Desi Train

Day 1

If there is an award for the tightest grip in the world, my roommate would have won that today. It was quite painful to watch him holding on to the steering of my car for all that it was worth for. He graciously accepted to drop me and pick me back up from the airport.

I landed in Phoenix on time and was on my way in the Shuttle bus to Sedona, a two hour drive. I peeked back in to life to when I was in Phoenix the last time. It was a few years ago, during my turbulent years on restarting my career from scratch in the US. I had changed flights then at Phoenix to fly to Austin, Texas for an interview and on my way back landed at the Fox Sports Bar at this airport to down a couple of beers. The interview had gone bad to worse in Austin and the job had slipped through my hands. The mood was dark and depressing and sitting at Fox Sports Bar then, I had no idea what I would do next. Little did I know that my life would change for the better in just a few days.

Arrived in Sedona and found that almost all the guests in my small motel were attending the Sedona method retreat. I hooked up with an elderly gentleman “NH” and we decide to ride to the center where the retreat would be held. Since the motel was right in uptown (downtown), I unpacked and took off to see the neighborhood.

7:30 pm. We were in the main hall. I could see quite a few people knew each other. Some were attending the retreat for the second, third or even the 20th time. There were about 80 of us. Hale walked in and introduced himself. He started a basic releasing exercise. It was the first time I realized that people would close their eyes and move their consciousness inward to do the releasing. So much for learning from the book! After the exercise we introduced each other, chatted and were off to our hotels/motels.

Day 2

Went to Wild Flower for breakfast on my motel manager’s recommendation and saw the beautiful sunrise. It was amazing how the mountains changed the colors with every inch the sun moved up. Met a few of my Sedona-mates on the way back to the motel and chatted about their past retreat experiences. The more I heard the more I felt the retreat had become kind of a regular visit to ashram or satsangs which I did with my parents back in India. Though the Sedona method does not teach any religion, I was starting to believe that it traces a ridiculously easy path to achieve the same spiritual goals each and every religion emphasizes on.

10:00 am. Hale started with some releasing and then passed on the mike to the participants who wanted to share what they were experiencing every time they “let go” of a basic feeling or want, during the exercises. Many were even asking for help from Norm to help them let go of what they were holding on to and that which caused them pain and anguish. Lunch was with a group of 9. I failed to notice a therapist from the UK in our group who was going to have a huge impact on me 24 hours later.

As the day progressed, people had started crying a few here and there. Some were laughing ridiculously and I was looking all around to see if someone had sprayed “bhang” or something around which was making people act like that. There was none. I was unaffected and I was seriously questioning myself whether I had made a mistake in coming here.

Dinner was at Canyon Breeze right across my hotel. Veggie Panini. Chewed on it in fast forward mode. Had to get back on time for the 8pm session. “DE” a partime actor was hilarious. He was facilitating the evening session with his inputs. On my way back home, I noticed that, that was the only session I had truly enjoyed in the entire day. Maybe tomorrow would be better. Little did I realize that it was soon going to be.

Day 3

6:45 am. The Broken Arrow Trail of the Pink Jeep tour was quite a ride. With just 2 of us in the jeep and a non stop talking driver, our jeep was going over rocks, hill tops, 45 degree angled slopes….it was pure adrenalin for 2 hours. Who needed a tame roller coaster ride at Disney anymore…not me.

10:00 am. The usual. A couple of releasing exercises and mostly the mike is passed around. Hale works on individuals who ask for something and while he does that, many in the hall use the exercise Hale is doing on that someone, to help themselves release their own individual feelings about issues etc. I am still unfazed. Scratching my head. What the hell is going on? I redirect my thoughts to my notebook where I have jotted down a few questions and decide to ask them the next time the mike is free.

“I see a lot of people crying here…”
Hale interjects smilingly “So are you feeling you are missing on something.” The hall cracks up.
“No…but I’ve seen similar scenes in ashrams in India. When for no rhyme or reason people around a Guru…a true Guru, melt down and start crying. Now crying here is releasing and becoming free all your emotions and feelings you have bottled up for years together. Is this the same as what happens to people when they are around the Guru”
Hale – “Yes. The only thing is the process becomes faster with your Guru…..” He talked to the hall for some time, finished and looked at me.
I was still fighting within me if I should ask this very personal question. I decided to give it a go.
“So…would you say the Sedona Method is one of the paths towards Self Realization?”
Hale was quick as if he had been asked this question a million times “Self Realization (if ever) happens to most of us common people by accident. Using this method and other similar ones (I guess he was talking about meditation, yoga or perhaps other followed forms/methods), such accidents become more frequent.”…

Later during the break I approached Hale with a problem (one of the many) I had been facing. “It’s a pattern.” he said and gave me an exercise to do and report back to him with the results.

Dinner was with “R”, a lady from Pasadena who had driven all the way to Sedona from home in her believe it or not 50 year old car.

8 pm. “CR” is a therapist from UK. He was conducting the evening session. CR started with how he himself was terribly depressed and no amount of therapy on him was working, until he came across the weekend seminar of the Sedona Method in UK which Hale was conducting. On the first day CR thought that this was crap and a money stealing scheme from the US or something like that. By the second day he amazingly found how things inside him were loosening up and setting him emotionally free. By the third day he was a fan of the Method. CR then introduced a few of his styles of applying the Method which kind of struck a chord with me. His tools were geared towards visualization and for the first time since my arrival at Sedona I was feeling good after doing an exercise. I decided to use CR’s tools to do the exercise Hale had given me to resolve the problem I had spoken to him about. I think I was dead asleep before I even fell on my motel bed. It had been a long day.

Day 4

5:30 am. Breakfast at Wild Flower. I was sitting on the porch watch the mountains and clicking pictures. I kept my camera aside and started working on my homework using the new tools I had learnt last night. At first nothing much happened. 5 minutes later I felt something in my stomach rising up to my chest like a bubble. In layman’s terms it’s a hardcore feeling you experience (anger, anguish, pain or anything else). I let go of what I was feeling. Then came another bubble. Then another. A few minutes later, I’m not sure why, but I was smiling. I felt light, very light inside out. I checked my watch. It was time to rush back to my motel and get ready for the hiking along with a few others.

10:00 am. The hiking up and down the rocky mountains was quite exhilarating and I felt full of energy while sitting in the hall for the session to start. Hale walks in and as usually smiles and winks around waiting for the people to settle down. Starts with Releasing the Resistance exercise.

It happened a minute or two after the exercise had started. My chest opened up, my body set loose and the first floods of tears came gushing through. Bubble after bubble after bubble of emotions stored deep in all corners started rising and coming up, releasing themselves through my tears. I couldn’t stop it. I was crying, harder and harder for no rhyme or reason. The hall was in session. I guess a few were looking at me, knowing exactly what was going in me…they had felt the same. The crying got intense. I felt a hand on my shoulder trying to console me. It was a lady from Ireland sitting next to me. I must have cried for over an hour at a stretch and then it would come and go, come and go, come and go for the next hour.

During the break – “Hale, what happened to me there?”
“Do you wanna know?” Hale smiled. It was a joke going on since the retreat started. It was about just giving up “trying to understand and find answers”. According to the Sedona Method the journey leads nowhere.
“No…” was what I could simply mutter. It was true. I didn’t care. I never had experience this kind of tranquil serenity I felt inside me ever before in my life.

“You released hell of a lot my boy” NH, the gentle old man, who I car pooled with, came up to me during the break…”Good for you. Let’s go for an Indian lunch today”

That night while doing the Method on my bed, I – in NH’s words – released a hell of a lot. Then I had one of the most beautiful sleeps I’ve had in a long time.

Day 5

10:00 am. The focus was on anger, a topic carried over from yesterday. People were grabbing the mike and talking about it. Hale would simply help them release with a tool none of us had tried before. I was laughing each time Hale spoke about the tool to let go of anger. And I was laughing. I was laughing. I was laughing. I realized then, that the jokes had long stopped. I simply kept on laughing. Again according to NH that was another form of releasing everything energy, emotion, feeling from the body. It was hell of a lot, NH.

During the break I went up to CR and told him what had happened to me when I used his tools. I wanted to hug him and let him know how he had helped me. It’s the least I could do. I hugged CR and his wife, both of whom remind me of my parents. A few minutes later the dam broke again and I slipped into crying. Emotions, feelings and the words to describe them had lost their meaning by now – inside me. I know I felt something. It wasn’t called pain. It wasn’t called anger. It wasn’t called anything I know in the dictionary. It was a feeling. It would rise, come up and release itself, making more space inside me, making way for another bubble of a feeling to rise and occupy the ever enlarging space and follow the same route as its predecessor.

Day 6

6:00 am. Along with a few other people at the retreat, we went on to hike to some vortexes or so called energy fields (it’s kind of a tourist attraction bluff I think).

10:00 am. The focus was on the “Now” moment in time. And later about “Who am I?”. During the group exercises where people would pair up in twos and do an exercise which Hale had given, I paired up with NH. During my turn of asking the questions, NH slipped, loosened his grip and the rains came down hard and fast. NH, the gentle old man cried and cried, breaking himself free from all the wants and beliefs he had been - like all of us - foolishly holding on to. After the tears dried I said “You released a hell of a lot”. NH smiled, it got wider and then we both cracked up. It was time for an Indian lunch.

People were crying, many feeling sad now. That’s because they didn’t wanna go back. This place had given them true joy. Broken all chains and shackles they had put on themselves and their issues. And they were free in the truest sense. The thought that going back into the world would make them into what they were before the retreat unnerved many in the hall. Old people, young guys, Consultants, business men, CEOs, Corporate executives…none wanted to go back. It reminded me of my ashram days in India when people had to be literally kicked out of the ashram cause they did not want to leave the utter peace and serenity they were feeling in serving the Guru and the ashram.

A few exercises later everyone had calmed down. Hale had asked everyone to use the Sedona method to release their fears of going back.

Day 7

There were tears, hugs, screams, laughter all around. This method was so simply that it was utterly ridiculous to think I hadn’t known about it and used it much before than when I did.

It did feel a bit hard to leave Sedona. Back at Phoenix airport, I was sitting at the Fox Sports Bar sipping a beer, waiting for my flight. 7 years ago I had been at the same bar, waiting for my plane. Today, I was at the same table. Having the same beer. Waiting for the same flight. But what I felt inside was different. Way different. As NH would have simply put it - I felt like someone who had released a hell of a lot.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 6th, 2005 at 3:36 pm
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