Both parts

After a day of inhaling for six counts and exhaling for twelve, I grew incredibly relaxed, too relaxed. As has been the case so far on this trip, my needs become blaringly apparent to me when they are not being met. The food for instance is very Pitta (HOT) and so I find myself needing sweet lassi's and chocholate to cool off my burning tongue. So after my day at KYM, lying on the floor in apanasana, inhaling my bent legs away for six counts and exhaling my bent knees in towards my chest in for tweleve, I was ready for a Bhakti (Yoga of Devotion) splash to wake things up again. I just wanted to go to the Shiva Temple called Kapalishvara Temple in the next neighborhood over. Sounds simple enough. I found a driver, agreed upon a fair fare price with him and got into the toot-toot (which is another name for auto-rigshaw I've learned). I could tell the driver was a bit Rajastic (active, associated with qualities of the Sun) as he kept spitting insults to the stalled traffic in fornt of us and waving his arms around. And yes, once we started moving again, there was the near death experience of two car moving full speed towards our little rigshaw, about to sandwhich us. But I won't dwell on this, becasue I've never driven in India myself, and he may have been in the right. All I know is this driver lives by the skin of his teeth. Then we just stopped, at what looks like a bee hive of motorist surrounding a petrol pump. There were motor bikes, cars and toot-toots fighting to be the next to get oil. Later I'll see this type of behavior at the Shiva Temple, only the devotees were waiting to make their offerings or to recieve the light. Driver's with water bottles and other plastic containers, jam themselves towards the fill-up man at the pump. I have one last sip of water in my jumbo bottle and the driver looks at it wantingly. "Do you want this?," I say. He nods and say, "Yes Madam." My German roomate and I always giggle about how when they call us Madam, we feel like a sort of princess. I don't see him for awhile and start getting fed up. I can't just sit here like this , I have things to do at the Shiva Temple, offerings to make an what not. How dare he just stop in the middle of my ride! I am paying him afterall. Couldn't he tell me he was going to stop! Me! Me! Me! Then it occured to me, that maybe the universe wants me to see this too. As much as I wanted to have my needs met in an immediate and orderly fashion, it was importent for me to see the gross need we all have for oil, be it crude, diseal, filtered or what have you. Sitting in the back of the rigshaw, I made it my practic just to sit, not to fight the scenerio which would have further complicated the matter and would have taken me longer to get to the Shiva Temple as I'd have to find a new toot-toot on this busy street, explain where I'm going and agree upon a fair fare. Instead I just gave in. I let go of my preferences how how this moment should look, to meet the moments as it was. By no means is this special. We all have events daily where we can either lose our sense of well being or keep it together. May we expand our clear headedness through letting go of the fight for our limited needs to be met, so we can work peacefully in the world around us.