My Crazy Ashram Life
(A little disclaimer....this one's long, so please bear with me as share with you every crazy, juicy detail of this Ashram experience! Enjoy!)
Ok, I know I said this about trekking the Himalayas, and then I said it again about my Vipassana Meditation Retreat, but this time, for real, I mean it…
Living in an Ashram has been the hardest, most challenging thing I have ever done. Hands down!
What is an Ashram?
Is what you’re probably thinking. An Ashram is a hermitage, monastic community, a spiritual retreat. It is a simple place dedicated to spiritual activities like yoga, meditation or religious instruction. There are thousands of Ashrams across India, each with their own unique spiritual flare and vibrations. You don’t come here to vacation; you come here to go within, to spend time in silence and in solitude, to spend time with God.
If this excites you, just Google “Ashrams in India” and you’ll probably find one to book a couple of weeks at.
But you won’t find my Ashram amongst those.
How did I end up here?
It’s a long complicated story filled with a ton of synchronicities and a lot of faith on my end. My Ashram is my very special sacred spiritual home, so I won’t be revealing too many details about it. It is not a tourist destination. As a matter of fact, I’ve only encountered maybe 4 or 5 other foreigners during my time here. They don’t do any advertising, because they believe God will bring those that need to come. It’s that simple.
It’s a thriving, humble Ashram with incredibly loving members and the most beautiful place I have ever been to. The gardens are vibrating, literally vibrating, with the most loving and peaceful energy, you just don’t know what to do with yourself.
I have been beyond blessed to live here and serve the organization for the last 4 months. It’s a rarity for a foreigner to get such an opportunity. Most people don’t stay for more than a couple of weeks. So the fact that I got to live here is sheer proof that Something is guiding me.
But if I’m being honest, living here is hard. You need a lot of discipline…and a really good reason to stay. This is not for the faint of heart. This place is for serious spiritual seekers willing to work, willing to ardently practice self-control, determined to raise their level of consciousness.
Ok, ok, enough of that. Let’s get to the fun part!
Here’s a little look at a typical day in the Ashram:
Daily Schedule
6am: Wake-up Call
I live in the ladies guesthouse and I have my own room. And Thank God, because going crazy in the comfort of my own privacy was the only thing keeping me sane…if that makes any sense?! Accommodations are very, very basic. Obviously no AC, no TV. Just a small bed, a dresser and a desk, where I spent a lot of time reading and banging my head.
7am: Morning Meditation
Ok, imagine going to Sunday church service and no one speaks a word. There’s no preacher on stage standing behind a podium with a mic giving a sermon. The idea here is that your body is the temple, God is within you, so all you have to do is sit down, close your eyes, dig deep, and look within yourself for guidance. That’s it. It's not about listening and believing. It's about meditating and knowing.
8am: Breakfast
We eat all meals in silence. The dishes are all Indian, but the food is very simple, delicious and healthy. Ladies and gents sit in their designated sides of the room.
9am-5pm: Volunteer
I volunteer at the Ashrams' school and my duties are mainly administrative. The students come from rural and tribal families so the majority of them have never interacted with an American. Again, I can't emphasize this enough, but the school is not a place foreigners come to. Although I blend in, when I did have to open my mouth and speak to the students, they looked at me like I had three heads…and then they laughed, and then I laughed, because really, this whole scenario is just too good not to laugh at!
5:30pm: Evening Meditation
Every meditation is lead by one of the Ashram monks. We meditate in, I guess what you can call a meditation temple. Ladies sit on one side, gents on the other. There is something really magnetic about meditating with others and the energy in here is so conducive for long meditations.
7:30pm: Dinner
We eat the same thing for dinner every day. Rice, dal, cooked veggies, and chapatti.
9:30pm: Lights Out
This is my schedule. Every. Single. Day (except Sundays, which is a rest day, meaning no volunteer duties, but 3 hours of evening mediation.) Sounds like fun, right!? Yea, I didn’t think so. Maybe to some fellow crazies it does, but I’m sure most of you are thinking it sounds more like torture. But the routine, the monotony, the silence, it’s all deliberate, necessary and the key to transforming.
I’ll need more than a blog post to explain why…why it’s so strict. But to make it short and sweet, the idea here is to be a master of your senses, not a slave. Freedom doesn’t lie in doing whatever you WANT to do when you want to do it, but in doing what you OUGHT to do when you ought to do it.
You don’t realize how much you depend on external sources for your happiness until they’re stripped from you. You don’t realize you’re a slave to your senses until you have nothing to excite them, until you’re living in an Indian Ashram, lonely as hell, bored out of your mind, with nothing to entertain you, and terrible wifi.
And so the work begins…
June
I arrive in my Ashram. I am SOOOOO high. Like, remind me again how I ended up in this random middle of nowhere small town in India living in an Ashram?!? My life feels like a scene out of Eat, Pray, Love, but way, way, way better! It’s surreal. I feel blessed beyond words. I’m so lucky to be here, living in the perfect environment to grow spiritually. Can I live in silence and solitude forever?!?
Let’s not even talk about my meditations. I’m leaving my evening meditations overflowing with emotions that I’m crying at dinner. Over what? The people serving me. Yes, the thought that these men are selflessly serving me every day, 3 meals a day, overfills me with so much gratitude that I’m in tears chomping on my chapatti. I’m an emotional, spiritual, joyous mess.
This is the first month. It feels sooooo good to be here.
July
Get me out of here. The silence and solitude has finally broken me. I’m already booking my ticket out of here in October. Arrangements are set. Not to another city, but another country. Seriously, I’m counting down the days for my volunteer duties to be over and I’m on the first train out of here.
I can’t meditate another minute. I can’t read another spiritual book. And I feel soooooooooo alone. I don’t recognize myself. Why am I here? Who am I? What am I doing? I feel like I’m going to lose my mind, which at this point wouldn’t be such a bad thing. I’m calling my family and friends crying…and I NEVER EVER do that. There’s nowhere to run, no one to talk to that would really understand, no place to go…but within (and I’m not particularly liking that place too much right now).
The food situation is getting the best of me. Anything but rice, anything but chapatti, anything but dal, ANYTHING!!! Just imagine eating nothing but Indian food for breakfast, lunch and dinner, everyday for 2 months!? And apparently I’ve become an angry feminist. Why in the world do I have to cover up every inch of my body in the scorching Indian summer heat!?! What’s wrong with my legs!? HUH!!?!
My senses are beyond deprived. And they’re not happy about it.
This is the second month. It sucks.
August
Ok, I’ve crossed a few bridges here. My senses have actually calmed down. Hmmmm…am I actually mastering something over here?! Dal has officially become my new favorite comfort food. I need it every night before bed, yum! And my meditations, another yum! I can’t live without my morning practice, it sets the tone for the rest of my day, and that tone is complete and utter peace.
I’ve found my sweet spot. That is, it’s not about running around being extremely, ridiculously, overly happy all of the time. And we definitely don’t want to be down and out either. It’s the middle point, the sweet spot. You’re not super up all the time, but you’re also not super low. You’re just coasting with an even, balanced mind, being barely affected by what’s happening around you. So sweet.
I just feel really balanced. Like, I’m not crying tears of joy at dinner, but I’m also not angry at the strict dress code. The emotions have leveled off. I’m not reacting so much to my external situation, realizing that it’s really not what’s happening outside of me that matters, but how I'm internally processing it.
This is the third month. I’m feeling juuuuuuuust right.
September
I don’t want to leave! I feel like a newborn and this Ashram is my warm cozy cradle. I feel safe here. I don’t know if I’m ready to go back out into the big, scary world! This place is home, my spiritual home. My brothers and sisters, they’re family.
In the silence and solitude I’m having realization after realization after realization. I don’t need to search aimlessly for someone to answer my questions…I just need to dig deep during my meditations and the answers will come, they're already in there. Holy Mother of Meditation, this stuff really works!
I now know, first hand, that things or people are not the source of my ultimate happiness. I know this because I’ve just spent four months with noTHING or noONE to keep me distracted, yet I'm happy. I’ve crossed those scary bridges and I’ve made it safely to the other side.
This is the fourth month. I finally get it.
And so this where I am, getting ready to leave my crazy ashram life, closing out yet another challenge during this journey.
I haven’t had a job in a year, but I’ve never worked so hard in my life!
This whole Ashram experience has been the greatest gift God could have given me.
Nothing about meditating long hours, chanting in Sanskrit, or praying to Krishna feels weird to me. I’m not eating what I would normally eat, I’m not wearing what I would normally wear, I’m not spending my days doing what I would normally do, yet I’ve never felt so authentically me.
It’s a beautiful place to be, that place when you finally feel at peace with who you are, knowing that you're carrying within you "a portable paradise". All you gotta do is close your eyes and tap in.
I'm taking all of these lessons with me and I will use them as my weapons of peace, compassion and love when facing new challenges.
