Long way to go

I spent a week staying at Phool Chatti ashram, 5km outside of Rishikesh. I hadn't planned on going to an ashram while in India, but I had such a rough landing in Rishikesh, flea hotel and all, that when I saw a sign over the road for a week-long meditation and yoga course I thought ahhh, that sounds lovely.

And it was lovely, just wonderful. To begin, the location was amazing: on the banks of the Ganges, far enough outside of town to be really quiet (except for the occasional hollering from rafters hitting the nearby rapids).

The ashram in various incarnations has been there for over 100 years, originated as a resting place on a holy trek 300km to one of the sources of the Ganga (Ganges). The word "Phool" indicates that many people's ashes have been scattered there, and "Chatti" means something like rest stop (I think).

It's run by Swami-ji, who has been there over 40 years, and Lalita-ji, who has been there since she was 15. Brandon was our meditation instructor, and Laltia-ji taught the yoga, chanting, and pranayama. Everyone who works or volunteers there was amazing, really peaceful and helpful.

The schedule was the same every day:

5:30am wake-up bell, which I surprisingly did not mind

6am meditation, though I was usually sitting by 5:45.

6:30 chanting

6:45 neti pot cleansing, which I have been doing for years, on the banks of the Ganga.

7am pranayama

7:15 hatha yoga, though a lot of pranayama was incorporated. One morning we did laughing yoga, which was so much fun.

9am breakfast

10am karma yoga. I ended up cleaning the bathrooms every day by choice, something I would never do at home; we have a cleaning lady and I'm happy to pay for her. But I found that I really didn't mind it at all. Singing mantras to myself the whole time really helped.

11am walking meditation. The walks were different every day: a waterfall, the Ganga, a swimming hole in a smaller river that fed into the Ganga. They never told us where we were going, so it was a lovely surprise to get to the top of a mountain and find a stunning waterfall. Along the way I saw so many beautiful butterflies, birds, red dragonflies, it was like a nature observation as well.

12:30 lunch

3pm satsong (group discussion).

4pm ashtanga yoga

6:45 pooja, a worship ceremony to Shiva at the ashram's temple.

7:30 dinner

8:30 guided meditation. One night we did yoga nidra, which I've always wanted to try.

I was in bed most nights by 9:30 or 10, which helped with getting up so early in the morning. I discovered quickly that I really liked the schedule; after so much travelling and figuring out where to go what to do where to eat etc., it was really nice to not have to make any decisions for a week. In fact, once the course was over (I stayed an extra night at the ashram, not quite ready to go back to the real world, as real as Rishikesh can be), most of us found that we didn't know what to do with ourselves in all that free time.

Coming back to Rishikesh and looking at a menu for the first time in a week was actually quite overwhelming, kind of like the restaurant scene in Never Let Me Go. Meals were communal, seated on the floor, served and eaten in silence. In this way eating became a meditation. I put my chapatti or spoon down between every bite, ate slowly, really tasted everything.

The food was really good, too! I was expecting some standard ashram gruel, but it was all so delicious. I even ate potatoes. Breakfast was always porridge and fresh fruit; lunch and dinner included a vegetable, some kind of dal, a sauce, chapatti, rice. They'd dish the meal out from shining silver buckets and continue coming around to offer seconds, thirds, and fourths until you popped. I found that I usually had seconds and thirds of the vegetable; I really love vegetables. No dessert ever though, the only sweet stuff I had all week was the ubiquitous chai with sugar. Of course, when I got back to Rishikesh I had four desserts in one day.

I realized that internally I've been quite cleansed for a while. I had meat only once since arriving in India: fish in Goa; meat has been banned in Rishikesh for 30 years, as has alcohol. Except for a glass of wine in Udaipur, I haven't had any alcohol in over a month. And I don't really miss it.

As for the course itself, I highly recommend it, especially for people with not much experience with yoga and meditation. (Not recommended for people with bad knees though, we spent the whole wee sitting cross-legged on the floor, and owwwww.) I've been practicing yoga for 14 years and attempting (rather unsuccessfully) to meditate semi-regularly for several years now, but I still got so much out of the program. It didn't feel like there was enough scheduled meditation, but there were chunks of free time in which I ended up sitting in the hall, meditating two or three additional times a day.

Part of the reason I was meditating so much was because I chose to do most of the week in complete silence. I figured why not, when will I again have this opportunity? The ashram itself was mostly silent, but people were allowed to talk from after lunch until dinner began. I found that once the opportunity for socialization was removed there wasn't much else for me to do besides meditate, since they discouraged reading, writing, and listening to music.

I began speaking a little again on Thursday (The course began on a Sunday, finished on a Saturday), mostly because an old knee injury flared up again. That ended my ashtanga practice for the week, but that was ok. At first I was quite mad at myself for pushing it too hard and causing more knee pain, but then I meditated on it, tried to practice some Metta (lovingkindness) towards myself, and that helped a lot.

Once I started speaking again, I also discovered that we had a really wonderful group of people there. At the end of the course, Lalita-ji said we were her favorite group this year because everyone was so enthusiastic to learn, and full of love. It really felt true. Side note: India is crawling with British and Israeli people, but there wasn't a single one of those nationalities represented in our 30-person group.

Every day I woke up every day in my tiny room (I could touch both walls at the same time) that I grew to love and stepped outside to watch the Himalayan foothills start to glow in the dawn, listening to the Ganga flow. I was so happy there, it really felt so peaceful.

The place had plenty of showers but since our daily walks always ended in a place where you could swim, I ended up not showering for the whole week, bathing instead in waterfalls and the Ganga. But I must say that my first hot shower once I got back to Laxman Jhula (Rishikesh) was sublime.

On the last night of the program we had a bonfire on the beach. Everyone was finally speaking (I was one of only four people out of 30 or so that chose complete silence for the course), and they served cookies and sweets, which produced a huge group sugar buzz. We sang songs and goofed around; Lalita-ji called it a "spiritual party." It felt like the last night of summer camp.

On the final morning of the program we did a Havan ceremony, where we chanted a mantra 108 times around a fire. We were told that you could write something on a piece of paper that you wanted to let go of, and at the end of the ceremony I burned my paper. It really feels like it has already started to work.

Then we took a group photo before saying goodbyes, though quite a few people, myself included, chose to stay an additional night. Some of us continued hanging out together in Laxman Jhula, even staying in the same hotel, postponing letting go of the ashram experience for which I am so grateful to have been a part of.

The full set of photos from the ashram is on my photolog.