The main dining hall which is where the initial registration takes place has an amazing view of a valley dotted with small clusters of houses and large expanses of bushland. In the morning the fresh air hangs damp with a soft mist that excites the senses with the feeling that magical things are possible here. The sounds of the birds and the breeze penetrate into the layers and begin almost instantly to wash away the built up layers.
The course itself is 10 days, you are actually there for 12 though, one day either side to settle in and settle out.
The Rules
Noble Silence - This is probably the hardest to observe, essentially it means no communication whatsoever with the other students. This includes hand gestures, eye contact as well as verbal and physical communication. The idea is to make you feel as though you are on the course in total seclusion and achieves this goal fairly well.Introspection - No entertainment materials - diaries, mp3 players, mobile phones books etc are all outlawed. This is a time for getting to know yourself rather than losing yourself in activities.
Segregation of sexes - The course is open to both males and females however it is split into two sections. The only time males and females see each other is in the main meditation hall but even here they sit on opposite sides. This is to minimize distractions, just as well because there were a lot of very attractive young women with me on the course. Had we not been separated I don't think I could have achieved anything with my meditation.
No dinner - Two meals are provided, dinner is not one of them. It feels like this would be a real killer but since you don't do anything all day except meditate you don't get too hungry. New students can have 2 fruits and milk if they wish at dinner time, students that have undertaken the course before may only have tea.
On top of this there are other rules but these are relatively easy to follow such as:
No killing - This as far as i'm aware includes animals and insects.
Strict vegetarian food - Food is provided and you can't bring your own so this isn't an issue.
No telling lies - Well because of the noble silence rule you'd have to be telepathic and project your thoughts into someone else's mind to break this one.
The Schedule
This is where it really gets you, essentially you wake at 4am meditate all day until 9:30 pm with breaks at 6:30-8 for breakfast, 11-1 for lunch and 6-7 for "dinner" and 9-9:30 for brushing teeth etc. Practically it works out to be about 10 hours of meditation each day. It sounds like a lot and it is, but once you settle in it doesn't seem so bad. The most difficult part are what I like to call the hours of pain, these are three one hour compulsory meditation sessions in the main hall. They are 8-9, 2:30-3:30 and 6-7, during the first three days students are allowed to shift their position during these hours but after day four everyone is expected to sit statue of Buddha style without moving for the whole hour.Meditation in the hall is normally done by sitting on the floor, a selection of different types of meditation cushions are available and you can arrange these however you like for the most comfortable position. One amazing thing is to see the infinite number of ways these cushions get positioned. I used to think there was only one comfortable way to sit on the floor - cross legged but every person there managed to arrange the cushions and position themselves uniquely. If you are unable to sit on the floor chairs can be provided.
My Experience
Day 0 - Arrival
I arrived on day 0, as I stepped within the course boundaries for the first time I was flooded with a brief but overwhelming sense of peace. The only other times I have felt that is at the Vikasanada and Chinmayananda temples in Nagpur and Mumbai. I signed up and they showed me to my room, it was a 12 person dorm but there was only one other person in it, later that night even he got moved out leaving me in there alone.I was a bit anxious about my ability to meditate for such long periods and talking to some of the other old(who had done the course before) students didn't help. They all told me that the first course is a nightmare and that I was right to be worried.
At 8pm on day 0 is the initial meditation session where you see the meditation hall, set up your cushion and sit for half an hour in a guided meditation from the teacher. As you approach the hall the cone of silence descends and you are instructed not to speak again until the end of the course. The first meditation session for me was terrible, I couldn't concentrate at all with the teachers voice blaring away. The technique they asked us to do was simply observe the breath, this is basically the technique I use at home so it was not a big stretch for me. My mind however was not yet still, it was buzzing with the hum of day to day activities and would constantly shoot off in every direction away from my breath.
So I went to sleep on day 0 with doubts about the usefulness of my being there ringing loud in my ears.
Day 1-3
Days one to three were fairly uneventful, we were required to simply watch our breath which I was to some extent able to do. One thing that was growing on me though was a strong headache. This was not the first time I had a headache from meditation, it normally comes when I sit and meditate for longer than 1 hour and was one of the worries I had going into the course. It was getting reasonably intense by the end of the day though it was significantly better in the morning. This started to get me a bit depressed, was it going to mean the end of my meditation efforts, the end of my chances of spiritual enlightenment? Asking the assistant teacher (the teacher is in India and teaches via tapes and videos) about it didn't give me any answers either, only a simple 'well sometimes these things come up just push through it'. In terms of actual meditation quality, I was tending to get one half hour of really good meditation. This was meditation where I had no thoughts and was able to keep focused on my breath, though short these sessions were giving me a growing sense of peace and balance. I made a resolve to do my best on the course and if the headache was still there at the end to give up meditation forever with the understanding that it was doing me harm instead of good.Day 4-5
Day four is the day we were actually shown the Vipassana technique. This basically involves focusing the attention on every part of the body in sequence and trying to feel the sensations there. Eventually you start to feel a tingling and flowing energy throughout your entire body. After trying the technique for a while I felt I would get better results using my own technique which was simply to try to stop the thoughts (or let the thoughts stop rather) and turn the attention inwards looking for the answer to the question 'who am I'. The headache was there with both techniques and being more practised in my own technique I felt I could accomplish more in the remaining days.By day 5 I was getting one to two good sessions per day but realized that the sense of peace that they imbued did not carry over into my non-meditation periods. This realization struck me hard - what was the point of meditating if it doesn't help us in our regular lives. The feeling while meditating well was great but coming back to real life brought back the same storm of thoughts and worries. By the end of day 5 my headache was quite bad and I had a strong feeling that the only lasting thing I would get out of these 10 days was a severe migraine. The rational thought 'you cannot possibly injure your brain by not thinking' was so strong in my mind that I refused to accept this headache was due to my meditation even though the correlation was quite clear.
Day 6-8
Well day 6 I decided to start experimenting with my eyes and forehead, I had read that sometimes frequent meditators get headaches from focusing too close even though their eyes are closed. So I observed my eyes and forehead and noticed that as my meditation got deeper my eyes and forehead became more and more tense. After trying a host of different positions for my focus, eyeballs, eyebrows and forehead muscles I settled on one with my eyes just slightly open, relaxed with my forehead/eyebrows ever so slightly raised. It was difficult to meditate with this position initially since my attention was constantly diverted to my face but slowly it started to become second nature.Over the course of days 6-8 I noticed my headache improved dramatically, by day 7 it was almost gone and by day 8 it was completely gone, not even bothering me during the deeper meditations I was having. My meditation steadily improved as well and by days 7 and 8 I was having almost half the sessions with absolutely no thoughts and complete tranquility inside.
During the break periods I would find myself lying on the ground somewhere staring at the sky observing the clouds. When I was young it was always so easy to see vivid images in the clouds but as I grew older it became more and more difficult. Now, viewing the clouds with the calmness of mind that I had shapes and images materialized so easily, vehicles, animals, people all morphed seamlessly into one another in a smooth cotton dance.
By day 8 I became desperate my goals for the course were very unrealistic - I wanted nothing short of complete spiritual enlightenment. I began to meditate as much as possible, this included break periods and for the most part my meditation went quite well but did not seem to get me any closer to enlightenment.
In one of the last sessions of the day, while meditating in the hall I began to feel a pressure on my head and eyes. I remembered reading on some of the Erwod forums that LSD takers often experience pressure before the ego leaves their bodies. So I waited patiently the energy wasn't building but stayed constant until I felt a tingling in the top of my head followed by what could only be described as a volcanic explosion. I felt the energy pour out the top of my head and flow down over my face and shoulders, it left my swaying and I had to consciously steady myself. My eyelids started fluttering uncontrollably and I had to open them and calm down for a few minutes. Overall quite a pleasant experience, as if something deep within had been released.
Day 9
Day 9 is the last day of serious meditation because on day 10 the vow of silence is broken. So on day 9 I put all my efforts in meditation, every minute that I could I was meditating. The experience from day 8 was nice but again it was only fleeting, I longed for something more permanent. All through day 9 I had the worst meditation, my thoughts were all over the place and the doubts about the usefulness of the course were running high. After the 6-8pm video where the teacher discusses various aspects of the practise and philosophy I felt beaten, nothing was gained I thought as I had my night time shower and prepared for bed.
One more quick session I thought, so I sat down on a chair in my room and immediately my thoughts slowed and I made a resolve not to get up until the demon of sleep started banging on my door. My thoughts stopped completely sinking me in the deepest meditation of the whole course. After about one hour something quite strange happened - my thoughts were already stopped but for a few seconds I felt as if I had just been injected with some kind of opioid drug(I've never taken any but this is how I imagine they'd be). Then for the next 15-30 seconds or so I had the most intense feeling a nothingness I've ever felt. It was a powerful blank void and I saw a fairly intense red hue in my eyelids. Perhaps this is the preliminary stage of the ego leaving your body. As soon as this started happening my analytical brain kicked in with its thinking 'what is this, this is new, very nice, I hope it lasts...' and with that trickle of thoughts the state was gone.
I was still in a very peaceful state so I continued and after a little while something else started happening. I felt like my head was being inflated like a pump, it started out as a very subtle feeling and got more intense. As it got more intense I started to wonder if it was dangerous but realised all I was doing is sitting there so it couldn't possibly be dangerous. It got to the point where I felt like my head was going to explode and then just dissolved away. Not sure how useful that experience was but it was definitely interesting.
Day 10-11
Day 10 is when we broke our silence, I finally got to meet these 25 others who had up until this point been ghosts in my peripheral vision. I met some very interesting characters, the one thing I noticed about all of them was that they were not driven by money and career ambitions, this was a refreshing change from the people you normally meet my age in the city. Normally I get bored meeting people and making small talk but with these guys it was interesting to hear their experiences on the course as well as the tales of their lives. Most people reported having some physical experiences but were unable to correlate that directly with a tangible benefit, fairly similar to the way I felt. The really amazing thing though were the tales of travels everyone had. Everyone there had seen the world - really seen the world not some sheltered tour or by motel hopping from tourist spot to tourist spot. Really seen the world, living in different countries, hitchhiking/busing about, taking in the full experience. I was most astonished that almost everyone there had seen India in this way while I being Indian by birth still have not had the chance to do this. I made a packed that sometime this year I want to quit my job and tour around India looking for a Guru. It is said that to reach enlightenment you really need the grace of a guru and that when the time is right you are bound to find one.
Final Thoughts
The course is definitely worth doing, I don't know if there were any lasting benefits but the memory of my deepest meditations on the course will ensure I never stop meditating. The course itself is a bit of an emotional roller coaster but I suppose this is what you sign up for, if there was no challenge to it then it wouldn't be worthwhile. The day of returning from the course I remember entering my house and noticing things I had never seen before. The trees outside looked stunning, the yard and garden was beautiful and the whole area was peaceful. This feeling lasted for about a day but has now worn off. I haven't been able to get my meditation at home to anywhere near the same level as where it was on the course, the mind constantly shoots to useless thoughts. The best thing the course has given me is a glimpse of where it is possible to go with meditation when you are really focused, hopefully one day I can get back to that blissful state I experienced on the course and above all hold on to it. As part of this blog I'll try to keep posting any interesting experiences I have while meditating.
