A Stay in the Ashram

by Maarten Immink

The pace and way of life takes a dramatic change the moment you leave the reception office.  Sharing a room with four strangers: when is the last time your personal space was shared with total strangers? Awakening to song at 5:30 am & walking around in the predawn quiet surrealism.   Trying to sleep at 8:30 pm - well there is nothing else to do as you’re not supposed to talk to anyone – is an exercise in frustration.  The days are as long as a week. Eating takes on a whole new pattern.  The gong seems to be sounding constantly – all day eating veggies and drinking tea.  If it’s not the gong then the school bell is sounding to let you know it’s time to line up your shoes outside the practice hall. There are new faces, people walking around in an assortment of white, yellow and orange.  There’s the constant “Hari Om…” on the loudspeaker. It’s all so different than what has been familiar up to now.  Even the hips and knees let you know that even that sitting is not as easy as it looks; to sit cross-legged all day requires a big stack of cushions.

Then before you know it you realise that rising in the early hours gets to be quite natural and that practicing yoga first thing in the day makes you feel so relaxed and at peace all day long.  You realise that keeping silent at night helps to still the mind and is really a natural preparatory step for restful sleep.  Eating more frequently means having to eat less at one sitting, foregoing that need to feel overwhelmed your sensitive tummy.  Oh and yes, that Yoga Nidra before lunch has won you over because it really encourages you to eat slowly and relaxed you’re actually fully aware of eating, absorbing life giving nutrients. The established daily routine gives predictability and so there is little bewilderment in the mind, even your stomach learns when to start up before the gong is struck.  The unfamiliar faces, well you find that these people are really no different from yourself and yes, orange is looking very fashionable these days.  Then there is the appreciation of the environment.  The quiet, the fresh air, the sounds of the tree frogs peeping in chorus, the walks by the creek; its all so conducive to reconnecting, to feeling good. 

This ashram lifestyle allows you watch something you hardly ever get a chance to, yourself.  You go deeper and deeper learning about that inner friend. You find yourself feeling so much more relaxed and it shows on your face as you have a natural smile 4 hours a day, you’re radiating that smile from deep within. As you relax, you let go and you even find yourself getting carried away in song during Kirtan, singing in a language for which you have no interpretation other than the feeling that overtakes your whole self.

Staying at the ashram is about letting things fall apart. Like an external shell cracking, pieces dropping off one by one revealing someone who is much closer to the real you – that person you always new was there and you’ve been searching for so long. The essential comes to the forefront and the superfluous falls away. As all that unnecessary baggage drops off, there is a lightness, there is positivity, there is hope.  And it is that hope that is the most precious souvenir from the ashram stay, well, besides the Yoga Nidra CD’s and those wonderfully scented sandalwood beads.