Do Not Eat the Fish

By C Alexa | September 11, 2026
0 Comments

By Christina Alexa
Founder of Prema Shala & AYI Institute, RYS
Co-Founder of Enjoy the Journey Retreats, LLC *

A Throwback, on the Occasion of Teaching Dharma II Again

I started teaching Dharma II again this week, and it pulled something loose in me, a memory I hadn’t visited in a while, from Spring 2015, back when I first met Sri Dharma Mittra in person. I’m now 500-Hour certified in his lineage and still deep in the 800-hour program, still meeting myself on the mat the same way I did that day, just with a little more mileage.

Reading this now, older and hopefully a little wiser, I’m struck by how much of it still holds. Some lessons don’t expire; they just wait for you to be ready to hear them again.

“See yourself in the practice you are not able to access right now. Imagine yourself in it.” – Sri Dharma Mittra

Spring of 2015 was a rich collage of variable opportunity. A new iteration of my business was taking shape; my wellness center had just added a large spa, staff numbering thirty and growing. What seemed promising then was, in hindsight, maya: a short-lived illusion, doomed for the ashes Kali Ma was readying to dance upon.

Discovering Dharma was as simple as attending a Yoga Journal Live Conference in NYC that April. My studio manager and I made the trip from NH together, two country bumpkins, eyes constantly peeled upward, not in devotion but in awe of the skyline. Ambitiously, we registered for six two-hour classes with world-famous instructors. After four, we were done and spent the rest of the weekend in the Yoga Market spending far too much money on mala beads.

The class we teased each other about for years afterward was the Master Sadhana class with Sri Dharma Mittra. If ignorance is bliss, stepping onto the mat in his presence that day was samadhi. Here was the guru, spry in wit and form, guiding a mixed-level room through intensive pranayama, asana, yoga Nidra, and meditation – a class for which, fortunately, I had gone mentally blind. Had I focused beforehand on the term “Master Class,” I might never have stepped into the room.

We were hungover. Twenty minutes of rapid, deep breathing threatened the vaporous blush of vomit in my mouth. Yet I made it through, blessed by a strange realization: pranayama is a magical purifier, the best hangover cure on earth.

Relieved that part was behind us, we soon discovered the true meaning of drowning while in over our heads. While others stood on their hands and folded feet behind their heads, I kept mine down, dying a hundred thousand small deaths of the ego in child’s pose. What was truly ridiculous wasn’t that my practice was not as physically advanced, it was how much energy I spent self-bludgeoning because of it.

“Everything depends on your mental attitude.” — Sri Dharma Mittra

I suffered. But no differently than I always had. Suffering begins in the mind and becomes apparent in the body. As my mother liked to say, “You made your bed. Now you have to lie in it.” The bed I found myself in that spring, in Sri Dharma’s presence, was made from a lifetime of unconscious conditioning. I considered myself fairly self-aware; what was stripped bare in those two hours were the ways I was not.

Deep breath.

You are okay, I told myself. Relax. Trust. Endure.

…this sucks. You are NOT okay.

Deep breath.

You are okay.

Savasana arrived like a white horse of rescue. Yoga Nidra was a welcome relief after the chaos of coming up against myself. But of course, it wasn’t over yet.

“The Spiritual Sun already blazes within.” — Sri Dharma Mittra

What drew me to Dharma that day – and what made me run away, only to run back to complete over 500 hours of training – was the unabashed, open love of God that permeated his practice. After years crushed beneath the weight of Saturn in my chart, after divorce, single motherhood, financial hardship, parental illness and death – after loss upon loss, I realized I needed to continue redefining my relationship to love. My devotion was quiet, my heart tired, my faith finger-tapping as it waited for me to return. Dharma had…something. Something that I needed again.

I needed to remember that I am already that which I am seeking to remember.

Dharma’s voice held a trancelike gentleness. Yet in asana practice he was strong, exuding a father’s discipline that let me believe him when he said this posture is possible, and this one, and this one. I tried. I met myself. And finally, I surrendered to the knowing that I am not as great as my ego wants – I am greater, in the truth of my own inner brilliance. There, I am light, free, open, expansive, still. Beyond time, beyond dimension, I am, actually, okay.

As we relaxed our fingers and toes, our limbs and inner organs, Dharma led us into a guided meditation. The richness of his accent made some words difficult to discern, but the lull of his tone coaxed a release of attachment even to understanding, to knowledge, to personality. We were flying through the air, we were diving in a lake, we were swimming with fish, viewing the light penetrating the water, illuminating colors and life, scales and gills with startling clarity.

“Now…” Dharma said tranquilly, “Do not. Eat. The fish.”

…what?

Did he really just say that, in the middle of a yoga Nidra meditation?

Do not eat the fish.

For me it was not really that bad. As a lifelong vegetarian, Dharma’s magic landed softly. For my friend – a devout, proud carnivore who revered prosciutto and was known to wax poetic on the joys of daily bacon – it hit much harder. For weeks she could not look at meat. Dharma had said something like: if there is meat in your refrigerator, your kitchen is a morgue. We laughed. But we were unnerved. Ahimsa had taken hold on a whole new level. I can still remember my friend yelling, “What did he do to us???”

Truly, when I entered the room that day and when I exited, I was two different people. That was the last class of the weekend we attended, because we were exhausted, we thought. I realize now that for me it was because I had received what I came for.

Four years later, I completed yet another YTT, this one very special. A 500-Hour Life of a Yogi Dharma Yoga Teacher Training certification later led to the 800-hour program. I am still meeting myself, dismantling ego, discovering who I am not in order to embrace who I already am. While Sri Dharma is loved and honored as a living Guru, he would never call himself that, which is something I respect. His humility does not consume power to elevate himself.

What is a true “living guru”? Someone with the discipline to live by yoga’s ethics, to become self-realized. Dharma says, “life without yoga: suffering is suffering. Life with yoga: suffering is a gateway to realize the Self and shift consciousness to a higher level, so we know we are just an observer to our mind and body. Enjoy everything from this body and mind, but do not attach to it.”

“Your worst enemy is your own self when you are not under control.” – Sri Dharma Mittra

What Sri Dharma resurrected in me, during a time that I needed it, is the knowledge that anything is possible. Maybe not all at once, but little victories string together like rudraksha seeds on a mala. Through the discipline of practice, transformation happens. And sometimes practice is all we have. Inside this space, the ego dissolves. The brightness inside grows brighter. The hopelessness in the world grows less consuming, more manageable. There’s more room in the heart to feel, to radiate, to care.

Thank you, Dharma, for walking your talk, and for giving language to the freedom I still seek.

Yogis who take the search for freedom into the innermost part of their soul are called Sadhakas. Surrender to Isvara – the Supreme Self – is a certain path. This power is already within. The Spiritual Sun already blazes as the Innermost Self. Harmony between you and the Higher Self is the destination. – Sri Dharma Mittra

 
Invitations:

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *