Yoga on the Beach

I had no idea I would be so close to nature when I booked my tickets to Goa for the 21 day meditation (based on Osho’s Mystic Rose) camp. This was my second time. The last one was a year before last and had helped a lot.

Apart from the amazing experience of meditating to the sounds of real sea a few feet away and camping at the secluded Sweet water lake at Arambol we got the added benefit of practising yoga at 5 am every morning. The waking up was quite a process in itself. At first they would strike the cymbals, then start laughing aloud and sometimes they would play music.

(These photos are precious as my phone was later confiscated by Swami ji... The signal used to be very weak and I lost my cool one day, breaking the code of 'noble silence'... whatsapp is still not working)

So, here I was, trying to keep up with the rest during ‘Maha Mrityunjay Kriya’ and happy in the fact that I had got another gift from the supervisor Nora, the training of ‘Jal-Neti’, as a result of which, my nostrils had cleared and I could breathe freely, when a dog lying beside my mat passed wind, with his arse pointed towards me. I became fully awake and then he decided to leave, so did the stench.

Now, initially, as a child I used to be afraid of dogs. I tried getting over it by imagining myself banging the attackers’ heads together. But after having met Bozo a golden retriever that belonged to a friend, I became almost friendly with most of them. To the extent that today they may come close to me but accept that I give nothing in return other than respect, and we both part ways calmly.

Apart from being physically close to the person who felt the most pain in the first week of laughter and the beginning of second week of crying, the dogs chased each other and chased the monkeys up the mountain. A few people at the camp were naturally very fond of them. One of them was Dario. One morning, Dario sat beside me as I started to keep my head on Nelya’s belly to take support from her beautiful laughter. The dog came and put his legs upon my belly and began to lift a leg up, I quickly stood up thinking, ‘Oh my God, she hates me and wants to piss on me!’ But she really just wanted to climb up Dario’s back and play with him… 

Thankfully, I got a few ideas for the script that I am working on… learned of how the mind wants what it cannot have and that yoga can be fun too… Also, I am no more addicted to tea!

Laughter Meditation continues on the way to the Natural Food Festival, while other passengers shyly smile for few seconds...

I am grateful to all present at the camp. Those who were friendly with me were the loveliest people and those who were distant helped me in different ways in getting to know myself better. I would recommend such an adventure to everyone where pure drinking water is brought from the mountain crevices in the forest… The concept of ‘work play meditation’ was fully utilized to bring order into chaos, both outside and inside…