So the other day I made time for my favorite yoga class at The Shala. I rarely practice anywhere else; my favorite teachers are there and it's the kind of place where you walk in and they don't try to sell you a t-shirt before you've even signed in for the class. In fact, they do sell things, but they keep them on a rack out of sight - in the spirit of, like, hey, if you were in a humongous rush this morning and forgot pack a pair of yoga pants, you could borrow from the lost and found, but if you'd prefer a pair that have never been touched by a human crotch, here's a brand new pair you could buy for (we're dreadfully sorry and slightly embarrassed) sixty dollars.
Apparently everyone but me knew our teacher would be away, because hardly anyone showed up. Anyway, the class was small and the substitute was ... odd. He seriously kept making pig jokes. I don't know, in my opinion the swine flu isn't funny. Not yet. When people are still dying from it, it's not a joke quite yet, not even when a yoga teacher is making it. But I digress. Morbidly inappropriate jokes notwithstanding, the class wasn't bad, and I even got a smidge closer to clinching Scorpion pose.
At one point during class, I flashed on a room - a lot like the room I was in, but populated with yogis performing the most far-out poses and defying all kinds of physical laws. They were both super-intense and very at ease in every posture. This was not just the next level. It was another realm entirely. And I wondered if I mightn't have been one of those yogis if I had made one small, different choice in my youth. Come to think of it, though, it would have had to be an exceptionally aggressive and bold choice, because in those days yoga was all icky-New Agey and weirdo-smelly-hippie and absolutely NOT in the spirit of the Reagan Decade, even if Nancy did hold seances at the White House or whatever. Anyway, I so wanted to be in that somewhere room, with those awesome yogis, doing those crazy poses with absolute ease. I wanted to be on that level. I wanted to transcend this sparse classroom with the ripe-smelling bald man making pig jokes. I wanted to transcend.
The very NEXT day I found myself going back to The Shala for a class with someone named David. Little did I know that this was the very David who created a style called "Multi-Intenso." And guess what? David regularly packs the house with yogis who rock all those crazy poses I had envisioned just the day before. So there I was, in that room with all those intense, gifted folks who glide from handstand into Eka Pada Galavasana like it's nothing, a light breeze, a chocolate chip cookie. I, on the other hand, was Ed Grimley. Bounding around, sweat-drenched, like a hyperactive geek. But you know, pretending to keep up has its own rewards. And I did manage to keep from collapsing or screaming or throwing up. All in all, I'd say I was a success, given the circumstances.
Here's what I want to know: did I manifest my Multi-Intenso experience? I mean, do we manifest? Or is that "manifestation" closer to memory? Or, to say it better, is it basically time collapsing in on itself, showing itself a (in my case) a day early? How does it work? Do we have free will or do we not?** Moreover, does it really matter? I kind of think the important thing was that I threw myself - unwittingly - into the deep end and I survived. And as I take on anything out of my comfort zone, let that be a lesson.
**Duh, of course we do. But the more we know about the power of genetics, the more we have to admit that free will has its limits. As they say, DNA is destiny: it defines our possibilities and our limitations. And I believe the nature of our DNA evolves or regresses depending on how we live and the choices we make. And we pass our slightly altered - evolved or devolved - set of circumstances on to our children.
Consider this: A dream may not be realized during the dreamer’s lifespan. But it may be carried out in the generations to follow.
