Meditation and Fasting Retreat this Weekend

Tomorrow I am heading out to Woodland Park, Colorado for my third retreat at the Relational Yoga Mandiram . The Mandiram is a place where students can relax and study hatha yoga postures, yogic breathing (pranayama and kriya breath work) and meditation. The Mandiram was established by John McAffee. John, who founded the McAffee Antivirus software company in the late 1980’s, has been a longtime yoga teacher and student. He has established this retreat center to help others get on the spiritual path.

 

  

The Mandiram is located on his own personal property, a majestic 1400 acre plot in the shadow of Pikes Peak at 9000 ft elevation. It is absolutely breathtaking. Also, I say spiritual because the intense yoga training helps you realize higher levels of awareness. There is nothing religious about it. All the techniques that are taught have been empirically tested over the ages by hundreds of millions of people. This is not hocus pocus, it works (even though the exact mechanisms for how it works are less clear).  

The retreat will begin on Friday and end on Sunday evening. As is typically the case, the routine is flexible and I will not know full details until I get there. The days will probably include Fasting, Kriya Breathing, Yoga Classes, Rounding, Meditation, Hikes. Fasting is something that I have done only a handful of times in my life. My last fast was 72 hours and happened in April 2004, at the Mandiram. This fast was a water-only fast. No juice or solid food allowed.

Fasting has many positive effects. From a scientific standpoint, the body consumes a great deal of energy just to process the food you eat and fluids you drink. Even if you eat a primary vegan or raw-food diet, your body is still working hard to assimilate the nutrients. As a result, less energy is present for inturning and channeling the energy into other endeavours, specifically mental or spiritual pursuits. My experience has been than after the first 36 hours, during which the body is expecting food and some withdrawal takes place, you begin to open up and feel a surge of energy and general feeling of well-being. You are able to concetrate and meditate at a much deeper level. 

In fact, during the second day of my last fast, I felt so much energy that I decided to go for a run in the mountains! Keep in mind, I was staying in a cabin at 9000 ft elevation. The air was thin and I had not eaten. I then realized that while the spiritual energy was there, the physical energy was not! I stopped my run after about a mile and just did a short hike! The point is, fasting is a great way to channel your energy for spiritual pursuits.  

During the fast, we will also perform Kriya Breathwork to increase our energy levels and clean out the spiritual body and help the mind let go. This breath work, coupled with yoga asana (postures) routines will prepare the body for the true goal, which is the inturning process made possible by meditation. I will save a longer essay on Meditation for another day. In a nutshell, meditation is the process of changing the focus of your mind from that of “doer” to that of “observer.” Instead of creating ideas, images, thoughts, feelings…you learn to subtly move into a position of passive observation and awareness. In this awareness, you begin to discover your own true nature. The following is quote is how Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has described the affects of Kriya on the body:

“There is a rhythm in nature. Seasons come and go. In your own body also, there is a rhythm. Life has a particular rhythm. Similarly, your breath also goes in a pattern. Your emotions move in a particular rhythm, as well as your thoughts. All these rhythms arise from your being, which has its own rhythm.

“In Sudarshan Kriya, we get into the rhythm of our being and see how our being is permeating our emotions, our thoughts, our breath and our bodies. Soon, every cell of our body becomes alive and releases all the toxins and negative emotions it has stored from times past. Once again, we are able to smile from our hearts.”

Oh yes, the other aspect of this retreat is that it is a silent retreat! There will be no talking, no writing, no watching TV, no e-mailing, no cellphones. Therefore, I will also NOT be blogging while away. I will be sure to write a few posts detailing my experience when I retun. I would also love to hear from anyone else that has had experience on similar retreats. Please do drop me an email (ravisraman@gmail.com) or add a comment to the blog.