White walls surround the campus of the
Ashram, as you walk down the entrance path from the main road the sounds get
progressively quieter, the main courtyard sports a garden with technicolour
flowers – everything is quiet and peace, a world away from the rest of India.
For the last 3 weeks I have been staying at
an Ashram, a temple of study, while attending a ‘yoga’ course. When I
originally thought of yoga I had the image of many people doing complex posses
that twisted the body in strange and interesting ways – probably in a large
hall with a mirror on one side. But this course was a world away from that.
These last few weeks have been spent with a group of 7 other people and only
one teacher. To be honest when I signed up to this course I didn’t really have
any idea what it would be like – the ashram was recommended to me (by my
parents, I know sacrilege to do what they advise but they have been doing yoga
since the 70s or something so I guessed that they knew a thing or two about it)
and although I’ve been to a retreat at plum village I knew it would be very
different. So I went into this a little blind and I was a little shocked to
begin with, on our first night our teacher told us that he’d prefer if during
our stay we had no contact with the outside world and that he’d prefer if we
observed silence outside of class. You can image what that sounds like – don’t
talk to anyone for the next 3 weeks please. GULP, ok, but more on this later.
The first morning he interrogated us about our poo – yes poo is very important
as an indication of how the body is doing, so every morning we had to describe
it to our teacher. This shook up the system a little bit but perhaps that’s
part of it, all of the magical places in time that I have experienced (shemesh,
Israel tour, plum village, nowhere) break your normal routine, creating their
own world, enabling them to affect you in a much deeper way because your usual
barriers are disrupted. That’s why its always so hard to return to the default
world afterwards; case in point being Rishikesh, before the Ashram I came to
Rishikesh and thought ‘this is so calm for an Indian town’, yesterday I went
and I was stunned by the chaos and noise.
This Ashram is an interesting place, the
Guru who set it up (Swami Rama) was left this world and so there is no central
teacher. His pictures are everywhere and he is very revered. He decided to
build his ashram right on the edge of the Ganga, which is a beautiful spectacle
to hold, you walk up a small flight of stairs to a bank that overlooks a wide
stretch of water the flows so slowly that when there is no wind it doesn’t look
like it moves at all. Across the river is a forest where wild elephants live
and occasionally you see them come down to the river to drink or wash
themselves. These are real elephants, not the dull eyed, broken spirited
creatures you see at the temples or the elephant training camps. They have a
mystical, playful, slow grace to their movements. Above the forst is a mountain
range the hides the sun in the morning, making the twilight last for a good
long time. People are always walking up and down the river, especially in the
early morning and evening, you catch a glimpse of real Indian life, couples
holding hands, family’s strolling, gangs of youths strutting about together and
people going jogging.
Life here is at a difference pace slow but
busy, my days where packed to the brim with things to do (for those interested
I’ve put an overview of a basic day at the ashram at the end of this post). The
course was very much learning through doing which consisted of preparing for
meditation (What our teacher says is that you don’t DO meditation, meditation
Occurs. If you are still doing something you aren’t meditating.), yoga and
philosophy. It has been fascinating learning about a new tradition in such
depth especially from our teacher who is a self proclaimed fanatic (meditation
and the practice are his life). There were points that rang very true for me
and others that I just could not swallow (Like when our teacher told us that
with meditation one can levitate. Ok I can just about believe the stories of
sages going into caves for weeks on end without food or water and coming out
fine, meditation and yoga gives one mastery over the body and mind so much so
that one could slow ones heart beat and breathing down to an almost comatose
stat. But lifting yourself off the ground with your mind?!?! Manifesting mental
energy on the material plan??? Sorry no, I’m not believing that till I see it.)but
I believe that no one system is perfectly correct and I’ll be taking with me
what I have found meaningful and useful from this tradition (Note that my
teacher also kept on repeating that we shouldn’t believe any word he said until
we experienced it ourselves.). Bellow are a few of these things.
·
I have learnt how to walk with
my feet parallel. My legs are still adjusting; it’s a whole new world.
·
We make excuses and
justifications about our own actions even to ourselves, covering up our reason
for our actions.
·
After 24 years of life I
finally know where my hips are. (Yoga should be taught at all schools because
we do not get taught how to use our own bodies.)
·
The only time we have is Now.
·
A lot of the time we assume how
the world is, what will happen, and then end up perceiving our own assumption.
·
Using the word ‘Tradition’
rather than ‘Religion’. I prefer it because: 1. ‘Religion’ creates much more
division (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism) while tradition gives diversity,
acknowledging the many different strand of different systems. 2. Many
traditions, like Judaism and Buddhism, don’t really fit into the traditional
view of what a religion is. Judaism isn’t just a religion and Buddhism doesn’t
have a good. 3. It makes it sound like all these traditions are pointing towards,
trying to get to, the same source – which I very much believe.
·
When we make a mistake we
shouldn’t judge or condemn ourselves for it but rather just determine that you
will not make that mistake again.
·
Nothing in this world is
‘yours’, you do not own anything, but everything in this world is for you to
use and experience.
·
It’s ok to be Silent.
·
Greed and Fear are great
motivators in our world but if we don’t have expectation or attachment then we
can free ourselves from them.
·
Love is not attachment. Love is
selfless. Attachment is about the self.
·
We can consciously change our
thought patterns and habits.
·
I have learnt how to breathe
diaphragmatically. That is without moving my chest or my stomach.
·
The process of Yoga Nidra
‘Yogic Sleep’. A form of conscious sleep that is deeply relaxing, restful and
rejuvenating.
·
Several Yoga series that are
helping me keep my back straight.
·
Nothing outside in the world
will make us happy unless with are happy in ourselves, happiness comes from
within.
That’s just a fraction of the stuff, not to
mention all the practices that I can’t put to words. It’s enough to say that
this course has affected me, taught me some new things and reminded me of some
I already knew. Meditation and the practice around it are not only fascinating
but also useful tools.
------------------------------
Now for loneliness.
Before coming I was excited and slightly
apprehensive about this experience. I’d been on a 2 week retreat before which
had a deep impact on me and a was quite challenging at times. I knew that this
would be a new experience and tried not to put too many expectations about what
this would be and what I wanted to get out of it. I didn’t know what really to
expect as I’ve never done anything from the yogic tradition before and I knew
that if I tried too hard to focus on a specific outcome then it could elude me
(its often only when you aren’t searching for something that it comes to you).
The first shock was the silence, silence at
mealtimes I can understand, it lets you focus on your food and eat truly
mindfully (something I find a challenge but when I do it, it transforms the
experience of eating into something magical) but all the time, I was scared. As
your may know I am an intensely social person, I love being with/talking to my
friends and when I am going through a complex experience or problem I’m one of
those people who finds it really useful to talk about it. Talking to people is
how I process life. This coupled with the fact that ‘sharing’ was such a part
of the tradition at plum village made me scared of not talking to those around
me.
The second shock was contact to the outside
world. No talking to my friend or family back home. No going on facebook or
looking at my emails. No leaving the site of the Ashram. No speaking to or
texting Sarah, the woman who I love.
On my first full day I told my teacher that
I was worried about not talking to my girlfriend, that I thought it might upset
her. He gave me a metaphorical slap around the back of the head, and told me
that that was my ego talking, what did I think, that without me she would
wither and die?
Lol, our teacher did not let us get away
with any shit. He ‘broke up the frozen sea with us’ as Kafka puts it. The
amount of times he’d point out to us that we were assuming or creating justifications
in the first week was staggering until we started to become aware of it
ourselves.
So here I was, an intensely social person
that loves his friend and I couldn’t talk to anyone. Not in hear or out there.
All I had for company was myself. All I had for self expression was my
occasional question during class (questions in class were ok, and indeed were encouraged).
But I thought that since I was here I
should do the thing how it is really done.
We are taught from a young age in the west
that being alone is one of the world things that can happen.
‘You know the worst punishment for a
prisoner is solitary confinement.’
‘You’ve been a bad boy Billy, go stand in
the naughty corner BY YOUR SELF!’
In silence one is cannot distract oneself
from what is happening inside. Usually we can drown out our mind by watching tv
or going to the pub with your mates. You can share what’s happening inside with
others and be comforted by the fact that they are going through or have gone
through similar things. You can talk out solutions. You can have a pint.
But not in the Ashram, oh no. Hear you are
confronted with the silence. You don’t know about the experience of others, you
cannot voice your frustrations and wallow in the comfort of communal
experience. After a while you are faced with the full brunt of your internal
monologue. You stand bare in front of yourself.
For the first few days I was incredibly
frustrated because my mind was so foggy during meditation (something which
happens when one doesn’t practice). I kept wondering to myself what one earth I
was doing here, especially considering that 3 out of the 8 people on the course
were yoga teachers and I’d never done yoga before in my life. And I couldn’t
let out this emotion, I couldn’t talk about it, couldn’t share it with anyone.
After another couple of days I shared it at satsang and someone else in the
circle shared that she felt frustration also. It was amazing to see how
speaking it out loud helped me deal with the feeling, especially since my
teacher talked me through it. Even more interesting was how relieved the other
girl who was frustrated felt that someone else was feeling the same thing. We
want to know that we are the same, that we aren’t alone.
After a time you learn to turn your gaze
inwards. You get to know the inner workings of your mind, the thoughts and
patterns of thoughts that keep on reoccurring. The way your mind tries to
distract itself. The mind must always be doing something and it is interesting
to see how it keeps itself busy. Especially since usually all this stuff goes
on in the background and we are unaware of it.
Eventually through practice you become
comfortable with the silence, comfortable just being by yourself, which is
nice. The clamour of your mind calms down a little and you learn to direct it,
getting rid of old unuseful or harmful grooves that your mind has gotten into
and making new positive ones.
However it’s something that one can only do
by oneself.
Once I got used to the silence, to the
stillness, after about a week, then I had my first couple of interactions with
the other people in my course. Suddenly my mind flared up a new, throwing out
webs like spider man, or lassoes like a cowboy. These strands or assumption,
meaning making and analysis wrapped themselves around what the other people
said. Immediately my mind went to work, colouring them in with paint from its
own pallet, trying to figure out what boxes they fit into – though truly no one
ever fits into any of our boxes. I saw this happening, witnessed it and
practiced letting go of those assumptions.
At the end of a week I came to the
realisation that I could stay in silence the rest of the time but that I truly
enjoyed interacting with people. Two weeks in I had not spoken that many more
words to people but as a group we had our own jokes and occasional
conversations, it was a quiet companionship. There was still a lot of silence,
especially since much of our time was in practice and there is no chitchat in
sessions. After those 2 weeks I broke my silence to the outside world – because
I felt that the silence wasn’t adding to my experience any longer.
I was terrified of being by myself.
I learnt how to cope with my inner world.
I witnessed the difference between those
experiences.
It’s good to know that I can be happy only
by myself, but the technicolour and flavour of life are oh so much richer when
they are shared with others.
-----------------------------------------
As mentioned above, to get a picture into
your mind of what life here has been like bellow I’ve reproduce an example of
my standard day.
4am – Alarm
4:15 - Wake up,
brush teeth, do neti pot (in Indian practice where you irrigate your nose with
luke warm salt water – I know it sounds strange but I am completely converted),
drink 2.5 litres of water (that’s right, 2.5! after which I felt slightly nauseous
[twice I threw up in the morning] but that’s what I needed to instigate my
gastro-colic reflex, which is important before you do you morning practice) and
do my Internal Dialogue (a practice where you very literally ask yourself
questions).
4:45 – Breathing exercises
5:15 – Morning
Systematic Relaxation
5:45 – Personal
Meditation Practice (Though my teacher wouldn’t like me saying that, it should
be Morning Preparation for Meditation)
6:15 – Hot Lemon
Water
6:30 – Morning
practice (Spent in the meditation hall doing YQ yoga series. These are series
that our teacher has created based on Hatha yoga, but not hatha yoga as you
know it. His focus is on real attention to detail. And I mean Crazy Detail. I
learnt SO much about how my body moves.)
7:30 – Morning
Meditation
8:15 – Breakfast
WALK
10:00 – Satsang (A
sort of seminar/lecture split into two halves, one about the practical
philosophy and the other about the theoretical philosophy. Though most of the
time they are the same thing.)
1:00 – Lunch
4:00 – Chai (teas)
Walk
5:00 – Evening
practice (again another yoga series)
6:00 – Evening
Meditation
7:00 – Dinner
7:30 – Satsang
9:00 – Personal
Practice
10:00\10:30 – Bed
A busy schedule to say the least. Only a
max of 6 hours sleep, but you’d be surprised how rested I felt. But meditation,
yoga and yoga nidra will do that to a man.
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