Watch your breath..it can set you free

Tucked away in a picture-postcard locale amid India's western ghats is an institution which has been quietly teaching thousands the real art of living for the last 40 years. For free.

Every fortnight, about 500 saadhaks (students) walk into this island of serenity next to Igatpuri station--a stop on India's first railway line built by the British in 1853 from Mumbai to Nashik. For 10 days, these saadhaks observe complete silence of body and mind and learn to live life according to pure dharma--the universal laws--which, when practiced enough, leads to Nirvana.

First discovered 2500 years ago by Siddharth Gautam--the Indian prince who renounced worldly treasures in search of the reason for human suffering--this art of meditation is called Vipassana, a Pali (Sanskrit dialect) term for seeing things just as they truly are, and not how they seem to be.

That famous night, when Siddharth meditated all night under a pipal tree in Bodh Gaya, he realized that all human suffering is a result of ignorance. As he learnt the 'truth', he became the "Buddha" (the enlightened one) as we know him now.

Buddha realized that it is due to our ignorance that we continuously react to inputs provided by our senses with either craving or aversion. He discovered that as one watches one's breath long enough, the senses turn inwards, and one can sharpen the mind enough to pierce through the innermost layer's of one's consciousness. Once there, you can observe these bodily sensations (created by the mind), and if you observe these sensations objectively--with the knowledge that everything in the world is impermanent--they just die down. And when you continue to do so, even previous impressions (samskaras) of cravings and aversion come to the fore of consciousness and are eradicated. When all such past impressions (collectively called one's karma) are erased, you realise the ultimate truth and are freed from the cycle of birth and death, thus attaining Nirvana, or moksha.

Buddha was eager to share this incredible discovery with the multitudes who he could not bear to see suffer all through life due to this ignorance. He taught Vipassana for 45 years, till his demise in 554 B.C. The technique spread far and wide and millions benefited from it for the next 500 years. However, as rituals of different religions and sects took precedence, the real technique disappeared from India and most other countries. It survived in just one country--Burma--where a group of monks continued to hand over the technique from one generation to another in the famed Guru-Shishya (Master-Disciple) tradition.

In 1959, Satyanarayana Goenka, a maarwari businessman based in Burma, went to these monks to learn this meditation technique to see if it could cure his unbearable migraine problem. In the 10 days that he learnt Vipassana, not only did his migraine vanish, but he also reached the Nirvanic stage. Overwhelmed by the power of the technique, he came to India to teach the same to his ailing parents. Seeing the benefits, an ever-increasing number of people started coming to him to learn this powerful form of meditation. This grew to a stage where he decided to stay back and spread the practice in a country that had originally given birth to it.

He started a centre in Igatpuri in 1967. Today, there are almost 70 such centres run by the institution Goenka founded--Vipassana International--including the Americas, Europe, Australia and Africa. In each of these centres, for all 10 days of the course, lodging (which is pretty decent with everything provided for), 3 meals a day and the teaching are all free of charge. They are paid for by donations from past students only--a miracle in itself--since the organization does not take any donations from outside. Past students also come and serve as 'Dhamma Sevaks', assisting in the running of these courses.

Despite its success, the organization keeps such a low profile that no advertisements about the organization, Mr. Goenka, or the courses appear anywhere. Ever.

However, an ever-increasing number of those aspiring to learn Vipassana--from across the world and across all classes and religions--continue coming in to these centres, and the donations keep flowing in. Consequently, the practice of one of the world's most ancient and dogma-free meditation techniques is spreading--relentlessly. The latest proof of this is the Global Pagoda, a centre coming up off Mumbai's shores, where over 8000 people will be able to meditate in one go!