TRAVEL AND HOLIDAY...TADOBA - ANDHARI TIGER RESERVE... road trip all alone in my Indica. She did not let me down as always….

TADOBA - ANDHARI TIGER RESERVE

Often referred to as "The Jewel of Vidharba", the Tadoba National Park lies in the district of Chandrapur in the north-eastern part of Maharashtra, India.
Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve  Chandrapur District, Maharashtra, India. It includes Tadoba National Park and Andhari Wildlife Sanctuary. Maharashtra's oldest National Park created in 1955, the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve is also one of India's 28 “Project Tiger” Reserves. 

The National  Park is 623 km² in area, consisting of two forested rectangles of the Tadoba and Andhari range. 

Along with more than 50 tigers, Tadoba Tiger Reserve is a home for rare Indian wildlife such as Leopards, Sloth Bears, Gaur, Nilgai, Wild Dogs, Hyenas, Civet and Jungle cats, and three species of Indian deer - Sambar, Cheetal and Barking Deer. The Tadoba lake sustains the Marsh Crocodile, which were once common all over Maharashtra.

Tadoba is also an ornithologist's paradise with a varied diversity of birds, aquatic birdlife, and Raptors. Thickly clad hills form the north and western boundary of the Tiger Reserve. To the southwest is a huge lake, which acts as buffer in between the Park Forest and the extensive farmland extending right up to the Irai Lake. Tadoba Tiger Reserve is open throughout the year less June 30 to mid September, the rainy season. The park remains closed every Tuesday.

Located in the heart of a reserved forest, it is an infinite treasure trove of innumerable species of trees and plants - and wildlife that includes tigers, panthers, sloth bears, hyenas, jackals, wild dogs, bison, barking deer, nilgai, sambar, and cheatal.

Tadoba National Park and Andhari Wildlife Santuary together form the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve. The park derives its name from "Taru" the local deity, whereas the Andhari river that meanders through the forest gives the sanctuary its name.

Flora: Teak, Ain, Bija, Dhaoda, Bamboo, Haldu, Arjun, Tendu, Salai, Jamun, Mahua.

Fauna: Tiger, Leopard, Sloth bear, Wild dog, Jackal, Sambar, Indian Bison, Barking Deer, Blue Bull, Spotted Deer, Chausingha, Ratel, Flying Squirrel, Wild Boar, Langur.

Tadoba reserve covers the Chimur Hills, and the Andhari sanctuary covers Moharli and Kolsa ranges. It’s bounded on the northern and the western side by densely forested hills. The two forested rectangles are formed of Tadoba and Andhari range. The south part of the park is less hilly, and on the south-west side, it’s flanked by Tadoba Lake. The lake offers a perfect habitat for crocodiles to thrive.

Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve is the pristine and unique eco-system situated in the Chandrapur district of the Maharashtra State of India. The Reserve contains some of the best of forest tracks and endowed with rich biodiversity. It is famous for its natural heritage. Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve is the second Tiger Reserve in the State.

Conservation History
Tadoba-Andhari Tiger reserve was created in 1995. The area of the Reserve is 625.40 sq. km. This includes Tadoba National Park, created in 1955 with an area of 116.55 sq. km. and Andhari Wildlife Sanctuary created in 1986 with an area of 508.85 sq. km. The Reserve is constituted with 577.96 sq. km. Reserve Forest, 32.51 sq. km. Protected Forest and 14.93 sq. km. other areas.

Protection is most important management input in the Reserve. A novel method of protecting the forest with the help of tribal youth from the six villages within the andhari Sanctuary has been initiated. Fifteen patrolling parties have been formed in which along with the field staff, 3 village protection force volunteers have been assigned the job of daily patrolling the Tadoba-andhari Tiger Reserve and help in curbing all illegal activities. These volunteers are kept for a maximum of three months for which wages are given as per available grants. However, after three months fresh young tribal are taken as members of the village protection force so that all the families of the six villages get some wages for their livelihood and feel a sense of responsibility for protection of the Reserve.

Best season

The park is open to visitors throughout the year except during the monsoon months where it is closed from 30 June to mid September. Animals are best seen from February to May. Vegetation and insect life is at its best with the onset of rains in June. Due to the dense growth of plants and grasses, animals are not easily sighted in this season.

Winter lasts from November to February and is one of the best times for a visit. Day temperatures range between 25⁰-30⁰C and the park is pleasantly green. It is best to avoid a visit at the end of December since the winter session of the State Government will be on at Nagpur and with officials and politicians thronging the place, bookings may be a problem.

Summers are unbearably hot in Tadoba, with day temperatures rising sometimes to 47⁰ C. However, it is the ideal time to view mammals near water sources, as vegetation is also scarce, enhancing visibility. The monsoon breaks in June with rainfall of about 1,275 mm. and humidity at about 66 per cent.

The park is open for visitors throughout the year less July to mid September. Excursions are permitted only by daylight i.e. sunrise to sunset. Official guides are compulsory for all excursions. The best times to visit are early mornings and late afternoons.

Accommodation

Rest houses, dormitories and tents are available. Besides the guest houses at Tadoba, there is also a holiday home with three family blocks and a youth hostel with a dormitory of 36 beds. The tourist complex is located on the banks of the lake, in the midst of thick forests. Refreshments and meals are available on prior intimation at the canteen.

I stayed at Royal Tiger Resort which I found to be excellent. The rooms were Air-conditioned, the bathrooms clean and the food though simple was wholesome and very tasty .  I must also mention that the staff was also very helpful and courteous. The biggest problem is one cannot book Jeep safaris on line. Means you have to physically present yourself to book the safaris 7 days in advance which is obviously not practical. In fact I had booked the MTDC Guest house for 2 nights on line, yet I had to cancel my reservation as there was no way for me to book the 3 jeep safaris (they don’t do it) from Pune . So I booked with the Royal Tiger Resort who also arranged the entry permits and the safari geeps for my 3 safaris. 6 to 10 AM (2 times) and 3 to 6.30 PM (once). I hired the full vehicle at Rs 3600 per safari. I did 3 safaris which I found more than adequate. Here is the number of Royal Tiger resort for quick reference -  09881717818.  Mr Dhananjay Bapat is the owner of the resort. I would recommend this place whole heartdly.

Transport

By Air: Nagpur airport is 205 km. away via Chandrapur; 140 km. via Chimur. Taxis are available from Railway station or the airport for Tadoba. You can book these on line or the Royal Tiger resort arranges everything on request. Be prepared to pay around Rs. 2000 plus for drop as they charge for the round trip.

By Rail: The nearest railhead is Chandrapur, 45 km. from the park.

By Road: You may enter the park from the Moharli or via Chimur. State transport buses ply from Chandrapur. Taxis and Jeeps from Nagpur or Chandrapur are other options. Chandrapur is 45 km. from the park; Chimur is 32 km. away. I traveled by my private car from Pune.

Here are some pictures of my road trip to Tadoba from Pune via Ambajogai, Yevatmal, Vani and Chandrapur and return. Plus off course, pictures in the reserve. I was lucky to have sighted some wild dogs, the tiger off course and some rare birds. I say I was lucky because I ventured to Tadoba in mid June during the monsoons and the park was scheduled to close in just a few days time. I thoroughly enjoyed my journey to Tadoba as well as my stay out there. I highly recommend this trip. Some pictures can be viewed here. Please copy and paste link in browser.

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Simple things are sometimes amazingly effective to keep fit and healthy............

HOW TO STAY POSITIVE IN A TOUGH WORK ENVIRONMENT………..

 

Bullets that hit you:

(a)   You can’t help how other people behave can you?

(b)   Neither can you help much about your environment.

(c)    You can change your "Negative world view" or how you perceive the world.

(d)   Change is the only permanent thing in your life, yet it hurts.

(e)   Past experiences:  "don’t carry the extra burden" or you will never be happy.

(f)    Don't determine results, for eg: if you work hard you will get a raise or a promotion.

You must realize that  your thinking leads to emotions, emotions lead to internal and external effects on your physical being. The internal effects may be harmful to you leading to psychosomatic illnesses or they could lead to joy depending upon your thinking which generates emotions. The external effects too could be joyful or harmful. So also they build up attitude. Behaviour is learnt so you can unlearn that by a change in your thinking.

External actions may be giving a slap (negative) or giving a hug (positive). 
Emotions you cannot control but thinking you can. Always remember that. When we say count to ten when you are angry, it means we are only controlling the external violent manifestation of anger. You have not stopped being angry, that is out of your control.
Change your thinking and all will be well.

     


Never ever think that you have become a lowly clerk and your brother is an engineer because your father could not afford a second set of college fees for you and you keep blaming him all the time. You are responsible because you could have worked harder and got a scholar ship or anything. If you discard such thinking in all matters and take responsibility for who you are, what you have and what you do, you will reach the stars.

This is the most important lesson:

(a)   Values are something which are universally accepted. Truthfulness, honesty, Integrity, Timeliness and things like that. Other things which are not universally accepted :

(i)     Like we can achieve salvation through only so and so god. My god etc etc.

(ii)   Wearing only certain type of clothes is permissible. To give an example: If in an Indian village a foreigner, a girl, enters wearing shorts, the villagers might stone her, or hand her over to the police for indecency. The villagers cannot accept this clothing because they are experiencing a cultural binding, although by no means it will be called indecent in her country. A host of other things which are not values they are religious, cultural and social bindings. These can lead to extreme joylessness.

(b)   Check and take control, are your values really values? Or are they a part of learned behaviours? Meaning are they religious, Social and cultural bindings?

(c)    Ownership. If you take ownership of everything of that you do, then you will perform 100 percent and always be joyful. Do you switch off lights and AC when you leave your bed room and your house? Do you keep your house clean by yourself and are not ashamed to wield a broom? Then why do you not bother about your office lights or AC being left switched on when you leave? Why do you expect the cleaners to keep your office clean when you leave it dirty at the end of the day? Because the office does not belong to you, it is "not mine". OWNERSHIP IS THE KEY.

(d)   Take ownership of everything you interact with, even the roads you drive on, the malls you visit and everything around you, you will find yourself always joyful.

(e)   Mission: Unless you have a mission and well defined objectives in life you will never be able to give your best for whatever you attempt. To do that you require Discipline.

If you observe the world logically and not through your own world view (Your glasses of perception) there will be lesser conflicts as it helps changing your thinking, about events, the environment and behaviour of people.

ANIMALS "REACT" TO CIRCUMSTANCES HUMANS "RESPOND"

(a)   You fling away a dinner plate because there is too much salt in your meal. You yell at your wife and ask her is this how your mother taught you to cook? Do you have choices when you respond? 

(b)   Yes you have choices. You realize that your wife too has had a hard day at office. So you can eat with the excess salt. Or you can ask her to add a bit of water to dilute the gravy or you can ask her to serve bread and egg instead. So you have choices.

(c)    Change your thinking. Such circumstances will keep coming up all the time in your daily life. At home with children, relatives, at your place of work. Learn to respond with choices and not react like an animal.

The way to change. Using the analogy of learning to drive.

(a)   You do not know if you can drive even an auto gear vehicle. This is unconscious incompetence. So it is with your behaviour. You do not know how you behave and how people respond to it.

(b)   Now you get in the car and it jumps and stalls when you try to drive. Now you know "I really cannot drive" Conscious incompetence. So when you really observe how people actually look at you and respond, when you behave in a particular way and try to analyze the good and bad, this is now being conscious of your behavior. Conscious incompetencies.

(c)    You join a driving school and learn to drive. You get your license. Yet when a child is crossing on the road a 100 meters ahead of you, you have to think should I apply my brakes or should I bring up my gear from 4 to 3 too. Same is the case of your behaviour patterns when you start thinking before you react. This is conscious competence.

(d)   Now you drive perfectly well without having to think about the child crossing the road, you automatically apply your brakes just so and bring your car up from 4 to 3, all the time talking to your co-passenger. Your behaviour too has changed to responsive and you do not even know it. Unconscious competence. The new you 

If you really look and think about the point about saying something, you will realize that 90 times out of a 100 you will not be required to open your mouth at all !!

                             HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY

URBAN WATER HARVESTING.... My experience of indirect recharging of my tube well

1.     Due to persistent water shortages at our home in Pune, I got a four and a half inch bore well dug in our garden. To my dismay even after going down to a depth of 300 feet there was practically no sign of water. On checking after 24 hours we found that water had filled up to just 80 feet from the bottom, or the water level was 220 feet from the surface. That meant about 12 buckets of water after spending 30,000 Rupees. My hydrologist friend is a very optimistic fellow. He said that you are lucky, in some areas I still got dust at 350 feet, you have at least hit the aquifer zone. Hah!! On his advice to check flow, we got a low yield 1 hp submersible pump installed for a week. The output was exactly 12 buckets of water every 10 hours. That was it. The water table had gone way down.

2.     My hydrologist friend then suggested that let us make a water harvesting pit around the bore well. That water harvesting thing, as an eco measure was going around my mind for quite some time. Most of the states of India have gone dry due to excessive use of ground water. Specially, Maharashtra, my state has the largest quantity of fertile land under sugarcane cultivation. In fact because of political clout of corrupt politicians, who mostly own the sugar mills, the area under sugarcane cultivation is I think, six times the percentage limit laid down by the Government. Sugar crops guzzle water like the T72 Tanks of the Indian Army do diesel, more than 2 liters to 1 kilometre or whatever. So vast areas have become draught hit due to non availability of ground water. However that’s neither here nor there.

3.     So we decided to make a pit around the bore well and harvest water from our 1600 square feet Bungalow roof top by joining all the water outlets and leading the water to the pit. I designed the filter after studying a few on the net. I have shown the schematic of the pit filter in the pictures along side. The only difficulty I faced was procuring the boulders and the 3-4 inch gravel. For that I had to go all the way to Katraj Stone Quarries and crushers. However since my neighbour and I did the thing together it was a small mercy in procurement. Finally the thing was done. Then a wait for the rains. June 3 saw torrential rains in Pune. I was standing by the pit for 6 hours as hundreds of liters of water came gushing out of the drain pipe and into the pit. A sigh of relief, the filter in the pit worked as no water was left standing. Whatever water god poured that day and intermittently for the next 7 days went straight down. There are still 3 months of rain to come. My hydrologist had proved right. So our small contribution to water recharging was on its way.

4.     On day 8, I took out my float and plumb line and measured the water level in our tube well. It was 80 feet from the top, as compared to 220 feet when the well was dug, this really did bring cheer all around. The water harvesting pit does work even locally and this will be a long term solution to keep the well from going dry. So possibly in the next 15 days our submersible pump goes down the well again.

5.     Lastly if you have read this fully, it is also an appeal to everyone to please, please start giving back water to the earth which is going waste during the rainy season. Irrespective if you have a bore well or not. Those residing in condos, flats, row houses or whatever, please get these pits made in your societies to recharge ground water wasted from the huge areas of roofs and terraces. If you don’t, you and your children will pay in the near future. This earth has reached its limits of exploitation, if you will not do something it may not be able to sustain civilization for too long.

6.     To understand the basics go to

http://www.indiawaterportal.org/articles/groundwater-understanding-basics-comprehensive-faq-manual-dr-mihir-kumar-maitra

Ajay

TRAVEL AND HOLIDAY LAKE NAIVASHA, KENYA --- ELSAMERE AND SOPA RESORT

“Elsamere” George and Joy Adamsons house…

Lake Naivasha is the second largest and the highest lake of the Central Rift Valley lakes of Kenya. It is the remains of a great lake which spread through the basins and spilled out at its southern end through the Ol Njorowa Gorge (Hell's Gate National Park), this freshwater lake has kept much of its old colonial charm and is also the centre of a prosperous flower export business.

2010 marked the centenary of the birth of Joy Adamson – a pioneer in the field of conservation. With her husband George, senior game warden for Kenya’s untamed Northern Province, she established one of the world’s first wild animal appeals which in 1963 became the Elsa Conservation Trust.

“For years I had been looking for a house where George and I could live. Eventually I found a place that seemed to combine all we wished for. It would be impossible to imagine a more attractive site for a home ...We decided to call our home... Elsamere”.

--Joy Adamson

Today the Elsa Conservation Trust continues its lifelong commitment to wildlife conservation operating a wildlife retreat and an education centre at the Adamson’s former home at Elsamere on the shores of Lake Naivasha in Kenya’s Rift Valley. 

The Elsa Story 

The story of the raising of an orphan lion cub by Joy and George Adamson in the 1950s and her subsequent release into the African bush is one of the great conservation stories of all time. Born Free - Joy’s captivating book about Elsa the lioness - was published by Harvill Press in 1960 and soon received international acclaim. In the years which followed, Joy published sequels to Born Free and more books about her hand-reared cheetah (Pippa) and  leopard (Penny). In 1966 Born Free became a film starring husband-and-wife actors Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna.  Filmed in the Kenya bush over the course of many months, it was shown as a Royal Command performance in London and soon became a worldwide hit.

The house owned by the couple who rescued Elsa the lion, immortalised by the lovely film Born Free is now a fantastic place to stay on Lake Naivasha. You can stay in the house or, more cheaply in the dormitories at the study centre.
The house has double and triple rooms and is perfect for a couple or group of friends. The rooms are in little bungalows dotted around the lawn and all face out on to the Lake. You take meals in the house or, alternatively you can have tea out on the lawn with the Colobus monkeys sitting up above you in the trees!
There is a little museum in the house where you can view lots of artifacts from George and Joy's fascinating lives and also a small viewing room where you can watch a video of their lives and the conservation work that has continued at Elsamere.
A short walk through the grounds, the study centre, used a lot by school and conservation groups, has dormitories, several seminar rooms, it's own dining room and a lovely outside place where you can sit around a bonfire at night.
The whole place has a lovely friendly atmosphere, is homely and welcoming and serves great food.
I'm a bird watcher and this place is magical. I have met plenty of other 'twitchers' here on my visits who are all as enchanted with it as me!
People are very friendly at Elsamere....it's that sort of place. It doesn't have a swimming pool and isn't very up to date or swish but you can go out in a small boat with an expert guide and you are very likely to see hippos on the lawns (as well as giraffe and zebras) at night.

Naivasha Sopa Resort and Nature Walk…..

Lake Naivasha Sopa Lodge is set on the southern shorelines of Lake Naivasha in Africa’s Great Rift Valley. The resort blends perfectly in its natural surroundings.
Being one of Kenya’s most up-market destinations, it is the ideal base from which to explore the surrounding countryside and nearby National Parks and wildlife sanctuaries.
100kms from Nairobi, the lodge is just over an hour’s drive on tarmac roads or 45 minutes by air to the Lake Naivasha airstrip.

Set in one hundred and fifty acres of grassland studded with Acacia bushes and trees, the resort is not only home to resident giraffes, waterbuck and both Vervet and Colobus monkeys, but it is also a night stop for the hippos when they leave the lake every night to come and trim the grass on the expansive lawns of the resort.
With Sopa’s traditional and conscientious care for the environment, they have carefully positioned all the buildings on the property to avoid the cutting of the very old and beautiful trees. As a result of this, the resort has a radically innovative and artistic design for the main public area building which now snakes its way between trees with long and graceful curves. Towering cacti and manicured gardens front the massive luxury cottages at this new resort. Upstairs suites boast balconies, king-sized beds, modern bathrooms, TVs and pure comfort, while downstairs options only differ in that they have twin queen-sized beds and spill right into the gardens. Besides the pool, there's also a gym, sauna and lakeside path. The arc-shaped bar and restaurant, with massive vaulted ceilings, is gorgeous.

The interiors are beautifully done and very restful. It was really a wonderful experience to walk the Nature Trail around the resort which went right up to the lake and the boat docks and back again through the jungle. I managed to get a few beautiful bird and animal pictures around the trail.
I have put up some pictures of both the places as a slide show.

The slide show has music and will start automatically in 2 minutes after loading. Please be Patient.

“ME” a Closer Look…..

“ME” a Closer Look…..

What do we know about ourselves? Just the pathetic articles we have taken out of our kitbag of learnt behaviors and our externally programmed nature.  This is what we are. The thinking mind and mirror neurons concocting a mix of all the former, shaping you into what you now think you are. Through this “what we are”, we create a world view for our self. Do you have inner freedom are you totally joyful? No? Then change.

The experience of self enlightenment is simple to state. It is the experience of self awareness only, awareness that is aware of nothing at all except the existence of awareness itself.

During the experience of awareness, the thought-processing mind is empty, body awareness is lost, there is no feeling, all reality disappears. There is nothing in the imagination, there is nothing anywhere. 

It is an experience of nothing, of the void.

The key understanding that results from this experience of pure nothing is that one is still alive even when everything is gone. One realizes that one's existence does not depend on anything except self awareness itself. One realizes that awareness is the primal reality, the permanent core of our selves.

The enlightenment experience makes many things immediately clear. It is clear that one's existence does not depend on anything except awareness. This brings complete relief and liberation. It is clear that life is awareness, and not what awareness experiences. So the body, the mind, the physical universe, feelings, knowledge, are all non-essential to being alive. 

Fear and guilt vanish because self awareness is beyond harm and experience is not part of one's being.

It is clear that all experience comes from outside of oneself, that experience merely flows through awareness, and that one is not responsible for the helpless act of experiencing one's experience. In short, this state of freedom solves every problem by eliminating it, and provides a completely unburdened peace.

Mirror neurons.

Mirror neurons provide clues to how children learn: they kick in at birth. Dr. Andrew Meltzoff at the University of Washington has published studies showing that infants a few minutes old will stick out their tongues at adults doing the same thing. More than other primates, human children are hard-wired for imitation, he said, their mirror neurons involved in observing what others do and practicing doing the same things.

Mirror Neurons work best in real life, when people are face to face. Virtual reality and videos are shadowy substitutes. Nevertheless, a study in the January 2006 issue of Media Psychology found that when children watched violent television programs, mirror neurons, as well as several brain regions involved in aggression were activated, increasing the probability that the children would behave violently.

The ability to share the emotions of others and imitate appears to be intimately linked to the functioning of mirror neurons, said Dr. Christian Keysers, who studies the neural basis of empathy at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and who has published several recent articles on the topic in Neuron. When you see someone touched in a painful way, your own pain areas are activated, he said. When you see a spider crawl up someone's leg, you feel a creepy sensation because your mirror neurons are firing. In short your behavior and nature is learnt.

If you are ready you will have the courage to look at yourself and admit “Nothing is original in me all is someone else’s ideas”, just the way I was programmed as I grew up from birth to this day”. I am totally mistuned to the romance of this world, of this life. You have to go nowhere, do nothing just watch yourself and remember how you are responding under different circumstances, different experiences. “You” must become the most important thing in your life. Actually you already are in a way: your egos, your feelings, your hurts. You are very good at immediately knowing what others are doing, You know what kind of person the other is. Yet do you know your own self how you are…….

All of us really do not have that awareness, it is missing. Let us start seeing what is happening to me from moment to moment. This includes my actions, my thoughts, my reactions, my emotions my all. The way I talk, the way I communicate, the way I sit, move also the way I eat, in short everything.

Watch and watch and be aware of what you really are as a product of your thinking mind. In this awareness you will see the truth of what you really are. So this is the part where you will actually come to know about yourself a good beginning. Now you will realize your egos, your “I-ness” the “mine-ness” your selfishness. Drop the façades of what you want others to think you are and start becoming authentic, be the real you what is as you know to be inside. You will forget from time to time start again. Be aware of not fooling yourself about your facades being the real you, that would be a foolishness of the highest order. 

One day you might wince to hear the tone of your own voice! Suddenly you will realize that you are clumsy, sloppy, bang doors, short tempered, impatient, possessive, dictatorial, hearing what you want to hear, slurp while having tea and on and on. Slowly through tremendous awareness about your own self, you will start knowing this alien you were harboring for so long. Once you become aware of this alien wrapped up in so many theatricals, you will gradually start dropping these things and will start to be in tune with your inner true self. This is the first step to joyfulness of your being, opening up communication with your inner self, or your soul or a group of genes directing your true path in life.

 I reproduce here again the art of sitting silently from my previous blog. The second step to self awareness. Please do practice as written and experience the joyfulness of your being.

THE ART OF DOING NOTHING OR SITTING SILENTLY

1. This is the art of doing nothing.

2. Can be done very easily by everybody. It does not take up too much time. It is required to be done 3 times a day for 20 minutes at a time.

3. Benefits : Relaxes the body, the brain/intellect and helps to alleviate all kinds of Stresses. This sitting silently allows the body to get rid of stress producing hormones and proteins like Cortisol and DEOH. Plus it also helps in producing Serotonin which is the chemical which makes us feel happy and joyful. Most importantly it gives rest to the mind. Meaning it carries out maintenance of our thinking mind. Further you will find that over a time you will require less sleep at night. Importantly you will train your thinking mind to let go of thoughts ( let thoughts come and go), and not react every time. So in your day to day life you will not react to negative experiences, those are also finally thoughts. These thoughts will come again but now you will not react but respond logically.

4. While sitting silently for 20 minutes we will not focus on anything, or on any thoughts. It is simply an art of doing nothing.

5. Remove your belt so that you are comfortable. Remove your glasses. Sit in a straight backed chair your buttocks touching the back of the chair. You must have support for your back.  Ankles crossed. Sit straight. However your head should be slightly bent forward from the neck to attain a comfortable position. Keep your hands in your lap, palms facing upwards, the palm of your right hand sitting in the palm of your left. If the chair has arm rests you may rest your elbows on the rest if you feel comfortable otherwise need not. Now close your eyes. Please tell your family members or friends not to disturb you in any way for 20 minutes. If anything is urgent they must only tap you on the head. You may come out of silence as explained later.

6. Relax your feet and toes, then your ankles, then calf muscles, then your thigh muscles, then your stomach, chest, shoulders, neck, arms, wrists and hands. Sit silently in this state. Let your thoughts come and let them go. Do nothing, do not try to stop your thoughts importantly do not get involved in your thoughts, let them come and let them go. Even sounds or smells from outside are thoughts let them come and let them go. Example a thought comes to you that you have to ring up your boss at 8 o clock about an important client message, now don’t start thinking what will the boss say, can you keep the client happy etc. That is getting involved, let that thought come and let it go. Similarly you hear a motor cycle horn outside don’t get involved in the sound by thinking who must it be now in the morning etc. let it come and let it go. Just do nothing. 

7. In the beginning there will be hundreds of thoughts coming and going gradually they will reduce and you will have periods without any thoughts. Starting maybe 10-15 secs you will have no thought periods, slowly over the days , weeks, months, years these periods without thoughts will increase. We have to achieve nothing, nothing will happen, do not have expectations as to this will happen or that will happen. Just continue 3 times a day for 20 minutes. If your head bends forward more let it. No problems. But do not let it bend backwards and take support/rest against a wall or something, the moment your head gets support/rests against a wall you might fall asleep. You may fall asleep initially if you are too stressed. Do not worry when you wake up don’t get up suddenly you may feel groggy, continue sitting silently till your 20 minutes are up.

8.  Coming out of silence. Initially you can set your mobile or clock alarm for 20 minutes. After some practice you will automatically know that 20 minutes are up. For coming out of silence, do not open your eyes. Move your hands first, rub your palms against each other, wipe your face with your hands, then wipe your arms and wrists, stretch your hands to the front once or twice. Then slowly blink your eyes 3-4 times, close them again for a few seconds then again open them very slowly. If you feel like sitting sit there for 3-4 minutes before getting up do sit.

9. Conditions. There are’nt too many conditions. You must be a little bit hungry and a little bit tired that’s all. Therefore the right times are just before you have breakfast, before lunch and before dinner in the evening. You can practice this type of silence in a train, a bus or anywhere. There are no conditions except you must have some support/rest for your back. People at home or in office may make fun of you, do not worry. In the office you can easily spend 15- 20 minutes of your lunch time for meditating before lunch. It does not take more than 15 minutes to have lunch. This will be time well spent than just gossiping. 
Others will soon follow you.

You can use some music to initially help you with sitting silently. It is a 20 minute cut from Ganapati Sachidanand Swami's Celestial Message in his Music for meditation collection. You can down load from here

https://sites.google.com/site/ajayukidve/mp3

 “To thine own self at least be true”

Reminds me of a story…

Once a farmer found an abandoned eagle's nest and in it was an egg still warm. He took the egg back to his farm and laid it in the nest of one of his hens. The egg hatched and the baby eagle grew up along with the other chickens. It pecked about the farmyard, scrabbling for grain. It spent its life within the yard and rarely looked up. When it was very old, one day it lifted up its head and saw above it a wonderful sight - an eagle soaring high above in the sky. Looking at it, the old creature sighed and said to itself, "If only I'd been born an eagle".

Have a wonderful weekend !

Ajay