To me, the silence felt good. The attempts at meditation were not particularly successful but worthwhile nevertheless. Goenka's philosophy of salvation, however, was what I was least receptive to. Like any life-guiding philosophy, Vipassana affects each individual differently, and here's my personal experience of it.
During the long ten days, we maintained silence from the night of Day 0 to the morning of Day 10. The silence could be broken only to talk to the teacher to ask or answer questions about the meditation technique or, to raise any issues with the management. Besides an average of 2-3 sentences every 2 days, I was silent for the rest. Some folks gave up on the silence around the fifth day, but since this was the easiest task for me, I stuck. It was especially easy since our phones had been deposited with the management on Day 0.
The silence clears your mind of a lot of clutter. With no WhatsApp and Gmail, it's easy to focus on one train of thought and go deep. It helped me reach decisions on some life issues and think about the path I've chosen.
While the silence came easily to me, meditation was a different kettle of fish altogether. My silence did not extend to my mind. It was full of thoughts. Keeping it focused on my breath and body sensations was a constant battle. I did get better as the days passed but my interest waned after Vipassana discourses.
This was surprising as I'd enjoyed the discourses till then. In the daily video discourse, Goenka speaks of the theory behind practising Vipassana in the style he teaches. In the first few days, he's quite areligious and irreverent. Faith without the trappings of religion made absolute sense to me. However, in the later days, he talks more about how Vipassana is 'the path' to salvation where religion has failed. He also tried to explain how each religion talks about Vipassana in different words. Surprisingly, I had no problem with that, maybe because I've always appreciated politics. However, the repeated focus on how engaging in Vipassana would cure the sins of my past births and take me towards salvation, was a turn off.
Overall, the ten day course was definitely an enriching experience. It pushed me to crystallize my thoughts on life and what faith means to me. But, would I do it again? Probably not. Unless I need the silence enough to ignore the salvation mantra.
During the long ten days, we maintained silence from the night of Day 0 to the morning of Day 10. The silence could be broken only to talk to the teacher to ask or answer questions about the meditation technique or, to raise any issues with the management. Besides an average of 2-3 sentences every 2 days, I was silent for the rest. Some folks gave up on the silence around the fifth day, but since this was the easiest task for me, I stuck. It was especially easy since our phones had been deposited with the management on Day 0.
The silence clears your mind of a lot of clutter. With no WhatsApp and Gmail, it's easy to focus on one train of thought and go deep. It helped me reach decisions on some life issues and think about the path I've chosen.
While the silence came easily to me, meditation was a different kettle of fish altogether. My silence did not extend to my mind. It was full of thoughts. Keeping it focused on my breath and body sensations was a constant battle. I did get better as the days passed but my interest waned after Vipassana discourses.
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| S. N. Goenka (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Overall, the ten day course was definitely an enriching experience. It pushed me to crystallize my thoughts on life and what faith means to me. But, would I do it again? Probably not. Unless I need the silence enough to ignore the salvation mantra.
