10 days of hell for a lifetime of heaven - Part 1

As I sit down to write about the 10 days I spent at the Global Vipassana Center, Esselworld Mumbai, I'm struck by my inability to parse each day as a discrete step in the journey. It seems like a mangled mass with a before and an after. This is all the more remarkable because I remember promising myself during those 10 days that I would capture them in as much detail as possible. And I remember making mental notes of details such as the menu each day and the content of the discourse each day. Now it is just a haze. This just confirms what Werner Erhard had said during the 8 day course on 'Being a Leader & the Effective Exercise of Leadership' that I was privileged to attend at Panchgani in 2010 - that the mind is a very unreliable place to keep things.

Caveat: My experience is mine alone. It is neither representative nor model. It is neither good nor bad. It is neither desirable nor repelling. It is just my experience. Your participation in Vipassana will give you what it will give you - it'll neither be what I got nor better or worse; it'll just be uniquely yours.

29th August
Forms, formats and a glimpse of what lay ahead
As I dragged my trolley bag up the steps towards Global Vipassana Center, I was playing up in my mind what lay in store for the next 10 days. I had no real notion of what happens in the course. I just had an idea of the impact it makes on people who had done the course. As I walked in, I saw a board that read WOMEN (महिलाएं ), another that read DONATION (दान ) and a third that read MEN (पुरुष ). A long verandah and two old people behind govt-office-looking desks. A teenager was with a middle aged woman who seemed to be his mother. There was some construction work going on beyond the desks. My first impressions were 'basic', 'vernacular' and 'geriatric' and my overriding thought was, 'is it going to be worth the 10 days away from family and work?'

The guy behind the desk said something in Gujarati that sounded like, 'take this pen, fill this form, read the instructions and go inside.' The form laid out the strict rules for the course -
1. Can't leave once we begin the course
2. Can't murder anyone - yeah that was never the intent
3. Can't steal - hmmm.....can do that
4. Can't indulge in sexual misconduct - yeah can tick that one too
5. Can't tell lies - well, we are supposed to be silent, right?
6. Can't have intoxicants - yeah, didn't carry my hip flask!
7. Can't take notes, can't keep any eatables with me - I was carrying a box of dry fruits and had no intention of turning it in, esp since my mother spoke about no food after 6pm!

Having resolved in my head that 6 out of 7 wasn't bad, I said yes to all the rules, submitted the form, and dinner being 5 hours away, I dragged my trolley bag to my 1st floor room. Room No 137 was neat, spartan and there was air conditioning! 'Not bad' I thought, 'for a course in meditation to provide participants air conditioning.'

At around 3pm, I woke up to a lot more buzz outside. As I went downstairs, my eyes went to the notice board that read, '7.30pm introduction of anna panna'. Sounded curiously similar to aampanna - the sweet sour drink that I love at Kailash Parbat or Mahesh Lunch Home - my spirits soared before sanity prevailed and I concluded that it is some stuff that don't understand........yet.

5pm and I was asked to hand over my mobile phone and wallet. 6.30pm, the bell rang and we trooped into the dinner hall. 7.30pm and we were walking to our designated seat in the 2nd floor meditation hall. As I walked in, I noticed that I had got a raw deal. While bald, old men sat smugly on cushioned chairs, those of us who had left the 'health issues' column blank were being rewarded with cushions on the floor without any back support! Oh, How would my body, that's always propped on at least 2 pillows or half a dozen cushions, bear this torture? How would I survive? Would there be rotation - people sitting on chairs today, moving to the floor tomorrow?

'Not a good beginning,' I thought to myself as I located my cushion number and reluctantly sat in the lotus position. After a while, Guruji's sonorous voice rang through the hall and he taught us the practice of observing our breath - the practice of anna panna.

I found it hard going because every time I observed my breath, I realized that I was observing the pain in my ankled touching the floor or the weight of my one leg over the other, or the pain in my back that was aching for support. Oh there I was thinking about Zoya and Anay going to bed at this time. And then I was thinking about Zee and all the people I had worked with. My mind was incontrollable - racing from one location to another, one thought to another, without any warning. However hard I tried to observe my breath, I ended up observing something else. Since my eyes were closed, I had no way of finding how others were doing although it did occur to me to open one eye just enough to check

Thankfully, Guruji's voice rang through again and ended with 'भवतु सर्व मंगलं' (although I have to admit, I was only able to recognize what he said by the 5 day when I read it on the slide!). This signaled the end of the session and we were told that we had to do anna panna for the whole of next day.

Suddenly, the next day didn't seem that desirable. And I went to bed at 9.30pm wondering what I had landed myself into.


Next post, Part 2 covers - 
30th August - Day 1
Oh my god, what did I do!

31st August - Day 2
How many days left?

1st September - Day 3
I think I'll be able to do it