Exactly ONE week away from India!

Today's arrival marks the one week point from my husband & I's departure to India. It is still so completely unreal to me & at the same time so completely natural that I am experiencing nothing but a peaceful calm. I cannot say the same for those around me. Most people's initial reaction when they hear I am going to India is, "Oh my god! Be prepared! Don't you know they don't have toilets or toilet paper there!?!" To this, I've tried to explain in my calmest, least bitchy, yogic sounding voice that I'm not going to India for the sanitation. So naturally then, the next question that pops into my own mind is, "Well, what exactly are you going to India for?" Why go to India?

When I was in high school, my Mom & I went on a service trip that helped elderly people with simple home repairs. I never felt such an intense high of happiness, sense of unity, nor infinite possibility in my life than I did at the end of that trip. We slept on gym floors, showered in group gym showers, & woke up at ungodly hours. We sacrificed our normal creature comforts & somehow immense joy was created. That joy came from seeing the happiness & the gratitude in the eyes of the elderly beings we were helping.

Hundreds of thousands of years ago, the yogis already knew this equation to true, everlasting happiness: Make a sacrifice; offer up your service for the greater good of others & you WILL receive the most intense high of happiness & pure joy or samadhi (union with God).

Sri Swami Satchidananda explains this idea so beautifully in his commentary on Yoga Sutra I:15 --

"Sacrifice is the law of life... It is not only saints but everything in nature -- trees, birds, animals -- they all live for the sake of others. Why does a candle burn & melt away? To give light. Why does an incense stick burn to ash? To give fragrance. Why does a tree grow? To give fruit & flowers. Is there anything, sentient or insentient, in this world that lives for its own sake? No. When the entire nature sacrifices, why should we human beings alone lead selfish lives? We are here to give and give and give. What is due to us will come without our worrying about it."

Here's to the highest offering one can make...A simple sacrifice of your own service, no matter how simple or extreme. No effort is ever wasted. Offer the strength you gain from 200 chatarungas to holding the door open for someone else to pass through. Let someone go before you in the grocery store check-out line. You don't even have to give up toilet paper! The immense joy will still come.

Peace. Love. And the highest blessing of joy to each of you who took the time to read my ramblings.