Amanda Ramcharitar Yoga

Over the last month I’ve had some real emotional turbulence.  I can honestly say i have ridden the roller coaster ride of emotions, i even taught a class with my pants inside out due to lack of concentration, to notice this after teaching a class over a coffee was a real shock and today makes me roar with laughter but how did i miss this little but most important detail?  

It’s quite an amazing thing to lose focus, to lose present awareness, so much so that life carries on around you and really you are just showing up for the show, but really not “being” there.  How is this possible?  And a big question is how many of us are doing it?  As we become adults it takes a huge effort to truly understand what all children know, what it mean’s to be in the here and now!  In the present moment, there is all that needs to be, it’s a great philosophical understanding.  However as we age, we seem to forget this essential fact.  We get busy with our lives, needing to be here, there and everywhere yet missing the essential magic that is only found in the present reality.  We crave spontaneity, surprise, just for this fact.  To experience a “special moment”.  We make huge productions to say we are living life, like jumping on a plane, getting to Paris to enjoy a croissant in the centre of the city.  The illusion’s are grand that we create to live up to our expectation of happiness.  However is this happiness? Or just that, a veil in which we see through so we can convince ourself we are happy?

In this last month I had the pleasure of shattering some very old illusion’s of what love is.  The good old happily ever after story, gave way to the story of life.  Sharing life with another person and indirectly not just one person but all the beings that cross our path is part of our life… To truly be awake to this reality brings with it an uncanny synchronistic immanence.   One can truly feel and see the importance of each and every conversation, the choice of road to drive down, the quantity of sugar to add to the morning cup of tea, each event affects the next.  Even when it comes to love it is a choice to act out of love, to share, to be honest.  With each moment arising, one can step up and heighten as much as one chooses or derail in unconscious behavior removing us from reality, because one way or another it is our lives, it is our truest reality, either being awake for what’s in front of us or sleeping through it in thoughts.

Bringing me back to being a Yoga teacher teaching awareness with pants inside out, what a paradox!  That day taught me how easy it is to become so lost in the world of choices, thoughts, past, present and future all rolled into one.  How idea’s and philosophies can mix and enhance as well as hinder the present moment experience, instead of steadily taking in the present and acting accordingly. However most importantly, paying attention to the details of life like putting on a pair of pants is not a waste of time.