Photo: LULU.RE

A couple of months before my Australian and European adventures during the summer and fall of 2007, I had decided on a whim to participate in a retreat at Amma’s ashram in San Ramon, CA.

For those who don’t know Amma, she is known as the “hugging guru,” an Indian woman who travels all over the world and gives everyone who comes to her ashram during her open visits a heartfelt hug.

The feeling a person gets from her hug is almost impossible to explain; it might be likened to how people who had their feet washed by Jesus must have felt, or those who heard dharma directly from Buddha’s mouth.

There is a clearing of the mind that occurs, a brightening of the sky, a calmness of the heart and a release of anxiety. The headache I had with me all morning and afternoon was gone instantaneously after she pulled me in close. It defined for me in a sort of “concrete” way all the commotion around being spiritual.

Create Your Own Clarity

Of course, I was lucky enough to live within daily driving distance of Amma’s first American ashram, and not everyone is so lucky. But what those three days taught me more than anything else was taking time to simply be.

The rest of my time at the retreat was spent meditating, doing Amma’s particular form of yoga, and sitting in the sun, being mesmerized by the people and nature which surrounded me.

And when I participated in my friend’s meditation group the following week, this clarity and calmness came back to me as we finished our session. For a moment I imagined Amma had hugged me once again, so clear I felt, but then I realized it was about what I created within myself.

I had the ability to access this feeling whenever I wanted to. The retreat had given me the chance to develop a skill I previously did not possess, but the retreat did not hand me something that was not mine to begin with.

Like any skill that we begin to cultivate, we must continue to practice both to make it stronger and to keep it from sliding into the recesses of our brains.

It is pretty amazing how little it actually takes to stay connected to oneself.

Developing Your Practice

For health purposes, most experts agree on 20-30 minutes of meditation twice a day, while I find even taking three long, deep breaths before I eat help to keep me on the path.

Photo: Ragesoss

And finding what works for you–prayer, meditation, deep breathing, yoga, qi gong, being present to walking in the woods, or a combination of these–is the single most important aspect to sticking to your practice.

Be sure to carve out a time each day to give what truly is a gift to your own self. Although it can be easy to override those 10 minutes in the morning with the busyness of trying to get out the door, and at night when you barely have time to clean up after dinner before getting the kids to bed and finishing off that report, know that in the long term, this practice will benefit your entire life–mind, body, and soul, in immeasurable ways.

The cumulative affects will keep that pesky blood pressure down, that time-consuming heart attack at bay, and help your immune system fight off those bothersome cancerous tumors. Not to mention the fact that you might actually get along better with your kids (AND parents, AND spouse), be more productive at work, and feel a little more glass-half-full. And really, don’t we all need more calm in our lives?