VIPASSANA- IN SEARCH OF THE PATH OF LIBERATION

Stood under a tree opposite to Ramanaashrama waiting for a bus to reach my new destination which can change the destiny. The scorching sun , spells of heat wave, drenching in sweat, low on energy due to skipped lunch and of all, unknown Dravidian language- The Tamil, made me think that, was this new (ad)venture in life really necessary, when i could stay all the way back in cool comfortable friendly – Namma Bengaluru. But my inner voice pounced upon this giving away thought and made its stand clear- Yes my friend, its the necessity of your life.

Few months back while i was discussing philosophy with my friend, she shed some light about Vipassana, which was unknown to me till then, and she suggested me to try it. Being jobless after completing my masters and expecting a posting order from the Indian Armed Forces, always felt there is voidness in life, the thoughts of which grew stronger during this hiatus and decided to explore the world of Vipassana- the technique which Goutham Buddha discovered during his journey of self exploration.

ಸಿಲುಕಿಕೊಂಡೆ... ಸಿಲುಕಿಕೊಂಡೆ...ಈ ಸಂಸಾರದ ಸಂಕೋಲೆಯಲ್ಲಿ!
ಪ್ರೀತಿ- ಮಮತೆ, ದ್ವೇಷ- ರೋಷದ ಬಲೆಯಲ್ಲಿ!
ಇವುಗಳ ಅಮಲಿನಲ್ಲಿ ನಾ ಮರೆತೆ, ಜೀವನದ ಧ್ಯೇಯವ!
ಅರಿತು ಹೀಗ ಹೊರಟಿರುವೆನು, ಮಾಡಲು ಅಧ್ಯಯನವ!

ಉಷೆಯನ್ನು ಮೇಘವು, ಮುಚ್ಚಿಟ್ಟಂತೆ!
ಅಲೆಗಳನ್ನು ತೀರದಿಂದ, ಸಮುದ್ರವೇ ಕಸಿದಂತೆ!
ತನ್ನ ದನಿಯನ್ನು, ಕೋಗಿಲೆಯೇ ಕಂಠದಲ್ಲಿ ಅಡವಿಟ್ಟಂತೆ!
ನಡೆಯುತ್ತಿದ್ದರೂ ಜೀವನ ತನ್ನಂತೆ,
ಏನೋ ಕೊರತೆ ಇದೆಯೆಂದು, ನಾ ಅರಿತೆ!

ದೈನಂದಿನ ಜೀವನದೊಡನೆ, ಈ ಸರಪಳಿ!
ಸಾಕಾಯಿತು ಈ ಜನಜಂಗುಳಿ!
ಎಷ್ಟಿದ್ದರೂ ಬೇಕೆನ್ನುವ, ಈ ಮನದ  ಚಾಳಿ!
ಎಲ್ಲಿಗೆ ಕರೆದೊಯ್ಯುವುದೋ, ಈ ಹುಚ್ಚು ಹಾವಳಿ!!!

ಜೀವನದ ನಿಜ ಮರ್ಮವ, ತಿಳಿಯ ಹೊರಟೆ!
ನಿರ್ವಾಣದ ದಿಗಂತವ, ಹುಡುಕ ಹೊರಟೆ!
ಕಂಡೆ ವಿಪಾಸನ ಧರ್ಮ ಮಾರ್ಗದಲ್ಲಿ ಆ ಶಕ್ತಿ!
ಅನುಸರಿಸಿ ನೆಡೆದರೆ ಸಿಗುವುದು...ಜೀವನ್ಮುಕ್ತಿ...!

 I booked to learn this at Dhamma Arunachala, an ashram, sort of, 10kms from Tiruvannamalai. Boarded the puducherry train from bengaluru and reached annamalai. It was still pre-dawn and rested on a bench over the railway platform till morning to grab some sleep. The chirping birds, tapping footsteps of morning walkers, TEA-TEA-KAAPI-KAAPI, these auditory stimuli kicked off my reticular system to wake me up. Freshened up in station and headed towards the majestic Arunachaleswara temple- Agni Lingam, to invoke the divine blessings in this Quest for searching the true meaning of life. Savoured the desi tamilian breakfast and then headed for Sri Ramanaashrama. Explored the ashrama and climbed the annamalai hills and meditated for a while in a cave where ramana maharshi lived. Reels of thoughts with no wheels, unlimited, unregulated, unbounded, untamed presented themselves while meditating and this turmoil of thoughts made me all the more determined to learn a technique which helps me to tame the conscious-subconscious mind.

The bus to perumbakam arrived at last and after a half an hour journey through countryside and i alighted at the Dhamma Arunachala. Got myself registered in the office and went to the room allotted to me to be shared with two others. Met my neo pals for ten days and the usual introductory exchange was made. In the evening was asked to assemble for a pre course talk and v all had assembled in the hall. Panning across the other participants of the course about 45 of them, aged 20yrs-75yrs, i wondered what made them to come to attend this course. Though it was unclear about their backgrounds, but one thing which was clear and common among all of us was the curiosity to know what vipasanna is and will be, once v start inculcating it in our daily chores.
Dun – Dun- Dun the bell rung and the organisers entered to address the assembly about all the rules and regulations. One salient feature among all the rules was- The Noble Silence, wherein we were strictly told to forget the fact that humans do have the capacity to speak- communication of all sorts restricted, no making sounds, no reading/writing, mobiles were confiscated by the management for ten days, and last one being to forget anyone exists around and its only me and my vipasanna sadhana. Of all the rules it was this last one which dint bother me much, as this is how we in modern world do live, hardly caring for others-self centered- selfish-immersed in our own worldly cravings and aversion-vicissitudes of life.

Day-1

Dun-Dun-Dun the morning bell at 4am rung and meditation started with the Aana-Paana technique wherein we are asked to concentrate on the breath entering the nostril and the sensations happening in the narrow region between upper lip and the nose. Overzealous, started it with focussed mind, hoping to sail smoothly across this ocean of thoughts. But, within seconds, flashes of varied worldly thoughts appeared due to wildness of this untamed mind and i resurrected the focussed mind again and again, and over few minutes the focus of this focussed mind went out of focus and i drowned in the ocean of thoughts with wild waves, rising tides showing no mercy on me. The spectrum of thoughts was across time periods, just like a dream with no link-logic among them, but keep flowing continuously. Augmenting to this misery is the inability to sit on the floor crosslegged for longer duration as v in outer world hardly sit on floor. While fighting to tame the wildness of mind the physical incapacitating positional pain crops up, and while resolving this pain issue the mind would have wandered away to a lost world. Uff Uff – i puffed out the breath in me hardly, unable to balance both- the mind and the body together- but in the background the teacher was instructing that both mind and body are like the wheels of a cart, which when work in sync help u to reach ur destiny. Disgruntled, i walked out of the dhamma(meditation) hall. Looking at the sky, vented out my frustration silently and thinking hard that when i am unable to manage my own internal affairs, how well can i manage as a doctor the illness of others. Reinforcing myself with positive themes, i entered the dhamma hall and sat straight to meditate and closed my eyes, to be followed very next moment by Dun-Dun-Dun, the bell ring signalling the end of the session. Well at times by the time u make up ur mind, time would have passed by. At Dhamma Arunachala, breakfast is served at 6.30 am and lunch at 11.30am and tea at 5.00pm and no dinner. Food is bland, no onion-garlic-ginger, organic, and majority of serving is that of millets n vegetables. After some food n rest, in the subsequent sessions of meditation almost 6hrs tried hard n harder to balance mind n body posture with some twilight of success. The day concluded with discourse by teacher Goenka ji and by 9pm hit the sack............dreamz........................
 
Day-2

Dun-Dun-Dun the bell rung at 4am for the morning bout of meditation. The struggle to free the mind from eternal inflow of thoughts and maintaining the erect body posture continued. The day-1 enthusiasm by now had dwindled and the countdown to day-10 started in my mind. To my apparent misfortune the meditation session went on for 10hrs on the second day and now sense of rejection towards meditation started cropping up. Many sessions i sat with eyes wide open, frequently changing positions, and looking at others out of whom the front row players were seriously meditating and my peer backbenchers were more like me giving the much needed company, soothening to see at-least some of us sailing on the same boat. I used to avoid eye contact with anyone, coz that invariably is followed by a smile and later the urge to speak n share experiences. During free time it was hard to kill time, for it was the life devoid of tv, mobile, books, pen, atleast speaking, singing to which this modern civilisation is hooked up. So i used to go n sleep on a stone boulder under a neem tree listening to the rumbling of leaves, chirping of birds, smelling its essence, enjoying the interplay of sunlight with its branches and always thinking that not everything is bitter under a neem tree except for its leaves. This simple but strong interpretation shook me up, drawing a parallel in our lives wherein prejudice of people around, always prevent us from enjoying their other dimensions of life.....Spent the other sessions of the day with eyes open looking around, while the rest of the crew seem to be meditating, i meditated upon them interspersed with few bouts of sleep...In the evening discourse, guruji told that day 2 is very difficult for a fresher to sit for long duration and appreciated us for completing it. Slept at 9pm with wide range of vivid dreamzz, not in recent times had i such abundance of dreamz.....

Day-3

Dun-Dun-Dun the bell rung and meditation started. The entire day i struggled, wriggled and felt suffocated just like tying up someone in a gunny bag. The thought of bidding good-bye to the course grew stronger hour by hour. I tried extinguishing it by reinforcing myself to give it a fair trial for another couple of days before as advised by guruji. The bus driver keeps honking each time he passes by, as if calling me to go back to continue enjoying the worldly pleasures by stopping this displeasure self explorating experiment. I dared to share my incapability to continue further with my teacher who reassured saying that because of the purity of the technique the previous karmas are getting expelled, and these during the course of expulsion cause all these troubles. If faced bravely, i am bound to be successful. This sportive positive thinking resuscitated the dying enthusiasm in me and rekindled my efforts to learn the Vipasanna technique. That day i meditated for 4.5hrs on the Aana-Paana and tried to sharpen my concentration. In the evening discourse, guruji shed more light on Sheela-Samaddi-Panya, the wheel of dhamma, and the importance of vipassana in achieving liberation.  That day the crescent moon had lit the pitch dark sky, just like me having achieved some establishment in the Vipassana to quell the darkness of ignorance.....

Day-4

Dun-Dun-Dun the bell rung, got up first while my roommates who usually compete with me to occupy the bathroom were still asleep, got ready and still astonished to see them deep asleep and with no trace of anyone awake in the adjacent dormitories. I checked my watch and it was still few hours before 4am, disgusted at this auditory hallucination i slept again to be woken up by the volunteers for being late for the morning meditation. Just like Pavlovian conditioning, on hearing Dun-Dun-Dun v all used to tune our mind to meditate. After three days of Aana-Paana, Vipassana was taught on this day wherein one is asked to observe sensation as they are with no craving or aversion, scanning every part of this body from head to toe. The evening discouse began n guruji told more about Vipasanna- Gowthama Buddha’s contribution to the world. In Vipassana the sensation is observed as it manifests equanimously with no clinging or animosity to them and with the ideology of Anichhar-impermanance. By practicing this in our daily life v subconsciously would have started accepting life as it presents to us and be neutral in all situations, being constantly aware of the fact that everything good or bad in life is impermanent. This wont create any new sankaaras – mental comminutions and by continuing this practice v loose stock of all old sankaaras to attain nirvana, else the retained sankaaras are sufficient to drive the soul into an another body-life. The day ended with some hope that i too can stay there for another 6 days....countdown.....


Day-5

Dun-Dun-Dun the bell rung and i looked at the watch to ensure its not hallucination and it was 4am and got readied to start meditating again and again. Slowly started achieving some grip over the practice. But day 5 saw maximum dropouts wherein about 8 pupils left the course midway citing their own discomforts. This shook my confidence a little, but rather than looking at a jar half empty its the attitude of looking at it as jar half filled which is important, thinking so I continued my meditation. All this time i hardly looked at the other side of the aisle where the opposite gender used to meditate, but today bored out of joblessness and due to natural drive, scanned all of them and yes, among all of them there was this one girl worth meditating upon....

ಏಕೋ ಮನಸ್ಸು ನಿಂತಲ್ಲಿ ನಿಲ್ಲುತ್ತಿಲ್ಲ
ಹೊಸದಾಗಿ ಶುರುವಾಯ್ತು ಏನೋ ತಳಮಳ
ಹೆಚ್ಚಾಯ್ತು ಮನದಲ್ಲಿ ಒಂದು ಹಂಬಲ
ನಿನ್ನ ನೋಡುವ ಭಾರಿ ಕುತೂಹಲ

ಬಂದೇಯೇನು?
ಒಲವ ತಂದೇಯೇನು?
ಈ ಪ್ರೀತಿಯ ಚಂದ ನೀನು....

ಬರಿದಾದ ಮನಕೆ,ಬಾ ನೀ ಝರಿಯಂತೆ!
ಈ ಕತ್ತಲೆಯನೇ ನುಂಗಿದ,ಆ ಚಂದ್ರನ ಬೆಳದಿಂಗಳಂತೆ!
ಹೃದಯ ವೀಣೆಯ ಯಾರೋ ಮಿಡಿದಂತೆ,
ಅದಕ್ಕೆ ಶೃತಿ ನೀನಾದಂತೆ!

ಬಂದೇಯೇನು?
ಒಲವ ತಂದೇಯೇನು?
ಈ ಪ್ರೀತಿಯ ಚಂದ ನೀನು....

ಏಕಾಂತ ಸಾಗಿದೆ, ಜೊತೆಯಾಗು ಸಂಗಾತಿ!
ಗುಣವಂತ ನಾನೆಂದು, ಇನ್ನು  ಮುಟಿಲ್ಲವೇ ವದಂತಿ?!
ತಡಮಾಡದೆ, ನೀನಾಗು ಬಾ ನನ್ನ ಜೀವನ ಜ್ಯೋತಿ!
ಪಡೆದ ನಿನ್ನ ಈ ಮನಸ್ಸಿಗೆ  ಸಿಕ್ಕೀತೆ ಕೊನೆಗೂ ವಿಶ್ರಾಂತಿ?!

ಬಂದೇಯೇನು?
ಒಲವ ತಂದೇಯೇನು?
ಈ ಪ್ರೀತಿಯ ಚಂದ ನೀನು....

Day-6

Dun-Dun-Dun- our mind n body by then was fully conditioned to this sound as a call to meditate and being sincere n eager to experience the benefits of the technique  i used to meditate for atleast 7 hrs a day and over another 3 hrs of sitting in the meditation hall, i used to meditate on-off about her and about many non specific things of life. The frequent honking of the bus outside the campus, now didn’t ignite the urge in me to ditch the course midway. During the free time i used to observe the intricacies of nature in my serene green campus. The brightness of the moon was waxing over days and just like the first-quartered moon which had lit the sky, i too got to know life from buddha’s perspective as told in evening discourse which i felt was pushing away the darkness of ignorance in me.

Day-7,8,9

These days passed on so fast with all the Dun-Dhana-Dun as i started loving the technique and got myself immersed in mastering it over these days. I remember Einstein quotes on relativity-“when a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But sitting on a hot stove for a minute seems longer than any hour.” The evening discourses though was repetitive n monotonous, but was of some solace to the silenced minds. The moon had gained some more brightness over days and it was a gibbous moon...

Day-10

Dun-Dun-Dun. The D-day’s final wake up bell. After few sessions of meditation and practicing mitha bhaavana wherein we share love n compassion with others by emanating the energy from within, we were allowed to break the noble silence.. uff uff at last some work to the long rested vocal chords. The formal introductory exchanges and sharing of experience while practicing Vipassana went on for hours. I didn’t feel like speaking much and rather now the chattering-cluttering going on all around made me unknowingly embrace silence. I felt proud for having completed the course coz this course is challenging and is the barometer of once will power. The girl had left by the time i could contact her, but without a trace of craving i smiled and accepted that everything in life is impermanent-Anichar, Anichar, Anichar.....................

The bus arrived honking at us, eager as usual to take us out of this philosophically-spiritually charged unbounded environs, back into the greedy-self centered-performance driven-lifeless-bounded  world. Alighted at Sri Ramanaashrama and stood again in the same bus stop opposite to it waiting for a bus to Namma Bengaluru, again confronting the scorching sun, raining sweat, decreased energy levels, but stood there not with dejection, but with a sense of satisfaction that something simple but revolutionary technique was learnt which changed the very prism of perceiving things around with no cravings, aversions and to remain equanimous remembering the universal law of impermanence.              ...................It was a full moonday..................