Igatpuri- Vipassana Meditation Centre

This is the meditation hall where I spent a good 9 hours a day practising anapana meditation to still and focus the mind (this involves focusing on the area around the nose, noticing the sensations on the surface of the skin. We did this for 4 days until our mind had become very aware, focused and atuned) and vipassana meditation in which we focused on the sensations on the entire body, starting from the top of the head and moving down the body. After 2 days of this I felt waves of vibrations all over the body. At this point we were taught to move our awareness in a sweeping motion from top to bottom and bottom to top of the body. At times my whole body shook (some people are said to actually jump on the spot and shake violently), I had strong fevers while meditating and sometimes strong emotional reactions. I likened it to a mind detoxification.
Some amusing side effects were songs that stuck in my head, to which I knew all the lyrics including Spandau Ballet, who I've never actively listened to in my life. I also had a day when I got ideas and images for a novel which I really do plan to write (a historical sci-fi, a cross between Margaret Atwood's 'A Handmaid's Tale' and Harry Potter?!).
Not talking for 9 days was a pleasure, I didn't find it hard at all. In fact, having to talk on day 10 was one of the most traumatic events of my life. Also I didn't have any cravings for any missing foods, drinks, fags etc. By day 6 I had halved my appetite and was only needing about 3 hours sleep a night (quite common in regular meditators apparently).
My compassion rates soared: on day one I was close to killing all the women in the room who 'disturbed' my meditation by coughing. On day 7 or 8, when one of the loudest started spluttering I thought, 'That poor woman sounds really sick'.
I would recommend one of these 10 day courses to anyone interested in the way their mind works, the relationship between mind and body (mind and matter), anyone who has difficulty living with their thoughts or who suffers from stress, depression... I haven't changed in some dramatic way into the calm, happy, tolerant and non-irritable person I would like to be, but I do feel somewhat more at ease with the thoughts and feelings that sometimes bother me. I think I'm beginning to allow those thoughts to go on in the background and to realise that they are not really 'me'.
This is the gong that summoned us to the hall at 4am and at intermitent periods throughout the day until 9pm.









This is my cushion- I sat on it for many hours and experienced quite a lot of pain on it. One day my mind convinced intself that my thigh would actually break if I didn't move (we had to sit entirely still for 1 hour, 3 times a day which was a challenge. I managed it 4 only times).

This is R block, where my little bedroom was. Very comfortable it was too- with hot buckets baths available every morning.

The view from the path that I spent my free time looking at: