Friday, November 18, 2011

Tales of the Ashram...

...Part 2.

Well, the Beginner's Class has ended as of this afternoon.  We were asked what we would take away from this experience, and while much of it was review for me, I do feel that I have more tools now to proceed with cultivating a home practice, especially while my teacher is ill. 

This has not been a week of cosmic-boom-moments, but small awarenesses of what I've learned.  Last night in Satsang (group meditation, chanting, and last night was Puja), I felt a new depth to my practice.  As I silently chanted my friends names (see the Sock Meditation), and added D, who had open heart surgery this week, I noticed that the names got spaced further and further apart until they ceased and I was left in a quiet peaceful void where I didn't even hear my own heart beat.  I just stayed with that silent stillness for a while, not even noticing that my left leg had again gone to sleep.  I didn't even feel like I was sitting.  Someone in the room sneezed or coughed and that jolted me back to the moment, and the pins and needles in my leg.

We have had lectures every day, today ending with positive thinking, all review after my studies with holistic nursing and with my teacher but it never hurts to hear it again. 

I'm very glad that I chose the Beginner's Week, now I have a better feel for what its like in an ashram.  On Monday, I wanted to run away and leave early and go home and hibernate.  But as the week has progressed, I'm very glad I'm here, I will miss the people I've met, and I'd like to come back.  Sort of like leaving summer camp.  It seems to stretch so far in the future but yet, its gone in an instant.  As my teacher would say, all is impermanent.

In less than 48 hours, I'll be back in the world.  And now its time to go to yet another yoga class.....   

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