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Camp was nothing like what I thought it would be. I was expecting a lot of action, a lot of testing, trying and eye-opening experiences. But camp turned out to be more than that in many ways. Many vague ideas and incomplete thoughts turned into real, concrete knowledge for me. Swami M has a real special way of explaining and communicating which delivered to me in a most satisfying way. I fell in love with him and with spirituality all over again, and that was a pretty amazing feeling.
Leading activities was a relatively new experience for me, and I was intimidated, though excited. The camp group was a challenging bunch – sceptical and perceptive. I had to consciously tell myself not to give up, but try different ways to communicate the activities to everyone the best way I could. I kept telling myself that it wasn’t about me, or how good or bad I was at it, but about everyone benefiting from the activities and learn whatever they could.
Two of the things I loved best about camp were the self-reflection period where we had to go off and be alone in silent reflection and the meditation on Sunday morning. They were both very fulfilling in ways I cannot explain and hence, I won’t try to.
I also loved the Sunday session with Swamiji where I learnt a lot more about Hindu culture and got a lot of things cleared. Have I mentioned how much I love him?
I really enjoyed the night walk. I love nature, I love the dark, and I absolutely adore rain. So it was my three most favourite things all put together. It was beyond beautiful. This is possibly very embarrassing, but I was smiling to myself and talking to the trees in my head during the walk. I also skipped along a couple of metres just for the fun of it.
What I find really fascinating about these camps is the number of like-minded people you find whom you can connect to and learn from. I sincerely appreciate everyone who was there, adding to each other’s experiences. I hope everyone took away some form of inspiration from the camp as I did. Here’s a magic hug for each one of you! *hugggg*
A big thanks to Venu, Samyuktha and everyone else who helped organize the camp. It was amazing. I would like to encourage all you newbies to give Chyk class a shot and see how you like it. We have quite a lot of fun. Also, the concert on Sunday is going to be quite enjoyable. Prabhat is very talented and the bhajans on the list are very catchy and easy to follow, so if you have the time, do drop by.
Camp Reflections
For once, this is not about Army Camp! I came up with the camp theme. That is shorthand for a "million different occurrences conspired together resulting in an email being sent, bearing the name Chinmaya, telling Samyuktha to settle on that theme for a camp". I like shorthands.
The camp started out with quite an adventure. It started out with two disappointments. Gladly, I wasn't too shaken by them and held on to my "how can I make this fun?" mantra. With regards to the second one, I got the wrong directions and got lost and ended up here:
It is an abandoned landscaping agency or something.
Then ran down the slope in the next picture. I forgot I wasn't in my army boots. The grass is a few inched high.
As I watched the movie, I picked out a bunch of thoughts which appealed to me.
During the american football game which the dude keeps getting knocked down repeatedly, his dad exclaims "You sure got guts but you gotta know when to quit".
With reference to the boy finding inspiration from the launch of Sputnik, his dad again comments, "What are they accomplishing anyway, it's nothing but a stunt". It hit me especially hard since I'm a magician and all that we do are simply stunts. However, by that simplistic view, would life saving surgery be reduced to just educated sleight-of-hand?
On another occasion, someone asks Homer, "You don't give up do you?" To which he answers, "I can't"
When he is about to approach the "nerd friend" during lunch break and his friends remind him about his impending drop in social status due to other's perception of his actions, he remarks "Who cares what any of them think?" (Note to self)
I believe when he's at a nightclub with another guy dancing with his favourite girl (don't need special efforts to empathise with that) the song in the background goes something like "Many a tear has to fall but its all in the game. Many a wonderful game."
Those are pretty much my significant highlights of the movie. Draw your own meanings from them.
In essence, I think what the games taught us can be summed up in a (slightly twisted) interpretation of VI:35 of the Bhagavad Geeta :
Undoubtedly, O mighty armed, it is very difficult to control the ever moving mind. However, O son of Kunti, through sincere practice and dispassionate detachment (vairagya), it can be achieved.
Source: http://www.hinduwebsite.com/gita6.asp
The answer to many of our inabilities lies in practice. Mastery is then acheived when this sincere practice (with sufficient experience) is coupled with a sense of detachment. Try it in your endeavours.
When it comes to awareness practice, I realised that my mind needs to be tired out a little before I can acheive that state. During the walk, my mind was kind of hyper and that blocked out the fear. I personally do not rationally belive in the supernatural. But the instincts are quite strong (I'll get to this later on). Even the army didn't let me get wet like I did that day. It was fun and we were high spirited at the end.
Regarding Shiva's face, O Vaidehi (this sounds soo like Ramayan. Vaidehi is another name of Sita), he popped an anti-histamine and had the control to not scratch. (I miss him =/ )
One of the lessons I could have learnt was how a saint's mood/cheerfulness is typically independent of their health. I was falling sick so didn't feel like playing too much. Everyone probably agreed and didn't bother me much. I just watched =/.
Apart from meditation, Swamiji gave us a talk about Hinduism. It was not totally new to me but I know you guys would have learnt alot from it. He put his points across nicely. (At this point my inner atheist wants to say something but that is for another post). Perhaps you might want to check out "Who is a Hindu?" by Koenraad Elst right here Its scholarly and dense but very eye opening.
By the way, here is my pencil case. I wrote those words with fabric paint around the time when I was fifteen :
The sentiment is still there deep inside. And the bigger picture?
Recall that Swamiji said something along the lines of "when a religion reaches a certain level of maturity and is finally accomodating of all levels of society, you get Hinduism". I shared my thoughts about convergent evolution. Ill make it clearer here. Convergent evolution is said to have happened when two different species, due to the need to adapt to the same environment, evolve the exact same kinds of features. Perhaps a bunch of images will make this clearer (omniscient wikipedia).
The top one is a Humming Bird. The bottom one a hummingbird moth. You can find other examples too and sociologists would also tell you about such parallels when it comes to different cultures.
While having a late morning tea, I had an extended conversation with HariOm, but that too is a topic for another post.
For me I think, the Zip Line or Flying Fox was an opportunity to consolidate alot of things which I learnt. It brought out my nurturing instincts. I felt very fulfilled everytime I helped someone off the cable and back on stable ground. Not a huge deal but warm and fuzzy nonetheless. Also about fear. When I showed Roshni a magic trick (which I had not practised so well), she noticed my hands trembling a little and asked me about it. That trembling is caused by the fear of getting caught. Even experienced magicians get it once in a while. When I was on the tower, Rohini was behind me, she showed me her hand and it was the exact same trembling. Its very much an instinct. I have been in this situation alot of times, when performing a new (risque) trick in front of a sceptical audience or (erhem) chatting up a *nice* stranger on the bus. One of the most effective solution, is to not analyse the situation, as much as people might tell you that analysing will convince you how baseless your fear is an will help you overcome it. The analysis is to be done before the fear sets in so you have an improved awareness of it. A product of this should be an action plan, however simplistic.
When you are at the top of the tower, perhaps you should not be telling yourself how safe the tower is, whether you have done it before, that *God* is there to save you etc. The single pointed thought should be "JUMP". Try it the next time you are afraid. Focus on the next step and plunge into action. I would bring your attention to what Vaidehi said in her post "Disclaimer, this does not apply to injections of any sort - they are all just as evil as you fear they are going to be."
I beg to differ. It applies to injections as well. Take it from me, I've had thick needles poked into my arms repeatedly, not to inject painkillers, but for my buddy's "target practice". When being injected, I tell myself to simply be aware of the pain, and although it does not reduce it in anyway, it becomes surreal. Fundamentally, all the knowledge you get from your spiritual quest should be liberally applied everywhere in your life. The reason why I keep saying "that sounds alot like a magic trick" is because I have learnt so much from performing and creating magic that I feel it has enriched my life as a whole. During Kokila's Win-Win game, you might recall me adding that "we did not think in that manner because we were operating on a set of hidden assumptions", no prizes for guessing where I learnt that from. You will not get the link immediately but that doesn't mean I'll explain it further my revealing how I did that trick =P.
Cheers.
I hope you learnt and enjoyed the camp as much as I did.
The camp started out with quite an adventure. It started out with two disappointments. Gladly, I wasn't too shaken by them and held on to my "how can I make this fun?" mantra. With regards to the second one, I got the wrong directions and got lost and ended up here:
It is an abandoned landscaping agency or something.
Then ran down the slope in the next picture. I forgot I wasn't in my army boots. The grass is a few inched high.
As I watched the movie, I picked out a bunch of thoughts which appealed to me.
During the american football game which the dude keeps getting knocked down repeatedly, his dad exclaims "You sure got guts but you gotta know when to quit".
With reference to the boy finding inspiration from the launch of Sputnik, his dad again comments, "What are they accomplishing anyway, it's nothing but a stunt". It hit me especially hard since I'm a magician and all that we do are simply stunts. However, by that simplistic view, would life saving surgery be reduced to just educated sleight-of-hand?
On another occasion, someone asks Homer, "You don't give up do you?" To which he answers, "I can't"
When he is about to approach the "nerd friend" during lunch break and his friends remind him about his impending drop in social status due to other's perception of his actions, he remarks "Who cares what any of them think?" (Note to self)
I believe when he's at a nightclub with another guy dancing with his favourite girl (don't need special efforts to empathise with that) the song in the background goes something like "Many a tear has to fall but its all in the game. Many a wonderful game."
Those are pretty much my significant highlights of the movie. Draw your own meanings from them.
In essence, I think what the games taught us can be summed up in a (slightly twisted) interpretation of VI:35 of the Bhagavad Geeta :
Undoubtedly, O mighty armed, it is very difficult to control the ever moving mind. However, O son of Kunti, through sincere practice and dispassionate detachment (vairagya), it can be achieved.
Source: http://www.hinduwebsite.com/gita6.asp
The answer to many of our inabilities lies in practice. Mastery is then acheived when this sincere practice (with sufficient experience) is coupled with a sense of detachment. Try it in your endeavours.
When it comes to awareness practice, I realised that my mind needs to be tired out a little before I can acheive that state. During the walk, my mind was kind of hyper and that blocked out the fear. I personally do not rationally belive in the supernatural. But the instincts are quite strong (I'll get to this later on). Even the army didn't let me get wet like I did that day. It was fun and we were high spirited at the end.
Regarding Shiva's face, O Vaidehi (this sounds soo like Ramayan. Vaidehi is another name of Sita), he popped an anti-histamine and had the control to not scratch. (I miss him =/ )
One of the lessons I could have learnt was how a saint's mood/cheerfulness is typically independent of their health. I was falling sick so didn't feel like playing too much. Everyone probably agreed and didn't bother me much. I just watched =/.
Apart from meditation, Swamiji gave us a talk about Hinduism. It was not totally new to me but I know you guys would have learnt alot from it. He put his points across nicely. (At this point my inner atheist wants to say something but that is for another post). Perhaps you might want to check out "Who is a Hindu?" by Koenraad Elst right here Its scholarly and dense but very eye opening.
By the way, here is my pencil case. I wrote those words with fabric paint around the time when I was fifteen :
The sentiment is still there deep inside. And the bigger picture?
Recall that Swamiji said something along the lines of "when a religion reaches a certain level of maturity and is finally accomodating of all levels of society, you get Hinduism". I shared my thoughts about convergent evolution. Ill make it clearer here. Convergent evolution is said to have happened when two different species, due to the need to adapt to the same environment, evolve the exact same kinds of features. Perhaps a bunch of images will make this clearer (omniscient wikipedia).
The top one is a Humming Bird. The bottom one a hummingbird moth. You can find other examples too and sociologists would also tell you about such parallels when it comes to different cultures.
While having a late morning tea, I had an extended conversation with HariOm, but that too is a topic for another post.
For me I think, the Zip Line or Flying Fox was an opportunity to consolidate alot of things which I learnt. It brought out my nurturing instincts. I felt very fulfilled everytime I helped someone off the cable and back on stable ground. Not a huge deal but warm and fuzzy nonetheless. Also about fear. When I showed Roshni a magic trick (which I had not practised so well), she noticed my hands trembling a little and asked me about it. That trembling is caused by the fear of getting caught. Even experienced magicians get it once in a while. When I was on the tower, Rohini was behind me, she showed me her hand and it was the exact same trembling. Its very much an instinct. I have been in this situation alot of times, when performing a new (risque) trick in front of a sceptical audience or (erhem) chatting up a *nice* stranger on the bus. One of the most effective solution, is to not analyse the situation, as much as people might tell you that analysing will convince you how baseless your fear is an will help you overcome it. The analysis is to be done before the fear sets in so you have an improved awareness of it. A product of this should be an action plan, however simplistic.
When you are at the top of the tower, perhaps you should not be telling yourself how safe the tower is, whether you have done it before, that *God* is there to save you etc. The single pointed thought should be "JUMP". Try it the next time you are afraid. Focus on the next step and plunge into action. I would bring your attention to what Vaidehi said in her post "Disclaimer, this does not apply to injections of any sort - they are all just as evil as you fear they are going to be."
I beg to differ. It applies to injections as well. Take it from me, I've had thick needles poked into my arms repeatedly, not to inject painkillers, but for my buddy's "target practice". When being injected, I tell myself to simply be aware of the pain, and although it does not reduce it in anyway, it becomes surreal. Fundamentally, all the knowledge you get from your spiritual quest should be liberally applied everywhere in your life. The reason why I keep saying "that sounds alot like a magic trick" is because I have learnt so much from performing and creating magic that I feel it has enriched my life as a whole. During Kokila's Win-Win game, you might recall me adding that "we did not think in that manner because we were operating on a set of hidden assumptions", no prizes for guessing where I learnt that from. You will not get the link immediately but that doesn't mean I'll explain it further my revealing how I did that trick =P.
Cheers.
I hope you learnt and enjoyed the camp as much as I did.
Mastering MY inner game
Hari Om!
Our closing session for Camp left a few loose ends and quite a few unanswered questions. Chinmaya’s and Kinjal’s question, “What did this camp have anything to do with Mastering your Inner Game?” hit me hard and made me think harder about the lessons we could draw from the various camp activities. The question surprised me more than anything. The thematic connection seemed obvious enough to me in my head. But for camp to really leave a deep and meaningful mark on any of us, the need for conscious reflection is necessary.
So allow me to share my camp highlights. I will also draw references to some of the points Swami M raised during the 5 day yagna prior to camp. For those of you who didn’t attend it, the series of talks was about the lessons we can learn from nature.
The camp activity that had the most impact on me was the Win-Lose or Win-Win game conducted by Koki.
I always like to think of myself as someone willing to compromise, someone always looking for the win-win in any situation. But we all have a tendency to think the better of ourselves, don’t we? The fact of the matter is, I am pretty competitive and comparative, and in any competition, someone has to win and someone has to lose and someone is always better or worse. I’d like to blame my competitive and comparative streak on the Singapore government and its ‘kiasu’ machinery, and say that everyone around me is like that and that if I want to survive and stay ahead of the game, I need to win, I need to be better than the next person. But blaming government ideology and circumstance would be taking the easy way out. I need to grow in spite of circumstance. And like Swamiji said, if the purpose of life is to realize our full potential, then mastering my inner game becomes all the more crucial. I must realize that I need to measure myself against nobody else’s yardstick but my own. The game of life, the competition of life, is not without, is not outside, but within. It takes a strong mind to be able to live life by our own standards while balancing our duties towards those around us.
There’s an interesting analogy of the moon that Swamiji highlighted during his 5 day talks.
The moon, from our perspective is constantly changing. The waxing and waning of the moon suggests that moon is sometimes small, and sometimes large. But in actual fact, it is not the moon that changes, but our perception of it that changes. The moon remains constant, its size never diminishes. Similarly, we need to realize that we (Brahman, our soul/consciousness if you like) are constant and that it is only others’ perception of us that changes. In the eyes of others, we will always be better or worse. The comparison never ends. However, if we hold on to the notion that our full potential is constant, lying dormant within us and waiting to be realized, then the dynamic of life changes. We will live our lives with the awareness that striving to become a better person doesn’t have to be at the expense of anybody else. We’re all dormant winners and we should help each other bring out the winner in us!
*pant pant* Sorry for that long ramble. I hope some of it makes sense.
The other major lesson I’ve taken away from camp is from the movie October Sky: Maximizing your full potential doesn’t mean having to do something phenomenally groundbreaking like sending a rocket up to space. As long as you do whatever you do well and with utmost focus, commitment and dedication, you can be said to have fulfilled your potential. Simply put, whatever you do, do it well, even if it’s mining coal. In the movie, we see that Homer saw his father as his hero and inspiration because of his dedication to his field of work. The father was a good coal miner and a good leader; he went out of his way to protect his workers from harm, even putting his own life at risk.
So how does this link to mastering our inner game? Simple. The ability to do anything well requires mental, emotional and physical discipline. Mastering our inner game will also give us clarity of vision in recognizing our life’s calling, our passion, and allow us to channel that passion against all odds, even if it requires breaking the mould, stereotypes, labels and limitations placed on us by the outside world.
My night walk experience was similar to Vaid’s. I’m not easily creeped out by the thought of ghosts and spirits, but I am afraid of being attacked by wild animals and creepy crawlies. When it started raining...I was afraid that the winds and rain would drop a snake on my head or something. Haha. Um. What?! It’s highly plausible. Think about it. Snake lying on branch. Gust of wind. Snake falls to ground and onto my head. I also did the entire walk with my right hand shielding my face...sort of a defensive stance in order to minimize my shock towards the assigned scares along the way. Like I was telling Vaidehi, degree of scare is proportionate to degree of flailing of hands. So I was trying to minimise my hand movements. If that makes any sense... (By the way, Shiva, how is your face? The swelling went down?)
Ok that’s about it (: I really enjoyed camp, all of you were fantastic company and a lot of fun to be around. Hope we keep in touch and see each other more often! Add me on facebook!! :D
Lowe,
Jainy
P.S. There’s a bhajan/classical music concert happening at the centre on 14th September from 6.30 to 8pm. Prabhat Rao, a talented 18 year old musician from London will be leading the session. I encourage all of you to come!! Look out for the poster and details in your inboxes.
Our closing session for Camp left a few loose ends and quite a few unanswered questions. Chinmaya’s and Kinjal’s question, “What did this camp have anything to do with Mastering your Inner Game?” hit me hard and made me think harder about the lessons we could draw from the various camp activities. The question surprised me more than anything. The thematic connection seemed obvious enough to me in my head. But for camp to really leave a deep and meaningful mark on any of us, the need for conscious reflection is necessary.
So allow me to share my camp highlights. I will also draw references to some of the points Swami M raised during the 5 day yagna prior to camp. For those of you who didn’t attend it, the series of talks was about the lessons we can learn from nature.
The camp activity that had the most impact on me was the Win-Lose or Win-Win game conducted by Koki.
I always like to think of myself as someone willing to compromise, someone always looking for the win-win in any situation. But we all have a tendency to think the better of ourselves, don’t we? The fact of the matter is, I am pretty competitive and comparative, and in any competition, someone has to win and someone has to lose and someone is always better or worse. I’d like to blame my competitive and comparative streak on the Singapore government and its ‘kiasu’ machinery, and say that everyone around me is like that and that if I want to survive and stay ahead of the game, I need to win, I need to be better than the next person. But blaming government ideology and circumstance would be taking the easy way out. I need to grow in spite of circumstance. And like Swamiji said, if the purpose of life is to realize our full potential, then mastering my inner game becomes all the more crucial. I must realize that I need to measure myself against nobody else’s yardstick but my own. The game of life, the competition of life, is not without, is not outside, but within. It takes a strong mind to be able to live life by our own standards while balancing our duties towards those around us.There’s an interesting analogy of the moon that Swamiji highlighted during his 5 day talks.
The moon, from our perspective is constantly changing. The waxing and waning of the moon suggests that moon is sometimes small, and sometimes large. But in actual fact, it is not the moon that changes, but our perception of it that changes. The moon remains constant, its size never diminishes. Similarly, we need to realize that we (Brahman, our soul/consciousness if you like) are constant and that it is only others’ perception of us that changes. In the eyes of others, we will always be better or worse. The comparison never ends. However, if we hold on to the notion that our full potential is constant, lying dormant within us and waiting to be realized, then the dynamic of life changes. We will live our lives with the awareness that striving to become a better person doesn’t have to be at the expense of anybody else. We’re all dormant winners and we should help each other bring out the winner in us!*pant pant* Sorry for that long ramble. I hope some of it makes sense.
The other major lesson I’ve taken away from camp is from the movie October Sky: Maximizing your full potential doesn’t mean having to do something phenomenally groundbreaking like sending a rocket up to space. As long as you do whatever you do well and with utmost focus, commitment and dedication, you can be said to have fulfilled your potential. Simply put, whatever you do, do it well, even if it’s mining coal. In the movie, we see that Homer saw his father as his hero and inspiration because of his dedication to his field of work. The father was a good coal miner and a good leader; he went out of his way to protect his workers from harm, even putting his own life at risk.
So how does this link to mastering our inner game? Simple. The ability to do anything well requires mental, emotional and physical discipline. Mastering our inner game will also give us clarity of vision in recognizing our life’s calling, our passion, and allow us to channel that passion against all odds, even if it requires breaking the mould, stereotypes, labels and limitations placed on us by the outside world.My night walk experience was similar to Vaid’s. I’m not easily creeped out by the thought of ghosts and spirits, but I am afraid of being attacked by wild animals and creepy crawlies. When it started raining...I was afraid that the winds and rain would drop a snake on my head or something. Haha. Um. What?! It’s highly plausible. Think about it. Snake lying on branch. Gust of wind. Snake falls to ground and onto my head. I also did the entire walk with my right hand shielding my face...sort of a defensive stance in order to minimize my shock towards the assigned scares along the way. Like I was telling Vaidehi, degree of scare is proportionate to degree of flailing of hands. So I was trying to minimise my hand movements. If that makes any sense... (By the way, Shiva, how is your face? The swelling went down?)
Ok that’s about it (: I really enjoyed camp, all of you were fantastic company and a lot of fun to be around. Hope we keep in touch and see each other more often! Add me on facebook!! :DLowe,
Jainy
P.S. There’s a bhajan/classical music concert happening at the centre on 14th September from 6.30 to 8pm. Prabhat Rao, a talented 18 year old musician from London will be leading the session. I encourage all of you to come!! Look out for the poster and details in your inboxes.
Vaid's camp reflections
The message with which Swamiji kicked off the camp - the best way to live is to lead a life that realizes our true potential - reminded me of that line from Baz Luhrmann's 'Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)', which goes something like "do one thing everyday that scares you". True enough, I think realizing our full potential is really intrinsically about constantly stepping into uncharted territory, and pushing ourselves further than we can go, and the activities we did at the camp drove this message home.
As people may have gathered by my reaction to the ghost stories that the boys were telling just before the night walk, I am NOT a huge fan of the dark and creepy and supernatural. I'm quite thankful that the rain and the freezing wind literally froze the fear right out of my brain, so I didn't really get around to getting scared before starting the walk. But while on the walk, I refused to look at the surrounding undergrowth and just focused on the ground in front of me. I guess this parallels to not focusing on anything else but the present, to minimise distractions and get your task done. Another thing I kept telling myself when I started to get creeped out by the shadows was that other people had been there before me, and there would be people following, so I wasn't completely alone and stranded in the middle of nowhere. (Although I must say, the assigned 'scarers' did a kickass job, especially Rohini! My cardiovascular system thanks you for that little jump-start!) But anyway, I guess knowing that you're not totally alone, and having faith in your support system no matter what it is helps. :)
I am also a gigantic chicken about heights. Even though I'd done the flying fox before at BalVihar camp from the exact same spot, I was NOT looking forward to going up that tower again. I was experiencing the same butterflies in the stomach, the same desire to own a time turner so I could either fast forward to the point where I'd got the whole thing over with, or rewind to the point where I decided to sign up for this madness in the first place, and stop myself. But the whole experience wasn't nearly as bad as I had dreaded, partly because I knew I'd done it before and nothing had gone wrong, and partly because nobody SHOVED me off the platform this time round (YES, grumpy old flying fox instructor, I'm talking about YOU). But generally if we go into any situation with a "I must and I can" mentality, its often over sooner than we think, and it often not as painful as we imagined. Disclaimer, this does not apply to injections of any sort - they are all just as evil as you fear they are going to be.
But yes. these two activities were really the highlight of my camp experience as far as the theme of 'Master your Inner Game' goes. The notion that it is important to conquer your fear to succeed isn't groundbreakingly new, but I think we all need reminders sometimes that we have it in us to actually face our fears and come out stronger. We also realize that a lot of our fears are irrational and based on ignorance rather than having experienced something and had a bad experience.
The other activities were brilliant too - Swamiji's talks were really eye-opening and awesome, especially Sunday morning's talk with the introduction to hinduism and the importance of staying committed to our faith and mission. Thank you, Swamiji. :) Many kudos also to Koki for the awesome activities she conducted on Saturday.
Yeah, that's about it. We hope that the few reflections posted here inspire you to email us your own. All the CHYKs, especially Venu and Samyuktha put in a lot of time and effort into planning this camp, and we'd love to hear what you took away from it, whether or not it inspired you in any way. Please send your emails to vaidehi86, jainita or pas.assez.jolie at g-m4il.com and we'll post it up to the blog so it's shared with others. You could write about the abovementioned activities, or more on Swamiji's talks and the movie workshop.
Hopefully we'll see a few new faces at CHYK class this Saturday, 11:15 a.m. Till then, watch this space, and have a great week ahead! Hari Om!
As people may have gathered by my reaction to the ghost stories that the boys were telling just before the night walk, I am NOT a huge fan of the dark and creepy and supernatural. I'm quite thankful that the rain and the freezing wind literally froze the fear right out of my brain, so I didn't really get around to getting scared before starting the walk. But while on the walk, I refused to look at the surrounding undergrowth and just focused on the ground in front of me. I guess this parallels to not focusing on anything else but the present, to minimise distractions and get your task done. Another thing I kept telling myself when I started to get creeped out by the shadows was that other people had been there before me, and there would be people following, so I wasn't completely alone and stranded in the middle of nowhere. (Although I must say, the assigned 'scarers' did a kickass job, especially Rohini! My cardiovascular system thanks you for that little jump-start!) But anyway, I guess knowing that you're not totally alone, and having faith in your support system no matter what it is helps. :)
I am also a gigantic chicken about heights. Even though I'd done the flying fox before at BalVihar camp from the exact same spot, I was NOT looking forward to going up that tower again. I was experiencing the same butterflies in the stomach, the same desire to own a time turner so I could either fast forward to the point where I'd got the whole thing over with, or rewind to the point where I decided to sign up for this madness in the first place, and stop myself. But the whole experience wasn't nearly as bad as I had dreaded, partly because I knew I'd done it before and nothing had gone wrong, and partly because nobody SHOVED me off the platform this time round (YES, grumpy old flying fox instructor, I'm talking about YOU). But generally if we go into any situation with a "I must and I can" mentality, its often over sooner than we think, and it often not as painful as we imagined. Disclaimer, this does not apply to injections of any sort - they are all just as evil as you fear they are going to be.
But yes. these two activities were really the highlight of my camp experience as far as the theme of 'Master your Inner Game' goes. The notion that it is important to conquer your fear to succeed isn't groundbreakingly new, but I think we all need reminders sometimes that we have it in us to actually face our fears and come out stronger. We also realize that a lot of our fears are irrational and based on ignorance rather than having experienced something and had a bad experience.
The other activities were brilliant too - Swamiji's talks were really eye-opening and awesome, especially Sunday morning's talk with the introduction to hinduism and the importance of staying committed to our faith and mission. Thank you, Swamiji. :) Many kudos also to Koki for the awesome activities she conducted on Saturday.
Yeah, that's about it. We hope that the few reflections posted here inspire you to email us your own. All the CHYKs, especially Venu and Samyuktha put in a lot of time and effort into planning this camp, and we'd love to hear what you took away from it, whether or not it inspired you in any way. Please send your emails to vaidehi86, jainita or pas.assez.jolie at g-m4il.com and we'll post it up to the blog so it's shared with others. You could write about the abovementioned activities, or more on Swamiji's talks and the movie workshop.
Hopefully we'll see a few new faces at CHYK class this Saturday, 11:15 a.m. Till then, watch this space, and have a great week ahead! Hari Om!
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