Raised in a small chemical-manufacturing town in northern England, Shaun Attwood was the first from his family to go to university. As a penniless graduate, he took his business degree to Phoenix, and worked his way up to become a stock-market millionaire.
But he also led a double life. On May 16th 2002, a SWAT team knocked his door down. Shaun was convicted of money laundering and drug offences. He was sentenced to 9½ years, and served almost 6. Using a tiny pencil sharpened on a cell door, Shaun Attwood wrote the first prison blog, Jon’s Jail Journal. His writing, smuggled out of the jail with the the highest rate of death in America, turned the international media spotlight on the conditions.
Shaun had only read finance books prior to his arrest. While incarcerated, he submerged himself in literature – reading over 1000 books, including many classics. By studying original texts in psychology and philosophy, he sought to better understand himself and his past behaviour.
Shaun was released in December 2007, and presently lives near London, and talks to student audiences across the UK and Europe about his jail experiences and the consequences of getting involved in drugs and crime.
Earlier this month, on June 9-10, Shaun attended the Inner Engineering program with Sadhguru in London. At the program’s conclusion, he posted this expression on Jon’s Jail Journal:
“Just got home blissed out from two days of Isha Yoga at the ExCel Centre, London with 1000 yoga freaks and the hilarious yoga master Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev who flew in from India. Sadhguru had people laughing, crying and at the end, dancing like wild moonies.
I actually left the building in the pouring rain, wearing only flip-flops, shorts and a T-shirt, with my arms in the air, getting soaked to the bone, yelling, "Mother Nature embrace me!" Must have looked like I was on drugs. Who needs drugs when you've got yoga?
On a more serious note, during the morning meditation and breathing exercises on the second day, I flashed back to jail. The experience ran through my mind like a film on fast forward, even including the visuals I saw after meditating for hours on end in my cell back in 2003/2004. My face wouldn't stop contorting as if I were experiencing various emotional states in rapid succession. The tingling at the base of my spine built into an intense warm feeling that slowly rose through my torso and out of the top of my head. I shed a few tears. It was my trauma. I immediately felt lighter, and still do. I heard other loud emotional reactions – screaming, shouting, laughing – but afterwards those people looked joyous and said they felt unburdened.
Today, I woke up with Sadhguru's chanting in my brain. I had no nightmares last night, and I wonder if they've gone.
The two day’s of yoga were part of a course called Inner Engineering by Sadhguru’s Isha Foundation, a non-profit organisation doing good work around the world…”
– Shaun Attwood, Public Speaker and Author
At the London program, Sadhguru initiated almost 700 participants from across the UK, Europe, Brazil, Afghanistan, Mexico, Lebanon and the US into Shambhavi Mahamudra Kriya. Below, some of them share their experience:
I really enjoyed the weekend a lot. Yet more than the weekend, I can already see the impact of the practice on my life. I am more relaxed and take a few things lighter and I think this is related to the practice. I hope it goes on like this. That would be just lovely. – Annette Wessmann
“I would first like to thank Sadhguru for teaching me the Shambhavi Maha Mudra. It has really increased the quality and the intensity of my focus/attention in a big way that I cannot describe in words. During the Dhyana when Sadguru was teaching us, in the last stage I felt a very strong presence pulsating on the crown of my head and centre of my eyebrows.
Nothing happened on the next day in the daytime (Monday) after the doing Shambhavi Maha Mudra, but on Monday evening after I got up from my sleep I felt a strong presence on the crown of my head with every breath, like something was pulsating constantly in the crown of my head, and my state of awareness increased in a tremendous way. I could now focus on every word coming out of people’s mouths without any sort of reaction happening in my mind, I even had people shout at me angrily, but my focus on the words coming from their mouth was so intense that I could hear the variations in the sound pitch of the words coming from their mouth and internally there was nothing happening to my mind; it was a feeling of stillness or calmness inside my mind. When I am walking every day I am literally seeing my body walk, feeling the carpet as it touches the sole of my feet, feeling my muscles move.
This is not happening because I am trying to be aware, but this sense of awareness has come to me automatically in a very strong way after doing the Shambhavi Maha Mudra programme with Sadhguru.
Whenever I am free or relaxed, I have a constant feeling of something pulsating in the crown of my head almost with every breath I take. I also feel my body’s physical energy has increased, and the need to have food has decreased, and I don’t feel any tiredness in my body even after working long hours, the body feels very light.
I would also like to thank all the volunteers of Isha Foundation for their hard work to make this programme happen.” – Parikshit Rao, Senior Network Engineer
"What can I say? This was the experience of a lifetime for me! This is something totally different to life. I feel like I have missed out, in all these year since Isha Foundation started. This is the spiritual path I want to and will take. What else can I say? It was differently something and it really touched me.
Working in the accountancy industry can be very stressful, working with numbers, dealing with phone calls and so on. Although it has been only a week and a half since the programme, life has changed for me. At home and at work. I find myself in peace and very calm. Small things that bothered me before, don't seem to bother me as much anymore. I just take each day as it comes, not worrying about what happened yesterday or what will happen tomorrow and Life is great! One example at work is that I had lack of confidence and fear of talking on the phone, thinking what will I say or if they ask me something how or what answer will I give them. But now I feel a bit more confident and the fear I think will go the more I keep up with my practises.
To all you out there who have not done this programme, I would suggest or even request you look into this and take this opportunity to change your life! Let's make this world a peaceful place altogether." – Anonymous
I just wanted to express my gratitude towards Sadhguru and all the volunteers for the unbelievable moment I experienced last weekend in London. I have been meditating for 8 years now and I prayed so deeply these last months to meet an enlightened being who would push me a bit more into the right direction…My prayer has been answered more than I could imagine possible. What I felt in the presence of Sadhguru cannot be described and I keep it it to myself not finding the right words. The initiation has been a key moment and what happened to me at that moment is forever in the core of my being. – Paul Renault
“I cried a lot after the Mantras and I also changed a lot, making peace with people in my family. My thanks to Sadhguru to help me so much in my life. This experience was the most deep, hard, amazing time in my life. I want to say thank you to all of you and how I am grateful to Sadhguru.” – Nathalie Evans, Beauty therapist, trainer and aromatherapy massage.
