| I did it 10 years ago. I left on day 7.
Overall, I'd say the experience was very interesting and unique. When I managed to sit in the same position for an hour - I was ecstatic. I was also sweating profoundly and the pain was unbearable, yet I managed to just examine it, feel it, accept it. I also remember having nightmares involving the meditation center - I clearly remember dreaming that building burning with huge flames and I was happy about it. It was a very vivid, colorful dream. My mind wanted to escape. But then the most difficult part came. My wife was also in the group and we started being sexually attracted to each other starting with day 5 or so.
The inability to speak and even look at each other added to the sparks of desire that have been growing for 5 days of meditation, silence and abstinence. By day 7 the attraction became electric - just a glimpse of her eyes revealed that she was feeling the same way - we were both fighting the sexual force ... Dreams became sexual... We both fought the desire, but eventually we lost the battle - we ran away and had sex. Although nobody has seen us, we felt like we cheated and we couldn't continue the course. So we told the teacher that we can't stay anymore and she mentioned that usually they try to avoid married couples in the same course because of the sexual thing. Another reason for bailing on day 7 was the feeling that I was being brainwashed into accepting this new religion/sect/whatever. The helpers definitely behaved very cultish and I didn't want to become like them - I had a startup to run.
So my mind had this powerful argument - "we're being brainwashed, we have to escape". Anyway, overall it was interesting, even though I haven't achieved whatever I had to achieve on day 10, I think I learned a great deal of lessons about myself, about weakness, desire, love, etc. If you have 10 days, go do it. |