40 Days to My Revolution! – By Manasi Sridhar
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2016 was a tremendously eventful one for me. Be it in my career, my practice, my life! I am not an addict, but I strongly believe that our body reacts the way we feed it. Sometimes I slack, I pamper it, and then suddenly I wake up with my mantra of discipline-“Tapas”! That’s how I stumbled upon 40 days! I knew the outline of 40 days, but could not gauge the magnitude of it until the 1st day came. But soon, the book, the studio, and my name on the sheet on the wall – that was it! It was such a reminder day in and out for me to be IN IT.
ASANA
This was almost all of our favorite part. The amount of my studio practice, while I taught, I kept being in a group.. in my group.., the teachers significantly talking about the Laws of Transformation; it kept telling us that we’re all in this together. Physical practice strengthened and I didn’t have to wait for it; it happened on it’s own. It was no longer hard to have a daily practice in my routine because it didn’t feel like task for me; it felt like a part of me. That was my biggest change; that it’s all in the mind – if I put my mind to it, I can do it. It sounds very clichéd – but to me this was a big revolution, bringing asana into my daily life.
MEDITATION
Dhyana, as I like to call it. This was “my” favorite part. I loved every bit of it.. Especially because the programme was designed to get us to commit to it. I experimented with music, with podcasts, with silence, with mandala. We weren’t asked to meditate for long durations straight away. Gradual build of it was the reason it grabbed my attention.. Meditating for 30 minutes was a test and I had to be truthful to it. And I grew with it in these 40 days. It was a powerful way to control my mind from getting distracted and telling myself to come back to the present – the very moment that I was in. This was one of the toughest to achieve personally and it’s a lifetime process. I am happy to have gone through this experience, as I am able to share this evolution in my teaching.
MINDFUL EATING
I don’t live to eat, but I eat to live. But we all have weaknesses, don’t we ;)? I told myself, “I can do this”. But I couldn’t, not always. Some days the cravings were so strong. In Week 1 I remember Ari mentioning to simply observe the cravings.. it wasn’t hard doing that, but the time I wanted something the most and it wasn’t the best to consume it, that’s when it struck me: what it is that I do to my body, and what makes my body in turn react. I had to cut it then and there, and open myself to understand the meaning of mindful eating. That’s also when I truly relished “the cleanse”; And it works! It worked for me when I saw this as a whole. Not as a timetable for asana practice, like ”oh, it’s clean-eating time“ or “it’s meditation time”. They all blend and it makes sense to put the learnings and experiences together. That’s what yoga is all about – that union is very clearly experienced in these 40 days.
JOURNALING/INQUIRY
They’re rightly called as “excavation questions”. I usually journal and I communicate best in writing, but the challenging part was to observe myself once I had answered these questions and reflect on my own personality. Satya (Truth) is completely present here, when I write, when I reflect and when I realize. That’s when “Wow, is that what I am” happened! Tough one, FEAR is my biggest enemy. When I am scared, I always tend to react instead of respond. I justify myself by saying that I need to let my emotions out of my system rather than bottling them up. But I end up failing to pause and think about what I am about to say/do before I say/do. It was when I was trying to answer questions like “How do you recognize when you are out of integrity”, that I realized how my fear takes control of me. This was a breakthrough realization that wouldn’t have been possible without me putting those words on paper.
Ari often says, “This programme works for you, as much as you work towards this programme.” What one achieves out of it truly depends on how much one puts into it. And that’s why it is called a personal revolution. Try it, be in it, be with it, and allow yourself to experience it. Positive, negative, “I can”, “I can’t”, “I won’t”, “I should”, experience it all, because it works and because it is simply worth immersing yourself into it to identify the identity you carry, as a person, as a yogi, as a soul!
