Dear Diary,
I promised myself to keep it very honest to you. Because if i am not honest to my diary then who am i ? In this part I’ll write about the first 6 Days there. Not a lot about what I was learning there, instead what was happening to me.
Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 : Get the hang of it
For the first 2 days we practiced Ana Pana. Observing our breath. At 4 o’clock, a Dhamma sevak would ring a gong 10 times, and if you didn’t hear it enough, he’ll come with a small hand held bell in your room and wake you up very politely (Some felt it was too rude =D). Then we assembled in the hall and guruji would say, start the work again (of observing the breath). It’s still 2 hours before i get breakfast and I am observing the breath. Usually after brushing my teeth, I expect breakfast, but this isn’t a usual thing. After breakfast we again meditate for 3 Hours until we get lunch. At 1 o’clock we again start the work and sit for 4 Hours before tea. After that, again until 9.
In one word if i want to describe what I was feeling: “Frustrated”. But bear with me till the end.
Suddenly we started sitting for 12 Hrs a day and doing a very boring thing. Initially our mind is very fickle and fidgety. You tell it to look at breath and it’ll do everything else but that. All sorts of thoughts popped up in my head. It can’t sit in silence even for a minute or a few seconds in my case. Memories from past and imaginations of future. I started realizing how unstable it is. How I never think of the present, At all. About this moment, Here!
In the first 2 days i was feeling irritated, because I was not able to concentrate and I thought something was wrong with me, why am i thinking of sex when i have to look at my breath. I started blaming the technique too, we are not sleeping enough, eating enough and probably we should have gone slowly about it. Most of the time I am sitting here is waste anyway, because I am lost in my own thoughts. Moreover i came here to boost my memory, analytical ability, and for opening up some magical chakra in my brain required for discovering a science phenomenon. But there is no magic here, I wanted to talk to acharya ji and say I want to go home. This course isn’t for me.
That’s where the evening discourse(Guruji’s Pravachan) helped me. Guruji explained that these thoughts are expected. We would want to run, our mind, our body, it’ll feel uncomfortable. But we can’t be impatient. He told us, why are we looking at breath, why are we even here ? He told us that we are not here to learn something, we are here for Realizing. He told us that the way to liberation is long and no one else can walk it for us. There won’t be any kripa, we have to achieve it by our own hard work. Gautam Budhdha cant liberate you. You and only you can do it.
By Day 3 i realized that i wasn’t going to become Gautam budhdha or Einstein anytime soon. My legs were still hurting but I was syncing in. I decided to give it a fair try. I was doing a little better now, i was less impatient, and whenever i would find that i am lost, i would just say to my mind in a cute way, stupid you are, lets go bak to breath (I did it. Trust me) .
Day 4, Day 5, Day 6 : Vipassana
On Day 4, Vipassana is taught. Vipassana means observe, see in a special way. You start from your head and scan your body till the toes, going through each part individually and slowly, very slowly, scanning for sensation/feeling of every tiny part of the body. Knowing what is happening there. Just observing, Not reacting. Just observing. I thought I knew this technique already, i saw the same in a mobile app, it asked for doing the same. I thought what’s new and great about it ?
In his discourse guruji explained about our subconscious, it’s the part of the brain which acts slightly independent of our conscious mind. We(Our conscious part of brain) don’t always have control over it, and we don’t always know what it’s doing or thinking. And that way despite it being a part of us, we live and do things which we are not aware of in our conscious, things our conscious does not desire. But this subconscious is always connected with our body. Even when we are sleeping. Everything our body feels affects the subconscious and every thought in the subconscious affects our body. So if we want to connect with our subconscious, we have to connect more with the body, this is a stronger bridge. We want to learn not to react on everything our subconscious does. So we observe carefully, sensations in every part of our body and look at them objectively and not react, always keeping in mind that it’s all temporary. With Anitya Bhava. Anitya he, Anitya he…
We did it for 3 days. Scanning the body. To be honest by the end of 6th day, I was still not feeling every bit of my body, but I wasn’t frustrated now. I still had my doubts whether it’ll really improve my mental abilities, or i’ll just go back the same person…Will something in me change ?
Until next time…
Love you ❤️