Soul searching in faraway Rajastan

Jul 6 2008 by Steve Blundell

Steve Blundell aims for rest and spiritual enlightenment on a Braham Kumaris retreat in Mount Abu in India.

When you are planning a retreat, you know you will have to travel somewhere secluded, somewhere off the beaten track.

How about this: a nine-hour flight to Ahmedabad, India, followed by a five-hour drive – the last hour a breathtaking climb to more than 4,000ft – before arriving in a valley plateau in Rajastan, entering Gyan Sarovor, a creamy white city, as dusk settles.

That is quite remote for a retreat. My destination was the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University (BK) in Mount Abu, where I had been fortunate enough to be invited for the annual Peace of Mind retreat.

A close BK friend had felt I would benefit from the experience and she had “sponsored me”. I was to take part in a week-long retreat, where I would hopefully emerge refreshed, renewed and spiritually revitalised. It took a long time to get to the university, but as a spiritual journey it was the beginning of a marathon of life-time proportions.

As soon as I arrived, a warm feeling enveloped me and a smile instinctively settled on my lips. Was it me, or could I really begin to feel the stresses of my everyday Midlands life melt away?

After a warm and efficient welcome at the reception desk, I took a short walk to the dining hall and savoured the late summer smells. The 25-acre campus is barely ten years old, and larger than I had expected with pristine, spacious buildings, where solar energy powers the heating and cooling systems and irrigates the lush gardens. Inside the immaculately clean dining hall, figures calmly queued for food.

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It was a strange feeling. After my BK friend had put my name forward I had attended a short programme at the West Bromwich BK centre and learned how we are all “souls”.

Standing in this queue for our first meal together, I was there with 269 other “souls” from 48 countries. It felt quite surreal for we were a disparate bunch, including a youthful translator from Mongolia; a larger-than-life South African healer; a shimmering Hawaiian film star; a blond Icelandic managing director and a Russian scientist resembling Ivan the Terrible.

Then there was the sallow-faced Canadian lawyer, a confused-looking Mexican psychiatrist, a senior civil servant from somewhere in New Europe, a heavily-cloaked Muslim film maker from the Middle East. And then there was me.

Embarking on a journey to attain and replenish a higher consciousness means moving away from our obsession with the body and focusing instead on “the soul”.

This is not easy, but the BKs claim Raja Yoga can sustain our soul-consciousness, providing us with the ability to log into the infinitive power of the Supreme.

The retreat was an amazing learning experience. Each day followed a similar pattern, starting with early morning meditation, then a silent walk or silent breakfast. Hour-long classes concluded with short meditations and brought us to lunch.

The essence of the university is to share the practice of Raja Yoga. From Sanskrit words – Raja, meaning “king” and Yoga, meaning “union” of the self with the Supreme Being (a generic title for God, Allah or a Higher Consciousness) – Raja Yoga does not require a particular pose, physical dexterity, the chanting of mantras or even closing of the eyes. Realising this you can feel reassured.

Afternoons were free or we could join one of the many visits, which included a 20-minute bus ride to the stunning 1,000-year old Jainist Dilwara temple, or a five minute ride to the neighbouring village, where you could order yourself a hand-made suit, delivered the next day and ridiculously cheap.

Evenings saw social events being put on for us, including a spectacular performance by a troupe of young Indian dancers.

In a technically advanced lecture theatre, which holds 1,600 people and offers simultaneous translation into 16 languages, the senior brothers and sisters of the university shared their knowledge by beginning their class with a moment of silence.

Presaging a reflection on differing principles and practices of Raj Yoga, they all impressed by engaging sensitively and often humourously with the audience, as well as delivering classes totally unscripted.

We absorbed a plethora of extraordinary topics, entitled variously, Soul Consciousness – Who am I?, Experiencing Connection with the Supreme, and then Practical Experiences in Applying Soul Consciousness in Family and Work Life.

Discussion in both class and small groups was full of helpful ways to direct our attention positively. We shared our valiant attempts to meditate and gain from each other: “...try telling negative thoughts you’ll deal with them later”.

I found I needed to let go of my intellectual criticality. Once judgment was suspended, I became more readily able to experience the rich nature of the meditation and reflect upon what I was being asked to do.

Before I left England, I had thought it impossible to prepare myself for such a fascinating and totally unknown venture.

I had however reflected on two things. Firstly, I’d reminded myself that week-long residential courses have remarkably similar emotional graphs: things would start nervously, proceed to frenzy mid-week, then there would be a day in which emotions would surface and “re-entry” into home and work would loom large. And secondly, I relinquished myself to things I hold dear: searching for a sense of beauty and the universality of humour.

So I sought visual delights and made lively conversation. I would thrive on a darting eye, a clever retort just as I would smile for the sparkling colours of clothes or the majesty of stone sculptures.

Once there, I calmed down and I was able to meditate, I was also able to keep silent at meal-times if the programme required. More surprisingly to me was that the emotional graph of my retreat precisely mirrored the graph I had visualised.

After making small but firm steps during the first half of the week everything went haywire as I lurched down the slippery slope towards insensitivity, desire and arrogance. Small things tempted me and clung there inside teasing.

What was powerful was the ease with which I connived, over-riding any attempt to re-direct my energies. Any attempt to meditate that day was, to put it mildly, distinctly unsuccessful. I needed to resurrect some patience and perseverance.

On retiring to my room that evening I decided that the best thing I could do was to draw a line under the day. It had been exhausting and I just had to let it go. I woke at 3.30am the following morning and felt as though there was a metaphorical knock on my door.

I was drawn to attend the 4am Amrit Vela (literally “the early morning nectar hour”) meditation time. I went and suddenly felt myself back on track and meditating. But it showed me how easy it was to drift.

Two days later, four of us descended the mountains in a taxi towards Ahmedabad. Down into the searing heat of the plains we joined the lengthy fleets of heavily-loaded lorries carrying stones for the non-stop road-building, the stumbling bullock-carts piled sky-high with goods for market, the camels carrying whole families to their next work-site, rows of women shovelling soil at the road side.

We were in the India that gives us an unmistakable cacophony of sounds and raw, pungent smells, the India that sees the managing director’s plush white, air-conditioned limousine slow-down for the auto-rickshaw.

Despite the choking dust and aching bodies we felt truly humbled and privileged.  The essence of that week in the hills of Rajastan was permission to be “risky” in what was for me a new meditative life.

To be risky we need to suspend judgment as we try things out and then to look positively on that experience to extract and build upon.

I work very much like this as an artist and writer, creatively searching and always actively looking for the positive. In the laboratory that is our lives, the BKs have provided me not so much with inflexible rules to which I must blindly adhere, rather with equipment that I can actively use, deploy and share for sustaining a healthy spiritual and physical life.

It was a lesson for life.

* FACTBOX
* Steve Blundell was sponsored by a BK member in order to visit the centre at Mount Abu. For details, visit www.bkwsu.org or telephone the main Midlands centre on 0121 553 1160.
* Before visiting Mount Abu, Steve attended a number of short seminars at the main centre of the BKs in the Midlands, at which he learned the principles behind being a Brahma Kumari. The seminars also provided vital preparation for his retreat.
* BK booked the Heathrow to Ahmedabad flight. Steve flew to Ahmedabad from Heathrow with Air India, which cost £364.
* There were no expenses for accommodation, food and visits. The Brahmin Kumaris World Spiritual University runs on voluntary donations.