Bikram Yoga Decatur

Have you ever seen a sign? Have you looked in the sky just in time to see a hawk circling directly overhead? And then it happens again a couple days later? Has it ever happened that you learned a new word one day and then for the next few days you’re hearing or seeing that word frequently whereas before you didn’t know, or barely new, it existed? Or a book? You hear a review on the radio and then a few hours later someone at work is talking about it and at lunch the next day you see someone reading it.

A couple weeks ago I started seeing dimes on the ground. Finding a coin on the ground isn’t uncommon but I’m talking about seeing only dimes. Not pennies, nickels or quarters -- just dimes. After finding a dime a day for four days in a row I noticed the oddity of only seeing dimes and I had the thought, “is this a sign?” which is an odd thought for me to have because I don’t really believe in signs, in that sense. I’m not saying I haven’t seen them because I have -- for as long as I can remember -- but I’ve never felt the need to attribute them to a higher power or think of them as messages or omens. Nonetheless, I decided if it happened one more time I would take it as a sign. . .

When I see something over and over again, when I see bizarre or unusual coincidences, when I’m tripping all over a new word or concept, I don’t see these occurrences as signs. What I see are patterns. If you look at anything closely you’ll see patterns. The scales on a fish, the swirls on your fingertips, the veins on a leaf, the dots in newspaper ink. Look at anything under a microscope and you’ll see patterns. Similarly, if you look at things from far away you may also see patterns. Look at the stars or clouds and you’ll see recognizable shapes and familiar patterns. These patterns don’t necessarily have inherent meaning but since our brains are built to recognize patterns and we all want meaning in our lives we tend to attach meaning to them, however personal. It’s just what we do.

On the fifth day after seeing my dimes I was at the studio preparing for class. The first student entered, wrote his name on the attendance sheet and went to the dressing room. Within seconds he came back out with his arm extended. He was holding a dime and offering it to me without saying a word. I asked, “What’s this?” he replied, “It’s a dime. I just found it in the dressing room.”

Usually when I find a coin on the ground I pick it up and put it in my pocket without thinking about it. Wouldn’t you? A wallet, a fifty dollar bill or even a single dollar, well those are valuable enough to want to get them back to their rightful owner but a nickel or a dime? In the pocket it goes without a thought. This was my fifth dime in so many days and it came after I had already declared the next occurrence to be significant. Add to that the curious fact that the student brought the dime to me instead of pocketing it and I had my sign. A dime.

Believe it or not, I put the dime aside and forgot about it. I had a class to teach and a lot of other things to do later that day. I put the dime, and the sign, out of mind. The next day I attended the first session of what was to be a 5 day workshop studying The Hatha Yoga Pradipika (the oldest surviving text on Hatha Yoga). A friend had asked me several weeks ago if I would attend it with her as she was sure I’d find it interesting. On my arrival home that night, as I was approaching the door -- you know what I’m going to say -- I saw a dime on the welcome mat. Oh right, that. I realized I needed to stop ignoring it.

The dime is full of symbols and information: a torch, an olive branch, an oak branch, Franklin D. Roosevelt, “In God We Trust”, “E Pluribus Unum”, etc. These are all worthy of contemplation but what’s the first thing, the first concept associated with a dime? For me it’s the number 10. So that’s my sign. I may come back to meditate on some of the other imagery but for now it’s 10.

Why 10? What 10? During a break on the second workshop day I was relating all this to my friend and wondering aloud. There are 10 fingers and 10 toes... There are 10 years in a decade... This is the year 2010... She said she thought there was something significant about the end of a decade and the start of a new one and it hit me. I knew what the dime represented for me and why I was seeing it now.

I have been practicing Bikram Yoga for 10 years as of next month. More than that, I had made a promise to myself -- somewhere around year 4 or 5 -- that I would stay with the Bikram practice for 10 years before trying any other style of yoga. I’m not saying I hadn’t done yoga before Bikram. I had, off and on for a few years, but Bikram was the one that took. Bikram Yoga was my first serious, committed practice. I became an instructor as part of my desire to fully commit to the practice. I knew that it was something I would need to do for a long time to get the most benefit from, especially given my late start (my 40th year, or the end of my 4th decade, if you prefer). And now, here I was, almost exactly 10 years later, attending an advanced Hatha Yoga workshop and training session.

I hadn’t forgotten my 10 year commitment but it was somewhere in the back of my mind. I hadn’t thought of it for along time. It wasn’t in my thoughts when I signed up for the workshop but, instinctively, I was talking the next step when I did. I had honored a 10 year commitment and at the same time was ready to go deeper into my practice and understanding of Hatha Yoga.

There isn’t a lot of information available about Bikram’s lineage. I know what little Bikram has told me but have found almost nothing anywhere else. I know his guru was Bishnu Ghosh, an acclaimed “physical culturist”, who was trained by his brother, Paramahansa Yogananda. More is known about Yogananda and his teachings (in the Kriya Yoga tradition) and his lineage, which can be traced back to Lahiri Mahayasa (1860’s). Bishnu Ghosh was also taught by Sivananda Saraswati whose lineage traces all the way back to Matsyendranatha, who is purported to be the first human teacher of Hatha Yoga. The Hatha Yoga Pradipika includes a verse that cites it’s teachings as originating with Adinatha (Shiva), an early Hindu deity. All this is to point out that Bikram Yoga was born from an ancient tradition as described in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika by Swami Svatmarama in the 15th century. The workshop I was attending was to study this text.

The beauty in all this is that my next step is taking me toward the tradition from which Bikram yoga was born. I’m not moving away from Bikram Yoga but further into it. The workshop, which I completed two days ago, gave me some insights and some new tools to not only deepen my personal practice but to inform my abilities as an instructor. I feel validated, excited and energized and I look forward to integrating these new tools into my instruction as my experience working with them grows.

And all for a mere 10 cents, a simple dime.

I will say more about the workshop and what I got out of it in a follow up post sometime soon.