Brahmagiri

I am just walking towards a Shiva Temple by a lake. It would be nice-if it would not be so amazingly dirty... The bank of lake is full of trash, very distracting... People just come and through all kinds of trash over. This is one big minus: it seems to me that they do not even care at all about the close vicinity: if it is out of flat does not matter if there is fecal, rats, spoiled food, whatever. If it is under the window and you smell it all day, no problem-one can get used to it. :)

Suddenly I see an old couple just by the Temple. There is a huge park (not that dirty...) and roots of a big, old tree. Probably they were hired to dig it out. I sit down and watch them for about an hour, now. They are thin but determined. It is a melting hot day and they are full sweat. They are tired; it seems this tiredness has its roots in depth of decades... The man is angry with the wood, like he wanted to rip his all past out with it. They take a moment of brake-this is my chance: I jump and ask him for a photo. He tiredly agrees. His life-long fatigue burns into the film...

I thank him and give some bakshish, which I usually don't... As I turn back suddenly a Sadhu stands just in front of me by a holy tree. He has penetrating, deep eyes... Just out of instinct without thinking I show him the camera and 'asking' his permission for a photo. He nods. I watch into the viewfinder and I am almost blown away: his eyes are mesmerizing!

Then he calls me inside the deep garden of the Temple. We sit down by a huge tree giving deep refreshing shadow. I am a bit disturbed by the previous scene and do not look at him immediately. But I feel his gaze my side. I turn there and my suspicion was right: he has been watching me. His look is intense, deep, compassionate, caring. I calm down and the world opens; I feel the wind blowing the leaves of the tree, the rays of the Sun as fingers pointing the ground, and the beating flow of life.

He is Brahmagiri, a holy person since his age of 8yrs. Now he is just as old as myself. He studied English when he was a young child. He says that he will go to visit some Temple and he invites me. I ask him:
-Do you often go to distant temples?
He is silent for a while.
-No;
He looks around pointing the Temple, the tree, and his own body and says:
-Temple, Temple, Temple. Why travel?
...

-You know, I have come to India to learn yoga.
He keeps, staring at me, with not a single word.
-Would you teach me yoga? Asanas, you know...
-Yes, yes I do. Come with me tonight.
-Do you keep some class? -I am wondering.
-No. I have to go to Mumbai. I travel. Travel yoga.
He loughs full heartily. He stands up and mimics how one travels on bus, grasping the handles and fighting to keep balance on the moving bus.
-Keeping balance; yoga. You see? Everything is yoga! Bus yoga.
And smiles again.