Easy Breathings; On Trying to Cast My Ballot for Obama from India in 2008
by Juliana Mitchell
Indiscipine of any kind will not be tolerated reads the sign outside the Atma Vikasa Center of Yogic Sciences. Inside, three of us finish five breaths in a pose that is partly a seated forward bend and partly a long-hold sit up, and then we move into a resting pose. Our teacher “Acharya” approaches us. His face is serious, mustache shiny, dressed all in white. “Why can you not stay in pose for more than 10 seconds, hmmmm?” he inquires. Remaining rooted, he gazes intently at us, we’re three yogis from across 3 continents studying in India.
To be clear, he told us to stay in the pose for five breaths. We did as he said. A petulant part of me feels shocked by the question. But a truer part of me knows I breathed a bit faster to get to five and to get to rest.
He’s waiting.
Finally to my furthest left, a painter from Ireland, “It is because of the Mind.”
Next, the fire dancer from Taiwan directly to my left, “It is because of the Breath.”
My turn. The 6am sun pours through the window, casting rays across my shaking and exhausted legs. “Sometimes it’s the Mind. And sometimes it’s our Body telling us it’s time to come out of the pose.”
“Go back into pose and find answer,” Acharya commands and walks away. We’re aware he hasn’t given us a breath count. Up until now, he has always gives us a breath count. So back we go. We’ve no idea how long he’ll keep us in this pose. Long enough, it turns out, to thoroughly mull over his question. I find my answer in a memory.
For the first time ever, I lift from Standing, Separate Leg Forward Bend into Tripod Headstand. With considerable effort. Through an upside down huffing and puffing, I note the feet of Christie our teacher approaching me. To praise my progress, I assume. She kneels and says softly, “Come out of the pose. You’re working too hard.” I fold softly into Child’s Pose and find my way back to a steady breath. This lesson settles into my bones, it becomes some of the marrow of how I practice and how I teach.
Acharya returns, “What is the answer?” In the same order as before:
The painter: “The Mind”
The fire dancer: “It is the Breath reacting to the Mind”
Me: “Sometimes it’s the Mind and sometimes it’s our Body Wisdom”
“No.” he says, “There is no such thing as the body, the body is dead. There is only the Mind.”
Keeping the Breath, Body & Mind steady and calm is essential in Yoga. One simple way to maintain and develop this is to listen keenly to the Body and come out of the pose when it feels right. Right? But if I cling to my definition of how to practice, am I even practicing Yoga? Can I expand myself enough to incorporate Acharya’s way of practice into mine? What would that even look like?
I’m finalizing my trip to India, but I don’t know where I’ll study. I ask the advice of Guta, a teacher of teachers. She tells me about a strict and devoted Yoga Master living in Southern India named Yogacharya Venkatesh. Not interested in being called Guru, he expects his students to call him “Acharya” which simply means Teacher. Renowned for his Back Bending classes, Acharya, along with his wife Hema, teach what they call Atma Vikasa Yoga. Atma Vikasa translates as ‘Evolution of the Self’. Switching topics, Guta asks me, “How will you vote in the upcoming elections if you’ll be there in November?”
Each morning, the other students and I go to a sidewalk chai shop to discuss what we’ve learned in class. Acharya considers memory to be a key component of the practice and wants us to remember precisely what he’s taught.
“Do you know what you are doing wrong today?” he’ll ask. We’re expected to engage the Mind as precisely as we engage the Body.
“Will you not be able to vote?” a Yogi from Vietnam inquires, passing me a steaming chai. Everyone has taken interest. The man I hired to drive me to Mysore craned his neck toward the back seat to discuss the McCain vs. Obama election with me. I eventually got in the front seat, to avoid a collision. Days back, it was the fellow at the book kiosk who wanted to share his thoughts on the topic. The woman running the silk sari shop on the corner asked me about it yesterday.
Obama’s name falls from many lips. They say his name with hope. I do too.
My husband and I take the subway to The Board of Elections to pick up my absentee ballot. Walking through those government doors, I’m ready to cast my vote! But the absentee ballots haven’t been printed. They won’t be ready until I’ve already left for India.
After chai, we return to the studio for 8:45am Pranayama. Chatting outside until Acharya intones, “Come.” We enter the studio and sit for half an hour with specific breathing patterns. “It will take you five years to learn Pranayama,” he advises. By the time he calls us out of our seated poses, my legs have no feeling. I need my arms to move them.
One student, a Yoga teacher from the American South, asks Acharya privately how to know when it’s time to come out of the pose. “You stay in pose until you think you will die. And just before you die, you come out of the pose.” We hoot and holler as she relays this to us, made all the more charming because she tells it in her soft drawl. But that’s just the surface. Below that, we’re hooting and hollering for our Teacher whose ferocious devotion to Yoga lights a fire in us.
In Pranayama, I do remain still even when my Mind swirls like a cyclone or when my legs feel like a zillion bee stings. But in 5pm Back Bending, it’s another story. We stand at the front of our mats, with arms, chests and faces lifted toward the ceiling. Acharya guides, “Now, look back, look out window behind you. Steady! Now, see back of your mat. Eeeeeasy breathings!”
I don’t go as deeply into these backbends as he invites. It doesn’t feel physically possible for me and to force it feels like I would injure myself. I also don’t hold them for anywhere near the length he asks. It’s just physically exhausting and at a certain point, if I feel a loss of steady calm, I opt to be the sole soul in a resting pose.
My husband Travis and I concoct the only possible plan. My ballot will arrive at our apartment in Queens after I’ve left and he’ll send it to me in Mysore by courier. But because of certain logistics - there’s no way around it - he’ll have to send it to my hotel in Mysore so that it arrives before I even get there. Will it be there when I arrive? Will I be able to get it sent back? Some friends try and dissuade me from this complicated and costly plan. I’m told New York will go for Obama by such a margin that my vote won’t matter. But my vote matters to me. Voting for Obama matters to me.
Today, Acharya comes downstairs to the yard before class where we are gathered and chatting merrily. He pauses in front of us, until we fall silent. “Come.” We follow. Afterwards, he lectures, “How can Mind be calm for class if you talking before? Hmmmm? Before class, be quiet and focus Mind on Yoga.”
A broad quiet reigns before classes now. We converge in silence outside the studio. By the time class starts, I’m steeped in a juicy clarity and am ready to focus. From this place, I revisit Acharya’s earlier question. Why am I not able to hold the pose? Is it Body or is it Mind and what’s the difference? Aren’t they One? This leads me to ask myself: Is it actually the intense backbends that cause me to feel un-steady and un-calm? Or might it be the way I’m thinking about the Back Bending — might it be my Mind — while I’m doing it? Can I possibly maintain a steady calmness and also stay in the most difficult of poses? I try. The door to exploring ease within an outrageous zone of challenge has been cracked open.
But as I deepen in my Back Bending, Acharya deepens what he demands of us. We stand at the front of our mats; our arms, chests and faces lifted up and back. That row of windows behind us. “Now look back, see out window. Careful. See back of mat now. Steeeeady! Now see back of ankles. Eeeeeasy breathings!”
When I arrive into Mysore and check into my hotel, I’m tickled to find an envelope waiting for me. Inside is my ballot! It also contains a note from my beloved husband. I read the note and hold it to my heart. I read the ballot. I hold it to my heart. Today is actually my last chance to get help sending back my ballot or else it cannot arrive in time to be counted. After Pranayama, I skip chai and head to the hotel. Mohan at the front desk tells me, “Courier comes by once a week, on unpredictable day.” I explain I hope to send my envelope today. His eyes tell me this is unlikely.
For my birthday, November 1st, this yoga crew and I have dinner outside under a beautiful moon. A lone firework, left over from Diwali, bursts in the air. We debate: Is the body to be overcome? Or rejoiced in as a temple?
“Once Prana exits the body, the flesh is a goner. The body is already dead, but for Prana.” This is from a yogi at the far end of the table, as he spoons rice from a clay pot onto his plate.
“Sure, but while we have life, Grace courses through our veins.” That’s my two-cents at the other end.
With only 48 hours to go until the election, our discussion turns to politics. A young American couple is disappointed that they weren’t able to vote. “Let’s have a voting ritual,” the young woman suggests brightly. I agree to participate.
They ask if I managed to vote.
I explain to Mohan what’s in the envelope. And this man, whom I have never met before now, hears the name ‘Obama’ and springs to a different alertness. “They’ll pick up your very important documents by 2:30pm.” Somehow he will get them to come by today. I am so relieved. And that gives me plenty of time to give my documents to the courier and then get back to the studio for 5pm Back Bending.
But…2:30 comes and goes. So does 3. I consider whether I may have to miss class. I recall that ‘my vote won’t count’. Should I let it go?
3:30 comes and goes.
So does 4. If I can be en route by 4:30, I should make it. I don’t want to miss class! I think of the people who risk their lives to vote in parts of the world.
I’ll miss class.
It’s November 2nd. After a grueling Back Bending hour, we gather for our Voting Ritual. Simultaneously, clear around the globe, the voting booths in New York City are opening. We take over a corner phone booth. One at a time, six yogis from four countries solemnly enter the booth with a hand-drawn ballot. Each vote cast is a prayer. I play voting official. Upon exiting, they hand their ballot to me. We stand in the twilight on the sidewalk as I tally and announce, “Mysore has gone unanimously for Barack Obama!” We cheer and hug and cry and then go home to bed. Hopeful…
The courier arrives at 4:15. They tally my total and ask for several thousand more rupee than I have on me. I offer my credit card, but it’s cash only. 4:20. Bolstering myself, I think of the woman in Iraq whose grandsons carried her to vote in a barrel because she had no wheelchair. “I will go to the cash machine and I will miss my Yoga class, “ I say aloud, practicing acceptance. Hearing this, Mohan fronts me the money from the hotel’s petty cash! “Thank you! Thank you, Mohan!” He nods his head side-to-side, meaning “Ok.” And he smiles. My ballet submitted, I make it to class, slipping through the studio door just before Acharya locks it.
November 3rd, I walk to the studio with morning moon still in the sky. After class, instead of chai we drink news. The returns look good. But nothing is definitive. We tear ourselves from CNN for Pranayama. Twenty minutes later, with eyes closed and legs crossed, I think I hear honking in the streets that’s different than usual, chronic honking. Can that be… might that be… celebratory honking? Yes that is riotous honking. But we must remind perfectly still, Mind on our Breath. Has he won?! After class, my friend the fire dancer tells us she thinks Acharya had a special smile turning up the corners of his mustache.
I go directly to the phone booth, our voting booth the night before. Across thousands of miles of phone line, my beautiful husband’s voice cries out, “He’s won! He’s won!”
My journey home is long. Staring out the airplane window, in addition to the sky I see the events — both political and personal — of the past month. Images involving Acharya weave together with musings on Obama and the different ways these two men inspire transformation.
Inevitably, the solid thud of wheels touching down on New York City tarmac announces this journey’s end. Spits of snow flounce about in a late autumn sky. Crossing through customs, I’m aware I’ve changed since I left and that my country has changed, too.
Atma Vikasa