Gratitude

So I've spent the weekend engaged in yoga of various forms, and I'm brimming over with gratitude.

Yesterday, I practiced under the instruction of a favorite teacher. This morning, I sat in meditation after a solitary practice in my basement. This evening, I've surfed iTunes to pick up a couple of songs that I've wanted to use in a new mix for a yoga class CD. Last night I began typing up my reading notes from Stephen Cope's remarkable book The Wisdom of Yoga: A Seeker's Guide to Extraordinary Living. I'll probably compose a post or two about the book later. Suffice it for now to remark that it is, itself, extraordinary. In typing up notes, I re-experience much of the text -- all the parts that I underlined during the first read through, the pages I dog-ear, the bits and pieces that I flag for further thought.

Then, a few moments ago, reading some light fiction that entails everything working (highly improbably) together for the protagonist's good, I experienced for just a moment the sensation of great happiness of being on a path, what felt the right path. I tend to think, in my rational moments, that we usually create meaning, rather than stumble across it. So I tend to reject the stories of improbable coincidence as fictions, and I tend to view improbable coincidence in my own life as the probable result of many, many, unfulfilled improbabilities.

But eight years ago, an interesting person invited me to join him early in the morning before the business sessions of a professional conference for a yoga practice. I did, though at the time, I didn't have any idea of what yoga might be. I just knew that he was an interesting person, and I liked getting up early in the morning in the mountain retreat where we were staying.

Through a series of what from my prior world view would have been wildly improbable experiences, but what from my current world view are quite typical experiences, I find myself mixing songs and assembling ideas for conveying teachings of ahimsa, asteya, brahmacharya, aparigraha, and satya to my yoga students during the coming weeks. And I find myself feeling profound gratitude to my first teacher for his generosity and the gift I've received from him.