Polish Angels & Releasing the hips

The one thing about travelling is you are always falling head over heels in love with people and then you have to say goodbye to them.
I missed all my dorm buddies when they left, not singing with them in Satsang and eyeing up the yoga teachers with them in class (I will fill you in about Randy Ramesh later) and chatting over our hot chai under the 'Tea Tree' as it was called in the garden.
But also I have noticed that just when you think that things will never be the same again and maybe it is your time to leave too then into your life walks someone else that  sweeps you off your feet.
Well in my case in walked two people in the form of Kaisha & Gosha the angels from Poland.
Kaisha and Gosha are twins, not identical but almost and they are both absolutely stunning and beautiful and sweet and kind and I adored them and was so glad there was two of them so there was more of them to spread around because everyone adored them too.
During my first week I saw them around in the ashram and we would say hi and smile when we met but it wasn't really until all my friends left that we really started talking. Kaisha and Gosha are only 24yrs old but my God are they smart ladies. They are bright and intelligent and deeply spiritual.
Their mom has travelled all over India and has stayed in all kinds of Ashrams for years. Upon arrival in Poland 4 years ago after another trip to India Kaisha and Gosha were enthralled by their Mothers talk of an Ashram she had visited and a Guru she had met, so much so that as Kaisha explained to me with tears in her eyes clutching my hands in hers, that she knew from that moment that she  had to go there, she had to meet this Guru, she felt it was her destiny and she was determined to do it. Kaisha's mother resisted at first she thought her seventeen year old daughters were far to young to be going off to India on spiritual quests and they should be enjoying their young lives not making extreme sacrifices in the name of God but the girls were determined and off they went. It was so wonderful listening to the girls talking about there Ashram and their love for their Guru, you could see the love in their beautiful blue eyes.
Kaisha helped me a lot with meditation. She helped me to sit straight and gave me some mantra's to try repeating to help to quiet my mind and she told me to focus on my heart chakra and to feel love. She had been meditating for four years and she told me honestly that it is hard and I had about three years of torture before I got it right. Bloody Nora I thought three years of wanting to scream and pull my hair out every time I sat crossed legged on the floor and tried to connect with God and my inner stillness and she said it so lightly and with a smile as if she was saying it's no problem Jacqueline it is only three years just stick with it you will get it in the end and then you are sorted for life and I think that is exactly what she meant.

Kaisha & Gosha always wore white floaty clothes for satsang and as they floated into the Shiva Hall at the beginning and end of everyday for prayer they looked like angels that had come down from heaven to shine light into the darkness. They had a very special energy about them that calmed people and made everyone feel warm and happy. I would watch the faces of the people around them and both men and woman would just stare at them captivated by their beauty but the real beauty that I will always remember was in every word that they said.
They were different in character and they had slight differences in appearance too. I could tell them apart no problem even from a distance even though they said people always got them confused. It was in their energy, they felt different, Kaisha felt strong, like an old soul that had lived many lives, very wise and confident, Gosha was more delicate, I felt she was eager to be independent that she wanted to run on her own to spread her own wings. They both had wavy thick sandy blond hair, they were both tall with long limbs (must be a Polish thing as the gorgeous Alla was blessed with a similar lush body) they were both tanned to a beautiful golden brown a colour I never go and they have the most beautiful big baby blue eyes. They have a more childlike cute beauty than a sexy beauty which I think is delightful. They really held themselves well, they had great posture after years of straight back meditation and yoga and they walked with their heads high and almost glided around the Ashram. I could just imagine them holding golden pails in their hands sprinkling shimmering golden  angel dust in every corner of darkness in every soul they passed.

Every Saturday night in the Ashram there would be a talent contest, dubbed 'The Freak Show' by Jamie from Leicester. A selection of ashramites would get up on the stage in the Shiva hall and sing or dance or read a poem and for the three Saturdays that I was there I laughed my arse off.
On the Saturday before the Polish Angels left the Ashram and left us all broken hearted they preformed a dance on the stage. It was great, they danced around in between the Hindu Deity's laughing and clapping and rolling there hips to the delight of the crowd who were all up on their feet dancing without a care in the world.
The girls were devastated when some Japanese girl confronted them the following morning accusing them of being too sexy and provocative, they were hurt and shocked and Kasha told me sincerely that no thoughts like that were going through her mind while she danced, no sexual attention was wanted they were just dancing like the huge golden deity of Shiva that adorned the stage.
She told me she felt so happy and full of love and she wanted to share that with the world and us in the ashram on that Saturday night at the Freak Show and I knew she meant it because that is the kind of wonderful sincere soul she is.I told  both Kaisha and Gosha not to worry too much about it that you can please some of the people some of the time but never all of the people all of the time which she giggled at but her beautiful blue eyes were sad. I had to really control myself that morning because I really felt like dragging that Japanese twat through the ashram by her 4ft pony tail and treating  her to an almighty kicking all the way back to Japan.

During one of mine and Kaisha's many deep and meaningful chats sat in the health hut at the top of the Ashram grounds the topic of my cast iron hips came into the conversation. I had commented on how long her and her sister would sit in the Shiva Hall meditating I would have crossed and uncrossed my legs more times than Kenny Everrett and they were still sat there statue still, straight backs and a look of pure peace radiating on their angelic faces. Again Koisha told me that it had taken her years to be able to meditate so deeply and years for her knees to finally touch the floor when her legs were crossed. Kaisha started to explain how allot of people hold allot of deep down sadness and pain between their hips that that is why so many people are stiff and cant relax because we are holding on to so many deep memories, bad memories and if we only let them out then we will be free of all of that pain and our bodies will release and basically my knees will fall gracefully to the floor and my hips will be as open as Jodie Marsh's on a Friday night or any night for that matter. Well I had heard that we carry allot of stress in our bodies but the whole deep rooted sadness in the hips was new to me.
That evening we we all invited to a ceremonial Puja to worship the Mother Goddess. We were all told that we cold wear our best clothes which for most of us was just a load of old scruffy back packing tat that we had bought from Goa or markets in Mumbai but  anyway we felt good it was a change from th normal schedule  and the hall was decorated with candles and incense and was so pretty. The Ashram director told us whilst chanting to ask the Mother Goddess to help us with whatever was troubling us or to bless our families or to guide us in the right direction I decided to ask the  Mother Goddess to please help me to unlock my hips. I prayed as i through the flowers and the red sandalwood powder at the base of the candles that what ever I was holding between my hips, whatever sadness I had stored there for so long would be released. I prayed that I could be free of it so I could move forward with my life and also with my yoga. If she didn't help me then I was going to the local garage 'Singh Fit' to get the bleeders prized open with a crow bar.
Its funny when they say be careful what you wish for because the next morning I woke up in agony. I was in so much pain that I went to the Satsang but had to crawl out after 10 minutes.  I crawled over to the gardens and lay on the ground under the trees.  I was clutching my stomach and rocking back and forward with tears dripping down into my lap. I was sobbing into the grass under the safety of my scarf and I was sad so very very sad. For some reason I knew there was nothing really wrong with me I knew I didn't need a doctor and I knew the stomach pain would go and I also knew that my sadness was nothing to do with the pain in my stomach. I just cried and cried I must have cried myself to sleep because when I woke up it was light and people were coming out of the Shiva Hall for morning Chai.
I went back to my room and sat on my bed and for hours so many memories came flooding back into my mind. Things I had forgotten, things I had spent days and nights drinking to forget but there they were as vivid and sharp as a blinding light that is switched on in the middle of the night.  I knew I couldn't drown myself in alcohol anymore and I knew I had just about travelled to every continent of the world and I knew there was no where else to go and no where else to hide because I had been to all the places and the sadness had always found me so i sat there and dissected it piece by piece and cried and prayed and by the time I woke again my room was in a silent darkness. I opened the door and stepped outside into a beautiful Keralan night and looked up at the sky full of stars and for the first time in my life I realised that it was not my fault.

I knew that I didn't have to poison myself anymore that I didn't have to hurt myself anymore because the evil was not inside me it never was. I realised I was Innocent and finally I felt that I could be somebodys friend somebody's  daughter somebodys sister somebodys Auntie without letting them down or hurting them.

Kaisha was right and I thank her from the bottom of my heart for helping me to let go of my past, for helping me to cut the ropes that were slowly strangling my soul and of course I thanked the Mother goddess. The female entity of God who answered my prayers.

I am not going to tell you that my knees can touch the floor when I cross my legs but there not too far away and my hips are relaxed an open. Sitting crossed legged now on the floor is comfortable but the real change that happened in me was not physical it was a change that happened deep down inside the essence of my soul. The change of emotions from anger and self pity and guilt and shame to acceptance and forgiveness and love. That is were all the real changes need to take place to really enable us to find peace and I do feel at peace I really do.
I feel like I have stepped out of the cold dark shadows into the warmth of the sun

Panchakarma & The Mass Exodus

After being at the Ashram for about a week I decided to sign up for the two week Panchakarma detox treatment.

This would mean of course that my two week stay would be turning into three weeks and three days but I was settled in the ashram and I had wanted to have panchakarma for some time and it was a really good price, 19,000 rupees which is about £280. Still that is a fair whack out of a back packers budget but I had spoken to a few people who had paid almost triple that in the resorts of Varkala and Kovalam.
I wouldn't have bothered with it if I had still been drinking but I had not touched a drop for nearly nine weeks and I thought the Panchakarma would be a great way to rid my body of toxins that had been inside me for months and would be a good incentive to carry on with my healthier lifestyle.
I was in the ashram after all and all my food and yoga was included so it made sense to have the treatment there.
Panchakarma is an ancient ayurvedic treatment that has been practised in India for centuries. It helps the body to eliminate toxins through vigorous oil massages, hot bundle treatment were dry herbs wrapped in muslin cloths are heated in oil and the body is pounded with them to create heat and unblock tension and Dharsa which is a treatment were ayurvedic oil is poured in a constant steady flow on to the forehead of the patient. Dharsa helps to calm the patient and helps with anxiety and insomnia and helps to balance the mind and open the third eye chakra. Then Nasar which is oil that is dripped in to both nostrils which helps to clear sinuses, ease headaches and calm anxiety. Also the more drastic side of the treatment includes purgation were a oily concoction is drank and a couple of hours later the world falls through the seat of your pants and then induced vomiting to eliminate toxin build up in the stomach and four days of oil enemas to thourally detox the whole colon of everything it has been holding onto for years.

The entire treatment is preformed over a two week period and fortunately not all parts of the treatment are done every day because I would imagine you would have a bottom like a chewed orange and due to my existing stomach hernia I was excluded from the induced vomiting.
The first ten days of the treatment are just really preparatory. Getting the body ready for the impending evacuation. Oily massages and kizhi hot bundles are done daily to loosen the toxins in the body, stimulate the lymph system which deals with the waste and toxins in the body and to make the insides and the outside of the body oily making it easier to shift everything along.
I would love to say I loved the treatment but I got a crippling heat rash during the first week of panchakarma and when your body is hot and itchy the last thing you want is an oily massage and two scolding hot oily bags pounded on your delicate body. I just kept telling myself that it would be all worth it when I walked out of Sivanada, slim, toned healthy and glowing with purity and serenity!!
The oil dripped through the nasal passage was agony. I had had a wonderful selection of substances inhaled up my nostrils over the years but the oil inhalation came right at the arse end of that list of enjoyment.
The Dharsa treatment were oil is poured from above onto the forehead was bliss it was so so relaxing and I felt like a wave of peace was passing over me and all my worries were being untangled from my mind and spirit. The only down side to that was for about four days I was walking around with hair smelling like George & Hellen's fish shop on a Friday night. I washed my hair twice after every treatment but it was so thick with oil that it would just not come out. For days I just scrapped it back and walked around the ashram looking like Olive off On The Buses with a swarm of flies buzzing around my head like I was a giant cow patt.
After about fifteen years of constipation I could not wait for the enemas to get started. The therapist Sini who had been doing the treatments for me everyday told me not to worry as she  forced me down butt naked onto the wooden table on my side while another lady spreads my legs in the recovery position, I was thinking will I ever recover from the shame. A pipe the length of a cobra was pushed up to my throat and 2 litres of Castor oil, Honey, herbs, salt and pepper were rudely forced into my intestines, all that was missing up there was pie and bloody chips. I imagined my poor intestine's  looking  like a rabbit in a headlight being faced with 2 litres of fluid at 100 miles and hour all rushing upwards in the wrong direction. I glanced over my right shoulder to see the serious expressions on sini's and her side kicks faces and Sini was holding a Tupperware bucket attached to the pipe that was attached to my bottom in the air shaking it like it was a tambourine making sure every last ounce was pushed in.
I have to admit it was worth all the shame I felt fantastic the next morning refreshed, lighter, energized and after 2 hours on the squat loo I was exahusted and I slept like a baby.
I don't know if Panchakarma is as amazing as what Dr Vishnu said it was, I mean it is relaxing and all that well the massage and oil being poured on the forehead part, but I suppose over the coming months I will know if for me it was a success and if my stomach and digestion is calmer and more regular then it was money well spent.

I had all sorts of problems with my digestion system over the years and too be honest I blame years of Bulimia during my teens and the wild partying years of my twenty's so it was all self inflicted and I felt I deserved it. I had had several stomach ulcers from all the excess acid that vomiting and alcohol had caused and a few years ago after collapsing in the street in Brighton with my poor Mother  looking on I was diagnosed with a stomach hernia. You would think that little lot would convert me to a healthier lifestyle but after a couple of weeks flat on my back in agony I was back on the gin and back dancing on the bars in Brighton.
Dr Vishnu assured me that Panchakarma would help to heal my offended digestion and sooth my partied out colon and calm my fraught mind. I also decided to leave the dorm and check into a twin room for the duration of the panchakarma treatment as Dr Vishnu said it could be quite an emotional experience and all sorts of emotions would arise and things I had kept bottled up inside would come flowing out of me like the water gushing out of the nearby Neyyar Dam.

I was sad saying goodbye to the girls in the dorm which was daft as I was only going to be staying a few feet away in one of the rooms under the dining room but we had had some great times. They all hugged me goodbye and said they would miss my antics, I used to run around with my mosquito net over my face pretending to be the fly which they all found highly amusing.
My beautiful friend Alla had already left surrounded by a haze of peace and beauty. She gave me the most delicate kiss on the cheek and asked me to stay in touch that she wanted to do a trip with me to the Himalayas in a few months. I was flabbergasted, I was so loud and buzzing around and she was just so lady like and elegant and peaceful and she wanted to go on a trip with me. I couldn't believe it, she said some lovely things to me that made the tears run down my cheeks and even though people will probably think 'oh look at that stunning girl how sweet she has bought her mother with her to the Himalayas' I will go on a trip with her. It's strange how opposites can fit together so well. Alla would just sit and giggle behind her elegant hand as I arsed around dancing around the dorm in my g-string under my mosquito net telling crude jokes and taking the mick out of the cock from Canada. I had no idea she liked me so much I thought I just embarrassed her but I just cant help being the clown it's just the way I have always been. I was sad when she left with her sweetness and her little bed looked sad too I mean who wouldn't miss that gorgeous goddess lying on top of them every night.
Alla was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen and I mean real beauty, physically and from within, not like the plastic beauty I see everyday in England, faces full of botox, boobs full of silicone, plastic nails and faces painted like drag queens, real natural beauty and sweetness and kindness.

My second friend to leave was the lovely porcelain skinned Amber from Canada but she was not a cock like the Karma yoga dude thank God. Amber was a Yoga teacher at home but the Yoga she had been taught was purely physical and she came to India to see if the spiritual side of yoga appealed to her. She said she felt like something was missing.
I don't want to go too much into Amber's private life but she had had a few unhappy years and lost some people who she loved very much and like myself and a lot of people I met in the ashram an inner sadness and a need to heal had brought her here.
Amber was a smart lady. I loved listening to her, she was younger than me but she really had her head on her shoulders and knew all about yoga and Ayurveda and the doshas, caphor pitta Vatta I think they are called. When she was explaining things she would talk with her hands and she had lovely boney fingers and lovely nails.
Amber ended up leaving two days before the end of the two week course which initially I thought was crazy and something I cold never do is quit anything early, but after talking to her and unsuccessfully trying to convince her to stay I realised that she was right and it was time for her to move on. She said she had enjoyed the Satsang but she was so exhausted and the yoga was very different to the yoga she taught at home and she felt we were asked to stand on hour heads for far longer than was neccessary and she was fed up to the back teeth of her Karma yoga duty up at the health hut were she felt un appreciated  and disrespected. She had had a complete melt down after a stressful shift and slammed her notebook down and told them 'I'm done' in true Canadian fashion and walked out.
Once Amber said she was leaving loads of the other girls left too, Nicole from Austria , was next who was a great girl. Her English was good,  well better than she gave herself credit for but she used to get words mixed up and come out with the funniest things like 'lets come to the dinner and eat some many vegetable missing tasty' she had us in complete hysterics all the time, Rahil from Switzerland left with Nicole, they headed to Varkala beach to lay in the sun and eat pizza and drink filter coffee. Rahil always looked stoned but never was and never went to any lectures or Satsangs and then the lovely and eccentric Josephine from Australia but lived in London left also. In a way I was glad I had left the dorm the week before the mass Exodus because I would have been so lonely with all of my best buddies gone.
Josephine was an interesting character. She was curvaceous and bubbly but in her eyes I could recognise a deep sadness. I don't know why but I knew it was linked to alcohol. I suppose I know the signs and I guess I had seen that same sadness in my own eyes in the mirror many times. We talked a lot in that first week and she said I reminded her of herself, that she was always the clown making people laugh but inside she was crying, lost in regret, shame and self loathing.
Eventually Josephine told me about her drinking, like me she did not need to drink everyday but when she did drink she could not stop. She told me about all the trouble she had gotten herself into over the years and I knew exactly how she felt. I really like Josephine she always said lovely things to everyone. Telling the girls how pretty they were and how nice their clothes were and I could see that she was always giving to others but really didn't receive much in return.
 Josephine left in the middle of the night, we woke up and she was gone, no one heard her leave but next to my bed she left me her email address and a bottle of aromatherapy oil i had commented on the day before as  she applied It to her thighs. She told me she was on a health kick and wanted to get slim and sexy to seduce some guy she was crazy about.  I thought fair play bird fill your boots. She told me she was going to 'Own the fukin room' which I thought was incredible, she said she came from a middle class background and didn't want to be middle class and fukin boring, ha ha ha.
 Josephine was a real woman and a real character and I really hoped she would stay sober and be happy oh and of course seduce her man.

Sivananda The first few days

The first few days at the ashram was absolute physical torture.

I'm not talking about the four and a half hours of intense yoga we were put through each day even though that was challenging enough but incredibly it was the sitting crossed legged on the floor. I couldn't believe how hard it was proving to be. I mean at home I very often choose to sit crossed legged on the floor to watch TV or to eat but usually I am propped up against a wall or the sofa. I was amazed at how much I hurt. Shooting pains were travelling up and down my spine and my shoulders were in agony and as hard as the hobs of hell. I think the two years working for Clarins carrying a huge shoulder bag full of files and books and pulling a wheelie suitcase all over the country and up and down escalators on the London underground didn't help much either.
My body felt completely lopsided. I could feel how out of balance it was in certain yoga postures I would be veering off to one side and my spine would always arch to the right to compensate for the big heavy bag it was so used to carrying that was always dragging my left shoulder down. I felt like I had been run over by a steam engine. I was in complete agony through morning and evening Satsang and I was not alone and there was an almighty dash for the support of the walls in the Shiva hall at the beginning and end of every day. The beds provided little comfort as they were so hard and the mattresses  so thin that once in bed I tossed and turned and my bones were bashed and bruised and I wondered what kind of bloody nik I would be  in after two weeks of this routine. I had visions of me limping out of the ashram in shame out of the back door clutching my battered bottom full of piles.

In the end I decided to stay put in the dorm and not move to a twin room as initially planned as the girls were great and we laughed and laughed so it took my mind off how much pain I was in.
The day after we all arrived we attended a meeting to welcome us to the ashram and to tell us what was what. We were also told that every day for 1 hour we would be expected to provide a Karma Yoga selfless service to the ashram, ie serving food, emptying the bins, working on the reception etc etc. The guy that was allocating the karma yoga duties was from Canada. I was really trying not to find fault in him but he was making it very hard. From the moment he opened his mouth with an Aoooohm that sounded like he had been practising it in front of the mirror in his underwear with one hand behind his head I knew he was a bloody egotistical moron and I never wanted to go to Canada.

I was really trying not to judge people too quickly as I tend to make an opinion within the first few minutes of meeting someone and I can see their faults and flaws so easily i know this is not a nice trait it is one handed down to me from my judgemental Mother, God love her and I am quite aware that I have more than my fair share of faults and flaws and I would like people to give me a chance and not just to judge me on them but here I was again watching the cock from Canada talk and talk and I could see how much he loved the sound of his own voice. He just went on and on and talked about himself far too much and as the weeks went by my feelings for him got so strong that I really had to sit down and ask myself why he annoyed me so much. Did I see in him what i could see in my self??? did all his faults actually make me realise that they are my faults too?
Yes I did allot of soul searching during my time in the ashram and I did not like allot of what I saw.
Fortunately for me at the time as soon as we walked out of the Canadians useless chat about himself nearly every other person was confirming what a twat he was and I felt marginally better about my wicked self.

One of my dorm buddies actually said that she couldn't believe that he had been there months and still would need to buy a second seat on the aircraft home for his ego and what hope was there for us beginners if he had been there for months and so obviously didn't get it. I was still not dismissing my thoughts that I needed to look within to understand why he enraged me so much but I was glad I was not the only person who had seen right through him. Amber from Canada said he made her ashamed to be Canadian and I was thinking just be grateful your not Russian by what I had heard in India they were far from flavour of the month, bunch of old trouts.

Every day I noticed that people looked worse and worse. What I had mistakenly taken for a zen like peaceful presence that the ashramites seemed to posses I began to realise was exhaustion. We were all knackered. Every  morning the beast of a bell would be rang at 5.20. I have always been a morning person and very often start my day with a run or yoga before work but I have to admit 5.20 was beginning to wear thin. Some of the other girls were really beginning to struggle. they would be walking around looking like they had just been ripped feet first out of the clutches of a hurricane all battered and creased with hair swept all over their faces stumbling around banging into the walls and it wasn't long before the first recruits jumped ship.
It is no easy life ashram life. Early starts every day. An hour and a half of meditation prayer and chanting every morning and night. Four and a half hours of yoga. An hour of scrubbing toilets or whatever your Karma yoga was and then lectures which again meant you were sat crossed legged in agony on a concrete floor. There were no lie ins or early nights you had to be there otherwise someone would come knocking. There were strict ashram rules that we were supposed to follow no talking in the morning before Satsang and no talking after satsang in the  evening. We talked like a load of old fish wives. No laptops or mobiles to be used in the ashram, phones were ringing all bloody day and of course no smoking and drinking alcohol. Well in my 3 and a half weeks I never heard of anyone drinking alcohol and it did make me chuckle thinking that back in the day....2 months ago I would have for sure sneaked a bottle of Bombay Sapphire in under me sari. Claude from the south of France was constantly sneaking off into the bushes for a roll up and Leor from Israel and Naughty Nina from Sweden jumped the ashram wall for a fag because the guard would not let them out and half an hour later strolled back in the front entrance as brazen as you like past the very same guard LOL LOL.
Naughty nina was great fun. She was a tall striking blond with amazing bone structure. She was an osteopath which I thought was quite appropriate. She was fed up with the ashram schedule and hated the satsang and lectures so much that she skipped them and hid in the dorm. She didn't think it was fair that we were expected to sing and praise the Hindu Deity's even though we were not Hindu's but if you don't want to praise God then you shouldn't have come to an ashram I thought. I mean she could have gone and chilled out on a beach, got out of bed when she wanted and just found a local yoga class. I did love Nina though she was like a chocolate eclair, naughty but nice and I thought if jacquelina was out to play Nina would make a wonderful play mate. She left after a few days which I thought was for the best but I did miss her she was a great girl and she cracked my back for me which gave me a few hours of release from the excruciating pain I was still in. Before she left we shared a hug and she told me not to get to weired which I thought was hilarious. She thought it was strange that I loved praying and when I bought a chant book from the ashram boutique to learn the Jaya Ganesha chant I think she considered throwing me in the lake

Allot of people came to the ashram because it was an inexpensive way to do yoga. To stay in one of the dorm beds was only 500 rupees per night which is about £7 and that's includes two yoga classes per day, all your food, be it humble rice and chick pea curry most days and snacks of  herbal tea and fruit.

At one lecture the ashram director asked us to introduce ourselves and say what had bought us to the ashram. Allot of people said how they were feeling they needed a new direction in life or they were searching for a spiritual path or some such deep and meaningful explanation of there trip in India and one half of an English duo I nicknamed dumb and dumber (I know aren't I a bitch) replied my name is Kevin I'm from Birmingham and I am here because it's cheap. What a tool. I mean, that may have been the reason but would you really say that to the ashram director looking all saintly in his orange robes??
To be honest I thought that was rotten. I mean to come to a sacred place of worship just to get a cheap deal and then complain about doing karma yoga and having to sing a few songs.

I offered to clean the toilets as my karma yoga duty and it was not because I was trying to be the swami's pet but he explained that the selfless act of Karma yoga helps to purify the soul and eradicate the wrong doings we had done. Well with the amount of trouble I had caused over the years and the worry I had caused my poor Mother and the terrible things I had done drank and snorted I decided to go for the worst job of all and go head first down the lavatory until I was washed clean.
I was allocated the dorm toilets with a grubby looking girl from 'The States' as she put it. I thought she looked like she should start her scrubbing duties on herself but Amber from Canada informed me that it was a  look called 'hipster' and they all look the same like Lindsay lohan, dirty blond hair with black roots, black eyeliner smudged down their cheeks and black clothing.
I never found out her name because she only showed up once to clean the toilets with me and yet again I was challenged to keep my cool. I tried not to let it get to me that she just lay in bed in the dorm while she watched me empty her bins and loped off to swim in the lake in her grubby bikini while I was up to the elbows in crap. The lovely Guium from Quebec told me to let it go that this was her karma and it would all balance out but I was furious and wanted to tell anyone that would listen. I could not believe that she could do that, that she would let someone else do her share and she just didn't give a shit. I realised that the wrong doing that she had done had made me act in a way that I was not proud of. I was getting a sick satisfaction out of telling my dorm buddies about her and I had to stifle a giggle when she tripped one day on her way down the stairs. I know what you are thinking and you are right I am a horrible piece of work.
I realised that I was no better than her at the end of the day. I know I should have just got on with it and I did to a certain extent. I quite enjoyed cleaning the toilets, I was on my own and it was peaceful and I even chanted the Jaya Ganesha Ashram anthem while I worked but in  the back of my mind the bitterness was simmering.
I know I am not perfect but I also know that I can be a better person, I want to be a better person  and my time in the ashram really opened my eyes and made me take a long hard look at myself. I used to think being on time for everything and staying late and doing all that I was asked was enough but I was coming to realise that that is such a small part of it. I began to see that just doing what you should is not enough. It is the way in how you do it that matters. The way you feel in your heart and  for me the main realisation was not to judge others and how they choose to act, even if they were lazy or selfish just to let them live there way as they too are on their journey of self realisation and as Guium from Quebec had said Karma will even everything out in the end.
 I was doing everything that I was asked to do, I was attending all the Satsangs and lectures but I was finding myself judging others and their shortcomings and I began to see how wrong that was and I knew I had to make some changes.
That night at satsang I promised God that I would try my very best to not judge others and to preform my tasks from love. I'm not saying it was easy and there were a couple of days when I probably should have stayed in bed because I failed miserably but eventually I did get better and I intended to continue after I left Sivananda.

Sivananda Ashram

I stayed at the Sivananda Ashram for three and a half weeks.
There is so much to say, so much to share with you all.

I experienced so many emotions some good some bad and some horrific, I scrubbed toilets and floors on my knees, served food from buckets to hundreds of fellow yogis sat on the floor eating with their hands. Sweated like a Bombay dustman for hours on my yoga mat trying to perfect a head stand that didn't result in me flying through the air and landing on somebody else's mat across the hall, sang, chanted and praised God until I was blue in the face and cried over the excruciating pains in my hips that after years of action still did not want to open to allow me to sit comfortably crossed legged on the floor for longer than five minutes.
I watched people crumble under the stress of the schedule, some left after 2 days some 2 days before the end of the two week course and some jumped over the wall (honestly). So I think i will have to do this blogg in instalments and add to it every day, so I can do it justice because all in all Sivananda was an experience of a life time for  me, it will stay with me forever and I hope I am a better person for it.

I was quite nervous as I walked into the reception of the Sivananda Ashram Kerala. I had never been to an ashram before. I didn't really know what I was in for but I knew I wanted to be there.
 I had thought about spending time in an ashram for years. I wanted to be surrounded by people who were spiritual and interested in God and were living healthy lives full of prayer and peace and love and respect, all the things that my life had been lacking as for years I had surrounded myself with party people, people I could get drunk with get high with who made me feel it was normal to go through life in a haze of oblivion.
I wanted to learn to meditate properly and to control my mind and senses that were usually running a mock and to find peace within the craziness of my life and I really thought that ashram life may be a good place to start.
I kind of thought that perhaps an ashram would be a bit like an Enigma video, mysterious figures with hooded cloaks floating silently around in the mist but as I looked around I could see that Sivananda was nothing like that it was vibrant and full of chatter and laughter.
As I waited to check in I watched a yoga class that was taking place in what I later came to know as the Shiva hall opposite the reception. I was thinking that these people must have been doing yoga for years because they had just done 10 rounds of sun salutations and now the whole class were standing on their heads and no one was falling over. There was about a hundred pairs of legs floating effortlessly  towards the inviting heavens. I had never been able to do a headstand and I looked on enviously and considered making a run for it back down the stairs and back into the taxi and right there I made a promise to myself that before I left Sivananda I would be able to stand on my head.
I was told by the nice young girl on the reception with very bushy eyebrows that I thought was perhaps the height of ashram chic that the twin room I had booked would not be available for three days and I would have to spend three nights in the dormitory. I did not mind I just wanted to accept what ever was thrown at me and just to believe that everything that happened was meant to happen.
I was given two threadbare bed sheets a mosquito net full of holes and a pillow that looked like it had spent it's entire life under Oprah Winfrey's arse, but I was not going to complain, this was the beginning of a new life for me and I intended to be far more grateful for everything in it than I had been in the past and quite frankly if it was good enough for Oprah Winfrey's arse then it was good enough for my face.

I made my bed and hung up my holey mosquito net and started to un pack my back pack,  its funny but when all you have in the world is what you have in your back pack it is so easy to set up home anywhere so quickly and when I think of all the clutter we surround ourselves with usually it seems ridiculous, wardrobes full of clothes and shoes we never wear and draws full of make up and toiletries just endless unnecessary stuff on top of endless unnecessary
stuff.

Other girls started to arrive and we all got chatting and telling our stories of were we were from and what brought us to the ashram and where we were off to next. The girl next to me was called Alla. Alla has that kind of stunning natural beauty that you just cant help but stare at. She is slim with graceful  limbs and a  slender neck that is accentuated by a short crop of chocolate curls and big brown innocent eyes that gaze out at you like a shy gazelle. Alla does everything gracefully, I could tell immediately that she was definitely not English. Every movement is slow and elegant, she speaks in a husky whisper and flutters her long eyelashes over her secretive eyes. I was thinking trust me to be in a bed next to you, where is the dawn french look alike put me in with her for God sake.
By the time we had all made our beds and showered the 5.50pm bell was rang to let us know that dinner would be served at 6pm. We made our way to the dining hall through the grounds of the ashram which was so beautiful. The ashram is surrounded by the magestic and incredibly beautiful Agastya mountain range and lush green hills and the land is full of papaya, mango, walnut and coconut trees and gardens full of brightly coloured tropical flowers that were being ravished by hundreds of busy butterflies.

 Dinner was served by silent fellow ashramites from big metal buckets onto metal trays. we all sat crossed legged on the floor and a gentleman called joseph who I later christenend 'flexible Jo' due to the fact that he could bend and twist his body in to any yoga posture known to man sang the Krishna mantra and said a prayer and then we all tucked in.
The food was good, all vegetarian which of course is the healthiest way to eat and the chosen diet of the yogis. We had a mountain of rice and then about 4 different vegetable accompaniments, the strict ashram diet excluded onion, chilli and garlic as these are stimulates and make it difficult to meditate but the food was still tasty as it had been flavoured with herbs and lemon juice. I had eaten Indian style with my right hand before so I did ok but I could tell by the looks on some of the faces around me that this was their first encounter of the tradition and they were not too impressed. Cutlery was not allowed and neither were chairs so it was just a case of shut up and put up and get covered in chick pea curry like the rest of us.
We were told to eat in silence and was reminded by Ramesh a big hulk of a man in a lungi cloth pulled tightly over his tum when chatter arouse in the ranks.
I liked the way we chanted and prayed before we ate and hearing the Hare Krishna mantra made a shiver go down my spine. For some time I had been attracted to the Krishna conscience movement and to hear the mantra on my first day in the ashram I felt was a very significant sign. Eating in silence felt sacred and quite different to the eating experience in the west which is usually done in front of the tv with each fork full of plastic food fed into an overweight mouth whilst watching an episode of Coronation street. Eating in silence was a way to appreciate each mouthful and to allow the body to digest the food properly and not have to compromise its energy with a mouth that wouldn't stop yakking and a brain that was focused on Rita in the cabin.
We all washed our own metal tray and then floated back to the dorm. Alla had walked off a little in front and I came to realise that she likes to be alone, often I would see her just sat under one of the trees in the garden writing in her journal or just sitting there in a haze of serenity just gazing into the distance looking like a goddess while I blundered past feeling like an almighty heifer.

None of us knew what was going on really nobody tells you when you arrive they just give you a little ashram leaflet with the do's and don'ts like no drinking alcohol no smoking always cover legs and shoulders all that kind of stuff and a brief daily schedule. It said at 8pm it was 'Satsang' but none of us knew what that was and none of us knew were to go so we just followed the crowds that started to pour out of the dorm just before 8 after the ring of the heavy bell that was right outside the dorm, I'm not looking forward to hearing that beast at 5.20am I was thinking.
We entered the Shiva hall in complete darkness. There were rows and rows of bodies looking holy sat crossed legged facing a huge alter. I sat down crossed legged which was not comfortable as I was still aching from the 30mins sat crossed legged on the concrete floor in the dinning room and I hoped I wouldn't be adding bloody piles to my never ending list of anal ailments. Surely constant constipation was enough to be getting on with.
The hall started to fill up rapidly and as I snook glances around in the darkness I could see the calmness and peacefulness on all the faces around me. Peacefully sitting there eyes closed enjoying the 'inner stillness' I had been reading so much about and craved. I prayed there and then to God that I would feel that peace and serenity and would be able to sit crossed legged long enough to actually be able to meditate because it was my first evening and I was in bloody agony already. But if you think about it in the west as soon as we can sit up are back sides are forced into chairs, no one sits on the floor unless they are bladdered and can't stand for falling over so are legs and hips are just not used to it. especially being a woman, we are sat crossed legged most of the time trying to look thinner and sexier so sitting on a concrete floor with your hips open and your legs folded yogi style is no easy job I was beginning to wish I had had a few more hip opener evenings with my bit of ruff before leaving the uk.
Anyway enough of that filth.

At exactly 8pm according to the Shiva hall clock a microphone was switched on by a man in the darkness on the stage and aooooooooommmmmmm was bellowed out as if from the heavens raising me 2 foot off the concrete floor. This was proceeded by two more of the same accompanied by the  two hundred or so crowd aooooming there way into oblivion. We were then guided into meditation by the mysterious figure from the stage, encouraging us to sit in a comfortable position, fat chance  I was thinking, breath deeply, clear your mind and so on but once again I could not meditate for toffee. I could not switch off the constant chatter in my head and as soon as I was told to be still I fidgeted and scratched and wriggled. I was determined to get better at meditation and I was sure that 2 weeks in the ashram would give me a good start but I was just happy to sit in the darkness just watching the others and listening to the gentle sound of the evening floating into the night.
Then 3 more aooooooooms  were thrown out into the crowd and all the blinding lights were viciously thrown on and what I came to learn was the ashram anthem, was sang from the depths of everyones souls right up to God in the heavens....Jaya Ganesha, Jaya Ganesha Jaya Ganesha Pahiman, Shree Ganesha Shree Ganesh Shree Ganesh rakshamam etc etc, which is a prayer sang to Ganesh the elephant headed Hindu God that helps to remove obsticles. I sang the only bit I could make out Jaya Ganesha Jaya Ganesha and prayed that Lord Ganesh would remove the agony in my western hips.  It was sang at the top of everybody's voice into the blinding light of the Shiva Hall, I was rather embarrassed I was not expecting such a spectacle on my first evening I thought perhaps we would be broken in gently but I came to realise that there is no special treatment for new comers at Sivananda you are just expected to get on with it and get used to the ashrams way of doing things asap. There was a serious amount of clapping and rocking and tambourine bashing going on and I was grateful I was at the back and could hide my embarrassment behind my hair.
Us British are a right up tight lot and the only time we really let ourselves go is when we are ten sheets to the wind on some dodgey dance floor decorated with handbags so being in the middle of all this singing and praising the Lord was heavy duty stuff. More songs were sang and the misterious figure on the stage introduced himself to be the director of the ashram and informed all new yoga vacation guests as we were called that we would be attending a welcome style meeting the following morning to let us know what was going on.

We all stood after an hour and a half of meditation, chanting and prayer to sing Arati, this is the closing prayer that is done at the end of Satsang  every morning and evening and it came to be my favourite not that it signalled the end and a near escape but because it was so beautiful and I was mesmerised from the first time I heard it.
A gentle bell was continuously rang and a lungi wearing man preformed the ceremony at the alter. A man wearing a lungi is a ceramony in it's self. I never thought I would like a man in a skirt because men in kilts make me feel ill with their white hairy legs and tartan but the chocolate coloured toned thighs I was seeing flashing around in India was a hole differeent ball game. Anyway camphor was burnt in a brass looking bowl and the smoke was wafted gently towards the statues of the ashrams Gurus, Sivananda and his disciple Vishnu Devananda and the other deity's, Shiva, Hanumanta and Ganesha. It was beautiful and I felt so emotional a tear ran down my cheek, everyone was stood with their hands together in prayer and I could feel the energy of love surrounding me and it felt good.
Prasad was offered after Arati which is a sacred food usually some fruit or some kind of sweet so we all waited in turn to receive this delight and then we helped to roll the straw mats collect the chant books and made our way back to our rooms or dorms.

We were told not to talk  after Arati but back in the dorm it was like a hen-do weekend in Benidorm, girls were running around with their boobs out whacking each others arses with towels. One girl was on her mobile to her boyfriend which was strictly not allowed as all mobiles had to be handed in or switched off and everyone else was gassing away about all sorts nonsense. The only girl who was quiet was the adorable Polish angel Alla she just sat on the edge of her bed undressing slowly and showing even more delcate tanned beautiful skin that glowed with purity.
I was glad I was in the dorm in the middle of all of this chatter really as I think I may have been a little lonely if it was complete silence in a room on my own on my first night. Sometimes I have a little cry on my first night somewhere new which is silly I know when you are 37years old and have spent your life travelling around the globe and have had hundreds of first nights in hundreds of places I mean what a waste of tears in this current climet of being green and environmentally friendly but Rollie was under my arm and having him with me for the last 30yrs gave me instant comfort and I put my ear plugs in and I thanked God for my first few hours at the Sivananda Ashram and I was so looking forward to the next morning.