Vipassanā in Pali language means Insight into the true nature of reality.
In school, I miserably failed to understand when my teacher explained as to what exactly an Atom was, I mean all I understood was that it is the finest block of matter that made up all the objects around, again this sentence is so bookish, and the diagrams were really funny. I really didn't understand it because I hadn't felt it. Rather, I hadn't seen it. The explanation was vague for me to understand.
This curiosity to understand what it was led me to research the topic recently. Nothing did convince me till I came across something about Vipassana.
Vipassana is an ancient meditation technique that was mentioned in our Vedas, but later it diminished and was again attained through meditation by Gautama Buddha himself.
It is a ten-day introductory course where it is taught step by step each day in their centers. Now the funny thing is that the participants are supposed to observe a ten days of noble silence, no sort of communication with the outside world, no phones are allowed, no reading or writing either, and not allowed to go out of the centers. And when I say noble, it means, no hand or eye gestures as well, except with the teachers you are allowed to ask doubts regarding the meditation if there are any. Extreme right? Hell yeah it is, but for its own good.
Now, who wouldn't freak out when we say we are off to a meditation course and wouldn't be able to answer calls or going to observe noble silence for ten days. First off, my partner-in-crime thought I might run away to the Himalayas after finishing the course, colleagues were wondering what was exactly going on in my head that I will be observing silence for ten days, few of my relatives tried to stop me by saying it is all that the old aged people do, why now and why meditation after all.
- Whaaat? really?
That's like asking why you would want to brush your teeth and why you want to take a bath. It's just that not many people are used to meditating from their younger age, neither have I. And I have only one answer for them, TRY IT, and you'll know why. Try to sit and close your eyes for a while; it just feels fantastic. But the ten days was actually a bit too much for me too, on the other hand, I was curious and wanted to experiment as to what it was for ten days, If not now, when right...?
So getting back to the Vipassana course, from my experience every human being on this planet has to try it, Its a boon for humankind, make use of this life for better, humans are the only species on earth that has the ability to think greater than any other, so make use of this boon.
I know ten days is a bit too much, but you got to earn it, you need something good or a change in the pattern of your lifestyle it never comes easily.
The experience was priceless. Although I used to practice other types of simple meditation before, I had to unlearn that and learn this. The first two days were so hard, we were just asked to close our eyes and concentrate on our natural breathing(Anapana Meditation), we just had to observe our breath, breathing in and out, It was so tough as you all know how good we are at by not living in the present moment, every second breath I took my thoughts were snapped either to the past or to the future and after a couple of minutes, I noticed that I am not with my breath. Try it, close your eyes, and try concentrating on your NATURAL breath for 30 seconds, don't forcefully breath, just the usual breathing. Coming back to the topic, the third day was somewhat better. I could concentrate and stay with my breath. The fourth day was even better. No thoughts disturbed me. I could close my eyes and it was so calm and serene, and this was just the beginning, Vipassana meditation has lot more to offer, to practice that, maintaining the perfect equilibrium of your emotions is very necessary.
The Fifth and sixth day was even better. On the seventh day, I started feeling a bit low as to it was for the first time I hadn't spoken to anyone for so long and was kind of hard to take it, on the eighth day I literally thought I should sneak out, It was like I was suddenly sent to the planet Earth from Miller's :P (Interstellar's, Every hour spent on Miller's planet is like seven years on earth). I Just held my horses and kept up the hopes for better. The 9th day was justified. This was the day I was waiting for, and I do not want to talk about the in-depth experience I felt on the 9th and 10th day. Every human body is different and has its own way to experience this bliss. And some might even feel that eternal bliss even earlier.
And about the experience of Atoms that I spoke earlier was somewhat justified. Every second there is a cell that is born in your body and would have died; even a second is an understatement. It's lesser than a millisecond, maybe. Learning to concentrate deeper will convince me more maybe. This is actually me feeling it right. So its a matter of experiencing it myself.
And now I am just halfway through, and this was just the technique they taught me, practicing every day might just give me more of deeper Insight. But the whole Vipassana meditation is practiced to tap your subconscious mind and cure whatever it is like, either fear, anxiety, depression or craving, etc so that those are carved out permanently from you.
Here are the few links if you want to know more, because what I explained here is just half of it, tried to keep it short and not too boring.-
This is my favorite documentary done on Vipassana - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkxSyv5R1sg
In school, I miserably failed to understand when my teacher explained as to what exactly an Atom was, I mean all I understood was that it is the finest block of matter that made up all the objects around, again this sentence is so bookish, and the diagrams were really funny. I really didn't understand it because I hadn't felt it. Rather, I hadn't seen it. The explanation was vague for me to understand.
This curiosity to understand what it was led me to research the topic recently. Nothing did convince me till I came across something about Vipassana.
Vipassana is an ancient meditation technique that was mentioned in our Vedas, but later it diminished and was again attained through meditation by Gautama Buddha himself.
It is a ten-day introductory course where it is taught step by step each day in their centers. Now the funny thing is that the participants are supposed to observe a ten days of noble silence, no sort of communication with the outside world, no phones are allowed, no reading or writing either, and not allowed to go out of the centers. And when I say noble, it means, no hand or eye gestures as well, except with the teachers you are allowed to ask doubts regarding the meditation if there are any. Extreme right? Hell yeah it is, but for its own good.
Now, who wouldn't freak out when we say we are off to a meditation course and wouldn't be able to answer calls or going to observe noble silence for ten days. First off, my partner-in-crime thought I might run away to the Himalayas after finishing the course, colleagues were wondering what was exactly going on in my head that I will be observing silence for ten days, few of my relatives tried to stop me by saying it is all that the old aged people do, why now and why meditation after all.
- Whaaat? really?
That's like asking why you would want to brush your teeth and why you want to take a bath. It's just that not many people are used to meditating from their younger age, neither have I. And I have only one answer for them, TRY IT, and you'll know why. Try to sit and close your eyes for a while; it just feels fantastic. But the ten days was actually a bit too much for me too, on the other hand, I was curious and wanted to experiment as to what it was for ten days, If not now, when right...?
So getting back to the Vipassana course, from my experience every human being on this planet has to try it, Its a boon for humankind, make use of this life for better, humans are the only species on earth that has the ability to think greater than any other, so make use of this boon.
I know ten days is a bit too much, but you got to earn it, you need something good or a change in the pattern of your lifestyle it never comes easily.
The experience was priceless. Although I used to practice other types of simple meditation before, I had to unlearn that and learn this. The first two days were so hard, we were just asked to close our eyes and concentrate on our natural breathing(Anapana Meditation), we just had to observe our breath, breathing in and out, It was so tough as you all know how good we are at by not living in the present moment, every second breath I took my thoughts were snapped either to the past or to the future and after a couple of minutes, I noticed that I am not with my breath. Try it, close your eyes, and try concentrating on your NATURAL breath for 30 seconds, don't forcefully breath, just the usual breathing. Coming back to the topic, the third day was somewhat better. I could concentrate and stay with my breath. The fourth day was even better. No thoughts disturbed me. I could close my eyes and it was so calm and serene, and this was just the beginning, Vipassana meditation has lot more to offer, to practice that, maintaining the perfect equilibrium of your emotions is very necessary.
The Fifth and sixth day was even better. On the seventh day, I started feeling a bit low as to it was for the first time I hadn't spoken to anyone for so long and was kind of hard to take it, on the eighth day I literally thought I should sneak out, It was like I was suddenly sent to the planet Earth from Miller's :P (Interstellar's, Every hour spent on Miller's planet is like seven years on earth). I Just held my horses and kept up the hopes for better. The 9th day was justified. This was the day I was waiting for, and I do not want to talk about the in-depth experience I felt on the 9th and 10th day. Every human body is different and has its own way to experience this bliss. And some might even feel that eternal bliss even earlier.
And about the experience of Atoms that I spoke earlier was somewhat justified. Every second there is a cell that is born in your body and would have died; even a second is an understatement. It's lesser than a millisecond, maybe. Learning to concentrate deeper will convince me more maybe. This is actually me feeling it right. So its a matter of experiencing it myself.
And now I am just halfway through, and this was just the technique they taught me, practicing every day might just give me more of deeper Insight. But the whole Vipassana meditation is practiced to tap your subconscious mind and cure whatever it is like, either fear, anxiety, depression or craving, etc so that those are carved out permanently from you.
Here are the few links if you want to know more, because what I explained here is just half of it, tried to keep it short and not too boring.-
This is my favorite documentary done on Vipassana - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkxSyv5R1sg
A Ted talk on it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixu4Kd5R1DI
