Anger, resentment, desolation—they followed me like stowaways, surfacing during my darkest moments. My health suffered as a result, and I knew that unless I tried something drastic, I’d never recover. So I quit my job and began searching for solutions to my self-inflicted problems. I turned to creative writing in the hopes that one day I could share my story. I never imagined I’d actually have an inspiring story to share.

Now that I’ve unloaded all this garbage out there, I’ll take a pause in the story. We have come to the juncture between the “before” and “after” of the makeover. For me, the turnaround point came through a program aptly named “Inner Engineering.” It was challenging, but fun. It enabled me to look at life anew, with a clarity I’d never known before. By the end, I was bursting with so much energy that I couldn’t recognize myself. It was so powerful, so positive, that I needed to explore further; it couldn’t be ignored.

Interested in discovering more? You can get a discount on Inner Engineering Online, 7 online classes for self-empowerment, and learn a free meditation.

“To be in India is to experience India. It’s not that you have to go find it. It’s all right there,” she says.

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, and Julia Roberts were on the Oprah show to promote the upcoming movie. Do you agree with the director, Ryan?

“I think it’s more than a book. I think it’s a movement, and I think it’s so personal to so many people,” he says. “It was to me. I was a fan, like Julia was, before it came into our lives.”

Liz also shares, “One of the great teachings that I learned in India is that silence is the only true religion.” So what about all the noise from the “EPL marketing machine” as Yoga Dork calls it?

In “Are you experienced?”, Sirensongs quips that the book will release a torrent of tourists unprepared for the experience.

With the release of the Eat Pray Love (or is it Eat Love Pray?) major motion picture (“The amazing adventure of a middle-class white woman who talked her publisher into bankrolling a scripted adventure”), India-tripping is set to become a middle-class fad for the first time since the days of the 70s Overland Chapatti Express. Except this time, instead of tie-dyed trippies, it will be mani-pedi suburban women seeking “adventure.”

She compiles a humorous list of ignorant questions that first-time travellers pose. Yet while her tone seems derogatory towards the potential newcomers, I would prefer to see it as an opportunity for many different kinds of women to be exposed to  India where they might never have even thought about it before.

I followed some of the conversations on the EPL Facebook page, and of course there were plenty of disagreements between the conservative Christians and others. And plenty of misinterpretations about yoga, Buddhism, meditation.

Nonetheless, if the book opens some women up to India,  so much the better. It would take courage for anyone to come and visit, with or without mani-pedi.

From Five Directions, Technology and Mindfulness:

One big theme of the conference: Happiness is good business. Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, is the lead singer of this movement, but he’s not the only one. I was impressed to hear how not only Zappos but Twitter, Google, Facebook, Whole Foods, and Samovar (a group of tea houses in San Francisco) place the physical and emotional wellbeing of their employees as a top priority, and are going about it in creative ways.

From Beth Kanter, Wisdom 2.0: Living Consciously In A Connected World:

We’re all struggling with balance of technology and a purposeful life.  We need to reflect inward and examine our motivations, patterns, and use of technology – understanding when we’re mindful and not.  Then we need to integrate ways of finding the right balance.  That balance is not a simple on and off switch – it is understanding how to integrate focused and receptive attentions into our online and offline lives.  And, there is also the issue of organization culture – how is your organization honoring a balanced use of technology and incorporating that into your working style.

Scientists are especially intrigued by the similarities between hallucinogenic experiences and the life-changing revelations reported throughout history by religious mystics and those who meditate.

The subjects’ reports mirrored so closely the accounts of religious mystical experiences, Dr. Griffiths said, that it seems likely the human brain is wired to undergo these “unitive” experiences, perhaps because of some evolutionary advantage.

Rick Doblin, the executive director of Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies says:

“Thanks to changes over the last 40 years in the social acceptance of the hospice movement and yoga and meditation, our culture is much more receptive now, and we’re showing that these drugs can provide benefits that current treatments can’t.”

Another sad example of the over-medication mentality in the US. Rather than follow the natural logic of his statement–that yoga and meditation have proven benefits for well-being–Doblin promotes psychedelics. If current treatments aren’t properly addressing the mental problems, that means people should turn to other kinds of drugs instead of yoga or mediation?

We should be more interested in researching how non-pharmaceutical methods work. Oh right, but where’s the money in that…?

At the end of the session, I feel happy and giggly. I lie on the floor in my blanket, laughing like an insane person, or a baby, or an insane baby. I think I must be very tired. I speak to a few of my fellow travellers. They all seem to be in recovery from a terrible personal crisis, although I do not know if they too shout at buses.

A few days later, meditation calls me back. I actually want to do it. Could the anger be ready to fly away, like a bad love song? This time I go to City Lit in Holborn, which has a mindfulness class, again run by Duncan. Again, I am late – the power of denial! So, when I go in, 20 women are sitting on mats with their eyes closed, doing the practice session. One opens her eye and scowls at me. I scowl back. There is also, inevitably, a solitary man. In meditation class, there is always a solitary man. It seems to be a law.

The gender dynamics of meditation deserve another post. The results?

I continue to meditate and as I do, I can feel the anger waving goodbye. I stay soothed. For example, a friend asks me to a dinner party. I fear dinner parties like I fear Nazis. But I go, and I am polite, even when someone asks me if I have cystitis. (I do not.) Meditation is effective, I fear. I am in danger of turning into a rug. I am in danger of being happy.

“I meditate religiously again like I used to, going back to my roots with my Buddhism with my mom. I need to do these things the way I used to do it. And unfortunately I got away from that, and I just lost that and unfortunately also lost my life in the process.”

And Deepak Chopra’s tweets have rocked the media world:

This is great, except that they only give him five minutes, keep interrupting & barely seem to listen, and hispanicized his name (Vasudez?? Vasudev, it’s not difficult to spell or pronounce!).

I thought the meditating model concept was a bit strange, she’s just chilling there on the floor while they’re talking. But nice for the audience to get a glimpse at what it looks like to meditate–while sitting, not driving Maybe it will de-mystify the whole thing and make it seem less scary…

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.

[youtube b4hXyALR9vI]

]]> http://beckyblab.com/six-months-post-yoga-marga/720/feed/ 0 http://beckyblab.com/leaders-should-meditate/694/ http://beckyblab.com/leaders-should-meditate/694/#comments Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:20:48 +0000 bexband http://beckyblab.com/?p=694

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!