Bali Karma

I’ve heard this now three times. Bali has a way of bringing out your Karma. You come here, and get exactly what you deserve. I’m not sure why this is, I can’t quite figure out if there is an excess of negative ions due to the pressure dropping regularly, and rainstorms changing things up, whether the community is small, insular but international, whether people come here in search of a spiritual something, but I’m definitely bumping up against myself here in a pointed a direct way.

After a particularly gnarly night where I managed to alienate the entire local Bikram population from me (well done another cherry bomb in my life) at a party, I was thankful to happen into the perfect meditation class the following day, on enlightenment, of all topics.

I admit, wholeheartedly, humbly, I am a highly flawed and often misinformed individual. Against my better judgement I went to a party where I knew there would be partying of the Burning Man type, which is all fine and good, but I happened to get particularly bent out of shape by the local Bikram teachers, “what’s your yoga Anu what? Who’s your teacher, Frank somebody?” who had done a catalogue of questionable things to my friend, and now had discovered the more psychotropic drugs, which I guess are opening their minds. I shouldn’t have gone to the party, but I had just taught a class that day on finding where the resistances were and going there. So I went. And I watched. And I judged.

And therein is the problem. I am a judgmental asshole. This culminated in a particularly ill-advised act which consisted of me, frickin visiting American teacher, going up to the owner of the local Bikram studio and saying, “What are you doing?”.

“Hey?” he said in his thick Australian accent.

“What are you doing?” I didn’t mean in that moment, I meant, as a yogi, as a person, as a propigater of yoga in Bali. He knew what I meant.

We stared at each other for a long pregnant moment, and he said, quite rightly, “Who are you to judge?”

And he was right. So I said, “You’re right,” and quickly embarrassedly tried to leave, tripping most excellently on my flat treadless sandals, and then had to spend the next 10 minutes finding a ride home amid the snickering teachers, no doubt laughing at my gall.

The next day at Desa Seni, an amazing teacher, Jason was leading the third of a series of Bok Jinpa meditation classes- a form of Tibetan Buddhism that emphasizes compassion and intention as a means to enlightenment. And, as far as I can tell, the concept that everything outside is a reflection of your inner state. So what, was that party showing me about me, and my yoga.

Like I have to ask.

I know already the parts of myself that are tamasic, and lagging and which I must unconsciously bring into the vibrational fold that I want to live in and teach about. I know all too well the parts of myself that continue to slumber while acting out among those around me. And that conversation, with that poor Australian Bikram teacher, who everyone agrees is a nice guy, was only conversation with myself.

What am I doing? I often wonder what business do I have for teaching yoga, and why should anyone listen to me. I tell myself it’s not me, and I truly believe that but the flickering candle of ego constantly plays with concealing and revealing the big Self that I am seeking to maintain. I don’t suffer fools gladly, but when I look at them as a projection of myself, I am again brought to my knees , humbly, begging for forgiveness.

After listening to Jason talk about Enlightenment coming in the form of prayer and action, and compassion breaking down the differences between us and them, about the projection inward on the mind and the projection outward, I was so so so grateful. “You can’t change others” he said, “but you can change yourself.”

It’s not like I haven’t heard this before, but I’ve always been a fantastic procrastinator. Railing against those things outside of me while failing to look at the me it reveals.

So, as the wind blows through the palm trees I sit here immersed in the Karma of myself, and feel so humble and so grateful, for the work I have to do.