I always recommend Meditation to my clients. There are many forms of meditation – guided, walking, sleeping, etc. But I’ve been practicing one of the most extreme forms of Vipassana Meditation as taught by S.N. Goenka in the tradition of Sayagyi U Ba Khin.

For your information, there’s a difference between being religious and being spiritual. Also, being a new age practitioner (Feng Shui, Tarot, Astrology, Palmistry, etc) and being a spiritualist are two COMPLETELY different things. I may have started practicing Astrology over 10 years ago but my spiritual journey started only in 2016. In 2016, I was going through the toughest time in my corporate career and wanted to seek spiritual answers. I went back to church and also discovered Vipassana. Though I consider myself a Catholic and most likely will die in the Catholic faith but from my own experience, I’ve never really received messages through my Christian prayers. It was through meditation, tarot, and astrology that I started to awakened and started to view the world from a different and yet more positive perspective.

I won’t say that I’m an expert in Meditation and I would admit that I still find myself having a “Monkey Mind” and not able to sit down for long periods at a time (I prefer walking guided meditation) but I just want to share my experience at this Silent Meditation retreat.

It is DEFINITELY the most spiritually challenging thing I’ve done in my life…EVER!

There are a lot of rules or precepts that we have to follow and first-timers would need to sit for the course for 10-days (which I did, back in 2016). As a regular, I only go back for their 4-day courses occasionally.

At the 10-day course, the first five days were especially tough for me as our mind, body, and soul is detoxing from noises, our attachment, and addiction to talking to people, vices (alcohol, cigarette, gambling, sex, social media), food, the need to move around, etc. I am okay with not talking to people and I don’t have that many addiction or vices to begin with (apart from being a workaholic back then) but having just 2 meals a day plus sleeping early and waking up early was quite tough for me. As an Aquarian, Aquarius people are guilty of thinking a lot at night!

After the 5 days mark, I finally understand why it is so necessary for us (albeit tough) to go through this spiritual detox. I realised that as human beings, it takes VERY LITTLE for us to be in peace and be happy. Oftentimes, we rely on our attachments to things and people to be happy but TRUE happiness is when you are in peace with your inner being.

This was the GREATEST lesson of my life!

DISCLAIMER: This course is not recommended for those who are pregnant or have underlying medical or mental health condition. Many people actually reported feeling slightly depressed after the course due to extended isolation. Many spiritual practitioners could not complete this course too. Don’t force yourself. Only embark on this journey when you’re ready.

If you would like to know more about this course, such as the daily timetable and the precepts (rules and regulations) that you need to adhere to during the course, you can check out this website – https://www.dhamma.org/en/schedules/schmalaya