My Inner Engineering Story

Sharing from Inner Engineering Participant – Lu Worman

“My name is Ludmila. I grew up in Russia and have loved to draw, paint, and create since I was a child. The intensity of the beauty around me has always prompted a mysterious longing and many questions about life. What is it? Who are we? Why are we here?? At times these questions were unbearable, and I couldn’t find answers. Sometimes I would sit motionless in observation of the world and my mom would become concerned. She would come and shake me. “Get up! Do something! Hurry up! What are you looking at?” I was only 4 years old.

 So I started hurrying. I desperately started following people around me – they seemed confident and always busy. When I too became busy, the pain of the questions was numbed and the days flew by. Schools, degrees, a job, marriage, my daughter. 

When the Soviet Union started collapsing, more information began getting in. A local doctor brought teachers from India to teach meditation. It was wonderful and brought a lot of stability to my life, but the questions did not budge. I moved to the US in 1993 and something pushed me to find a yoga studio. I was bored doing slow stretches and frustrated by the lack of flexibility in my mind and body, but I kept going, and slowly I made progress both within and without.  Still, the questions didn’t stop burning.

  Oh, the books I read, the lectures I attended, the courses I took! My child grew up and had children of her own. I buried two husbands, fought cancer at only 52. And finally, 25 years after I attended my first yoga class, I found the Yogi, the Mystic – Sadhguru. No lighting struck, no fireworks exploded – it started as computer ads, which I ignored many times (don’t tell me what to do)!!  (con’t in comments)

“Until I finally, reluctantly, clicked on one. And it felt like this being was speaking directly to me – what he was saying poured deep into my sore soul. I took the Inner Engineering online class, and it was so perfectly logical, but also had some magic to it that I could not pinpoint. It emanated deep, profound knowledge but was transmitted in a way that was easy for me to understand. I loved it. I wished I could take it again and again. I learned practical applications to use in my everyday life and so much began to make sense. I watched Sadhguru’s videos every day – I could not get enough of his wisdom.

Later, I signed up for the live Inner Engineering program where I could learn the meditation practice Shambhavi Mahamudra Kriya. I walked into the program still full of doubts, but with a tremendous thirst. It was so powerful, like nothing I have ever experienced. The volunteers, the discipline, the integrity, the food! Even despite my sore knees… I drank it all in. After the class I plunged into my newfound love, the Shambhavi Mahamudra Kriya.

It has been three years, and hundreds of times a day I take small steps inward, where the answers are, where they have always been. I just needed a torch to light up the way. The transformation is very subtle – I climb one mountain only to see another one. But I know I can handle it. I have the tools for my well-being. 

My confusion about life and people had led me to build high walls around myself.  Now, I feel the sweetest freedom of having dissolved those walls. My fear of dying has been replaced with a fantastic appreciation for every minute of my life. A feeling of overwhelming gratitude allows me to take care of others when needed, without feeling burdened. Enhanced clarity of mind allows me to choose the right words and actions, according to the situations and people in front of me. And a freedom from people’s opinions finally sunk in, allowing me to live my life to the fullest. So many fears are gone. Fears of being wrong, fears of traveling, fears of being not good enough, fears of darkness. I am not afraid anymore.” 

– Lu Worman