Namaste,

I am practicing yoga at Dhriti yoga for the last 8 months. Recently I had been to a retreat in the Krishnamurthi study center (Valley school) and Satya requested me to share the experience. I know it is as tough as describing water –liquid, tasteless, colorless, quenches thirst, H2O – all these won’t make you experience water unless you drink water. The same is the case with a retreat too.

It is a Krishnamurthi’s study center (www.kfistudy.org) situated in Kanakapura road (12 km from JP Nagar), Bangalore .The retreat is for three nights and four days and happens in a 100 acres campus. The total expense for stay and food is Rs.1900/- Each participant is allocated to a well ventilated individual cottage.  The cottage is surrounded by hills, lakes, trees, monkeys, insects, rabbits and so on. You are disconnected from city, internet, TV, newspaper, mobile, laptop, blackberry, family, regular exercise, office-work, home-work, traffic and all.  Here you play games (outdoor), do morning nature walk, observe sunrise and sunset, trek, campfire, play with mud, moon gaze etc. Obviously, now you will have plenty of time and start looking at your life and ask basic questions – where am I heading to? What have I missed all these days? What have I really wanted to do in life and ended? Have I forgotten to hear the sound of birds, sound of fire? Have I forgotten to smell the leaves? Have I forgotten to walk on grass? Have I forgotten to see the trees, sunrise, and nature?  Can I enjoy and eat food?  Are our senses still alive? Does night, silence, darkness have beauty? Do I really need to compete with peers? Can I live without comparison?  Can I be different?

Also there is a library with good collections of Krishanmurthi’s teachings and some planned videos screening and discussion forums of the theme – the theme I went was for the art of meditation and fear.  There is no yoga, pranayama, mantras, prayer in this rejuvenation. I would put it in short as self-awareness and re-discovering our childhood days. The last but not the least, the food was delicious. I would recommend for one time.

Hari OM

Krishna Pillai