"Healthy living"
"Improved productivity"
"Focussed mind"
"Better Concentration"
"Just like that"
"Peace of mind"
These were some of the answers to the question posed by the instructor "What do you expect out of this course?" In the end , he said, "You wont get anything out of these but try it with an open mind"
I happened to attend AOL (aka) Art of Living course two weeks back at work place.My employer had arranged for it in weekdays 5pm to 7pm. The project i was working on was in Design/Documentation phase,so i had time to take up.There was no special reason to take it up.My friend was interested to try it out,he needed company,so he called me.Also one of my previous managers had taken up this course last time around.He was one of those managers who was vibrant always with high energy levels.Also i suffered two heartbreaks in june,so I decided to take it up.
I entered the hall where it was suppose to happen.Except for my friend others were unknown.It was just a batch of mid 20s. Most of them were red tags(in my employer's terms those who work for this organization for five years get a red tag,>10 years green tag, 1-5 years blue tag).I happened even to see a General Manager of a vertical.What struck me first was the age.I wondered whether i should have taken up this course after 5 years since most the ppl were above 28+ or 30+.I was also in the software engineer hierarchy,rest of them were in Project managers,Business consultant,Pre-sales consultant,etc etc.
The course work was structured in a proper way.One of the gains must be mild yoga,sudharana kriya and pranayama.Another huge gain was meditation.My grand ma used to sit in pooja room for half an hour and do meditation at night.She used to tell me to take up meditation seriously. But i could never close my eyes for more than few mins,may be i was impatient then. Now its a diff story i must say. The course covered two types of meditation.
1) Guided Meditation.
2) Non Guided Meditation.
Guided meditation where in you tell yourself what you have to think about,some examples would be TIME TRAVEL wherein you imagine as a kid in your mom's hand,5 years..10 years (something similar to Anniyan) another is EXPANSION wherein you imagine urself to be sky mountains etc..
Non Guided meditation is more challenging and i like this form more.You have to close you eyes and not force your mind with pre meditated thoughts.You must let all your thoughts flow may be some with hope,worries, fear everything.All you need to do is pay attention to each of those thoughts ,once you pay attention to a thought it vanishes and next one comes up after few mind your mind would go blank and thats what meditation is all about.
Its two weeks of trying meditation and mild yoga.So far very good i would say.That course also had some team building games.One was a retreat dance,another was "Tell your life story in 10 mins to three other ppl".It was interesting to tell your story to others and also listen other's story.One thing is everyone has gone through some challenging moments to be today in this position.On the final day,everyone had to bring their own food and in the end the instructor made it as buffet for everyone.
One of my team mates happened to ask me,
"Dont you know what is good for you?"
"Can't you breathe yourself?"
"Who are those ppl to tell you?"
If you think you know a lot may be this kinda course work wouldn't help you.
But if you have an open mind and you want to try out meditation and mild yoga only (for yourself) then you can give it a try.
One thing for sure is instead of spending time in gym in work outs,this kinda mild yoga and meditation would do a lot of good in my opinion.
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