One goal I had for my time in India was to do yoga there. 
It didn’t matter to me if it was in a true yoga class setting or just me, alone with my Warrior Yoga DVD that I love. In the fast pace of our touring and all of its scheduled appointments with tour guides and van pick ups, it appeared that it was not going to transpire for me (although I did see some classes available at our resort). After several days of sightseeing in India’s “Golden Triangle” of Dehli-Agra-Jaipur, we departed for Udaipur which was the location of the wedding we were fortunate enough to attend.
But one early morning during the wedding weekend extravaganza, when I could not sleep in, I went out on the hotel balcony to gaze at the mountains of Udaipur. The dark and ominous sky on this quiet, still morning felt like when night meets day as it was still not dawn. Basically, I was out on my balcony while my son slept with nothing to do but absorb this stillness on the other side of the world; …. “sharing the same moon” as I have interpreted about the cosmos while traveling. I made tea as quietly as I could and took a book out there but couldn’t really read it since I wasn’t going to turn on the light and disturb my nineteen year old sleeping son.
Instantly, I got the idea of what to do in the quiet stillness and dark. I didn’t have a yoga mat but I did have my yoga DVD and laptop so I put it on mute and spread out a long hotel bath towel and with my balcony doors thrown open, I stretched and meditated to the Udaipur sky as the dawn emerged. I have often read about “kundalini” moments and the awakening and bliss that are components of kundalini. I was too exhausted from all of the wedding energy and I wasn’t really anticipating a rigorous yoga session this morning but I love and cherish that it came to me to have a namaste moment there in this country. Namaste, meaning “I bow to your true self”, is exactly what I was feeling at that moment—a respect for this country and culture and a respect for what my body was telling me to do and feel at that moment. My “true self” was physically tired from this intense traveling but my emotions were somber and enlightened by the transformation taking place in this Indian experience.
Yoga is mind, body, spirit and at that moment, my mind, body, spirit welcomed this yoga experience communing with the Udaipur mountain range better than I could have experienced in a yoga class in the hotel somewhere. This was an opportunity to do yoga quietly out of respect for my son’s slumber. I later learned that is also a component of the “spirit” to demonstrate self sacrifice and courtesy. I read about those elements in a yoga book but until they came to life in a tangible way, they weren’t relevant to me….until India. Travel is a wonderful portal to discovery. Changing your routine brings about these discoveries.
We learned about architecture, history, culture and wedding celebrations in inspirational India, as we expected. And, as with any family traveling, we discovered and celebrated deep family dynamics and connections as we embarked on learning exotic Indian rituals, wedding dances and how we could challenge ourselves to push through the whirlwind and joyous exhaustion to fully engage in a new land.
India was full of color, fabrics, spices, costumes, animals and auras. Namaste.
adapted from A Magic Carpet Ride by Gina Michalopulos Kingsley. (link below)