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Published: August 20th 2008
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I heard about the Sivananda Vedanta ashram in Kerala from a girl in Rishikesh. She said that the yoga schedule was good and that there was enough down time to relax and chill out in the "Health Hut" in between classes. Sounded like a good idea. I was missing a disciplined daily yoga practice since Palolem and wanted to get down to business with my health. I was also hoping to lose some weight and tone up. The chanting and meditation also appealed to me as it was another way to detoxify. So, I emailed the ashram's website and signed up for the "Yoga Vacation" session starting March 1st.
I arrived in time to catch the last bit of orientation for the yoga vacationers. They were handing out the "Karma Yoga" assignments. Let me explain a little bit about Karma Yoga: It is a self-less service that the ashram student needs to complete each day. You are doing something that is helping your community without any other motives than just doing the task at hand. At the ashram the task varied from cleaning the dorm toilets, preparing tea service for 150 people, dishing out dal at the main meal, garbage
detail, etc. Of course as luck would have it I was assigned to clean the toilets in my dorm. I had a partner to help me -- This is when I met Karen! She was the absolute best person to be scrubbing toilets with. She was a laugh riot and a very cool person. We really made the most out of the situation and we had it down to a science at by the end.
The ashram itself looked like a small college campus. Large brick buildings, cement dorms, tree-lined stone pathways, central courtyard areas, a small cafe where one could buy fruit salad or a juice & a mess hall.
The schedule itself was very demanding. 5:20AM Bell rings: Wake Up
6:00AM Satsang: 1.5 hrs & held in the main yoga hall with everyone at the ashram present. This was a communal mediation session / chanting / & brief sermon by guru up on stage.
7:30AM Morning Tea 8:00AM Yoga Asana Class: 2 hrs of intense intermediate poses. The number and order of poses stayed the same each day and by the end of each class I was really feeling "knackered" (as my
English friends would say).
10:00AM Main Meal: Was held in the mess hall. Straw mats were set out on the floor. We had to walk in chanting / sit on floor / eat in silence. If we wanted a 2nd helping of food, we had to ask the food servers walking around. Our signal to them was the word "OM". They understood this and ladeled a heaping of dal/rice/sambar etc onto our tin plate. When finished you immediately get up, wash plate and leave. For me this experience was interesting because it made the act of eating less of an event. It became more for sustenance than for pleasure. It de-emphasized the importance of eating a meal for me. Cravings disappeared and I became very satisfied with the basic food given to me. I was in. I was out. It brought my focus onto other things, rather than "What am I going to eat today?"
11:00AM Karma Yoga: Karen and I split up the tasks very fairly and were basically done in 20 minutes.
11:30AM - 1:30PM Free time : Usually I (napped, did laundry, read, chilled with the gals at the Health Hut)
1:30PM Afternoon Tea
2:00PM Lecture: Learned about the various limbs of yoga. Here we learned that chanting can heal your body physically. Not the actual words, but the vibrations of the words have a beneficial effect on the internal organs. We also learned that by practicing Hatha yoga everyday, one will never get a chronic illness. We also learned that former exiled Miami Dolphins player, Ricky Williams, was a part of the ashram family and currently lived at the Sivananda center in California.
3:30PM Yoga Asana Class (2nd one): Again 2 hrs of challenging yet productive postures.
6:00PM 2nd Meal: Same as above
8:00PM Satsang: More meditation, chanting and brief sermon was given
10:20PM Lights Out: I fell right asleep each night barely remembering my dreams as I was so tired.
I was very sore after the 2nd day, but feeling lighter and on the road to a healthier me. The experience was so much better because I met the best bunch of ladies to hang out with. We all clicked and laughed and had such a wonderful time together. We could laugh about and poke fun at the "seriousness" and rules of the ashram, yet we all had our yoga practice in common and were really commited to strengthening our bodies. One of my friends, Trudie, would escape the ashram over a 10 ft. wall and explore the village at night. She was the adventurous spirit among us who had a problem with authority. She smuggled in Nutella for our sugar cravings.
At the end of 6 days we earned a "Free Day". So we took off to Varkala beach and had a great fish dinner and drank beer out of teapots. The restaurant didn't have a liquor license, so they hid our beer in a teapot. We looked like proper ladies getting tipsy, while watching the sunset.
Towards the end of our 2 week vacation, I got really sick. A chest infection that I had before I left Miami had returned and knocked the wind out of my sails. I was really bummed that I couldn't practice the yoga anymore -- after such a packed schedule, it was killing me to just rest and not participate. I think my illness had to do with my healing process. After about 10 days people were starting to either get really sick or really emotional. It was explained to us that because we are in such a protected environment (clean air, no TV, no internet, healthy food, daily routines of asanas & deep breathing exercises) that our bodies were beginning to rid itself of toxins. During this elimination of toxins our bodies were going to react. Whether it was physically, through illness, fatigue, blemishes or rather emotionally through crying, anger etc -- we were going to feel it. I think the chest infection I got was part of that.
So I decided to leave 2 days early and visit an Ayurvedic Resort in Kerala. Karen went with me and a day later Mary, Alli and Trudie joined us -- along with another friend Adrienne. We spent another week together - but his time at a luxurious beach side resort near Kovalam. At the resort I had oil massages and steam treatments, which helped me recover quickly from the illness.
All in all, I really enjoyed the ashram experience and would do it again. While the daily schedule was exhausting, I still am feeling the benefits. Also, the chants are still in my head. Om Namo Shivaya.
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