This week I started studying Thai massage. It is really just lazy people’s yoga, for the receiver anyway. For me it’s also quite a workout as it involves pulling and lifting and squeezing the entire body down and up and around in a continuous rythm that can leave you breathless. It’s definitely important to remember to breath deeply. The breath, after all, is the source of our prana (life force). These healing arts are really quite fascinating. Maybe, as one of my good friends commented, we will actually have to rely on these traditional techniques in the near future. I think the world would be much better if we did return to the ancient arts. If we all could slow down and just relax with some herbal tea, massage each other in the evenings, practice energizing techniques like yoga or tai chi in the mornings instead of a quick coffee and speed drive to work. I suppose work will always remain. For most of us, our pilgrims or parents don’t serve us food as we pursue financially non-beneficial passions. So I may have to use massage to earn money, but I think it’s also not bad as a gift for others (and ourselves). In Ayurveda they recommend rubbing a little oil on one’s belly, the tip of the spine and feet before bed. It’s much better than any sleeping pill.
On the topic of medication, David is under the weather now. The doctors think he has gengea fever. He;s on some antibiotics but it has been luckily pretty mild. I went over and made him some healing tea with Indian Pennywort. I don’t know if that lowered the side effects but according to the doctors he should have a high fever and be bed ridden with internal bleeding and no appetite. Yet the next day he was riding around on his bike and doing yoga and only a bit tired and itchy, and VERY cranky. He’s just not much fun to be around right now and so I’ve been practicing being “ever the same” (see quote below). I think this is something I have trouble with because I’m always letting outside situations and people affect my mood. Ultimately, we should just be affected internally. We should be able to remain in a blissful state and endure even the worst hardships without complaint. I’m practicing taking deep breaths and meditating when I start to feel myself getting annoyed or upset. At the massage school, which doubles as a traditional medicine school (in Thai only) the students interviewed AIDS patients here in Chiang Mai who have been living healthily just on a vegetarian diet and meditation. No medication or anything else, and some were diagnosed twenty or more years ago. So one more point for meditation and for the inspiring words of a female spiritual leader. A little about the life of Anandamayi Ma (or Joy-Permeated Mother): she was married at thirteen, but like many mystics remained celebate. Her husband did try to seduce her, she was awe-inspiringly beautiful afterall, and his wife. But, the moment he touched her he was suddenly struck as if by lightining. He transformed at that moment and knent before her pleading for forgiveness. He eventally became her first and most devoted disciple and took initiation from her, accepting her as his guru and served her with the greatest respect and admiration. As he should, of course. So this answers the question, women are just as powerful spiritually as men and can take a dominant instead of always subsidiary role, even in a male-dominated country like India.
Besides inspiring devotion in men, she was known for her yogic powers and was able to read people’s thoughts from afar, drastically alter her body and cure the sick. She spent continuous days in Samadhi perform asanas sporadically and possessed a divine wisdom even though she was illiterate. If only I could cure the sick, maybe they would pay me a little respect.
“My consciousness has never associated itself with this temporary body. Before I came on this earth, Father, I was the same. As a little girl, I was the same. I grew into womanhood, but still I was the same. When the family in which I had been born made arrangements to have this body married, I was the same… And, Father, in front of you now, I am the same. Ever afterward, though the dance of creation change around me in the hall of eternity, I shall be the same.” -Anandamayi Ma (the great Indian mother/ mystic) to Sri Yogananda.
