Brilliant Enlightenment Hell

I have been trying to come up with some words to describe my overall experience at Still Point.

 It was with an immense sense of relief that I left Nelson on the last day, two days before the course ended. I made some beautiful friends there…in fact, the other students were really one of the high points of my stay, and I am so grateful for their support and patience with me as I struggled on a daily basis to hang on to my dignity.

 As I was leaving in the morning the lovely Bella ( a fantastic human and yoga teacher from the Philippines who is teaching in China) said, “ It wont be the same without you my dear. The other day Evelyn came into the shared living area and said, ‘where is everyone’ and I said ‘everyone’s here, its just Amanda who is in here room’. So you see, you take the place of everyone.”

 I couldn’t help feeling the whole time like I was the square peg, and that while I love yoga with all my heart, I don’t even aspire anymore to be one of those peaceful, calm, quiet yogis who leave neither shadow or smell behind them. It is just not my path.

 When I left India I was so sad to leave, I never felt judged or wrong while I was studying at the Shala in Mysore, and yet it could be that it was just my time to continue my yoga studies while dealing with the biblical amount of SHIT that I was dredging up and wading through.

 I learned an enormous amount while at Still Point: about yoga, about teaching, about myself, but I would not call it fun or enjoyable in anyway. And I am not filled with warm bubbly feelings of gratitude. More like begrudging-gratitude. Like finding a way to thank someone for teaching you a really bloody unpleasant and awful lesson that was so bad and thorough that you are pretty sure you will never ever have to learn it again. Or at least that is what you will tell God every moment of every day after, while making deals with her/him/it on your immortal soul in exchange for never having to go through an experience like that again.

 It was at the same time, one of the most brilliant yoga experiences I have ever had, and one of the most awful.

 Shiva, in all her most destructive and wonderful glory.

 And so with begrudging gratitude, I have to thank John and Lucy, and all the other students at Still Point for the poignant lessons and irrevocable personal change.

 And thank God, that now I get to move on from it all.