In 1678, John Bunyan wrote a Christian
Allegory whose main character, aptly named Christian, went on a
spiritual pilgrimage, traveling from the City of Destruction toward
the wonderful Celestial City. Along the way, he meets characters like
Faithful, Goodwill, Giant Despair and other such characters
reflecting the state of human life. The book was entitled “The
Pilgrim's Progress”.
Now I'm not some scholarly dudette who
hounds down every piece of classic literature she can get her hands
on, or anything like that...far from it. I was actually introduced to
Pilgrim's Progress by Louisa May Alcott's book, Little Women, which
my parents sent me for my 11th birthday, and which I've
read over and over through the years. The characters in Little Women
would read Pilgrim's Progress every morning to inspire them to go
about their daily life purposefully, as pilgrims on a life journey,
themselves. So I figured Pilgrim's progress would be a perfect name
for my blog, as I embark on my own life journey as well. Of course,
times have changed since 1678, and our lifestyles and many of our
beliefs along with it; hence the title of my blog, “The Modern
Pilgrim's Progress”.
The first chapter of my pilgrimage
starts in Manila, Philippines. It has been a time of rest and
reflection for me, which means that I have pretty much been
hibernating at my family's ancestral home here in the past month,
healing from my recent relationship crisis and dramas – which, I
have to admit, were self-inflicted - and thinking about my plans for
my new journey.
I've been here for a month and a half
so far, and let me tell you, I've had a very difficult time about it,
mainly because I miss my ocean and islands and vast, beautiful sky. I
don't like concrete, I don't like the noise that vehicles make, I
don't like the suffocating polluted air, and I don't like that the
physical space around me is so limited because of all the buildings
surrounding me wherever I go. At times, I felt so homesick that I
would curl up in my bed and cry like a little girl. But although I
know I can go back to the ocean anytime, I chose to stay here because
I wanted to finish some personal projects that I'd abandoned years
back, and which I've decided are more important to me at this moment.
I've been tempted many times in the past month to just leave it all
behind and go back to my hometown in El Nido, Palawan, where I can be
surrounded by my ocean and islands again, but I kind of feel like I
would regret not taking this opportunity again of finishing my yoga
work, which is basically being offered to me now on a silver platter.
And more than anything, I do want a new experience when I go back to
my hometown. I want to do something more than the kind of life I've
lived there in the past. The past was fun, but it's been experienced.
I'm sure I'm not alone when I say I'd rather not watch reruns, when
there's every possibility of watching something new. Or in this case,
creating something new.
And you know how when things are just
right for you, when the shoe fits, it doesn't require much effort?
Well, I set out to look for a job, at the same time that I went back
to my yoga teacher's training with my instructor – which is the
project I abandoned years back – and wouldn't you know it...my
brother Joh came home one night and told me that they just lost
assistant managers at their yoga center branches and they urgently
needed new people. I had to think about it first, because the pay was
not as much as I wanted, given that I wanted to save up for my future
plans as quickly as possible. But then I thought, well I've been
stressing about finding a high-paying job, when here's the work at
the yoga center, which is actually more opportunity for me to learn
all I can about the practice of yoga! I'm to be an assistant manager
at a branch that's close to home, and they mandate their employees to
take at least one of the different yoga classes each day, to get
acquainted with different yoga styles. Mandatory? I call that yoga
knowledge opportunity! And so I'll be starting with that job in a
couple of days and am very excited for it...especially the fact that
I can even show up to work in my usual pajama-like outfits, which by
the way is a big incentive for me. I don't like constraining office
attire, and I especially don't like trapping my feet in those tight
leather shoes that offices have you wear. It's just not my thing.
I suppose I'll give you a bit of a
background as to how I came to the decision to go back to my yoga
teacher's training. A few years back, my brother Joh (who is now a
yoga instructor) introduced me to the practice. I started doing it on
my own because I didn't want to have to attend classes, mainly
because it was too much effort to travel to a class each week. But
then Ananda Marga, an international yoga center that promotes the
practice, came to my village one summer, offering four free sessions
at the village recreation center...which was only a few seconds away
from my house. Easy. So I went, and there I met Dada Atma, one of the
monks who was facilitating the yoga awareness campaign, and who
approached me after class, inviting me to train at their center to
become a yoga teacher. And so I did. But then I left midway, thinking
that teaching wasn't for me, and that I would rather practice yoga on
my own.
But ever since I left, Dada Atma has
kept in touch with me, still gently urging me to teach yoga. He
visited me in Palawan a couple of years after, and asked me to teach
yoga there. I don't believe in coincidence. I believe more that when
we're called to do something, it will keep calling us until we heed
that call. Don't get me wrong, it of course has to be something you
actually like doing; otherwise you'd just be doing the world a
disservice by being bitter about what you do. And I love the practice
of yoga and meditation. I've kept it with me because it's always been
my time of peace, reflection, and re-alignment with my daily life.
Okay, I'll admit, it's been more of a spontaneous thing for me,
rather than a daily or even weekly discipline. But discipline is what
it requires, and more than anything, discipline has never been my
forte. So even though I loved yoga, I didn't want to teach it because
it would require me to completely stop drinking with friends and God
forbid, smoking, and become a full vegetarian. I mean, who wants a
health teacher who has unhealthy habits herself, right? It would
require me to walk my talk, which was a responsibility I wasn't
willing to take on then. Anyway, in the past year, I've been thinking
about all these situations that seemed to be calling me to take the
step. Learn to discipline myself in this aspect. It will be good for
me, and it will be good for others who are seeking to learn in this
direction, is what my heart was saying. But a lot of times, we don't
want to listen to our heart because 1) we don't want to do the leg
work required, and 2) we're scared.
I'm honestly a bit scared about whether
or not I can really do it, really have that discipline. And I guess
that's what this is about now. So far, I've had to resist the
temptation of going back to the islands. Trust me, that's a big
challenge for me! And now, I'm having to quit my smoking vice and go
back to my full vegetarian diet. The diet isn't bad, I love
vegetarian food anyway and eat mostly that. The only challenge there
is, is in not having meat at all. Then again, I've heard and
seen enough pigs in my hometown, crying while their blood and life
slowly gets drained away, to say that I no longer want to participate
in the meat-eating lifestyle. Yeah, well, vegetarianism is a
controversial issue, and there are a lot of different perspectives
about it...but based on what I've seen and how I feel about it, I'm
making my decision for what makes me happiest, that's all. I'd rather
not eat the pig that I was crying over just a few minutes ago, if
there are other food options available for me anyway.
As for the smoking...oh, that
challenge! I know it's not good for my health and yadda, yadda,
but more importantly for me is that I no longer want to promote the
selfishness of these large companies who couldn't care less if they
were killing people with chemicals, as long as they can make their
profit at the end of the day. They only make their profit doing bad
things anyway because we allow them to. In other words, it's still
our choice on what we allow to persist in this world. And so I'm
making my choice to help stop promoting it by ceasing to be a
consumer. Obviously, the activist in me is stronger than the
disciplinarian in me, so I'll lean more toward that end in order to
quit smoking.
Sounds like a plan, doesn't it? All in
all, my challenge in discipline does require a certain amount of
effort from me. I do tend to be a little too relaxed about things,
which makes me inefficient. But it's also true that when the shoe
fits, everything comes easily, without our striving for it. Yoga has
come to me in more ways than one, and that's a gift of balancing my
mind, body, and spirit, as well as helping others achieve the same,
who look for it. So this time, I'm not turning my back on it, out of
some doubt about my ability to push through. I suppose this merits a
little cheer:
“I can do it, yes I can!”
Oh, and one other thing: although I
still prefer to be out in the islands, I've also found interesting
little things in my daily life in Manila, which quite amuse me.
Take my company at home. My only
companions here are my brother Joh who is rarely home from teaching
his classes, two housekeepers, and an epileptic uncle. My uncle is
physically but never mentally present and spends all his waking hours
slumped in an armchair, except during mealtimes when he transfers to
the dinner table...and when it's time to go to bed. I have no idea
what goes through my uncle's mind all day, everyday, but he seems
pretty content just sitting there, doing nothing and talking to no
one. Sometimes I catch him smiling while his eyes wander aimlessly
around the room, in which case, he must be reliving some nice memory;
or else fantasizing about being the late FPJ, the Filipino action
star who died just a few years back. My uncle idolizes the actor so
much that he keeps a picture of the guy in his wallet. But other than
FPJ, he has no memory of the people around him. I always greet him
when I pass by, and he greets back to acknowledge that he knows me.
But when I asked a few days ago if he knew me, he squinted his eyes
as if trying to remember, and then concluded that he had no idea.
Another time, the househelp was
panicking that my brother's laptop was missing from its usual place,
and we all wondered if my brother had taken it with him, which was
unlikely, because he never takes it when he leaves the house. The
househelp had been out for the day, and I was upstairs the whole
time, so if any thieves had come in (it's not a rare occurrence in
Manila if you forgot to lock your gate; or sometimes if the thief has
simply found a way to get in), my uncle would be the witness, as he
was downstairs the whole time. He said that he thought he saw a girl
walk in and take it, and then leave again in a rush. That got our
hearts pumping! I asked him to describe the girl, and he said she had
long, very curly hair. Well, now, that would be my brother, who had
long, very curly hair, and that my uncle mistook for a girl. Sigh.
And yep, that was my brother who came in and left in a rush with his
laptop.
I also have an additional companion at
home. I spend whole days in the balcony, writing, while having coffee
in the company of a black-and-white cat I've come to befriend. I
don't know where the cat actually lives. I know it doesn't have an
owner, but it spends its lazy afternoons with me. At first, it kept
taking my nice, cushioned seat (the royalty that cats are) and I had
to constantly shoo it away. So now it has demoted itself to the
plastic chair across the table from me, upon realizing that I was the
queen of the balcony. We each quietly do our own thing, but I enjoy
her company. I tried giving her some bread once, and then some fried
banana another time. She ignored the bread, but had a taste of the
banana. I don't think she liked the banana much either because she
ignored it too, after that tiny bite. Royalty..they're so hard to
please. I'm supposing it must be from their ancestry in Ancient
Egypt, when they literally were treated as royalty, and even more
than that, as great spiritual guardians...which I suspect is also the
reason my cat friend prefers my cushioned seat over the other chairs
around. It's just what she's used to.
Other than my company at home, life
outside also has its interesting stuff. The other day, I was
commuting like crazy to get to my destinations instead of taking
cabs, so I can save my cash, and it felt exciting to just go all over
the city without knowing my next route, just like when I was a kid
going out into the big, wide world on her own for the first time. In
every place I got dropped off by public transportation, I had to ask
for directions on what to ride next. So it was a nice little
adventure of not knowing exactly how I would get places.
And along the way, while I walked, and
stood in line, and rode vehicles, I had the pleasure of watching
everyone around me. People looking sad, happy, angry, impatient,
bored, sleepy, energized in gossiping about so-and-so and
this-and-that about their life, kids dancing and singing in the
streets...and it felt good to be a part of human life, in all its
colorful variety. And I even got to stop every now and then to have
some good old dirt-cheap Filipino street food along the way, which
I've missed terribly in the past few years. The long lines of street
food were most definitely a feast for my eyes...and my belly, after
that.
So really, it's not all that bad while
I have to be here in Manila. Life always shows interesting things
anyway, wherever I go, is what I've found. I'm just grateful to be a
part of it all, and to be sharing the adventure of life...the grand
adventure of a lifetime...with everyone.
