So, what exactly is an ashram you may ask? It is a “spiritual place”. As most of you know I came to India for some spiritual else, some answer, something (else). I quickly realized that traveling around India in 110 temps wasn't going to get me any spirituality, just more pissed off. So, I decided, why not, when in India right?
The ashram was located above the city and you had to walk up a steep slope to get to it. When arriving, you had to sign in and then check-in at the office—quite official. When I entered I was greeted by an older gentlemen, sitting down, and dressed all in white. So ashram style, I thought. who could tell that I was hot and told me to sit down and relax. He then offered me a “refreshing drink”, hmm, I tried it and then looked at the label, buttermilk, disgusting, I told him I was sorry but that I wouldn't be able to finish it. And offered it to him if he wanted. He laughed and said “don't worry” and said something to one of the many workers there (in India there are about 5 people to do the job of one person because there are so many people in this country, jobs need to be created). The worker brought me another one, I looked at the label first this time. Mango, yummy, juice. Perfect. I asked him about the schedule, the rules and leaving. He said “follow the schedule, you are expected to attend everything but you can come and go, you are not a prisoner here, just be back every evening by 9:30p.m. He was funny, I liked him. Before I was shown to my room I asked him his name, Bagri, he said.
This was my schedule and I will
4:30a.m.--the morning wake up call for 5:00a.m meditation. I also had to set my alarm because there was no way I was getting up at 4:30 when the meditation hall was only 5 minutes away.
5-6a.m—Morning Meditation
This is the meditation hall
Inside the meditation hall (that guy in white is a swami, a spiritual master)Meditation was challenging, but every morning and evening a swami (spiritual master) would speak for about 15 minutes about how to relinquish the mind, let it rest. Ha, he said that most of us either have a passionate mind, which wants new things, new places, new everything every other mind, or the idle mind, which is lazy and doesn't want to do anything. Both are obvious extremes and most of us probably waver between them. During meditation I did that but if nothing else it was nice to just sit with my eyes closed in a place where I was unable to make any lists!
6:30-7:30-Morning yoga
There were three yoga teachers: Pamil, Achilles, and Gorak—he was by far the best.
Yoga was great, but it was too relaxing. We would do one pose and the teacher would say “now close your eyes and feel the relaxation, relax” blah, blah and I'm like, been relaxing, just got out of meditation. And then we would do another pose, and again “feel the relaxation”. At the end of yoga they would chant and we would all say “om” and namaste and it was warm and fuzzy.
8:00am.-Breakfast
Breakfast always consisted of chai (the Hindi word for tea, masala chai is the yummy chai that in the states costs $3 but here only 20 cents, and it is much better here), so yeah chai and then some breakfast surprise served for a large silver container: it rained from adzuki beans, red beans and potatoes, sweet noodles, sweet porridge (my favorite), and salty porridge (yuck), but the tea was always nice. You had to wait until everyone was served and then we would all say a prayer chant together in Hindi that was written on the wall for us, nice, but sometimes it tested your patience when you were hungry (and you know how I get). And after every meal we had to clean our own plates.
9-11a.m./ 2-3:15 p.m.-Library
Ah, I loved the library. It was small, but perfect, full of books that ranged from self-help, cheesey romance novels, guide books or just simple novels. I read about 6 books while I was there and I always arrived early and stayed until the kicked me out. I finally read Tuesdays with Morrie! Such a sweet story, I love Morrie. I also read about Buddhism, people who have found enlightenment, and many people's views of death. One good read, though the writing is way cheesey, is “The Monk who Sold His Ferrari”. It has a nice message.
12:00-Lunch
yes, lunch was my favorite meal, I don't know why because it was always similar to dinner, but since breakfast was usually very uninspiring I always arrived hungry. Lunch always consisted of white rice, chapati (basically salt-less tortillas), dhal (soup which was almost always with lentils) and then some sort of deeply oiled vegetable usually with potatoes, ah, and then, yes, watermelon! So good. They also give you some and then continue circling and offering more of everything, except for the watermelon, which is, I guess, expensive.
After lunch is when I started going to physical therapy at the hospital which I will write about in another blog. I timed it so that I would be back for the afternoon library session, such a nerd, even in India.
3:15-4:00- Lecture
So, this was basically an open question and answer session in which we could ask any questions we had and a swami (a very small swami, I think that he was about 4feet tall) would answer our questions. Unfortunately, we usually only got through one question because his answers were looong and he tended to digress. Though I guess it is also difficult to answer such questions:
-what happens to the soul after death
-What am I?
-What are chakras?
-How does karma work?
I will not attempt to explain these things but he said some nice things which I will briefly note:
-Hinduism is not a religion, it is a culture, a way of life
-Religion takes you further away form God while spirituality brings you closer to it
-Every religion has a different way of viewing the same thing, which is o.k. Because we all have different concepts of things. Ultimately, we are all waves in the same ocean
-Therefore, since we are all part of the same thing, we should all be kind to each other, so compassion is the most important thing you can offer
-All you need is love (the Beatles stole that from the swami I think)
-Oh, I also learned why Hindus wear that red dot in the middle of their forehead, it is just a reminder to be more mindful and compassion, kind of like Christians wearing the cross or something, that's kindof cool eh?
4-5-Tea time
Ah, I loved tea time as I would also be starving after so much sweating and thinking. It would be 110 degrees outside but the hot tea somehow tasted really good. They would also give us a wee snack, usually sweet or salty biscuits or once we got tiny donuts, and I mean tiny, like pill size, but they were full of sugar and grease—yummy. This time also always consisted of analyzing what we had just heard from the swami. This is also when my friend from Spain, Anna, said something really great. I had a lot of aches and pains in my body during the ashram, don't know why, and I said, “oh, I am just getting old”. And she says, “But! You are energy and energy has no age!!”
Love that.
5-6:15p.m. Afternoon yoga
6:45-7:45 Evening meditation
8p.m.-Dinner
Yeah, same version as lunch, but no watermelon, instead cucumbers, of which I always asked for seconds, it was the closest that I was going to get to a salad.
After dinner we would chat a bit and then eventually head to bed to start the same thing all over again the next day. On Sundays we had karma yoga from 6-7am. Which basically meant coming to clean the facilities in order to receive good karma, of which, we all went. Then we would either go to breakfast together and then venture off our own ways to just be tourists.
Most of the people in the ashram were either from Japan, Europe or Australia, but there was one Indian couple there as well, Raman and Sita and while there they celebrated their 33rd wedding anniversary. They invited my friend Kaye, from Australia, and I to go with them to a Hindu temple for the occasion. We arrived and Raman proceeded to explain many of the gods. There are 33,000 gods in this religion, but what I learned is that they are really all incarnates of one God, so really Hinduism is monotheistic, but it's nice to think of different gods for different things, eh? Keeps it interesting I suppose. On a special occasion the Hindus do a ceremony called a puja, which is basically when incense is burned, a blessing is given as well as red dots on the forehead, which Kaye and I received on this day. We also were shown a Bodhi tree, which is where Buddha found enlightenment, very cool day.
On my last night in the ashram it also happened to be on a full moon, as well as the celebration of the day that the Buddha supposedly found enlightenment. I hadn't achieved enlightenment during the ashram, but I was trying for that anyway, seems kindof boring actually to be enlightened, too much sitting around.
Kaye suggested that we skip meditation and go down to the Ganges to make a puja for our own mothers (her mom died when she was 15 years old) into the mother of all mothers, the Ganges river. So, we went down and bought wee little alters made of straw bowls filled with flowers and wicks to light which are then put in the Ganges, after a blessing. After doing this, we placed our feet in the Ganges and listened to the chanting occurring on the other side of the river.
We waited for the moon, but it wasn't coming out so we returned to the ashram for our last meal,which we were quite happy about. The food became really bland and ugh. After dinner we found some stairs near the kitchen and went up to watch the full moon, so beautiful. A few minutes later a lightning storm started and it began pouring rain, it was awesome, a great last memory for my spiritual retreat.
Strangest thing that happened: One night I left meditation early, and decided to grab my computer and go sit where there is a nice view of the Ganges and write. So, I sat down, turned on my computer and began. I could hear the monkeys around me as well as the dogs but it is a common occurrence. So, I began typing away when suddenly, a monkey jumped on my back! I screamed! And the dogs ran over to me barking and scared the monkey off. I was in shock, nobody came out, the dogs just kept barking and well, I slowly turned off my computer and vowed to never skip meditation again.
Funniest moment: In my first yoga class the teacher, my favorite teacher, Gorak, told us to sit cross legged and to laugh “a deep from your belly laugh” and we all sat on the floor, in the classroom, and laughed, deeply, from the belly. Funny Indians.
Rishikesh is located in northern India and considered to be one of the holiest places in India. It is also the yoga capital of India, perhaps the world. The town is built along the Ganges river and there are ghats, basically entrances via steps to the river where you can sit or bathe in its waters. It is very difficult to find meat in this town and impossible to find alcohol. It also completely shuts down by 9p.m. I spent one day there wandering around with a girl from France that I had met on the train, here are some pictures.
