YOGA MARGA (21 days)

A 3-week treatment program which rejuvenates your system and restores vitality lost due to modern day stress. Sadhguru’s deep understanding of the human body and mind is the very quintessence of this program. A team of dedicated specialists evaluate and prescribe a detailed treatment plan for each individual. This includes yogic practices, meditation, diet, and siddha medication and therapy (if needed). Also, just to be in the highly charged energy of the Isha Yoga Center and Dhyanalinga meditation shrine has undeniable healing effects.

My health has continued to improve tremendously after attending Inner Engineering, with practice of Shambhavi & Shakti Chalana Kriya (learned in the Shoonya Meditations program).  I was still quite stationary though, and would get drained if I took on too much, which I inevitably did. I wanted to enable myself to sustain a radical shift in lifestyle, one which would require more traveling and a less regular schedule of sleeping and eating.  I wanted to free myself completely from the chronic illnesses that had plagued me since childhood–asthma, allergies, sinusitis.

I wanted to get rid of the fear of life outside of my routine, life beyond the boundaries I’d fixed for myself; the fear of illness, of my body’s incapabilities, of my fragility.

I wanted perfection, cure. Freedom, empowerment. The first two are still pending, but I got something much more.

I went in with a list of things I couldn’t do, came out with a list of things I shouldn’t eat. The prescribed diet was a blessing, since I had become thoroughly confused after reading too much of the nutritional nonsense that inundates the Internet. Although it was coming from the most well-reputed sources, still I couldn’t make sense of how it applied to me. The center’s food was delicious and fresh; prepared and served with the utmost attention and love. I’m not sure I can say the same about my own mother!

The schedule was rigorous, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I felt a tremendous amount of energy and support throughout the process. It was not a quick fix or a magic wand, but it enabled me to see my limitations more clearly and be more accepting of them.

Below is a poem I wrote, dedicated to all of the people who attended the program with me–a few of whom fell sick with fever at some point. Seeing their commitment was so inspiring. It reminded me of Sadhguru’s quote:

“”Our lives become beautiful not because we are perfect. Our lives become beautiful because we put our heart into what we are doing.”

It also reminded me that there’s no such thing as perfection, and I had been striving towards an empty goal.

Lovesick for Isha

You give me fever,

burn through my veins

with an insane intensity.

I long to know the beyond,

my parched tongue pleads

for a taste of the divine.

The sweat pours off my forehead

in my feverish craze,

I push myself beyond all limits

of sanity, unstoppable

in this incendiary yearning.

My search for the boundless

knows no bounds,

beyond reason I pursue You,

my Isha.

In my feverish dreams I see

a glimpse

of what I imagine you to be.

Obsessed with your essence,

I only scratch the surface.

May this Isha love-sick being heal,

so that it may know Your Wholeness.

]]> http://beckyblab.com/six-months-post-yoga-marga/720/feed/ 0 http://beckyblab.com/if-you-want-your-wife-to-stop-arguing-with-you/715/ http://beckyblab.com/if-you-want-your-wife-to-stop-arguing-with-you/715/#comments Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:14:23 +0000 bexband http://beckyblab.com/?p=715 “…send her to Inner Engineering!”–random comment to me when I said I was much less confrontational after attending the program.

Please take a few minutes to view this video on “Conquering Negative Emotions and Anger”

A number of the members are involved with their own NGOs and businesses, and it was quite inspiring to meet them. They are so active and committed that it is easy to envision Rajasthan becoming a dynamic and progressive state through their efforts.

Sadhguru consecrating the Linga Bhairavi, Jan 2010

The day’s articles mostly look at women’s status and what can be done to improve it; in India, the big issue is the Women’s Reservation Bill. Though many (including me) decry the situation of women in India, few realize that India is the only remaining country to have maintained worship and rituals exalting the sacred feminine on a large scale. It is near impossible to reconcile the contradiction between the two, so instead I will hail the illogical:

My mind cannot grasp all that it has soaked in over those three days, so I’ve left it to my heart to write this piece, trying to capture just a whisper and a glimpse of the extraordinary kaleidoscope of the Goddess’ birth! May the energy of the Devi bring joy and devotion to all our hearts… 
- Robert Edward Hider, Isha meditator from the UK

While I understood nothing of the process behind the Linga Bhairavi’s consecration (which I attended end-Jan), I managed to enjoy it despite the constant questions running in my head. I cannot doubt her power: I felt intense pressure in my head upon entering the temple, and looking at her was almost like a shock to my brain. Someone expressed it beautifully: it’s like sitting in your mother’s lap, such warmth and compassion.

This is not a call to action for women to embrace their inner goddess. This is not an appeal to conserve traditions. This is a recognition that there’s a whole lot more to life than what we can understand logically–the feminine.

From an article called “How meditation can improve leaders’ performance”

The role of a leader in organizations is one of constant pressure to perform and stress to solve problems. Leaders need to be at the top of their game to be alert and productive at all times. Unfortunately, far too many leaders use adrenalin-type of strategies to do so, such as caffeine, long working hours and poor nutrition. Certainly the notion of slowing down and being in a peaceful state isn’t commonly seen as an effective leadership strategy. Yet recent brain research shows that meditation can actually improve performance.

Sadhguru will be conducting a Leadership Retreat in California, April 8-11. We can’t afford to let our leaders miss it!

Just this week a paper was published in the American Psychological Association Journal, Emotion, regarding a study conducted by researchers in Montreal Canada. Joshua Grant, the lead researcher, described the way in which they measured the brain thickness of 17 Zen meditators and 18 non-meditators using MRI scans. They examined in particular specific areas of the brain that regulate emotion and pain and what they discovered was that these areas are significantly thicker in meditators than non meditators.

This finding has received a great deal of publicity as it is the first direct evidence of a physical and neurological change produced by meditation.

Previous research had unearthed differing health outcomes, but this actually looks at the way in which meditation starts changing the shape of our inner organs. This greatly affects our understanding of our ability to improve ourselves – even at a level of altering the anatomy of our brains – and it provides ample encouragement to the world of personal development in general and contemplative/meditation based self help in particular. Stillness and presence is a far more powerful tool than any of us had previously known. (My Italics)

The author presents a lovely conclusion:

So the next time you see someone meditating or practicing yoga, or you are doing it yourself, know what is going on inside as a result is a process far more profound and transformative than you may ever have realized.

Via Technorati.

Great to see this kind of research being done, but even better to experience the transformation myself!

After the usual 6 hour journey spent half dozing, I arrive with plenty of time to reach the sathsang venue. I manage to negotiate a decent price for the auto ride, though the driver doesn’t seem to have a clue where we’re going and asks other drivers every ten minutes. Almost an hour passes this way, and we’re nearing the destination. I see a sign to turn right, but it’s not the right one. I see another sign to turn left, and I am filled with relief. Waiting for the third sign, which never came, we drive interminably down a narrow lane lined with walls and farmhouses behind them. It is almost a European quaint, except for the impending nightfall and my clenching heart–few people around, I can’t find the house, no street lights, angry auto driver…

Finally a motorcycle driver and a phone call re-directs us back the way we came. Driver bhaiyya is saying something like “You don’t know anything about Delhi, you just got here, you don’t know where we’re going, I shouldn’t have listened to you,” etc. I feel upset, but realize it was just the release of the pent-up tension I was feeling at not finding the destination. We reach, and I feel utterly stupid for having lost awareness of the gravity of mortality and the fleetingness of life.

This feeling stays with me all night, as I’m continuously reminded: Life is so fragile, any moment it could go. But after being with Sadhguru and other Isha meditators, I’m filled with such an intense energy that it was hard to go to sleep. I read some of my friend’s copy of “Eat, Pray, Love,” skimming the passages for “Richard from Texas.” I had just met him last month at the Isha Yoga Center. Though the encounter was brief, his charm and wisdom were unmissable.

Inbound Journey:

I had a comparatively more leisurely morning, but still rushed to eat and get on my way again since I didn’t know how long it would take to reach the bus station. I arrived with plenty of time, but still managed to give myself a stomachache.

As I near Jaipur, I come online to see that “Richard from Texas” has also died. Then our bus slows down as we pass a totalled car, getting flipped right-side-up from the ditch in the center of the opposite-bound lanes. A group of villagers have gathered as the rescue team. How concerned these people seem about the travelers, who they’ve never met; how forgotten they are by the rest of the world and the march of “progress”. I stare at the looming hill behind, a huge, sandstone precipice jutting out at the top. My “Why?” seems to hang just above, getting tossed about in the sandy winds. The stones seem so wise, to know much more than I ever will about death.

We’re nearing the station and they switch on the lights. Sitting just behind the driver, I witness a touching ritual that must be commonplace with drivers across India. The conductor’s face is upturned, hands together and open: he’s reciting something. So I glance in the direction where he’s looking and am not  surprised to see two silver gods, encased in a plastic box and mounted on the wall, and a couple colorful stickers of more gods below. I look back at him; he brings his hands over his head like he’s pretending to smooth down his hair.

It makes so much sense that it’s almost humorous. Of course the roads are so treacherous that only the gods can get you through alive.

But that’s just the sad part: relying on make-believe when the distance between life and death is the same as that between awareness and unawareness. One careless act can cost precious life.

And we are the gods with the tremendous responsibility and burden to bear: being aware.

Sadhguru says…

“These two eyes are discriminatory (pointing to his eyes). They tell you what is high, what is low, what is man, what is woman, what is this, what is that. These two eyes are instruments of survival…

‘If thine eye be single’ means that you are no more discriminatory. You are seeing everything as one; you are seeing everything as the same. If you become like this, your body shall be filled with light, and that is Grace.

Grace means that the source of your existence, that which is larger than creation, is no more outside of you; it is within you. You are no more looking for an outside source of light – you have become the source of light. Once you become that, even for a moment, your life will never be the same.

We are doing so many things in Isha (Sadhguru’s meditation programs) to somehow make you experience this at least for a moment. You may not be experiencing it all the time, but if at least for a moment you see that you are filled with light, that means Grace has touched you.”

Inundation,

Exhalation:

Dissolution.

From utter simplicity

I create chaos & confusion.

Devouring your breath,

the highest honor.

Forever entwined,

enshrined in my being.

Missing this breath,

the biggest mistake.

Seeing it is

seeing all:

Clarity.

from 2009. see if you can find me...

To revisit last year’s sharing, click here.  I’m so glad I attended the 8-day Silence program again. I fell into it much easier, and was able to enjoy it more thoroughly. Most importantly, it was all the more incredibly intense.

Gratitude doesn’t begin to explain…  to Sadhguru, for offering himself endlessly; Isha volunteers, Swamis, Maas: for dedicating their lives to seeking the unknown & providing the situations to others to deepen their search.

I dance for the exhileration it brings;

You lift me up on your wings.

I dance beyond exhaustion;

You take me to destruction.

I dance with abandon;

Your glance, a momentary glipse.

I dance meters away from the music and you;

You dance in the darkness of emptiness.

My dance is simple illusion;

Your dance is ultimate truth.