Personal Transformation — Mahabharata Immersion — My experience at MI5
What was the motivation for taking up Mahabharata Immersion?
In the past 18 months, I have realized the potential of human-learning labs, with Sumedhas, where person-centered group contemplation on critical human contexts, help you find pathways for enabling enduring changes in your personal-transformation. Raghu Ananthanarayanan, who is a co-founder at Sumedhas, has taken such learning, a notch up, with his team at Ritambhara. By focusing on Mahabharata and Yogasutras, which have many documented universal socio-psychological patterns, the Ritambhara team helps individuals explore their personal-transformations via such universal archetypes, and provides you the emotional and experiential immersion needed for your explorations.
So, clearly the motivation to take up Mahabharata Immersion was to understand the power & limitations of the patterned archetypes within me. Going in, I knew that I have a dominant Warrior and Seeker identity, which somehow was clearly limiting my ability to connect with humans at their human-context level.
Immersion and Exploration
How can the facilitators move me emotionally, viscerally, physically, mentally and spiritually? I was eager. After the 1st evening of basic introductions, the start of the 2nd day was with Physical Yoga, and Tai-chi. Yes, the movement had begun, which was amplified by blind-fold exercises, drawings, paintings or illustrations, non-verbal enactments, and group psycho-dramas. This continued every day for the next 6 days.
Rasas (The emotion-feelings constructs)
Personally, the biggest immersion affect on me, was the start of the Nava-rasa explorations. When each group member took up exploring Bhaya, Raudra, Veera or other rasas, their intense emotions took me right into their context. With Raghu and his team of facilitators, continuously monitoring the group intensity, and individual emotional intensity, ensuring that whatever was explored, was explored with the highest intensity possible, in no time I found myself, feeling the pain, the anger, the frustration and the struggles of every exploration. This was unique and effective.
I found myself oscillating between my intellectual frames and emotional frames, more than a couple of times, getting in touch with my personal limitations to immerse completely. Getting in touch with this early-on, helped me see, that I don’t often locate myself in the Shantam Rasa, which is pregnant with all emotions, but helps in expressing a measured response.
Mandalas (The Psycho-social process-dynamics)
Speaking of measured responses, the explorations of the Pranamaya Mandala and Manomaya Mandala were incredible. As Raghu highlighted Maya itself means Measurable & Changing, Maya is Phenomenon. The second half of the MI program-explorations, would completely use these mandalas (psycho-social process-dynamics a.k.a milieu) to navigate both the ground and the space from which I operate.
The quadrants in the Manomaya Mandala helped me assess where my energy may be getting trapped, and how my coping mechanisms led me to not receive the gifts from others, fully. Hence, at times, this made me experience Ati-yoga, Hina-yoga or Vi-yoga with respect to the relativity of Rasas. E.g. I experienced less of wonderment and more of protectionism in one or more sessions. All, in all I was experiencing the double-bind or dharma-sankata of either-or worlds, because of my inability to release my own energies.
Enacting and Exploring the Universal Archetypes in Mahabharata
I explored the simultaneity of the Bheema-Balarama archetype. Creating the space for such an exploration with a small group of 3–4 like-minded participants was a fabulous learning of how to create the space/group for collaborative explorations. The Bheema exploration led me to realize how I have mastered the art of claiming-my-power, but not really claiming-my-space. This was an eye-opener. Working with the Bheema, Balarama, Hanuman episode, helped me realize that I have allowed myself to become duty-bound, and hence become a martyr for some-one else’s cause, thus in the process losing my own compassion and creative-passion.
I realized that I need to explore a new ground from which, I can view all my existing relationships. My struggle to be both Gentle and Strong, and struggle to hold the enigma of self-system simultaneity, while nourishing both the Self and System, is the new ground for my exploration. What am I doing with my Nakula-identity (one who is the healer, care-giver, nurturer), and my inability to accept the Nakula identity, may be one of the reasons why my energies were getting blocked.
Summarization and Commitment to Pursue the Exploration
After having found that I was teetering around the edges, my abode of warrior-seeker quadrants, I was taken through exercises and tools to explore how can I expand my safe-space? How can I claim my space? How can I release the blockers or befriend-my-monsters to release that energy for more constructive purposes?
The Healer within me needs to be acknowledged, to not only become more agreeable & compassionate, but to also own this archetype within me. In order to expand and claim my space, I realized the need to release the sacred feminine energy, the Draupadi-within. She is the energy-archetype who is the primary negotiator and orchestrator of all the other pandava-archetypes, and hence critical to my personal-growth and expansion. It was a divine moment, when I realized that I need to commit myself, to own up the Draupadi in me. Give her the credit that is due, and not be limited by the profanity that comes with the heroic Pandava-archetypes. The sacredness of the divine-energy in Draupadi, is the emotional and psychological flexibility that I need, to handle all the other Pandavas within me, with dexterity.
Conclusion: I sincerely thank all of the people that made this exploration possible. Indic Academy, Ritambhara and most importantly all the men and women who were my co-travellers, without whose caring eyes, and empathetic confrontation, I would not have realized the potential within me. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity and look forward to pursue the exploration.
Are you like me teetering around the edges of your Safe-space? Are you looking to further explore and expand this space? Are you looking to own up the Draupadi (Drauvya+Padi=Fluid-legs) or Fluidity within you? Do you want to explore the Fluid Intelligence within you, which is the state in-between gaseous state (complete chaos) and solid state (complete order/structure). This in-between, transitionary state is what we will explore in our next program called Urja. A sacred space to explore this phenomenon of transition, fluid intelligence and discovering-your-edge. It is our intent to establish a community of ‘transitionaries’, who come together through an experiential program like Urja to move beyond the solitary experience of reflecting upon their own transition, and instead engage with the community through sharing their experiences collectively.
So, what are you waiting for? Visit the website, apply to participate and spread the words to your friends and fellows. Look forward in anticipation to work with each and everyone of you. Good luck and all the very best!
