As we welcome International Yoga Day into its third year, I would like to thank the Surya Namaskar for helping me get along with my quarter life crisis with relative ease.
When I was 6 odd years old, some astrologer dude told me to look at the Sun daily and say "Om Surya Namaha" 12 times. Somehow the habit stuck. But it wasn't until recently that I looked up the actual names of the sun, and the meanings and the yoga postures associated with it.
But am I glad I did that during my early 20s. Yes, I know how you, me and we all feel at this age.
Doubtful about what we want, what we just did, and what we're going to do. Where is the
impact we were supposed to create? Weren't we supposed to
make a difference? Either stuck in a job where the growth seems impossibly harder than we thought or still figuring out what do with our underrated lives.
But the stories we used to read, and our parents, teachers, didn't they always say that we were special? (Heck, my parents even
named me विशेष). We can't even compare to our over achiever parents when they were 25, let alone friends of our age!
Should we go for a debt-inviting MBA? Can we just quit and travel the
world, hitchhiking? Or should we just go to the Himalayas and settle
down as an ascetic? Or let's just take our non-paying passion full time! And passion, where is passion in our ever failing relationships? Constant questioning if we really want
to be with this person long-term — and maybe even debating whether it's
too late to find someone else. Failed searches for
the right one, failed attempts to sustain the right one.
Being a twenty something is indeed scary. The
Depression Alliance estimates that a third of twenty somethings feel depressed.
"If, as we're constantly told, the world is our oyster, it's
definitely a dodgy one. Unlike the midlife crisis, the quarter life
crisis is not widely recognized. There are no 'experts' to help us. We
have no support apart from each other."
Damian Barr, author of the book Get it Together: A Guide to Surviving Your Quarterlife Crisis
So here's my attempt at supporting a troubled fellow.
My perceptions and understandings about this wonderful meditative practice, called the Surya Namaskar; and why we should imbibe them.
And how it can save us.
