Sanka Praksalana and Prateek

Just when I (and probably you) thought things couldn't get any stranger, well, guess what, they do. This past Sunday, I performed my very own, doctor-less, hospital-less, cost-less, machinery-less intestinal cleanse (or colonic irrigation). Yup. You read that right. I cleaned my intestines. This is one of the yogic kriyas (cleansing practices) called Sanka Praksalana (pronounced shanka prakshalana). I could stop there, but I presume you'd like a few details. Be warned, the details ain't pretty. So I won't give too many. At its simplest, the description could be: drink 5 liters of salted water and let it come out while sitting on the toilet (#2). You are probably still curious. Process: get your materials ready the night before, prepare yourself mentally when you wake up, warm your 5 liter gallon of water, put in 5 spoonfulls of natural rock salt (if it's not salted, you will pee out the water, and if it's too salted, you will vomit it), shake it up, do a short meditation or consecration, and begin. 1) Drink one glass (1cup minimum) of the liquid, perform a set of 4 prescribed movements, drink another glass, repeat the movements, and so on, until you feel the need to go to the bathroom (again, #2). This can take as little as 4 glasses, but it took me 10. The first trip to toilet marks the crossing of a psychological barrier you may have, and everything is smoother and easier from then on. The first bowel movement cleanses your intestines of most the solid matter that, over time, has lined the walls of your intestines. As Angela (my teacher) said, you wipe after you poo, but why don't we worry about wiping the inside? It's even more important than wiping the outside. If you look carefully (which I didn't) you may find small objects like rings or buttons that were swallowed years ago and just got stuck and covered over time. Let me tell you that with the brief peek I took, I can say I am extremely glad that what was in the bowl is no longer lining my intestines! After your first bowel movement, you continue the process of drinking and movements, but may have to go quite quickly before even doing the movements. What comes out gradually become thinner and clearer, until it's nothing but the crystal-clear water you are ingesting. (I didn't get to that point my first time. I still have some cleansing to do.) Ok, so much for not sharing too many details. Hope you're not having breakfast while reading this! The whole process can take anywhere between 1 and 6 hours, with 4-6 liters of water. I did it in 2 and a half, with 5 liters. But like I said, I still wasn't completely done. But come on, I did pretty darn good! And I'm the only one in the class who went through with it and succeeded. Most others bailed, and only one other girl attempted, but over-salted her water and puked. Once you throw up, the process cannot be continued. And speaking of puke, Angela said if we really wanted to go all out and do the whole thing, we should end with vamana dhauti (the daily water puke I do), as this cleans your stomach and stops the sanka process. So I ended with that. Do I get a student of the week certificate or what??? When all is done, you lie down and relax for half an hours, then, very important, between 30 and 60 min after finishing, you must eat a large plate of white rice with at least 40grams of ghee (like butter). Mineral water can slowly be sipped at this point. Then the rest of the day is supposed to be very calm. There you have it. (More info on Sanka at http://theyogadr.com/shanka-prakshalana/)
But so much for the fully calm day... At 4pm, our teachers asked us to meet for Karma Yoga, a very nice way of saying "Clean and scrub the yoga hall". We shook out and scrubbed all the yoga mats, shook out the blankets, swept and hand-washed the large floor of the hall, wrote dates on publicity posters for Trika, made new posters, and finally, Ananta went around the clean room with a specifically made small fire to purify the air. Since I had done sanka, they took it easy on me, and after some shaking and scrubbing, I was put on poster duty. It was actually a lovely two hours, with good company and good music :)
To continue on the topic of strange, I'll tell you  a bit about Prateek. I ended the last post saying that I was on my way to see Prateek, the astrologer. That was the Saturday before my Sanka Sunday. Interesting weekend to say the least. So, Prateek. I've always been quite a skeptic when it comes to astrology, but boy did Prateek ever change that! We sat on the floor, he had his laptop in front of him, asked my name, birthday, birth time, looked at his chart of planetary movement, jotted down a few things on a paper, and proceeded to tell me about my life. Accurately. And not just this life, but also my past life (another thing I've had no choice but to believe in with what I've learned in the last two weeks). The planet charts help him tell me about general periods of ups and downs in my life, based on which planets I'm being influenced by. As for the smaller details, it seems that astrologers have a deep psychological ability to "read" people and pick up on extremely subtle cues to get their information. It was shocking, fascinating and exciting to hear everything he had to say. I'm sure I'll be back to see him again next week.
Forgot to mention we had our second bhajans (mantra chanting I wrote about previously) last Friday. This time, there was a new instrument I had never seen before called a Hang Drum. It looks like small flying saucer or very large wok (http://www.hang-music.com/hang.php) and produces one of the most exquisite sounds I've ever heard. We will now have Bhajans every Friday evening. 
Time to get ready for my evening class.
Namaste.