I signed up and attended my first set of Sanskrit and chanting classes last night. The Sanskrit language is fascinating – it has been described as the “perfect language.” Here is an excerpt from the American Sanskrit Institute’s website, which describes this “perfection a follows:

The unique organization of the Sanskrit alphabet serves to focus one's attention on qualities and patterns of articulated sound in a way that occurs in no other language. By paying continuous attention to the point of location, degree of resonance and effort of breath, one's awareness becomes more and more consumed by the direct experience of articulated sound. This in itself produces and unprecedented clarity of mind and revelry in the joy of language. Every combination of sound in Sanskrit follows strict laws which essentially make possible an uninterrupted flow of the most perfect euphonic blending of letters into words and verse.

Given this, I felt obliged to take advantage of a month’s worth of classes (3 x a week), being offered for about $17. We will learn to “read” and write Sanskrit by the end of the class, and while I should be able to pronounce the words based on what we learn, I am not sure I’ll be able to understand what most of the non-Yoga words mean at that point.

As for the chanting…those of you know me know that I do not sing in public, so the chanting class is a lot about facing my fear of singing and partaking of “the most perfect euphonic blending of letters into words and verse”mentioned above. I actually had fun in the first class even though there were only 3 other students and I could not get away with just mouthing the words.

Practice to day was good, my focus was better than yesterday and Saraswatti asisted me in Marichi D. If you are not familiar with this pose, check out the link. This pose is why people think you need to be a pretzel to do yoga - its a doozie. I could not reach my hands together (and could barely breathe) but she told me encouragingly that this would be no problem....we'll see how long it takes...seems like a stretch to me (heh, pun intended).

I met a great woman named Jennifer in the sanskrit class and we did some exploring together today. After practice (which was great but gave new meaning to the term “MySore”), we went to buy a book for the Sanskrit class at a bookstore up near the famous Devarajah market. The market is a cacophony of sounds and smells and human beings, selling vegetables and flowers and the beautiful kumkum powders that are used for making the bindis on the women’s foreheads. Check out the photos tab for more pics.

After we got back I moved into my new room I unpacked and did some nesting to try and make my spartan room feel homey. I do have wireless internet right in my room and access to the kitchen down here. So far I have the bottom floor to myself, but expect that someone will move into the room next door at some point. I have a private bath with a real western toilet (yay!) but will be taking bucket showers if I want hot water (boo). I’ll tell you how that goes after I give it a try tomorrow.

I had tea with a student from Chennai who lives upstairs in my house. After I got back and studied a little, Jennifer and I headed out to get our first “real” Indian food of the trip. I have been eating at a family-run internet café, but it was mostly rice and curry and not the South Indian specialties like dosas and idly that I have been craving since I got here. In fact, I was craving them so much that I ended up ordering both and essentially ate two dinners tonight. It was fantastic…and get this, my two dinners and a liter of bottled water came to 48 rupees – that’s about $1.20! Jennifer’s Masala Dosa dinner was just $.50! We also stopped by a place that will do our laundry for us and asked how much – 4 rupees for a small load, 8 rupees for a large load. And they do it all by hand. Huh? Makes you want to sell all your worldly goods and come live here for 10 years.

Alright enough fun ...time for today's lesson from the Sutras..

2.5 Anitya Asuchi Duhka Anamatsu Nitya Suchi Sukha Atma Khyatir Avidya

Anitya = impermanent
Asuchi = impure
Duhka = painful
Anamatsu = non-Self
Nitya = permanence
Suchi = pure
Sukha = pleasant
Atma = Self
Khyatir = cognition
Avidya = ignorance

IOW Ignorance arises from thinking the impermanent is permanent, the impure is pure, painful things are pleasant, and that the non-Self is the Self.

So let’s talk about Self with a capital S…Satchidananada describes the Self as the eternal never-changing One.  We are not our bodies or our minds because these are always changing, whereas the Self is never-changing. For example, I may say “I am flexible” but this is not me, because my body may be flexible at this moment, but this will change, whereas I will still be me. Furthermore, if we stop distinguishing our “selves” from other objects based on external, changing characteristics, we will see that we are all One. At the end of the day the Self is the most elemental substance.  This jives with the scientific principal that all matter is composed of atoms. When we think of our selves in this way we can see that we are not distinct from anything else. 

While I can "get this" at an intellectual level, this is pretty hard to get my head around in day-to-day living. Luckliy, the whole message of the Sutras and the reason for asana and pranayama practice (as well as pratyahara and dharana and some other stuff we have not yet discusssed), is about learning to control the modifications of the mind so that we can get to a state where we understand and absorb and become this concept. So I suppose I have no worries if I are not yet enlightened enough to really get it…or I wouldn’t be reading this book for the third time!!

2.6 Drig Darsana Saktyor Ekatmata Iva Asmita

Drig = Seer
Darsana = Instrument of seeing
Saktyor = powers
Ekatmata = identity
Iva = as it were
Asmita =  egoism

IOW Egoism is the mis-identifcation of the mind as the Self.

ugh. Ego - what a huge topic...especially for me...I am not sure I can tackle this tonight. Tired. Must sleep. More on my big ego and the need to master it tomorrow.