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Yoga In India
February 2010

When asked to talk about my recent trip to India with Karen Hamdon & Lawrence Dombro, I pause.  How to gather my thoughts on a topic that I could surely describe for hours?  All of the incredible things we saw, smelled, and tasted, both delighting and expanding the horizon of my senses.

I suppose for any Westerner traveling to India, whether for the first time or the fiftieth, every trip seems like the first.  One can’t help but experience sheer wonder and amazement.  The culture and country are so dramatically different than my own.  And yet for me on a maiden voyage, my arrival felt like coming home.
 
The journey to India is a journey Inward.  India is spiritual.  People seek The Divine—every day, every hour, every breath.  The material excess through which we seek peace and happiness in the western world falls away to irrelevance and even nonexistence.  Life there can become very simple.  And so it became for me, and the twelve others in our group during our two weeks there.

Our home base was a Guest House in Rishikesh.  A quiet paradise nestled under a canopy of mango and other luscious trees, on the banks of the River Ganga.  Let me begin by addressing the sacred Ganga.  I traveled to India without any preconceived notions or expectations of what I might find.  That is, with the exception of the River Ganga.  I had heard of its pollution—that it would be dangerous to stick even a toe in the water!  But, north of Rishikesh in the rainforest where the Ganga spills out of the Himalayas, the river was clean.  And clear.  And beautiful.  A color whose name I don’t know, except to say that I see it in an Opal.  The beautiful Ganga: a river representing Life, as it flows towards the Infinite.
 
Every morning began with a gathering to practice Meditation and Pranayama.  Afterwards, we ate a beautiful, fresh breakfast each morning prepared by Ganesh and the other gentle, kind souls of the Rainforest.  We were the guests of Steve and Tripti, not to mention the families of monkeys and birds playing above us in the trees and little Nasarg.  Somewhere in the background of our morning ritual, a conch would blow from a nearby ashram to kiss the world Good Morning.  After breakfast we would venture off as a group. Each day brought a unique adventure.  We went to ashrams for asana and meditation practice, visited temple, and even spent a day in an Ayurvedic Hospital, learning about Ayurveda and having several luxurious treatments!

We spent many afternoons at the Sivananada Ashram, sitting with Swami Muktananda, a gentle giant.  He taught us about the principles of I AM, and I often felt that my mind would never grasp the vastness of what it all means.  Yet his presence and the spirit that surrounded me in his Satsangs left me at-ease. We also had the good fortune of spending some time in the Anand Prakash Ashram with Yogi Vishviketu and at the Swami Rama Sadhaka Gama.  At these last two ashrams we attended yoga classes, shared meals, participated in pujas (prayer rituals), and the list goes on...

Our days were the perfect blend of planned and free time, during which we swirled through the day, painting each moment with our own experience and expression.  Every day, a new gift, a new lesson.  I taste and savor them still.
Although each day seemed so full, there was plenty of opportunity for reflection, either alone or with friends.  I am so grateful to Karen and Lawrence for planning our trip so thoughtfully, and for gently guiding each of us to discover so much!
India is a beautiful, spiritual, humbling country.  The feelings one develops while there leave deep and inspiring impressions.  Feelings I will hold onto until I travel there one day, again.

Logan Milliken
Arizona

Yoga in India
February 2008

Sixteen people were about to embark on a trip of a lifetime.  The culture shock that is inevitable travelling from Canada to India was overshadowed by the excitement we felt. A yoga retreat to India, where we would stay at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Delhi and then on to Rishikesh, the holy town in northern India where yoga has been practised for centuries was a dream that most of us had long awaited.

During our time in India we couldn’t help but experience the contrasts of a country where the ancient and the modern are found side by side and we found ourselves accepting of everything that was offered in this country of extremes. The sense of peace inside the walls of the Ashram was in stark contrast to the craziness that is Delhi, a city of fourteen million people.

We found a quiet and comfortable existence in our accommodation in Rishikesh, at the Rain Forest Guest House.  This serene sanctuary is nestled on a mountainside on the banks of the sacred Ganga.  Here we found solitude with the waterfalls, Mother Ganga, and rain forest as a backdrop to our heaven on earth.

Our time in Rishikesh, which sits at the foothills of the Himalayas, was filled with a variety of activities, each day a little different from the next.  Swami Muktananda of the Sivananda Ashram, generously spent time with us at the guest house and the Ashram and then took us on a very special visit to the shrine of Ananda Mai Ma in Deradun.  At his satsangs we experienced wonderful teachings that took us deeper.

On this wonder-ful journey our group experienced meditation, asana practice, satsang, shrines, temples, meditation caves, puja and ayurvedic treatments.   We met lovely people all coexisting peacefully with their spiritual beliefs and their quest to live a simple life.  It was an opportunity to deepen our own spiritual experience of Yoga.

 

A Zen Parable

A Zen monk is walking in the wilderness. He comes around a corner and encounters a vicious tiger.

The monk stops and listens to his inner voice. What does it tell him? It tells him to run for his life. This tiger is hungry. So the monk takes off and the tiger gives chase.

The monk comes to the edge of a cliff. The tiger is almost upon him. Having no choice, the monk grabs a vine with both hands and starts climbing down the face of the cliff.

Halfway down the cliff, the monk looks up and sees the tiger at the top, baring his teeth and fangs, clawing the earth. The monk looks down and sees another tiger at the bottom, waiting for his arrival, roaring and gnashing his teeth. The monk is caught between the two, dangling in mid air on the vine, halfway down the cliff.

As if the monk didn’t have enough to worry about, two rats, one white and one black, show up on the vine above him and start to chew on the vine. He waves his arms trying to shoo them away but they keep coming back.

At that moment the monk notices a plump, ripe, juicy wild strawberry growing out of the side of the cliff, not far away from him. Holding onto the vine with one hand, he reaches out with the other hand and plucks the strawberry.

The monk puts the strawberry in his mouth - Ahhhh! What a delicious, scrumptious strawberry!

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Selected Quotations
from the Living in the Moment Retreat

“Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.”
- Goethe

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.”
- Shunryu Suzuki

“Draw bamboos for ten years, become a bamboo, then forget all about bamboos when you are drawing.”
- Georges Duthuit

“Soon the child’s clear eye is clouded over by ideas and opinions, preconceptions and abstractions. Simple free being becomes encrusted with the burdensome armor of the ego. Not until years later does an instinct come that a vital sense of mystery has been withdrawn. The sun glints through the pines and the heart is pierced in a moment of beauty and strange pain, like a memory of paradise. After that day…..we become seekers.”
- Peter Matthiessen

“Knock, and it will open the door.
Vanish, and it will make you shine like the sun.
Fall, and it will raise you to the heavens.
Become nothing, and it will turn you into everything.”
- Rumi

“Even a good thing isn’t as good as no-thing.”
- Zen saying

 

SYMPTOMS OF INNER PEACE

Watch for signs of Peace.  The hearts of a great many have already been exposed to it and it seems likely that we could find our society experiencing it in epidemic proportions.  Some signs and symptoms of inner peace:

If you have all or even most of the above symptoms, please be advised that your condition may be too far advanced to turn back.  If you are exposed to anyone exhibiting several of these symptoms, remain exposed at your own risk - this condition of Inner Peace is likely well into its infectious stage!

Taken from: The Joyful Child

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Yoga Master – Friedel Khattab

Jean Couch says that a teacher is “one to scream and yell at you, to cajole you, to direct you, to encourage you, to teach you yoga. One who would work you when you baby yourself, one to hold you back when you push too hard. One that has so much love and respect for you and for yoga that by his or her talent he or she helps you discover yourself.” (Yoga Book , 1979)

Such a teacher is among us here in Western Canada . She is a Master Teacher responsible for introducing Yoga to Alberta and drawing many of us to Yoga . The Yoga Association of Alberta recently honoured Friedel Khattab on the occasion of her 80 th birthday. Friedel offered a morning of Yoga by the Masters including Yogi Bajan of the Kundalini System, Shiyam Sundar Goswami, Swami Sivananda, Masahiro Oki of the Okido System and others. Her invigorating session was attended by many of her devoted students and teachers followed by a potluck luncheon and a reflection of her life accomplishments by Mary LeBlanc CYT .

Friedel was born in Germany and trained as a physiotherapist during the Second World War. This training provided a rich and solid backdrop for her love of yoga. She moved to Egypt where she and her husband had 3 children and she established the first school of yoga in Cairo . Friedel taught Yoga in Egypt for 10 years before leaving for England and eventually immigrating to Canada in 1967. She established the Khattab School of Yoga in Edmonton in 1968 and is a co-founder of the Yoga Association of Alberta.

Her own training took place as far away as India and Japan with several of the well-known names in the yoga world. Among them were Yogi Sabramaniam(Traditional Hatha Yoga), Masahiro Oki(Okido Yoga), Swami Krishnananda(Mantric Training), and the Venerable Trungpa Rinpoche(Meditation). She generously endeavored to share this wisdom with the West, inviting such teachers as Father Joe Perrera, Swami Kuvalananda, and others to provide training to both teachers and students of yoga.

Friedel has devoted her life to developing a deep understanding of the science of yoga and its benefits to the mind, body and spirit. She became well versed in yoga to benefit those suffering from asthma, migraines, spinal injuries and diabetes. In Egypt she taught meditation techniques to soldiers suffering from shell shock and watched them make miraculous recoveries. Closer to home she developed yoga courses designed specifically for women, business executives, athletes and seniors in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. Friedel also taught yoga to the visually challenged and co-wrote a yoga manual in Braille.

After 55 years of teaching yoga this Master decided to “retire” at the age of 75 but with a little cajoling and persistence, she was persuaded to come out of her brief retirement to take on yet one more group of students eager to become teachers under her tutelage. We were 5 of the hundreds of teachers she has prepared to go out into the world to share what we have come to know as the gift of yoga. In doing this, she has guided many of us toward finding ourselves. Of course, she would say “There is no magic about it. It’s very simple, through yoga you revitalize the spine, strengthen the muscles, rejuvenate the whole body and give yourself a second chance at life. It’s systematic; one thing leads very gradually to another.” And this is Friedel: practical, intelligent, generous, positive and self-assured.

Today, at 80 years young, her expertise is in high demand. She offers specialized workshops and teacher training in Okido Yoga , Kundalini Yoga , Restorative Yoga , Mudra and Pranayama and more. It is the Mudra and Pranayama that I love the most. Her vast knowledge and proficiency in these areas is overwhelming and a real offering to all her students. As she says, the most important stage is to first of all learn how to breathe correctly, if you breathe correctly, the stretching doesn’t hurt and all asanas are possible.” Well, I am still working on the breathing and waiting for the day when all postures are possible but one thing is for sure, I’m getting closer with every full inhalation and complete exhalation.

Friedel has created quite a legacy in the yoga world of Alberta and internationally. She has helped create schools of yoga as far away as Czechoslovakia , and is the teacher of thousands of students here in Edmonton . Friedel takes her responsibilities as Master Teacher very seriously and for this I am eternally grateful. I can call anytime with questions about class plans or a specific physical ailment of one of my students and she is always ready to support and assist me. I have often heard her reassuring voice at the other end of the phone say, “bring the student to my home, let me see how she moves and then we can determine what she needs.” Now that is heartfelt mentorship!

Perhaps one of her most important accomplishments is that she has created a lineage, and they say that the teachings are best transmitted through a lineage. Friedel’s daughter Lillian Khattab has followed in her footsteps as a gifted teacher. Although she has developed a style that is uniquely hers, it is easy to see that she has been in the hands of a Master since childhood and through Lillian the yoga world will continue to reap the benefits of Friedel’s teachings for many years.

Published in the Yoga Bridge March 2004
Yoga Association of Alberta
Written by Karen Hamdon CYT

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Yoga in India
November 2006

Our trip to India was magical indeed!  Eleven of us traveled to the land where it all began and we were able to study with teachers who were well versed in asana, pranayama, meditation, ayerveda and more!  

Our home away from home at Aman Shanti Nilayam just outside of Hyderabad provided the perfect oasis of peace.  Staff at the centre were very warm and welcoming and we are grateful to them for their flexibility and hospitality. Our accommodations were very basic, but our meals were a culinary delight every day!  The space we claimed as our practise room was perfect, with a walk out balcony that overlooked the lush grounds and the interfaith hall.

There were days for shopping and sight seeing and days where we moved deeply into our practise of yoga.  Taba and Marguerite our compassionate teachers from Mumbai came to spend 2 days with us and share their passion and expertise in the fields of Yoga Nidra and Pranic Healing - 5 Elements.  This was a highlight for many of us! We hope to bring them to Canada so stay tuned for details of this vision as it unfolds.

After 9 glorious days in Hyderabad we traveled north to Delhi and stayed at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram which was very special.  We were able to meet Abha  at her Jagiri Centre for Women and over a tasty Indian meal we learned of the important work that they do with and for women. And then, to top off an already perfect journey, Taj Mahal was the last item on our itinerary. 

A wonderful group of yogini’s and yogis returned to Canada with a deeper knowledge and experience of YOGA and a many special memories.

Our intention is to travel once again to the heart of Yoga in February 2008………….

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THE GUEST HOUSE

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.