Igatpuri - Vipassana Meditation My Experience (11 -22 Jun 2014)
I went to 10 days Vipassana meditation camp at Igatpuri VIA (Vipassana International Academy) from 11 June to 22 June 2014. I was very lucky that I got the number in less than 1 month's waiting period. I have already read and listen through my friends about the schedule there and was very eager to go there and experience it. Being a patient of Ulcerative Colitis (discharged from hospital just 2 weeks back after second attack of UC)and having strict diet plan my parents were worried about 10 days long stay at remote location.
I started my journey from Pune very early morning of 11th June via state transport bus. Pune- Swargate to Thane- Vandana(Shivneri) (4 hrs) then took auto or you can walk of 10 min if you have less baggage to Thane- Kopat from then transferred to Thrimbekshwar 2X2 state trasport bus and till Igatpuri highway(2 hrs). From highway I took shared Auto till Dhammapuri (VIA base camp 15 min).
I was very happy to see such green, clean and huge campus and beautiful weather, yes I went just in time, start of mansoon season.
Main Pagoda and meditation Cells
11 JUN
Once I entered to VIA campus the registration process started where I filled up the registration one page form and received the Registration card with unique number and group number. Once you enter into the registration panel they seperate out male and female candidates. Where both have different campus to stay and do course for 10 days and VIA run such multiple courses at same time with 550 person capacity for each course! That explains how big is the campus of VIA. Then they provided me paper bag to deposit all valuables like cell phone, money, etc and it was sealed and kept at their locker. Then they allocated me romm which was having twin shared accomodation with attached bathroom. The next step was to get Laundry token after paying INR 200 as deposit. They provide laundry facility where you can give your clothes between morning (6:30 to 7:45) and get it back next day same time with reasonable charge of INR 6 per cloth.
Once I got the Residence room details I went to drop off my luggage and see the facility. It was quite good and close to main Pagoda and Hall #2. It was almost 5PM and Cafeteria was open for snacks rather I came to know it was dinner too! They served Poha with Banana (which is national evening dish at VIA dinner!!!).
The next schedule notice as on notice board, to gather at same cafeteria at 5:30 PM.
@5:30 PM they stared with introduction session of 10 day course and rules to be followed. They also tagged all candidates into three groups. Then one guide/Dhamma sevak allocated to each group who helped to show us group meditation hall and individual seat for meditation. The "Golden Silence"/ "Aarya Moun" started from that point onwards @6:30PM.
After that we had group session where VIA played clip of Mr. Goyanka who welcome the students and explained the purpose & agenda of 10 day course. Here is daily schedule I need to follow for next 10 days:
Morning Wake up Bell : 4:00 AM
Second Bell : 4:20 AM
Group Meditation or Individual (at cell or residency) : 4:30 - 6:30 AM
Bell for Breakfast :6:30- 7:15 AM (again golden silence at cafeteria too, they have wide variety of breakfast right from Poha to Dhokala, fruits, Idali, etc only one item per day along with Tea/Milk) these are used to normal spicy so I used to get Banana or sometimes Papaya for breakfast :(
Break : 7:15- 8:00 AM
Group Meditation : 8:00 -9:00 AM
Meditation as per teachers advice 9:00 - 11:00 AM
Bell for Lunch: 11:00 - 11:45 AM (again lunch has wide variety of food Rice, Daal, 2 curries, Buttermilk, 1 sweet, roti) again thanks to non-indian students who made my life easy as VIA provided them non spicy, boiled vegitable along with non spicy daal and rice which I used to take by going out of queue for lunch!
Break : 11:45 - 1 PM
Group Meditation or Individual (at cell or residency) : 1:00-2:30 PM
Group Meditation : 2:30 -3:30 PM
Group Meditation or Individual (at cell or residency) : 3:30-5:00 PM
Bell for Dinner: 5:00 PM- 5:30 PM (the daily menu for dinner is Lemonade, banana and murmura with tea or milk)
Group Meditation : 6:00 -7:00 PM
Teachers Discourse/Pravachan : 7:15 -8:30 PM
Group Meditation : 8:30 - 9:00 PM
Group Q&A session : 9:00 - 9:30 PM
Lights Off : 10:00 PM
Due to lot of travel and dinner cum breakfast I was feeling tired and retired to bed by 10 PM!
The day started with above schedule automaticaly as I was exicted with first day of "Sadhana". The courses are managed by local teachers but those are just facilitators actual course is coundected by late Goyanka. They play the audio and video clips of Goyanka and we feel the great Goayanka is still conducting the course. It was very strange for me and like attending any VC or Tele conf call but later realized it is for keeping same purity of teaching no more alteration or personal biased/ filtered knowledge approach.
Here they tought us how to do "AanaPaan" meditation technique to observe your breath in the Triangale area of entire nose(inside out) and keep you mind stable on this area only. No words, no figure attached to breath only pure natural breath observation. Before teaching this we were asked to take "diksha"/oath that will follow the 5 golden rules through out the camp. Entire day I spent on this activity.
13 JUN
Today also I did the "AanaPaan" meditation for entire day per given schedule. Evening Pravachan was good entertainment along with "Dharma" teachings. Today I stated feeling sensations near to my nose area (inside and outside)
14 JUN
Jun 13th day mirrored today along with meditation session with Teacher for 15 min and Q&A. I was feeling alone now may be the body and mind telling me the rubber band will break at anytime now!
15 JUN
Today there was little surprise to me on notice board as the announcement showing "Vipassana Teaching" at 3PM. I was excited to know the technique for which I (even everyone there) traveled so far. At 3PM the session started with recording of Goyanka: Now I am suppose to concentrate on smaller area between nose and upper lip and observe the breath flow. Natural flow. Once you are confident and able to recognize the flow of air/breath then you need to take your mind from Top of the head to Tip of the tow to see the sensations in each body part and look at them as third party without making any good or bad feeling about it.
Then do it from feet to head. Once one get to know the sensations then can start taking mind through multiple body parts at once , again top to bottom or bottom to top to feel "Dhara" cosmic energy flow within own body. The "Dhara" will flow only if you have similar sensations throughout your body parts.
The rest of the day I spent in doing Vipassana. The good thing was rain started today and it changed the atmosphere with pleasant cool breeze.
16, 17 JUN
On 16th Jun people above 21 years got individual cells(shunyagaar) for meditation. Where one can do the meditation in non group seating sessions time. The Cell is 3X3 small room with 8ft height having one door and led lamp inside and small hole for air inside Pagado. It is equipped with cushion for seating similar to provided for group session/in hall. The rest of the two days I spent in doing Vipassana.
18, 19,20 JUN
Now the notice board was also not changing with daily schedule, like your one way communication/newspaper has stopped. It was showing schedule for three days:( . The new thing I observed "Strong Determination" means when you will attend the one hour group session you should not change your position, open eyes, change legs,hands and maintain same position for 1 hr, no matter how much pain you are getting. The rest of the three days I spent in doing Vipassana either in group hall or in Cell. Now rain was in its full swing the little umbrella was of no use in such heavy rain with winds. But able to see waterfalls on mountain behind the camp site and snake near to Pagoda. On 20th Jun evening session after Pravachan teacher announced that the "Aarya Moun" golden silence will end tomorrow 10 AM and rest of the day one can visit the exhibition stalls and share their experience with others.
21 JUN
As told in yesterday's session the golden silence ended at 10 AM just after teaching of "Maitrayee Sadhana". Today lunch was like feast! They provided with Pulaav/Jira Rice, Dhai Wada, two curries, daal and sweet. The book and CD/DVD exhibition started from 11 - 1 PM. Also they opened the donation counter since we are now old students we can contribute to corpus that will be used to schedule next batch and maintain/run the facility. Fortunately today was sunny day after 3-4 days for heavy rain and fog(at morning and evening).
If you donate more than INR 1000 you will get their monthly news letter delivered to your email or postal address free for lifetime. There is facility to convert foreign currency to Indian as well as donation by all types of cards. They handed over the valuables including cell phones by 11 AM along with laundry deposit(adjusted amount depending on your consumption of facility). So now you can imagine how the campus was! Every one was eager to turn on the cell phone and call their relatives and friends, I was amazed to see the so quite and silent campus for 10 days become noisy place today.
I got a invite from facility head to share my experience with him where he gave some good tips and examples how I should continue the Vipassana from this point onwards.
I was interacting with various participants there right from monks traveling from Nepal to Irani people. Everyone was showing passion while talking/sharing the 10 days experience.
Today we came to know the camp will be over by 7AM tomorrow and no one can leave the campus before that. I purchased few books and CDs since I got the wallet back and made few calls!
Rest of the group meditation session timing was still in tact.
Today night we saw a documentary video(at 9:30PM) of "Golden Pagoda" the makings of golden pagoda at Mumbai.
22 JUN
The first meditation session was from 4:30 AM to 6:00 AM then we had "Maitrayee Sadhana" for 10 mins then they played the video of Goyanka addressing everyone on last day of camp mentioning how one should follow the practice in day to day life. They served breakfast (surprise no traditional 10 day menu, it was "Vaada Paav") at 6:30 but for obvious reason I skipped it and marched to residency for packing bags for departure.
It was really great experience for me, never had such kind of camp in my life before and made commitment to do next one in next year!
"Sabaka Mangal Ho"
Be Happy!
Putting bus schedule :
Few Images taken on 21 Jun 2014
Then do it from feet to head. Once one get to know the sensations then can start taking mind through multiple body parts at once , again top to bottom or bottom to top to feel "Dhara" cosmic energy flow within own body. The "Dhara" will flow only if you have similar sensations throughout your body parts.
The rest of the day I spent in doing Vipassana. The good thing was rain started today and it changed the atmosphere with pleasant cool breeze.
Group meditation hall
16, 17 JUN
On 16th Jun people above 21 years got individual cells(shunyagaar) for meditation. Where one can do the meditation in non group seating sessions time. The Cell is 3X3 small room with 8ft height having one door and led lamp inside and small hole for air inside Pagado. It is equipped with cushion for seating similar to provided for group session/in hall. The rest of the two days I spent in doing Vipassana.
18, 19,20 JUN
Now the notice board was also not changing with daily schedule, like your one way communication/newspaper has stopped. It was showing schedule for three days:( . The new thing I observed "Strong Determination" means when you will attend the one hour group session you should not change your position, open eyes, change legs,hands and maintain same position for 1 hr, no matter how much pain you are getting. The rest of the three days I spent in doing Vipassana either in group hall or in Cell. Now rain was in its full swing the little umbrella was of no use in such heavy rain with winds. But able to see waterfalls on mountain behind the camp site and snake near to Pagoda. On 20th Jun evening session after Pravachan teacher announced that the "Aarya Moun" golden silence will end tomorrow 10 AM and rest of the day one can visit the exhibition stalls and share their experience with others.
21 JUN
As told in yesterday's session the golden silence ended at 10 AM just after teaching of "Maitrayee Sadhana". Today lunch was like feast! They provided with Pulaav/Jira Rice, Dhai Wada, two curries, daal and sweet. The book and CD/DVD exhibition started from 11 - 1 PM. Also they opened the donation counter since we are now old students we can contribute to corpus that will be used to schedule next batch and maintain/run the facility. Fortunately today was sunny day after 3-4 days for heavy rain and fog(at morning and evening).
If you donate more than INR 1000 you will get their monthly news letter delivered to your email or postal address free for lifetime. There is facility to convert foreign currency to Indian as well as donation by all types of cards. They handed over the valuables including cell phones by 11 AM along with laundry deposit(adjusted amount depending on your consumption of facility). So now you can imagine how the campus was! Every one was eager to turn on the cell phone and call their relatives and friends, I was amazed to see the so quite and silent campus for 10 days become noisy place today.
I got a invite from facility head to share my experience with him where he gave some good tips and examples how I should continue the Vipassana from this point onwards.
I was interacting with various participants there right from monks traveling from Nepal to Irani people. Everyone was showing passion while talking/sharing the 10 days experience.
Today we came to know the camp will be over by 7AM tomorrow and no one can leave the campus before that. I purchased few books and CDs since I got the wallet back and made few calls!
Rest of the group meditation session timing was still in tact.
Today night we saw a documentary video(at 9:30PM) of "Golden Pagoda" the makings of golden pagoda at Mumbai.
22 JUN
The first meditation session was from 4:30 AM to 6:00 AM then we had "Maitrayee Sadhana" for 10 mins then they played the video of Goyanka addressing everyone on last day of camp mentioning how one should follow the practice in day to day life. They served breakfast (surprise no traditional 10 day menu, it was "Vaada Paav") at 6:30 but for obvious reason I skipped it and marched to residency for packing bags for departure.
It was really great experience for me, never had such kind of camp in my life before and made commitment to do next one in next year!
"Sabaka Mangal Ho"
Be Happy!
Putting bus schedule :
Few Images taken on 21 Jun 2014
Hii Sandy Nice post.Very informative. I have been thinking of doing vipassana. What has been your experience about the benefits now that you are back into normal life?
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