The Art of Living

Have you heard about Hon. Shri Ravishankar and the organization “The Art of Living”? I had heard about them when I was in school I guess. But I had never thought about joining it then. The only thing I was fascinated with was meditation. My Nani (Grandmother) used to do it and so I always wanted to learn that too.

This year The Art of Living organization is celebrating its 25th anniversary along with Shri Ravishankar’s 50th birthday celebrations. To mark this occasion, the organization has decided to grow. For this they’ve conducted the Basic Course (Part1) for free which normally costs around a thousand bucks in Nagpur.

A friend told me about one such module which was going to start on the 24th of January. But there was one problem…the timings were 6-9 AM. Getting up at 5 in these winters! Oh God! I couldn’t imagine myself doing that. Plus, that time I didn’t have the full information, I mean I didn’t know she was talking about THE Art of Living..the one about which I had heard during my school days! I just thought it was just another course where they’ll expect us to do bhajan-kirtan, daan- dharma and pooja path. So that time I didn’t take it too seriously.

But then, she attended the course, and was all Ga-Ga about it. My mom got very impressed, plus it was such a good deal huh…a course worth a thousand bucks for free! After all, like all typical moms she also runs after all sorts of discounts! So I was made to fill the admission form, which of course my friend had brought for me. While filling the form I observed one thing, they were asking if I had any sort of health problems like hypertension etc. I just wondered why they were asking all this…and then suddenly my bulb glowed…Oh yes….it was THE Art of living…probably they were going to teach Yoga and Meditation! All of a sudden, I got inspired, so much so….that I was willing to get up at 5 AM to attend the course!!

Finally the D-day arrived….I had set double alarm…and so luckily enough I did manage to actually wake up at 5. Well the truth is that out of fear of not being able to wake up in time, I couldn’t sleep properly that night. So obviously I had to wake up in time!

I reached the venue at 5:45.Can you believe it...there was such a huge gathering there, in spite of the winters, in spite of the timings! At that time I thought people were really crazy to have come there. I was myself not sure why I was doing this. The only savoir was thought that I’d learn some Yoga! That would mean at least some exercise, and I think I desperately needed that.

Our teacher Mrs. Pratibha Shetty reached the venue at 5:55. The class didn’t start before 6:20 and I was feeling upset because of the delay. But once it did start, things changed in my life from thereon…..I’m not saying “everything changed forever”, cause that’d be dramatic, isn’t it? I’m the same person, I still continue with my chatting, blogging, orkutting etc. But yes, my outlook towards life did change a bit. But that bit was also quite significant, and I’m sure it will be with me for a long time.

The first question our teacher asked us was “What did we expect to learn in the next six days?” There were all sorts of answers, like I want to get my peace of mind; I want to learn to be happy etc. But our teacher said “You will not learn anything from this course. If it was Ok with us, then only you should continue with the class.” This was the first lesson we learnt, to stop expecting things all the time.

Expectations, if not met, cause disappointment, and if met, give rise to higher expectations.

Then we were told that there were 7 levels of the Human Body:
1. Body
2. Breath
3. Mind
4. Brain
5. Memory
6. Pride
7. Consciousness

Then we had an exercise called “Sangchadvam”. In this exercise, we had to introduce ourselves to the other members of the group. Oh yes! I forgot to tell you, we had formed groups of 10 people each. We were told that we’ll be working on all these seven levels during the next 6 days.

We learnt something called “Ujjaiyi shwaas” on the first day. All the other kriyas, or sadhnas would be based on this. We also learnt to do Pranayam on the first day itself. Pran is the suttle life force energy and there are four sources for this energy:
1. Food
2. Breath
3. Sleep
4. Knowledge or meditation

They also said that just 20 min of meditation is equivalent to 4 hrs. of sleep!!

Then during the next five days we learnt the “Sutras”. I’ll list them here, just in case you’d be interested….
1. Opposites are complementary to each other
This means that both are incomplete without each other.
2. Present moment is inevitable
You can’t change your past; neither is worrying about the future going to help you much. So it’s better to live in the present moment which is inevitable.
3. Don’t see intention behind other’s mistakes
Mistakes are caused by accident; no one does them on purpose.
4. Accept people and situation as they are
If you don’t like a person or a situation, your mind will be at unrest. And our mind and its peace should be of utmost importance to us, and we should not let anything affect it.

The best feature of the program was the “Sudarshan Kriya”. They say it’s such a powerful exercise, that it can heal all sorts of ailments. It is said to have healed Cancer and AIDS too…can you believe it? In the beginning I was a bit uncomfortable with it, but slowly I’m learning to get used to it.

Then there were other exercises like meditation. On the last day, we had a long class. We had snacks in our groups, and an exercise called “Dance Meditation”. Also, on the last day we had to gift our group members.

The lesson I loved the most during the course was something like this:
Just as we control the channels on the Television with a remote control, similarly our feelings and emotions also have a remote control. We’ve given this remote to others. When they praise us, we become happy, and when they criticize, we become sad. Our life is our own, and our emotions affect us only. Then why should we let others control them? We should keep our remote with us. As they say, happiness brings expansion, whereas sadness results in contraction. So we should try to be happy, so that we can grow, we can expand.

And the best part was the concluding line...”I haven’t taught you anything, you already knew everything. I’ve just awaked you!!” This is what our teacher had to say in the end. She was so right on the first day when she said we won’t learn anything new, ‘cause all that we learnt, was something we knew already.

After doing this course, I’ve developed a new perspective towards life. I’m really glad I became a part of this organization and I hope after reading this blog you would also like to enlighten your lives in a similar fashion!!