AHIMSA

I have not written anything in so long that it feels strangely like a homecoming! I am sitting in bed nursing an awful cold (and praying that it is not H1N1). Life has been speeding by at 100km/hr and I have been trying to keep up .......... ya, I am running around like a head-less chicken again. It is so easy to fall back into bad habits. Sigh. Well, I guess being ill is almost like a nice break: except that I can't breathe, have a massive headache and it kills to swallow! I had to cancel 2 yoga classes, 1 massage session and 1 SUPER meeting (that would have lasted hours). Pre-H1N1 days, I would have gone about life per normal; feeling like a complete martyr whilst I work myself into a zombie state. It was fear of being publicly chastised for putting other life's at risk that made me stay in.

Funny enough, I picked up an old copy of yoga journal whilst lying in bed feeling sorry for myself and chanced upon an article upon violence. Ahimsa (or non-violence) is a fundamental yogic philosophy and one generally applies this to non-violence to other beings and we seldom think of it as non-violence to oneself. There is the physical violence we put our bodies through and here I am thinking of my current ego-manic craze to complete a triathlon. I am not a natural runner, swimmer or cyclist and it takes a lot for me to be able to swim 20 laps in a pool or run 10km or cycle 60km.... (An easy feat for many, but not me!) To make matters worse, I fell off my bike about a month ago (I basically rode into a car!) and hurt my right knee. At first the pain was only in the knee, but now I have pulling in my achilles tendon and hamstrings on the right and ankle strain in my left leg. It even hurts when I do yoga. If I am well enough to do the tri this weekend, I promise to take a break and let my poor battered body heal!

There is also the mental torture which is even more subtle and much more dangerous : the self-doubt, questioning and beating oneself up over what had been or could be... I don't do much fretting in the area because I basically believe that what is meant to happen will happen so there is no need to agonise over the past or the future. There are no wrong choices after-all, there only IS.

Well, that is my bit of reflection for the day. Maybe if I don't get better by tomorrow, I will upload some photos of what has been happening these past few months!!!