Finding love in God's land

by Pankaj Bafila (India)

A leap into the unknown India

Om Namah Shivaya For those who know me closely will tell you what breed of crazy person I am. They will tell you that I am crazy enough to go through life without plans whatsoever but you will also learn through them that I'm not lost, I've direction. By god's grace and genetic flexiblity I managed to be a yoga teacher in Bengaluru, and I've been teaching for five years now. If there is something that I've learnt through personal experience in 28 years of my life, it is this "just be, fall with the fall and flow with the flow" I've been strengthening this belief by constantly living it, and I've seen things happen by themselves and in that process I saw myself becoming a mear instrument. I feel like I'm a toy in the hands of universe; where giving up completely is winning fighting back is loosing terribly. 20th October 2019 was the day something strange happened, something that had never happened before, I was sleeping while people waited for me at the studio for the morning session. When I finally woke up at 7am I saw 12 messages and 16 missed calls from the people and fellow teachers. It was a weird feeling filled with guilt, confusion, nostalgia and regret I didn't know what to do about it, how to fix it. I remember I went into deep introspection as I took shower that day. It was then that it hit me, "I need a break from all this, I'm gonna go to Sivananda ashram for a month long TTC" In the next 5 minutes I found myself sitting on the commode and I had successfully booked a TTC for the next month. It still wonder what pushed that thought into my head, anyway, it was one of the best impromptu decision I've ever made, that would change my life for good. Two weeks later I landed in the state of Kerala also known as God's own country. First two weeks ino the TTC were amazing got to meet so many people and most of us learnt a new way of living as it was our first time living in an Ashram. Two meals a day 4 hours of yoga 1 hour of karma yoga 1 hour meditation 2hours theory 2 hours of bhakti yoga (chanting and singing god's name) completing assignments, self practice, changing dresses and uniforms 5 times a day and on top of that we had to do our own laundry with hands. It was absolutely overwhelming, nobody could make time for anything. Little did I realize that I was slowly falling in love with a girl called Vaishnavi ❤️ She was an assistant teacher for us, helping everyone with yoga asanas, explainig scriptures and checking our assignments. What can say about her, you have to meet her to know what she is. By the beginning of the third week I knew for sure that I love her truly, deeply and constantly. It's difficult to explain what love is, you could say Love is a manifestation of god, love is kindness, compassion and freedom no amount of words will help, you have to be in constant flow of love to feel the magic because this place is so sacred that word fail to reach. 2nd December 2019 I went to the Devi temple early morning, which sits next to Rama hall in the Ashram. I prayed to the divine mother, I prayed to Krishna and I prayed to the gurus : "god I'm gonna tell her today, please speak through me." And I told her! She took it in way that made me so comfortable and free that I felt this sense of great relief. The next few days past by usually, I was loving her constantly from a higher plane of existence. A place of purity and innocence I was totally loving her all the time. We started spending some time together on the off days and the more I got to know her, deeper my love for her grew, I didn't know anything- her Nationality, relationships work, I knew absolutely nothing and yet I was loving her freely. Free of all bonds and limits....(tobecontinued)