Yoga and it's spread into everyday Life

Bronson Gregory, a senior at University of Michigan studying Neuroscience and Music, shares his experience of Inner Engineering:

Before being introduced to Isha, my experience with yoga, spirituality, and eastern teachings was more a flirtation than a dedication. A stressful week would push me to meditate the stress away or try a local yoga class or two. I had read Gita, Veda, and Sutra. These teachings swam around my head, only to float the surface when I was talking philosophy or asking myself heavy questions that would tie my mind up and usually end with more questions. The result of all the yoga and contemplation was at best a mellow mood and more often confusion over how spirituality or yoga was supposed to work.

By my junior year in college I had dropped all spirituality in favor of music and science as a way to pursue life. Classes and projects went well, but I would walk around town unsettled. The right degree, career, and social life didn’t feel like they would give me balance. My imagination would wander towards a different “me”, someone who was content with his life. At that time, my happiness would come in bursts and slip through my fingers as I tried to hold on to it. A good test score would lift me up, a bad score would weigh me down. It was like this for musical performances, relations with friends, and lab research. After every success and every failure I fell flat. Depression crept into my daily life and dampened every taste, sight, smell, and sound. For a year I’d been taking a prescription for anxiety with some benefits, but was always looking for a way out of needing an external means of calm and clarity.

Just when I began to think that science and music were my only choices towards living a full life, life brought me into contact with a fresh perspective on the spiritual process, namely Isha. My introduction happened through a student in a music composition class. We had lunch one afternoon and she mentioned her practice of yoga. I thought to myself that just the word yoga had a different weight and meaning for her. She talked about the founder of the organization by the name of Sadhguru, a man with a great mission and great love and great intensity. Again, the way she spoke challenged how I considered yoga and spirituality. Her practice was not about doctrine and blind faith, or about fitness and flexibility. It went further, and I saw it as she spoke.

After describing my own dabbling in spirituality and classifying myself as a “seeker on hold”, she invited me to an Isha club meeting on campus. I came, sat, listened and after the meditation ended the session my body had warmed with a lightness of energy. Experience with other sitting practices told me “This was different, I had actually felt something”. I continued to attend the meetings while getting to know the founder Sadhguru through various youtube videos. When my interest turned from a spark to a steady flame I knew I could go one step further. The Inner Engineering program was coming to Toronto and was just within reach of Ann Arbor, MI. Even a bigger push was that Sadhguru was going to conduct the program himself. It was going to happen, I decided to venture alone to the program with little knowledge of what would come. The drive to Toronto was long and I had no money for hotel or a place to stay. I lived in my car for three days, content with the experience of Sadhguru’s teachings.

I and three hundred other people of all ages and backgrounds sat for hours, gradually opening up to the process through Sadhguru’s wit, anecdotes, and instruction.  The ancient technology for elevating consciousness he meant to give us came gradually with games and great food interspersed throughout the days. As each day passed my physical body grew lighter. Hours passed during the program but my perception of time was a fast flow. The process of learning the Shambhavi meditation was simple, but obviously profound in nature. The program ended with a surge of emotion from the participants and I won’t forget the lightness I felt or the smiles on the faces around me.

The ride back from Toronto flew by. The officer I met at the Canadian border asked me why I was smiling, I hadn’t noticed. I answered that I had never been to Canada before and the whole experience was pretty enlightening. During the drive I saw a change. I had been a smoker for a year now and for ten hours I drove without the slightest urge to light a cigarette. I came back to school with such a grin my roommates questioned my sobriety. I only had yoga to blame and over the next few weeks that ecstasy transformed into a daily dedication to the Shambavi meditation. The dedication did certain things to my body and mind. I had much more energy for studying, practicing guitar, and daily routines. My desire to smoke never returned, and I found myself avoiding over eating and binge drinking. The definitive change was a complete reorganization of my mental state. I no longer needed the prescription for anxiety. A simple practice of yoga had reset and reconfigured by body’s chemistry. Sudden transformations like these were not unheard of; I had read many testimonials that described these kinds of happenings. But until it happens as an experience, people often doubt the possibility. I thought years of dedication and renunciation were necessary do something that happened with just a few weeks of sitting for 20 min, twice a day.

However profound these changes were, they were not forced and felt natural.  I began to appreciate new things as my consciousness cleared and spread. On one occasion, an early morning bus ride to class brought me past the front of the university hospital. As the bus rolled to a stop, I looked out of the window and saw a couple crossing the street hand in hand. I looked closer to see that they both carried white canes. It was a beautiful moment, seeing two people so content with each other despite never seeing one other. Moments like these were just pure appreciation, something I’ve begun to experience throughout the day. It has been an amazing experience to allow myself to be natural, quiet and calm when all across my college campus I see the hustle of so many in need of a few minutes of peace.

My collegiate career has been kicked into overdrive with the help of my attitude and calm. I can balance a research position while taking class full time and studying classical guitar. This circus act seemed impossible to schedule before, I just didn’t have the energy and easily lost my will and focus in the face of a full day of activity. After two years of college, it took a simple but profound yoga practice to show me how far I could push myself. My normal day doesn’t seem like a chore any more, more like an opportunity to live out and be involved. I dance on the street, I smile at strangers, and I at times I give without a thought of reward.

As the yoga process spread into my everyday life, I noticed how people struck me so differently. I am usually quite a judgmental person, easily hung up on how someone doesn’t fit my ideas of how everybody should be. I never enjoyed seeing people this way, but I felt like I couldn’t help the automatic judging process. Judging someone meant that I had expectations of them, and of myself. I still feel those expectations come up when I’m interacting with another person, but I can notice them and let them go much more easily. Less judgment has meant more enjoyment around others.

With regard to all of the changes and benefits I’ve experienced, I feel like I’ve been more of an engineer of my own life. My choices, good and bad, are coming from a place within and that kind of purposefulness in life is both humbling and exciting. I would like to give thanks for all the volunteers with the Isha organization and all of my gratitude to Sadhguru for making a transformation possible for me and many others.