10 Days of Silence in Dehradun

Namaste everyone!

Today I'll be entering a 10 day silent Vipassana retreat in Dehradun, Uttaranchal. The meditation center is pictured above. Vipassana, which means to see things as they really are, is one of India's most ancient techniques of meditation. You can read more about Vipassana here: www.dhamma.org/vipassan.htm. For a more personal take on the experience, here's a Yoga Journal article on one woman's experience, titled "How I Learned to Love Meditation": www.yogajournal.com/meditation/134_1.cfm.

If you're really interested, there are two (relatively) local Vipassana retreats coming up: a weekend non-residential retreat from April 7-9 at the Lotus Meditation Center in Grand Forks, ND (for more info contact Lora Sloan at 701-787-8839, or
lorasloan@gra.midco.net); the other, a 10-day residential retreat from June 9-18 at the Christine Center in Willard, Wisconsin (www.tcvc.info/pages/retreats.htm).

Anyway, just wanted to let you know I'll be out of touch until the end of the retreat. I'll let you know how it went then!

Love and blessings,
Lynne

The Teachers at Parmarth Internat'l Yoga Festival

H.H. Pujya Swami Chidanand Saraswati is president of Parmarth Niketan Ashram where the yoga festival took place. He left his home at eight years old and spent his youth in seclusion, silence and sadhana in the Himalayas. Today he is world renowned as a great saint, spiritual leader, visionary and divine guide to many. His religion is Unity and he has been a leader in numerous international interfaith conferences. He has lead a number of peace pilgrimages across the world. The yoga taught by Swamiji is a total yoga - of body, mind, spirit and soul. It is a yoga for every minute and every day of our lives.

Dr. David Frawley is one of the few westerners recognized in India as a Vedacharya of the ancient wisdom. In 1991 he was named Vamadeva Shastri, after the Vedic Rishi Vamadeva. In 1995 he was given the title of Pandit along with Brahmachari Vishwanathji award for his knowledge of the Vedic teachings. He is a renowned author with topics ranging from Vedanta to Yoga and Ayurveda. (The book I bought is wonderful and so informative!) He has lectured at major Vedantic and Yogic institutions in both America and India.

Sri Birjoo Mehta is a long-standing disciple of Sri B.K.S. Iyengar as well as the managing trustee of the Light on Yoga Research Trust. He has been a student of Iyengar since 1975 and since 1984 has accompanied him on many tours in India and abroad. Birjoo had been teaching Iyengar Yoga in Mumbai (Bombay) for 18 years. He is a full time Engineer as well. His classes were the most informative yoga classes I have ever attended. I learned more in a week with Birjoo than I ever could have imagined. I began my week thinking I would attend alternating classes with Gurmukh's Kundalini but came back every day to learn more about structure and alignment with Birjoo. I couldn't stay away knowing that I could attend Kundalini in the states and that Birjoo is here in India, much further away. I did do Kundalini the first and last day of the conference. Her classes ROCK!


Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa is a world renowned Kundalini Yoga instructor. She is the cofounder and director of Golden Bridge, Los Angeles' premier center for the study and practice of Kundalini Yoga and mediation. She is a direct disciple of kundalini yoga master Yogi Bhajan. She has been teaching for over thirty years and is also a prolific author on the ways kundalini yoga can be used to bring peace and health to the body, mind and soul.

Anyone who has taken my classes for any time knows how much I love Gurmukh and Kundalini. We do a few very powerful poses in our everyday yoga classes in Bemidji and everyone seems to feel the energy moving as we rest and close our eyes afterwards to tune into the power of internal light awakening within. The classes with her felt like a blessing. I am not saying they weren't difficult. Actually, many times my arms felt like they were going to fall off if I didn't drop them from the posture. But with her encouragement and love I kept going and at the end could feel the awakening beginning. In one class, the last day of the conference, I actually saw the bright pink aura expanding around my hands as I looked between them and through an imaginary lens while we did long deep breaths, holding and pumping our bellies. It was very powerful. I hope to do some training with her in the fall and bring back even more knowledge of this very heartfelt yoga.

Sadhvi Abha Saraswati has been an avid yoga practitioner since the age of 25, when through yoga she cured herself of a terminal kidney ailment called nephritis. Since then she has delved deeply into various forms of yoga and has become not only a practitioner, but also a teacher. She resides at Parmarth where she teaches yoga nidra. I attended one day and slept through the whole thing, which she said was ok. The next time was a guided meditation in savasana accompanied by her voice and a sitar tuner - very relaxing. She also teaches nada yoga. Learning traditional chants from her and listening to her most angelic voice was a blessing in itself. I am working on learning by heart Gayatri Mantra, a beautiful hymn song during many celebrations.

Happy Holi

Today is Holi Day, a day to celebrate many things here in India and to burn away negative emotions from our physical bodies. I went out into the streets today taking a couple of boys from the ashram as body guards because Swamiji says it can get out of hand. We also did a bit of our own celebrating, singing, playing music and painting each other in the temple. I also learned how to make chapatis for lunch. You see we sit on the floor when we eat here at this ashram, as the boys are doing here.

Below is an email I received today from Parmarth's swamiji, the ashram I stayed at last. Here are Swami Chidinanda's ideas about this holiday, called Holi Day. Enjoy!

Dear Divine Soul Lynne Ellen Baum,

Holi is one of the most festive, joyous holidays of the Hindu year. It is celebrated on the full moon day of Phalguna (February - March). The festival is marked by great revelry during which everyone paints each other with brightly colored powders. Song, dance and bright red, green, yellow and pink powder are the hallmarks of the occasion. Disciple and Divinity over Passion.

The meanings of Holi are numerous. For some, it is the festival of Springtime, the heralding of warm weather and bidding farewell to the winter. It is also seen as a festival of love, the return of fertility and virility. However, side by side with the celebration of love and fertility is the message to exercise control over the emerging passion. In some parts of India the story is told on Holi of Kamadeva (God of Love; Cupid), whom Lord Shiva burned to ashes as he tried to seduce Him out of His meditation. The message is: celebrate love, but don't get carried away.

Thus, Holi is a celebration of divinity and discipline over passion. Virtue Over Vice:The Puranas describe Holi as a celebration of virtue over vice. It is a time when we rejoice in the victory of pure, divine Prahlaad over his aunt Holika.

The story - in a simple, condensed way - says that Prahlaad was a young, beautiful, pure, divine devotee of God. However, Prahlaad's father was a powerful king who believed that everyone should worship him. At Prahlaad's refusal to do so, due to his singleminded love of God, his father decided to have him killed. Prahlaad's aunt (his father's sister), Holika, had been given a special shawl as a boon from God for various austerities she had performed. When she wore this shawl, she could not be burned by fire. So, Prahlaad's father and his sister devised a plan in which she would wear her shawl and hold Prahlaad tightly in her arms as they sat in fire. In this way, Prahlaad would be killed, but she would emerge unscathed. However, as divine plan works, a strong gust of wind came and blew the shawl off of her, as well as carried pure Prahlaad to safety. Holika was burned in the fire of her own evil.

One of the great obstacles in life to our spiritual progress is the difference between what we do or say on the outside and how we really are on the inside. Holika had performed certain austerities by which she was entitled to this boon from God. On the outside, she was "pious." But, on the inside she was not pure. Prahlaad, on the other hand, was a simple, pure, loving devotee of God. This is what saved him. This inner purity and inner piety are what truly save us, what truly make our lives divine.

So many of us go to temple, do the rituals, offer money to the priests, and chant a certain number of malas. Then, we go out and act in selfish, unpious, dishonest ways. These may not necessarily take the form of malicious transgressions. It may simply be the way we speak to our children or to our loved ones. It may simply be the way we try to cheat those with whom we do business. It may be the way we sit and gossip about others. All the rituals and puja in the world cannot make up for a lack of piety, honesty and compassion. The goal of going to temple is not just to perform rituals; the goal is to become spiritual. God is happier with pure, innocent, devoted Prahlaad than with all the austerities and rituals performed by his father and aunt.

Thus, on this divine occasion, we should pray to be filled with the purity and devotion of Prahlaad. We should commit ourselves to performing our puja, meditation and japa with focus, dedication and deep love for God. One meaning of the word Holi is sacrifice. On Holi we light so many bonfires to revel in joy and to burn the effigies of Holika. The meanings of these bonfires are to burn that which is devilish and impure, leaving only the purity and divinity after Holi.


However, we must remember not only to partake in the merry-making of a bonfire. We must remember to sacrifice that within us which is devilish and impure. There is some demon-nature in all of us. We must burn that demon-nature on Holi and emerge as pure and pious as divine Prahlaad.The fire of purity and divinity which we light on Holi must burn continuously in our hearts throughout the year. We must have an ever-burning bonfire of impurity, so that we are continuously renewed, continuously purified and continuously rejuvenated.

So, LET THIS HOLI BE A TIME WHEN WE CHANGE NOT ONLY THE COLOR OF OUR FACES, BUT THE COLOR OF OUR HEARTS. LET US NOT ONLY "PLAY" HOLI, BUT LET US BECOME HOLY. LET THE ONLY COLOR THAT TRULY PENETRATES OUR BEINGS BE THE COLOR OF GOD.FOR, ON THE MORNING AFTER HOLI THE OTHER COLORS WILL WASH AWAY. BUT WE MUST LET THE COLOR OF GOD BE INDELIBLE IN OUR EYES, IN OUR EARS AND IN OUR HEARTS.

May God bless you all and all your families.
With love and blessings.In the service of God and humanity,
Swami Chidanand Saraswati

Friends from Parmarth

Parmarth Ashram & Marketplace

Namaste friend and family. I have been taking numerous photos with my new camera I purchased in Gujarat. This is the walkway we took on our 6am morning hikes up the mountain and back guided by Swamiji Chitananda. The walkway turns to dirt and there is an actual road that also winds around the mountain. It is very challenging but many people attended. The air was crisp and watching the sunrise from the mountain peak was breathtaking.

To the left of the stairway is the three level building in which some classes were taking place during the International Yoga Festival I attended. Bottom level was where I attended Iyengar yoga classes with a wonderful teacher and 30 year student of Iyengar himself, Bijoo Mehta. I have never even taken one Iyengar class but took five 2.5 hour classes with him because I was so impressed with his teaching and kindness and knowledge. His wife was there as his assistant. He is actually a full-time engineer.

The third picture is the tent where Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa held her daily Kundalini course, plus many lectures took place here as well. Those of you that have heard me speak of her know that I have the highest regard for her classes. I got a chance to fly like a bird way up high in the sky while she played very ethereal music after having us move our arms for 33 minutes in one Kundalini pose. Remember I wished I could fly at Om beach while watching the birds one day. I had that chance here this day.

As one friend commented when I said, "Oh look, another Shiva statue," she said, "You are in Shiva land!" This statue is in the middle of the walkway when you go towards the Ganga from the ashram. I know it isn't very clear but the picture still shows the dramatic lighting they have all around the ashram at night on all of the beautiful statues.

Next I had another chance to photograph Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. He joined the resident Swami for Satsang (Q's and A's) one evening and he looked right at me as I shot this photo. He is one of several selfless teachers I have had the opportunity to listen to and speak with while attending the festival.

Ah, the mountains. The mountains are one of the most spiritual places for me. Whenever I go to Colorado I feel so at home, so close to God. Here, at the foothills of the Himalayas, it is even more intense. They seem so elusive and I haven't had a chance as of yet to actually hike very far. When I finish my 10 day silent meditation in Dehradun I think I may take a guided hike. The air is very clean here unlike many of the bigger cities I have visited. This view is from the walkway within the ashram and they seem to be peaking in all directions.

The marketplace that sits on the Ganga river next to the Ashram is full of life and unique photo opportuities. Many students go here to use the internet, 20 rupees per hour, or buy books and music, or have some western style food.

The old man sitting here reading is a holy man and he is reading some holy scriptures. He was not asking for money, just simply reading. Every day I went to the market and he was there, immersed in the words of God.


This is one of my favorite pictures of the whole trip. A man is showing a lady something he is trying to sell while her friend waits and curiously notices me photographing them.

If you keep walking away from the ashram you eventually reach a bridge which takes you to the downtown marketplace, much larger and busier with many ashrams and restaurants. From the bridge you can see the ghats, steps, of Parmarth Ashram where I stayed. This is a beautiful and sacred space where many rituals take place as well as folks bathing in the holy water of the Ganga to purify the soul.

Each day we had biscuits, fruit, toast and tea served under this tent area at 7am after the 4am Shadana and 6am walk or classes. Brunch came after the 8am til 10:30am morning session and was buffet style. The food was really good but many people including myself suffered from belly aches and other ailments. Dinner was served at 7pm after the fire ritual of Aarti.

Here the boys are lighting the shiva lamps that you see my roommate and I holding in the "Friends" posting. After they are lit they are passed around for people to hold and pray.

Inside one of the classrooms during an Iyengar class we practice Paschimotasana, seated forward fold. Great for hamstrings and I have learned sooo many new ways to open those muscles up, so just wait till I get home!

The boys are always walking in a line when moving throughout the ashram under the instruction of the instructor/swami. They sang while they worked and walked and their voices were also part of the nightly Aarti celebration.

Hope you enjoy these - please feel free to comment with any questions.

Love & Peace to you!
Lynne