My Honest Experience of completing 10 Days of Goenka Vipassana meditation course

It takes just one step in faith to bring a change in your life. I finally took this step when I decided to go for 10 days of Goenka Vipassana meditation course and honestly it has been an eye opening experience. But good things does take its own time sometimes to come into your life because I was planning to complete the ten days of Goenka Vipassana meditation course for four years, before I could actually go for it and experience it myself from the Gorai VIPASSANA executive center in Mumbai in April 2019.So, before I go ahead and share my actual experience of Goenka Vipassana meditation, let me tell you why took this long for go here

I completed ten days of Goenka Vipassana meditation course in April 2019

What took me Four Years to go for 10 Days of Goenka Vipassana meditation course

With the rise of Social media, Vipassana meditation technique has got reasonable attention but I got to know about it from my yoga teacher while I was completing my diploma in yoga asanas in 2012. That was the time when the knowledge of Vipassana was limited with few people. There came a phase in my life where I was going through a lot of anxiety issues and absolutely nothing was working for me at that time. It was during the course, that my yoga teacher suggested me to attend the ten days of Goenka Vipassana meditation course, as he shared that it is Vipassana technique which helped him heal as well.

I was introduced to Goenka Vipassana meditation course by my Yoga Guru in 2012

Trusting the instincts I registered for Goenka Vipassana meditation course through their official dhamma.org website and got through it as well. But, as I mentioned earlier good things sometimes take its own time to come in your life. My parents didn’t allow me to go for it as Vipassana meditation practice requires you to stay in insolation for ten days, which means I wouldn’t be communicating with anyone for those days that I will spend learning Vipassana meditation technique. Having come from a world which is full of news where mishaps happen on the name of meditation centers, it was obvious that my parents felt uncomfortable. I applied for it again in 2017 but I couldn’t go again But something in me kept calling for Vipassana meditation and this time when I applied for it, I lied to them that I am going for an assignment, which would require me to be out of network for 10-12 days. This was to make them comfortable because they know that sometimes during traveling I do remain offline

Protocols that is required during ten days of Goenka Vipassana meditation course

While I discuss my experience of completing the ten days of Goenka Vipassana meditation course, I see that people do not have exact clarity of it’s protocol. Please keep in mind while you are planning to register for Vipassana meditation technique, it will require you to follow strict rules which are observed globally

● You are required to observe noble silence for the complete ten days that you are in the Vipassana meditation centre. This means that you shall not be communicating with the outer world at all and will remain in isolation.

● Your phone will be deposited at the Vipassana centre once the registration is done

● You shall not be communicating with anyone at the center as well. No eye contact, no action and no expressions. You shall be your own company for those ten days. This is compulsive because these things actually are a distraction for the brain in the outer world and it is important to give them up before we enter Vipassana because it works inwards

You are required to isolate for ten days while attending Goenka Vipassana meditation course

My honest experience of completing ten days of Goenka Vipassana meditation course

Clarity in Thoughts: You know I would be a person who would want to do a lot in her life which often would leave me with thousands of thoughts at the same time. It would be difficult to segregate them and put on a priority list because I wanted to do it all. Vipassana meditation technique actually helped me give clarity to these thoughts. I would maintain a diary where I would write every thought/ idea that striked me. After those ten days of Goenka Vipassana meditation course, this list got down to five very easily

I realised I am important too: You know some of us have conditioned our mind in a way where we look for validations from other people and I have been in the same stage too. I have been a person who would look out for validations from others and expected them to tell me that I am good or I can do this and do that. Most of the time it will actually leave me sad because not everyone can tell you good things and are ready to demotivate. I got the latter in plenty. The constant stress did impact me but it is in Goenka Vipassana meditation that I realised that in order to attract a particular thing from others, you have to first create it within yourself. I have never appreciated myself for the creativity or talent that I possess but now I put myself first over everything else. If I wouldn’t like to do certain thing, I wouldn’t do it. It’s important to treat yourself with as much love as you give to the others

A happy and peaceful state of mind: I once read it in a book called The mind, where the author argued how in finding the happiness, the humankind actually forgot to be happy. Everything that we do in our life is actually what we do with an end goal of being happy but the irony is that it is in finding the need to be happy, which is leaving us even more stressed. Happiness is a default state of mind for humankind and it should come to us effortlessly. Vipassana meditation technique made me realise this and I realised how we unnecessarily buy things just to be happy. Though I made changes in my life but let me be honest that this is still work in progress because you have to keep reminding your mind to be happy and cheerful. A big change that came within me is the control of anger and reacting instantly in a situation. I do take time before I utter anything

A happy and peaceful state of mind after attending ten days of Goenka Vipassana meditation course

I would also like to add that Goenka Vipassana meditation course is just not the one time thing. You need to keep practicing it and keep improvising to keep that clarity of thoughts. It’s a never ending process but worth every effort. Have you tried doing Vipassana meditation technique or want to go for it ? Let me know in the comment section below

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