What can be achieved by meditation

The ultimate experience for me, so far, has been during this summer. It was a 4-day retreat into the wilderness in the Porvoo archipelago.

Having spent a wonderful midnight summer's festival in an island, where my dear friend has a summer cottage, I went to the island next to it, erected a tent (shame on you for thinking something..something ;) ) and spent four days and four nights in solitude. Only nature with its sounds around me.

I had never done anything quite like this. Initially, when I came back from China, I thought I might attend this 10-day retreat which was somewhere around in the beginning of September in Kempele (organized by the vipassana organisation in Finland). In the beginning of June I knew that at that time I would be doing my master's thesis (and actually, bachelor's thesis as well), so I discarded the plan for going to the 10-day retreat. I thought: "why not organize my own retreat. That way at least there is no external human disturbing factors. And I would not have to spend the unbelievable 10 days in silence, I could define my own time to spend there."

So, having bought all kinds of can food, vegetables and näkkileipä (+water from the summer cottage's water well) and stupefied by the festivities of the midnight summer I then proceeded to the island for meditation. I got a lift there with a rowing boat :).

The days passed by.. sometimes slowly, sometimes not so slowly. The weather was merciful and the sun was shining nearly all the time, so I got lucky. I didn't keep track of time, I merely followed the movements of the Sun to define the approximate time of the day. Usually I climbed on top of this big rock boulder, did some stretching and sat down. The sun was gleaming through the branches of the trees, sometimes warming me, sometimes shadowing me.

The most bothering thing were the mosquitoes. For this, I had brought some Off-insecticide. It helped a lot and at some point I noticed the mosquitoes weren't that much interested in me anymore. Maybe I started to smell of forest, dunno. Only once did I wash myself in the shores of this island, on a sunny day when there were no boats passing by (there were lot of boats moving in that area all the time).

The meditation.. I noticed it was not easy to sit still for any more than 45 minutes. So I kept pauses - a lot. In total I think I meditated maybe 5 hours a day at least. The rest of the time it was eating, resting, walking amongst the woods and on one day basking in the sun.

OK so now the achievements part, the moment you've been waiting for. The peak moment of this endeavour occurred on Wednesday evening (third full day). I felt like nothing before.. This feeling had been building up during the whole day and now it reached its climax. I felt completely calm. I felt serenity and that I am completely aware of myself.. somekind of totally peaceful confidence in myself, my life. I felt like I am drawing energy off the trees, off the forest, the whole world. It was like I felt the whole mental energy sphere of all people in the world, to which I was connected. I just sat there with my eyes now open, smiling, breating deeply, calmly and without any anxiety in my stomach. Everything was light. It was kinda ecstatic.

This was what has been my ultimate experience regarding meditation. It took three days in forest alone (with the Sun as a big bonus). From the time required to reach this climax we can infer that the amount of time required for reaching a totally serene state by using this.. semi-constant meditation is not so short a time. Obviously this is not possible in a city-environment. I feel it is only in nature, where a human can ease her soul completely. Consequently, I'm not able to achieve this back at home. But nevertheless I always feel calmer, lighter and more relaxed than prior to any meditation session, regardless of the place or the time spent into it. I really recommend it for your mental health, for your self-development.

I did not speak anything the whole time (4 days) in the island so it was very weird feeling to hear my own voice for the first time.. I was like "whose is that voice that I hear" when I was saying some words to the person picking me up from the island.

As I returned to Kallio, HKI, I felt how the air quality was so completely different than what it had been for the previous week. I felt how a city is somehow not the place for humans to be, if relaxation is needed (cities are nice though). People running around like ants, busy and doing stuff. Yeah, it just felt somehow very apparent after spending such a long period of time in silence. But soon I got adjusted to the city-life. Humans are quite adaptive creatures...