Art Of Living - my experiences

It’s surprising how 4 days can change your life – if you allow them to.

That was the first lesson we learnt there – everything in the world is only a matter of choice. I could either have paid 650 bucks for the course and fooled around during it or have had fun learning everything that they had to offer. And they offered so much!

The event itself was called Utsav 2008 Hyderabad and the course Yes!+ , organised by the directors of Art Of Living, Khurshed Batliwala and Dinesh Ghodke. Here’s their joint website www.bawandinesh.name The Art Of Living foundation was established by His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. It was a 4 day course, like I said, attended by over 2000 people.

It started out very funnily with a number of ridiculous jumping about exercises and the silliest dances anyone could find. I wondered then if the whole thing was a farce. We were then taught the Suryanamaskar. I totally loved this. We practised it around 10 times. It is supposed to work wonders on every part of your body if practised daily for at least 10 times. I still practice it. The best part about it is that you don’t have to be a gymnast or even very nimble to do it, all it requires is a little patience to learn. We were then asked to stop our romping about and to rest. “Close your eyes and feel the movements and the energy flow within your body.”

We were asked to rest in a meditative position to perceive these sensations – with surprising results! Its not only the feeling that adrenaline has stopped its rush throughout your body, it is as if your body is whispering secrets to you, asking you to slow down and enjoy it as a part of yourself. How symbolic this is for an observer – the entire course was built on that very skeleton, that very framework, of asking every individual of the society to be able to find their quiet space within themselves, to be able to recognise oneself easier and understand one’s needs better – all of this aiming towards the goal of building a calmer society with peace loving, sane and well-rounded individuals.

We got ready then for a round of meditative breathing- the pranayama. For this, we assumed the Vajrasana position. In the same position, we also practiced the Bhastrika. Both the exercises allowed us to dispense with all of our day-to-day tensions and concentrate on what was going on around us.

After we got into this mood, we were taught the Sudarshan Kriya, a method of meditation evolved by His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. It was a method guaranteed to teach us the art and importance of silence. And how! We did this for more an hour, at the end of which I fell unconscious. I was really scared but when I looked around, I noticed that almost everyone had done that.
More importantly, when we got up finally to go home, I felt as if my body was separate from me, as if I was floating above it. Many people had the same feeling. Indeed, some people had difficulty walking.

Mr. Batliwala, who insisted on us calling him Bawa, explained the whole phenomenon as separation of ego from the soul. We were to learn more about it soon!