Experience of Art of Living course...

First day at Art of Living, (Date. 14-Oct-08)

It has been since 2 years I had joined the course in Bangalore but couldn't able to complete and left after 3 days, but this time I decided that I will complete it and continue the practice of teachings. It took almost 2 years to just start with course and lets hope that I will continue till end and also continue the doing things which I will get to learn.

The course timings was 6 pm to 9 pm, but due to some people came late it started off almost at 6.40 pm.

As people were less around 25 people so our teacher was reluctant to start because he has 10 years of experience in teachings and he has to take the batch more than 50 people. He is not allowed to take batch less than 50. But still he started off as he doesn’t want us to get disappointed.

So we stared with teacher’s introduction and then he asked us to introduce us to each other and at the end just to say “I belong to you” and “Let’s move together”. Everybody felt awkward to introduce like this but it was just different kind of experience we had. I think no body has been introduced themselves like this. We feel nice to get introduced like this.

Then Guruji told us some things like what to eat, drink in the duration of course and follow this at least till course ends.

After that he asked us 3 questions like,

“What do you expect from life?”,

“What are things that are bothering to you?” and

“What you expect from this course?”

As first 2 questions are too personal so he asks us to answers the third question. So as per everybody’s expectations, each has given the answer.

Then he describes the difference between “Question” and “Wonder”.

Usually Question expects answer where as Wonder doesn’t. So we need to transform our Question into Wonder so that we don’t feel too much burden to get answer, it will lessen our worry. Though transcending Question into Wonder sometime doesn’t give us solution but surely it will lessen our tensions, worry which has been arose because of Question in our mind. Later we will get or find answer/solution to the problem.

The next things we learn “To be happy make less expectations”.

Usually everything we do we have expectations to get desire thing. We want reward against doing work. So when we get things we don’t feel happy because we thought this is what I deserve. If we get less then we feel unhappy because we thought what I did is far more than what I get, again we don’t feel happy. So sometimes though we get things as per what we expects we never feel happy. So if while doling things if we expects less then we will happy irrespective of how much to get in return.

Then we learn “Live in present moment”

Mostly we live in thinking past’s mistake, feeling guilty about the mistakes we had done Or we live in thinking of future. We either captivated by past events or in thinking future worry. We never think of enjoying current moments. Present moment is inevitable.We can’t ignore, we can’t neither bring back past nor live in future.
We have to live in present moment without worrying about past and future.

Then we learn about “Ujjayi Pranayama”. It is 3 stage pranayam.
“Bhasrika Pranayama” and Omkar jap.

Second day :

Initially we did little physical exercise, this is kind of warm up session.

After that our Guruji came and started with discussion. He made us in group of 5/6 people and discuss about the question he had given as home work.

1. What do expect from life to become happy?
2. When you will become happy?

Every group given their own opinion, mostly are same like Positive attitude toward life, detachments towards material things, good health etc etc.

Mostly times we seek our happiness in a material things like if I get this I will be happy. Sometime again getting those things we feel still we are not happy, so again we plan for next things to be happy. So in this way we keep on postponing our happiness. So sometime we end up in feeling that we will never become happy.
But the true is that happiness can’t be brought from external sources, its inside us only. We are made up of happiness, joy, enthusiasm. We need not to search for it.
We need not top plan and wait for it. Sometimes planning happiness in future we ruined our present happiness. So always live in present and enjoy present moment.

After having break, we learn Anulom Vilom pranayama. Then we did for Anulom Vilom, then Ujjayi Pranayama, Bhasrika Pranayama, and Omkar jap.

Now our “Sudarshan Kriya” started. ‘Su’ means proper, ‘darshan’ means vision and ‘Kriya’ is a purifying practice. The Sudrashan kriya is therefore a purifying practice, where by one receives a proper vision of one’s true self.This unique practice is a potent energizer. Accordingly Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, the Sudarshan Kriya came to him like an inspiration to bridge the gap between the worlds of inner silence and outer expression of life.

The rhythmic breathing pattern of Sudarshan Kriya harmonizes the rhythms of the body and emotions and brings them in tune with the rhythms of nature. The breath connects the body and mind. Just as emotions affect our patterns of breathing, we can bring about changes in our mental and behavioral patterns by altering the rhythms of our breath. It flushes our anger, anxiety and worry; leaving the mind completely relaxed and energized.

After doing Sudarshan Kriya we felt very calm, quite, enlightened. Its really very nice experience till now we had and we left for our home.

Third Day

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Fourth Day

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Fifth Day

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Sixth Day,

Sixth day …actually the last day of our course and it had been long session as per told us. In the morning we gather to one of our course friend’s home to see the information about Art Of Living foundation and His Holiness Sri Sri Ravishankar.
We saw the experiences of the people, activities AOL foundation does.
After then we again come back to our course hall.

Then teacher discussed about ego. Everybody has ego, but it creates problems in our day to day life. Our every activity is around “I” only. Like I did this, I did that etc. Unless we come out from this “I” and see beyond that we will not become happy. We should increase love inside us to reduce ego, so slowly our ego will get vanish.

After this discussion we had lunch, everybody brought lunch from their home and we share each other’s tiffin. It was nice to have lunch like this.

After that each of us had given a plant and asks us to take care of it.

Again we gathered in hall, this time teacher asks us to make a group of 3 persons each and every person will tell his life story to other 2 in brief. In my group we were 2 male and 1 female. First I told my story and then lady. I was astonished after hearing her story, the way she is trying to live and the things she has faced. I really admire her courage to go through all these. After we heard the story of the retired person and again I too surprised his story as well, the way he has accepted things, his struggle for life and then negativeness created within him because surroundings and love towards his wife. Both are so honesty in their story and I think after that they felt so relax, I could see on their face.
My experience in front them was too small in terms age and in terms of ups & downs. I think they had faced much hard time than me, they have lot of patience to go through all these things.

After that we again heard bhajan and then we left for the home.