Namaste all of you beautiful souls! With a happy heart and a calm mind I am blessed to be writing to you from the quaint town of Rishikesh where we just completed our one week transformational journey at the magical Phool chatti Ashram! Nestled along the banks of the Holy Mother Ganga, this beautiful yoga ashram is 120 years old and surrounded by mountain ranges that have aged over the year along side this peaceful center. As soon as we arrived we could feel the serenity emanating from the walls of the ashram. After getting a tour of the rooms and grounds, we were told the rigorous schedule of the coming week. “Holy moly!” I thought as I read the first activity in the morning which was 6am meditation. The schedule continued with netty pot cleansing, pranyama breathing, morning yoga, silent breakfast, karma yoga, silent meditative walk, silent lunch, 2 hr free time, discussion, afternoon yoga, puja prayer, kuritan chanting, silent dinner, night meditation, then finally bed time! Can you say bust schedule? these yogis sure aren’t playing around.
Lalita Ji, the director of this incredible program and a pretty bomb yogi, reassured all of us that even with the busy days, each one will be different and that it was going to be am incredible week. We were ready! With open minds and maybe just a little hesitation, we dove head first into the week! Turns out, we all survived and more than that each of us had our own inspirational experience. Catherine discovered the second love of her life, Mother Ganga. Dani loved the hour and a half “Hara om tat sat jayai guru datta” chant that we did during an evening meditation. For Alessandra it was the dedication of the prayer at the ashram. Emilia’s love for music and singing combined with the devotional mantras fulfilled both her spiritual and artistic heart. Ford, not being a “yoga person” strengthened his practice and even stood up from wheel pose!! Nate loved the last night and the bonfire we had. Seeing all of the people and countries come together to sing and dance after a week of silence was very special. For me, it was Lalita Ji’s netty pot demonstration. My life will never be the same after seeing such a master filter salt water through her nostrils.
Along with Lalita Ji’s fabulous yoga ashram teachings everyday. Shira Ji’s assisting helped twist and turn us into little yogi pretzels. Shira is a beautiful and caring human that lives at the ashram helping Lalita assist yoga and leading the meditative walks. Shira and Lalita’s passion for this ashram is so prevalent in many aspects of their personalities. the way Lalita Ji speaks about Mother Ganga and gives the prayer to the Holy river before meals is beautiful. Also how she loves the fact that we are always surrounded by the peacefulness of nature. shira’s expressions during evening kuritan chanting are beautiful to watch because it feels like she is totally consumed and content by the music. Also her positive energy that only grows stronger with each “lovely” and “gorgeous” response to almost anything.
There were so many wonderful moments throughout the week that can be perfectly summed up by each member from my shanti fam. Starting with Alessandra, she truly enjoyed the community of all the people participating in this week long ashram experience along side us. There were people from all over the world that came together which was pretty special to her. Catherine said, “The energy within the ashram that everyone radiated along with the ashram itself, truly created for a wonderful space for us to open our hearts and minds to learn about the yogic path.” Ford and Nate loved their daily swims in the Ganga, jumping on rocks, and feeling the power of Mother Ganga’s rapids! Emilia put it nicely by saying, “What touched me the most was the guidance of the yoga instruction by Lalita Ji, even though for beginners, it was more personalized to everyone’s individual practice and gave me tools to use for my own yoga practice at home.” The evening kuritan chanting was something that seemed a but strange at first. Chris put it well when he acknowledged that although he enjoyed the singing, it was strange to devote these chants to dieties and gods that he didn’t know too much about. When we chanted “Om Ganga mai” to Mother Ganga he could let his vocal chords go wild because the idea of singing to a river resonated with him. He also enjoys the exploration of the sacredness that this Earth holds and thought about that during his chanting. Dani said the timing of the ashram experience was perfect for some much needed reflection about our time so far here in India. The meditations were a calming time and her favorite part of the day. Kate also enjoyed the time of reflection at the ashram. In her words, with all the negativity around us regarding the news of the election, even though we’re so far away, the hostility of the reactions online still effected her. This week at the ashram was an opportunity to cleanse those evil thoughts about the opposition and to come back to remember that we need to stick together to support our country.
As mentioned before, the last night at the ashram we had a huge bonfire which was the perfect way to end a wonderful week. I’d say we did a pretty darn tootin good job at singing wagon wheel to rep the USA but really what made the night even more special was Chris Ji’s performance of his original song that he wrote for Mother Ganga. We could all tell that he put his beautiful soul into the words and performed it with such passion.
After a week of watching many rafting tours drift down the river right by the ashram, we HAD to try it! So we booked a 4 hour tour with our favorite company, Redchilli of course, and headed for the rapids! To say that we had an amazing time is an understatement. In the words of Deen, one of our rafting guides, it was “totally wicked maaaaan”! In the other boat, our other guide Drew let us know when it was time to “SMASH IT” before heading down a rapid. Even with Emilia’s blood-curdling screans going down the river, I would say we all had a blast! We feel so blessed to have had an experience racing down Mother Ganga with the guys as our guides and would recommend this to anyone!
At the end of the lovely day, Chris so thoughtfully set up a Shanti fire ceremony for the nine of us near the banks of the Ganga to celebrate our last night in Rishikesh. It was a beautiful way to end our time here and thank the Ganga for all she has given to us. With only about 2 weeks left here in this crazy, loud, busy, colorful, spiritual and magical place, my heart feels heavy thinking about leaving these humans that I have spent the the last 2 months with. My Shanti fam is filled with so much and happiness. I would not want to experience this journey with anyone else. So a HUGE thanks to each and every one of you for making this trip so special. You have each touched my heart and I can’t wait to start the rest of our lives knowing each other! OM SHANTI SHANTI SHANTI!
– Savannah Glasgow