I have been meaning to write this post for some time but kept myself in check. After my previous, broader post on yoga, I became increasingly aware of the complexities involved in explaining things to people who come from different backgrounds and may have their own interpretations, prior experiences, prejudices, misinformation or vested interests about certain things. (Just as I may have about certain other things myself :)
Healthcare is big business in the US
(running into hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars) and India
seems to be headed inexorably onto the path of creating its own healthcare
chimera in the image of the (mostly broken) US healthcare system. A system that
is in cahoots with Big Pharma, which in turn is in bed with Big Hospital, which
in turn is fueled by Big Insurance—all ultimately burdening the tax-paying
middle class, most of whom are finding it difficult to keep up with high premiums,
costs of drugs, diagnostics and doctors’ fees.
But as I saw the flames of greed engulf a
growing nation in its laboratory of money-making, as I saw Indian intellectuals
turning their back on or even cocking a snook at the traditional systems of health,
wisdom and well-being such as yoga, pranayama and Ayurveda (ironically, the
West is increasingly opening its arms to all of these)—and as I completed over
two years of regular daily practice of pranayama + meditation—I could no longer
stop myself from putting pen to paper, to use the idiom.
The idea of this post, let me state
upfront, is not to boast of my own prowess or anything (I have barely scratched
the surface of what the accomplished masters such as Swami Sivananda, BKS
Iyengar or T Krishnamacharya achieved through decades and decades of unwavering
practice). Nor is the intent to pull down other systems of mind-body control,
healing or working out (such as running, gymming, tai chi, Pilates and the
like). Further, while I have pointed to the Hindu roots of yoga in my previous
post, the intention here is not to promote any religion but just to share my
own personal experience and how it helped me heal—with nearly 80% success (and
counting)—my peculiar condition and general ill-health. (More on that in a
short while.)
Furthermore, in the backdrop of the very
recent occurrence of the World Culture Festival organized by the Art of Living and the criticism (as well as accolades) it has drawn from
various quarters (since what follows mentions Sudarshan Kriya,
a breathing technique patented by AOL)—let me state that while I promote the
Kriya, I usually do not subscribe to the pressure tactics often employed by AOL
volunteers to enroll for more and more courses all the time.
And I have my own set of criticisms for
its very intriguing founder, Sri Ravi Shankar. For instance, if I got a chance to meet him in person, I would
ask him, “Guruji, why did you have to patent the Kriya, which is actually a
recipe based on ancient breathing routines otherwise known to millions of people?
Why is the Kriya not taught to the poor for free? (If it is, where?) And, why,
oh why, did you or your devotees had to sell commercial goodies like Sri Sri bhujiya at the WCF venue?” (bhujiya is a kind of Indian snack that
would hardly be considered healthy by AOL elders or Ayurveda practitioners.)
Besides the health aspect, there’s the commercialization angle too: Why do
modern day babas and gurus need their
own brands and businesses?
The idea of this post is primarily to
share what I did and how I benefited from the breathing regimen. Sudarshan Kriya,
of course, is not my first introduction to pranayama or breath-control (see the
related post, Beyond Asana: Yoga…), but it has helped me connect with my own self each day
in 30 to 40 minutes of quiet, quality time. And along the way, open up a whole
new path to introspection, self-discovery and the healing mechanisms that
reside within our bodies and hence within easy reach of every individual.
I started doing Kriya over two years back
and, gradually, appended my own rituals of meditation to the recipe prescribed
in the AOL course I undertook (in earlier
times, it was called the Basic Course and later renamed to Happiness
Course). But the additions I made to my routine are recent in nature and I made
them almost spontaneously, without consulting any AOL teacher. Nevertheless, I
now have my own concoction (that I do not intend to patent or sell!) of sitting
down quietly each morning, taking deep breaths and meditating for a while.
I am thankful to AOL for being
instrumental in helping me restart a healthy journey, yet I do not bow to any
living personality with complete trust in their virtues or saintliness. It has
been my firm belief for quite some time that we must try to be our own guru in
these weird, Kalyugi times
when real gurus are almost impossible to find. (See my related post, Sex and the Guru.)
So, how did I happen to do the AOL course
and restart on a journey that I left unfinished while at school? (As a student,
I used to do yoga and participate in several group yoga competitions as well
but left practicing when I started on a professional career through a curious
animal called “job” :)
Here it goes…
Circa 2010:
I was returning home in my car after a busy day at work. Suddenly, I felt as if
a particularly vengeful mosquito bit me in the leg and bit with all its might. I
instinctively scratched the “bitten” part of my leg—only to find a succession
of such piercing mosquito bites on my hands and torso as well. I struggled with
keeping the car steering steady as I tried to swat the skeeters before they
could suck a not-so-inconsequential amount of blood from my body.
The above episode repeated itself several
times with me in the next few months—in the car, in office, at home, and while
on the bed, tossing and trying to sleep. Quite often, these were not your
typical mosquito bites, with patches of rashes and itching: for me, it was more
like pain mixed with itchiness and even a little bit of tickling. Unable to
find any mosquitoes or other insects around when this happened, I used to
wonder what exactly was happening and why.
For the first few months, this was little
more than an inconvenience. I just ignored it. But then, gradually, it became
more frequent and bothersome (the frequency of its occurrence went up from,
say, once or twice a month to half a dozen times). Also, I had more and more
trouble sleeping at night and, besides the itching component, there were sharp
needle-like jabs, especially in the extremities of my fingers and toes.
Roughly one-and-a-half years passed like
this.
Then, sometime in 2012, the sole of my
right foot caught some allergic infection or something. The skin near the toes
started to peel off and there was intense itching as well. I consulted a
dermatologist, who suggested getting a blood test done, and also asked me to
check if I had diabetes. When I took the test results to a doctor (a reputed
M.D. degree holder), he told me that while I was not diabetic, I was “close to
being one.”
Now, this doctor did advise me to control
my diet and so on, but he said there was nothing much to worry about. I think I
must have been alarmed on my own in those days, for I quit taking sugar or
sugary foods after that. (I had almost forgotten about my foot allergy and just
applied the ointment that the dermatologist had prescribed; in about two weeks
or so, the foot healed.)
During those days when I stopped my sugar
intake (of course, what I mean is intake of any artificial or added sugar), I
happened to notice that the tickling-itching-needling thingy did not occur even
once. Why was that so? Upon going over my eating habits, I realized that
refined/added sugar was the only thing I had completely eliminated from my
diet. But I couldn’t have been too sure that sugar was the cause of all that
itching and mosquito-hunting. (In those days, it so happened that my bed
mattress got infested with bugs and I was almost convinced that it was those
rascally bugs that attacked me at night and immediately scampered away when I
switched on the light or hit myself in different parts, wherever the itching
took my hand!)
Anyway, to test out the “culpability” of
sugar, what I did was alternated between having refined-sugar-as-usual days and
no-sugar-at-all days. Around one month or so into this experiment and lo and
behold! The culprit causing misery to me was sugar indeed! The tickling-itching-needling
returned exactly on the days when I had sugar (in tea, biscuits, cola, sweets, etc.)
I also did some frantic searching of my
condition and its symptoms on the web. The two terms that I came across that I
think most closely resembled or described what I was going through: “sugar
intolerance” and “peripheral neuropathy”. If anything, I was extremely
intolerant of sugar! The advice offered on many of those medical/health sites included
avoiding or going low on the “substance” causing that needling/itching—in my
case, the sugar.
So I stopped taking refined sugar; I only
took it once in a while to check whether it continued to affect me or could it
be that the situation would improve or change on its own. Each time, I met with
100% results: “No sugar for you, Sanjay!” It was like this voice echoed in my
mind along with the return of the symptoms on “sugar days”. With the passing of
time, the itching/needling impact of sugar escalated: it took only 20 to 30
minutes for the symptoms to show up. (In fact, some of my friends who knew my
condition joked with me that I could be useful to scientists in accurately
testing whether an edible substance had refined sugar in it or not! Curiously,
sweeteners like honey or jaggery did not have an ill-effect on me.)
Once, on the advice of my well-wishers, I
decided to see a good endocrinologist and seek his help. So I went to one of
the most reputed and well-equipped hospitals in Delhi and consulted its
esteemed endocrinologist. When I came out of his room, I had a largish sheet of
his prescription pad in my hand—on which he had scribbled not one, not two, not
three but 5-6 different kinds of diagnostic tests, in addition to some tablets
and dietary advice.
I recalled the doctor’s clinical lack of
interest or empathy with my condition, mixed it with the greedy haste he had
displayed in putting down all kinds of expensive tests, and considered it in my
mind together with the amount of wasted effort and money I would need to shell
out, if I were to go along with his prescribed course of action.
I quickly and quietly came back home.
Some more time passed.
August, 2013:
I had started going on morning walks to a park nearby for the past few weeks.
One day, as I was making my way back to the gate of the park, I noticed a
couple of my friends who were promoting the six-day basic course of AOL
alongside the organization’s banner under a tree. Before I could think whether
to avoid crossing their path, one of them caught hold of my arm and started
talking about the course animatedly.
I must have shown some interest, for the
same day, two of them visited my home and sweet-talked not just me but my wife
as well to begin the AOL course that was to start on the 13th of August.
In hindsight, I will always remain
thankful to both of them, not necessarily for introducing AOL to me (of which I
was aware) but of becoming the nimitta
(a Hindi word that roughly translates to “something that is instrumental in
something bigger or more important”) for getting me restarted on a journey of
self-discovery, inner healing and spirituality.
Given that Sudarshan Kriya is patented and
I, just like millions others, signed a non-disclosure clause that prohibits teaching
it to others (only approved AOL teachers can do so), I would not divulge all
the details. But if you really ask me, it is quite simple and comprises three
major steps: first is a series of specialized breathing in certain postures
(the type of breathing is called ujjayi breath); then bhastrika and finally
the (inner) chanting of the mantra “Soham” in a certain series of rhythms.
Coming back to my personal experience,
while the course began on August 13, the Kriya itself was taught the next day,
when all the participants performed it under the tutelage of an AOL-approved teacher
(in my case, Kavitaji, whose soft voice and wise words continue to echo in my
ears till date).
The first-time experience of doing
Sudarshan Kriya had an effect on me that thousands of others have described in
a similar fashion: it was like an inner cleansing. One felt lighter, better,
happier than before. Done in a soothing, calm environment, the breathing
exercises resulted in much improved circulation of blood all through your body,
and the pleasantness in the mind was accentuated by chanting of the mantra (the
chants were actually emanating from Sri Sri’s voice captured and played on a
tape-recorder kept nearby; on our part, we were required to simply say “Soham” internally).
We were told beforehand that a lot of
people cry immediately after the Kriya, especially on the very first
occasion—and there were many who did cry that day too. But it was all
spontaneous, uninhibited, open crying, as if to wash away the barrage of
repressed thoughts and feelings. I could not see any shame in that crying, only
an admission of our humanness and the necessity of giving vent to human
emotions once in a while.
As the AOL course came to an end, there
was a sense of bonding and commonality among the participants, one that rested
on the understanding that most of the things we crave in life are short-lived,
even nonsensical. And that anyone can be happy, should be happy, if a certain
positive attitude to life in general and the people around one in particular
could be maintained.
After the course, there were a few
occasions on which I participated in what AOL calls “Samoohik Kriya” (Kriya
done together). And several times, we were told about the advanced, higher or
even more beneficial courses from AOL—but I have stuck to the basic one thus
far, trying to implement some of the noble sutras in my daily life (the sutras
were prescribed during the course and basically were ethical/moral tenets on
the lines of being non-judgmental of others and leading a do-gooder life).
(Craving, even if it is for more and more
AOL courses, is not a good thing I believe :)
But this post is not entirely about AOL
and how it operates, so let me move on with the rest of my experiments with the
Kriya and pranayama.
As I advanced in my own practice of
Sudarshan Kriya, I noticed that my inner confidence, calm and strength grew as
well. In my morning sessions, after the Kriya came to an end, I began to sit a
while longer, meditating.
Now, meditation is a “loaded word,” as one
of my friends put it recently. And there is already enough confusion about it
amongst lay persons and practitioners of this mystic art alike. I, too, do not
claim to be an expert in meditation. Yet, I sincerely believe that in over two
years of regular practice supplemented by reading of literature on meditation,
I have come to a stage where maybe I can share a few things that can be of use
and value to others. And that’s all I can offer at this point in time—my
journey still continues…
Meditation is a kind of unravelling the
inner beauty of our being. As I have noted in my book Strings of the Soul,
“Meditation takes you away from the torrent of oppressive thoughts into the
inexplicable joy of stillness.”
It is my belief and experience that just
as there is no single way to discovering the Truth, there are multiple ways in
which one can meditate. The commonly shown picture, in which a person is shown
sitting cross-legged in a relaxed position, hands resting on the knees and eyes
closed, is one way to meditate—but so is the way in which a person is just walking
quietly in the woods, admiring the birds and the beasts and other creatures or
phenomena of nature.
And then there is the mindfulness
meditation that Buddha taught, in which we shine the wisdom of our mind on the
interconnected nature of everything that exists around us: this is because that
is; this could not be because that wasn’t so, and so on. (If you were to
compare it to modern management theory, you may perhaps find a parallel in
“root-cause analysis.” But meditation is not only analysis, it is a lot of
synthesis as well. To me, it is a process in which the cycle of analysis-synthesis
comes to a stage where the universal unity of everything and what the Buddha
called “emptiness of the self” is experienced.)
The point is, there are different kinds of
meditation and they may be better suited to different situations. But the
essence of meditation, in my opinion, is the inner silence deep within us and
accessible to all of us—a source of infinite wisdom, energy, understanding… (Some
of these ideas may sound mystical or esoteric, but at the experiential level,
they are indeed very simple. Maybe I’ll come back with a longer piece on
meditation some other time :)
Speaking of my individual experience,
besides having a calming and joyous effect on the mind, the Kriya and meditation
practice gradually but surely cured the physical symptoms of itching/needling I
used to have after consuming sugar. As of the writing of this post, I have only
slight problems (less intense itching and no needling sensation) and that too only
if I really gorge on sugary foods—a rasgulla
or two is perfectly all right!
Also, there are other additional benefits I
have seen: earlier, prior to my regular practice, I would be afflicted with
severe flu/cold at least three or four times a year. But in the past
two-and-a-half years, this obnoxious condition has affected me only twice (and
both times, healing occurred much more quickly, with barely any antibiotics.)
Needless to say, I’m now a walking-talking
proponent of pranayama (not necessarily Sudarshan Kriya but any breathing
routine for that matter), meditation and holistic living. The logic is simple: Why
go for those umpteen diagnostic tests or risky surgery when a regular dose of
ancient wisdom will do? Sure, pranayama would take longer and require more discipline
on your part, but it will most likely offer lasting cure rather than
symptomatic treatment and do so with fewer chances of relapse.
But remember, I’m not saying that the
modern medical systems or hospitals are not required at all: I wouldn’t dare
suggest deep breathing exercises to a man who has just been in a road accident
and needs immediate medical attention. But I wouldn’t shy away from advising
him to do a little bit of meditation later on, to remove, say, any residues of
trauma the accident may have caused.
Never the one to force my ideas on others,
I would rather let people discover the benefits that pranayama and meditation
can bring to their lives in their own ways and at their own opportune time. Why
force negatively when you can convince in a positive way?
The least I could do, however, was to
write this rather long (though I hope non-boring) post.
Thank you for reading.
