the guru
(for November 18 2009)
Inhale. Exhale. Full lotus flower position. Inhale. exhale.
Most people only know yoga as this leisure activity where you get your body into these bendy twisty positions, the activity which makes you do sometimes awkward positions but eventually will make you so flexible that you'll be as bendy and twisty like a pretzel.
Can I just say for the record that I initiated practicing yoga not because I wanted to become like a contortionist and do all sorts of flexing extending with my body.
It was only lately that I learned to see yoga in a deeper, more spiritual way. I've come to learn what I now know about yoga because of three people, Liz Gilbert, my Asian Civilation professor and someone I met recently, Dada C. Yep that's how I prefer to call him, although he doesn't know this. That's also how his name appears on my phonebook. He doesn't know about that either.
Dada C is a monk. For their special sect a monk is referred to as a Dada while a nun is a didi. Ain't that so cute.
Anyway, dada C is this some kind of amazing person. He's been an official monk for 3 years but he's already in his early forties. The years before his being a monk were devoted to preparation for monkhood,(I am very well aware that such a word does not exist in the English dictionary but whatever). His younger years were not so devoted to being a policeman after he graduated with a degree in Criminology.
Born in Guam to an American Indian man and a Filipino woman, he spent his toddler years there then grew up in Davao, the largest city in the Philippines. Another interesting thing about Dada C is that he's traveled to 18 countries in the past 3 years, teaching yoga and spreading the Ananda Marga philosophy. He believed in the philosophy so much that he achieved inner tranquility and turned away from everything in his old life. Everything except music, that is. Because Dada C is somewhat like a rockstar. He explained that he lived in Korea for a while but didn't like it so much because the people there couldn't appreciate classic rock. And by the way, he differentiated the different kinds of rock genre. There was classic, punk, grunge, metal, heavy metal, and some others which he didn't feel the need to expound on.
He explained to me that he gave up all of his loves even his love for eating meat. Once a carnivore, now a herbivore but always a rockstar.
I just found it amazing to meet someone who reconciled two seemingly very different things, to be able to still do what he loves doing despite numerous duties.
Inhale. Exhale. Full lotus flower position. Inhale. exhale.
Most people only know yoga as this leisure activity where you get your body into these bendy twisty positions, the activity which makes you do sometimes awkward positions but eventually will make you so flexible that you'll be as bendy and twisty like a pretzel.
Can I just say for the record that I initiated practicing yoga not because I wanted to become like a contortionist and do all sorts of flexing extending with my body.
It was only lately that I learned to see yoga in a deeper, more spiritual way. I've come to learn what I now know about yoga because of three people, Liz Gilbert, my Asian Civilation professor and someone I met recently, Dada C. Yep that's how I prefer to call him, although he doesn't know this. That's also how his name appears on my phonebook. He doesn't know about that either.
Dada C is a monk. For their special sect a monk is referred to as a Dada while a nun is a didi. Ain't that so cute.
Anyway, dada C is this some kind of amazing person. He's been an official monk for 3 years but he's already in his early forties. The years before his being a monk were devoted to preparation for monkhood,(I am very well aware that such a word does not exist in the English dictionary but whatever). His younger years were not so devoted to being a policeman after he graduated with a degree in Criminology.
Born in Guam to an American Indian man and a Filipino woman, he spent his toddler years there then grew up in Davao, the largest city in the Philippines. Another interesting thing about Dada C is that he's traveled to 18 countries in the past 3 years, teaching yoga and spreading the Ananda Marga philosophy. He believed in the philosophy so much that he achieved inner tranquility and turned away from everything in his old life. Everything except music, that is. Because Dada C is somewhat like a rockstar. He explained that he lived in Korea for a while but didn't like it so much because the people there couldn't appreciate classic rock. And by the way, he differentiated the different kinds of rock genre. There was classic, punk, grunge, metal, heavy metal, and some others which he didn't feel the need to expound on.
He explained to me that he gave up all of his loves even his love for eating meat. Once a carnivore, now a herbivore but always a rockstar.
I just found it amazing to meet someone who reconciled two seemingly very different things, to be able to still do what he loves doing despite numerous duties.
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