Where 36 - Pune, India --OR-- The Path to Bliss and Emptiness via Meditation and Pain

HI

I have been in India for a month now and what a time it has been. I have spent most of it in isolation, not allowed to talk to anyone in 2 stretches of 10 days and 12 days each. It has been a journey, nay, an adventure, albeit of a different sort to the type I usually end up having, but I am all the better for it. The bad news is that I have spent a tonne of money and tomorrow start another 8 days of intensive course, a break of 2 days then a final 3 days. Then I really will need a holiday!!

So back to the beginning:

Arrived in Mumbai (Bombay) with the aim this trip of gaining some inner peace and happiness - simple enough goals, perhaps?

Firstly, I went to Pune Riverside Vipassana Centre for a 10 day course. Vipassana is an ancient form of meditation as used by the Buddha to gain enlightenment 2,500 years ago (from where Buddhism comes). This pure form was preserved only in Burma and in the past 40 years has spread around the world. Meditation in the west is often seen as a means of relaxation and concentration, giving the mind 'space', but its real purpose is change and there is no change as great in a person as the path to enlightenment - not that I even want to try and follow it too closely, at least not now, but there are many benefits to be gained along that path such as knowing who I really am, or having a better idea at least.

So I end up with 30 guys and 20 women (nearly all local Indians) and in strict segregation, silence etc for 10 days. The timetable was:
4am Get up
4.30 2 hours meditation
6.30 Breakfast
8 Special 1 hour meditation (no moving at all allowed)
9 2 hour meditation
11 lunch
1pm 1.5 hour meditation
2.30 Special 1 hour meditation (no moving at all allowed)
3.30 1.5 hour meditation
5pm Snack (cross between large rice krispies and Bombay mix, a banana and milk)
6pm Special 1 hour meditation (no moving at all allowed)
7pm Video discourse
8.30 Half hour meditation
9pm Finish
9.30 lights out

So about 10 hours of meditation plus 1.5 hour video. And this was Hardcore! Not the silence cos everyone around was in silence as well, so no problem. Not even the food regime of virtually nothing after midday, was that tough: surprisingly I could survive on just Bombay Rice Krispies, banana and milk for 19 hours. It was the sitting there for 10-hours a day, day after day, that was 'hell'. Sitting there very still conentrating on breath for first 3 days, and then on sensations all over the body. Emotionally it was nothing. Physically the first 4 days were excruiating. Mentally the process was like smashing my head against a brick wall time after time. Insanity is too small a word for it. And at the end of 10 days I was told if I did this for 2 hours a day for the rest of my life I would benefit greatly! Thanks, have you nothing that works a little faster?

On the 3rd day, when i was really struggling with it all, I did have a moment; something inside me clicked and I suddenly broke into my broadest smile ever - a piece of inner happiness had escaped from my repressed core and stirred my soul. Fantastic! But that was the only such moment.

So after 10-days we left (there was a board with the no. of the day it was, otherwise I would have had no clue at all - one day was exactly, to the detail, the same as the one before and the one after!) - and I wondered what the point was as I didnt feel any different to the day I arrived (exept for being thankful that it was over). We all crammed on a public bus which was full before we all got on - I managed to sit on my luggage in the aisle, desperately hanging on as we crashed over the bumps, dust being thrust through the floor into my face - the usual Indian hell. And then I finally got it! This wasn't torture at all it was bliss! No matter what the external factors it was what was going on inside that counted. I felt great. Alive. Happy. And no ordinary crap was gonna stop me feeling that way.


--------Interlude--------
Cos I'm English I have to mention the weather!
The mornings are bloody freezing her - well not quite but it has been down to 5 C on a couple of mornings. but by 9am it is warm, and 1pm roasting in the sun. And there is sun - one morning a few weeks ago I saw a couple of small clouds in the distance - they have been the only ones this month.
--------End of interlude-------


I didnt know then, that what I had done so far was just the easy bit! Because, before I really had time to understand the effets of the 10-day vipassana, I was in a different part of Pune at Osho meditation centre - for meditation of a much different style - active, fun and relaxing. Not that I went there for that, cos 3 days after I got there, there was a course starting: Fresh Beginnings for a New Life. So far I have just done the first 12 days, there is a 3 day break and then a further eight days, a break of two days and 3 more days to integrate all the changes. Yes this place is all about change in a big way. The 12 days i have just finished was all primal work - digging up the conditioning put on us by mum and dad in the first 7 years of our lives. And there was plenty of it. Now this really is hardcore (oh so maybe the Vipassana was easy?). The 16 of us were told what to do every minute of the 12 days. We all slept in a communal room for 6 hours a night - they kept us busy every night til 11.30pm and we had to get up at 5.30am (almost a lie in after the 4am of vipassana) for 1 hour Dynamic meditation (exhausting). Throughout the day we were in an underground room with padded walls and we all had to bear our soles like we never thought possible before. Suffice to say that those 15 people and 9 helpers/teachers in the room know more about me now then anyone else on the planet - holding back was not an option - it was blood (not much), sweat (loads) and tears (plenty) all the way. This was mainly emotional pain, but often a lot of physical pain had to be gone through to release it. Silence was more difficult because there was a massive energy within the group and at meal times people around us (not on the course) were talking. We were on a speial diet of no sugar/honey (or anything with sugar in), no tea, no coffee, no alcohol, no drugs, very limited dairy and loads of other rules. F***! It was hard.

My summary:
Primal work is like committing open heart sugery on yourself (without an anesthetic) - it is more painful than you could imagine, but gives you the chance of freedom in a new life.

And that is where I am now. Empty. Simply Empty.

All that supression and supressed emotion of my whole life has been forced out. All my emotional defences went with them. I am vulnerable. A bit scared. Cautious, because any emotional event, however small can fill me with anger, sadness, joy or love - and life in india is full of all of these all of the time. Luckily the support is there, there are people around me who are wonderful, there are a few who spread a different energy - this is a time to choose who I spend my time with very carefully. And I am no longer controlled by all the parental rules which I had stored in my head for all these years and truly thought were my own values. This really is a fresh beginning. Now I am me, I have so many choices about were to go and what to do next. And this was just the first part of the course - the second part starts tomorrow...
But am I scared?

Yep!

More soon!

Love and Hugs

Ankur/Pete