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.
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.
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