India & Ashram

This blog is a bit late but it took a little while to get over India or rather get used to being back in the west again. India is pretty fantastic.. and at the same time pretty eye opening. The place definitely has a mysticism about it, but anywhere with 5-10,000 years of history is bound to be pretty fascinating. We arrived in Mumbai to the eye opening part. We left the airport to a cacophony of shouts of taxi and a crush of people. The 10 minute taxi ride to our hotel took us all of 200 meters and had me gripping the seat several times and convinced our driver was mad.. But later I discovered that no it is just that all Indian drivers were mad.. After a luxurious night at Le Meridian in Mumbai we headed north east to Nashik on a ride that had me praying for Italian motorways.. for those of you that know Italian drivers you would know that they are bonkers.. but not as bonkers as Indians.. three trucks all trying to pass each other going down a 2 lane road with a couple of trucks coming the other way and us in the middle luckily in a 4x4 so we could depart the road when necessary. Shaking and newly religious we finally finished our journey and arrived at the ashram. Here I got distracted so Debbie takes over writing.
It was my 30th Birthday the day we arrived but to be honest it was the farthest thing from my mind. When we arrived at the Ashram the first thing I felt was an immediate feeling of peace and calmness. We were greeted by Prashant or (Bendy G as he was nicknamed), who was showing everyone to our dorms. Sam was lucky and ended sharing with 2 really cool Canadian guys, Karsten and Ryan, and a Sox Fan Tom.
I got shown to my room but the locker was broken so I moved across the hallway (which i was really pleased about will explain later). When I moved I had the room to myself as there were normally 4 girls in a dorm, but the other 3 beds were spare as people were still to arrive. As you can imagine our rooms were pretty basic, 4 beds( very small and hard), 1 sink, 4 windows, 4 lockers and basically that was it! We had a bathroom attached which was outside the room but within a concrete building. It certainly wasn’t glamorous but it was my home for 4 weeks and to be honest it really didn’t feel like any hassle. Ok the showers we cold so we washed out of buckets so we could add a bit of hot water from the tap but after a few days it just felt like the way of life and I never really resented it!
We didn’t arrive at the Ashram till around 5pm, so by the time we got settled 6pm came round and the bell went (We soon learnt that this was the universal sound for us requiring to be somewhere as there is a bell for wakeup breakfast, lunch and din, as well as Lessons etc..) This time the bell was for the chanting of the Mahamrityunjay Mantra (this is for increasing self healing quality of mind and the body and protects again negativities of death and pain) The Ashram’s Guru had decreed that this should be chanted on sunset every Saturday 108 times (108 being a sacred yogic number) whilst making sacrifices of Ghee (a form of butter) to a fire (which represented a sacrifice to Shiva the Destroyer) This mantra dates to Patanjali ( whom wrote the Yoga sutra’s that are the basis of modern Ashtanga Yoga written approximately 500BC) It normally took us about 35 mins to complete this number of repetitions.
So we were slowly introducing ourselves to the rest of students, there were 32 of us in total and took about a week to actually remember everyone’s names! Everyone seemed really cool and most people were like Sam and I, had an interest in Yoga, wanted to travel and learn at the same time, There were a few 'very spiritual' people there who were also very nice, but I was most surprised how lovely everyone was. After chanting we had our first meal, which I don’t mind telling you I was a bit nervous about, mainly because I didn’t want to find out if it was going to be horrendous as we had to eat this for a month. It was far from that, the food was tasty, fresh, healthy, nutritious, flavored and basically very good! My only surprise was the size of our bowls (too small for me!), but in truth I never really felt hungry at all and we could take as much food as we wanted so we never went hungry. ( Well Sam did but that was because he needed a bit more protein, he is used to eating a lot more meat than me!) (Sam here: I felt quite weak at the beginning of week four and didn’t feel quite right until stuffing myself with an extra cheese pizza!) We went to bed fairly early that night and I was woken up by my two roomies arriving late as they had to get a train which took forever (this is also typical India, the trains are pretty bad if you cant get the higher end seats and even then it is borderline, but definitely an eye opener!) Anyway, my roomies were friends, from the US, Pauline is a rappelling fire fighter who works mostly in North West America and Denise who is a trained Chemist but decided to quit that life and run a paragliding business in Seattle with her partner! I was really lucky to room with them, we had so much fun and we all immediately bonded, fortunately Pauline thinks about food as much as I do so we always had snacks hidden in our lockers for emergency! Nothing exciting like chocolate mainly dried mango, raisins, or nut brittle!
Now I mentioned early that I moved rooms, unfortunately for the girls opposite us they had a resident rat and a few times the girls woke up with rats actually on their beds and one lady woke up with a rat on her chest! Now fortunately I took my own mosquito net and although we did actually have our own rats in the room I moved to, my mosquito net was tucked into my mattress so there was no way of them getting onto my bed, it was a bit unnerving at first but like with lots of things in the Ashram it became the norm to have rats everywhere and in the end I didn’t even notice them, apart from the occasional jumping on the beams some nights! Ironically some of the girls in the opposite room moved, as their rats were much more active at night, so they moved and the next day they found a Cobra in their bathroom!!! - Some people are just unlucky!! That said Snakes were not unusual in the Ashram, they found 3 Vipers and 2 Cobras (see pics) while we were there, but again that was just the norm in the end, I was still walking around in my sandals day and night!

I was a bit nervous about the next day as it was the first day of our course and i looked at the schedule and wondered how the hell we were going to fit it in! The schedule went something like this in week 1 and 2.

Teacher Training (Residential) Course Daily Schedule

05:00 am Wakeup Time
05.45 am to 06.00 am Mantra Chanting
06:00 am to 08:00 am Yoga Practice (Asana & Pranayama)
08:00 am to 09:00 am Karma Yoga ( Mediative/Selfless tasks around the Ashram)
09:00 am to 09:30 am Breakfast / Snacks
09:45 am to 10:30 am Theory lecture I
10:30 am to 11:00 am Yoga Nidra (Perfect Relaxation)
11:15 am to 12:00 pm Theory lecture II
12:15 am to 01:00 pm LUNCH
01:00 pm to 03:00 pm Resting Time (Self Study)
03:00 pm to 03:15 pm Herbal Drink
04:00 pm to 06:00 pm Yoga Practice (Asana & Pranayama)
06:30 pm to 07:15 pm Meditating
07.30 pm to 08:00 pm DINNER
08:30 pm to 09:15 pm Sanskrit Training / Yoga Songs (Bhajans) / Group Discussions /QA
10:30 pm Lights out!



So as you can see we had a very full day and in weeks 2 and 3 all of our free time was taken up with study for our theory exams, or essays or written exams. It was a lot but it was a Yoga Teacher Training Certification Program For Beginners and we needed to fit in 250 hours of yoga training to qualify. In the last week the schedule was basically for all of the students to practice their teaching skills i.e. teach a number of lessons which we were graded on for our final marks and we were still cramming to remember all of the benefits, precautions and variations of the postures.

Although the schedule was busy it was also very interesting. The lectures were great as we had a doctor and theoretical physicist amongst other scientists talking scientifically as well as in Yogic terms so got a reasonably balanced view of the science behind Yoga.

Waking up at 5am was only really hard for the first 2 days once our body got used to it you sort of forgot how early it really was! Also we felt so nice after doing the Yoga it was worth getting up early for!(Sam may not agree!). We got one day a week off where we all got taxis into the town which was about 30mins away. The best bit about going into town was trying to shove 20 of us in a 12 seater jeep! This is the norm in India for anything that has wheels, people driving with whole families on 1 tiny scooter,( see pics) and all of the rikshaws and taxis were always packed out! Needless to say by the end of the course we were all very close! Town was interesting, I was surprised to see the normal stuff like Dominios and McDonalds, but they also had a lot of traditional shops and stands with food (none of which I touched). Sam and I were really lucky as at least 10 of our group did get Delhi belly and had to take antibiotics! The first week we went into town and found it to be a novelty but by the end of the course we hated it, as it is noisy, polluted and crowded, I think in week 1 we were still in London mode, but the following weeks it was really unsettling going into town, because it was such a contrast the peaceful serene Ashram.

The last week of the course was pretty intense, there was lots of study and everyone was getting sad to say goodbye. It was interesting to see how different people copped, some people were really homesick and by week 3 and 4 a few people clearly needed a bit more space, as remember we were all together 24 hours a day, some people got emotional and others just got skinny!(Sam lost 8 kgs!!! I only lost 2kg!!!)

By week 4 I was craving basic food like a plain piece of toast, but now I am home I am really missing the affects of all of the good food that we ate..!!! I don’t think that I have laughed as much as I did in the Ashram in a long time. Truly the best part of the Ashram were the people, we definitely met friends for life and we are meeting up with a few people whilst we are in North America. Gandhar, Ananji, Prashant and Kate were all amazing teachers (Ananji is the bendy guy in our pics) and Gandhar is just full of wisdom and mystery, he is our teacher and Guru in training, (he wouldn’t call himself a Guru as in India they believe you are given this name by others rather than deciding it for yourself but we certainly felt he warranted this title he is a very special person and I am sure he has touched many peoples lives.)

In summary we would both recommend this ashram and this experience to anyone. More details can be found at www.yogapoint.com if your interested in doing this yourself. Even I (Sam) for whom Yoga was only a slight interest found this to be a great experience and took away things from it that will make me think a little more about some of our ways of life.. but before you scoff too much, radical change is not on the books as I'm still a skeptical carnivore. But found out that Yoga has the answer for me Jnana Yoga which is Yoga of the knowledge and wisdom and encourages skeptical questioning! Not so sure that there is a branch for carnivores though so one step at a time.;-)

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