I was introduced to Karunamayi, a living Saint from India, about two years ago. My meditation teacher was the one who told me about her. After my first darshan, or blessing, with her I became vegetarian. All desire to eat meat or fish was totally lifted from me. When I asked her a blessing, becoming a vegetarian was not on my list! I don’t know why this happened. All I can say is that ever since that day over two years, I have had a few bites of fish and none of meat or chicken.
When I received my second darshan last year, my husband joked and asked if I would become vegan. Nothing of the sort happened. I did cry for no apparent reason, which had happened the previous year. But aside from that, I didn’t feel anything drastic had happened or changed for me.
This year, I had family from Spain visiting me. I was not able to attend the darshan but the opportunity to participate in a half day meditation workshop opened up. One of my friends was curious about meeting her and decided to join me. As we drove there bright and early, we told each other that we didn’t have any expectations. We declared that we were fully open to experience and whatever would happen that day. We were so full of shit. Of course we had expectations!
The workshop started one hour later than what was on the website. We didn’t receive any instruction on how to meditate. We spent maybe 90 minutes in her presence which included one hour with our eyes closed meditating. Darshan wasn’t part of the program. We left disappointed.
However, the next morning I realized that I had, indeed, been given an unexpected gift. During the workshop, we practiced yoga. It was a special sequence that Amma developed. When we practiced it, I felt something. I don’t know what it was, but it was something. I did have an internal debate before purchasing the book, Yoga Is Union. The Yoga of Amma Sri Karunamayi. The book contained the sequence and also a lot more information. I have never been able to maintain a home yoga practice, despite a 300 hour Yoga Alliance certification and other workshops that I have taken focused on developing a home practice.
Shockingly enough to me, I have been practicing the sequence nearly every day. Even more shockingly, I have had the desire to teach the sequence to friends. I taught to two friends last week and will be teaching it again this week. I don’t think they have had the same experience with it as I have but they told me they have enjoyed it.
I’ve begun to read the book. The author Darin Somma, who was the one who led the practice at the workshop, writes “Everyone I have the fortune of sharing this practice with has told how profound their experience is, even yoga teachers with more than 60 years of experience have told me that Amma’s teachings revolutionized their practice!” I don’t know if my practice is revolutionized. I will keep you posted 🙂
JudiesJuice 