I meant what I said
And I said what I meant,
An Elephant's faithful,
One hundred percent.
Dr.Seuss
What a mantra!
Ganesha gained eternal life as an elephant boy: Lord Ganesha, Remover of Obstacles, Lord of New Beginnings. Riding a ridiculously small mouse, Ganesha goads yogis toward new frontiers of body, mind, and spirit.
February is Heart Month. It's a good time to ask Ganesha's blessing of my body, mind, and spirit, for heart resides in all three.
Heart is body. I know this because mine stopped a few years ago. A Kentucky Fried Chicken leg lodged in my coronary arteries. Surgeons cracked my chest, and my physical heart, though slightly damaged, began anew.
Heart is body, but heart is mind and spirit as well. When a heart breaks, it breaks in all three ways. Even as I grew more healthy, I grew impatient, angry, and aggressive. I raced through life. Get out of my way! I have too much to do and not enough time to do it! My mental heart fractured, and I forgot the meaning of spirit. My family, my friends, and my students all suffered my impatience.
Finally, eighteen months ago, my niece, TC, invited me to Bikram Yoga. I spent most of my first class on my back, cursing, my inflexibility, my weakness, my pounding heart. I came back, though. Ganesha must have goaded me—or maybe it was something I heard in class (probably from Stacey), something about one-hundred percent effort. I may not be able to achieve the forms, the flexibility, the strength, or the stamina that I want, but if I work at one hundred percent of my capacity, I reap one hundred percent benefit from my practice.
Now it's Heart Month. I turn fifty-nine this month with my physical heart in better shape than I thought possible. My blood pressure has fallen more than fifty points; my resting heart rate nearly matches my age, and my cholesterol count has entered the realm in which reversal of heart disease may be possible.
In yoga practice I still have to take extra savasanas during the cardio-intensive parts of the series, but I no longer curse my heart. Rather, I bless it for working toward one hundred percent of my edge.
But that's not the best part. I sit on my living room floor and proudly show my wife and friends the progress I've made in flexibility. Strength will follow, I'm sure. And if Ganesha removes the obstacles, I may even discover a sense of balance.
My teen-age daughter, Katy, walks through the room and smiles. What she says is the best part, because she sees my healing heart. She says, "Yoga has changed you, Dad. When you enter a room now, you come wrapped in a cloud of peace."
Heart is body.
Heart is mind.
Heart is spirit.
One hundred percent.
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