Guruji - from skeptic to devoted [EN]

​Ever since I started to understand a bit about the complexity of the mind and into thoughts about what keeps us from following life’s simple purpose of enjoying and thriving. Into thoughts about perception and how we fill the space between us and the object we interact with, and that because of this we lose the truth of these. I started to, as you can see from these last lines of text, to feel as if lost and overwhelmed with knowledge and excitement. With this, one loses his centre, his root cause and initial motive of when it started this journey into the unknown of the within. One starts to lose a practical sense and gets trapped within other layers of minds complex. It’s true the very common saying of “there is always more to learn”. One gets more knowledge but it doesn’t get anymore wiser. Wiser in the practical sense. In life.
 
Ever since penetrating into the dense jungle of the mind, I felt like I should be cautious to not get trapped within this jungle. I felt I should find a guide to the within, a lighthouse in the fog, more than a teacher, a “darkness removal”, a guru. Someone who knows, like a guide, the ways in and out, that knows where the challenges are and lets you go through, someone I’ll trust when says “Go!”. After all the journey towards within is a personal journey. Books are good but they won’t see you move on. In this sense I needed something/someone that would help me hold the root cause of why I started the journey within, that is to enjoy life and thrive. Not career success or fame, only the pure contentment in self-realization, whether it takes me through any other successes or not, but always showing me my conditions and revealing my potential. I always thought that whoever (& whatever) would be to me this strong light in the fog would have to be a nature connected and inspired, centered, rooted, a good family person and a love full being. This something and someone, I felt from beginning, would make sense to be with this traces. It turns out that I found first the “something”, although of course indirectly through the someone, the Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga practice. That it is also nature connected, by allowing us to understand the natural flow of the body dynamics and the breath cycles; also rooted and centered, by different levels of concentration (dharana) through the practice of drishtis and sequencing of postures (asana), keeping mind busy and attentive. I heard once Ashtanga Yoga is the guru.
 
But I am writing this in honor of the “someone”. The phenomenal love full beings that have kept alive throughout generations “something” (Ashtanga Yoga) for the most necessary purpose of showing the conditions and revealing the potential. When I started to practice Ashtanga Yoga my teacher made me aware of parampara (the passing down of knowledge from one to another, lineage) and let me know the origins. Krishnamacharya was guru to K. Pathabi Jois; Pathabi Jois was guru to Sharath Jois and today Sharath Jois is the guru to the generations of today, including me. Yes today, after finishing another season with Sharathji in Mysore, am honored and feel lucky to say that I found my guru and it is in his honor that I write this. Sharathji is the contemporary guru I look up to. Centered and nature loving, all gazing, self-aware and disciplined being. And dare to say more I do not. From the first conferences I ever watched, Sharath used nature analogies to illustrate the eight limbed path of Patanjali (Ashtanga Yoga). The first months tested me and brought me ( and all many other students) to my unaware potential. I became more productive, self-aware and more able to make myself happy. Ever watchful Sharathji teaches without lecturing much and with allot of will power. Observing how yoga is arising within us Sharathji guides us through the methodic and systematic asana practice, seeking for yoga outer manifestations in body of organism detoxification and nervous cleanse. Sharathji has experienced allot regarding the teaching of Yoga, having assisted and practiced by the side of his guru continuously for 25 years. His experience has led him to know the many different types of bodies and mentalities that this world can carry, and also having witnessed countless of these diverse beings going through the transformational yoga experience. When I came to him this was evident. He might not know your name but he knows how much you can go and how much you are not letting yourself go. Will power is everything. And one can change their environment and surrounding to fit their own best interests, I’ve learned. And will power is tapas, the austerity and effort. And this is for sure in Ashtanga. As long as you practice will power determinedly,  accordingly to your possibilities, everything will come. So it says “Practice, practice, practice and all is coming”.
 
“If you feel the air is too polluted, plant trees”. There are at least two things I feel are so honorable of Sharathji. First is the calling for nature he is forwarding to us . “Go to nature”. The times we spend today in social media and with technology has taken us further distant to our natural habitat. Nature is as good as a doctor or a teacher, and Sharathji makes an effort in not letting us underestimate its power and influence. Modern cultures have grown distant and fearful towards nature for no apparent reason, only habit. The second thing is the love for family and parenthood. Throughout the centuries Yoga was a practice that led followers undergo into deep austerities and exile from society and family life, to reach their highest potential. The love for family and parenthood has so much to do with yoga, as for the practice of benevolence and sharing. Yoga practices were 100 years ago scholar studied or practiced by exile man. Today’s Ashtanga Yoga practice, from decades of research, has formulated a practice thoughtful and still austere for a family person, man or woman, to fulfill their potential. Here the love for family is a side-to-side practice with yoga practice at its best to unleash us from our biggest tremors and open a way for future generations of peace.
 
A guru is like a bridge, like a light way path, a mediator into the heart. The way might be hard but at least we have a light. One other thing I consider important is the teaching of contentment. The most important teaching on Yoga. “Even when in backbend you should be, ah! So good, and not stop breathing or have a panic attack”, said Sharath.
 
My guru has the 3 most important spirits: spirit of the vast, spirit of contentment and spirit of parenthood (benevolence), something I seek from the beginning, and it helps to grow stable within me these three spirits.
 
I write to honor my feeling of gratitude towards my guru Sharathji. The way I see him matters more to me than the way he sees me; if I see him as a guru then I am a seeker. I thank Sharathji and intend to make the knowledge received applied into my life. I remember the source of knowledge.
 
OM sri gurubhyo namah hari OM
OM saha na vavatu saha nau bhunaktu
saha viryam sahavavahai
tejas vinavadhita mastu
ma vidvishavahai
OM SHANTI SHANTI SHANTIH
 
1.12.2016
Sérgio Ramos