VIPASANA: INTERESTING ENCOUNTER

Recently most of the humanity witnessed the largest ever gathering at Mahakumbh, in Allahabad, India. In festivities ranging over two months millions of people took a dip in the Holy water of the Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati rivers. The belief is that this bath frees the soul from the miseries of daily life and one heads directly to heaven post death. The people who attended apart from the masses had Sanyasis; celebrities; business tycoons; government officials; doctors; lawyers; professors and large number of foreigners. One wonders what was the rationale for the mass of humanity which came for the holy dip. Probably faith but logically it cannot happen that a sinner can ever be frees of his sins just by holy dip. There was a dilemma – all shades of society participating in an even which defies logic.

 Most of the countries(less Islamic countries) including India faith is getting a severe beating. Youth do not visit the weekly event in the church/temple. Rituals are treated as fear addressal system put in place by the religious teachers with a personal agenda. Religion in the present way has lost its relevance and there is a need for something more appealing and logical.

Having visited the Mahakumbh for the Holy dip and spoken to large number of people there, returned reasonably disillusioned. It was then I decided to do research on the evolving religion and our expectations. That’s how Vipasana came into my radar. The sect does not believe in God but does believe in Nature which works on set non-negotiable laws. The laws which work outside in the natural world also operate within. One of the important laws is that one will get the punishment/reward for all the actions done with intent of results. This is the only sect which claims to address the issues of life and beyond logically. It claimed that our mind stores our deeds of the past. By evolving a technique of addressing the sub conscious mind, it claims to have evolved a process which enables freedom from miseries of life.

Vipasana is a technique of using the breathing process to regulate the mind in stage one. Later the mind is used to scan the body for sensations and how to react to them. Apparently evolved by Buddha, it’s a ten day package conducted at the selected places.

Stage one is observing the breathing and focussing on the nose and slowly upper lip area. This carries on for almost three days. Surprisingly after the second day one feels the efficacy of the system. One can feel the mind focussing/fleeing. This was a big achievement and post this one’s control over the mind does undoubtedly become better.

Stage two. Around the fourth day the initiate the students into vipasana. The mind is used to scan the body part by part for sensations of any kind. The logic as propounded by the sect is that it’s the subconscious mind that actually controls our lives. This mind is integrated into the body and there is a continuous dialogue between the two through language termed as sensations, e.g., twitching, pain, stretch, heat, cold, perspiration, pressure plus many more. This is also borne out by the fact that huge amount of activity of our body happens of which are conscious mind is neither aware nor issues any direction, well it’s just happening in our body. The aging; mind clutter; functioning of organs and systems in the body are all on remote mode. This implies that we are not even in touch forget being in harmony with a vital control component of our body. Very scary indeed. Very powerful rationale that would appeal to any logical mind. The process of vipasana enable interacting with the sensations and that is a huge accomplishment by any standards.

The regimen is extremely demanding. It becomes extremely painful if one is not used to sitting on ground that too crossed leg and one is supposed to sit for one hour at a stretch with a short break and repeat. This is an agonising activity which stretches to 12 hours every day. This can be extremely painful and torturous if one is not used to it. In the feedback I have suggested that this be modified otherwise the present generation will be reluctant to attend, hope someone pays heed to it.Me at sixty could not fully benefit due to the inability of the knees and back to take on the agony.

Some amongst us who are disillusioned with the religion and rituals and do not mind experimenting, may like to give a shot subject to one’s ability to manage the torturous regime.

The younger generation must attend, it can have positive impact on the outlook of life and beyond. It will Make A Difference, that is for sure