Coimbatore musings
October 2022
Coimbatore musings
The 2022 Coimbatore ISF was a cornucopia of fun, healing, learning, and growing say Shivi Verma and Rishi Rathod
Life Positive returned to Coimbatore after a gap of three years to an eagerly waiting audience. Even though the venue is the same, each ISF is different from another because of the circumstances and people. The last time we were there, we had travelled to the Isha centre and enjoyed the food and ambience, meditated inside the Dhyanlingam cave, and clicked photographs with the mighty Shiva statue as the backdrop.
Yet another time, my colleague and I had travelled to Ooty after the festival and come back with beautiful memories of lakes, boat rides, hills, flowerbeds, and shopping for artefacts. This time, we discovered a local café, to which Team Life Positive and guest facilitators, Partha Gupta, Kalyaan Sir, and Father KC Thomas used to saunter every evening and have riveting conversation over cuppas of tea, fritters, and fruit cake slices. Laughter, banter, jokes, and intense discussions on spiritual concepts made this sojourn in Coimbatore a highly unforgettable one.
However, the real merit of the facilitators was seen at the workshops.
Day 1, August 20, 2022
TOVAA (Teacher of Visualisation and Affirmation) by Kalyaan Sir
Kalyaan Sir, the originator of TOVAA, started the workshop with his infectious energy and optimistic attitude. He took out a pendulum and familiarised everyone with its working. Calling it a divination tool, he told the participants that when the energy of a space or a person is positive, the pendulum moves clockwise, and when it’s negative, anticlockwise. When it doesn’t move at all, it signifies static energy.
He then hung the pendulum over the palm of a participant for some time. The pendulum did not budge. Kalyaan said that people’s auras get muddied due to travelling and mixing with others. He taught a set of energy-clearing exercises and asked everyone to do it. After that, when the pendulum was suspended over the hands of people, it began to revolve in a clockwise direction.
Kalyaan said that most affirmations do not work because we do not take into account elements like direction, space, energy, frequency, and numbers. If we did our visualisation and affirmations by involving and invoking the energies of these elements, our desires would come to fruition much faster.
Kalyaan said that every direction has a specific energy, a planet, and a patron deity, and responded to a certain set of numbers or colours to become fully responsive to a seeker. His claims could easily be tested with a dowsing pendulum. According to him, the four main directions, i.e., East, West, North, and South are ruled by Sun, Saturn, Mercury, and Mars respectively, and each of these directions has a certain characteristic which gives a certain outcome when approached correctly. He however told everyone to be cautious while dealing with the South direction, as its governing planet is Mars, and Mars is about spiritual matters and giving, not receiving. Therefore, if this planet is afflicted in your life, you need to give gratitude, do charity, and avoid the colours red and black. Furthermore, he said that these major directions also had specific numbers which were their representation. For example, number one represented the Sun and the East direction, and its accompanying colour was orange. Five represented Mercury and the North direction, and its colour was green. Eight
represented Saturn and the West direction, and its colour was blue. Nine represented Mars and the South direction, and its colour was red. To prove his point, he made everyone undergo the pendulum test. When we mismatched the number, colour, affirmation, and planet, the pendulum moved anticlockwise and when we followed the sequence, the pendulum moved clockwise. Keeping this in mind, Kalyaan made us all say positive affirmations related to health, wealth, relationships, prosperity, fame, and longevity but in a way that was aligned to their respective planets, directions, colours, and numbers. He said that it was possible to heal a direction and get the desired outcome if we practise a certain affirmation 21 times for 40 days, facing the right direction and wearing the resonant colour.
Kalyaan emphasised that this was nothing new, as ancient Indians used these elements routinely to lead a fulfilling and harmonious life.
We tested the pendulum and the teachings of Kalyaan Sir even after retiring to our rooms and found them to be accurate each time.
Breathing Abundance In by Partha Gupta Since Partha Gupta’s reputation precedes him wherever he goes, the excitement for his workshop was palpable, and many young teachers from universities and a few business executives also attended his workshop. Partha entered the space in a subtle, casual manner, resembling a sophisticated Himalayan yogi.
Partha began with the aspect of yoga that is most frequently misunderstood. He articulated the relationship between yoga and separation beautifully. He explained that the food we consume is already in a yoga-like state. It has matter and energy in alignment and inside one another. Similar to how the body is made up of matter and energy, where energy comprises prana, i.e., life force and consciousness. Wherever we put our attention, the mind guides the energy there. Therefore, when one is fully present and not paying attention to fragments, it is yoga. Partha said, “Most of us don’t experience this state because we have convinced ourselves that it is rare and difficult to achieve. In reality, it is not.”
Partha discussed meditation in this context. Fundamentally, meditation is ceasing to be distracted and being fully present in the current breath. To comprehend this, he gave us a short activity which involved hearing the sound of our in- Activate Your Inner Healer through and out-breaths. The beauty of this straightforward exercise is that it immediately grounds one in the present, from where one can observe everything going on around them. He claimed that when you do this more often, you will experience life on a higher plane and move deeper.
This was one of the few exercises he did with all of us. Throughout the workshop, he was like a magician who would pull a rabbit out of his hat every now and then to let us experience other ways of living and seeing things simply by using one’s breath. He scattered seeds of breathwork so that we could experience spirituality in our daily lives, just like a farmer who sows seeds to get a rich harvest in the months to come.
The manner in which he led the workshop is worth mentioning. We felt as though a close friend was speaking to us, as he shared his own experiences in an effort to improve our lives.
The learning experiences were many. However, I decided to start with one exercise and do it for a while. I was still working on my second experiment, as I was writing this. I feel very much like my calm, natural self. When I am actively tuning into the sound of my breath, I experience a flow. It sounds elusive, yet it is simple.
Day 2, August 21
Activate Your Inner Healer with Holotropic Breathwork by Fr K C Thomas
Father K C Thomas was doing this famous workshop for the first time with Life Positive, and like everyone else, even we were curious about it. He is a certified facilitator of Holotropic Bodywork and has given over 100 workshops and retreats in various parts of India, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Kenya, and the United States. Currently, he is doing research at Gulbarga Central University in Holotropic Breathwork, with central government funding.
Though I knew that it had a lot to do with breathing and music, how it was going to unfold was something we wanted to know. And Fr Thomas did not disappoint. When we entered the hall, instead of chairs, there were mattresses, pillows, and bedsheets lying on the floor. Fr Thomas, with the help of participants, arranged them into beds. Then he paired up the participants. While one underwent the process, the other was supposed to provide support and assistance.
We followed Father’s instructions, and one of us lay down on the bed and another sat on a watch. Father Thomas began to instruct the lying participant to breathe deeply (from the navel) and then to go on increasing the pace of their breathing. This went on for about 10 minutes. Then came a time when the breathing became minimal and extremely slow. Immediately, music began to play. The music was unlike anything we had heard in the past. It was a mix of oriental, occidental, African, and other forms of music. Father Thomas said that the music was mixed in such a way as to facilitate a cathartic release from a person’s subconscious. No sooner had the music begun than a few participants began to have a catharsis. A lady let out a heart-wrenching scream and began to convulse. A boy just got up and began to complain of neck and back pain. Another one went deeper within herself and began to radiate a blissful smile. Whenever a participant had a strong emotional outburst or a reaction as a result of the surfacing of hidden trauma, Father Thomas and his female assistant provided physical support to them by holding them while they released pent-up emotions.
After the first session was over, the roles were reversed, and the caregiving participant got the chance to lie down and undergo the process. After the entire session was over, all participants were asked to pick crayons and make designs and patterns of their choice. In the end, everyone sat in a circle and shared their experiences while they were undergoing catharsis. Some shared having seen a vision, some an old, suppressed memory, and many got guidance on which step to take next in life. A few said that they enjoyed being in a deep state so much that they didn’t realise how four hours had passed.
This was the first workshop in which participants didn’t have to sit, listen, learn, make notes, or practise anything later on. They simply lay down and allowed things to happen. The whole thing was a private affair, as the doors were closed shut and nobody was allowed to peep in. A different experience indeed!
Create New Life with Past Life Regression by Ambika Khanna
This workshop kicked off with an overview of how our current lives are inextricably linked to our former lives. Ambika Khanna, the renowned therapist and past life regression facilitator, suggested that some previous occurrences are behind our current habits. She then discussed how regression can help us comprehend how our past lives are influencing our present lives.
We learned how to fully unwind and let go in the first part of the workshop so that we could accept the imagery and information popping up during the regression. This was immediately followed by another significant exercise designed to help us realise that we all possess Extra Sensory Powers (ESP), even though the majority of us don’t acknowledge or even believe in this ability.
As Ambika guided us through an exercise, we were able to explore our subconscious mind and
become more aware of the numerous anxieties and restrictive patterns that controlled our life. As a result, we learnt where our tendencies, fears, and phobias came from. For many of us, it was a trying and emotional event, but it was also eye-opening. During the exercise, few participants even sobbed, but after it was over, we all reflected and noticed the pattern. This insight was a sort of healing that opens the door to a better way of life.
According to Ambika, the subconscious mind holds the answer to resolving relationship problems. Many participants in the workshop looked to their subconscious for answers to their current relationship problems. A number of them claimed that after the regression, they were able to relate to and comprehend the root causes of their current relationship problems, as well as how to resolve them.
Due to Ambika experience of leading at least 2500 workshops throughout her career and the confident and reassuring manner in which she conducts the programme, the workshop was a deeply enriching experience.
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