Chapter Eight: Eighth Trip to India

The next year I was not going to come back. I told the Kirtan Woman, and she told me that my behavior was completely natural. I told her I did not think so. She said the Yoga Community was very liberal and would understand. While I was talking about my sexual orientation, she was talking about the fact she thought I was sleeping with young boys. This is how people get away with child abuse. People just overlook it to keep from upsetting the ox cart. I told the woman who managed my apartments while I was gone, I was not going to return, and she also encouraged me to go back. Of course, I did not follow my intuition, but acquiesced to the Kirtan Woman and the Property Manager.

I came back and paid the lease. This was December 2009. Guruji had passed on May 18th of that year. So, when I got back Guruji was no longer teaching. It was just Sharath and his Mother Saraswathi. Most of Guruji’s old students did not come back. It was a whole new crew of younger students of Sharath’s. One morning I was sitting in Baddha Padmasana which is bound lotus or where you sit in cross legged position and reach your hands around your back and grasp your feet. I was waiting for Sharath to come and assist me in Supta Vajrasana which is where he straddles your knees with his legs and grabs hold of your wrists and drops your head back and forth to the floor as if you were doing sit ups. I am thinking to myself, “I am never coming back”. When Sharath came to assist me, he said, “June, you come!” I respond, “What?” This exchange went on several times, and he told me to come to his office after class. I had not understood he was inviting me to come back to Mysore in June to the month-long teachers training. I was completely blindsided and of course told him I would.

I thought I had won the lottery. I was thinking with the Ashtanga Yoga Authorization Certificate I would be able to teach. I am not clear why I did not think I would be able to teach in 1989, but suddenly in 2010 I felt it was possible. I had to get a special visa and I could not come back into India for a certain period before June. I slid under the door on all accounts by days if not hours. One of the main priorities for getting authorized was to be able to teach a Led Primary. I had a book with the count and the postures all written out. I produced my own version using a video of Guruji teaching a group of six students and the booklet created by Lino Miele.

This year I was befriended by yet another woman. This woman was from Los Angeles and worked as an actress. She approached me and asked me to lunch. She told me when she had seen my practice, she thought I was her next husband. So here is my fourth Ashtanga Yoga woman who I am about to have yet another Platonic relationship. I do not think it was really me she was attracted to but the fact I was friends with the Kirtan Woman as she was very socially conscious. Intuitively I knew she had been told the gossip thinking it was that I was Gay. I ended up being friends with her for the next ten years. As an actress she had many gay friends and was comfortable with it. On one level this was great but on another it became very awkward.