My Vipaasana Experience
No phone, no dinner, and noble silence, those are the things people warn you about before your Vipassana retreat. But that’s not even the hard part…
Vipassana is a 10-day meditation retreat where you cut off all contact from the world completely and purely focus on meditation
Mid Feb 2026, it was set. I am doing this. As the days got closer, preparing to cut off from the world, everyone I told this about had the same set of questions.
- Is this a cult?
- Who is this guruji?
- How can it be all free?
- Is this a scam?
- Will you be safe?
- Are you gonna become a yogi
- How can we contact you when something happens
The only answer I had was, “I don’t know”. The week before Vipassana was rather chaotic. Winding off my clients or putting them on hold for 10 days. Not taking a Christmas-New Year break should come to save you at some point. My family’s anxiety was high. I scouted YouTube for “vipaasana experience female tamil” and sent all possible videos to ease them in.
On March 4, 2026, around 4 PM, I entered the center’s office room, handed over my mobile, and cut off from the outside world towards my inward journey. Mentally, I was prepared to finish the 10 days despite the scary inner voice.
Why did I even do this?
As a Software Engineer Freelancer, the last two years have been too much with everything happening in AI. I like to call it the noisiest stretch of my career. Something new every single day — a model, a tool, a take, a thread, a pivot. It’s relentless.
And at some point, without really noticing, that noise stopped being external. It moved in. It became my default state. I’d find myself pulled in thirty directions at once, none of them toward anything I actually wanted, to a point where I don’t know what I want truly
I needed a reset. Not a weekend trip. A full, hard stop.
Vipaasana Begins
Day 0 starts with a snack at 5 PM, that’s gonna be the same for the next 11 days, and an orientation, following which the noble silence begins. For the next 10 days, you are not supposed to speak with anyone or yourself 😆
No phone — easy.
No dinner — easy.
Noble silence — honestly, easy peasy.
Missing family and friends — bearable.
Nobody warns you about the real hard part, which is yet to come.
A typical Vipassana day has 3 mandatory 1 hr meditation blocks where you have to stay in the meditation hall. The rest are according to the teacher’s instruction, but ours made us sit in the main hall throughout, so we spent most of our days sitting on a cushion meditating according to the guidelines given. The schedule looks something like this.
Day 1 - 3 was noticing your breath in different intensities
Day 4 - 8 Vipassana introduced and deepening the practice
Day 9 - Closer to wrapping up
Day 10 - Nobel silence ends, Mitha bhavana meditation introduced
Day 11 - End of Retreat
Waking up at 4 AM for someone who hits the bed at 4 AM can be a challenge in itself. But surprisingly, even that part came rather easily. Especially with a roommate fidgeting, the sound of bells. One of those days, I overslept, and my seva dragged me out of the sleep directly to the meditation hall. No facewash, no brushing.
I’m not going deeper into the meditative experience itself because these are rather personal and they differ from person to person. The preparation you need to have is to sit for long hours, knowing that it’s not going to be like a flowery meditative experience; it’s going to bring out a lot of emotions, and you will feel lighter at the end.
The food was beyond my expectations. At 6 AM, you get a wholesome breakfast. This is where choosing a center that’s in the same region as you are helps, because the food feels closer to home. You get upma, idlis, Pongal, etc. The lunch at 11 AM is meant to keep you full for the rest of the day. I loved their veggie preparation. For someone who claims to be a pure non-veg and cannot survive without egg, I seemed to do fine without any of these. This actually gave me the confidence that I can survive with minimal setup. The evening snacks were always masala pori, fruits, and tea. These evening snacks are only for new students; the old students will survive the rest of the day on lemon water.
If you have medical issues/need food for your medicines, you need to inform them while joining. They will prepare an actual meal for you at 5 PM, doesn’t matter if you’re an old or new student
My buddies for these 10 days were not my fellow meditators but the plants and trees at the center. Imagine forgetting Chennai’s summer altogether because you are protected by trees. After every meal, I would make rounds watching every plant and tree there, and every time a new detail would unfold. On day one, all I saw was a bunch of trees. By day 10, I saw their textures, how old each tree is, how they’re branching out, and how only one branch carries the same texture as the parent trunk. There are so many details we miss in the noise.
As for my fellow meditators, I met some cool people there. The person right next to me was a master at time management. She enters and leaves the meditation hall exactly on time. The one diagonal to me, an old student, would sit in every session without flinching a single muscle. She is a Software engineer who also owns a farm. She also practices Vipassana often, hence the effortlessness.
There were also a lot of communications even without words or actions, those were rather comical. One day, out of nowhere, I was singing as I exited my room. My neighbour was stunned by that and was standing with a twisted face to figure out where it was coming from.
There was this other instance that makes me chuckle even today. There is a clock at the back of the meditation hall that we take a peek at once in a while. As the meditation progressed and got rigorous, people predominantly moved in and out of the room, or stood up inside for a few seconds, though it’s not encouraged. One day, this person stood up and was watching the clock. Seva(Volunteer) entered, stunned by the person standing when they were not supposed to. Before Seva could say something, the clock went, 57, 58, 59, 00.. the bell rang, the person smiled, Seva smiled, class dispersed, no words exchanged
What did I actually get out of it?
Here’s where I have to be honest with you: I don’t fully know yet.
Goenka, the teacher whose recordings guide every Vipassana retreat all over the world, says the intellectual understanding comes quickly. The real change takes at least six months to show up in how you actually live. So I’m in that waiting period.
What I do know is this: my alarm still goes off at 4 AM. I try to wake up. I fail. I try to meditate twice a day. I miss. My brain still races. But something shifted in what I now know is possible. I’ve seen what a quiet mind feels like, even briefly, and that’s not something you can unsee.
I also came back knowing, with more clarity than before, who I actually am, what I actually want. What matters. What life feels like when it’s not borrowed from external noise.
I miss the noble silence more than I expected.
FAQ
Did you miss your phone?
Not really. I missed my mom and my friends. That’s obvious. But it was not the contact I missed. It’s their presence. The time I shared with them. During the evening tea, I would wish my mom to be present next to me, like how we share coffee in the evenings. As far as friends, all the walks I took under the shade of those huge trees, forgetting Chennai summers, I wished they were next to me. But you also have this internal Goenka voice saying, this is craving.
Do I recommend it?
Yes, 100%. At least once in your lifetime. I’ve tried everything to quiet my brain, to detach from day-to-day. Travelling, friends, movies, games, but this is different. This helps you explore yourself in ways you have never before, and it will be a truly personal experience.
Is this a cult?
No.
Who is this Guruji?
Mr. Goenka, who passed away years ago.
How can it be completely free?
It runs purely on donations. The principle is that for those 10 days, you are living the life of a monk, depending on other people for your food and stay.
Is this a scam?
It’s not.
Will you be safe?
Completely. The infrastructure is something they’ve really put thought into. Men and women have separate areas and won’t cross paths for the entire retreat. The management takes good care of you.
Are you going to become a yogi?
That’d be nice, but the journey is harder than becoming a software engineer — so I choose not to.
How can the family contact you if something happens?
You give the center’s office number to your family, and your application will have an emergency contact. You’re covered.
I’ll just sleep during the meditation.
It’s okay. I did too. Even the teacher did at some point. Even if you get one minute of equanimity, it’s worth it.
If you are remotely considering Vipassana, or whatever you’ve read so far is interesting, give yourself the experience at least once, and decide for yourself