10 days out of a busy schedule
I took 10 days out of my busy schedule and attended a Meditation course at a Centre in Herefordshire. I was determined to come away with wisdom achieved through my own experience. I realised that Christianity as I had been practising it was based on wisdom and teachings gleaned from someone else’s experience and direction. I was searching for a truth of my own. I sought emancipation from a moralistic, ritualistic, guilt ridden means of worship. Determined as I was nothing could have prepared me for the ten days that lay ahead of me.
The coach trip was uneventful; I entertained myself with music from my MP3 and the changing landscape. A fellow passenger was also making her way to the centre. She had already completed a ten day course and this was her third visit to the centre. I felt slightly out of my depth and pondered the prospect of having to return on numerous occasions having failed to find a release to the pressures of life?
On disembarking from the coach we took a bus to the top of a country lane where we were picked up by car. It was cold and drizzling with rain when I eventually entered the basically furnished dining room with eight or more long tables and benches. Looking around the room I realised how young the participants were. They were like the open minded, eco-friendly, well travelled back packers I had encountered on my trip to Thailand.
The rules, regulations and itinerary for each day were explained to us as was the fact that it would be hard work and unwise to leave before the end of the course. For my part the most alien aspects of the rules were:- no talking for the full 10 days, no contact with the outside world (so mobiles were handed in), no reading or listening to music, adapting to vegetarian meals and finally sharing a room with a silent stranger.
Men and women had separate living and dining quarters and when meditating we were positioned on opposite sides of the meditation hall.
Once I had adjusted my mind to the initial peculiarities of submission to the technique. I gave myself over to fully observing and practising the meditation technique within the 10 day period
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