Guess who's not a yoga teacher

Pictures from my recent trip to Ajanta, Ellora and Aurangabad include a cave painting in Ajanta (cave 1), some Buddhist monks hanging around the caves at Ellora, me and Buddha sitting together pondering things no one would understand, cave 16 at Ellora the largest monolithic carved object in the world, and the fake smaller Taj Mahal which is also a tomb and is made by the grandson of the guy who made the Taj Mahal in memory of his mother. It is nice but it looks squished from the sides compared to the Taj Mahal, it is located in Aurangabad.
Guess who’s not a yoga teacher, that’s right not me, which means I am a yoga teacher now I guess. This one will be a short one.
So on March 31st I passed my written exam to become a certified yoga teacher. I know a month may seem like a long time but in yoga you just skim the surface of what is to be known about yoga, living, health, etc… I am still not incredibly flexible like some may think but I improved and I will keep practicing yoga daily. I think that the benefits for this are immense not just physically but mentally. I learned a lot about myself and how life is to be lived during this course.
I relaxed for a few days now and I have worked on my Rotary presentation which I will be giving on April 17th. I made some very important changes. As suggested by my Rotary club in Canada, I took out almost all the words so it is mostly pictures now, and I must say it is much better, I also added a slide for my school and Canadian diversity.
On the first I played a few jokes, for one I rearranged the furniture in my living room, hardboiled some eggs and put them back in the fridge, called my friend asking for Yashwant his host dad (because an Indian guy always phones wanting to talk to Yashwant and it makes him angry), and put toilet paper all over a girls room. She wasn’t very happy about that. Not bad for a days work.
On April 5th tomorrow I am going to be starting a very intense meditation course where you have to maintain a strict code of silence for 10 days. In addition to this (if it isn’t hard enough) you can’t read, listen to music, make any gestures, and you have to wake up at 4am. The name, Vipassana, translates to seeing things as they really are so I think I will gain a lot from this course if I can focus my mind properly. I am confident that I can complete the course but am wary about whether or not I will attain the benefits. Oh well, there is a course just like this in Alberta (look it up dhamma.org) so there is always another time. The schedule seems very intense but it will be very rewarding, cleansing, and enlightening.
I get back on April 16th then do my presentation on the 17th; I hope I still have a voice. Then on the 24th of April I am going on the third and final trip to the Himalayas. It takes like 2 days to get there but I hear the whole experience is surreal. We will be trekking to a height of 3540m (11,600ft) and we will be spending like 3 nights in tents, eating food with flashlights and just having a great time relishing every moment.
I forgot to mention the trip that I took with my host parents. They took me on a trip to Aurangabad, Ajanta and Ellora. These places house very famous caves which have been carved or painted. Both Ajanta and Ellora are UNESCO world heritage sites. The caves were amazing. There were two sets one with mostly paintings (which were painted around 2nd century BC till 6th century AD with natural paint) and one with mostly carvings. The one mostly with paintings, Ajanta, was my favorite. It was incredible how the paint still stayed and how detailed the paintings were despite being painted so long ago. These paintings had a reoccurring theme which was the life of Buddha. How he became to be chosen Buddha and the stories which contributed to his enlightenment were all depicted in these caves. The caves also had a purpose in the early years they were used as temporary housing for Buddhist monks on their path across the country spreading the religion. The caves were incredible. Both sets of caves were monolithic and it was insane how big they were. Monolithic means it was carved out of one rock, so noting the primitive tools of the time it is incredible how large and complex the caves were. All the caves in the first set (Ajanta) and 12 of 30 caves in the second set had Buddhist roots so there were many Buddhas. However at Ellora (the second set) there was the largest monolithic carving in the world which was a Hindu temple carved into a mountain. It would have taken many, many years to make such a structure with the tools of the time. The first set of caves started construction in the second century BC and ended in the 6th century AD, the other set was more spread out in terms of construction time and had Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain influences. There were 30 caves and figures from 3 religions depicted in this set of caves so that was very interesting. Both sets of caves were incredible and I will always remember them, but I liked the first set because we had a great guide who told us all the stories on the walls and the paintings were incredible. The second caves had more sculptures and fabulous architecture so was also amazing. Please if you go to this area you have to see both sets of caves, if you don’t it is like you are eating an ice-cream with a waffle cone and once you have finished the ice-cream you throw away the waffle cone. You had the chance to eat the waffle cone (or see the second set of caves) but you missed the opportunity. A day was required to see each set of caves. The caves were absolutely incredible and I am very privileged to have seen them.
I think that is it for now. Please if you have a moment in the next few days spend 2 minutes silent for me to wish me luck and support me in my endeavor. If you do that guaranteed I will be silent at that time too so we will somehow be interconnected.
Take Care and enjoy the ‘warm’ weather, BTW it was 39 C here the other day.