Summer Camp at Ashram

OUR EXPERIENCES AT SADHANA SANGAMA ASHRAM

Myself and my wife spent a few days in May 2009 in Sadhana Sangama Ashram to better understand and practise yoga for effective management of our health. The experience was very rewarding and we recommend it to all people who want to manage their life and health better. However, minor but essential improvements are needed at the systems and maintenance level at the Ashram, as the visitors may not be able to adjust to the environment.

Let me put first things first –

I have been practising yogasanas and have been propagating Yoga Nidra for the past several years for improving the health of people. I have introduced it in our companies for our workers and managers and in our Trust for our patients. I had my training in yoga from an early age through Bihar School of Yoga and the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi group who taught us very easy ways to meditate called Transcendental Meditation. The methods of both organisations are highly impressive and easy to follow. I have seen the practitioners even lifting themselves (If they are very well trained) and floating in air. Their systems are very effective.

However, I have not been able to graduate beyond this to a higher level and experience the true power of meditation. I used to get emotionally stressed with all my office work after meditation. I used to get angry quickly and agitated on small disturbances and wrong happenings. Possibly I must not have been meditating properly and had little time to go back to the Ashram and relearn. Things were alright as long as I meditated only for about 15 minutes. However, I continued to do yogasanas regularly. Yoga Nidra has always been a great energizer.

The programme at Sadhana Sangama under the guidance of Guruji opened my eyes. Suddenly I realized what was going wrong in my previous attempts to meditate deeply. Guruji guided us on the ways to deal with the Chakras and the Pranic energy associated with them. I also realized the true meaning of the statements in the Bhagwad Gita on Yoga. My wife practices both Asanas and meditation regularly now. I enjoyed the meditation inside the Guha (the cave), deeply dark and difficult to enter when you enter from the outside natural light. But after meditating there, one can easily see the light around, possibly because the eyes got used to the darkness and improved its light recognition capability.

Another thing that impressed and made us to come closer to the Sadhana Sangama was the way Guruji projected the teachings of Bhagwad Gita in terms of Karma Yoga and Yagnya. His explanations clarified quite a few things than what I had perceived as the meaning, quite a few years ago. These meanings match with the principles of management. Thanks once again.

Guruji highlighted that instead of talking just intellectually we must aim to experience the teachings. Our experiential knowledge has been taken farther by learning directly under Guruji. Many of the Japanese Holistic Management practices have similarity with this. Importantly, experiential realization is superior to intellectual. This is the true power of yoga.

Most important of all, we learnt to live close with nature and lead a life with all participants in community spirit. We also realized how easily one can practice yoga and meditation while being a good householder.

Guruji gave us a prayer for helping the world to become a better place of living. We all must daily pray so that the economic condition improves throughout the world and job security and mental poise of the modern youth is protected and not allowed to get highly stressed, driving them in wrong directions.

With infinite thanks to Guruji and his wife, and prayers for the happiness and well being of all who studied with us.

- K S Madhavan