The Crazy Year of 2020 - Part 1

 I was convinced 2020 was going to be a super awesome year. I was in fact determine to make it one. For once I decided I will have resolutions and I will fulfill those resolutions by sheer willpower alone. 

There were just 4 goals I set out to achieve in 2020, not huge goals but goals nevertheless

1. I wanted to learn Tamil - to read and write because the last time I was in Tamil Nadu I found myself stuck not being able to read Tamil. I know I will eventually end up there( in TN) and the reoccurring dreams of being stranded somewhere not being able to get home was enough motivation for me to start working. 

2. I wanted this year to be the year I got my Diving license - Thani had been taking so many amazing underwater pictures and posting them that I thought this is something I definitely want to do and I have been putting off for maybe 10 years now. Since we had started being better friends again, Thani and I made plans that he would be my instructor this year for getting my PADI license. 

3. Move most of my trainings online - Again in preparation to be more mobile, but mostly from the fact that I was starting to hate face to face trainings, I wanted to move all our training onto an online platform. I had also come up with a self paced Leadership development Programme that I wanted to pilot. 

4. Veena Margham - Motivated by Jega and Thila's margham last year, I really thought that this was another place I could channel all my energy to. 

Looking at this list now, I think my consciousness was craving for some kind of discipline and a space to work consistently hard at. 

Well 2020 heard my request and delivered all of it in the most unexpected packaging.

Part 1 - The Vipasana Experience 

The drive into the Vipasana centre in Gambang Pahang. 

Day 1 of 2020 started at Vipasana. While it might look like a great spiritually motivated decision to find inner peace, I must be transparent and admit that the reason I went for Vipasana was based on fear. I was spiraling in self pity, inadequacy, jealousy and self doubt so much that I knew to save myself, something drastic needed to be done. I needed to blank out, to somehow find the reset button and be able to go back to myself again. A self I could love and not pretend to love. I felt like in trying to be a better person, I had shoved my true self to a corner and almost felt apologetic for her existence. I needed a place to sit with myself a face myself and Vipasana seemed like the perfect spot. 

Vipasana prooved to be one of the most challenging things I have done in my life, I would put it up there with climbing Mount Kinabalu.  I am glad I did it, but im not climbing any of those again. Thank you very much. 

I found so much of myself in Vipasana, I started to acknowledge and accept aspects of me that I have been hiding from, just respecting it's existence and not judging it. A certain sense of calmness pervaded my mind, not bliss or happiness that I get from the other meditations I have done, but perhaps a sense equal mindedness. 

Vipasana was also the start of the war against my ego. On the 2nd last day of the programme, I woke up at 4am, stretched my body that was so stiff from sleeping on the hard, cold cement slab and after that went to the toilet. Because no one else is going to be reading this...  I can tell you that the exact moment I threw my back was in the middle of a dump. I broke into cold sweat, the pain was unbearable, I was sweating profusely in pain. I managed to clean myself, and with so much of pain walk to the door and open the latch because without doing that no one would be able to enter the room. I could not even put my pants on. I was in that much of pulsating pain. I lay straight on the bed ( cement slab) and covered myself with a blanket, held on to a small smuggled picture of Swami and cried myself to sleep hoping that eventually someone would find me. 

With that much of pain it was safe to say I did not sleep.  Three hours later, during breakfast, the course coordinator came looking for me. I was so grateful for her. I explained what had happened and told her that I wanted to see Kamini. She was reluctant to break Kaminis vow of silence and stop her progress, she told me to take rest and that she would personally look after me. This was a complete stranger, she put my clothes on for me, of course this was like a horrible ego bashing, not being able to put on pants for yourself, she fed me because at the angle I was sleeping I could not eve turn or prop myself up. It was just so much pain. This complete stranger, someone I would not even be friends with in regular life, was so patient loving and kind. Every time I thanked her, she said it was her good karma to serve me. I felt like crying. It was at that point I realized a very important lesson that was to be the central theme of my life in 2020, as much as you know to give, you must also know how to receive. As much as you are strong, you must also know how to be weak. I received her service with love and gratitude and thanked divinity for the grace bank I was tapping into. I was reminded of the many times I had uttered those very same words as I did seva. 

Later in the day, the Teacher of the programme came to see me and she also explained that she did not want to disturb Kamini. I felt the same, why should her progress be stopped by my inability to complete the programme? For her, I would bear this pain for 2 days, finish the programme and go home. The teacher coached me on using the Vipasana technique to continue to focus on the sensations in my body and continue the meditation in a vertical position. I must say that this practice was so essential for what was in store for me. It enabled me to observe the pain as sensation, I must say sometimes the pain was so bad that it blanked me out but there was a distinct separation of the body, the sensations and the observer. The observer was not in pain, it was merely observing the pain. I understood completely what Swami had said about pain versus suffering. While the pain was very real, my mind was calm just reporting what was happening in my body and nothing else. The pain however was so bad that I think I might have OD'ed on painkillers. I was just drifting in and out of consciousness that whole day. By the evening, I was able to stand and go to the toilet. I was not able to walk more than 4 steps though. 

Thankfully the course came to an end the next day and I was able to talk to Kamini. We decided to leave immediately for home. The first part of my adventure for the year came to an end, only as a prelude to the next. 

I am so grateful to the Lord Buddha for discovering this technique and feel blessed to have been bestowed this sacred knowledge without which I honestly think I would not have survived this crazy year.