can’t and don’t make people become peaceful and happy. People are peaceful and happy is because they are free from ignorance and they allow themselves to be peaceful and happy. I let everyone to be what they are. I can’t control or dictate their thinking and feelings, what they like and dislike, what they want and don’t want. If they want to be ignorant or unhappy, and attach onto qualities of name and form to be who they are, I’ll let them be.

I do my best to help people who need help, like my family and friends and people who come to learn about yoga, but I can't help anyone if people don't want to help themselves. If people don't help themselves, I'll let them be, even if they are my family and friends. It's their freedom of what they want to do with themselves and their lives. If I can't help due to some limitation, I'll let it be. It's not necessarily that everyone will like and agree with the way that I try to help other people, as I help other people not necessarily in the way that they expect it to be according to the worldly passionate thinking and belief. I don't take away or solve people's problems, but allowing them to realize the cause of their problems, to learn how to not attach to their existing problems and stop generate unnecessary problems. Some people appreciate that while many people won't appreciate that, as most people expect help in the way where someone can take away or solve all their problems for them.

Nowadays, many people who think they are mentally and emotionally disturbed and hurt by something hurtful, they feel and believe that they are suffering from mental and emotional hurts and suffering, and they are looking forward to be receiving some kind of 'spiritual healing' treatment from someone 'spiritual' to heal them, to take away their painful hurts and suffering. Meanwhile, there are many different kinds of 'spiritual healing' being 'advertised' in the world claiming to be able to 'heal' people's mental and emotional hurts and suffering, including in the world of yoga. That's their freedom. Getting certain 'healing treatment' or receiving certain 'comforting love and affection' from some other beings might relieve certain degrees of mental and emotional pain, but it doesn't stop the mind to be continuing perceiving/experiencing/feeling 'hurts' and 'suffering' mentally and emotionally whenever people think and believe they are 'experiencing' and 'disturbed by' some kind of 'hurtful' and 'suffering' experiences.

When people come to us, we don't give them 'spiritual healing' treatment. We don't take away or remove what people think and believe is their mental or emotional painful hurts and suffering. We teach and guide everyone to contemplate upon or look into their own minds to know what is going on in their minds, that allows them to see the truth of hurts and suffering, to realize the root cause of hurts and suffering, to realize selflessness and compassion. We don't heal anyone, but it's coming from people themselves willingly to let go all the ignorant perception about everything that will liberate them from any kind of 'so called' mental and emotional 'hurts' and 'suffering'.

If people are not willing to learn about what is going on in their own minds, and reluctant to open their minds, where they insist that all their painful hurts and suffering are caused by somebody and something that is being hurtful and suffering, and feel greatly insulted and offended when being told to 'identify' and 'see' the ignorance and egoism in their own mind, then the teaching and practice is useless to them.

I don't need to 'heal' anyone, and I don't 'heal' anyone. All kinds of 'hurts' and 'suffering' ceased existing or vanished from the mind when the mind is free from ignorance and egoism, upon knowing thyself and knowing the truth of names and forms. 'Hurts' and 'suffering' don't exist upon the realization of the truth, and nobody needs to be 'healed' from 'hurts' and 'suffering', as nobody is being there to perceive or experience 'hurt' and 'suffering' upon the realization of selflessness and compassion. That is real freedom.

Non-attachment and letting go towards actions and the fruit of actions is the essence of the yoga practice. One can be performing many actions but is not determined by the actions or the fruit of actions. There's no success or failure, no praise or condemn, that can motivate or demotivate me to perform actions, or not. There's no need any acknowledgment, recognition, approval, appreciation, gratefulness and thankfulness from anyone to motivate one to perform actions, to feel happy and meaningful, or not.

I am peaceful as I am. This is why I am always cheerful and lighthearted even if there’s some challenging situations arise in my life, as I am not disturbed or determined by the pleasant and unpleasant life experiences, and undetermined by other people’s judgments, opinions, likes and dislikes, agreements and disagreements. If my mind is ever being disturbed by certain names and forms, I could let it go very fast.

I take full responsibility for the consequences of my decisions and actions made. There are no regrets. If the consequences of my decisions or actions are unpleasant, I take them as they are. Most of the time, what we think and believe as good and right decisions and actions are not necessarily bringing pleasant consequences. Life experiences can be very unpleasant and difficult, but it doesn’t mean that we did something wrong or bad.

Yoga and meditation and Buddhism practice is practical in every moment in life while we experience what we recognized as happiness and unhappiness, pleasant and unpleasant experiences in life and in relationships with anyone. The practice is in the present moment now, being aware of the reality as it is and accepting the reality as it is, without generate attachment or identification, without craving or aversion towards the impermanent qualities of name and form that our mind perceives through the senses. There’s no such idea as “I did a lot of yoga and meditation practice in the past”, or “I do lots of yoga or meditation in the present”, or “I am going to practice yoga and meditation in the future”.

I share what I am with the guests who come for our yoga retreats. I don’t teach yoga according to what we learned from the yoga teachers training course curriculum or the teaching manual, or from reading yoga books, or from hearing from somebody else about what is yoga and how they teach yoga.

Whatever I am and am not, whatever I do and don’t do, it’s not I. It’s all nothing but selfless impermanent changes of some qualities of name and form.

Before this mind realized love and peace in itself and was full of unhappiness and behaving terribly, hurting itself and others out of deep ignorance and egoism, it needed help and it was inspired and influenced by particular person (Madonna), teacher (Buddha, Ajahn Chah, Swami Sivananda) and teaching (Buddhism, Yoga) to change itself, to uplift itself, to discipline itself, to see the ignorance and the consequence of ignorance in itself. After this mind realized what is suffering and the cause of suffering, it is what it is. I am what I am. Impermanent and selfless. This mind stops blaming, longing, expecting. All is itself and the consequence of itself. All is impermanent. All is selfless.

READ ON

For more stories about our relationship, there's an article in the newspaper, you can read on this link Love Came Slowly

Yoga, India, Indian, Hinduism?

Some good yogis think and feel that 'yoga' is being manipulated. They want to protect the lineage of ‘authentic yoga’. They insist that yoga belongs to India, or Indians, or Hinduism. I respect what they think and believe - according to history the practice of 'yoga' did start in India, and was rooted in Hinduism.

But even though the practice of yoga originated in India, it doesn’t mean that yoga belongs to India, or Indians, or Hindus. Yoga is for all humanity. It exists in the universe for all beings to transform the modification of the ignorant egoistic mind, to be liberated from ignorance and suffering.

Being in a place that is being possessed, claimed, and named as India, or being identified as an Indian, or being a Hindu, it doesn't guarantee peace and compassion or enlightenment in anyone. If it did, then every Indian, or Hindu, or anyone in India, would already know yoga and have attained self-realization, there wouldn’t be any ignorant beings, and suffering would not exist in India, or for all Indians, or for all Hindus.

If yoga belongs to 'India' and 'Hinduism', then no one else but only 'Indians' and 'Hindus' can be 'allowed' or 'qualified' or 'authorized' to realize yoga of selflessness, or compassion and unconditional peace, to be free from suffering, while all the others who are not Indian or Hindu will never realize yoga, or be compassionate and peaceful, or be free from suffering. But, yoga doesn't belong to anyone or anywhere with a particular quality of name and form. Just as Buddhism also started in a particular place on earth, but it doesn't belong to and isn't limited by that place or anyone. All and everyone are subject to the suffering of impermanence and selflessness, limitation and conditional, and non-self, and anyone also can realize the truth of selflessness, and be free from suffering upon liberation from ignorance. Just like, if 'God' exist, 'God' doesn't belong to anyone or anything.

Although we all live in different regions in the world, have different nationalities, or skin colour and features, or cultures, or languages, or beliefs, or spiritual and religious influences, all and everything exist being supported by the same source, as well as inter-supporting all and everything to be what they are.

How can we limit and condition yoga to a certain region, place, race, and religion when the basic teachings of yoga is oneness or non-separateness, as well as attributelessness, namelessness, and formlessness? What is the difference between this religion and that religion, or being religion-less? What is the difference between this nationality and that nationality on this tiny little earth compared to all the other planets in the universe? Even though we all have different beliefs, religions (or not), traits, characteristics, personalities, and appearances, we are all living beings sharing the same space in the universe that doesn't belong to anyone or anything, dependent on the elements of fire, wind, water, earth and space to exist. Beyond the different names and forms the nature of all and everything is the same. We are not different nor separated from one another. Discrimination of different qualities is non-existing in nature.

All and everyone and everything of all kinds of different qualities and names and forms, are subject to selfless impermanent limited and conditional momentary existence, or ceaseless changes and maintenance, decay, disintegration, death, decomposition, or ceased existence.

Yoga exists in all beings regardless of where we are, who we are, what we are, or how we are. All are eligible for realizing yoga, depending on one's correct understanding, effort, perseverance and determination.

The teachings of yoga and Buddhism are all about selflessness, non-dualism, oneness, attributelessness, namelessness and formlessness. Even though the many practices might be different from one another, the end of the practice is not different from each other. If this is not what yoga is - oneness or non-separateness, then I don't want to practice 'this yoga' or share 'this yoga' with other beings. Those who think 'yoga' belongs to them can keep their 'yoga' for themselves.
 
When the Buddha attained enlightenment, he never claimed that he founded Buddhism, neither the teachings and practice of Buddhism belong to any particular race, sect or caste, gender, nationality, or religion, or being. It (the dhamma/the truth of selflessness, impermanence, limitation, conditional, and non-self) always existed in all beings regardless of the differences of names and forms, regardless of whether all beings and objects are separated by and subjected to time, space and causation, and whether we realize Dhamma, or not. The Dhamma, or the teachings of Buddhism, or the truth of names and forms, existed before Buddha realized the truth and became enlightened. Buddha didn't own the teachings of Buddhism or Dhamma. Dhamma doesn't belong to anyone or any place. Anyone and everyone, even the most ignorant beings, or the most evil beings in the universe, can realize Dhamma and attain enlightenment. It is within every being and beyond time, space and causation. There have been other beings in other regions of the world attained enlightenment before and after Buddha.

Even though the Buddha came from the place or region of India, attained enlightenment in India, and taught Buddhism in India, Dhamma didn't originate from India and wasn't limited only within India. Dhamma does not come from a geographical region or era - it is beyond time and space. Dhamma does not belong to anyone or anywhere.

 

Those who claimed yoga belongs to them, or to a particular place, region, race, or religion, they have no idea towards what yoga is. 

Om shanti.

Video - my daily yoga asana practice while travelling in India (5)

This is part of my daily yoga asana practice while travelling in India. This is a 4x speed up version.

Video - Yoga asana practice while travelling in India - Handstand

This is part of my daily yoga asana practice while travelling in India.

Video - Yoga asana practice while travelling in India - Padma Kakasan

This is part of daily yoga asana practice while travelling in India.

Video - Yoga asana practice while travelling in India - Vrschikasan / Scorpion

This is part of my daily yoga asana practice while travelling in India.

Video - Yoga asana practice while travelling in India - Variations of Kakasan

This is part of my daily yoga asana practice while travelling in India.

Video - yoga asana practice while travelling in India (1)

 Variation of Kakasan and Titibasan




This is part of my daily yoga asana practice while travelling in India.

Video - my daily yoga asana practice (4) while travelling in India

This is part of my daily yoga asana practice while travelling in India.

Intensive Yoga Retreat in Tamilnadu South India with Marc and Meng Foong from December 1 - 9, 2012

We will be running an intensive yoga retreat in Tamilnadu South India by the end of the year from December 1 - 9, 2012. 

Limited to maximum 12 participants only.

Anyone who is interested please contact us for more details at yoganow@hotmail.com.

Please click on this link to our website for more details http://www.yoganowmalaysia.com/yogaretreatinindia.html

Om shanti,

Marc and Meng Foong 

欢迎你们参加马克和明凤在印度南部塔米尔纳杜12月1 - 9日所举办的南印度瑜珈之旅。任何有兴趣的人，请与我们联络yoganow@hotmail.com以了解更多详情。
只限制最多12人。

Yoga retreat and guided tour in Tamilnadu South India with Marc and Meng Foong, December 1 - 9, 2012

We will be running an intensive yoga retreat in Tamilnadu South India by the end of the year from December 1 - 9, 2012. 

Limited to maximum 12 participants only.

Om shanti,

Marc and Meng Foong 

欢迎你们参加马克和明凤在印度南部塔米尔纳杜12月1-9日所举办的南印度瑜珈之旅。
只限制最多12人。

My life stories - Part 6

My life stories - Part 6
Stories from my past memories - childhood, family, friends, growing up, poverty, integrity, dreams come true, finding peace and happiness, Buddhism, Yoga, and now...

(Updated November 2020)

I continued my journey of yoga and Buddhism after the library finished.

One day in April 2004, my employer from a dance studio where I had been teaching aerobics classes for many years had called me in the afternoon and asked me if it was possible for me to teach a yoga exercise class for her that evening. The yoga teacher couldn’t make it and it wasn’t the first time. Somehow, I was free that evening, even though I was always busy with teaching classes every day. I took up the offer because it meant extra money for me. I had to continue to support my parents after I came back from the world sport aerobics championship in France. I had to teach many classes every day to make a living at that time. The pay for aerobics instructor wasn’t very high.

I taught some yoga exercise classes in the past before, but not for long. I wasn’t interested at all in teaching yoga exercise classes in the beginning of my fitness career. Yoga exercise class was really boring for me. I was more interested in disco dancing and vibrant cardio fitness exercises with energetic music. That was why I enjoyed doing and teaching aerobics dance very much.

At that time, many of the yoga poses were being criticized as exercises contradicted with the rules and regulations for safe exercise of the fitness teaching industry. Lots of the yoga poses would be categorized as dangerous physical positions with high risk of injury. I didn’t think that I would be teaching yoga one day. Of course, there’s a huge difference between teaching yoga and teaching yoga exercise classes. We might be doing some yoga poses every day, but it doesn’t mean that we are practicing yoga. Vice versa, we might not be doing any yoga poses every day, but it doesn’t mean that we are not practicing yoga.

There was a situation in Malaysia around thirty five years ago, where the yoga teachers criticized the aerobics exercises were harmful to the physical body and the aerobics instructors criticized the yoga poses were inflicting serious physical injuries. There were many women came to ask me why did the yoga people said that aerobics dance could cause their uterus to drop? There were rumours circulating in the fitness industry that doing yoga exercises could cause serious neck injuries, back problems, knee problems, blindness, stroke and some other side-effects. It was like a war of criticism between the aerobics fitness industry and the yoga industry for attacking their competitor, to get the people from the other side to support their products and services. As well as the aerobics instructors and the yoga instructors also tried to protect their source of income to get more people to join their classes and stop their existing clients from leaving to join other exercise classes by saying bad things about some other types of exercise that they don’t teach.

Sort of like a political game that many politicians play to harvest support of the people by attacking their opponents by saying many bad things about them, instead of constantly improving their contributions and services to the people to win more support from the people, they attack their opponents to bring down their reputation with slanders, to stop the people from supporting their opponents.

We can’t put traditional yoga asana practice and aerobics dance exercise in the same category, or apply the same rules and regulations on them. They are completely two different forms of practice. Yoga asana practice is very slow pace, gentle, stilled body positions, very few repetitive movements, non-competitive and almost without impact. Meanwhile aerobics dance exercises are fast pace, violent, lots of high speed repetitive movements, competitive and with much higher impact. Above all, yoga asana practice is not about fitness training, although it enhances people’s health and fitness level as one of the by-products when it’s being practiced regularly. There’s nothing wrong when people use the yoga asana exercises as a form of fitness training. Just that enhanced physical health and fitness level have nothing to do with the realization of unconditional love and peace. One can be very healthy and fit physically, but the mind might not be free from ignorance, egoism, impurities and suffering.

I honestly told the students in that replacement yoga class that I wasn’t a trained or certified yoga teacher, but I knew some yoga poses that I could guide them as an exercise class. I didn’t know that yoga was about self-evolution, peace and compassion, which wasn’t any different from the teachings and practice of Buddhism. I thought yoga was just some stretching exercises originated from India to promote good health, fitness and beauty. That was what I learned from the yoga classes at the yoga and aerobics dance academy in Petaling Jaya. In those forty five minutes yoga exercise classes, they only taught some yoga poses as a form of physical exercise and never talked about any yoga teachings or philosophy at all.

When the replacement yoga class finished, the response from the students was very good and the majority of them had requested me to teach them once a week of yoga exercise class. I told them again that I was only a qualified aerobics instructor and that I wasn’t a yoga teacher, but they said they didn’t mind. Meanwhile my boss was very happy that the students loved my class very much and she would be happy to arrange a yoga class for me to teach.

And hence, I started teaching yoga exercise classes once a week and getting higher pay than from teaching aerobics classes. Initially my intention for teaching yoga classes was to earn more money. But very soon that intention was gone and replaced with gratitude and loving kindness to share yoga with many others, even though I received payment for teaching yoga classes. There’s nothing wrong with getting payment in the form of money or fees for conducting yoga classes. It’s ignorance when people think and believe that ‘asking for donation’ is okay, but ‘being paid in the form of fees’ is not okay.

I learned that there’s a huge difference between the aerobics students and the yoga students. The behavior of the people and the atmosphere of the classes was very different. It was calm and peaceful in the yoga class and everyone seemed to be happy and content. I myself, was calmed, relaxed and refreshed after teaching a yoga class. I could feel the energy in my body was vibrating differently from teaching aerobics classes.

One day, one of the yoga exercise class students doubted my qualification and asked me what type of yoga I was teaching and what were the Sanskrit names of the yoga poses and what were their benefits? I was very honest, and told her that I didn’t know what type of yoga it was, and I guessed the yoga exercises were to promote good health, fitness and beauty, and I didn’t even know what were the names of the yoga poses in English, not to say, in Sanskrit.

At that time, I didn’t feel bad at all for being questioned about my qualification because I knew I wasn’t a yoga teacher. I didn’t pretend to be one. But that little conversation had initiated a strong desire in me to look for a yoga school to learn yoga. I wanted to know what yoga is. I wanted to teach yoga classes because I thought they were very good for me and everyone, and I wanted to be a responsible yoga teacher.

In the end, we will realize that whether what type of yoga that we do, or what are the names of the yoga poses whether in Sanskrit or in other languages, or what type of benefits of the yoga poses, are irrelevant to whether we will be free from ignorance and suffering and realize unconditional peace, or not.

Besides teaching once a week of yoga exercise class at that dance studio, I also conducted a few yoga exercise classes at my own studio, where the response was very good as well. This had encouraged me deeper to pursue my wish to learn all and everything about yoga. I am thankful to everyone who had been influencing me, supporting me and encouraging me to learn and practice yoga.

It was September 2004. My sport aerobics mentor cum partner helped me to search the internet for Sivananda Ashram in India which was recommended by a yoga teacher in Singapore.

I was in Singapore for a couple of weeks to update myself on the latest aerobics dance exercises in one of the famous fitness clubs in Singapore. They started with one fitness studio and then they had maybe seven branches everywhere in Singapore within a few years. The lady boss was a very smart and kindhearted person. She liked me very much and wanted to employ me as her instructor when we met for the first time, but I wasn’t interested to work in Singapore. Once every two or three years, I went there to update myself by attending different types of fitness classes under many different fitness instructors. It also allowed me to have a break and not getting burnout from teaching classes all the time. That year, I attended most of the yoga classes as well, which I never did before in the past years. I never thought that one day I would be teaching yoga or practicing yoga. Unfortunately, many of the yoga teachers there didn’t know what they were doing. They had to keep looking at a notebook while giving the instructions to the students in the yoga classes. But then there was a particular yoga teacher who actually knew what she was doing, and I felt the calmness flowing through her that spread over everyone in the class, including me. And so, I asked her for advice about where I could go to learn yoga. She didn’t say much, but just gave me a name ‘Sivananda’. But that was already helpful enough.

I didn’t have a computer and never surfed the internet before. I knew nothing about information technology. I didn’t have an email account. My mentor said that he could help me to search the internet for ‘Sivananda’. He found the website for International Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Ashram in Kerala, South India, and printed out the registration form for me. Without any hesitation, or tried to look for some other yoga schools to compare, immediately I filled up the form and sent it off with the 300 USD deposit the next day, hoping to get a place for the yoga teachers training course starting in January 2005. The 300 USD was all the savings I had at that time. But I didn’t worry about how I could get the rest of the money.

I needed more than 15,000 Ringgit for me to go to India – the course fee, the return flight ticket, the money for my parents and my car installment. My mother was ill at that time. She had a stroke for the third time and became paralyzed. Every month, I gave 1,800 Ringgit to my parents and left a few hundred Ringgit for my own living. Knowing that my sister might take away the money that I gave to my parents to pay her debts and bills, we didn’t tell my sister how much money I gave to my parents every month. Only my uncle knew about this because sometimes I passed the money to him to bring to my parents who were living with my sister in another town about an hour drive from where I lived.

Though initially I didn’t have all the money for the rest of the course fee, I never asked the Ashram to give me any discount, or asked for any special rates.

There are many people involved in running the Ashram and the courses. They contribute their time and effort in making the courses to be available to the people. The existence and operation of the Ashram need to be maintained by labour and money. The fees that we give to the Ashram is supporting the Ashram to be able to continue doing what they are doing – giving opportunities to many people to come to the Ashram to learn and practice yoga. It isn’t about give and take. It’s not about paying some fees or working as a volunteer for the Ashram in exchange for something that we want in return. When people volunteer to work in the Ashram is not about in exchange for free food and accommodation and free yoga classes, or to gain credits of working and teaching experiences to put into their profile as experienced yoga teacher who had been working and teaching in an ashram, though many people come to the Ashram are with such intention. It’s merely performing selfless service without selfish intentions and desires, without expecting anything in return, to eliminate the ego and egoism.

At that time, people need to pay 200 USD per month to the Ashram if they want to live and work as volunteers in the Ashram. It’s not about what can I get from paying some fees to you or volunteering for your organization. There’s no guarantee that after we paid the fees or volunteering for the ashram, we will attain peace and happiness, and be free from ignorance and suffering.

People who are volunteering in the Ashram aren’t perfect either. If we feel disturbed by their imperfection it isn’t because they are not good enough or they didn’t do things right, but it’s because we expect them to be perfect, to be the way that we think they should be. We are disappointed by our own expectation that they should be wise and compassionate beings in order to work in the Ashram. But they are just like everyone else who try to do their best for themselves and others. They also will have bad days and bad moods. They also need other people to be patient and compassionate towards them for being imperfect.

My mentor didn’t only help me in making my dreams come true, but he had also helped me in the connection with yoga. The first few emails between the Ashram and me were sent through his email address. He would inform me whenever the ashram sent me an email and he would reply the email for me. For all that he had done for me without asking anything in return, I am always grateful and indebted to him. He also looked after me when I was in financial difficult moments where my income from teaching aerobics classes wasn’t enough to support my family. He would pay for my food when we ate together after our sport aerobics training sessions.

Sometimes my brothers would borrow money from me for them to have food to eat. During the worst days, I gave all my scarce savings to my brother who had no money for food, and I was using the coins in my piggy bank to get my own food. Less than two hundred Ringgit of coins was all that I had for the month until I get my next pay, and that was enough for me to survive for one whole month, just by eating cheap bread mostly.

I decided to close down the aerobics dance studio before I left for India. I called my cousin in Singapore and asked him if he could lend me a few thousand Ringgit if I didn’t manage to get enough money by January. Though he wasn’t rich he said he would help me out if I needed the money, but it turned out that I didn’t have to borrow any money from him or anyone at all.

Not long after I made the phone call to my cousin, some students started to recommend me to teach yoga classes and aerobics classes in some other studios. From my usual income about two thousand five hundred Ringgit a month, it had increased to about seven thousand Ringgit for the next three months. I had earned the biggest amount of money that I had ever earned before. Though I had to work very hard by teaching a lot more classes within that few months, I managed to save enough money to go to India.

A few weeks after I sent in my registration form, the people in the ashram informed me that I was confirmed a place and that I should prepare myself by reading the Bhagavad Gita. I had no idea what it was and I didn’t know where to get it. A few days later, an Indian woman came to join my aerobics classes. I talked to her about my wish to study yoga in India and asked her if she knew anything about the Bhagavad Gita. She told me that her husband was a direct disciple of Swami Sivananda since he was a little boy, and he had been studying the Bhagavad Gita every day. She told me that he would be happy to lend me the book.

It was two months before the course. I got the book of Bhagavad Gita commented by Swami Sivananda (published in 1989) which I finished reading within a few days. It had touched my heart deeply. I could naturally understand and resonate with all the teachings in the Bhagavad Gita. I realized that the teachings of yoga wasn’t any different from the teachings of Buddhism. It was what I always believing in and practicing all the time. This realization had strengthened my faith in the path of yoga and Buddhism, and had no fear to go to India for the first time alone by myself.

My departure flight to India was just two weeks after the deadly tsunami which hit Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, the Andaman Islands, Thailand and Northern Malaysia on the 26th of December 2004 that caused so much damages and casualties. Many people said that it was a bad timing to go to India as there would be many diseases brewing not long after the tsunami. But it didn’t stop me from going. I was determined.

Initially the course was fully booked for more than two hundred participants, but many people didn’t turn up or had cancelled their trip to India because of the tsunami. And so, there were about one hundred and sixty something people turned up for the course. My husband, whom I haven’t met at that time, actually was on the waiting list, and he got a place in the end because of the many cancellations. That was also how we got to know each other while attending the same course.

There was purification process happening in our body and mind when we went through intensive learning and practicing yoga in an intensive course like that. There were past accumulated physical, emotional and mental blockages being released during the course. Different people experienced different types of purification. Most people cried a lot. Some of them went to the teacher asking for explanation because they didn’t understand why they feel like crying after the yoga practice even though they weren’t unhappy about anything. Some people got very impatient and agitated about many things. Some people had diarrhea, while others had constipation. Some people kept missing classes because they felt physically and mentally exhausted from the intensive practice and the disciplined daily schedule. Some of the students would get angry with the teachers when they didn’t get what they want and like. Some people strongly disagreed with the teachings of yoga because they had strong attachment and identification with their own thinking and belief that were different from the teachings of yoga, and they even shouted at the teachers with bad words in front of the class. There was so much anger and hatred in these people. Again, that’s their freedom for what they wanted to think and feel, act and react, and it was part of the purification process as well.

Yoga is about attaining peace and harmony in oneself through opening the mind while respecting many other different types of thinking and belief that are co-existing in the world, even if we can’t agree with them. We don’t have to agree with them, but we don’t have to be disturbed, or angry and hating either. But for many people, they believe that only their particular way of thinking and belief are right and good, while any other thinking and belief that are different from theirs, are wrong and bad. They get irritated, angry and hating other people for being different from them. Those who understand the mind won’t be disturbed by them, but wishing them be free from anger and hatred, and have peace and harmony.

Some people left the course halfway because they didn’t agree with the teachings and they were really unhappy to be continuing the course. They came to learn yoga but it wasn’t the yoga that they were looking for. They wanted to learn yoga that wasn’t yoga. Some people even insisted that the yoga being taught in the Ashram is not real yoga, but the yoga exercise classes that they attended at home that didn’t talk about any yoga teachings is real yoga. People can think and say what they want, and manipulate yoga into something that they prefer, but yoga is still yoga. While some others left the course because they didn’t want to go through the unpleasant purification process, and some felt that it was too intense for them to follow all the disciplines. In the end there were around one hundred and fifty five people had completed the course.

I was sick for the first three weeks, but I never missed any classes. I didn’t ask for any medicine or go to a doctor. I knew that it was part of the purification process. I just observed and endured the inconvenience and discomforts coming from being sick during that three weeks.

One evening after dinner, I was studying the teachings of yoga in the office area as there was better lighting in the office than in the dormitory. There was also a proper bench and desk to do some writing. And then there were a few female students came in to see the teacher. They had some problems with some other yoga students that they wanted to complain to the teacher. The teacher looked at me, and then told them, “Look at her. She looks after herself. She doesn’t need to come to the teacher to complain about anything.”

After I came back from India, I found the Chinese version of the Bhagavad Gita on my book shelf. It was given to me more than sixteen years ago as a present from an ex-aerobics student. I never had any interest at all to pick up that book to read, but somehow I still kept it on my book shelf. Then only I realized that the Bhagavad Gita (the essence of yoga) was always with me, but I didn’t know. And now, this Chinese version of the Bhagavad Gita is with somebody who is at the right time to have it.

I wasn’t a person who like to read books. I only read books about Dhamma. I read many of Swami Sivananda’s books after I came back to Malaysia, and they were all strongly connected to my heart. It was like a direct teaching from Swami Sivananda. Like all the other Dhamma teachers I had never met in person, I always feel that he/the teachings/Dhamma and any other form of teacher is with me all the time, guiding me in silence. The Dhamma passes through this body and mind to other beings who need guidance to find their way back to their nature of unconditional love and peace.

Some people appreciate my classes, while some others might criticize my classes and myself as a person for being very hard or intense, because I practice and teach about depriving the ego and elimination of egoism. It makes no difference to me whether people compliment or criticize me. Everyone has the freedom to like or dislike anybody and anything. That’s their freedom of thinking, action and speech. Those with strong ego and attached strongly onto certain qualities of name and form to be identifying as who they are, and they take pride in being who they think they are, they don’t like to hear the teachings of yoga about eliminating the ego. But I don’t and can’t teach what other people expect me to teach, and I can’t not teach what other people don’t like and don’t want to learn or practice. I teach yoga. Everyone who comes for the yoga classes is learning how to identify the ego and let go of the ego. Of course, it’s up to their own free will whether they want to practice yoga as it is, or not. I can only tell the students if there are some teachings or practice that they don’t like and don’t agree with, that they don’t want to learn or practice, they don’t have to learn or practice them and they can just put them aside. If one day they think they want to take up those teachings and practice, then they can come back for them.

If people don’t like to practice yoga about letting go of the ego, attachment and identification, and the desire of craving and aversion, no one can force them. The teachings of yoga teach about respecting everyone’s freedom of thinking, actions and speech, for what they want to do with themselves, their lives, their bodies and minds. Everyone takes the responsibility for the consequences of their own actions and inactions, for what they believe and disbelieve, for what they want and don’t want. No one can control or purify other’s mind. It is up to everyone’s own effort and free will to control and purify one’s mind. The teachings of yoga never condemn anyone who doesn’t like and disagrees with the teachings of yoga, or who doesn’t want to practice yoga as it is, or who misunderstands about yoga, or who criticizes yoga. Anyone can take up any yoga practice and practice anyway that they like, or do whatever they like with yoga, or they can stop practicing yoga for any reasons. There’s no condemn, or sin, or punishment.

Those who practice yoga, they don’t condemn or criticize. Vice versa, those who condemn and criticize out of self-righteousness, they don’t practice yoga. We share yoga out of compassion, not out of egoism thinking that “Yoga is good for everyone. Everyone should practice yoga and should practice properly in a particular way, or else, they are insulting the sacredness and purity of yoga.”

One type of medicine may cure a person’s illness but may not necessarily has the same effect on another person with the same illness, or would it cure some other form of illnesses. People react differently towards the same medicine and have different tolerance towards certain side-effects of that medicine which appear differently on different people. Some people may be a good friend for many others, but may not be a good partner or good parent. There are people dislike and disagree with the teaching and practice of yoga. That is their freedom. We can’t expect or force everyone to like yoga and practice yoga as it is. There are people who never heard about the teachings of yoga and don’t do any yoga practice in a particular name and form, but they are selfless, compassionate and peaceful beings. And if yoga is something sacred and pure, how can it be insulted or contaminated by anything at all?

Some people kept modifying the traditional yoga practices into many different new styles and versions to suit the preferences of what people like and don’t like, what they want and don’t want. Though there’s nothing wrong with that in terms of business marketing strategy, customer service and commercial value, but then the yoga teachers are not really teaching yoga, and the students are not really practicing yoga. Instead, it is empowering the ego and egoism, attachment, identification, desires of craving and aversion, worldly thinking, ideas and habits of the egoistic mind. When we practice yoga, we stop giving the egoistic mind what it likes and wants. No doubt that sharing yoga is about sharing love and happiness. Yoga teachers are there to guide the yoga students on how to attain unconditional love and happiness by letting go the egoistic desires of craving and aversion. It’s not about giving them what they like and want, or don’t give them what they don’t like and don’t want, to gratified their desires of craving and aversion, to make them feel pleased, loved, satisfied and happy. They feel satisfied and happy is because they are getting something that they like and want, and not getting anything that they don’t like and don’t want. It’s conditional. It doesn’t help them to be free from the desires of craving and aversion, to realize unconditional peace and happiness. Once they don’t get what they like and want, and are getting something that they don’t like and don’t want, they will feel dissatisfied, disappointed, unhappy, or miserable. This is moving away from what yoga is about.

It isn’t a pleasant experience when one learns the truth of one’s impure egoistic mind. Most people would want to run away. Those who have the courage to confront the impurities in the mind will also need intense discipline and will-power to purify the mind. The mind purification process requires tremendous patience, perseverance, determination, tolerance, forbearance, forgiveness, adjustment, adaptation, accommodation and acceptance. The entire practice is all about letting go of the egoism, attachment, identification, desires of craving and aversion, and eventually seeing the truth of things as they are, being free from ignorance and suffering. All these teachings and practices seem to be anti-social and unpractical in the modern society for the worldly minded people.

Even when some people think that they love yoga and like to practice yoga, but actually what they really love is what they like and want, and what they can get from yoga. There’s nothing wrong with this either.

There are many different paths in yoga to suit many people with different personalities and temperaments. But in the end, all are leading us back to oneness or non-separateness. If some people wanted to do yoga that is easy and pleasant for the egoistic mind, there’s nothing wrong with that. Enjoy doing the easy and pleasant yoga, and be happy. If people aren’t interested in attaining liberation from ignorance and suffering, that’s their freedom.

Teaching yoga is not about trying to convince other people to believe in the teachings of yoga, or to persuade other people to like yoga and practice yoga in certain way. It’s not about recruiting many people to be our yoga students and joining our yoga classes, or to set as an example for others to imitate and become like us, or to build a yoga empire of certain brand. The students of yoga shouldn’t follow or imitate the teacher, or blind-believe in the teachings of yoga or what the teacher taught them. It’s guiding the students to be free from egoism, and allowing them to take their own pace to be free from attachment and identification towards any thinking and belief, including the teachings of yoga, to investigate into the truth of everything and to attain self-realization. Everyone may or may not need some guidance, but it’s up to everyone’s free will to change their own thinking and behavior by developing self-control and self-discipline over their own thoughts, actions and speech, to stop hurting themselves and others out of ignorance. The teacher doesn’t and can’t control or change the students, but can only give them guidance and support. The teacher and the student will meet at the right time, at the right place, naturally, when the time has come, without the influence of egoistic selfish desires.

There’s nothing wrong when people think that when they feel unhappy, angry, hurt and disappointed is nothing to do with their own ignorance and egoism, but instead, they think it’s everyone and everything that they come in contact with, that are bad and wrong, that cause them unhappiness and suffering. There’s nothing wrong when people believe or disbelieve in God. It is everyone’s freedom of thought, actions and speech. But when one starts to have strong attachment and identification towards what they think and believe, there will be separateness, discrimination, prejudice, hatred, violence, fear and unrest in their minds towards others who are different from them. Some people even enjoy being angry and violent. They won’t feel good unless they get angry and violent.

I came back to Malaysia after the yoga teacher training course, finished all my savings, without any money left to buy food. Some of my students knew that I came home with no money left and they invited me to eat at their home and also brought me out for food for many days. But, very soon I started earning my livelihood again by teaching classes at home and some other dance and fitness studios. I continued to teach aerobics classes and yoga classes, but with deeper understanding about yoga. I also immersed myself into regular yoga practice.

In February 2006, I went back for the advance teachers training course which was designed more for developing understanding, self-reliance, discipline and perseverance in our own personal practice, or Sadhana, than to teach classes, which was another great learning process for me. Many people, including most of the teachers training courses providers, would think that by attending, completing and graduating from the advance teachers training course will provide training for people to teach ‘advance yoga practice’ and give them the title of ‘advance yoga teacher’ who are being qualified and authorized to teach ‘advance yoga class’. That’s their freedom of thinking and desire.

Again, somehow I managed to save enough money, which was about 18,000 Ringgit, to go to India for four months this time.

Coincidentally, I met my husband again in the same course and we went travelling together in India after the teachers training course, to learn more yoga and meditation from other schools and teachers. We attended a three weeks long yoga course with Iyengar teachers, Swati and Rajiv Chanchani, in Dehradun. We also attended Vipassana silent meditation retreat in Dehradun after the Iyengar yoga course. During this meditation retreat, I went through a very intense purification process where lots of pimples broke out on my whole body and my face as well. I didn’t bother about it. It had lasted for one and a half years before it cleared out from my system completely.

We also went to Gangotri, Rishikesh and Dharamsala after completed the courses.

On the way to Gangotri, we stayed a night at the Gangnani hot springs. We wanted to do the pilgrimage walk towards Gaumukh from Gangotri along the hilly paths of the mountains, but my husband felt sick after about three hours walk. He wanted to go back to the hotel in Gangotri to take rest and he asked me to follow the other pilgrims to continue walking towards Gaumukh, and he would wait for me at the hotel. I couldn’t let him going back by himself as he was complaining dizziness and fatigue. And so, I insisted to go back with him, taking over the backpack he was carrying, and slowly we walked back to Gangotri. On the way, I told my husband that I wished to see snowing, as I never saw it before. And surprisingly a few minutes later, snowflakes started falling down from the sky. By the time we arrived at our hotel, the weather became bad where hailstorm were raging.

We were lucky to have come back down to Gangotri that day and didn’t continue our walk. There were others pilgrims came back later in the evening, all wet and tired, and it was freezing cold below zero degree. Some of the women were trembling in shock, as they were caught in the hailstorm and there were landslides and rocks falling down in front of them. And they had to turn back as the path was blocked by huge rocks. We didn’t stay the night at Gangotri in the end, as it was too cold and the half-built hotel didn’t have a heater. We went back to Gangnani hot springs to stay the night instead. We also visited the Sivananda Kutir in Uttarkashi on the way to Rishikesh the next day.

My husband and I got very sick from food poisoning that lasted for a month from the first day we arrived in Delhi after we left the Sivananda Ashram, where both of us took turn to take care of each other at our worst condition. We knew each other a lot more during that two and a half months traveling together, which led my husband came to Malaysia to be with me in 2007, and we got married in 2008.

My husband had left India before me, as he had to go back to France working for a refuge in the Pyrenees. I had another two weeks in India by myself before my flight back to Kuala Lumpur. I took the train from Delhi to Trivandrum which took more than 54 hours. That was quite an experience as well. An incident happened in my coach where a man was being accused for touching a girl when we were all sleeping. I was woke up by the sudden shouting between the father of the girl and the man, and then the police came and he got slapped very hard by the police right in front of me, and then he was taken away. I couldn’t say anything as I didn’t really know what happened and I don’t understand their language, but from their body language, I guessed that was what happened.

I stayed a few nights in Kovalam, and then I went to stay in an ashram that looked after underprivileged children in Trivandrum until the day I flew back to Malaysia. These children were not orphans, but their parents were either too poor or didn’t have the time or effort to look after them properly at home. And so, they came to stay in the ashram and were given food, accommodation and educational support until they reached eighteen years old.

While I was in Trivandrum, I went to a shop owned by a young Indian woman who was being friendly to me initially, but when I told her that I had been travelling with my husband (unmarried at that time) in India for the last couple of months, she was so disturbed and angry that she spat on me because my husband and I weren’t married at that time. I learned about other people’s different thinking and cultural belief and practice. I wasn’t disturbed by her reaction, but respected her cultural belief and practice. I left in peace and wished for her be in peace too.

Though there is a very significant teaching of yoga about seeing God in all and everything, that God exists in all and everything, but one doesn’t need to believe in God or spirituality to practice the teachings of yoga. For those who don’t believe in God, this teaching can be taught as seeing the one same universal consciousness in all and everything, which is the truth of impermanence and selflessness, where there’s no ‘I’ or individual existence exists in everything that is subject to impermanent changes. For those who don’t believe in God or the one same universal consciousness, this teaching can be taught as seeing the essence of a teacher in all and everything to teach us something to attain higher understanding about worldly life existence, and be grateful and thankful for all kind of good and bad experiences. Those who truly implement this teaching in everyday life wouldn’t be disturbed or determined by all the pleasant and unpleasant, agreeable and disagreeable experiences, and wouldn’t generate anger or hatred towards anyone or anything. They would respect the law of impermanence in all the different qualities of name and form, and respect all the different types of thinking, belief and behavior that exist in the worldly community as they are. This teaching leads us to peace and harmony in ourselves and stop generating violence, anger and hatred in ourselves and into the world. If our minds are over-powered by egoism and have pride and arrogance about ourselves and our particular thinking and belief, we would find this practice impossible or very difficult, unless we are ready to let go of the ego, pride and arrogance.

Disturbance and disharmony exist in our minds due to the ego and egoism, pride and arrogance, attachment and identification, craving and aversion, greed and discontentment, fear and worry, and all kinds of impurities deriving from ignorance or the corrupted thinking and belief in the mind. One also generates disturbance and disharmony into the surrounding environment when one isn’t peaceful and harmony. If every being is free from ignorance, egoism and impurities, naturally the society will be free from separateness, discrimination, prejudice, hatred, violence, fear and unrest.

If we want peace in the world, we must have peace in ourselves. Having peace and harmony in oneself is the only effective way to help the world to have peace and harmony among all the different qualities and diversities. By being violent, angry and hating others and happenings that we don’t like and disagree with, and provoking anger and hatred in other people to also be angry and hating those whom we think they are bad and wrong, it won’t help the world to be peaceful and harmony as how we would like it to be, but instead, we contribute so much restlessness and disharmony into the world, it doesn’t matter how good and right we think we are.

After I came back from the advance teacher training course, I retired from teaching aerobics classes and focused on teaching yoga. I learned that aerobics dance exercises were very good for fitness, but it didn’t help people to come out from miseries. While yoga being practiced with the correct understanding would lead us to self-transformation besides giving many health and fitness benefits to the regular practitioners. Though I was quite physically fit I never emphasized on the physical ability to perform the yoga asana practice. I emphasized on disseminating the Vedanta teachings in all the yoga classes and allowing the students to take it or leave it.

Teaching yoga is definitely not a job, even when we are receiving fees that can support our living. It’s sharing and learning at the same time. It’s in everyday life. It’s in every relationship we have with everyone and everything. Everyone and everything is an instrument for passing the Dhamma from one to another to purify all kind of impurities, allowing the mind to see the truth of itself, to know thyself.

Before my own self-transformation, I perceived the world as a suffering place, and I was very angry and disappointed and feeling meaningless most of the time. But after the transformation, I didn’t see that there was anything bad or good about this world. Unhappiness is here, happiness is here too. Hell is here, heaven is here too. They are not out there in the names and forms that the mind perceives through the senses about what we experience in life. They are right here, right now, in our mind, upon how the mind reacts towards all the names and forms being perceived through the senses.

This was how I had changed from teaching aerobics classes to teaching yoga.

Everything was already there on the path for everyone. It was just waiting for the right time. Whether there were some good or bad experiences, they were all learning process for us to realize selflessness and compassion.

When we know what is yoga, we will know that teaching yoga has very little to do with qualification and certification coming from attending yoga teachers training courses. Yoga teachers training courses are merely one of the platforms for people to learn to become their own teacher. When one realizes the teacher within oneself, one will know that everything and everyone are teachers to teach everyone something. One will be free from discrimination and hatred towards anyone and anything, and will respect everyone and everything as they are. And naturally, one can also guide other people to become their own teachers to realize unconditional love and peace, without the need of any certifications, or authorization, or acknowledgement from anyone or any organizations.

It’s not important whether we know the names of the yoga poses in English or Sanskrit, or not, and what type of yoga we practice and what are the benefits of the yoga exercises. Practicing yoga is not about attaining the benefits from the yoga exercises at all. Knowing the names of the yoga poses in different languages and which type of yoga we practice have nothing to do with the realization of unconditional love and peace. It’s about letting go of the ego and egoism of attachment, identification, expectation, desire of craving and aversion towards our actions and the fruit of actions, or towards the yoga practice and the result of the yoga practice.

Yoga is about realizing compassion and selflessness through the practice of dispassion towards worldly objects and ideas, discrimination of what is real and unreal, eliminating the ego and quieting the modification of the mind, and be free from all kinds of attachment, identification, desire of craving and aversion, expectation and impurities. All these practices have nothing to do with the impermanent condition and ability of the physical body to perform the yoga poses, or how many years we have been doing yoga exercises, or how much yoga exercises we had done, or how many yoga poses we can perform and whether we can perform the yoga poses in perfect alignment, or not. It’s also nothing to do with all the physical health and fitness benefits that come along as side-effects from performing the yoga practice. All these names and forms doesn’t determine whether we know about yoga or not, whether we are practicing yoga or not, whether we can teach yoga or not, and whether we will be free from ignorance and egoism and be liberated from suffering, or not.

Many people including many yoga enthusiasts don’t like to hear about the practice of dispassion and renunciation. They give themselves many reasons to justify themselves that they don’t need to be dispassionate, instead they promote passionate way of thinking and living. They said follow all our desires and live life passionately. There’s nothing wrong with having desires and being passionate towards life existence, self-image, worldly ideas and ambitions and social activities, and everyone has the freedom to choose what they want to do with their life existence, but it isn’t what yoga practice is about.

Dispassion towards worldly objects, ideas and activities helps to render the mind calm and quiet to be able to perform self-inquiry to know who we really are, or, who we are not, to know what is the ‘I’ that we think is who we are. Passion invigorates strong attachment and identification towards worldly life existence, the function and ability of the body and mind, and the passionate desires of craving and aversion towards names and forms. Instead of quieting the mind, annihilating the worldly ideas and eliminating the ego, it is stimulating the mind, strengthening the worldly ideas and empowering the ego. Passion hinders the mind to see the truth of things as they are. If people enjoy being passionate and don’t mind being restless, that’s their freedom.

Dispassion doesn’t mean that we have no love. It is loving the world and everyone as they are, without selfish desire, expectation, discrimination of likes and dislikes, attachment, identification, craving and aversion, not necessarily it’s the way that I like it to be, or the way that I think it should be.

Passion is loving the world and everyone with selfish desire, expectation, discrimination of likes and dislikes, attachment, identification, craving and aversion. It’s I love the world and everyone being the way that I like it to be, or the way that I think it should be.

When one is free from ignorance and egoism, there’s no difference between passion and dispassion. One can live and perform actions passionately in the world, but is being undisturbed and undetermined by one’s actions and the fruit of actions, the desirable and undesirable impermanent relationships with everyone, the agreeable and disagreeable worldly affairs and experiences, as well as the impermanent good and bad condition and situation in the world or the surrounding environment.

The realization of selflessness will allow the mind to be undisturbed or undetermined by whatever the mind perceives through the senses, remain equanimous and be at peace unconditionally. When one has realized unconditional love and peace, one won’t be intentionally generating thoughts, actions and speech that will hurt oneself and others under any circumstances, which is compassion. The realization of unconditional love and peace has nothing to do with the knowledge about anatomy and physiology, or the physical condition, ability and alignment to do the yoga poses. In the end, no matter how much effort we put into maintaining and enhancing the condition of this physical body, it will still be conditioned by selfless impermanent changes of decaying and weakening, and eventually will stop functioning, and disintegrating.

Everyone can practice yoga and share the wisdom of yoga and its practice with anybody, when the mind is free from ignorance and egoism and realized unconditional love and peace. They don’t need a piece of commercialized paper to allow or authorize them to share love and peace with others. Those who haven’t realized unconditional love and peace in themselves, they can’t share love and peace with others even if they have been attending many yoga courses and possess many certifications. Those who think and believe that they need to attend professional yoga courses and acquire a few pieces of paper to accumulate credits recognized by such and such alliance and organization to allow them to share love and peace with other people, they don’t really know what is yoga. These minds are still under the influence of worldly ideas and attached onto the qualities of name and form.

All kinds of different yoga practice serve the purpose of influencing and purifying the mind, preparing the mind for self-inquiry, or contemplation upon the truth of “Who am I?” or “What is this I?”

To practice yoga is not necessarily that we have to be doing some form of yoga asana exercises. Yoga asana practice is one type of the many yoga practices. Some people are being limited by health condition and physical limitation which hinder them from doing certain yoga asana practice, and it’s okay. Some people just do Japa and chanting alone. The practice of Japa and chanting generates harmonious vibrations that serves the purpose of influencing and purifying the mind. Some people just perform selfless service to eliminate egoism and attachment. Some just practice living in the present moment as they are. Some spend most of their time on contemplation. Some focus on observing their thoughts and have self-control over their actions and speech at all time. Some people combine a few practices. Some try to practice all of the different practices. But in the end, all the different practices are not separated from one another when being practiced with non-attachment, non-identification, non-expectation, dispassion, right discrimination, and free from the desire of craving and aversion. Ultimately, it’s freeing the mind from impurities to see the truth of names and forms as it is, and be free from suffering that derived from ignorance.

There are yoga centres that teach traditional yogic and meditation practices combine with the practice of dispassion, right discrimination, six fold virtues and the yearning for liberation that would gradually lead to the annihilation of egoism and ignorance. But most of the yoga classes we come across everywhere in the world are only about attaining benefits from the yoga asana and pranayama practice, and many are about using yoga asana practice as a form of fitness exercise to achieve fitness results, which is neither bad or wrong.

By doing some yoga asana and pranayama exercises regularly without the practice of dispassion, right discrimination, six fold virtues and the yearning for liberation, will bring some physical and mental benefits to the practitioners, but it doesn’t lead to the annihilation of egoism and ignorance, or be free from unhappiness and suffering. That’s why, many people might have been practicing yoga and pranayama practice regularly, but if they still have strong attachment and identification with the worldly life existence of the body and mind and are over-powered by the desires of craving and aversion, and have attachment towards their action and inaction and the fruit of action, then they would still be disturbed and determined by all the perceptions of name and form, and have no peace, as the mind is in a state of restlessness being disturbed by ceaseless impurities arising and passing away in the mind due to the constant egoistic reactions towards all the perceptions of name and form, generating craving and aversion towards what it likes and dislikes, agrees and disagrees with.

It’s not about how much good health, good feelings, physical strength and flexibility that we gain from practicing yoga, but whether there are less and less impurities and restlessness in the mind. There are less anger, hatred, jealousy, greed, dissatisfaction, disappointment, pride, arrogance, ill-will, feelings of hurt, fear and worry. There is more peace and harmony. In the end, there’s only unconditional love and peace, being free from ignorance, egoism, impurities and suffering.

Traditionally, yoga asana practice is about holding a few different basic postures in stillness and at ease for a period of time, to influence and quiet the state of the mind. It’s knowing and respecting the limitation of this physical body without generating attachment, identification, craving and aversion towards the impermanent condition and ability. The skill, the stamina, the strength and flexibility will gradually develop as we practice regularly. In the beginning, when we put our body and mind in certain positions that they aren’t familiar with, there will be certain degrees of discomfort or struggle and we need to exert great effort to perform the yoga asana practice. We need to endure the discomforts and be patient and persevere in our practice until one day the practice becomes steady and we can hold each position effortlessly for a prolong period of time.

There are many different variations of yoga poses that sprung from the six basic positions. Yoga asana practice combines with the practice of pranayama serves the purpose of influencing the mind in different ways internally without using any external influence such as drugs, but using our own physical body and the breath as the tools. The purpose is mainly to balance and calm the mind so that the mind isn’t being overly elevated or depressed, while purifying the energy centres and channels, and unblocking any blockages, releasing physical, emotional and mental blockages. Instead of exerting energy outward strengthening worldly ideas, desires, attachments and identifications, yoga practice is channeling the energy inward for realization of the truth, rendering the mind calm and pure to perceive the truth as it is.

The six basic positions are:-
1.) Inversions like headstand, shoulderstand and plough.
2.) Forward bends like sitting forward bend and standing forward bend.
3.) Backward bends like fish pose, cobra pose, locust pose and bow pose.
4.) Twists like sitting twist, standing twist and lying twist.
5.) Balancing positions like crow pose, peacock pose and tree pose.
6.) Side bends like standing side bend and sitting side bend.

Yoga asana practice is very different from the commercialized yoga fitness exercise classes. It’s beyond the physical fitness training. It isn’t about training the body to be able to perform complex exercises or challenging the physical body to go beyond its limitation to become more fit, flexible and strong than what it is. We don’t have to be physically fit, strong and flexible to perform the yoga asana practice. But it’s using the physical body and the breath as tools to control our mind, to balance the mind, to purify the mind, to calm the mind, and eventually allowing the mind to be able to perceive the truth of things as they are under a pure and calm state of mind, and be free from egoism, impurities and ignorance, to go beyond the body and mind, to transcend suffering and have peace.

Yoga asana practice helps the mind to develop awareness and acceptance towards the reality that is not necessarily the way that we would like it to be. Being aware of all the impermanent changes in the physical body and the state of the mind, and allowing all the changes to be what they are – accepting the impermanent condition of the physical body and the state of the mind as it is, from moment to moment. We learn to be undetermined by what our body can do and can’t do in the present moment. We learn to let go of pre-judgment based on our past experiences. We let go attachment and identification with the thinking and belief in the mind. We stop judging, comparing and expecting. We let go attachment and expectation towards the existence and function of the body and mind. We let go craving and aversion, passionate worldly desires, anger, hatred, jealousy, greed, dissatisfaction, disappointment, fear, worry, feelings of hurt, guilt, pride and arrogance.

Though I didn’t have the rest of the money for paying the total expenses for me to go to India after I paid the 300 USD deposit payment for the course, the money came to me naturally when I needed it, without me worrying for it. But of course I had to work harder and work more to earn the money. It didn’t just fall down from the sky and land in front of me.

Yoga is not for sale, but the fees are important to support and allow other people to have the opportunity to come to the Ashram to learn about yoga. There are basic expenses that keep the Ashram running, to provide classes, food and accommodation for the students, and also to provide living and travel expenses, food and lodging for the many live-in ashram care takers and teachers as well.

I never see teaching yoga as a job, or a business, but the fees coming from the students is supporting our living and enable us to have the time and space to perform our own practice, besides paying the cost to run the yoga retreats and maintaining the yoga studio. This allows us to continue doing what we are doing and allows some other people to come to us. It doesn’t matter if one day we stop running retreats and teaching classes. I didn’t have any intention to teach yoga, or to own a yoga centre, or to recruit yoga students.

Teaching yoga doesn’t has to be in classes or retreats.

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