The power of Vipassana

My life in the last 12 months has been a constant torment; my worst fears coming true each time like a predestined curse. I lost my job with a BBC worldwide company because my boss was too lazy to even read my assignment stories. I loved a woman with my heart and soul and she drifted away from a marriage point. My mother was increasingly senile and unmanageable. My arthritis confines me to the house and my only companions in the last 12 months were the guitar, the inane television, and the internet. I am not a gregarious character and except for couple of old friends, I am left alone to my mischief and idleness.

I would have surely gone mad or a candidate for suicide but for the gift of Vipassana.

My first 10 day programme was in March, 2008 and I was astonished at my own tenacity to last the course. One is made to get up at 4 in the morning and you end up meditating for over 10 hours a day; even to sit on a square mat in stillness is an effort for a restless mind. But I gritted my teeth and even began to enjoy the commando training for the mind. Satyanarayan Goenka explains the theory in the evening "audio-visual" lecture on the process of Vipassana.

I thought that if Gautama got liberated using Vipassana, I can at least use part of the same technique to preserve my sanity. The male members in my family are particular partial to depressions and Alzheimer's. After my heart surgery when I was 29, I watered down my ambitions in life. I resolved," No marriage, who would like to buy a retreaded tyre. Two, my career need not be strenuous. I shall work at my own pace and be content with what I get". An attitude entirely shaped by the security of a flat my father had slogged and now I was enjoying the benefit, most undeservedly if I might add. I lead my life on my own terms; there is no restraining family to impress or obey.

I was a moron MBA from IMT, Ghaziabad and floated in and out of advertising agencies in a client servicing function; I have worked with the biggest names like FCB Ulka, JWT, Rediffusion, Mudra, and even had a stint in the gulf. I knew intuitively that this was not my calling in life; spending your life with puffed up egos and loose women, of chain smoking bosses and "bahenchut" swearing colleagues. Most of the heads of advertising speak with so much élan that they can't stop themselves!!! One becomes a jackal without effort in this trade.

As anyone can see, mine is a vagrant life; it suits me and I cannot get regular. By March, 2008, I was on the edge of a precipice. BBC had given me notice of termination and there are NO creative jobs in India; I even settled for "content sourcing" for orphan companies that are usually headquartered in the USA. By then my love affair was in free fall. And then I had my mother to handle. This bundle of trouble was driving me crazy. It was then my first Vipassana happened.

My mother would rain down curses ' sarvanash in Tamil sounds more lightning and thunder- and I was so disjointed that I thought of even going to a hotel for sometime to escape the verbal torture. I even contemplated a vacation. But these are just fantasies of a man who in imminent danger of "barozgari" . Mentally I had already turned the reserve knob in the vehicle; no auto rides and no restaurants. I chanced upon Vipassana and I felt relieved as it comes for free; 10 days away from my "janma datta" and the very thought was more like Santa coming with gifts.

I loved the premise; this was 6 kms south of the airport. It was on a hill and residential quarters looked better than my MBA hostel. The place must be spread over 10 acres and it was home to so many birds. The entire place seemed tended with care; there was a walking course, the trees of different kinds, foliage, and cheerful presence of budding flowers everywhere and a dozen cows in variegated colours strolling by.

I soon fell in love with schedule as Mr. Goenka explains in the evening: You must first accept the "misery" in our lives otherwise you will never come out of it. The wise man realizes this and tries to come out of it. Our minds so full of impurities ' Samkaras ' that you have shed tears in countless births that can drown the oceans and your burnt bones can pile up to a mountain. Yet, one continues to be in blissful ignorance going through this cycle of sorrow, old age, sickness, death again and again as if bewitched. So, watch your "breath" ' they call this Aana Pana ' and get your mind cleaned.

I liked another noble thought. Every thought you generate in your mind leaves an imprint on the body. When you have a violently passionate thought, it is chiseled on rock. A frivolous thought is like a line on the beach and any wave can erase it but not those ingrained on rocks. So, come to a retreat like this and wipe out those impressions.

The cause of our suffering is "raga" and "dvesha". These attachments and hatred are real villains. They become your master and you are hopeless slave.

In practice it works like this: the sense organs ' eyes, ears, skin, tongue, nose- bring in stimulus from the outside words of objects and beings. They cause an instant sensation on the mind and cause either a "raga" or a "dvesha". These build over times and countless births and define the "miserable" person you are today. So, the way out is "watch your breath".

Then the second stage is "Vipassana" and that is watching the sensations. I shall spare you of a theory explanation here. Suffice enough to note that Vipassana stills a restless mind; for watching either the 'breath' or 'sensations' is concentrating the mind on the present. The mind is a ridiculous monkey when it ponders on the mistakes of the past or the forebodings of the future. The ability to focus the mind on a "present" activity is the best exercise you can indulge your mind for the moment; what better way in making your monkey mind concentrate either on your 'breath' or 'gross solidified sensations'.

I came back totally refreshed after the 10 day programme; it felt like coming out of a Rambo movie and wanting to grapple the world. I did not watch television for 2 months (it is even more ensnaring than 'maya') and did not have a desire to smoke.

The second time I went for a 3 day programme after quitting a job of 3 months because I never got respect there. By this time, I knew that my love interest was most definitely over and there would be no comebacks. I loved the blighter but then she acted high and mighty. The meditations made me accept though the heart lingered. It felt like a 5 year old letting go of a Cadbury's chocolate.

Then 6 months later, I again did a 3 day course. By this time, I got smarter to make notes of the state of my mind after each meditation session. There were some astounding insights that I would have been incapable of realizing in my normal hours. So I captured even a glimpse of a millimeter of a thought and recorded that in a dairy. I was so refreshed by the retreat that I came home and wrote 7 stories and filling up more than 100 pages inside of a month. These will form the major part of my second manuscript.

By this time at home I was hopelessly alone. I was now chasing interviews and not jobs (just 5 interviews in 8 months can cripple any man's spirit). I would have preferred being rejected at the interview stage and here I was not even invited for a face to face. These 8 months of complete idleness broke my back and spirit. Each time I felt miserable I had the discipline to practice vipassana. I also realized that I cannot be idle watching TV or sleeping in excess to pass the time. During this time, I found a publisher to my earlier manuscript ' that book is out this month, my first and I am excited. I almost have a second manuscript ready. I enrolled in an Arabic course to develop that as a job option. And I wrote copiously. I practiced 'descriptive' word study so that my narration style is more complete in that feature.

Each time I feel my mind race faster with thoughts (gloomy ones for we are experts in pampering on happy tidings), I sit on my meditation mat and within half an hour I feel my chest lighten. I feel a return to normality and I do a lot of writing in my free time. I love to write on things I have never written before; I relish the prospect of describing a "tharpanam" ritual that I perform to my pitrus every month, or I would like to do a portrait of the milk maid or even describe the beach or the temple I frequent. This is just an exercise to train the mind on observation; do I have the ability to paint a place or a person with vividness so that a reader can similarly absorb at the other end.

At last I have a work assignment and it means arresting my depleting finances. I must thank Vipassana for keeping me sane when everything was arrayed against me. That and the gym certainly saved me from a clinical depression. I now wait with the curiosity of a neighbour to reviews of my first book and also my growing prowess in Arabic; someday I go there and feel more at peace.

Sure, now that money will flow in the system I must go for the centre and pay my respects and donate generously. Vipassana has been so beneficial to me that it will always remain part of my daily routine. Thank you, Goenkaji. I came; I suffered, and I benefitted.