It’s been six months since completing the Yoga Marga program at Isha’s Rejuvenation Center (or Rejuvy, as I call it). I have gained immensely from this program: more stamina, focus, acceptance of my physical limitations. Not to mention that I’ve hardly been sick. I’m used to the look of shock when people see me (“Not that you looked bad before, but wow! You look so much better.”).
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.
