Oct 02, 2009 04:27 PM
14882 Views
(Updated Oct 02, 2009 05:17 PM)
Although I was interested in doing Art of Living(AOL hereafter) course for long time, I couldn't make it until April 2008. I was married in Feb 2008 and was in Pune that time working with Infosys. So one fine day I saw a pamphlet in news paper with details of date and venue for next AOL basic course. Time was suitable to me hence I enrolled my and my wife’s name for the course. My wife was already AOL follower before marriage.
So first day, we reached venue and found our course teacher Satyajitji sitting in white dress with pleasant smile on his face. He asked everyone to walk around the hall randomly and then he asked everyone to meet each other and say “I belong to you”. This is to empower the feeling of belongingness to each other, a feeling that we all are one family and we all belong to each other. Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam!
He taught us seven layers of our existence. He actually made us feel different layers of our existence by making us undergo some and other activities. And it is interesting to know how we are stuck in some layers and forget our basic nature of peace / joy / enlightenment. He also gave us five SUTRAS *of happy living. He explained these *sutras *by telling simple short stories. And I tell you if you follow these five key points in your daily life, you won’t complain about anything in your life, you won’t be afraid of others opinion for yourself and you won’t keep your past bad impressions in your mind. These bad impressions are actually like blockages or tumors in our mind, which stop us from living happy life. During course we also enjoyed *bhajans we danced during satsang.
I found most important learning from this course is “SUDARSHAN KRIYA” which is a rhythmic breathing technique given by Sri Sri Ravishankar(founder of AOL). It lasts for 30-50 minutes and basically designed for detoxification of our body and mind. I was feeling the vibrations in every single cell of my body during kriya. After kriya *my mind was at peace and joy and smile came on my face without my knowledge. What I understand is we do breathing at different pace for different emotions in our mind. For example, when we are angry or in fear our breathing is fast. And when we are at peace and joy our breathing is slow. Same way you can also control your emotions by harmony of your breath. My experience so far is if you do *Sudarshan kriya daily, stress will stay miles away from you.
One of my colleagues who did AOL course was habituated of smoke and Alcohol. He said he doesn’t feel like smoking and taking alcohol after he started doing Sudarshan kriya. He said basic reason of people going for smoke and alcohol is stress / depression. Sudarshan kriya makes you free of them. I have also seen people getting rid of Asthma, Heart problem, diabetes and many more diseases.
There was also an activity when teacher made us sit in front each others in two rows with closed eyes. Then he asked everyone with his soft and soothing voice to see in each others eyes and asked us, if GOD comes in front of you with this face will you accept him? My partner’s eyes filled with tears when he was seeing in my eyes and he hugged me. Last day my partner told me he started seeing GOD in every individual after that day.
The Art of Living Course teaches us how to have greater peace, energy and joy.for a lifetime. We have learned many skills at home and in school, but we have never been taught "how to" handle negative emotions like anger, sadness, fear etc. If we learn the skill to deal with our mind when these emotions arise, the quality of our lives can change significantly for the better. Through the power of the breath and ancient knowledge of the mind, the Art of Living course teaches us this skill.
Well, I did Advance course and DSN course of AOL after that. I would recommend everyone to go for AOL course. Courses are happening in almost all cities in India and outside India. You will find contact details from https://artofliving.org.
