Ashram

You will need a looong coffee this time; it has been quite some time that we have been only accumulating experiences but not sharing it, so now we try making it up all at once. To begin with let me state that life is beautiful; my tears were dropping today when listening to music on the train after 12 days of renouncement deprived from any "earthly" matters.

It was the 31st of January evening when we arrived to Neyyar Dam, a small village nearby Trivandrum to start a Yoga Vacation at the Sivananda Ashram. We planned some kind of yoga retreat long ago, but we were not quite sure about the where and how, especially about how we will take it. So we agreed to stay for minimum 3 days and maximum 2 weeks depending on our liking. It all began as a concentration camp - using the swami's (hindu monk) words when introducing the ashram life and rules on our first day. And it really was hard on most of us for the first few days after which actually we started to enjoy this very well organized, truly international, peaceful and strictly disciplined monastery environment. During the stay attendance at all classes is required, which meant more or less full time schedule from 6 am till 10 pm. When we checked in we received the house rules, which included items like smoking, alcohol, drugs, meat, fish, eggs, garlic or onions and pets are not allowed; mobile phones and cameras should be handed into reception upon arrival; guests are required to offer up to one hour of karma yoga per day, which means the ashram is self maintained by the guests. To respect the monastic tradition, guests shall restrain expressions of affection such as hugging or kissing in public and are advised to observe celibacy as part of the spiritual discipline. So you can imagine what a shock this schedule is particularly for one who has never done yoga before! But after the first 2-3 days we got acquainted with the place, understood that we are in the middle of the jungle, the various sounds got their meaning and place from lion roaring three times per day at feeding times at the nature reserve opposite the lake to the different bells and chanting around the clock notifying coming events of the day. Soon I will be oblivious to spiders after meeting species of the size of my palm and sharing the water with the crocodiles when swimming in the lake opposite the ashram. Eating with hands sitting on the floor became one of the comfort events of the day as we realized today that we have not sat in a chair for the last 12 days and as a matter of fact we have not sat in a car this year. No toilet paper and squating toilets were no problem after 4-5 hours of yoga excercise a day; your legs can surely hold you after a few days of practice and I will leave the no toilet paper part to your imagination to figure out with the hint that only right hand should be used for eating and serving food.

Besides the teachings the most valuable experience was the meeting with people from 40 plus different countries. After moving from one place to the other we felt some kind of belonging to some of the people we met and spent these days together. Though I have to say Hungarians were badly under represented me being the only one of the roughly 300 guests and I still have not bumped in any of my country man throughout our whole stay. Bhupendra, I hope you read our site, because we wanted to thank you so much for the cookies and your help; they served us for quite some days. And Gregg, I am grateful for you fixing Tomek's back after two years of pain; now I have my shoulder pillow:))).

Besides our normal schedule of waking up at 5.30 am, attending the morning meditation and chanting from 6 am to 8 am, yoga class from 8 am till 10 am, breakfast from 10.30 am till 11.00 am, karma selfless service from 11.00 am till noon, 12.30 till 13.30 pm coaching, half an hour tea, 2 pm to 3.30 pm lecture, 3.30 pm till 5.30 pm yoga class, 6 pm to 6.30 pm dinner, 8 pm till 10 pm evening medtation and chanting we had once a so called morning walk to the lake to see the sunrise instead of the morning meditation and one day off on Friday. We went on an excursion to the jungle to a waterfall where we could swim in the small pond which was a lot of fun until the rain started to pour like cats and dogs. We made our 2 hours walk back to the lake where boats were supposed to pick us up and give a 40 minutes ride to the ashram, but half of us did not fit to the boats and were left in the rain for another 2 hours. Still raining, no connection to civilization, 1 hour before it got dark and Tomek was in the first boat... This is an experience I will remember as one of the most trying ones not to lose my nerves, but people took it very positively which made it almost fun. Returning to the ashram we learnt though that it was not even worth to mention to locals; monsoon and tsunami obviously adjusted their standards.

If we manage with our gadgets you will soon be able to listen to an 80 years old swami woman's chanting and read more about our reflections after we digested it a little bit. Hinduism as the spiritual foundation for yoga in this particular ashram did give us a lot to debate, but buddhism is still there to discover in Nepal, Tibet and Thailand before any convertion :)

UPDATE: For more to see go to Rishio's beautiful photo collection from our life at the ashram.

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