Teachers’ Training Course (TTC), Sivananda Kutir, Netala (Uttarkashi)

When I sit in padmasana and closed my eyes to meditate, I visualise fast flowing holy river Ganga (Bhagirathi), Sivananda Ashram, my teachers (Guru) and sometimes batch-mates. I slowly try to drag my mind to my object of meditation but surprisingly it jumps back to the serenity of river Ganga. My mind remains calm while meditating on the river Ganga and the ashram situated near it, may be the time I spent there was the most peaceful time of my life!

Spending one month with the persons of different cultures, age groups, professions and countries was an experience of its own kind. But we all had one thing in common- a very strong desire to learn yoga which might be the reason that we stayed together for 30 days.

The yoga teacher was nice and caring. She explained everything in detail and tried to clear all our doubts. While practicing difficult asanas she encouraged the student to do it in its best possible way, only gave the required support and never let the student fall off even if the student’s weight is too much and the body is too rigid. I was impressed with her on the day we practiced 108 Om Surya Namaskar, she spoke continuously without making a single mistake of left and right side. As I yoga teacher myself, I found it difficult to do.

The teacher who taught Bhagwat Gita always told stories, shared experiences and solved life’s complicated problems in a very simple way. He always encouraged the students to ask more questions. One day a student asked, “If a person moves while doing meditation, does it means his Kundalini is awakened?” He replied, “It means the person is going through a mental or emotional cleaning process and you should help that person.”

The food was sattvik without onion and garlic. Mostly they give south Indian food like idli, appam, idiyapam, rice and sambhar. Sometimes they give north Indian food like rajma rice, chickpea rice and parathas with pea potato veg. On the last day of the course, delicious treat was given which include samosa, gulab jamun, palak paneer, fried papad, ice cream, kheer and rice.

I was proud of my knowledge about yoga and Indian philosophy before joining the course. One of my batch-mates, a foreigner guy could perform much better yoga asanas than me. Not only that, he knew Indian philosophy much more than me. May be God sent him in my life to annihilate my ego!

The air was clean and environment was serene. The mountains, waterfalls, clouds, stars, moon, sun, rains, rainbow were mesmerising. The silent walk in the nature helped me in understanding myself better. The desire to eat delicious food and to surf on internet brought me back in this materialistic world otherwise I would have stayed there forever.

Dear readers, you can read my experience of Sadhana Intensive course here.