Antar Mukhi, Sada Sukhi | 7 days of Silence!
I was back again in the beautiful, green and sprawling Bangalore Art of Living Ashram — This time for my first ever 7 day silence course with an amazing teacher (more on him shortly). Why does one want to go into silence anyway ? All day long, our attention is outwards on objects of our senses — I.e. the world. In being caught up with the outside, somewhere we stop paying attention to what’s happening inside — Sensations, state of mind, feelings, etc. In continuously being in the pursuit of happiness, we are constantly trying to arrive at happiness, but it being fleeting — We miss the mark.
That’s why there is a popular saying — Antar Mukhi, Sada Sukhi — Hindi for “Turning the attention inwards, brings lasting happiness.” And this also turned out to be the theme of the course. We were were blessed to have a wonderful teacher to guide us through the 7 days…
Quick note: The sections in this blog are self contained for most part, so you can jump anywhere you feel like during the reading!
Introducing a joyful soul!
A bundle of joy and a beautiful lightness of being was a continual observation of mine, of this persona. A very wise man once said that those who are innocent are naive and those who are street smart or intelligent are often cunning. To be both innocent and wise in the right proportion — That’s what speaks through Kashi bhaiya’s presence.
Sample this — “If your body is unwilling to walk, you may take the shuttle to the dining hall. If your mind is unwilling to walk,……… you may actually go walk!!” Delivered with a pause and an innocent smile, it packs a punch with both humor and wisdom, and the room roars with laughter.
“If you look at me so seriously, I will think something is wrong!”, says Kashi bhaiya with a smile while talking about the resistance of the mind to sit in one place. The room can’t but warm up to his humor and wisdom.
“Those who are outside the room, can come inside. And those who are inside, can now go within (themselves)!”, was Kashijis humorous call for our next meditation session.
In an alternative career in an alternative universe, far far away, Kashi ji could have been a stand-up comedian. But he was meant to do much grander things of social and spiritual impact on this planet!
Seven days of Silence
Silence course as a workshop in Art of Living is usually a 3–4 day affair with many meditations, morning yoga, spiritual wisdom, practical knowledge on living life well and evening music (satsang). And of course, the glorious silence, that we keep up for 80% of the course. This was my first time doing a 7 day silence workshop. The 7 days with Kashi bhaiya went by in a flash. My mind also went many places in a flash — But that’s also an ancient story of every human mind and its tendencies.
While sitting through so many guided meditations can seem tedious and boring, a cheerful presence like Kashi ji can enliven the atmosphere in between meditations (For the remainder of the time, its a tussle between you, your mind and your ability to go deep in meditations). He has an uncanny ability to make the most mundane exercises seem joyful and precious.
“When you are told to observe the tip of the nostril, you think to yourself — How many times do we have to do this ? And what is the connection between the nostril and the advanced course I am on ?” and the room bursts into peels and peels of laughter.
The humor lightens the room and makes the mind more receptive to deeper wisdom, which was aplenty on the course.
“If you think you have had a good experience during meditation and so it was successful, you have missed the point. Meditation is a journey from the scenery to the seer”, Kashi ji echoed the deep wisdom of our spiritual guru, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar so beautifully. And this was also the essential wisdom point of the silence course!
Don’t hurry but always be in Hari (divine)!
“If you are waiting now for my instruction to meditate, then that’s the point. We are always in a hurry to get things done. My job here is to slow you down”, so saying he led us into the next meditation after a minute, with our minds a little more settled and a little less in a hurry to “get it right”.
Indeed, only when we deliberately slow down through a workshop like silence do we actually realize how much we are always in a hurry — Hurry to get to the next thing, hurry to finish up the food on the plate, hurry to do… The list is endless. The tendency to rush through things is ingrained in our fast paced society. I noticed that I was in a hurry to even finish my food. When I consciously consumed my food, I took my time to finish eating and my mind was more settled. “Save your mind at all costs” said Kashi Bhaiya. I couldn’t agree more. Doing has become our mantra, that we don’t even pause to be.. Just be. Silence course provided us ample opportunities to slow down and savor the moment!
With awareness, every movement can become graceful and the breath rhythmic — The mind has no choice but to follow through. A defiant child finally listens to the mother and quietens down. The opportunity to continually experience this for a long stretch of time only happens on a workshop like silence, and more so over 7 days.
And what better place to experience this than the ashram. Ashram is a home away from home. Even at home, the demands from family and friends come in the way of giving one self a substantial period of time to just be. But with food, board and all other needs taken care of — The ashram provides a beautiful home away from home to relax, rejuvenate, take a real vacation from the mental chatter and arrive at the beautiful, pristine stillness that is waiting to be discovered within. Antar mukhi, Sada sukhi.
When questions (?) get stretched into wonder (!)
While we were in silence, nothing stopped us from writing down questions and putting them in the question basket. And questions range from the very mundane to the deeply existential. Every teacher has their own way of dealing with the usually overflowing list of questions asked each day. Kashiji’s style stands out for its uniqueness:
The answer to this question, “Could you please ask the morning facilitator to speed up the 3-stage breathing process” was met with a smile and “If you think being a teacher is easy… You know now it’s not. That’s why you need to become a teacher, its fun!” And as he finished his point, the room went from laughter to a quiet recognition of what it takes to be a teacher of spiritual wisdom.
To another complaint from a participant on the fan in the room being too fast, he responded instead with deep wisdom,
“If your mind rebels against the fan being too fast, ask who is it that feels this rebellion (referring to the limited ego/small mind). Staying with the question, you go into vichara-anugama-samadhi.”
Every point was delivered with a smile and a pause — The pause is worth a million dollars. As Gurudev Sri Sri has said, often what is being conveyed when we speak about spiritual wisdom is not the words but something in between the words. How did the discussion go from a mundane fan being too fast to the topic of samadhi ? That’s what happens, I thought, when we are in the presence of people living and dripping in knowledge.
Beautiful Motivation
With beautiful analogies and stories, Kashi Bhaiya would delight us and motivate us to go into silence more deeply. One kind of motivation comes from disciplining and ‘handing down the rules’. The other comes from a lightness of being and mirth. Bhaiya clearly takes to the latter. Sample this —
“In our satsang, there is a gentleman who frequents it. He is fully in the moment, singing and clapping and fully in joy. His clapping is perfectly… out of sync with the beats! You wonder how is that even possible ? And then you look at the singers — Even one chord off can make them unhappy! So be like this gentleman. Instead of the mind making you dance, now you make the mind dance. Be joyful and let loose!”
After hearing this, how could one not go 100% into the next process!
When the subconscious rears its head!
There is a temporary opening up of the subconscious that happens in the depths of the silence course. The opening is of course internal and driven by the depth one goes into in the meditations. I observed that at first there is a lot of chaotic activity and this seemed quite unnatural as my mind usually behaves in the unreal world. However when I recognized that the chaos rising up was actually impressions surfacing from deep within- I could relax and be a witness to the chaos within, even if it went on for hours. However, soon enough, the impressions cleared in my next meditation and I didn’t want to come out of my meditation.
“When you are asked to open your eyes (after a meditation), and you don’t want to — Know that you have arrived!”
Antar mukhi Sada sukhi. With the above comment, Kashi ji beautifully reiterated what Gurudev has shared — Once the impressions clear, the mind has no choice but to repose in bliss. And this is the internal cleaning that we were up to.
The ups and downs and the turbulence that the mind goes through in the guided meditations and the subsequent rise of the witness is something to really experience. It is one of the most beautiful phenomenon I have encountered on the silence course.
Overall
With much gratitude I write this — I would come back to do a 7 day silence in a heart-beat. Being in silence itself is a precious opportunity in today’s gadget-driven information bombardment that’s happening every minute. I read an article somewhere, where a college girl mentioned how she had to stay away from her phone for full 7 days when visiting a village as part of a camp and she thought she couldn’t do it! This is where we are now — Married to gadgets. To break this attachment, to gain peace of mind, to not hurry but be in hari, to reflect, to appreciate the beauty of the nature around us, to be in gratitude — A silence workshop is a must!