Om

This past weekend I participated in a Yoga "inner engineering" retreat/workshop thingy. I had seen the posters around town for the workshop with "Sadhguru" and I thought it looked kind of silly (and I thought he looked like an Indian Santa - big white beard), but my boss suggested it.
I decided to for 3 reasons: first, I thought it would make my boss happy; second, it would be a classic "India" experience; and third, I didn't have anything else planned.
So, after 2 1/2 days (Friday from 6-9:30, Saturday from 8:30-7:30 and Sunday from 7:30-8) I am not enlightened and my body hurts like you wouldn't believe, but overall it was worth it and I'm glad I went.
In a nut-shell the purpose of the weekend was to teach us (the participants) a 20-minute yoga technique; not exercise type yoga, this is all about the spirit, the guru was very anti the exercise type yoga. We learned the technique slowly over the few days with the guru giving talks in between.
The talks were somewhat interesting, most of it was obvious to me so I tuned out a bit, but he was a good speaker and told some good jokes. The yoga technique was actually very interesting and you could really feel a difference in your body. We did the Om chanting, which is actually "aom" and he explained it over about a half hour why you do it and how it affects your body and I actually felt myself getting warm just sitting and chanting; crazy, huh!
The very short version of why you do it is to balance yourself out.
For me what was really interesting was seeing the types of people in attendance. There were about 500 people and almost all of them were very successful business men/women; doctors, lawyers, etc. I seriously doubt that if you were to offer a workshop on "inner engineering" in the US that you would have doctors and lawyers enrolling. There were a few random westerners interspersed who looked like they had come to India to find themselves; they were dressed in traditional Indian clothing and looked very, as I like to say, "earthy crunchy". Then there was me. Western, dressed in western clothing and doing my thing.
The questions that people asked Sadhguru were also interesting to me, mostly that they really believed that this man could answer all of their questions and fix their problems in one weekend. Two gems: "Why was the world created" Answer: "Why are you asking me, I didn't create it". and: "What is the universal consciousnesses" Answer: "We can't know the whole universe so how can we know that". The guru had quite a sense of humor. He was not interested in religion or knowing everything, more about knowing ourselves and how to bring balance to ourselves. Although he did say that cows feel human emotion...he kind of lost me on that one.
And...on Sunday morning the day started with everyone outside for about an hour playing dodgeball and other games. To me, no big deal (except that I couldn't play since my foot still hurts on occasion, esp after a day of yoga-ing and there was no way I was going to have a ball thrown at it); we play games like that back home quite often, throwing a frisbee, softball, even hiking or sledding in the winter, physical activity and games are just a part of life. After this was over people kept saying that it had been years and years since they had played games like that, it was literally a completely new experience to so many. I just couldn't relate at all to that whole section of the weekend. I think I've commented before that I rarely see Indians exercising, on occasion a cricket game but people here (especially those with money) are, from what I see, decidedly not athletic.
But, all in all a good weekend, a bit too spiritual at times for me, but I definitely learned from it. It would be really interesting to do the same type of workshop back home and see if I got more from it. I think I might since the questions people asked I would probably relate to more.
Now the real question is...will I actually do the 20 minutes of yoga a day? I'm going to try. I did feel better after (internally, externally my body is not used to folding up like that) and especially in India where everything is so loud and busy at all times, it would be good for me to take a half hour to relax and be calm. And Sadhguru seemed very down to earth (not that I've met many gurus) and seemed very focused on helping others and has started projects to help rural Indians in very positive and realistic ways which I liked so I'll try his technique out.
If you want to see a picture of the Santa-looking guru, this is their website: ww.ishafoundation.org