I recently attended an Advance Course at the Bangalore Ashram of the Art of Living Foundation. And yes, the course was simply SUPERB!! I made a lot of young friends. In fact the young population visibly dominates the middle aged and old demography. Theres  so much that I have in mind as I sit down to write this post.

Vishalakshi Mantap at the Bagalore Ashram

About the course, the meditations were awesome. We had two sessions daily-10 am to 12 30 pm and 3 pm to 5 pm. Yes!! Most of the time was spent meditating during the sessions! And we had a yoga session in the morning too, which always ended up leaving us in a state of meditation, which we realised when we opened our eyes after two hours of yoga!! Something very amusing about our course was our teachers! They were grey haired grannies, and I was somewhat skeptical of their abiltiy to teach such young participants-blame the generation gap effect! But to my surprise, they were awesome! They were personally invited by Guruji to be AOL teachers way back in mid 1990's and they did a wonderful job of leading us into the most beautiful, profound and interesting processes and meditations which cleansed a good amount of emotional and intellectual garbage from the heart and mind! I also got a chance to review the Sahaj Samadhi technique during the advance course. Last year, I experienced that the technique was mind blowing but could not continue because I did not feel confident of being able too meditate without a guided meditation tape running in the background. But this time, all my hesitations dropped on their own and I am in love with this magical process. Its definitely the most effortless way of meditating and yes it works 100%.

The other and the best part of the visit to the ashram was time spent with Guruji. It was as if he took care of things right from the beginning. Before I landed at the Bengaluru airport, I was worried about the money I would have to spend for a cab to the ashram. From 1400, the cab guy came down to 700. The guy who was sharing the cab with me belonged to Meerut and we got along well on the way.  He even asked me to call him once I am done with the course so that he could show me around the city. I was like woww!! And then as soon as I entered the ashram at around 12 am, I got to meet Guruji :D :D We had several satsangs with him. He smiled at me everytime I waited for him in the line and one day when I asked him a question, he said, stop eating junk food! It was in no way related to my question but I had been wondering two days back that will Guruji not say anything to me about the weight that I had put on! And here he was advising me about weighty issues!

During my course, I tried to meet him a number of times; I wanted to have a one-on-one talk with him. I myself did not know what to talk about but my mind reasoned that he was my Guru and I had every right to talk to my Guru while he is alive. A true Guru must give time to his disciples when they wish to meet him. But everytime I tried to meet him, I was ignored when he looked at others or pushed behind. I decided that I was being a fool. AOL is a highly corporate kind of body just interested in selling their products. There is no grace and no prayers are ever answered. The Guru is a hoax! Yes! I was doubting the Guru 100%. Well, it was 9 pm and we had a video session a 9 15pm. As I walked towards the hall, I began to reason that I should not be week and should just learn the techniques, make the most of my money and move out of the ashram. And as we listened to the video of Guruji, he started speaking on Doubts in the mind while on the path. And bang!! There he was speaking on doubts regarding the master. And I got my answers. Next day, I got a chance to spend about ten minutes walking with him, while he was running and talking to people on the way. When he left finally, I experienced the most light state of my being. I was left wondering about myself, the smallness of my mind for doubting him , but there was no guilt. There was a deep understanding but no guilt for having doubted him. And I promised myself to never doubt him again!!

Sri Sri Ravishankar

Next day, he met our whole batch again. He answered so many of our questions. I had one too. After he answered my question he winked at me. I thought intially it was normal and a part of the answer giving process which he follows. But then while someone else was speaking, he winked again at me. And I noticed that he was not doing it with other people-the winking thing. I wanted to have a personal connection with him and here he was, fulfilling that wish to!

On the last day, I gifted him some medicines for his hair fall control. He was so surprised. the expression on his face was so cute!! He finally left the ashram, waving his hand out of his Innova. He is the real rockstar!

Summer Magic is still ON

Summer magic was the most beautiful thing that happened to me in the last one year. My first trip to the ashram-simply superb, amazing and fantabulous. Nine days passed just like the click of mouse and still so much was left behind to be explored in that unearthly place. Yes, I call it unearthly because the place has such serene and uplifting vibes that even the most insensitive person on the earth can catch them, and I have never experienced such a high before!! You hardly feel low or sad over there, those feelings are so evanescent when you are on campus.

I have been enjoying practicing the newly learnt techniques and am quite thrilled about them; just like I was when I learnt the meditation for the first time, way back in standard eight. 

Moving on to what is keeping me busy these days, I would say that I am busy doing nothing; which includes mostly catching up with old friends, visiting relatives living close-by and playing cricket on the Tanmay's(school buddy) terrace. Today we played cricket till the sky grew dark, and as the darkness increased the number of overs per match kept on decreasing from six overs, to three till we came down to only two, and then the ball went invisible and we had to stop. A small get together of school friends is on the cards and the details will be finalized soon. My friends have been asking me about my plan for the rest of the break. I have not finalized anything formally. These days I am reading the Hindu scriptures. Currently busy with Yog Vashishta, which was a lecture given to Lord Rama by his Guru, Rishi Vashishta.

The peculiar feature of this scripture is that it is the only one "updesha" given to God, unlike others such as Bhagwat Gita, in which the Lord himself(or may be "herself" in certain scriptures, and then it will read-Lordess) speaks for the world.

I am quite liking the narrative which is full of interesting stories with a moral running in the background. Actually, thats the trick which most of the Vedic texts and Hindu scriptures have followed, they give a message through stories because the human mind remembers stuff through examples more easily than merely theory(some of you might be different!!!)

Now that I have started blogging, I shall try to be regular on the blogosphere!!

Keep checking for updates!! And do not forget to leave your comments. Would love to know what you think, whatsoever it is!!!

P.S.: For those of you who are left wondering what Summer Magic was, you may check out http://bawandinesh.name/summer-magic-2010/

In a nutshell it was a youth festival organised in the Art of Living International Ashram, Bangalore.
I shall find time to upload the pics soon.....

Manchit