Ohm it: 可 欲 , 不 可 求

Do you practise yoga? If you're a yoga virgin like Tango you'll find the chanting of "OHMmmmmm" extremely relaxing (not!) and somewhat, shall we say - giggly..haha...In all honesty, throughout my numerous years of on-off yoga practise (I'm coming close to a decade!) the ohmming part of yoga sessions, deeply touched my heart in times of lost and bewilderedness and as some of you might know, I'm going through this phase in my life right now.

Ohm suddenly becomes relaxing, calming and all things nice.It is claimed it calms the mind, it increases mindspace, it serenes your soul! (we all know there are a lot of chemical substances out there that do it much better, but hey! we're going au naturale here!)

But how about ohming " 可 欲 , 不 可 求" ?I learnt this through my long-lost childhood friend G. We recently found each other (on cyberspace) in one of the horrendously long mass email lists and have since kept in contact. G shared some of her dad's words of wisdom with me. One that touched my heart was: We should treat relationships as " 可 欲 , 不 可 求" .可 欲 , 不 可 求 (for the benefit of you non-Chinese educated people out there) sums up THE life philosophy we should all adopt. It literally means : can be lust over but cannot be hoped for.

If we eradicated all the mental "criteria lists" we created and stopped hoping and waiting in anticipation for boxes to be ticked, I believe we will lead much happier lives. Afterall, it does seem like fate and timing play a big part in most relationships.The right place at the right time. It's all about timing.Hence, instead of hoping to serene your soul through chanting ohm, how about chanting the new mantra " 可 欲 , 不 可 求" at yoga class tomorrow?