Cambodia - Jivamukti Yoga Retreat Siem Reap & a Week Full of Unforgettable Impressions in Phnom Penh with AZAHAR Foundation

Tears were running down my cheaks as the TukTuk was driving through the night traffic in Phnom Penh and back to my hotel. I had just visited Kien Khleang Orphanage Center to say good bye to the children I had spent the last two weeks with. Only two weeks, but these children have truly found their way into my heart.


Two weeks ago I arrived in Siem Reap still overwhelmed with all the impressions from India and not knowing how much more precious memories there were yet to come. My teacher Yogeswari and Cat from Jivamukti London had organized a retreat in Siem Reap where 20 western Yoga students practiced Yoga along with 9 children from Kien Khleang Orphanage Center in Phnom Penh from age 10 to 20. This week allowed us to experience the meaning of Yoga on a much deeper level. Yoga means to yoke or to unify. Practicing Yoga in the same class room and visiting the beautiful sites of Angkor Wat together with the Cambodian children was a truly unifying experience. It was healing on an individual as well as on an cross-cultural level since we learned so much about the depth of Cambodian culture and history.

The Project
AZAHAR Foundation is an international non-profit organization that promotes cross-cultural understanding and non-violent conflict resolution through Yoga and the Arts. In 2007 my teacher Yogeswari, founder and president of AZAHAR Foundation, traveled to Cambodia with one of her students who had adopted a Cambodian child. Becoming aware of the social difficulties many the Cambodian youth is facing they started to teach Yoga twice a week for a period of ten days at Kien Khleang Orphanage Center in Phnom Penh. It became clear quickly that Yoga helps the children deal with negative emotions and difficult memories. They learn to resolve internal and external conflicts in a nonviolent way and their self-confidence grows.

In collaboration with Isabelle Skaburskis, Director of Nataraj Yoga Center and Kramma Yoga Cambodia, AZAHAR Foundation has developed a vocational program for children and young adults who had qualified through attendance and merits in Yoga. The project pursues a holistic approach that also includes culturally appropriate education in health, life skills, and social development. Basic needs such as food, clothing, and English schooling are included. AZAHAR Foundation is currently providing for basic needs, Yoga classes as well as for part-time or fulltime English schooling for 8 children. They all came to the Siem Reap retreat.

Yoga is Giving
Ever since I became more serious with my Yoga practice and started to feel the benefits of Yoga, I also felt a strong need to give some of those benefits away and help others by giving them a tool for dealing with difficult situations. That’s the main reason I became a Yoga teacher.
I think many of us feel that need to give something back as our practice deepens and we start to understand that Yoga is about relating to others and caring for others. Yet, very often we don’t know where to direct that positive energy. There is so much suffering in the world, where should one start? There are so many organizations out there doing admirable work, but what organization do I want to support?


I started to work for AZAHAR Foundation sometime last summer. Thus, I knew most of the children from pictures and videos. But it made a huge difference to actually be with them, play with them, practice Yoga with them…they are such bright lights and I strongly believe that Yoga helps them to let this inner light shine through more and more.

Sitting at Bangkok Airport, waiting for my flight back to Switzerland, I’m looking through all the beautiful pictures, the little gifts the children have given me, still hearing their warm good byes and feeling their hands squeezing mine. I know that I want to do something for these children, even if it is just a small contribution. I want them to be part of my life, and I want to be part of their life. I want this unifying experience to be a lasting one.

In the plane I was reading Somaly Mam’s book “The road to Lost Innocence” (I really recommend to read that book). I was shocked and deeply touched by her story. As a young Cambodian girl she was sold into slavery and prostitution. Unfortunately that is the destiny of 1 in 8 Cambodian girls. It is difficult not be completely overwhelmed by so much cruelty and injustice. But one paragraph in the book really gave me hope: Somaly writes that she knew she could not change the whole world and rescue all the girls, “…but just one, and then another, and then another….”.

If only my actions make a difference for one single person, it is worth all the effort. One happier person in the world adds to the sum total of happiness in the world. Many small changes add up to a revolution. No person is too small to become active, and no action is too small to make a difference. There is no time to loose! Become active now! For instance by smiling at the person next to you, or by using kind words instead of insults, or by making a gift to someone: For instance to AZAHAR Foundation by clicking here.

Namaste
Lokah samasta sukhino bhavantu

Celine

INDIAN YATRA & INTERNATIONAL YOGA FESTIVAL RISHIKESH 2010

satsangatve nissangatvam
nissangatve nirmohatvam
nirmohatve nishchalatattvam
nishchalatattve jiivanmuktih

From Satsang (being in the company of other beings in the search of enlightenment) comes non-attachment, from non-attachment comes freedom of delusion, freedom of delusion leads to self-settledness. Self-settledness leads to the liebration of the individual soul (jivan mukti).


My teacher Sharon Gannon often says that Satsang or being in the company of others who seek liberation is probably the most powerfull practice we have in these times. Even though we live in times where it is possible to connect with the whole world through internet, television and media, we are probably more separate from the whole than ever before. Through satsang we focus on what we have in common, we focus on a higher goal than our own individual needs and wants. Instead we dedicate our lives towards the happiness and freedom of all beings. Through Satsang we actually have the power to become the change we wish to see in the world.

Multiplied Magic
There is probably no other place and time where I experienced the power of Satsang more intensively than during the International Yoga Festival in Rishikesh in March 2010. Over 400 people from over 30 countries gathered to practice Yoga at the foot of the Himalayas and at the banks of mother Ganga. By simpy being there one can experience the uplifting energy of the holy land of Rishikesh where Yoga and Meditation have been practiced for thousands and thousands of years.
This year the magic has even been multiplied by the effect of the Maha Kumbh Mela which is taking place from January to April 2010. They say that taking a dip in the holy Ganga or crossing the river by boat during Maha Kumbh burns the Karma of many many life times. The Maha Kumbh only takes place every 12 years and I feel very blessed for having been there during that time – and of course I took many dips and many boats while I was in Rishikesh.


Same same but different
The program of the festival was outstanding. Beginning at 4 am with the Kundalini Sadhana and ending with Satsang or a cultural Program around 9pm there where Yoga, Meditation, Pranayama, Dance and Reiki classes the whole day long. Different Yoga Styles such as Kundalini, Jivamukti, Vinyasa Flow, Power Yoga, Yoga Nidra, Iyengar Yoga were presented by teachers from East and West.

Although it was impossible to do everything I feel like I learned so so much. Sometimes just by sitting at the lotus feet of a truely spirtual being such as Swami Chidanand Saraswati from Parmarth Niketan Ashram or Sri sri Ravi Shankar, the founder of Art of Living, or 102 year old Swami Yogananda who still puts his feet behind his head. Knowing that spiritual experiences and deep feelings are impossible to describe by words, I still feel like at least trying to share some experiences. So that the spirit of the festival, which was a spirit of peace and union maybe even more expansive.

I will just share some personal highlights hoping that they may inspire you:
Although the Kundalini Sadhana started at 4 am already, I usually started my day at 6am with eitehr meditation class or vedic chanting. Especially the chanting teacher Sadhvi Abha Saraswati, affectionately called Mata-ji by her students, has touched me deeply. Listening to her words truely lifts you up to higher realms. For the first time I really understood why the power of sound (nadam) is so deeply emphasized in the yogis scriptures. Listening to the sound of the Sanskrit language if pronounced correctly has an enormous capacity. One does not need to know the translation, instead you just feel the deeper meaning within. In fact, Vedic chanting has always been taught like that, the teacher recited the Mantra and the student repeated over and over again until the Mantra had so deeply subsided in his soul that translation was not necessary. That is why Japa (the repetition of sacred mantras) is so powerfull, by repeating holy words over and over again, you actually become holy yourself.

Go beyond
The morning highlight after breakfast was Gurmukh Kaur Khalsas Kundalini Yoga classes at the Ganga Ghat. I think many factors together made these classes so spezial, mind and heart opening. Definitely it is Gurmukh her self and her warm and yet strong energy that keeps you going and going far beyond where you thought your limits would be. I truely experienced that everything is possible, it just depends on how much you can transcend your mind that is telling you to stop. As Gurmukh said: If you think you’re tired, you are tired. If you think you’re too old, you are too old. Our thoughts are so powerfull.
Definitely it was the presence of Ma Ganga, the fact that so many people were doing Yoga together, dancing together, jumping together and sweating like crazy together. Definitely the children of two orphanages who practiced with us made this experience more whole and helped the adults to discover their inner child again. Definitely there are many many more things, but it does not really matter what it was, but just that it was and that it was transforming for all of us. Now ot is up to us to bring these changes into the world and inspire others. As Gurmukh says: „Don’t die as a student, die as a teacher.“

Give and recieve light
Assisting in Gabriela Bozic’s Jivamukti classes in the afternoon I felt that I could give something away from all the benefits that I had recieved. That’s the perfect cycle. You give and you recieve and by giving that what you recieved beomes even more powerfull.

„Giving is living, living is giving, learning is knowing, knowing is growing, growing is giving and giving is living“ (Swami Chidanand Saraswati)

The core of each festival day was the evenig aarti (light ceremony) at tha Ganga Ghat. When the sun sets, you give thanks to the goddess for having provided you with light and you give the light back (again giving and receiving). This ceremony is very very beautiful. While chanting sacred mantras the deepas (oil lamps) are offered. You also have the possibility to offer little flower boats to the water and make wishes or send blessings to dear ones.

Aarti is a ceremony of humility because you acknowledge that there is something higher than your individual soul which shines upon you everyday. By passing on the light to others you experience a deep connectedness and union with all life.

When sitting at the banks of the Ganga, holding the hand of a Napelese child on your left and the hand of an older Western woman on the right and singing together „May the long time sun shine upon you, all love surround you. May the pure light withing you guide your way on“, you feel that there is no difference, there is no age, there is no nationality, race or caste, there is no me and you, there is no duality, but simply oneness of being. And that is Yoga.