A lifechanging retreat

"I'm not afraid of other people, I'm afraid of myself because I can get so powerful and passionate, and the power and the passion can be directed in any direction. I want to learn to harness those aspects of mine towards something positive and good for the world, and I'm here to learn self-control, discipline and motivation for that," she had said at the beginning of the workshop, when everyone was telling their deepest fears and insecurities around in a circle. Perhaps it was just her but she thought she saw a few flinches after she ended her confession of sorts.

That was three weeks ago, another age really, now she was a better person. She hadn't talked to anyone for over two weeks, lived under strict caloric restriction, the headaches and pangs of hanger had subsided away by the end of the second week to give way for an empty calm of sortts. Her back hurt, just a little but still...which was good because that meant her posture needed improvements. They had helped her be more at peace with herself and her environment. If you stood still with you eyes shut for fifteen hours a day without talking to anyone, while being reminded to not harbor any thoughts at all not even those about not having any thoughts at all, you kindof had to figure out a way for your mind to calm down or else, you'd end up like that finance guy from new york who had run out screaming and crying after twelve days of successfully going through the practice.

She realized she was looking at everything with an intense glare. There was so much emptiness in the world, the puzzle is not yet complete even your thoughts are full of big holes but life seems smooth and everything's chugging alone as if nothing's wrong but the world is a jittery movie where the editor completely skipped large parts but you don't notice anything because your mind fills in the details. Once you start looking at something, really looking at something with full intensity to understand it and what it's all about, things become more obvious. It's all lies built on top of lies built on top of other lies. But did they matter? Did it even matter if everything was a lie, if nothing made sense, because everyone just went on with their lives with no complaints? Was her new vision, her ability to see through things a boon or rather a curse. She hadn't pondered on such philosophical matters before, now they were all she cared about, well at least in the free 15 minutes they let you rest between sessions of meditation and before she fell into deep hypnotic sleep.

Every morning it felt like she was waking up from a deep coma, a thousand-year long slumber and she never knew what to expect. She was pleasantly surprised day after day after day that the world hadn't changed much while she had slept, that her mythical slumber wasn't that after all. It felt...so deep, so trancelike as if her entire existence had taken a nice long break during, gone to a grand old vacation to one of those warm islands in the Caribbeans and come back, right in time for her to make it for the meager breakfast. She was thankful for the sleep, she was thankful for the waking-up, and she was thankful that her existence had become so...Light. That was the only world she felt described everything accurately. She didn't fill pulled or dragged down by anything her psyche could fly and her physical body was only barely able to hold it down to Earth. Was this godliness, or was this just...existence, for other people?

It would be over in less than a week and they'd all be back in the grind, all those overwhelming sounds and sounds and smells and tastes overwhelming your mind distracting your thoughts keeping you enmeshed in the daily mediocrity, hiding true peace. And maybe maybe this wasn't true peace either maybe this was just the beginning and you had steps and levels and you would ultimately get to Nirvana after you completed the final stage. Now that would be quite something.