Ode to Cafes

Ah, the marvellous world of cafes.

A cafe is not merely a place to hastily gulp down a cup of coffee before running off again.  I have spent many an hour sitting in a cafe, and the drink is only a very small part of the whole experience.

A good, comfortable cafe can be a place, as someone once said, for people who enjoy solitude in the company of others.  Or it can be a venue for great conversation with good friends, with lovers, with would-be lovers, with family, with people you have known all your life, and people you have only just met that very moment.  It can be a reward for a difficult task well done, as well as a place to relax in-between appointments.  To the travelling yoga teacher, it often serves as an office, and somewhere to take a break after one class, before the next begins. 

For me, more than anything else, it is a place where I can sit and watch the world go by, either alone or in the company of a loved one.  And by the world, I certainly don't just mean the outside world, but also the internal world of the mind.  And more often than might be expected, fascinating encounters can take place.  Two instantly spring to mind, one rather dramatic, the other a great deal more innocuous, yet striking nonetheless.

A few months ago, I had an hour spare in the middle of a very full day, and spent the time sitting in an exceedingly comfortable sofa, cup of tea in hand, and eyes gently glazed over as I disappeared from the world of doing for a while.  On a pair of sofas near me, a middle-aged lady was enjoying a quiet moment to herself, reading a newspaper, and nursing her own steaming beverage, when in lumbered a wild-eyed, straggly-haired and somewhat crazed man who had obviously not felt the pleasure of a hot shower upon his fetid skin for a very long time.  He looked at the lady and asked her, in a voice akin to the bark of an awkward dog, if he could sit down in the vacant seat opposite her.  She kindly offered the man the seat and continued reading.

Or perhaps more accurately, did her best to continue to read while she was being accosted with muttering directed at her by her unexpected companion.  Before long, he was ranting, talking about life and its privations, how tough everything was, and how God would come down from heaven and smite everyone who'd ever caused him harm.  His words were a great deal more descriptive than my mild rendering, but this is not really the forum for such fruity language.  His hapless victim eventually asked him if he minded being quiet, at which he looked surprised and then remorseful, and gifted us all with a few minutes of silence.

However, within a few minutes he began again, ranting and raving with even greater vehemence than before his little break, and his unwilling companion got up and took herself to a different seat.

I became the next target.

I was sitting with my cup of tea in hand, looking out the window, and just keeping my gaze forward, but suddenly, from a few metres across the room, found a constant stream of expletives and curses thrown at me.  Here's a little sample:

"And they s**t on me, p**s on me, throw me down and tear out my hair, laughin' at me!  Ah, but Satan will rise up and f***ing kill them all!!  God will destroy them!!!" <cue indeterminate grunting noises of satisfaction at this imagined outcome>

A few other cafe denizens looked over at me to see what I would do, and I smiled at them resignedly.  Not a great deal to be done, really, other than just endure, and see where this would go.  Well, the conclusion to this snippet of life in a London cafe surprised me.

I was just preparing to move from my state of rest when I noticed that he had finally become silent.  I looked over at him, and we locked eyes, and in that instant, all madness, all the craziness that had been there ever since I first saw him, drained out of his eyes, and the most extraordinarily warmth radiated from him.  He looked right into my eyes, and said,

"Good luck, mate.  I mean that."

And I found myself unexpectedly touched, and responded with a heart-felt thank you.  As I stood up, he smiled gently at me, turned away, and his eyes began to glaze over again.

The second little anecdote is far shorter and far less dramatic, but nonetheless this was a thought-provoking encounter.  It happened this morning, after my first student of the day.

I was sitting in the very same cafe, just drinking some hot water (tea had been drunk...), enjoying the sun shining down and the peace of nothing to be done for a while.  It was nearly time to leave, and I had just put down my copy of the Srimad Bhagavatam I had been reading, when a rather corpulent fellow sat opposite me.  He smiled at me happily and pointing to my book, said, "That looks heavy!"

Thus began a conversation about many things yoga and India.  It turns out this unlikely old man knew a great deal about yoga, and had visited India many times, getting into a great deal of meditation along the way.  He knew a lot of the yoga teachers I have studied with and just rattled off a list of well-known teachers of ashtanga vinyasa yoga.  He knew all about Mysore.  He divulged that he was off to India again for a few days, and when I asked him what he was going to be doing there, he answered that he will be watching the stars, and simply lying about doing very little.

The conversation moved on to the topic of fear, and of conspiracies, and the net of beaurocracy the modern world has become, and he shared a story of a time when he was literally dragged in front of a high-ranking Indian official and accused of espionage.

Eventually, it was time for me to go, and we parted, most likely never to speak again.

Yes, this was far from an earth-shattering occasion.  However, it was a moment of connection with another human being, a human being I had no reason to speak to other than the fact that he happened to sit opposite me.  I love these moments, these unexpected moments of connection.  I've made friends in the past while just sitting with tea and a book, or just tea and myself, friends that I've kept up with to this day. 

A cafe can be a wonderful venue for a calm exploration of life.  Try it sometime.  Just sit there, give yourself a little time, and be.  Read a little if you like, but make sure you also take some time simply to sit.  Observe people around you, people walking past, but most of all observe your own reactions.  Are you judging the old man sitting opposite you?  Do you feel uneasy just sitting and being?  Do you feel guilty for actually doing nothing for a bit?

Trust me on this: do nothing, create a vacuum, and the vacuum will be filled.  An open heart and mind will bring in all sorts of weird and wondrous experiences, and being open to these experiences can bring all kinds of magic into your life.  Don't be afraid if your mind goes down all manner of bizarre paths.  It's just a little spring clean of your mind, nothing more, nothing less.

Sitting in a cafe, doing nothing other than observing, is one of the best preparations for meditation that I know.  It's non-threatening, there's no pressure, and no formal practice is involved in any way.  You will start to get to know your mind, and you will allow life to land ideas, and all manner of experiences, into your lap.

And you get to enjoy a lovely cup of tea or coffee, and possibly even a freshly baked slice of cake in the process.  What could be better?

Fear

Fear.

Oh yes, this is a big one.

Fear paralyses.  It contracts us, makes us smaller, and can make us unable to move forward.  It can lead us to rush into decisions that are totally against what's best for us and the people we care about.  It can actually cause the events we most worry about to take place.  It tears us from an open, receptive, loving place, and thrusts us into a nightmarish world of worry, doubt and an inability to think or act clearly.  When fear is present, compassion is nowhere to be seen, love has been forgotten about, and beauty and grace cannot exist.

So where does it come from?  Why do we all insist on falling back into fear, when we know very well that it is utterly unhelpful at best and completely destructive at worst?  And is there a way to remove fear from our lives?

First of all, let's not completely discount fear.  It can be very useful at times.  If we are in a dark alley and see a glint of moonlight on metal while smelling dank body odour, in all likelihood somebody is lurking in there with a knife and somewhat less than honourable intentions.  Fear spurs us on to act, whether it's to turn back and run, or confront the miscreant before we are overrun.  Fight or flight, that often taught evolutionary choice of reactions when faced with a threatening situation, comes from fear, and in this way it is useful.

Having said that, I would argue that even in the case of the knife-wielding adversary hidden in the alley, fear still causes more harm than good.  Imagine the same situation, where you clearly notice the telltale signs of somebody hiding, waiting to ambush whoever crosses their path, without a fear reaction.  You can still notice the same problem you are confronted with, but without fear are more able to react in the best possible way.  Fear breeds tension, and just like the brittle stick snaps easily, so do we under its pressure. Conversely, if we are able to be more like the bamboo, that is flexible under pressure, we are far more likely to take the correct, appropriate action.  Fear blinds us, whereas clear, relaxed reactions can only come from eyes wide open.  If we can't see the situation properly, how are we to act clearly?

This is an extreme example.  However, the principles here can be applied in every situation which has a potential for fear.  All of us have our own pet fears, fears we have carried around with us for a long time, and will continue to run our lives unless we do something about them.  Perhaps we fear that we will run out of money.  That our partner will cheat on us or leave us.  That we will contract a terminal disease.

These are big fears, and are very common.  However, countless other fears plague us constantly.  The schoolboy is afraid of failing his examinations.  The gymnast is afraid of missing that bar on her final jump.  Flights are booked and holiday is planned, but will the visas work out, and what if they don't?

Sure, very few of us spend our lives in a constant state of fear-caused paralysis, but we do all to some extent face fear every day.  No matter how minor, fear will surface.  Our choice is whether or not we are going to feed it.

Fear is a creation of the mind.  And through the practice of yoga, including meditation, we come to know our mind very well, and begin to assert a little more discernment on what thoughts we choose to entertain.  We always have a choice, a choice between fear and love, and this is far from just a cute little phrase.  This is a practical philosophy that can change everything, if we let it.

A personal example: I was sitting in a public place yesterday, and suddenly some rather old fears came along and began to lead me down all sorts of hideous paths.  I started to feel my heart contract and my belly cramp up.  My breath became shorter and I lost my previous sense of peace and ease, all thanks to that very unhelpful internal dialogue phrase, "What if this happens?"  I admit freely that this fear ruled me for a while.  I started worrying that it wasn't fear, but intuition telling me something was happening.  My mind travelled down dark, unpleasant, muddy paths, paths strewn with shards of glass, and I wasn't coping too well.

However, my yoga practice kicked in after not too long a time.  I just sat back and watched this dialogue unfold, watched the worries carry on their conversation, and stopped getting involved in them.  I had a sense of sinking back into myself, of all the frenzy that had consumed me a few moments earlier dissipating and dissolving.  I relaxed, and became calm, and found myself smiling idiotically, undoubtedly looking like a crazy person.  I simply continued to relax and enjoy the sensation of calm, of peace, and whenever these fears came along, I just watched them come, then watched them go.

And that is the key to dealing with fear.  Non-engagement.  Whenever a fear comes along, don't get involved.  Let it do its thing, let it rant, let it rave, let it scream and shout.  Just sit there and watch, and wait.  It will go, it will disappear, if you let it.

This isn't always easy, and it requires real awareness and mindfulness of the thoughts that come along.  Fears are much easier to dissolve if we catch them the moment they arise, when they are still small and relatively unformed.  The longer we allow them to run amok, the bigger they grow, and the more difficult they are to let go of.  This takes practice, this instant awareness of a fear arising and the subsequent removal of food for it, causing it to waste away.

There are many other ways of dealing with fear.  Another useful trick, using an internal dialogue with ourselves, or even on paper if it helps you, is to take the fear to its ultimate conclusion.  Ask yourself what would happen if this all took place, if this fear was real and actually happened.  At first, you may rail against this idea, but do go with it.  What if this awful thing you are imagining really happens?  Yes, the future you envisage may not be ideal, but inevitably, it's ok.  Life goes on.  Or if it doesn't, if you really do have that terminal illness, it's ok too.  It's the nature of life to end.

Ultimately, all fears spring from things not going how we want them to go.  Yet are we all so wise that we know exactly what's best for us all the time, in every moment?  Who knows where this situation will lead you?  Yes, your partner leaves you, which feels like the end of the world, but who knows what's just around the corner?  Someone else far more suitable may come along, someone far more suited to your life journey.  Yes, you lose your job and run out of money.  Who knows what this will galvanise you to do?  Again and again, in all walks of life, somebody loses their job only to find something a whole lot more fulfilling, better paid, and infinitely more fun.

We fear because we live under the sway of the fundamental illusion that anything belongs to us.

Big statement, I know.

You see, we like holding on to something, and calling it ours.  We painstakingly build up our lives in a certain way, and the thought of any part of it crumbling feels like our death.  Yet what do we ever truly own?  Let's look at money.  Pieces of paper and metal that get passed around and around, or appears as numbers on a bank statement.  Even if the bank doesn't fold, you don't get robbed, or you don't spend it all at the casino, still money is transitory.  You wouldn't just take a wad of notes and lock them in a safe under your bed, never touching them again, simply because they are yours!

Let's look at relationships.  Even if the wonderful holy grail of relationship is realised, and you build a life-long bond, staying together "for ever", it's not really for ever, is it?  Eventually, one of you will die.

Nothing is forever.  Absolutely nothing that changes, which is everything we can see and perceive with our five senses, stays around.  It grows, lives for a while, decays, and then dies.  Nothing is forever, except for that one part of you, correction, the real you, that is not affected by anything, that does not change, that does not decay, that does not die.

Patanjali, in his Yoga Sutras, calls this the seer, that which sees.  No matter what happens, it cannot be affected by anything in any way.  Our task, through the practice of yoga, is to allow the fluctuations of the mind to cease.  Thus the seer abides in her true nature.  Or his true nature.  In truth, the seer has no gender!  However, things could get complicated if I don't use his or her on occasion...  Essentially, you abide in your true nature, meaning who you really are.  And that being is untouchable, and roars with the fire of a thousand suns and the water of a million oceans.

That's a topic for another day.  For now, keep practicing.  Keep watching those fears arise, and keep letting them do their thing without getting involved.  When a fear does come along, great!  It's a chance to practice this stuff!

This is not easy.  But let me assure you, it is one of the most worthwhile things you can ever do.  Sit and watch those fears, let them run mad, but don't get involved, and feel the love blossom from your heart instead.

Let the sun that is your innermost being shine its rays upon every last, dark corner of your heart. 

Deep-fried mars bars, anger and other toxins

It's time to talk about something that's often misunderstood, which is the topic of toxins.  We are often told by excited teachers and fellow students that the asana (physical posture) practice, especially a particularly sweaty one, will cleanse the body and remove all toxins.  All that beer we had last night, that big hunk of fried chicken with extra greasy chips on the side, the packet of cigarettes that followed the beer, and the communal round of cocaine we consumed with eager relish after the cigarettes will all magically disappear from our body through asana practice.

Ok.  I'm being a little extreme here.  Well.  To most readers of this blog at least.  However, the modern yoga world is rife with this notion.

The good news first: there is definitely truth in this idea.  Yes, through asana practice, especially vigorous forms, we do cleanse the body to a large extent.  Yes, if you have a bit of a hangover and you practice anyway, as long as you've also drunk plenty of non-alcoholic fluids you will almost certainly feel a whole lot better.  I can attest to this from personal experience many, many years ago (certainly a night and a morning to remember... or perhaps forget).  Through the acts of sweating profusely and churning and squeezing the internal organs in the fire of correct and effective practice, we will most definitely help some of those toxins and impurities leave our system.

This does not, unfortunately, mean that we should eat and drink whatever we want at all times.  It still isn't good for us!  The mere act of a regular asana practice is a great aid to health and life in general, but it does not act as an automatic counterbalance to all and any miseries we put our bodies through.  If we drink too much, our organs are still going to suffer, no matter how much we practice.  If we over-eat or eat substances we know our system doesn't react well to, no amount of asana practice is going to fix this.

Even if, and this is a big if, we manage to counteract all the physical damage we do to ourselves on a daily basis due to the ingestion of substances that simply aren't good for us, what we must consider is the following truth:

Removing physical toxins really isn't the point.

This may come as a surprise to some!  Yes, yoga does not stop at the body, with a little token meditation if you feel like it.  Yoga is a system that actually works through our entire system, from body to mind and beyond, cleaning out all rubbish hidden away in there.  If we continue to mistreat our bodies, and then use the practice as a way to counteract this, we miss a wonderful opportunity to go further and deeper, and actually get stuck into the real toxins.

The real toxins?

You see, the physical stuff is only the beginning.  Rather than try to describe this in detail and have you all run to the kitchen for a cup of coffee, I'll give you a little example from my own personal experience.

This morning, I had a particularly tough practice.  I woke up feeling mostly decent, with a few niggling bits of discomfort going on in my mind, nothing over the top, but the moment I hit the mat, my mind starting fighting with me.  All sorts of bizarre, unbidden thoughts and worries came along, and kept coming along.  I found myself getting angry for no obvious reason, then that passed to be replaced by a general feeling of worry and discontent.  I did what tends to work well for me: trusted in the practice, and continued to work through the sequence.  I know that when I stop early, these thoughts just get worse, so I didn't let myself stop, even though the thought of tea and chocolate started to sound very appealing.

Gradually, a feeling came along, a feeling that all these emotions and thoughts were just having their say, that it was almost like a bit of live theatre coming along to entertain me while I practice.  The root, the important stuff, was the breath, my mantra, and my physical movement.  The extras, the free stuff thrown in for good measure, was a series of emotions parading themselves on the stage of my body and mind, all clamouring for my attention.

Significantly, certain intense postures made them shout all the louder!  A great example was kapotasana, which is a rather intense backbend; I relaxed into it, but could almost physically hear the voices of mistrust, doubt and worry shout for my attention.  And every time a new series of asanas came along, dealing with a new aspect of physical posture, the voices became louder again.  I continued, going back to the breath, to my mantra, to the feeling of being here in these postures.

This continued right to the end of my asana practice.  I lay in savasana (final relaxation) and felt like I'd been through a war, but also feeling pretty good at the end of it all.  The worries were still there, but less so.

Then it was time for pranayama, as in yogic breathing (more on that another time).  The wonderful thing is that the act of sitting and focusing on the breath fully dissolved all those negative emotions, all that mental discomfort and internal shouting.  Asana practiced brought it all to the surface, and pranayama dissolved it.

This is the nature of the toxins that are talked about when we go a little deeper.  Yes, physical practice gets rid of physical toxins, but it also brings up all the other toxins, those old, deep emotional scars we all carry within us.

And that is the true power of yoga practice! Through regular practice, we get the privilege of confronting all our old patterns and being with them, gradually letting them slough away like old skin.  Just like the snake completely sheds its skin, we can completely shed the skin of our old conditioning.

I find this incredibly exciting.  It's one of the things that keeps me coming back to my mat, day after day.  Yes, it isn't always pleasant, and what we find isn't always something we want to see, but trust me, it's well worth it.  The feeling of ease and lightness after dropping even one layer of old emotional rubbish is beautiful, and brings us closer and closer to our true nature, which is one of pure joy and love.  I find I love well when I am clear.  Don't we all?  How can we love another, love the world, or love ourselves when we are clouded over like dirty water in a filthy pond?

Try it.  Clean the pond that is your body, in all its marvellous layers.  Get on the mat, practice, and see.  Don't be afraid of bizarre feelings, it's just a little show your mind is putting on for you.  Watch the show, then when it ends, clap your hands, laugh at the whole thing, and go and have that cup of tea with a sense of lightness, joy, and the knowledge that you've just truly cleared some toxins.

And please.  Put down that hash pipe.

 Love yoga, love life :)

Welcome to the official blog for VAVA Yoga, created and run by Bernd and Kasia!  Well... Official is a relative word, as there isn't a great deal official about us, but there's a time and a place for everything.  This blog will keep you updated on where we're going to be and what we're going to be doing, while hopefully delivering some quality insights into life and the ever tricky art of living.

A little about us: my full name is Bernd Windhofer, and I am very much a citizen of the world.  Born and raised in Austria for my first decade, I then moved on to hotter, if not greener, pastures in Australia, where I was to remain for rather a while, before moving on to Singapore for a few years, and more recently London.  I came upon the yogic practices back in 2001, and have had a daily practice from that moment on.  Without wanting to sound overly dramatic, yoga has completely changed my life.  I'm a happier, friendlier, healthier person, and while life hasn't suddenly became the most idyllic, problem-free existence one can dream of, I am now infinitely better at dealing with the inevitable issues that come along.  And that's just the start of what the practice can give. 

Katarzyna Barbara Alexandra Stryczniewicz, or simply Kasia for the uninitiated, grew up in Krakow, Poland, by a truly glorious lake.  She fell in love with the yogic practices the moment she tried them, very quickly booking herself into a month's intensive teacher training, and never looking back.  She spent five years on and off in London, interspersed with bouts of living and practicing in the Bahamas and Canada.  She's said to me time and again that practicing feels like coming home, managing to tap into the unchanging beauty that lives within.  Even in our time together, I have seen her heart unfold and open more and more, and at the same time, a formidable strength grow from a deep place inside her.  She's a truly remarkable young woman, with boundless enthusiasm, and is absolutely brilliant at passing on these teachings, moving people with the yoga practices as the yoga practices have moved her.

Kasia and I met in London in early 2011, and have been growing together on and off the mat ever since.  We've connected with each other through love, and are continuing to explore each other, life and love in all its permutations.

On to the genesis of VAVA Yoga!  We created this name for the entity that is the two of us as yogis and teachers of yoga, with the eventual aim of opening a bricks and mortar school.  In the meantime, we are already booked in for various teaching engagements in different parts of the world, and are looking to continue teaching internationally for a while, as we continue to go with our passion of enabling others to access the incredible transformative power that these practices give. 

Feel free to browse our facebook page, under the name of VAVA Yoga, "like" us if you like us, and enjoy the multitude of photos!  Do get in touch via the facebook page or this blog if you have any questions for us, or simply feel like saying hi.

Life is far from an easy journey, even for the most seemingly privileged of human beings, but when approached with the right tools and attitude, can be an incredible, never ending ride that takes us ever closer to our true nature.  In yoga practice, all we need is our mat, a little time, and a willingness to learn, and the lotus flower at our heart will unfold.  I speak from personal experience that while some of the truths we come across through practice may not be pleasant, they never cease to make us lighter in every possible sense.  Practice, learn, and enjoy the multitude of wonders that surround us every day.

Om namaha

Bernd.