Day Twenty and Day Twenty-One

Hello, friends!  Once again I fired up my laptop in order to type up my guest observation report.  So why not type my blog from a real keyboard instead of my cell phone?  The downside is that it is already 8:38 in the evening and I still have a fair amount of studying to do so my update shall be brief.  That said, there are so many experiences from my training on which I'd like to elaborate but I never feel like I have the luxury of time.  Therefore, I am keeping good notes on certain experiences/topics and will write more once I return home. In the meantime, a recap of Thursday and Friday:

Day Twenty: Thursday
The religious scholar returned for another morning lecture.  While the lecture was great, I have to say my biggest take-away from the morning was a renewed desire to read Emerson and Thoreau...and I have never been much of an Americanist (when it comes to literature, that is).  So that's something.

During the afternoon we had our final anatomy and physiology lecture.  Our guest speaker offered so much more than the technicalities of anatomy and physiology.  To be sure, she applied systems (i.e. digestive, muscular, immune, etc.) biology to the practice of yoga but she so elegantly integrated yogic philosophy into each segment of her lectures.  Such an inspiration.

We had an evening session on meditation (to kick off our 24-hours of silent meditation).  We were guided through various types of meditation and paired up for an exercise in guiding meditation.  Then we were given our "In Loving Silence" badges and sent away for the evening.

Day Twenty-One: Friday
Yesterday was an entire day of silent meditation.  We had a self-guided morning sadhana, focused on meditation and meditation in motion.  During our morning program, we were guided through a few extended types of meditation.  The first focused on the breath.  This is the meditation with which I am most familiar but I feel like I'm still riding the learning curve. Which is essentially to say I do not feel that I have experienced a deep meditative state while focusing on the breath.

The second meditation we did was an asana meditation.  The posture we worked with was bridge (or setu bandhasana).  The asana meditation was, for me, a profoundly incredible experience...very moving.  I need to ruminate more on the experience itself before I attempt to put it into words.

Our afternoon program consisted of an extended exercise in walking/mindful meditation.  I feel that over the past seven years, I have developed a deep connection and appreciation with nature. I've spent a lot of time practicing walking meditation...I just didn't realize there was a name for it.

Our afternoon sadhana included a sensory-deprivation exercise.  We were blind-folded and had ear-plugs on while we did a self-guided sadhana.  While some of my classmates felt very empowered by the exercise, I found it terribly unsettling.

The (almost) 24-hours passed very quickly.  I didn't like being electronically disconnected...which is kind of a sad realization...but I certainly didn't mind the silence.  I would even say I enjoyed it.

Namaste, my friends.