It is Devali – fireworks and families gathering for the festive season. I sit on my bed in padmasana. It is time to go to sleep, but impossible with the deafening noise of fireworks. Had a practise and pranayama, followed by back bending at the Shala this morning. Sanskrit and Philosophy has been cancelled. Tomorrow we’ll be back to a full day schedule ending with an observation on Acharya Venkatesh, as he teaches a class. Must say, being in a room where yoga is happening, is my favourite place to be……no matter how long the day was, I love sitting there on the cotton mat watching……it is like drinking sweet water…..Today, I had the most awesome day in the streets of Mysore. On returning home, a feeling of joy, enough to last me for another two lifetimes, is what I felt. The origin of this joy belongs to my children. I am the mother of the three most beautiful spirits. My joy is that their spirits chose me to be their mother. As I’m writing, memories flash through my mind of our times together. They have shaped me and loved and confronted and protected and…and .. and… never have we been uninvolved or un-loved with one another. Yet, there is so much space between us and also no space at all. It goes beyond the relationship or impact we had on each other. Or the fruits of us ever meeting. It is purely about honouring them for who they are. That is my Anahata Nada on this day.And my wish for my children: “To those who worship with a single-minded devotion, who are in harmony with their Creator every moment, I bring full security. I shall supply all their wants and shall protect them forever.”

In the words of BKS Iyengar: “The life of an ordinary man is filled with an unending series of disturbances and frustrations and with his reactions to them. Thus there is hardly any possibility of keeping the mind in a state of equilibrium. The sadhaka has developed the capacity to remain satisfied with whatever happens to him. Thus he obtains peace to take him beyond with what our world is saturated. Everything he really needs will come to him by itself at the proper time.”

All great people had a single-minded devotion.

May Tapas never burn out for anyone of us…