Fai Mai!, Fai Mai! (Gita 15:10)

[Guest guest]

As some of my friends may know, I have been living in Bangkok,

Thailand for the last 13 years...I live in what I call a semi-

slum.........some houses are shacks, others nice...right next to each

other....these houses are for the most part made of wood, with heavy

tin roofs..As anyone who has travelled in Southeast Asia would tell you,

this is common here........there are drug dealers and drug addicts and

highly educated, balanced and respected individuals living side by

side...Last Thursday morning, while making my pancakes, I heard the

dreaded words in the slum... " Fai Mai, Fai Mai!!! " ....It means fire..It was

very early in the morning, and within seconds the whole area was

awake and getting prepared..to fight the fire.....to save children and

belongings, the television, to run away....if one house goes up, the

whole comminuity will go up.....It happens all the time.......Fortunately

for us all, the fire was small and put out quickly and by the time I left to

go teach, an hour or so later, things seemed pretty normal........It was a

small incident to learn from, to see the reaction of myself and others..I

do not own much..I guess my passport was the most important thing to

save.........my clothing.......a few books on yoga and spirituality.......That

is about all I own and have owned for the last ten years or so..........

 

It has not been difficult for me to live here because of the simplicity of

my own lifestyle..we have cold water bathrooms with no showers..you

just pour the water over yourself....there are no kitchens, though an

area may be set aside and set up for cooking........we have one burner

gas bottles for cooking.........we have frogs, big cockroaches, small

lizards, mice, all sorts of insects that I can not identify......the other day

while cleaning the room, a snake fell on the floor next to me from

somewhere above...I have always liked snakes, but I could never know

quickly enough whether one was poisoness or not, so I jumped as

he/she looked up at me and hissed..he/she must have been as scared of

me as I was of him/her, cause he/she got out of there in a hurry and

has not been back since........

 

Simplicity in our living is part of the Buddhist and Yoga approach to

life.......this simplicity manifests itself in various ways..........I guess we

can get too attached to comfort and comfortable surroundings...When I

come back from teaching and travelling around Bangkok, that simple

house and room sure seems comfortable and luxurious to me.......

 

It has been interesting to meet and teach various individuals in Thailand

and other countries who have a nice social, cultural, political and home

environment to live in, yet, they can be dissatisfied, argumentative,

critical, judgemental.....and just kind of, generally unhappy with the

world and life..........I guess confusion and fear are at the root of all

these other states that I have mentioned.....and a sense of loneliness,

bordering on isolation and alienation.....In The Bhagavad Gita, in Both

Chapter 2, verse 56 and Chapter 4, verse 10 it is writtien...... " vita raga

bhaya krodha " ....... " freed from attachment, fear and

anger " ........perhaps the root of fear and anger is attachment, though

they are all interconnected and related....The subtle aspects of the mind

and it's movements have been documented for us in The Yoga Sutras of

Patanjali, The Bhagavad Gita, The Hatha Yoga Pradipika....The practice

of Hatha Yoga is very beneficial..We can feel very on top of things.....at

the same time, it is important to understand the teachings as put forth in

the authorative scriptures on the science and discipline of

Yoga............So we have some intellectual foundation and knowledge to

supplement our sattvic state, and an understanding of where we are

heading, what we would like to acheive, why we do this.......