My Samyama

For the past few months I have been preparing myself for Samyama program.  It is an 8 days’ residential program with Sadhguru in the US Isha Centre.  898 of us spent 8 days in complete silence with long hours of meditation.  This program offers the possibility for one to be free from the bond of karma and purify the system, opening us up to subtle realms of experience.

This is my second attendance of Samyama program.  Last time was in February 2016 in Isha yoga centre in Coimbatore.  For the last a few weeks I have been staying in the US, Isha Institute of Inner science. The program was already over a few days ago, still I found myself very difficult to come out the silence completely. Something continues to reverberant within me.  With my limited vocabulary, I tried to share a glimpse of my experience with you.

 

An ancient animal form

Just at the start of this Samyama, I immediately sensed a huge upsurge of energy in the meditation hall. My energy body naturally moved to a state of high. It trembled with an extreme ecstasy.  As the session started, my spine suddenly started to twist on its own, in this unthinkable and drastic motions.  My whole body just followed with this madness of twisting and turning. Something is clearly happening within me but I had no control over it whatsoever.

As the energy accelerated and my movements got intensified. This madness of twisting and turning just continued accompanied with extreme soothing and ecstatic feeling. I was experiencing huge pain on my neck wish this to stop but to continue at the same time.

Then suddenly, a vivid memory appeared in me. I see myself as a slimly snake fast moving over the surface of shallow water. My movement was so fast, my spine twisted and turned and my head was leading the rest of the body.  It is exactly what I am experiencing right now, as if I was still that same snake.  The strange thing is that in this vivid vision I KNOW that snake was me or I was that snake.  It is like a flash back of some old memories.

All of the sudden, a few things started to make sense to me.  In my childhood, I often had dreams with snakes.  I dreamed being buried in deep ground with lots of snakes of various sizes.  In my primary school art class, I would always draw this green little snake with such vivid details even the art teacher got freak out. Whenever I saw a real snake something in me just trembled. I always thought that was due to fear. Maybe there is more into it.

As my being evolved itself from various ancient forms, clearly some old memories still remained in my system.  Now it got thrown out by this intense upsurge of energy. For the first time I really believed in Darwin’s evolution theory.  Its foot print is still within me.  In the mean time I heard lion’s roaring, hyenas’ laughing and birds’ calling.  Within minutes, this huge mediation hall just turned into a wild jungle.  Ah, I am one of them!  With a big grin on my face, I say to myself silently: welcome to Samyama…

The madness

I was not really in favour of mantras. The repetition turns to send me to sleep and sometimes I found it extremely daunting and tiring.  This time, however, was a totally different story.  It was as if my being was longing for it.  I just dived into it with extreme joy and excitement. I found myself split to two distinct parts: a logical and a total madness.  Still in my head, I tried to figure out what and how.  My being was taken over totally by the madness.

I found myself in this state of uncontrollable laughing and crying, then laughing and crying, accompanied with this deep sense of drunkenness… then again, bursting of laughing then crying…  This madness was totally uncontainable… I have been fully possessed… yet in total surrender, I sink into this deep experience of madness… no word can describe the sensation…

Descending vs attaching

In 2016, in order to prepare myself for the Samyama program then, I went through intensive half year of hatha yoga teacher training.  After that I stayed in the ashram for almost another 3 months.  Total 9 months of intensive practices and raw food had given me a different kind of physical and energy body.   The program took place in Adi Yogi Alayam then, its absolute stillness just took over me completely.

I remembered at the beginning, I was hanging on the surface of my breath, watching its natural movement.  Sadhguru walked by, with his intense energy he pressed down his fingers on my right palm.  With this assist, a dramatic shift started to happen within me.  As if all the threads connected me to the world were cut loose, I was like this rock, slowly but deeply descending to the bottom of the ocean. In the absolute deep seat of my experience, I observed the cosmic floating by… There is no longer any need to go anywhere… I AM HOME…

The next moment, I remembered is that I opened my eyes and Samyama was over, days had gone by as if it was just a blink of eye… This experience had such deep and profound impact on me. Even years later whenever as I think back that moment of stillness, it always brings back certain sense of electrifying within me.

 

This time I knew I didn’t have the luxury of another 9 months staying in the ashram to prepare myself for Samyama. I started with 100 days of preparation.  Still, I know it is far not enough for what it is needed.  Once again, I was there sitting and arrived at the same point where my life was hanging just on the surface of my breath.  In and out, I was watching it intensely.  This electrifying sensation passing through my entire body as I took each breath.  As if each cell within me opens and closes itself along this rhythm, from head to toe, I trembled with this everlasting orgasmic sensation…

Except, this time, I did not descend to the seat of my deepest experience… With all the processes I have gone through, all the threads were cut except one – the food.  My body reflected to me a huge compulsive craving for food, as if it has just come out some sort of starvation.  This rock was just hanging there with this single thread of food and refused to sink to the bottom of the sea.  No matter how many times I tried to burn it, the compulsion just took over me.  So I was just hanging there… for moments… then hours… then days…

Finally, tears came, as I know I have lost a precious moment of profound experience to the limitation of my physical body…

A cosmic lullaby

As I was sinking into a deep sense of sadness and grief, I heard this most beautiful gentle lullaby sang by Sadhguru with his greatest love and compassion.  As if all the pain, the suffering and the miseries were dissolved into this vast cosmic love.  As if once again I was returned to my mother’s womb, rejoice her protection and nourishment of all.

A deep sense of longing throbbing within me with this great intensity, I felt my deepest pain of not knowing and yet longing for the truth.  This desperation lead to a long and loud out crying… Along with this cosmic lullaby, my being was screaming like an infant baby…  Long after the session was over, I was still lingering in this dream and could not awake from its magic spell.

From untruth to truth

Asatoma sadgamaya – from untruth to truth… In wakefulness or in asleep, the floor started to move in front of my eyes.  Am I hallucinating? I do not know, but I was too fascinated by what I was witnessing.   With eyes open, I welcome this play of movements, observing flowing of energy in front of me.  The carpet was shifting, twisting in this natural flow and artistic manner.  Even from my left knee downwards, part of my leg started to join this play.  It seems that my vision got distorted.  Yet nothing seems concrete and everything became this thick fluid in a very strange way right in front of me.  I was not freaked out by this sighting.  Calmness within me, I realised the world is not what it seems.

For years I read in many places people refer to this world as maya, samsara, illusion etc. I never really understood it. Until this moment, I really see how blind I was or still am most of the time.  Unfortunately, with my limited perception, it is only this glimpse I can grasp from my Samyama experience.  I know there was much much more happening beyond my perception.  Everything in the existence is right in front me, only I wish I have the ‘eyes’ to see!

I am extremely grateful with this glimpse of sighting.  Now, I know there is something much more beyond my normal sense of perception.  I am lucky enough to be given a precious key – which can lead me out of this illusion and a doorway from untruth to truth…

Asatoma, Sadgamaya… (from untruth to truth)

Tamasoma Jyotirgamaya… (from ignorance to enlightenment)

Mrutyorma Amrutangamaya… (from mortality to immortality)

Aum Shanti Shanti Shantihi… (may I be lead, Aum, peace, peace, peace)