I am actually skipping my lunch hour to catch you all up.  Its ok though…it was soup.

Tuesday night (7:30-9:00) was one of the most interesting, profound and emotional night for all of us.  We were instructed to come to the main chapel hall as close to 7:25 as possible w/nothing but ourselves. The instructions were to eat on the earlier side of the dinner hour & dress for motion but do not bring any books, mats, blocks etc….  The doors would open at exactly 7:28 and no earlier. We were asked to file in silently and select a space.    We were kind of freaking a bit!!!  What was up with this?

As we nervously waited outside the big, wooden chapel doors, I couldn’t help but think that the last time I stood outside a chapel door…I was about to walk down the aisle to get married….AHHHHHH. Where did that memory come from? I thought that was long gone.  Although, they say that frightening experiences have a strong tendency to bring up unconscious memories when you are exposed to a trigger. They were right.  Just the sight of those doors connected me to a moment in time that my conscious mind had long forgotten. How does the unconscious choose which moments will be recorded and filed for future flash backs? Are they all recorded? Even this very moment (you reading the blog) could be resurrected by your brain ten years from now, with a simple trigger.  Profound eh? These are the topics were are delving into here at YTT …. (its not all just leg shaking, you know).

Anyway, those doors opened up to a beautiful wide open room .It was the antithesis of what I remembered from my wedding day.  It was quiet & peaceful. No pews, no recognizable faces, no groom.  The room was dimly lit by the spectacular glow of the many candles that were scattered around the room.  Meditation pillows were arranged in a big circle (there are 64 of us and 9 teachers). And an array of different sized candles lit & aesthetically placed in the very center of our circle.  We walked in quietly and selected where we wanted to sit.  Once we all settled down into sukhasana (similar to the Lotus pose), Devarshi (one of the teachers) told the story of Ancient monk traditions.

To make a very long story short……. Ancient yogis (in India) generally practiced in silence & seclusion. They would find an empty cave on the hillsides and enter into these caves to pray & draw themselves closer to samadhi (bliss). These yogis used mala beads to assist them in prayer.  These mala beads are very similar to rosary beads but made of rosewood. There are 108 beads (and one extra….? I don’t ask). The intention is to hold each bead, one at a time, and chant a mantra, once for each bead.  Using voice (chants) raises up ones natural vibrations by combining the vibration of sound-waves. As if this wasn’t enough to digest, our mantra for the night (the one we will chant 108 times) was…” Om Namo Bagavate Vasudevaya”.  Yup! One hundred and eight times.  Loud and with rhythm, nonetheless. As a gift, each of us (yoginis) received a set of Mala beads.

The chant was in all honesty …very beautiful. The power of voice vibrations definitely changed the energy and increased the feeling of aliveness.  I have to admit the first 28 rounds of “Om Namo Bagavate Vasudevaya” sounded more like like a wild jungle but eventually we all got it down pat (or pretended to be singing).

The next piece of the night was incredible but I have to get to class so I’ll have to save that for the next blog.  More about that later…..