Samskaras/ My Conditioned Experience/ Batman

I didn't know there were bats in Mysore. I thought those silhouettes of frenetically flapping wings were birds. I didn't give them much thought. My brain processed the thing that was flying as "bird" and left it at that. But then my friend jumped and yelled "bat". Until that moment, for me, bats did not exist in Mysore.

I'm riding on a scooter with my friend who just arrived and who kindly moves to the side when other vehicles come into the way. "You have to honk!" I shout into the wind. We're learning to drive like how bats fly--by sound. We're learning to define space and our position in a new way. We pass on the right. We honk when we are approaching. We move to the left when we are honked at. We place ourselves on a grid two honks forward and one to the left.

In this body and in this life I'm reminded/realizing that I have to remember to listen for the honking. Where I am in space changes and can always be different and new. There are things I never thought were physically or mentally possible that I am now doing. On a physical level I know that means something but it is on a mental level where the interesting stuff is happening. Is my body making the change or is it my mind? If it is my mind, then where is it taking me and why? I know we are working to the point of just observing, but right now I feel like there is so much happening like breathing and blinking that I have no control over and I'm just witnessing. Is this me doing this posture? Is this me lifting up? Is this me exhaling? Is this me as an intermediate student?

To be something do you have to believe it?

More lessons learned on the New York City Subways/Even on the subway one can practice/Samskaras

"Excuse me."  Much like the Indian use of the horn, it is sometimes directed to someone, sometimes a notice that I am here in space like sound bouncing so we know where we all are like bats or sharks in the ocean.  I slide as gracefully as possible into the seat between two "normal" sized commuters (they did not cross the seat indentations into mine--a horror unto itself).  

A man stands over me grumbling under his breath about girls and youth and who knows what else but I do catch his reference to my lapse in the use of "excuse me".  This, apparently, I could not stand for.   "I said 'excuse me',"  I also mumble under my breath.  We are here acting like the other isn't.  This is how you ride in a car for thirty minutes with no AC and the lingering smell of puke and Chinese barbecue chicken over the screams of a baby in a stroller.  

It could have ended there.  We both could have had our moments of anger without penetrating the other's personal space (a relative term depending on the situation, but something New Yorkers will claim, name, and fight to the death for).  I look up briefly from my Sudoku at the sound of the man's voice inches from my face.  His mouth moves slowly like it is full of marbles.  I see every bristle in his fisherman face.  I can smell his angry little life and his desperation to yell at someone, anyone, just to get it out.  Is he enjoying this?  I suppose neither of us anticipated that I also have samskaras (in a nutshell, patterns of thoughts, actions, behaviors "inherited" from past lives or the past of this life) I'm working through.

"GET OUT OF MY FUCKING FACE!" 

I don't yell it or scream it.  It was that cold, calculated, venomous voice built up for all those times when I couldn't or didn't say what I wanted to say.  He looked afraid.  I was steaming.  Of course we rode the subway side by side like this without saying a word for two more stops.

Sometimes you ruffle your wings and then feel better, but sometimes you ruffle them and the feathers keep getting more disorganized. 

What else could have I told him to make him feel like shit?

What was going on with that poor guy that he needed to tell me that?

Why did I react that way?

Now that I have acted upon those samskaras and now that it doesn't feel as natural, will I be able to let them go?

So next time I do it differently.  

As much as I am attached to the idea of transformation, those samskaras are attached to me.