Amma's Ashram

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It was a lazy day before leaving Fort Kochi at 4pm on our first train, the Jan Shatabdi, heading south to Kayankulam Junction. Our host had told us it was a nice train but didn’t explain how the classes worked. “2S” is second class and whilst we were allocated seats we learned that it doesn’t mean diddly squat. But we got the two old ladies out of our seats and sat down to get evil eyes from them for the next 2 hours. It was almost 9pm by the time we got to Amma’s ashram in Amritapuri. Mata Amritanandamayi Math, or kindly known as the hugging guru, she is one of the most followed gurus in India. We just caught the checkin office before it closed and free Indian dinner and then went to sleep.

The room was simple but tidy and clean, and the view was amazing which we sneakily captured as photography was not allowed in the ashram. We were on the twelfth floor of the accommodation block and the windows looked out over a coastline thick with coconut trees. Along with the photography ban, the following rules applied; no smoking, be inside by 11.00pm, be within the ashram by 6.30pm, watch your children, do not eat outside the ashram, dress modestly, avoid contact with the villagers, practice brahmacharya, and don’t feed the animals! For those not versed in Indian tradition, Brahmacharya is part of spiritual practice to help you to focus inwards, and basically restricts public affection and intimacy in the ashram, of course rules are made to be broken. Being our first experience of an ashram, it was exciting to see if the spiritualism of the place would touch us. After curry for breakfast we headed to the second hand shop and kitted ourselves with some simple ashram cloths and registered at the seva desk. Seva is selfless service, my duties were moping the western kitchen floor in the afternoons and rubbish collection at 6am in the morning. This suited me fine as I was waking early and wanted my seva out of the way early, Storm didn’t appreciate the idea of me disturbing her sleep though. Storm was working in the second hand shop and the ‘western’ kitchen in the evening. The day was spent walking around the ashram, seeing the facilities, trying to get timetables of everything as the opening hours always worked around prayer time. We discovered that as Amma was on the road in Kenya currently, a lot of her advisors were with her so a lot of services were not available, that was unfortunate as we would not be able to experience one of Amma’s darshan gatherings.

My morning began early with meeting Anand (his spiritual name) for garbage induction. He was a tall older American guy who was so bloody skinny it scared me. He said he wanted to live at the ashram for the rest of his life and laughed at how he joked with his father that he had beaten him to retirement. We went around the site collecting recycling rubbish to return to the recycling centre. Funnily it was same as I viewed western recycling, with scepticism. Although we had separate bins for paper, plastic, glass etc. We ended just combining them because Indians weren’t following the separation rules properly. It made more work at the recycling centre. The ashram was able to sell the separated recycling but there was no education for the users to understand the value of rubbish. In india no one wants to deal with rubbish, it is considered below them. Only the low of the low castes deal with it.
A visit to the eco-store on the ashram armed us with some natural washing powder, shampoo, a chocolate drink mix comprising jiggery, cacao, and after tasting it, woodchips I think.
In the evening we went to the beach and meditated to the sounds of the sea as the sun set. I still hadn’t found any spiritualism yet. Both Storm and I had mixed views about the place. I think without the Guru being here, the place just seems to be going through the paces of the daily routine until she returns.
By day three here it felt a little like we were at band camp. After lunch we went for a walk to the nearby village of Vallickavu to see what we could see – not much. Time to go. The ashram was an interesting experience, whilst I leave believing that Amma is an amazing inspiration, I don’t carry the same belief as other residents at the ashram that she can cure everything with her divine ability. To be fair though, the chocolate they sold in the ashram shop with Ammas name on it - now that was divine!
That evening we said our goodbyes, advised Anand he’d be going solo on the garbage run, and cleaned the room.

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