This time we are going to write our separate stories, as the experience was very personal. Few photos follow, to give a slight idea of how everything looked.
Karolina's experience:
All the way from Jaipur to the meditation center i was crying and smoking cigarettes. I didn't want to go, i was scared. I don't like loneliness, silence and I'm an active person but yet I was on my way to spend 10 (actually 12) days in silence, loneliness and doing nothing but meditating. I haven't been meditating before neither and everything in me just screamed: NOOO!
Well, i didn't have to go. I could have stayed alone somewhere for ten days, but that idea didn't convince me neither and I thought about sharing this experience with Filippo, because it seemed hard not to...
Yes or no, yes or no...i let the faith decide. I said:" If the place is beautiful, I'll stay, if it's ugly, bye bye."
The place is idyllic. Peacocks, parrots, colibris, squirrels, monkeys, trees, flowers, little bells everywhere, a big quiet center in the middle of a forest area. I stayed.
They separated us into men and women areas and gave us rooms. After a short introduction the Noble Silence started. We were not allowed to speak for 10 days. Scary. The timetable seemed cruel - wake up at 4, followed by meditation (altogether 11h daily), eating brakes (3 times vegetarian Indian food daily), rest and 1,5h discourse in the evening. Half past 9 p.m was sleeping time. Nothing more, nothing less.
The first 3 days we were thought a meditation technique to improve our concentration. 11h daily focusing on the breath. Seems so easy, but the human mind appears to be a monkey mind, running away from the object of concentration in all the possible directions. Thoughts and dreams were weird at this time and i felt very bad. I was sick, my nose was bleeding (from all the concentrated breathing?!), I was cleansing my body, stinking, falling asleep... I wanted to leave. But the mind was slowly getting sharper and the exercise easier...somehow i stayed (mostly because it was to difficult to leave).
On the 4 day the vipassana meditation started - observing sensations on the body - and with a pretty sharp mind we started to scan our bodies for every sensation arising. Let me tell you, that when you sit 11 hours daily crosslegged and with a straight back, the sensations you are feeling soon narrow down to pain.
The technique, simply speaking, is based on observing sensations without reacting to them with feelings of craving or aversion. We were told not to move at all during 3 meditation sessions. You suffer. I suffered. Legs fall asleep, back pain is terrible, you sweat, you cry and you are supposed not to react. On the physical and the mental level. Don't move, don't feel aversion, don't crave...easy to say!
How to describe the rest is a mystery for me, because what happens when you practice seriously is not to be understood on the intellectual level. You are slowly getting master over you mind, which is being purified and the technique takes you out of the misery of life.
After 10 days everybody was shining, happy and peaceful. All the people that i hated during the curse (Indians don't care to burp, fart, cough and brake rules...i did hate a lot of people), came out to be wonderful. I was crying from happiness for the first time from..i don't know when.
of course, it's not a miracle - ten days can't change ones life or take one out of every misery. But the 10 days can show you that there is a technique that works and if you practice it in your life, slowly everything will become better and finally you get liberated (for Buddha it meant reaching the Nirvana and not being reborn anymore, for me the temporal goal is tho have a happy life ;).
I'm so grateful to Filippo and all the course teachers and Goenka-ji, who established Vipassana centers and spoke to us from from the TV in the evenings, to all my comeditators and to Buddha who distributed this technique and and and... as well as i'm enthusiastic to tell about it to all the people who are interessted. So ask! And be happy :)
Karolinas ascetic room
(the rules in the center are: do not kill, do not steal, do not have any sexual activity, do not lie, do not take any toxins, do not speak, do not read/write...and more)
The Meditation Pagoda...
...with meditation cells...
...Karolinas cell.
Shhhhhhhhh...
The Meditation Hall
Peackoks (screaming, crying, miauling)
Female area.
Filippo's experience:
I don't need to write much, because Karolina wrote already a lot and i think it's useless to spend more words on the theoretical aspect of this technique, since to understand it on an intellectual level doesn't help anybody: one has to practice.
Well, it was the second time for me to take part to a Vipassana meditation course, and maybe the second time was even harder then the first.
As Karolina wrote, it's not a proper peaceful experience and one has to work diligently and seriously for the whole 10 days, facing all one's own complexes coming out from the past (and you have nobody to talk to about what you're going through, since you're not allowed to speak, you have to face them by yourself...this brings you for sure a big interior strength).
I joined my first course 2 years ago as a sad, complexed and very problematic person.. and that changed my life...slowly, of course..this course is not a miracle, nobody puts his hands on you to heal you, but you have -working hard- to change the habit pattern of your mind, and to bring this technique into daily life... of course 10 days cannot change your life from one moment to the other, but for sure you go out from the course with another point of view on the world.
Since my first course, my life changed. Of course i had again difficult moments, situations in which i got lost, and so on, but slowly i noticed how the bringing this new understanding into my daily life was slowly making my mind more balanced, quiet, and consequently also my life was changing for better...my "new" mind was starting attracting beautiful situations, beautiful experiences and beautiful people.
Joining this course for the second time was like an "understanding bomb" exploding into my brain... i don t want to talk to much about my experiences there because i don t want to confuse the idea of people reading this...one has to try this course if one wants to understand what is about.
What i can say for sure is the Vipassana technique is the one thaught by the Buddha in his original form, and it's not a sect, it's not a secret or ambiguos organization, it's not a brain wash, it's not a religion, it's open to people from any sex, age, religion, culture and country...you don't have to convert to any form of belief to join the course, it is an universal remedy everybodys' suffering and misery.
The centers are spreading (and are already well spread) all over the world from people who do it for free,to help others to come out of their suffering, this people don't get paid.
The courses run on donations, to join a course is theoretically free (you can leave a donation-if you want- at the end of the course), and donations are not accepted from people who never took part to a course.
We are so enthusiastic and we are feeling so good about the course that we are now spending our second day out of the center closed in an internet point to write to our friends how good it was and to convince them to try the course.
For anybody who wishes more informations, this is the internet address of Vipassana.
www.dhamma.org
Jodhpur - the blue city...
... with its Palace and Fort
We arrived there to see friends of us, who we met in Goa. Their family welcomed us with food, music and open hearts.
We met many relatives of our hosts waiting for us in all the city with chai and ready for pictures.
Do you remember Prem? He is already on a photo from November, Filippo's sitar teacher.
Deshu (not sure about the name) is the family's youngest member. He is only 5 (or 6?) years old, but you should see his drum skills! The reincarnation of a musician...
Shanti life.
Choco!
We went for 2 days to the nearby desert to stay in this place.
Filippo was immediately surrounded by the family's children (which are all in all supposed to be 60!)
Karolina was HOT!
Please, pay attention to Filippo's leg...there's nothing more to say.
Karolina in a traditional rajasthani dress...
...got sold of for one camel pretty fast...
...to THIS GUY!
VOILA! The Taj Mahal!
No, there is no photoshop work on this.
