OM Shanti, Shanti, Shanti,
We are back in Rishikesh after a week of yoga, meditation, calm, and quiet. Before entering the ashram we spent a night in Rishikesh and celebrated Diwali the festival of lights, which is the most important holiday in Hinduism and also an important celebration for Jains, Buddhists, and Sikhs. In Hinduism Diwai is associated with several events: Krishna defeating the demon Narakasura, the return of Rama after fourteen years of exile, and the end of the harvest season when the goddess Lakshmi is thanked for the prosperity of the year. The festival last for five days and all of the house are covered in strings of lights and ghee candles are lit in the windows and by doorways. All the lights symbolize the triumph of good over evil and fireworks are lit with the belief that the noise and bursts of light will frighten away evil forces. We walked around Rishikesh and absorbed the festive atmosphere, but as it got latter and things got a little more crazy (with firecrackers being thrown at people) we ended up watching most of Diwali from the roof of our hostel overlooking the Lakshman Jhula footbridge. It was quiet the view, we could see fireworks being set off all along the Ganges.
The next day we left behind all the ciaos of the city and prepared to immerse ourselves in the spiritual life of the Ashram. The Ashram we stayed in was the Phool Chatti Ashram (www.phoolchattiyoga.com) located along the banks of the Ganges six miles upstream from Rishikesh. The point of Phool Chatti was to be exposed to more than just Asanas(the poses that we associate with yoga in the West) and learn about the other seven limbs of yoga: Yama (social code of conduct), Niyama (personal code of conduct), Pranayama (breathing), Pratyahara (distancing ones self from their sensory awareness of the outside world), Dharana (focusing the mind), Dhyana (mediation), and Samadhi (reaching a state of quiet blissful awareness).
We all came into the Ashram with plans of fasting and spending an entire week in silence, and even though nobody ended up sticking to these plans completely it still proved to be a time of self reflection and physical challenges. While in the Ashram we had a pretty intense schedule which proved difficult for everyone at various points throughout the week. The personal goal I set for myself after the first few days in the ashram was to find something I could appreciate about all the different parts of the program and looking back with this mindset I ultimately found the Ashram to be a very rewarding experience.
Everyday their was a 5:30 wake up bell and then we had half an hour to get ready for morning mediation. The morning meditations were conducted in complete silence and for the first few days the struggle not to fall asleep made it difficult to truly relax my mind. After I had adjusted more to waking up so early I found myself more able to relax but still a long way from truly meditating. You never realize just how many thoughts are constantly cycling through your mind until you try and distance yourself from them. The imagery that really helped me was to imagine that all of consciousness was a great blue sky and my thoughts were clouds that obscured that sky from view, then during the meditation I would try and sit back and watch those clouds shift and blow by, waiting for them to clear so I could see the blue above. But then I would get caught up in narrating that image to myself which would loop into all kinds of other distracting thoughts (what our teacher Lalita Ji called the monkey mind). But despite my inability to truly meditate I usually came out of the morning meditations feel grounded and relaxed. I think that just resting with my breath and trying to still my mind as much as possible was at the very least a calming way to wake up (after the initial struggle of getting out of bed) and, after a week of meditation, I’m starting to see more of the value that meditation could potentially bring if a person really dedicated themselves to meditation and were able to live their lives in a state of mindful awareness.
After meditation we did neti cleansing where we used a neti pot to pour warm salt water in one nostril and out the other in order to clean the nasal passages. It was really difficult the first couple days, especially because I had a slight could and my nasal passages were pretty clogged, and even by the end I still kind of felt like I was choking on salt water every time I used the neti pot, but I could definitely breath better after each cleansing (even if it felt like my nose was no less stuffed than normal by the end of the day).
After neti we did pranayama which are types of breathing exercises where you breath really fast out your nostrils or breath in one nostril and out the other. I had a hard time really appreciating pranayama because it usually made me feel really winded and even a little dizzy, however I did enjoy learning about the philosophy behind pranayama. The point of pranayama is to fully replace the air that is in your lunges in order to better supply oxygen to your body. Also I was reading a book about Tibetan Buddhism which spoke about how by doing pranayama-like exercises people are better able to control their life energy because it is believed that life forces are tied to the breath. Their are even stories in Tibet of great Buddhist masters who would hold their breath for hours in order to extend their lives or time their deaths to be on auspicious days.
When we finished our breathing exercises we would begin to do asanas. Even though one of the points of the program was teaching us that yoga is more than just poses and stretching, this was one of the parts of the program that I most enjoyed (even as it was a definite physical challenge). Lolita Ji was a pretty intense teacher and I was super sore after the first few days of Asanas but after that I really began to feel myself becoming more flexible and I was able to hold the poses for longer times. Lolita Ji also made an effort to expose us to many different types of yoga, so we tried lots of different poses and would sometimes do poses to music. The most memorable style we tried was defiantly laughing yoga. We all laid in a circle on our backs and just laughed and laughed for fifteen to twenty minutes, then we all danced to different tribal beats while singing “ha ha, ho ho,” which was pretty ridiculous but also super fun if you let go of all concerns about what other people were thinking and just committed to being a little crazy.
After yoga was breakfast when we were suppose to focus on mindful eating by really concentrating on and appreciating each bite of food. I personally did this by thinking about the entire process it takes, from planting and harvesting the fruits and vegetables to cooking and serving each dish, in order for me to be able to eat each bite of food.
When we were finished with breakfast we did Karma Yoga, which involved sweeping the courtyards, cleaning the bathrooms, washing the yoga mats, and helping with whatever else needed to be done around the ashram.
After Karma Yoga we went on meditative walks or were given tours of different parts of the ashram. The four walks we went on each had a different focus. First we focused on our footsteps (symbolizing our connection with the earth) and went on a walk to a smaller stream that feeds into the Ganges where we sat and focused on the rocks in the river, imagining that we were the rocks and the current was all the thoughts that sweep around us and yet their is something about the rock that remains unmoved. The next walk was to a waterfall and we focused on our breathing (symbolizing our connection with the air). The waterfall was beautiful and several people, myself included, went under the cold spray. Next we walked to a beach on the Ganges where we gave and offering of flowers to the river and we bathed in the sacred Mother Ganga (symbolizing our connection with water). The next day we got a tour of the ashram which was a little sad because a large part of the ashram is a giant garden which was destroyed in June when the Ganges flooded. The garden, which one provided most of the vegetables for the ashram and also included a giant rose garden, is now under almost five feet of sand (a reminder of just how powerful mother nature can be). For our last nature walk we went out to the river and collected firewood and then had a giant bonfire that night (symbolizing our connection with fire). The Bonfire was really fun and everyone at the Ashram gave a performance of some song or dance from their country. We performed “Cecilia” by Simon and Garfunkel for what feels like the 50th time since arriving in India, a good indication that we need to learn more songs. But back to Ashram life.
After nature walks we had lunch and worked on more mindful eating and then we had a tea break which also marked the point when we were allowed to start speaking because the entire morning routine was suppose to be carried out in silence. Then we had several hours of free time which our group usually spent swimming in the Ganges on a beach that we jokingly christened Shutter Island.
Our afternoons schedule picked up with group discussions where we explored the eight limbs of yoga and analyzed how they were applicable to our lives specifically and modern society in general. It was really interesting to get the perspectives of people from different cultures (as many of the people at the Ashram were European) and learn about other peoples experience. Their was also one Indian man in the program who gave really interesting insight into how the limbs of yoga are perceived and applied within Indian society. This was also a good time to get to know the other people in the program which has been fun because most of them are staying in Lakshman jhula and now that we are out of the ashram we run into them everywhere and it’s sort of fun to feel like you have friends outside the group. On man who we call Bossy Pants (because he was reading Tina Fey’s book) has been particularly hilarious!
After discussion in the Ashram we had afternoon asanas and then temple pooja were we ring all the bells in the ashrams temple and the staff of the ashram would perform various rituals to recognize and honor various Hindu gods. Then we would all go into the downstairs mediation room and chant. The chanting was a particularity difficult part of the schedule for a lot of people, myself included. Even though I really liked some of the chants I had a hard time getting over how repetitive the mantras felt and since the chanting was right before dinner and everyone was really hungry (we didn’t eat dinner until 8) it was hard to focus. However, even though I didn’t really appreciate chanting at the time, now that it is over I do find myself constantly humming the mantras we learned.
After chanting was dinner and then evening mediation where we were exposed to different forms of guided meditation. My favorite meditation style was where you used a string of prayer beads (mala) to focus on a single mantra which you recited in your head. You would hold each bead with your middle finger, ring finger, and thumb (careful not to touch the beads with with your pointer finger which represents ego) and focus on the mantra. Then when the mantra was finished you would slide the fingers to the next bead and start again. Their was something about making the mantra into a physical process by using the mala that really helped slow my mind and allowed me to better focus on the mantra alone (though my monkey mind would still frequently rebel).
After evening meditation it was bed time.
On the final day at the Ashram we also had a fire ceremony where we chanted the Maha Mrityunjaya mantra 108 times (once for each bead on a mala) while sitting around a fire and feeding the fire with each cycle of the mantra. At the end we all tossed a piece of paper into the fire with some aspect of our life that we wanted to be purified of.
Overall I found the ashram experience to be a good introduction into the basic functioning of an ashram and the structure of ashram life. It also has made me really excited to further explore meditation in the deer park institute in Bir Ganj. But for now we are getting ready to head to Amritsar and stay in the Golden temple!!! It will be great to get a taste of Sikhism and I am also indescribably excited to visit the Pakistani boarder (one step closer to becoming a nomadic Pakistani camel herder)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Shanti Out,
Dinah