I am fascinated by the synchronicities here in Auroville. The spaces of thought, mind, spirit, body and emotion that intertwine here often do so over several days, seemingly effortlessly, intuitively, lightly.
I was exhausted. A friend had left his body, as people say here. The community had provided support for over a month; many had grown closer. The death ceremony Karumadhi was held in a small circle, a particular kind of Puja on the 16th day, when the soul leaves this world.
For several weeks I have been studying the Prashna Upanishad with my teacher. The subjects of rebirth and deep sleep are the passages that are particularly profound. As we do every Saturday, we met, but this time not on his terrace; instead, we drove to a ruined temple to continue our conversations there.
Afterward I slept more deeply than I had in years, and I actually always sleep very well… Emerging from the night, I went into a deep meditation on deep sleep, which has nothing to do with sleep phases, but is a state of being that, like deep sleep, lies before our consciousness, from which consciousness, so to speak, emerges and into which it immerses itself again.
Afterward I fell into a deep sleep again. The whole day, really, only to then go to the temple around the corner in Irumbai. We are working on a project about the temple. A small case study of a 1000-year-old Chola temple, which is very beautiful and active, but really nothing special in Tamil Nadu, and then it is special after all when you pay attention to the details, as with most things. There was a great festival; the gods, in the form of bronze statues, were carried around the temple, greeting the other gods in the form of stone statues. And then they dance together. As if from another world, an intermediate realm, they came alive.
I slept again – the whole night. Two days later I went to a yoga class with a new teacher. I learned that the asanas are actually only a preparation for Shavasana. I was curious, because Shavasana had always been a mystery to me. Of course it made sense that there should be a phase of relaxation at the end of a yoga class. But what should I concentrate on? Where should my mind go, and what should my body become “aware” of in relaxation? Andres works toward this throughout the class with breathing exercises, concentration, body awareness and energetic exercises. And finally, in Shavasana, we consciously followed the nerve pathways, directing our attention to the connections.
And I had to think of the 72000 nerves in the Upanishads, and of the thread wound around the water vessel during Karumadhi, because the thread symbolizes the body’s 72000 nerves. And so Karumadhi, Shavasana, Prashna and the many stages of sleep and levels of meditation intertwined within a few days to form an image.
