Om Namah Sivaya

The first bell rings at 4:30. Its dark. You can find me in the fetal position curled into my blanket hiding from the cold that crept into the palm-thatched dorm in the early morning hours. My eyes check the clock and return to their familiar shut position. The second bell goes at 4:45. After my minimal morning pep talk, that goes something like "Yana (my Slavic neighbor) is moving towards getting out of bed, maybe I should follow suit", in one fell swoop I straighten my legs, and slide them out from under my baby blue mosquito net. As my feet hit the floor, I sit up. The day has started and there is no turning back.

For the month of February as the western world hibernated from winter's chill with fireplaces, red wine, and down comforters; I took shelter from the intrinsic commotion and perpetual movements of the outside world with discipline, quietude, and a hammock under a mango tree. As I walked off a village street and through the yellow gate of the Meenakashi Ashram I simultaneously recognized that I wasn't quite sure how I got there and was mostly uncertain about what exactly I was doing. That being said I entered this Yoga Teacher Training Course with great comfort and surprising confidence, and when I exited through those iron gates 4 weeks later I carried the same sentiments with even greater intensity.

Ashram life is no different than life anywhere else. You wake up, you do what you've got to do - get out of bed, eat, show up on time (or, sometimes a little late), participate, try your best, learn a new trick, hear a good story, have a laugh or two, and go to bed. The big difference is that all the activities are focuses on encouraging the participant to look for the answers, to search for happiness internally. Whether it be yoga (asanas) to calm and strengthen the body, meditation (dhyana) to tame the beastly mind, chanting (bhakti yoga) to feed to the heart and the fulfill the emotions, service (karma yoga) to appeal to the active nature, or the study of scripture (jnana yoga) to satisfy the intellect and skepticism - each part of yogic life is about attaining bliss through oneself. No small goal. No easy task.

And so the days went. Wake up before the sun, rinse off the night's sweat under a frigid shower, climb into the mandatory yellow and white uniform (yellow for learning and white for purity) and step along the red dirt path, dew dripping onto the top of the head from the leaf tips of banana trees, up to the yoga hall. 

5 am Morning Satsang - 30 minutes of silent meditation, 30 minutes of chanting, 30 of minutes teachings, 1 handful of prasad (blessed food) - is a fine way to start any day.

7am. Yoga/Asana class. The first two weeks we practiced the classes we were learning to teach. The last two in more advanced classes, endearingly termed BBC (bone breaking class) by Maniji, our asana teacher.

9am - Brunch. The dining room is floor seating only. Upon entrance rows of bamboo mats with metal plates in front are laid out. I fall into line next to the person in front of me, crossed legged on the bamboo with a plate decorated in a palate of colorful vegetables and grains, cooked and raw. All meals are taken in silence for a dual purposes (1) speaking while eating tends to distracts us from focusing on the present activity (2) speaking while eating fills the stomach with air and hinders our ability to digest properly. No ashram food is the same (even throughout the Indian Sivananda Ashrams). Lucky for me, there were lots of beets, mung beans, dosas, sambars, fresh fruit, chutneys and sauces in this version of the yogic diet - a delightful rainbow of edible options.

9.45 am - Karma Yoga/Service. Yes, sometimes I was scrubbing the toilet. But let me tell you, ringing the bell all day (that includes, the initial 4.30 am morning bell) sounds much worse to me than a few minutes of whipping away daily grind.

11 am - Chanting or Bhagavad Gita Class. Time to get up close and personal with Sanskrit. A lovely American woman guided us through the songs with her sweet voice and harmonium skills and then into one the essential vedic texts, the 'Gita, with patience for the western cynical mind and a depth of (un-blind) faith that can only be demonstrated through devotion.

1pm - Vedantic Philosophy – the backbone of yoga as it is known both in the east and the west. Vedanta literally translates to "the end of knowledge". These were our precious hours with the main man, the guy in orange, our Swami. Swami Govinda runs the Ashram. He's renounced the world. So, one of his job/hobbies/duties is to explain what all this is about to the loads of folks that pass through his Ashram. Once I master all this business, surely I will be enlightened.

3pm - Yoga/Asana Class (#2) - Practice and Instruction in teaching hatha yoga classes.

5pm - Dinner. The smaller of the two daily meals.

7pm - Evening Satsang - same lineup as above with occasional movies or study nights.

9/9.30 - Light's out. We didn't need much convincing to climb back under our mosquito nets and into the horizontal position. Exhaustion from the day's pilled activities and the looming early morning bell was enough enticement for us to quickly brush our teeth, disrobe our uniforms and find our way into the bliss of sleep.

 Sixty-six of us from all over the world spent 28 days in the fashion mentioned above. At any moment you could hear at least 3 different languages at the dish washing trough. The first week our knees ached from a daily average of 6 hours spent crossed legged on the cement floor, our bodies cried at the adjustment to the intensity of the yoga schedule, and our minds became dazed and confused at the change of life's pace. Before long, the routine normalized and the weeks soared by with a blink, as we maintained a “present-based” mindset. The ups and downs of life continued to exist. One day I'd find myself running to the shelter of the mango tree to release tears who's origins and destinations I could not always uncover, and the next I'd be rocking in the nylon webbed hammock under the shade of the glossy, green leaves sure that I was on the right track towards "true happiness", humming in rhythm with my friends the tropical birds. And then, before I could count the days, I sat at the final puja to the Divine Mother, learned my final yoga pose, sang my last arati, and then Swami handed me my teaching certificate. I'd graduated, the course was over and the ashram was quickly clearing out. I stayed around for a few days, enjoying the peace and quiet of the almost empty ashram.

And then with good posture, an evolving headstand and some new mind taming tools, I strolled out the ashram gate, back into the rush and ramble of the real world, with one task at hand, one prevailing thought, my mother. In two days I’d be in Mumbai, my eyes catching the lovely lady for the first time in 6 months. Yeah!