You must have read a lot of this sort of stories: sickly children becoming healthy and strong after having practiced yoga. This is as magical as the situation of “students who eat ‘urinated on’ meatballs have always full score at all the tests”. However, my story is a little bit different but has still something to do with the ebb of life. I came from a mountain town, in the south of the Malaysian Peninsula. When I was little, I was thin and weak but rarely visited hospitals. This is probably the difference between kids growing up in the countryside and those growing up nicely sheltered. The biggest turning point of my life came in my thirties. My investments in ornamental fish farms turned sour, I lost all my savings and even contracted some debts. Suddenly, another feature of a countryside kid my optimism also disappeared, I got lost and panicked. I did not know what to do and did not want to think about it either. My wife who was in Mysore in southern India at the time said to me: “Why don’t you come to Mysore, don’t worry about practicing yoga, just come.”… I still remember, it was in the evening of July 2, 2004 I took the Malaysia airline’s flight MH192 with a sort of “getting away from reality” attitude and flew to India. This trip changed my life.

A few years later, one night, I was drinking alone at home. Suddenly, a flow of clear thoughts emerged and I realized that I approached yoga because it required me to work on “mind” instead of “body”. In other words, I enhance and train the “mind” through “bodily” practice. One important step in yoga is “internal purification,” especially to purify the six poisons that surround the spiritual heart: kama (desire), krodha (anger), moha (delusion), lobha (greed), matsarya (envy) and mada (sloth). I’m still fighting against them and to be frank with you, I get defeated more than I conquer. It’s really really hard to overcome them. There’s no other way, I can only continue to fight……

Notes: Not long ago, I read “four sentences of Indian’s spiritual teachings” on the internet. After having been through the past few years and having slowly thought them over, I got quite deep feeling about these 4 sentences:

1. Whomsoever you encounter is the right one.

2. Whatever happened is the only thing that could have happened.

3. Each moment in which something begins is the right moment.

4. What is over, is over.