That’s right! Yours truly is in Dublin! Well its just for a couple of weeks time and I’ve already spent a week from the quota. As can be inferred it is work related. But the travel has helped on many fronts. For one, it showed me just how much I love my own company! One of the best advantages of being in a place all by yourself is that you can really be yourself! Well, I’ll get into other aspects soon. But before that, more updates!
Prior to leaving to Dublin, I had been on a Vipassana retreat! Now, for those of you who may wonder what it is – its a 10-day silent meditation retreat. There are Vipassana centres all over the world (including Bangalore) and the wanderer me, chose to go to Nashik. I am really happy I did that too! It is definitely one of the most memorable experiences of my life. Though in all honesty, my vow of silence got compromised due to unforeseen circumstances, most of the time I did remain silent. Nearly 100 hours of Vipassana meditation opens up such avenues to your mind that you’d wonder who you really are! Sitting cross-legged for 1 hour, 3 times in a day, with a vow taken not to move was a killer! This vow is administered on the 4th day – whichever position you choose to sit in, the seeker must try as hard as possible to remain in that position for the entire duration of one hour. By the 6th day, this became quite effortless for me. Nashik is a beautiful place – the green surroundings and the myriad birds that visited the Centre there, all made it worthwhile. The conditions of the room where I stayed were not particularly great – fungus infested walls were a scare – not to mention the many lizards. But when you are on a pursuit to delve deeper into yourself, I guess the first thing you have to do is turn your mind off from the external conditions. I did just that, and was able to really enjoy my stay there. Contrary to what my populist ego-centric self had thought, inspite of being away and completely cut-off from all modes of communication, life around me as I knew it, still sustained and flourished! 🙂 Lesson learnt? Get away from everything regularly. Recharge and rebound. And above all, “‘I’ am at the ‘root’ of all my experiences”.
A week after I returned from Vipassana, I was packed my bags again to leave to Dublin. The evenings here are spent in exploring this lovely city. It is not really huge to be honest. But whatever there is, is very charming. My favourite part is of hunting for restaurants. This is one time, wherein I can try different cuisines of the world – as long as am taking the vegetarian options. And its amazing just how many options there are !!! From a traditional Irish cuisine to the Vietnamese, my spectrum has spread across the globe. I must however confess that it was the Vietnamese cuisine that completely won me over! I am in love with those wonderful people and their food! Apart from this, the other highlight of my visit, I must say, was the visit to Bray – a seaside point along the southern tip of Dublin. This simple, serene and beautiful sea shore or beach if you prefer, felt so peaceful and soothing that I was dreaming of settling down there some time! It was like a typical countryside life one may imagine to experience towards the later days of one’s life. I soon realized that I should head back to some feisty civilization before I start to brood over other matters and return we did!
Having got back from Vipassana and again being away in Dublin, I can see the amount of influence solitude has on me. I have been cherishing these moments thoroughly and infact hoping that I’ll get them regularly year-on-year.
Well that’s that from my end. A quickie of a post. I’ll be returning to Bangalore next week and hopefully even more rooted and grounded in my mind than when I left. 🙂
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