monsoon mysore

It’s monsoon in India and I’ve been regularly trying to beat the rain home. It’s far from the showers of Cairo, which is but a spittle compared to what pretty much amounts to downpour, likewise different from the wet season in South East Asia, it feels more finicky here, like somewhere up in the heavens there’s a lever and a wily temperamental Hindu god; with a flick of the wrist the sky opens like a celestial faucet.

I’ve been drying my clothes indoors, checking weather reports, carrying rain gear in my back pack and a spare raincoat in the seat compartment of my scooter—not that it matters, I always feel it coming on the road, to stop would mean being drenched completely. There is no predicting when it comes, it can be perfectly warm and sunny one moment and the next moment there are dark grey clouds overhead, shortly followed by buckets of rain.

Aside from the inconvenience, which is still pretty minor when you are living in this contained little Gokulam bubble, I love it. I love the lushness of India at this time. It’s so alive. The trees are a glowing green. The parks are pretty, all covered with a healthy carpet of grass. In the winter, they look so barren, I can’t imagine children playing there. India, which can be so dusty during the dry season, is now so resplendent. 

This is only my second monsoon here studying at the shala and I can’t help but feel the season within the walls, within practice during this period. The air is full, heavy with possibility. Practice in the shala is a different kind of humidity right now, our pours are so open and we seem to flood easily onto the floor. I’m in there between 4am to 8:30am (shala time) because I’m assisting and it is so intense after the first hour. It’s gross, really slippery and actually dangerous. We still seem to really love it. Sharathji has asked us to bring a towel just for cleaning up the liquids we have deposited on the floor around our mat. Not that it helps much in the long term, dryness seems to be a very temporary state of being in the shala these mornings.  It’s been two years since I’ve been here but it just seems like a different kind of heat, a different kind of moisture, the body seems to want to give up all its reserves of water. Having said all that, like the trees around Gokulam, I also feel alive and vibrant.

The grey clouds when they come provide so much shade, the moist air is pleasant. It feels like great conditions for this kind of transformational work, it makes me want to go in. Go in doors, go into my practice, find shelter in the most solid parts of myself. I love South India in the winter too, but the weather is almost too good, it invites one to go outside, to go adventuring and exploring, I always end up out and about. But maybe this is just who I am right now, the kind of trip that I am having. Every Mysore trip is different, determined by so many factors aside from the weather. 

The rain feels cleansing. Mostly, it feels really soft. Until it doesn’t, that is. So does the deluge within the shala. And when it’s not raining the expectation of rain seems to still be on us. I know we are supposed to overcome expectation but there it still is. I suppose regardless of the season we come like this, with this feeling that something will change, move, shift, grow while we are here. Inevitably, it happens. 

All the same, I feel even this is changing in me. Not that I have exhausted the amount whittling down this mind/heart/body can muster—but I do think the process becomes more refined.  On my first trip to Mysore, I wrote about Mysore being a pressure cooker. I think that’s also still true. But, what if, over time, this pressure is like a passing tropical depression, we sweat a bit more, get a little bit more wet, and do our level best to keep our head above the water. We’re not necessarily cooked but definitely more tender, more purified? Being here is tapas, travelling all this way, surrendering yourself into the hands of your teacher and leaving your excesses on the floor in puddles...