I was in the age where I was seeking the true purpose of my life. Everything achieved so far felt insignificant. The appetite to fight and win in the competitive structure was almost fading through the mind. The pleasure of achieving the materialistic things felt nonsensical.
From all that existed and still having no meaning to the new quest to know and find thyself and the true meaning to life set the path to spiritual journey.
When new chapter has to begin in your life, your soulmates in name of friends or a stranger always arrive when we are ready for them and not a moment sooner, they arrive when we are ready to align for some purpose that was destined to be fulfilled.
I also came across a friend who guided me to the path of Vipassana. The thoughts and experiences shared convinced me to do Vipassana once in my life.
The thought was created, the purpose was aligned but the limitations were holding me back. I was told if you really want to do something just create a positive thought and you will see it will come true.
10 days Vipasanna away from family, in complete silence with no phone or connect with the outer-world was quite a decision to take especially when you have a young child dependent on you.
But yes life offered me a chance, support from my husband and family helped me fulfill my vision to experience Vipasanna once in my lifetime.
So here starts my 10 Days of Complete Silence with my Inner Self!
This ten days silence program is your journey to explore your spiritual side of life. No intellectual stimulation but a real sadhana cut from the outer world.
First day without phone, social media, laptop, family, comfort, book, connect, speech or eye contact with anyone around was a very tough beginning and looked like a punishment.
Living with yourself in complete isolation in a small kutiya(cottage) in midst of a jungle looked like a Sannyasa. You have your tough schedule to follow. You need to practice karmayog with your spiritual yog. Wake up at 3:00. Do your morning rituals, wash clothes, take bath and get ready by 4 to reach meditation hall. Practice meditation in silence. Eat saatvik food, clean utensils after every meal and no talking or eye contact with anyone around was really tough especially from the world you came from.
Full day sadhnana in sitting posture with no guidance, no intellectual stimulation was very boring and distracting. I couldnt focus, I had no physical strength to sit in upright posture all day and it was month of January a peak cold in North.
I questioned myself this is what I was so much keen to do? I was losing hope and was feeling alone away from home.
After a one day tough sadhana, I crashed into my bed and slept. But somehow my biological call was self tuned to wake me up in Brahma Muhurta time which is 3:40 AM
I got up in haste, did all my morning rituals skipping washing clothes for later afternoon break, i reached the meditation hall dot 4:00 am
Now this next three days were tough and was lot of inner struggle and I was accustomed to the fact that there is no turning back. So when you are left with no choice; the only choice you can make is to accept the situation as it is.
So here was my first lesson, to learn new things you need to submit yourself.
Fifth day onwards this started to sync in. Since I decided to submit to the choice I made, I knew I have to adapt to this situation.
My mind was still wondering, what was so great about this, and why I am here struggling through the difficulty. I wanted to quit and go back to the comfort of my life.
But when you are bound to a structure, where there is no way to escape. You start fighting with your limited belief system and subconsciously your mind starts accepting the limitation challenging you.
Lesson learnt: Sometimes limited scope of life opens the potential to achieve something larger in life!
Now I was open to adapt to the system. I was ready to fight my limitation. I wanted to fight my weaknesses which was stopping me to go ahead in achieving for what I came for.
I wanted to learn the wisdom of life. I was seeing the positivity around me and I was getting inspired by the people who were here doing Vipasanna for second or third time and were so involved in the process that the silence and peace on their face inspired me to the divinity they were reflecting through.
I got attracted to this divinity, and I wanted to feel this. My mind was now adjusting to the discomfort with much more ease.
Lesson Learnt: Discomfort isn’t always something to be avoided. It makes you more tough to face the life easily.
Now from here…i started the inner journey with myself. With my closed eyes, I pushed many boundaries of my thoughts and pierced through my subconscious memory.
So many thoughts passed my mind, testing my resilience. All thoughts were screening through as a flashback movie of my life lived so far. Many scenes that I have long forgotten and dusted through my mind, came as active cell memory.
I was super alert and active. So many instances from my childhood came in front of me showing how I lived through and what all I did wrong in comparison to the lessons learned in the existing time of life.
So many things passed my thoughts and so many new thoughts came as an inspiration to the things I lacked in my life to achieve the potential of what existed within me.
What I was feeling was profound. I wanted to write my thoughts somewhere so that when I go back to life I can work on these points to make it better, but I guess the reason not to communicate in any ways was the deep learning of this meditation.
This deep meditation was for the first time my self time with completely myself. There were many things that I realized which with my open eyes could never have experienced.
Your inner soul communicates with your existence. You for the first time realize the scope of expansion. This whole experience in itself was exhilarating to all little things that exists around you. For the first time in my conscious mind I was involved with all little existence of life around me.
I could feel sensitivity of nature, an ant crawling, monkeys hopping from one branch to other, snakes creeping, honeybee buzzing. Nothing scared me and felt they were so much at peace with you. There was an endless flow of love and compassion between the coexistence of nature and myself.
I was experiencing fleeting min moments of true calmness and peace. This was a liberating sensation allowing you to dump down all that falsified life around you.
Losing myself to this new dimension granted me a whole new sense of clarity and perspective to my current life.
This isolated time, ironically grounded me, stabilized me in life. Gave me focus and infused true sense of happiness boundless to anyone and still bounded in karma life circle. I stand today with lot more gratitude to all little things that exist around me or people who does good for me and for also who don’t value. My reality towards life changed my perspective to all that existed and there is a deep sense of gratitude for all that’s part of my journey making it easy for me to take my path and move ahead in life.
When I was on the completion of my 10th day and this was the day I would be connecting to my family over a call. I was so overwhelmed with love and compassion for them. Felt so much gratitude for all what they did for me so far. There was a realization beyond the human manifested relationships that these are the people who are part of my journey and have always helped me on the path of life.
And then comes a time when you are leaving this place and going back to the unreal, materialistic world. At this time you are in a situation where you had you open heart surgery. Every cell of yours is vulnerable to the world you were going back to.
A time came when I reached home, i was a flow of compassion but still detached with everything. My inner silence was so much peace that I was not wanting to face the harsh noises of my outer world. The effect was so profound that I didn’t want to come back to reality of the ecosystem I belonged to. It took me three months to come back to normal life still so much detachment to the materialistic possessions.
You need to practice meditation twice a day, lest you slowly merge with the unreal world. I couldn’t practice or discipline myself to the strict ritual of meditation but still that experience and knowledge helps me to heal myself when affected my outside circumstances. I have learnt the wisdom to go inside whenever needed and still be part of the outer-world and live a normal life.
Meditation is the only way to find peace and harmony with yourself!
The art of living is that you need to be part of your world and fight your everyday challenges but you know how to maintain your peace and harmony with your inner-self.
Vipassana is a true knowledge of life! One should surely do this once to experience the profoundness of this.
“Vipassana meditation is an ongoing creative purification process. Observation of the moment-to-moment experience cleanses the mental layers, one after another.” “When we are aware about our body’s sensations, we can release physical pain, tensions or stress through slow movements.”
Useful Links