Sudarshan Kriya and Other Unexpected Adventures

Hello! If you’d just like to read about my Sudarshan Kriya experience, skip to the second heading; and if you would just like to read about the silent retreat, skip to the third heading. Peace! 

Introduction

Let me cut straight to the chase. I was going through an academically and professionally difficult time since 2018/9. Maybe things had started going wrong from 2017 itself but I had not realised it. I used to be a very happy-go-lucky, carefree kid in college; and the most important thing on my mind was finding out the next jazz concert to attend and playing football in the evening. I was as far from meditation as I could have been, and used to have a hard time sitting in one place.

I don’t exactly remember how or when things started falling apart, or when I actually realised that things had begun to go awry. At any rate, I cannot write about it in detail lest I jeopardise my professional life right now, nor is it really relevant.

The result was that by March 2021, I was having massive sleep issues. Sure, I have had chronic insomnia since childhood, but I almost always managed to fall asleep by 1 or 2 am if I made an effort. But my circadian rhythm went totally off-track in Mar 2021. I used to go to bed by 22-23 hrs, but was unable to fall asleep before 4-5 am. I then used to wake up by 10-11 am and stay tired and irritated for the rest of the day.

It came to a point where I thought I was going to snap. Had to do something about it and searched something online – and I don’t quite remember what it was. I probably browsed some of those usual blogs/videos on how to get a better night’s sleep. I had already been doing that. Would keep my phone away, did not drink either tea or coffee, did not consume alcohol. What more could I possibly do? I needed something drastic, and I really have no recall of how I ended up on the official website for Sudarshan Kriya. I knew about the Kriya, for my mom had done it many years back, and signed up for the first programme that was available. I had called up Vindhyaji, the course instructor, who’d listened to me very patiently before I signed up.

Forty days of fun 

I somehow managed to wake myself up by 6 am on the morning of 11 March 2021 – my first class. I did not learn the Sudarshan Kriya that day, and only learnt the pre-kriya pranayams. I was asked to practise them that evening, and was so desperate to change my lot in life that I did it in earnest. I remember sleeping fairly well that night – for the first time in so many days.

It was at eight that I woke up next morning. On one hand, I was elated at having woken up at 8 am without an alarm, something that I had not managed to do in a long while; and, on the other hand, I was guilty for having missed the Sudarshan Kriya class. A few missed calls and messages from the course instructors were the first things I noticed when I checked my phone; and I could almost hear my mom’s voice at the back of my head, of how I did not value money and time. I returned the missed calls instantly, and blurted something out – that I had set an alarm, that I had probably woken up and switched it off, or something of that sort – and was expected a stern teacher-like voice to scold me for missing the class. But, the man on the other end seemed cool and collected, and Vindhyaji was nice enough to offer me an exclusive session in the evening that day.

Memories of my first Sudarshan Kriya are quite vivid, and so are those of some other Kriya sessions I have had. When I got out of the meditation, my mind was blank – I neither felt like crying nor like laughing. Is that what samah-sthiti feels like? Is that true equilibrium? Whatever it was, it was certainly worth experiencing that state for at least a few moments every day.

After the course got over on 14 March 2021, we were expected to do the kriya every day for forty days. I did that assiduously (except for 7 Apr when I was disturbed by a phone call). During the first forty day cycle, I used to break the vajrasana for a few moments and stretch my legs between the ujjayi and the bhastrika, and my fast-paced breaths also produced a certain noise as if I were doing a kapaalbhaati.

But, my circadian rhythm improved dramatically. I was waking up quite early without an alarm clock. I was, and still am, happy to invest one hour in doing the Kriya every day if only for this tangible benefit. And I have not had sleep issues ever since, even on days when work requires me to stay up till 2 or 3 am.

On many days, I had flashbacks. Photographically accurate flashbacks. Things I never thought my brain had retained in some corner. When these flashbacks happened, I could even see the clothes I was wearing on a particular occasion, recall the music I was listening to, where I was going, what I did.

I did a second revision course, with Vindhyaji again, in Jun 2021. This time, I was in Delhi. Woke up every day effortlessly, and this time I did the forty-day routine without a single break or interruption, even though I was shuttling between Delhi and Bengaluru. I no longer had to break the vajrasana between the ujjayi and the bhastrika cycles. The fast-paced breaths, I was reminded, did not have to be like kapaalbhaati. They too improved, and, one day, they just became silent without any effort. My third forty-day cycle, which began in Dec 2021 just before my advanced programme at the ashram, was even better. I was doing the Kriya early in the morning, and not in the evening like earlier. The most difficult part, I have come to realise, is not sitting in vajrasana consistently or maintaining counts but keeping a smile on your face throughout the kriya.

Ashram Days and Nights

I had arrived at the Ashram at the dead of the New Year’s Eve (2021/2) night. There was some confusion at the reception, for there was hardly anyone there. Thanks to a random stranger I met, I found my way to my quarters, and she left me with ‘welcome home!’ Not used to being greeted that way, all I could say was ‘oh!’

The first surprise was that my roommate was also an IISc alumnus! I had lived in ashrams before – the room was spartan but clean. I made one last phone call before switching the airplane mode on, which it would remain in for the next four days.

I woke up early next morning and found my way to Radha Kunj, thanks to my roommate. The sun hadn’t yet risen, and I was not aware of the lake besides which we were walking. It was all pitch dark. I had felt so low for the most part for the last two three years, had been though a lot, I was just waiting for someone to just clean up the muck inside!

For the next few days, I’d take the same route to Radha Kunj before the sun had risen, and be greeted with sounds of Vedic chants emanating from the gurukul that lay across the lake. The chanting was distant, and I could not tell the words apart, much less the actual words; and it all condensed into one big sound, fed to my ear like minute-sized nuggets. Its changing intonations produced a doppler effect, like that of an ambulance, faint and loud, faint and loud.

The highlight of the first day was the extended Sudarshan Kriya. I was trying to smile; but midway through the kriya cycle, I was effortlessly smiling like an idiot. It was 9 am by the time the we dispersed, and was able to figure out the way along which I had come at dawn, and could now see the lake. The ashram is beautiful, and that is what everyone tells you, but it is also very fragrant. You can smell harsingar, alstonia and night jasmine flowers everywhere, especially at night.

At breakfast, I was met with a rather humbling sight. I saw people my age, dressed like college kids would, whom I would scarcely even notice if I were to meet them on university campus: sweeping the floors, wiping tables clean, doing dishes. One of them, who was not under silence, told me they come there every weekend for volunteer work. ‘Are they crazy?’ I thought, ‘what do they get out of it?’ ‘So much, so much!’ they responded. There was another guy, in a batman t-shirt working on a pile of dirty dishes, who would probably go back to his university classes from next Monday. I felt so bad for him —although he seemed stoic and at ease with himself — and out of pity, I offered to do my dish; and amidst the noise, he thought I wanted to do all dishes, and gestured me to come over to his side; so I clarified: ‘I just want to do my dish, not everyone else’s!’ He was under silence, so he just grabbed my platter from my hand to scrub, as if to say ‘don’t worry, get out of here’. He was the same age as mine, or even younger, but the brief exchange was quite humbling and made me feel a little immature. I do, however, hope that he does his dishes at his own home, though!

The most formidable experience of the first day, however, was being paired up with a random person and having to answer prompts like criticising or praising oneself, or the other person, complaining about whatever we wanted, or telling the story of our lives (each prompt with a different random person, and within a prescribed time).

For the prompt where I had to just complain, I was helped by the teacher: ‘Why don’t you start by complaining about the ashram?’ I complained, to a sixty-year-old lady, about the lack of spoons and tissue papers in the dining area; and she listened to it all with a smile. When it was her turn, I felt so embarrassed at the things I had decided to complain about that I couldn’t look straight at her.

The one where I had to tell the story of my life in seven minutes was even tougher. I asked the lady opposite me (a different lady this time) to start first. It was a rather uncanny, hard-to-reconcile experience — I had never been to the places she had lived, hadn’t even lived at that time. Until a few hours back, I was not even aware of her existence. It was at once so distant, and yet so relatable. What was more surprising was that she would feel little inhibition in sharing it with me, someone so young to her. Was I even doing justice to being a good listener? But I do wish we had safe spaces where we could do exercises like these. When it was my turn, she, being older to me and, therefore, more sentient, sensed something was off. ‘It’s okay, you can open up,’ she said, ‘don’t hold on to anything… otherwise, it will be very hard for you to observe silence and meditate.’ She had done the programme a few times earlier and had a very warm and gentle affect about her, and I started opening up ever-so-slightly when I had just one-minute left. I did speak with her later during the day, before we slipped into silence, and then on the last day when we broke silence.

Then, at 8 pm after dinner on New Year’s Day, we were slowly cajoled into silence. Suddenly, everyone and everything around us fell quiet, as if someone had hit our heads with a stick. It was quite eerie, but I settled into it.

Time slows down when you are silent. We woke up at 4-5 am each morning and spent the entire day meditating or eating. We were neither allowed to read or write or listen to music. You realise how many of the things you speak can actually be done without. Instead of asking for directions, you can just walk a few extra steps and know if you’re going wrong. Instead of asking for what a particular item is on a buffet, you just eat whatever they give – it hardly matters, does it? If something does require you to speak, you just avoid it until it dissolves into irrelevance (we were also advised to not establish eye contact with another person or communicate using sign language – but that was something that none of us really observed entirely).

While I was able to maintain silence 99% (except, for example, a muffled ‘sorry’ after a sneeze), and did not read or listen to music at all, I did write for an hour on Sunday night. The ashram had a practice of having three baskets – questions, botheration and gratitude – and we could write whatever we liked and put it in. The exercise did not make sense to my logical mind, but I was beyond logic by then. With the ‘what-do-I-stand-to-lose?’ thought in my head, I stood up on Sunday night, writing incessantly for around an hour in my dimly lit room, and vomited six pages – if only to provide some clarity to my unquiet mind. First thing I did on Monday morning was to just put those reams of paper in the respective baskets, and I did feel a certain release.

Each morning, before we would disperse for breakfast, used to end with a meditation from the Ashtavakra Gita, which, I felt, was quite powerful. Certain meditations were just excruciating, in particular the death meditation.

Another (nameless?) meditation on Monday (3 Jan 2022) pushed everyone to their limits. A few people went hysterical, trying not to scream through their mouths – as that would have broken silence – and groaning through their noses. Almost everybody was sweating profusely and crying. A lady in a corner was contorting her face, as if to distract herself from the pain. Venkatesh did the meditation perfectly, and he and I were the only people smiling throughout it.  I must confess that mine was a half-forced smile, for the meditation would have become unbearable without that artificial smile. I kept my eyes open throughout, and the teacher kept on demanding ‘Ritvik! Close your eyes! Close your eyes!’ again and again.

If only I could – I can’t! I am in pain! Oh, but I can’t say this and break the silence. Whenever I tried closing eyes, I ended up contracting every muscle and squeezing my eyes and nose and mouth towards the centre, and then opened my eyes after a few seconds. So, I clenched my fists! I was having pins-and-needles in my arms, my hands were dripping with sweat and my forehead was perspiring as if I had been running for an hour. Such a short meditation, but after that we all heaved the heaviest sigh I remember. The guru went from person-to-person: ‘Ritvik did it perfectly, but he could not close his eyes!’ Closing eyes in this meditation was nothing short of torture.

On that night, I just groaned and groaned. My arms were perfectly fine. I was not having any cramps whatsoever. But it seemed the meditation had brought up a lot of suffocation and restlessness to the fore. I tried crying, but couldn’t. All I could do was groan. I could take it no more and paced up and down in the hostel corridor, and it must have been 1 am when I went back to bed.

On my last day (4 Jan 2022), we were taken through a series of meditation to slowly break the silence. I think the final two-three hours of meditations to break the silence were the most exhausting. We had, of course, been asked to think about the first word we will speak after the breaking silence. But, for some reason, I felt a little afraid. Have I observed silence properly? And am I prepared to come out of it? We did break silence at around afternoon, and speaking was taking so much effort for me. I slept for nearly twelve hours after returning home and did not feel like getting into the outside world after that. My head was clearly in a different orbit. ‘I need to do some normal human being stuff,’ I told a friend.

Something uncanny, however, had happened on my last day at the ashram. Saying ‘Jai Gurudev’ did not come naturally to me and I never understood why people were prostrating before photographs of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. Why the personality cult, why can’t they just accept the practice without the person? A few moments later, I was at the book shop where I picked up a book of questions and answers, and someone had asked exactly the same question to the guru many years back, and he had answered it to my intellectual satisfaction!

– Ritvik Chaturvedi

PS: One thing that I found a bit unsettling was when the teacher played some Bollywood style bhajan after the early morning meditation. When Sri Sri Ravi Shankar speaks, I feel – as someone trained in classical music – that he understands the spaces between sounds as much as the sound itself. So, playing some pop-bhajan just disturbed my equilibrium. To be fair on the teacher, I gave the feedback to him and he took it in good spirits.

The other thing was when we were expected to dance/shake a leg after yoga nidra with our eyes closed. I think I should have told him to do that at his own risk. Since I can be quite disoriented at such a time, and since I really cannot dance, I used to take that time to stretch. I almost kicked someone – would have been a splendid end to their misery and suffering.

PPS: The post was written while doing many other things. If there are any grammatical or spelling errors, just drop a comment or let me know at mail[at]ritvikc[dot]com.

Ashram Afternoon. (: Jan 2022

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