Words are not enough, and there are not enough words

After I posted my rather head-in-the-clouds-la-la-land experience of the camp, I had many friends asking for more details, so I thought I should ground myself a little and explain exactly what went on.

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The mornings would start at 5, with all of us gathering in the Sadhana Room for morning sadhana. We would begin with Japji, do a yoga set lasting approximately an hour, followed by sadhana for the Aquarian age, and end with the Guru Raam Das chant, which is the most beautiful of chants :)

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For the yoga set on the last day we did Bowing Jaap along with the CD by Sat Nirmal – which was a totally different experience compared to the other CD I usually use. Even my friends who were doing this for the first time were energised and kept to it all the way, which is not easy when you have to sit on your heels and keep bowing for 30 minutes! Shanti told me that in Espanola they do this every Saturday morning, with live music from Sat Nirmal herself. Now wouldn't that be something.

After sadhana we would have some dried prashaad and then break for breakfast. Meal times were light and easy, we moved around from table to table to meet various people and then some of us would end up on the beach to stretch out and feel the smooth white sand between our toes.

The women and men would then split to their separate rooms for our morning sessions, which would include a touch of story-telling, a drop of yoga, a spoonful of chanting, and buckets full of inspiration and love. On our side Shanti, Nirvair and Kirn conducted the sessions together and they were seamless – the message was always one and loud and clear. These sessions lasted for about 4 hours and we always came out freash, awake and hungry :)

After lunch we would have another session, similar to the one before. Kirn would warn us before lunch to go easy on the food (always difficult once we saw the spread – all that watermelon!) and then she would make us pay for not heeding her advice :) I think it was a family thing – Guru Chander was just as enthusiastic on the men’s side and they got the children roped in as well as Guru Sandesh and Guru Mitter led us through Nabhi Kriya exactly when all we were hoping for was a good lie down under the palm trees by the beach!

The topics we covered included love, strength, leadership and seva; they drew from Mata Jito Ji, Mai Bhago and our own lives, they taught us to hold relationships and break blocks and exercise our right of being beautiful, bountiful and blissful. Even as I write this I am thinking that this does not even begin to explain what we went through in that time. When the soul goes for a journey like this then words are not enough and there are not enough words.

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Evenings were obviously spent by the beach, where we started of rather sedately with Breathwalk, and then quickly disintegreated into a children’s catching game called Police and Thief. The women thoroughly enjoyed themselves behaving like wild little children running around screaming, exactly how they warn their own children not to behave! On another day we had a face mask feast – Manjit Phenji mixed up some weird concoction of oats and I-don’t-want-to-know-what-else, but it felt pretty good and we had a good scrub-down in the sea after that.

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And then we would eat (again!) before coming together for Rehraas, and after our separate night sessions we would all disperse, although most of us would hang about in the sadhana rooms because it was too difficult to just sudddenly tear away from that energy. We would compare notes and sing songs and gave massages and then when the yawning started we would tread back to our rooms and enter the realm of dreams in which we could pretend that we were still with everyone, sitting together in the Sadhana Room, singing Guru Guru Vahe Guru, Guru Raam Das Guru, and celebrating the wonders of this beautiful world.

The soul sang and the spirit soared :)

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To view more memories of the camp (and some embarassing candid vidoes!), please click here.

A Celebration of Dignity, Divinity, and Grace

We have had such an intensely beautiful time over the past week – just before camp our guests came from the U.S. and we had the honour of hosting some of them. Our time together in KL was quite rushed; still I celebrated every joyous moment spent in their company.

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Nirvair Kaur, Shanti Kaur and Mataji

Guru Chander Singh and Nirvair Singh

As for the camp itself, I currently face the dilemma of wanting so much to share how powerful and significant it was for me, but I am stuck as I know not how I can ever do it justice by trying to describe such an experience in words.

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I could show you pictures - they say a picture speaks a thousand words, but there are still not enough words to describe an experience. You have to be there and hear the rhythm of your breath with your own ears and see the radiance on other faces with your own eyes and chant Guru’s praises with your own lips and sense your muscles tense as you stretch out and feel your fingers tingle as you bring your palms together in prayer pose. That feeling even a thousand pictures cannot express.

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(For the record, we have 262 photos that will be up on an online photo album soon – I will post the link once they are ready :p)

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At the women’s end we had Shanti Kaur, Nirvair Kaur and Kirn Kaur and my god it could not have been more perfect – it was bliss, grace and live wire blended together. On our journey together we discovered strength and grace, love and power, leadership and inspiration. And from what Pitaji and Hargobind tell me, the men had nothing less from Nirvair Singh and Guru Chander Singh.

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Over the 4 days we meditated, listened, shared, did yoga, chanted, stretched, bonded, learnt to identify all the muscles in our bodies as they were pulled one by one, sang, laughed, learnt, hugged, played Police and Thief (lols!), got massages, gave massages, loved, healed, experienced. And even after 4 days they had us pleading for more.

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Breathwalk warm-ups by the beach

In the pages of my life, that weekend comes under the ‘Truly Unforgettable and Life-changing’ category.

And just like that, as quickly as they came, everyone is gone. To apply a well-used oxymoron: the silence is truly deafening. I had grown accustomed to having the house filled with the spirit of our friends, and now that they are gone it feels empty and a little lonely.

To dearest Shanti Kaur, Nirvair Kaur, Kirn Kaur, Nirvair Singh and Guru Chander Singh: our home and family has been blessed blessed blessed by your beautiful and warm presence, thank you so very much for gracing our lives with all your love. Even if it is some time before we meet again, I am comforted in knowing that our souls had the chance to meet yours in this lifetime.

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with Kirn, Guru Mitter and Nirvair

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To my lovely parents - thank you for making this happen, you will never know how much this experience has touched us.

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The next camps will be in 2009. Until then, my cells have locked on to the experiences I had, and I will live in the light of all that love we shared.

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Satnam