A trip to an ashram in the mountains of North Carolina brought me back to the simplistic joys of my childhood by doing one thing – remaining silent. Sit with me for a while, and I’ll tell you how meditation and sitting in silence helped me calm my mind down.
Have you ever been to the Sistine Chapel in Rome? I went a few years back. If you missed it, click here to read about my trip to the Vatican.
I remember how crowded it was. As we were herded into the Sistine Chapel like cattle, people with no clear personal boundaries craned their necks to look at the ceiling. The crowd murmured and continually bumped into one another while every few minutes a voice from the loudspeaker shouted, “Silencio.”
This is what I thought the Silence Retreat I went on last summer would be like.
I was told there would be a large crowd at the Art of Living Retreat Center in Boone, North Carolina, so I figured it would be much like the Vatican Experience.
Let me tell you, I was wrong!
You are probably wondering about now what possessed me to go on a Silence Retreat, to begin with.
My friend Sejal suggested it. She said it would be the most relaxing vacation I have ever had.
I didn’t believe her.
I thought that being silent would be a huge struggle for me.
All of my other friends laughed out loud.
Really, they did.
“Good luck with that,” is what I got from them.
So, it became a personal challenge to me.
I thought, “OK, so they don’t think I can do it. Sejal thinks I can. Maybe I can?”
Then I would lie awake, staring at the ceiling thinking, “There’s no way I can stay silent for three hours – forget about three days…maybe my head will explode with thoughts…maybe I’ll spontaneously combust…”
I really didn’t think I could do it. So, I drove back up the mountain to see if I could keep quiet.
The week after I took the Happiness Course with my husband, back to Boone I went.
There were 600 of us in the course coming from all over the world to sit in an ashram on the top of a mountain in North Carolina and be quiet.
I brought a good book with me and an empty journal with high hopes of hours spent reading and writing. I was panicked at first to learn that there would be none of that.
As all 600 of us sat on yoga mats in the large room, listening to our teacher for the weekend, we were told we were not to read or write or engage in pantomime conversation with our fellow classmates. No cell phone use, no social media, no texting – unless we had children we needed to check on.
I sat on my light blue yoga mat confident that fear emanated from my face.
We were able to talk that first night, and I met several people at dinner. One lady from North Carolina was in her 60’s and had taken a silence course before. Paula had recently recovered from cardiomyopathy caused by a car accident. Another new friend, Teri, an ex-nun, was from California and had also done a silence course before. Tom, a highly successful salesman from the mid-west, had been taking silence courses yearly since the 1990’s. The dining hall was filled with people from all walks of life.
I slept in a dorm-like room in a building at the bottom of a steep hill. The next morning at 6:20 am, Paula met me outside the building I was staying in, and together we walked up the steep hill to the ashram.
Once in the ashram, the first hour of the morning was spent doing Yoga, instructed by a kind gentle woman, who was once a professional basketball player. She made 7 am yoga the most logical choice negating my brain’s thoughts of more sleep. The teacher, Phil, a musician from Los Angeles, kept us busy doing team building exercises before breaking for breakfast.
Before lunch, we were placed into silence, meaning, we were told we can’t talk.
For the first few hours, it was tough.
I felt like I had to talk to the person I was sitting next to at lunch. I felt like I had to greet people who crossed my path. I felt like I had to create small talk while washing my hands at the bathroom sink.
So, in the beginning, there was mental resistance and a lot of mental chatter.
I sat on my light blue yoga mat, amidst the other 599 classmates and slowly, slowly began to calm my mind down.
I truly didn’t even know I needed to calm my mind down.
But, I did.
Phil took us through meditations that in the beginning were difficult to sit through.
Once I was aware of the chatter in my mind, it was hard to concentrate.
I had to let my mind calm down.
The founder of The Art of Living is Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. If you read my blog about my first visit to the retreat center, you’ll know he is a world acclaimed humanitarian who spends his life in the pursuit of world peace and happiness. You can read his bio here.
He truly is a rock star!
Sri Sri visited our class at least once a day. He talked to us about being decent human beings and about being happy as we sat on our mats in silence. He was light-hearted and funny. He took us through meditations as well, and my mind finally started to settle down.
Once the chatter in my brain began to cease, I was able to focus more easily on everything. That’s a remarkable feeling.
I began to remember how life used to be when I was 8. I started to look at things the way I had done before the weighted responsibility of adulthood took its toll on my consciousness.
We were kept busy with yoga, meditation, and talks on how to be happy.
At one point during the weekend, I got angry at being pushed around by the crowd at lunch. Because I was not able to use my voice, the anger grew in me. I nearly cried.
After a while, the anger dispelled. It was a great example to me of how simple it is to let things that aren’t worth the emotion of anger swell and grow in me. I wasn’t truly mad at the people who pushed me while I was in line. There was no malice towards me. It was accidental. It made me think of all the times I’ve held on to anger and how damaging it can be.
As a result of that anger, a new sense of freedom grew in me because with a calm mind, I was able to let go.
As I sat in the ashram with my classmates, thoughts would surface from years ago – good and bad. I was in a safe place and could honor those thoughts and let them be.
I began to love when Sri Sri came to talk to the class because with him came a sense of calm and lightness to the room that I imagine often comes with a person who has devoted his life to calmness and happiness.
I also had a deep appreciation of Paula, who would walk with me up and down the steep hill in silence. I felt anchored by her friendship.
When we were released from silence, Phil told the room of 600, “OK, you may now talk. Your silence is over.”
And, you know what happened?
No one said a word.
All 600 of us remained quiet.
We had come to enjoy the silence and didn’t want to break it.
He asked us to shout out one word that described what we were all feeling.
The room came alive with voices.
The next day, there was a huge celebration for Guru Purnima. Our 600-member class was dwarfed by the thousands of participants. We sat in chairs tightly packed into the ashram as a program began that aimed to show gratitude for all teachers. Paula and I had taken our time at lunch, and we didn’t know how quickly the room would fill. We were in the second to last row.
The exuberance of the room increased as Sri Sri walked through the thousands of people bopping them on the head with a rose to bless them.
I didn’t have high hopes. We would be close to the last row of people he would walk by. I imagined he would be aggravated by the time he got to us, bopping people in the head like swatting irritating flies.
Yet, I was still excited that he would be walking by us.
He is someone who has done more good in the world than anyone I’d ever met.
And he was getting ready to walk inches from me.
We watched people throw themselves at his feet, hand him large boxes of electronics or a single delicate picture that would all be passed to his entourage walking behind him.
The energy that came with his simply walking by them was in great contrast to the days we had spent in silence respectfully listening to him talk.
As he came closer, the energy and noise increased from the people he passed.
I wished they would settle down and let him walk.
He patiently walked on.
I couldn’t take my eyes off him, wondering what it must be like for him to have this intensity thrown before him. It had to be exhausting.
I caught his eyes and marveled at how they reminded me of my daughter’s eyes when she was born – that pure innocence and joy that touches the heart of a mother.
Then he stopped.
Sri Sri stopped.
In front of me.
I’m pretty sure my heart stopped as well.
He leaned down so I could hear him and said, “Well, are you happy now?”
I wanted to grab Paula’s hands and squeal, “Oh my God, oh my God, he’s talking to me! He’s talking to me. Paula, he’s talking to me.” Instead, I somehow managed to maintain eye contact and say, “Yes, thank you.”
Then he looked at Paula and said, “And, you?”
I don’t know what she said because my mind was squealing, “Oh my God, oh my God, he just talked to me,” like I was an 8-year-old girl.
A smile remained on my face for a very long time.
After the retreat, I had begun to flip off the many switches in my brain that had been turned on. It reminded me of when a massive storm would pass through, and the electricity would go out for hours. When the power would come back, there would be many lights blinding the room along with much noise from the TV that was left on, or the beeping of the oven or the security alarm. I would have to go through each room and turn off the switches that did not need to be on.
In my brain, the storms aren’t always evident. Of course, a car accident is going to flip switches, but I also needed to acknowledge other moments that flipped the switches in my brain, like being pushed in line.
It was shocking how many thoughts rattled around my mind. It also amazed me how when I acknowledged those thoughts, the switch would be gently placed in the off position allowing me to concentrate on what is going on around me right now.
For me, living in the “right now” is a great place to be.
It took going to the top of a mountain and being quiet for a few days to see how great that place really is.
Now, I’ve got a Guru named Sri Sri and a new found love of being silent.
