An Interview With Guru Ratan
I recently interviewed the creator of the From Burnout to Bliss program, Claire Lautier. She talked about the life transformational aspects of the retreat of the same name, taking place April 25 – May 5, 2022.
Today’s interview is with Guru Rata, who co-created the retreat. Guru Ratan, a certified kundalini yoga instructor, will guide participants through the detoxification components of the retreat such as Kundalini yoga, breathwork, meditation, and gong baths.
Guru Ratan, what can the participants expect to experience during the retreat? And how will it serve them?
Guru Ratan: I trained to become a Kundalini Yoga teacher here in Cologne, Germany with my teacher, Rama. The school is aligned with the school/ashram in France called Amrit Nam Sarovar.
Kundalini Yoga is an integral part of the Burnout to Bliss retreat. It’s a spiritual form of yoga practice but there’s also a science behind it. It touches the different blockages we have, which - if you come from a state of burnout – are caused by stored emotional energy.
During the retreat, we will work on kidney and adrenal areas in a very transformative way. These areas are linked when it comes to releasing stress patterns. You don’t need to know Kundalini yoga beforehand. Anybody can do a very simple and gentle practice. It can be adapted for any condition. I will use music to help you go through the postures.
Apart from the physical practice, there will also be breathwork. It’s called Pranayama. It re-patterns your breathing. Stress and tension are often stored in the body because we do not breathe properly. Breathwork is not complicated, but actually very simple, and very, very effective.
I will also guide meditations, which usually happen at the end of a yoga practice because that’s when your body is aligned when your mind is aligned, and your emotions too. That’s when you can enter the Stillness and a place of a meditative mind. It’s very peaceful and calming.
It’s all very gentle and I will guide you through everything – the yoga, the breathwork, the mantra so that you feel confident. You’ll open up to and enter the flow of life energy. And really let go. No matter where you come from or what your issues are or your needs, you will really feel embedded in the practice and the teaching.
I encourage participants to let go of patterns and embrace who they are – with all their perceived constraints, weaknesses, limitations – let them all go.
Letting go will come naturally. You don’t have to understand with your mind (overthink it). Just trust the process.
Tara: Everything here is about letting go. The setting here is very calming, the river, the animals, it’s also quiet here because it’s secluded. Everything’s gonna work in unison to give visitors a complete break and a restful experience. I've added into the schedule blocks of time for people to journal, to reflect. I've created what I call be spots around the property so that people can just go and sit under the tree, watch the geese on the river listen to the leaves rustling, listen to the birds and just be at one with nature and have time and space to process.
Guru Ratan: To integrate, exactly. It’s very important to connect with nature. We all have natural forces inside of us: fire, air, water, earth. And in Kundalini yoga there’s a fifth element: ether which is that great space embedded in us all.
Claire will do the content of the teaching and this will flow into the practical yoga part. Meaning that what you learn on a cognitive level you will embody at a physical and emotional level through yoga. This is a holistic process. It’s Oneness. It’s an experience that can be life-changing and it happens in a very easy, effortless, and inclusive way.
Claire and I will be there also to hold space for you as an individual and as a group, for when you have questions, if issues arise, you know, we are there for you to experience inner growth within yourself, and in an intimate group setting, which actually amplifies growth and healing.
I will do the yoga later in the day, after Claire’s teaching but there's also the option to do an early morning yoga practice as well. It's a very sacred time before the sun rises. It's a very subtle energy and it is a sacred time.
Tara: Guru Ratan, talk to us about Gong Baths.
Guru Ratan: You know the word “gong” includes the sound ong and in kundalini yoga ONG means infinity.
The sound of infinity can really touch and reach your most inner self. It has the capacity to go beyond layers of paradigms like “I'm not good enough” or “I don't deserve happiness”. It helps you open up to unconditional love for yourself allowing yourself to really let go, connect to Nature, feel that you are safe and protected and loved for whom you are beyond whatever is stored in your system. It's a profound change and that's something you cannot experience through books or reading or listening.
Whatever your paradigms are, your fears or stuck blockages, the sound energy can work through that in a very gentle and non-invasive way. It’s sound healing. It's therapeutic.
Tara: When I heard the sound of a gong for the first time it touched something in me and made me bawl my eyes out. It really moved me. I don’t know why. It’s pretty powerful.
Guru Ratan: Thank you for sharing this. We don't know why, and we don't need to know why. It's beyond our mind intellectual level. This gong, our mind cannot resist it. The vibrations and frequencies really work through our body, not just through our ears, but it’s healing through our skin, the largest receptive organ that we have.
It’s a beautiful experience to let go again. Bliss is our nature. This is who we truly are.
Tara: What this retreat is really doing is revealing to people that Bliss is their natural state and that through life we accumulate all of this conditioning and baggage and thought processes that take us further and further away from our true nature, which is bliss. And so this retreat is about shedding all of that to get back to Bliss. It's not something that you find. It's something that you already have. When you come here, it's revealed to you.
We gently peel away the layers like an onion that have covered up your bliss and you get it back.
Guru Ratan: Yes, exactly. You reconnect with it. And this is what the gong baths are, for those who have not experienced it, you will lie down on a mat, you cover yourself with a blanket. You relax and then I start playing, and then the sound waves will come into the room and it will never be overwhelming. Gong baths are also known as Gong Mediation. Through the sound waves, you will really reach a meditative state.
It's scientifically proven that through gong sounds or other healing-sounding instruments we can re-pattern our DNA and it's not just stress relief on a body level but also on a mental level.
This instrument also works on a cellular level where you have blockages in organs or in muscles.
Even when we have anxiety, depression, gone baths are given to support people in the healing process.
This particular gong is named mama gong! This gong has mother energies. Unconditional love. Everything and anything is embraced, allowed. It's the heart energy. It’s the heart chakra. It's powerful. And it's something we cannot explain rationally.
Tara: I've taken some online courses and I've had results but I imagine this is just a whole other layer and dimension to the experience. Doing it in person.
Thank you, Guru Ratan. Thanks for joining us and for your time today.
