Bad News
I have just received a personal shock - maybe one could it even call it an ego shock. Now the story is fairly irrelevant, but I truly feel gutted. Having taught Kundalini Yoga in a little touristy village in India for the past three years and claiming quite accurately that I am the only person doing this south of Delhi (and you know how big India is,) another teacher has pitched up just a three minute walk away from my patch.
OK so maybe not a big news story, but when I found out I felt physically sick, undermined, literally gutted…On some level I feel that teaching Kundalini Yoga is my ‘thing,' my territory, and also the Kundalini community are supposed to be a community, and maybe the new teacher could have come and said, "hello."
Feeling Undervalued
So this may all sound like 'sour ghee' and I admit that I was also angry with myself for feeling so upset. I suddenly felt undervalued as I had taught at the same venue the year before and my friends that ran the place had not had the grace to let me know about the pending arrival of a new teacher.
I live in a small village community where I imagine we can all communicate honestly and authentically, but it doesn't always happen like that and it gives me a little shock each time the communication breaks down.
I see stories being played out all around of miscommunication. I guess living in a village where everyone often knows each other's business can also create a big stew of miscommunication, but I had hoped that opting out of the 9-5 in London, and being in a heart place with healers galore would bring out the higher consciousness of me and my neighbours. Truth is as much as I aiming to live in radiance and grace, my ‘buttons' still get pushed.
Moving Forwards
But what have I learnt from all this? Firstly I have learnt that I need to drop my illusion that living in a community equates to good communication all the time - after all, even in communes and ashrams, I have heard, guru and disciples fall out with each other.
After a sleepless night and a restless morning I trotted three minutes down the road to the centre where this new teacher is in residence and had a chat to my friends that ran the place. I went there, intending to be graceful. I told them I was shocked, I hinted that they could have called and let me know… I tried to act with awareness. And I believe that's all you can ask of yourself.
Consciously I didn't react, I didn't offload my anger or ego onto them. As horrible and solar plexus wrenching as the news of the new teacher is for me, I know that today is a brand new day to try and live authentically.
Competing with Your Self
In the light of this new day I see that the 'competition' is not with this other teacher but with myself. Competition is always with your self. We tend to compare ourselves with others all the time and we create an internal struggle with ourselves because of it.
As Osho says, "comparison brings inferiority and superiority. When you don't compare, all inferiority, superiority, disappear. Then you are, you are simply there. Who ever told you that the bamboo is more beautiful than the oak, or the oak more valuable than the bamboo?"
Often we are brought up to compare, contrast and compete. It can be part of our social upbringing and deep at the heart of the family when siblings are compared all the time.
But what of this competition with the Self? Well, this week I also embarked on another journey. I started a new tattoo and I was feeling very excited about it. I have other tattoos done by machine, but this one is by hand and wow what a journey… so much pain and then so much shame.
I felt I should be able to sit there and take it, I felt very un'yogi' like that I could not meditate on the experience, that I could not go beyond the pain.
With previous tattoos I had felt empowered, but where was the empowerment now? I was comparing my other tattoos, my other situations with this one and it was unraveling me. Later I realised that I might feel that competition with myself can help me grow, or that it will push me forward, but it can also weaken me. I believe in sitting in a place of acceptance of all that is.
Breaking Patterns
So as a teacher I have been on a sharp learning curve this week… the universe dealt me a few cards to challenge my perceptions of myself and my ways of being in the world.
On the external there is always competition… there will always be another yoga teacher, another person in the class, another tattooist, another similiar experience and we have to accept that as humans we will often compare ourselves and often see ourselves in competition with others.
With the bumpy emotional rickshaw ride I've been on this week, I've arrived at a new place of awareness. There could be five new teachers in town, but we would all have our own unique energy, our own power. We may all be walking a similar path, but we each take different steps. When it comes to assessing my own value, I remember that all thoughts are coming from my mind.
Osho says "The sound of the cuckoo is needed as much as the Buddha; the world will be less rich if this cuckoo disappears. Just look around, all is needed. It is organic unity; nobody is higher, nobody is lower. Everybody is incomparably unique."
Feeling gutted? Come back to your true essence and try this meditation…
Sit in a meditative posture of your choice. Close your eyes and meditate on your purity, your honesty and your higher self. Meditate in complete silence for seven minutes.
Yogi Bhajan says "How many times a day do you meditate on yourself as a yogi? How many times in your whole life have you meditated upon yourself as an angel, that your being is absolutely pure, and that you are here by the Will of God and not by your own individual will?"