Living in an Ashram in India (for westerners)

The Ashram where Julia Roberts' character lived during her stay is indeed very similar to an average Ashram. From the clothing it seems to have been filmed in Bombay, I didn´t see that many turbans. What is the difference between Ashrams in Bombay and those in Northern India? The large number of turbans you see on the streets in Northern India, mostly. And maybe the weather, with the South being warmer. So no major differences really ;)

So yes, it is pretty much the way that movie depicted it. Details and requirements vary from Guru to Guru but in general that is what Ashram life is all about if your Guru is not in the Ashram during your visit.

That's what my Ashram life was like when foreigners were allowed to visit our Guru in India. Otherwise it was pretty quiet and with lots of contact with our Guru.

Does everyone wake up in the early morning to pray or meditate? I didn´t live in the South of India but I think I would not be exaggerating if I said that all of India wakes up in the wee hours to pray. It´s hard to miss. Some temples even use loud speakers so that everyone hears their prayers, not only God ( I hope I didn´t offend anyone with that joke).

So if your Ashram is close to a temple or a full boarding school chances are you won´t be able to miss the loud prayers, whether you intended to wake up early in the morning or not.

By the way, the picture shows the monks inside their moskito nets. Something so vital in India! Sometimes, when the weather allowed, we would spend the whole night outdoors, inside our moskito nets, either sitting in meditation or laying down sleeping. The only drawback is that it tends to get a little too warm inside them. They are best for cool or breezy nights.

Now, clothng. My very first day in India, after having arrived the previous night, was interesting. I put on some comfotable loose cotton pants and an, also, loose comfortable top... that went as low as my waist. My waist is something I've always been proud of so I have always showed it off. Uh-uh, big NO/NO in India. Especially in an Ashram. The moment they saw me outside the building for foreigners I was asked to change into something longer than that top. I did, and later on I went to the local store to buy punjabis. The traditional clothes from... the Punjab, in northern India. Strange that saris, being as sexy as they are, are ok for the locals to wear but not for us. No biggy. Punjabis were very comfortable, both for asanas (what is commonly known as Yoga in the West) and meditation... and traveling!

The best way would be to contact a representative of the Guru in this side of the Planet. A lot of reliable Gurus have expanded their "Mission" to almost every country now.

Speaking of Google I need to warn you about all those Ashrams you find on the search engines that want to charge you thousands of dollars. As you may have already guessed it, they are there to make money.

If what you are looking for is a sincere spiritual experience you need to first find a sincere spiritual group. The best way to do that is in person, over here, in the West. Are you interested in Meditation? Visit meditation groups and ask them if they have a Guru in India. It is usually only Gurus who will have Ashrams.

The main idea of the Ashram is to be some kind of monastery which promotes an austere life, hence the no charging for you to stay at their facilities. Now you shouldn't think it is for free. In exchange, most of the time, you are asked to join a daily chat about their teachings. Remember, you are supposed to be there looking for spiritual enlightenment, not looking for cheap tourist accommodations. The rest of the day you may have it free. In the four years I spent in the Ashrams of my Master I was never asked for any money, except once, when 5 of us, westerners, stayed at a house that had recently been turned into an Asharm. I was asked to pay 600 rupies a month, which was approximately 14 dollars now a days. Not bad at all, except that later on I realized that this lady - an american who should have known better, shame on her!- that had asked for money had done it without the permission of our Guru...but then her actions are between her, our Guru and God. Yep, not because you are in an Ashram everyone will be holy, kind, nice or even truthful and sincere. But in general you will be ok. Never-the-less, lock the door to your room when you are not there, as you would do in any hotel anywhere in the world.

Another thing we had to participate in, in exchange for free food and lodging, was daily chores, like sweeping, moping, ranking the leaves, just general things to keep the house of the foreigners within our standards of cleanliness. Not cooking though, cooking was done by the locals... and boy! was it good!

My Guru, was also asking for a minimum of 8 hours a day of meditation and, of course, to attend the daily Talk called Sat Sang. That Ashram, however, was only for his followers, not for everyone. There are Ashrams that do accept anyone even if they do not follow their Guru or Leader. Some will allow you to stay for up to 3 days if you do not intend to take the initiation from the Guru. Then there are others that are more lineant and do not have so many requirements.

Here is one I know is reliable. It is not where I stayed because I stayed at my Master´s ashrams, but this one you can trust . They have an established reputation and are good people. To find out more about this group before getting there, and to contact them you can check out their website at www.rssb.org. That stands for Rhada Soami Satsang Beas, in Beas India, in the North, in the state of Punjab. The weather there is nice and cool, the extreme heat of the summer is not as extreme as in Delhi over there.

How do Ashrams survive if they do not ask for money from anyone? Have you heard of Karma? Well so have Indians... for as long as their culture has existed. Monetary donations are, as hard as it may be to believe, very popular. Everyone is aware of the benefits of sowing the type of seeds you want to reap. So even the poorest ones give financial donations.

Another source of income, if they have a Guru or focus on someone's teachings, is to sell books, tapes or CD's of those teachings. They also sell lots of pictures and some even memorabilia from the Ashram.

I went through different stages so at some times I would meditate a lot more than others.

The very first time I arrived in India there were 200 foreigners and the schedule was relaxed for everyone:

5:00AM to 7:00 AM Early morning meditation at the Meditation Hall
7:00AM to 9:00AM Breakfast at the Langar (common Kitchen) personal and community chores
9:00AM to 1:00PM Meditation at the Meditation Hall
1:00PM to 3:00PM Lunch at the Langar and personal and community chores
3:00PM to 5:00PM Meditation at the Meditation Hall
5:00PM to 6:00PM Talk with the Master
6:00PM to 7:00PM Supper
7:00PM to 10:00PM Personal time plus fit one more hour of Meditation

You did not always had to go to the Meditation Hall to meditate. You could stay in your room. However the afternoon session was the busiest since everyone wanted to get a spot as close to the front as possible, to be as close to the Master as possible.

Later on, when the foreigners "season" was over -the Master wanted to go into intensive meditation- schedules changed. And I was very glad about it.

Those of us who were allowed to remain in the Ashram were asked for a minimum of 12 hours a day of meditation. Keep in mind there was nothing else to do. Food and boarding were provided free of charge and you didn't need to work or prepare your meals so... 12 hours to do something you love was quite easy.

As my concentration improved meditation became easier and easier and suddenly I was doing 14 hours of meditation a day. Not much compared to some of the Germans who were already at 20 hours. By the way, eventually I did reach 20 hours a day and once, for a whole 7 days in a row, did 22 hours. I tend to overdo something I love. As you may already know when you meditate there are times when your consciousness shuts off and it becomes a resting period for your brain, as if you were sleeping. So when you do intensive meditation you get periods of clear awareness which is when you can enjoy your meditations with all your five physical senses and your conscious mind, and you get periods when you become unaware of your surroundings. The Master explained that in some of those periods where our conscious mind is not working our spirit may very well be enjoying the subtle spiritual realms, which is food for our soul and rest for our brain and mind.

Meditation has amazing results. Intensive meditation is unbelievable. The changes in your personality come automatically, one only notices them when one remembers how one used to react at a given situation and how, when facing that same situation again, you can't care or bother less. It so much freedom from our own ego selves!

There are other changes too with intensive meditation. For example not only do the visions with your third eye become more and more clear, and at some point like motion movies but they also begin to include sensations and, at some point, I could perceive, smell, the astral aroma of our Master. I'm telling you, intensive meditation opens doors to unimaginable things, well, at least it did for me. And nope, I wasn't loosing it, I was becoming strangely aware of things that I didn't even know existed, like astral aromas.

Vegetarian. The food was free. Was it good? Ya betcha! So tasty! Indian food is so good. By the way, don't fret. Indians know that westerners are not used to too many spices so they adjust their food. And it is still very good. Bengan (eggplant) is very popular, Rajma (kidney beans) too, in the south they prepare them sweet, so if you are used to Mexican beans don't be too sure you know what the beans you just ordered will taste like. Bhindi (okra) is so well prepared and tasty with tomato and onion. Karella, something totally unknown to us in the west was one of my favourite dishes, very bitter, grilled, but it was so appealing to my taste buds. Ok, I need to stop it here with the food selection because my mouth has started to water and there are no Indian restaurants around!

Ashrams that are prepared to receive foreigners, even if they are for free, take good care in cleanliness of the kitchen and when preparing meals, so the chances of you getting sick from Ashram food are very slim.

Did you ever imagine that you were going to drink any other type of milk that wasn't coming from a cow? You get to drink buffalo milk! Cows, the typical black and white or brown and white cows we have in this hemisphere are a total luxury there. You get to drink buffalo milk. What does it taste like? Good! Yes, it is different from the cow milk, especial in the smell but the taste is good. I remember when I returned I was actually missing it.

Now for the details that remind you you are in India, well, just looking at the window and seeing people, all women are wearing bindis, the dot on their foreheads that reminds them of the third eye. And, if you are in Delhi or the Northern areas of India you will also see a lot of turbans. Not so much so in the South though.

Animals you will encounter on the streets: buffaloes, goats, camels, elephants, monkeys and in the country roads, wild peacocks on the trees. It was quite the scenery!

I remember once, in the busy and transited streets of Delhi, we were in the car on an fast speed Avenue and suddenly something crossed the street at a very high speed. From the corner of my eye I saw some kind of a bulge. When I turned my face to check out what it was it turned out to be a monkey! Can you imagine? A monkey crossing an Avenue in the middle of the City!

Ashrams attract all sorts of people all of them with one interest in particular: Spirituality. So, what kinds of backgrounds do they have? They are almost never beginners. Most of them have already tried different paths, some have tried... quite bizarre things.

There was once a Greek guy with dreadlocks who arrived because he was visiting different Ashrams and attending the talks of different Gurus. He had quite a gift. He could see stuff from the Astral plane. What kind of stuff? Get ready. He told us that with every Guru he visited he could see, while they were giving a talk, a beam of golden light coming from above and entering via their head. However, when they spoke they each emanated different colors from their mouth. He also told us that our Master was the only one he had seen who emanated the same golden color from his mouth while speaking. He stayed with us a couple of weeks and he then kept on with his path through the world. That was not all he saw, he told us that while we were gathered chating, he could see the different deities like Krishna walking among us. Wacko, uh? But that was not all. One day he went singing in the forest and he said he ran into a demon... the demon didn't like him singing and stepped on his toe. His toe was fine when he returned to the Ashram and a couple of days later his toenail fell off...

There was another lady who had gone on a tour to south India and had seen a lot. Somehow, while she was with us in the Ashram she would behave ... how can I explain it? She would be talking to you calmly while holding her cup of coffee in her hand and suddenly her arm would throw away the cup against the floor. She would then explain it had not been her doing that, that someone else had. Go figure.

Then there were the ones with "entities". Remember the movie The Exorcism? Oh well, I got to witness a couple of those. This doesn't mean all ashrams have them, I do not wish to scare you away. Even if you found some of those you shouldn't think they go around trying to chase souls. No, they stick to themselves. Most of the time they are absolutely normal people, it's just when they have those episodes that their features, voice and behaviour changes. Once again, they won't go after you. But as you would behave with anyone who is considered unpredictable it is sensical to keep your distance from them while they are not ... behaving like a regular human.

You would see things you never thought were doable. People making noises like real animals, you would not believe it was a human making that noice. Then there were the jumpers. I never witnessed those but I was told they would be sitting cross legged and suddenly would jump as high as one or one and a half meters.

One day, I was on the roof of one of the 3 story buildings of the section for foreigners in the Ashram, lost in the horizon admiring an Eastern sun set. Suddenly something caught my eye. Not too far away, on a roof too, of what seemed like a 3 story builting -at least it was a two story building of that I am positive- there was a tall and skinny guy making strange movements. It seemed like some kind of primitive dance, the movements were not gracious at all, they were fast and sudden, with straight arms and rapid movements of the head. He was also jumping up and down, abruptly turning his head and then continuing to dance. I was in the middle of dozens of inner questions wondering what he... oh! f***!! He is commiting suicide!!! OMG he just jumped off the roof!!! OMG I have to tell som..... Uh?? He just landed and jumped up again so high he almost reached the roof again??!! and then landed on the ground and ... jumped again??

Jump by jump he was gaining less height until the buildings between where he was and I was didn't allow me to see him again. I had to run and tell someone! Maybe the guy was hurt. "Oh no, don't worry about him. He has entities. He does those things" was the answer I got from the lady who had been living in the Ashram for more than 10 years. What?? I was dumbstruck and went back to my room trying to digest the experience.

Personally I had one weird experience with my Master him self. We were in intensive meditaion in the skirts of the Himalayan mountains. Every day we had a talk given by him. Some times it was at the fields and sometimes it was on the roof of the building for foreigners. This particular day it was at the roof. It was hay fever season and my nose was very senstive. No antihistaminics near those mountains. So I went to the roof where the people were gathering. We were supposed to meditate before the talk and our Master was giving meditation help. I sat and began with my meditation. Then my allergic reaction started. It was one of those sneezing attacks. Never ending sneezing attacks. Geez, I was feeling terrible, my nose was running, my forehead felt heavy and I was ready to leave in order not to disturb the talk but we had been instructed that under no circumstances were we supposed to miss any talk. So I stayed. Every one was quiet, meditating, you could only hear my sneeze every 15 seconds or so. But I stayed, meditating with a runny nose and a soaking wet kleenex. Suddenly I felt the urge to wipe my nose and upper lip, but my skin was already too sensitive from so much blowing my nose that I dismissed the urge arguing, to my self, that it didn't matter because no one could see me anyway, since everyone was meditating. All of a sudden I feel a big hand on my head slide down my face and, yep, down my snotty nose and upper lip too all the way to my chin. The hand remained covering as much as possible of my chin, mouth and nose area. I was so scared! not to mention embarrased once I realized it was the Master. No wonder I got the urge to wipe my face! I guess something in me knew it was going to be needed soon. Great experience as far as paying attention to my intuition.

When he removed his hand the sneezing was gone only to return once I steped one foot, yes, one foot outside that building after the meditation and talk were over. Cool, uh?

I also met women who experienced astral projection easily. Apparently there was a lot going on in the astral in the Ashram. Stuff only those involved in those projections knew. Even in Ashrams you have those who are not so open minded and no one likes to be considered a wierdo. I guess we don't realize that just by going to Ashrams we are considered wierdos by many!

I have realized a lot of people wonder what it is like to live in an Ashram for a Western woman. For me, and all the other women in the Ashrams of our Guru, it was life as usual. As I mentioned earlier we, westerners, were always kept together, on purpose. Our Master was aware of the cultural differences, of the abismal cultural differences in some cases -an Indian woman would never sun bathe topless for example, especially not while in an Ashram- and so, for the sake of the Indians -men and women- and ours we were all told to stay among ourselves, especially in the Ashram grounds.

Some of the habits of the Indians could also be somehow... challenging for us to ... let's say ignore. Bodily functions, personal space, volume and tone of voice while speaking are just some among them. Plus our habits too, could throw an Indian who has never traveled abroad off balance. What to us is simple privacy could be taken as selfishness by them.

So basically, as a woman you will do well if you stay to yourself and yours. As anywhere else in the world, not everyone is well intentioned and that is something any woman -or man for that matter- from any country visiting any foreign country should always be aware of.

If you are going to wear Indian clothes make sure to wear them properly. If physically you do not have the type of an India woman, that is if you do not have olive skin or look kinda oriental, they will be more tolerant with you and your habits because it will be quite clear to everyone you are not Indian. This is a double edge sword because, due to Hollywood, in India it is belived that we, westerner women are "easy" to take to bed, and try they will! Nothing to worry about, seriously, it's just annoying, but that's all. The limits of Indian men are very narrow so they don't dare to do much. For example, it is not allowed to any man to touch a woman in public, not even husband and wife are supposed to hold hands in public!

If you have olive skin you'd bettter make sure that you are following all Indian protocols! They will take you for one of them and will certainly expect you to behave as such. Again this has it's advantages too ;)

Thank you for reading my lense, I will continue to add to my story as I have time and as I remember more things.