From Hell to Heaven in Only Eleven

I registered for a 10 day Vipassana Meditation retreat, which was actually 11 days long. You see when traveling on a spiritual pilgrimage in India, you don’t really have to plan anything. The places you need to go show up somehow. Since day one of my arrival to India the people I met told me I had to go to this 10 day Vipassana retreat. I literally heard about this in every city that I visited. So I decided to register. I researched it some and knew it would be strict because just to apply you have to agree to follow the stern rules of the program and their five precepts which are: 1. No sexual misconduct. 2. No killing of any living creature. 3. No lying-complete honesty. 4. No stealing. 5. No taking of intoxicants. Some of the rules where no speaking the entire time, no outside communication, and complete segregation of the sexes. So I leave Puttaparthi, to head to the outskirts of Bangalore now called Bengaluru, by taxi since I met 2 people that I could share the taxi with, then the last leg was by auto rickshaw. I arrive bags in tote and complete the student form. I meet some wonderful ladies and we talk it up before the time for silence arrives. There were more Indians than Westerners so we got to have some great educational conversations. The Indian women wanted to know why the women in the USA are so unstable. They viewed us as unstable and without security because we would have so many non lasting relationships with high divorce rates. In India the couples make the relationship work, they don’t give up on the spouse so easily. Everything that is worth having you must work hard for. We have the grace of God, but it doesn’t mean we don’t have to put effort into what we want. Why leave one set of problems for another set of problems. The grass is always greener on the other side. I got to learn the 5 symbols that married woman have. They have the red mark on the top of their forehead near the scalp, toe rings on both of the second toes, nose ring, a necklace and wearing the hair in one braid. If you were your hair out it means you are loose and 2 braids mean you are young and single. Now the talking ends and the hell begin. I walk into the dormitory and find my cubicle where my bed lies. I smell a bad smell. I think to myself “Damn someone really stinks, that fart is ferocious. As I go from the dormitory to the meditation halls I keep smelling the women and am like damn. On day two I realize I smell too! Now I need to know what smells. Is it my body, my feet, oh my breath. Now I know what smells but why is it smelling and how do I get to the root cause of it. This is what Vipassana does it gets to the root cause of our old patterns. It doesn’t just deal with the surface level. It is not putting in a chewing gum and calling it a day. The whole process was like going to a dentist for a root canal but not being able to have anesthesia to numb your mouth area. Can you imagine the drilling, the poking, the prodding, and then the extraction without anything to relieve the pain? Well, with Vipassana you learn to accept the pain with a calm mind and the understanding that the pain won’t last. Impermanence and awareness of your bodily sensations are the focus of this meditation. Don’t come here thinking it is a vacation and you will get to relax because it is a meditation. I am here to tell you that it’s not, but you get so much more. They work on getting rid of your old habit patterns and old faulty way of thinking. All this is done by the awareness of the breath and any body sensations that you may experience. We wake up at 4 am and begin meditating at 4:30am until 9 pm. We meditate for 2 hours then eat breakfast, after breakfast we meditate for 3 hours with a break then after lunch meditate for 4 hours with 2 breaks. Then we have a discourse and another 1 ½ hour meditation in the evening. The goal is to sit without moving. Even though you begin to have back pain, knee pain, and pain in other parts of the body for sitting for so long, we have to focus on the breath, remain equanimous with the bad and good pain. We can’t seek cravings or aversion. You sit through the pain while screaming inside all kinds of curse words. On day 2, I could remember saying make it stop, and wanting to cry in my head. Day 2 was the most difficult for me. I felt tremendous pain during the meditations. I noticed that on our breaks the physical pain would go away. The pain was only while sitting but would leave almost instantaneously to stretching. In my mind I knew relief would come, but I couldn’t want for the relief either because that is a craving. By day 3, the back pain I experienced was gone. For some reason it was a breeze for me. Day 4 was hell again. Each day we had to do a different meditational exercise while sitting for the extended period. That was helpful because it kept me from getting bored, but the exercises became increasingly difficult. The exercises were aimed at sharpening the mind. There were several things happening at once. At one point I felt a sensory overload because I got bit by a mosquito and it began to sting really bad and it was at the time that my knees were in tremendous pain and my back was hurting so I said F*** it and moved. I was somewhat disappointed but still proud of the fact that I sat for the other periods without moving. I remember thinking on day 6 that I could join the marines now. The mind training that they do on the marines must be similar. This is geared at strengthening you so that you don’t crack under pressure. You are trained to observe yourself, observe your reactions and observe your body under pain, pleasure, whatever and not react. It is like you are watching a movie, just the observer, taking yourself out of the picture and not reacting. I was still feeling the pain by day 10 and I guess that was the point to still experience the pain but to be able to be an observer. I have to say that going to the Mooji Satsangs in Thiruvannamalai truly helped prepare me for this. Mooji would tell us to meditate on “I am” and just observe what we are feeling or experiencing. He really emphasized awareness and observance and would ask “Can the observer be observed?” Day 11 (their day 10 because they start with day 0 which is why they call it a 10 day retreat instead of 11) we were able to break the silence and can you imagine how much chattering was going on? It was such a relief to speak to someone and not have such long meditation periods. Also, on the last day we learned a meditation for sending love, compassion, and our good merit to others. This was beautiful. Thus, going from Hell to Heaven in only 11 days. The true test will be when I go home and someone does something that would normally piss me off. Will I be able to observe myself and not react or will I react? I also experienced that Hell is within and Heaven is within. We create our misery because we don’t except change. When we say we love someone it is not always a pure unconditional love. It is wanting to control the person, to be possessive of them and we have expectations of them. We do or give expecting them to give or do back. If we truly love someone we would do for them without any expectations in return, we would not try to possess them. That is what unconditional love is about. We have to remove our blinders. You see the person you want to see, not the person for who they really are, and then you try to change them to who you want them to be. Can you truly love someone for who they are the good, the bad, and the ugly? To see pics of retreat go to: http://picasaweb.google.com/rmadolphe92/VipassanaRetreat#

Principality of Ripping Someone Off

This is a principle that some businessmen must hold on to closely in India. It is a very strong principle. One must hold onto it by any means necessary. It is known that if a westerner visits India that the salesman(of clothing or art store), taxi driver, or auto rickshaw driver will charge you double. As a westerner you must understand it and either accept it or bargain hard. Now, I am originally from NY and my parents are Haitian so I bargain hard! What can I say? The Principle of Ripping someone off is sooo strong that the businessman can be so broke and hungry that they will still follow it. It doesn't matter, they must hold onto this by any means necessary. To take an auto rickshaw is generally 10 Rupees(RS) per KM, but the auto rickshaw driver will double or more than double this. One night I was walking with a friend and we had 1 km to go, a rickshaw stopped and asked us if we needed a lift, so we said where we were going and he asked for 40 RS. We said 10 RS and he said no and drove off. My girlfriend and I laughed because he was going in the direction that we were heading. This was a straight road and the only turn he could make was after our drop off would have been. So we said he rather not make any money than to get the 10 RS. How crazy...10 RS could have been his breakfast. This has happened on several occasions to me and other foriegners. The rickshaw driver will quote an enormous price and then won't bend and is willing to lose out on the money. I keep on looking because eventually someone will agree to the right price. If not, I walk and hope to lose some of the weight I have put on by eating so much rice here.

Mooji

I headed to Thiruvannamalai and once there, everyone said you have to see Mooji. Mooji is from Jamaica, but lives in London now and travels giving satsang. Satsang is a question and answer format that helps one become self realized. I arrived in Thiru (abbreviated) on January 21 and saw Mooji on the 22nd. I was like wow all these people traveled near and far to India to learn from a black man. How funny is this? People were bowing to his feet, crying, laughing and trying to get as close to him as possible. I don't know if he is Christian, Hindu, or what, but it doesn't matter. Your specific religion doesn't matter, because there is only one God and all religions pretty much teach the same thing but in different ways. Mooji is definitely enlightened and he genuinely cares and wants to help us become enlightened. After the first week of going to Mooji's satsang I decided to stay in Thiru until Feb 15, which is when Mooji leaves India. Mooji really gets you to think about who you are and tells you to sit in silence. Silence is the key to self knowledge which brings peace. One cannot find peace through the outside (external things) only from looking within. He asks questions to help you realize who you are. During his satsangs I had so many aha moments and felt really great. I got to the point where I can let go of attachments and know that I am not my body or mind. I am That. I was and Am before I was Renee or before I was a daughter, sister, psychotherapist, etc. I am Presence. In Thiru, the people walk 14 km around Arunachula Mountain every full moon. Mooji organized a walk for January 29th which was the full moon and his birthday. That day satsang was extra special. The energy was more intense and Mooji was in rare form. Usually after satsang Mooji will go downstairs and sit quietly but this day he first loving threw candy in the air and people were graciously catching the candy. He then walked through the crowd and gave out candy to everyone who was sitting. People were receiving the candy with tears in their eyes and hugging and thanking him. At this moment I decided to attend his birthday celebration. At first I wasn't, but the energy was so great I had too. So I bought the ticket for 200 rupees (RS). After he went downstairs they gave out cupcakes as well. It was awesome. So later that day, everyone gathered at 5:30 pm to walk with Mooji around Arunachula. It was awesome to see so many people gather to walk with Mooji. It was really heartfelt. Mooji would switch up and hold different people’s hands from young to old as he walked. This 14km walk took 4 hours due to the large crowd and not being able to walk fast. I was exhausted and my feet hurt but I was so ecstatic. The people of Thiru walk around Arunachula barefoot every full moon as a remembrance of and devotion to God. There were thousands of people that came out just to walk. I am truly blessed to be able to have witnessed and be present to such an experience. Then on Feb 1, Mooji had his birthday party. This is a man who says he does not socialize nor have conversations unless it is to teach or be taught, so I wondered how good the party would be. To my surprise this was the best party ever. There was no alcohol and obviously no drugs allowed at the gathering. The hotel was beautiful and had a gorgeous swimming pool. Tons of people showed up for the party. Everyone was able to let loose and be free in a good way to enjoy themselves. I danced so much and did not care how I looked or who was there. This was such a liberating experience. They played music with themes on love and freedom. They had performances, great food and Mooji spoke at the end. Words really can't describe my overall experience with Mooji. Well after I spent the last 2 weeks with Mooji, I decided to be brave enough to ask him a question. So on Feb 3 I went up for the first time and asked him about my mind. I told him that my mind is constantly chattering and thinking and I am trying to let that go and not analyze everything so much. I want to just be. I am aware of what is happening but haven't been able to let it go. Mooji got me to the point of stillness. I can't even describe what happened, but I am almost there. At the end of our discussion I gave him a hug and he told me that something special was going to happen to me soon. A few people thanked me for going up to ask him a question and said that I was inspiring. Mooji quotes: “Empty your mind so God can work through you.”; “Conquer thought by the certitude that there is no such thing as thought”; “To forget everything is to remember the self”. Link to Mooji pics: http://picasaweb.google.com/rmadolphe92/Mooji#

Facing the Unknown

SRI AUROBINDO'S ASHRAM
I arrived to New Delhi airport at 10 pm on New Year's Eve. The whole way to the airport I felt surreal. The reality of me going to a foreign country on my own was hitting closer to home. I remember walking through the airport in DC saying is this real? Am I really leaving the US for a whole year? People travel alone for months or years all the time, but this is not common in my circle. My family travels often, so traveling is not foreign to me, but traveling alone is. So my first leg was from DC to Orlando, Orlando to Charlotte, Charlotte to Chicago and finally Chicago to Delhi. I was walking to my gate at Chicago airport and saw this beautiful women who shaved her head bald. That was the beauty of it. It was totally bald. Gorgeous! Courageous! Part of me wish I can be so brave, but people tell me I am all the time. It is brave to travel the world alone. I guess it is. I haven't thought much about that, just knew I had to do it. So I stopped to tell her how gorgeous she was. She thanked me and we ended up having a 1/2 hour conversation. She discussed how freeing it was when she cut off her hair and described that release. I started thinking maybe that will be part of my letting go as well, to cut off all of my hair. To make room for the new and improved Renee. Don't get me wrong. I don't think there is anything wrong with me. Everyone can always stand to grow and improve. I have never liked stagnation. I guess I felt stuck. I've done the most that I could do as a therapist, but want more. I want to make a difference in the lives of others. I want to make a difference in my life. My relationships are the same after the other. I know if I stayed I will eventually enter a relationship and marry, but I truly wasn't ready for that. I feel I have more growing and more to see before I settle down. So maybe I will cut my hair. I haven't yet, but maybe I will. I've cut my hair short twice and it is currently short but never bald. We will see. They begin to start boarding the plane and I found my seat. The 14 hour flight was nice and smooth. I enter into New Delhi at 10 pm, deplane and begin to try and find my way to the baggage claim. The airport was crowded, people all over the place. I go through customs and claim my bag. I begin to tire quickly because I have a full backpack and the small backpack is heavy. I realized I packed entirely too much. Oh well, nothing I can do now. I make my way through the airport to change a $100 bill, then I headed towards the prepaid taxi booth. Taxi drivers were shouting taxi, taxi. I just headed to the booth because I was told to do that. The other drivers will charge you more or take you someplace else. My driver didn't know where my Ashram was and had to ask someone for directions, so that was scary. On our way there was an outdoor party with fire burning and music playing. I started to hear Sean Paul, Temperature and that put me at ease. I don't know why maybe just hearing something so common to my nature in a foreign place made me feel at home. I could now smile and breathe until we got to the Ashram. The taxi driver let me out and it was dark and I had to walk through this walkway alone, not knowing which direction I was headed and not knowing if I could even get in at 11:30 pm. So I finally find the reception desk, tired after walking with the heavy backpack, but it was closed. It had a sign saying to go to a certain room for after hours admission, so I go to the room but no one was there. I began to walk around then a lady came and helped me(whew). I got a single room, put my stuff down then went to the midnight meditation that they were having for NYE. I then go to my room to sleep and can now notice how cold it was. I am so thankful my cousin T made me bring my sleeping bag. The next day I checked out of my single room to get a dorm room. The dorm here at Sri Aurobindo's Ashram (SAA) was nice. It had room for about 18 women, but there was only one other. So we had plenty of space. Here at SAA I met Tenzin Gache, who is a buddhist monk. He was there with his mother. He was really nice, but was only staying for a day or two. He gave me his contact info as well as some of the buddhist events that were happening in India. Through him I met Uri. Uri is from Israel. I really connected with Uri. He took me around Delhi and gave me a lot of useful info about India. He was on the end of his trip so wanted to go shopping. I decided to go shopping with him and so experienced my first autorickshaw ride with him. It was alot of fun but cold because the rickshaw does not have windows and all the cold air was blowing on us. Uri was really dedicated to his spiritual growth. He would meditate daily for long periods, which made him a good motivator for me. Through Uri, I met Marcin. God really works wonders. I had decided to leave Delhi because it was just too cold and sleeping in a cold room without heat was getting to be a bit much. I decided to head south to Amma's Ashram (AA) which is where I intended to go in the first place. AA and Sai Baba's were the two places I planned on coming to in India. Since my plane went to Delhi, I decided to stay there for a week. So Marcin was on his way to Amma's as well. I say God works wonders because I was able to travel with Marcin to Amma's and boy did I need that. I got sick the day we were leaving and had diarrhea the whole train ride which was 49 hours and bones were aching. Marcin helped me carry my bags since I was sick and took care of me on the train ride. He made sure I had plenty of water and took meds. Marcin and Uri were both genuine and sincere in their care of me. It was really nice to meet people who genuinely care about others. You meet alot of people like this in India. The energy in India is that you feel like you connect with people so much more and so quicker and time stretches. My 5 days in India felt like a month and I felt like I knew Uri and Marcin for years. Other than me sleeping on the top bunk and having to wake up hourly to run to the bathroom, the two day train ride was good. I got to see alot of India. I met four African men on the train. They were sitting in the same section as Marcin and I. We all had great conversations. The other reason, amongst several I say that God works wonders is that I don't think I would have been able to navigate my way around Delhi train station without Marcin. Nothing seemed organized and it was so crowded. Thank God Marcin had been in India for some time and understood the system.

The Unknown Zone

Thanks Eunja for the title. I sit here paralyzed, unable to move, frozen. Why? Is it a fear of change? Is it fear of the unknown? As part of getting ready for my journey, I decided to give everything away instead of putting them in storage. I had a moving sale a couple weeks back and was able to sell most things. I have a few things left that I plan on trying to sell through another moving sale. The moving sell was exciting; people were coming through and I got to barter with them. Yes, the New Yorker in me came out and that felt great. Interestingly, I got to meet some fascinating people through this sale. I met two ladies from India. The first gave me some recommendations and tips. We had a great conversation. She ended up buying a candle from me for 20 cents. Woohoo. I think she felt obligated to buy something after our great conversation. The second lady must have preached to me for about an hour. Telling me how she left Hinduism for Christianity and that there is only 1 God. Through her life choice, she had to lose her family. I really felt for her and she warned me that tons of people will try to convince me that their religion is the right one for the path to salvation. I thanked her also for her tips. I can’t remember if she bought anything, she must not have. Well at least I had two great conversations and wonderful tips to remember. So, once the sale was done, I just looked around my home. All alone in a somewhat empty house. Suddenly it felt like this is really going to happen. I am really leaving, but then I got sad. I don’t know why, but the excitement changed into fear and sadness. To know that you are leaving everything and everyone behind even if for a good reason is scary. Change is inevitable, change happens everyday. Without change there would be no life. The alone thing that is certain is change. But why do so many people fear change? In my work, I see people who know what they need to do whether it is leave an abusive spouse, quit alcohol or drugs but yet they are paralyzed and can’t do what they need to do. Why is that? I know deep down in my heart, with every fiber in my being that this is a journey that I need to take. But yet, I have procrastinated and have not done what has needed to be done so I could have left already. I should have been gone in September, but now it is November and I am just finishing up most of the things that needs to be done. I closed down my private practice, so I have so much time on my hands but I haven’t been progressing in my move as I should. Today, I took my car to get an oil change and to see what why it was making this crazy noise. I decided to leave the car and walk home to get some exercise in since it has been some time since I’ve done yoga, belly dance, run, or any form of exercise. On my walk I saw two caterpillars’ at two different points. As I looked at those caterpillars’, I thought about how this insect will go through a metamorphosis and turn into a beautiful butterfly. But before it can be this beautiful gift that is flying free and peacefully it has to first crawl the earth and go through this change. I then thought about my journey and just maybe going through this journey I too will someday soar and feel free. Isn’t that why we are on earth? To be great, to know our infinite wisdom and to be free. Not to be held captive by life, work or poverty.

Beginnings of my spiritual journey Pt. 1

OK, so I decided to start a blog cuz a lot of friends, family and coworkers are asking me everyday about my upcoming journey. So, they all want to know why I am going, how I am doing it and when I am leaving. So let me start on the why I am going. But before that let me say that I am hoping to get a lot of followers. This blog thing is new for me, but I figure I'm gonna have a lot of stories and I might as well get used to blogging now. OK so as you see the ADHD kicked in and I went off on a tangent. So, back to my story. Why I decided to go to India and Argentina. Well, I've always wanted to live out side of the country (USA) and see what it is like being somewhere else; but why now? Well, I am 35 years old and have been in a series of relationships but still single. I could say they were bad but really they weren't. I think everything I have been through has been to lead me to make this decision to travel. I have met some great people, but they were not ready to commit. As I had to do work on myself, I realized I was not ready to commit so I attracted men who were not ready to commit. This gave me an excuse to focus externally, get mad at them and now focus on myself. Stay tuned for my book on relationships. At the end of my last relationship (last summer 2008) was when I decided to leave this country. I was so in love all though I never told him, but when he broke up with me I knew something had to change. I keep entering the same type of relationships with the same endings. The definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over and expecting new results". I said it is time for me to stop this insanity. The leaving the country is more so that I can stop, sit back and exam myself. Figure out who I really am and what I am looking for. Sure I can do that here, but why when the world is so huge and there is so much out there to learn and to see. At the same time that I was going through my relationship stuff, I was going through slow spiritual growth. I am a very anxious person who can not sit still. My friends know that I always have like 3 jobs, travel all the time and still have time to hang out with them. They always say "I don't know how you do it". Truth be told, I don't know either. (Is it ok to bring the IM/chatting lingo into blogs? I hope so). Focus Renee Marie. So back to being anxious....I know being here I can not instill the discipline I need to sit quietly and be introspective. Oh, I was going to bring up meditation. So I started looking into relaxation techniques to help me learn how to relax. That is when I decided to look into meditation. At first, I bought a book on how to meditate, but I didn't get very far with that because I wasn't disciplined enough to do it on my own everyday. So, I started looking for places I could go to for meditation(free of course since I wanted to try and do it everyday and that would get expensive). So the free places I found were Buddhist centers. Lo and behold I started visiting 3 Buddhist centers. I finally settled on 2 that I went to fairly often. Eventually I took refuge and became Buddhist. In addition, I learned Reiki and started doing yoga. So all of these spiritual things made we want to grow more spiritually which led me to decide to go to India. This and the fact that I read Eat, Pray, Love. Reading about Elizabeth Gilbert's stay in an Ashram made we want to have that experience. Well I am going to the Black woman's version of Eat, Pray, Love. Stay tuned for that book too. So, why Argentina? A coworker of mine would always say this joke to me when I go to work in such a great Indian accent even though he is from Iran. "You are going to India to find yourself , then you are going to Argentina to find a man" Hey, not bad if that happens. So why Argentina? Well I have to say for 2 reasons: the Argentine accent and the beef! I want to learn spanish and I want to have the Argentine accent. Stay tuned for how I will accomplish this trip, where I will be staying, etc. I plan to continue this blog with videos, pictures and more stories for my family and friends to share in my story.