We all need some guidance along our journey in life. This guidance can come from a variety of sources – books, gurus, random strangers on the street, a book found on a bench, etc.. It is up to our belief system what we consider as guidance.

Though, unquestionably, the best is finding someone, who truly lights paths within us. Who doesn’t necessarily tell us the answer but with his/her presence we find the answers.

This time I avoid using the term “guru”. I avoid it and will use “teacher” instead.
Teacher with my deepest respect and the sacredness to it.

Sharath Jois was one of my teachers. Having him in my life, even though most of the time the connection was me seeing him in photos and social media posts, changed the trajectory of my life.

SharathJi was the center of the yoga lineage I started practicing back in 2014. He was the lineage holder, the successor of his grandfather, who was a student of Krishnamacharya.
Tradition. And tradition brings a special flavor, a special vibration to whatever we get involved in.

There is a sacredness in the continuity of what the ancestors created and nourished throughout history.

When I started practicing ashtanga yoga, I got hooked by the system and everything that system included. It was never a question of whether to sleep a bit more or wake up at 5am latest, get to the yoga shala, do the practice, and only after start my work in the office.
The more I did it, the more I wanted to be in it. My dream quickly became the pilgrimage to Mysore, to the source. All I could think of was how I could make it to the main shala to study with Sharath.

This is where he changed my life. My desire to study under his guidance was so strong that I quit my job. A job, that paid well, with career opportunities, and where I had been working for 9 years (more than a quarter of my life back then).
Before yoga, I thought I liked my life. The dream of studying with Sharath in India overwrote it all.

At the beginning of 2016 not only my dream came true and I could spend 2 months in India, but also the transformation of my life, the transformation of me launched with incredible speed.

All because of the dream – to study with him.

I was blessed and I had one more season to spend in the main shala with him in 2018, and I didn’t return after.

My transformation got into paths where ashtanga yoga was not a priority. Though I never stopped practicing, my drive and dedication weren’t that strong.

Interestingly, though I didn’t plan to go back in the short term, I always said one day I would return – just to spend time with him, with the teacher who I always looked up to and respected.

This is not going to happen anymore in this lifetime.

SharathJi’s sudden transition from this planet left me with an unexplainable emptiness. Even after so many years of not seeing him and not being so consistent and disciplined in my practice.

And yet, maybe more strongly than ever I can connect to the depth of the teachings again. The teachings about yoga and most importantly the teachings about life.

Impermanence

We talk about it all the time. We give examples from nature, from everyday life.

Yet, impermanence can still spit in our faces within a second and shake us up from the comfort of planning, procrastination, and just the way we look at life.

Do we really need these reminders to wake up and look at life as precious, fragile treasure? To look at it in a way that it all can stay for long and also can be a memory only in a millisecond?

How come a yoga teacher, who – what the world could see – lived a yogic life leaves at age 53 due to heart failure?

And yes, what is a short or a long life?
A life with a legacy that will go beyond generations in the world, even though it is 53 years, short? Or is this again a perception?

And who can answer all these questions?

You are your own guru

His sudden passing created a hole in the circle. A hole of emptiness.

The times on this planet are changing and what used to work well before might not serve the growth of the collective consciousness anymore.

The times have arrived, when we need to go within to find the answers. We need to continue the pilgrimage to our own center. To our own source. To the source, which is connected with the One and All.

Our ancestors and teachers gave us the foundations, the strength.
They live on, within us, within our actions.