“The source of life is within you. If you remain in touch with that source, everything about you will be beautiful.”
– Sadhguru

I didn’t want to share my whole experience in one single post, for fear of boring anyone and especially as I would ideally like everyone to savour the experience through my words. Hence I’ve decided to split it into a couple of posts. I sincerely hope you enjoy.

This was my first ever trip to India. And I chose Coimbatore of all places. My Indian colleagues were floored. They’ve never been to Coimbatore themselves, let alone to an ashram. I owe this brilliant idea to my friend Samer who suggested I participate in the “Inner Engineering” program at the Isha Yoga Center with my mother.

Isha Foundation is a non-profit volunteer organization that focuses on human wellbeing. The foundation runs wonderful yoga programs, as well as many social and environmental projects. There are hundreds of thousands of volunteers in over 200 centers across the world. Can you believe that? Who knew there was so much love in this world?

Now a little bit about Sadhguru, the founder of the Isha Foundation. Sadhguru is a spiritual master that has gained worldwide recognition for his modern and insightful approach to life and all subject matters. His talks are witty and provocative. I strongly suggest you You Tube a few of his videos to really understand what I’m talking about.

Ah, the Isha Yoga Center…This place was truly beautiful. It’s located on 150 acres of land at the foothills of the Velliangiri Mountains amidst a forest reserve with real wildlife all around. The landscape, the greenery, the mountains at far, the actual architecture of the place. True beauty. And as I previously mentioned, everyone who works at the Center is a volunteer. I even met a Lebanese guy who abandoned his business and regular life to live and volunteer at the ashram. Yes, such selfless beings exist.

 

 

The program my mom and I participated in is called “Inner Engineering”. The program is designed to help people like you and I find balance between the challenges and stresses of every day life and the inner longing for ultimate wellbeing. And your religion makes no difference. We all seek inner peace, no matter our faith. We were over 80 people from around the world participating. I felt like a child back in school. Between inspiring sessions by our teacher, and yoga and meditation practices, and all the fun and games, I met some truly amazing individuals.

The whole no internet thing and being disconnected from the world was a bit tough at first. But a good kind of tough. No posts, no Facebook updates, no what’s app messages constantly appearing on my phone. I guess it must have made people miss me a little if anything. I hope.

Now my one problem was… where’s the coffee? Or at least some green tea? I wanted to cry the whole first day, until we discovered this little shop with horrible tasting filtered coffee. At least it did the trick. Sorry I get that we were at an ashram and all, but I haven’t reached that no caffeine stage yet.

Let me just tell you I never imagined I would enjoy this much walking around barefoot in loose clothing, make-up free. Or jumping into waterfalls fully clothed. Or even gently lifting a cockroach from my room to put it back into nature where it belongs.

 

I’ll let you in on some of the profound spiritual teachings that I learnt from these 4 unforgettable days in my next post.

“As we have a physical science to create external wellbeing, there is a whole inner dimension of science to create inner wellbeing, I call it Inner Engineering.”
– Sadhguru