Imagine yourself in a comfy bed, warm, relaxed, and at peace after having been lulled to sleep by the musings of the nearby Ganga coupled with the silence of an ashram. Now, you hear the sound of a gong being rung and the vibrations reverberating within you. It’s dark, cold, and a little windy outside as you slip out of your bed and walk to the yoga hall in silence. By now, if you are time, it is 6 o’clock. Meditation has begun! Wrap yourself in a blanket and be sure to be mindful about how comfortable you are sitting because this posture will be maintained for the next half hour. After meditation, get out your Mantra sheet (a piece of paper that holds all of the major mantras) and chant for 15 minutes. The mantra goes like this, “Om trayambakam, yajamahe, sugandim pushtivardanam, Uravarukamiva bandanannnn, Mirtyormouchi amamritat.” and yes this is ancient Sanskrit! After this get ready for some yogic cleansing! It may be a little…odd at first, but you can soon feel the benefits! This is the just of it: pour warm, salty water in one nostril and tilt your head parallel to the ground so that the water runs out the other nostril! Don’t forget, in this imaginary garden next to the Ganga that you have put yourself so happily in, to blow your nose like there is no tomorrow! Most of that water needs to get out, along with all the other stuff that was previously trying to clog your sinuses! After this cleansing head back to the Yoga Hall and get in a comfortable sitting asana for Pranayama. What you do here is a kind of forced sneeze thing by forcing the air out of your body by flexing your diaphram/abdominal muscles so that you can bring oxygen and vigor to the nervous system, which is getting you ready for morning yoga! These you would simply call “asana”. For the morning easier postures are done, but they are just as effective! By the end of asana the sun has risen over the hill and is pouring awesome prana energy on the rooftop where you will now have an equally awesome breakfast!! After breakfast…karma yoga! A job will be given to you that will involve cleaning some part of the ashram that is used by many, thus improving your personal karma (hence the name!). It’s important that you work for yourself and everyone else swiftly because after half an hour’s time, it is time for a meditative walk. It depends on the day where you will walk and what you may focus on, but it is entirely possible that you go right out the garden gate to the banks of the Ganga and perform you own religious puja for the River with flowers straight from the garden or you hike to a nearby waterfall to focus on the path at your feet instead of the destination. In any case, after your stroll it’s time for lunch! All meals are taken in silence and do not forget that you yourself have been in total silence still and will remain that way until after lunch, which always included: plenty of chapati, rice, dahl, mixed vegetables, and some sort of yogurt dish, served with water. Now from 1-3 you have free time to talk, do laundry (or if you’re like me sleep!). But soon the gong will ring and you will be pulled off to Lecture and Discussion that will then be based on different aspects of yoga and meditation. This is also a good time to talk about you and how you are experiencing the ashram life so far! Many questions that don’t pertain directly to an academic aspect of yoga are answered, so no worries! After chatting it up with your fellow programmers (and for us it was extremely refreshing to be the only people from the U.S.! Everyone else had come from Israel, Germany, Australia, and Chile to name a few!) it is time again for yoga, but this round is a bit more intense. It may mean a few difficult poses but nothing that can’t be tackled! And nothing that the yoga teacher can’t help you through! The sun has set by now and so that means it is time to do some formal worship and religious chanting. You should ring the bells surrounding the temple they have at the ashram and make sure to not feel embarrassed if you fudge some of the words while singing, Sarah didn’t! Feeling hungry yet? Good, because it’s dinner time! Again the staples will be there, but also a little extra to give you that punch before really going to sleep. But wait, there’s more! The last thing that you would do if you were living in your ashram life would be some evening meditation. But this isn’t like the morning, oh no! For the evening you try different meditations like singing, laying, guided, and the best chanting around a bonfire on the beach with the firewood you helped collect ablaze! Now you can go to bed and also not talk until lunch the next day! Be ready for that gong tomorrow morning! Now if it’s your last day, a special fire ceremony will be had where you chant the above mantra 108 times for 45 minutes straight and at the end of each mantra throw a mixture of 7 different kinds of wood into the central fire. At the very end you would have written several things that you want to leave behind or have taken away from you. These could be greed, impatience, doubt, whatever floats your boat. Anyway, you take what you have written and throw it gloriously into the fire and watch it burn! Now you have completely lived in the ashram! The above is what your son (you know who you are!) and daughters did for the beginning week of November at the Phool Chatti Ashram outside of Rishikesh. We all had good experiences, and will certainly never forget what it is really like to live in an ashram or to go rafting on the Ganga through a rapid aptly dubbed “‘The WALL”! It was fantastic, and now we await the awe inspiring splendor that is the Taj Mahal at sunrise in Agra, INDIA.
Til Next Time!!
Sterling
P.S. Hi Mama!!!