{"id":1276,"date":"2018-02-15T20:40:18","date_gmt":"2018-02-15T20:40:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yogadirectorycanada.com\/community\/?p=1276"},"modified":"2021-04-26T18:50:06","modified_gmt":"2021-04-26T18:50:06","slug":"escape-from-the-ashram","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yogadirectorycanada.com\/community\/escape-from-the-ashram\/","title":{"rendered":"Escape from the Ashram"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photos and story by Leslie Smith<\/h3>\n

Om ganga mai, ganga mai, ganga mai mai\/<\/i>Om ganga mai, ganga mai, ganga mai mai\u2026. <\/i><\/i><\/p>\n

\u2014repeat 108 times every day for seven days.<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

RISHIKESH, INDIA\u2013
\n\u201cWhat\u2019s for lunch today?\u201d I ask Vishal as she hands me a menu. \u201cEverything!\u201d she responds. Vishal is the owner of Ayurpak, a vegetarian restaurant nestled in its own garden in Rishikesh\u2014the yoga capital of India.\u00a0 \u201cAre you big hungry or small hungry?\u201d she asked, trying to determine how much to feed me. Big hungry, as it turned out. Life in an Indian ashram proved not all that it is cracked up to be\u2014and after five days, I had just escaped. And boy, was I big hungry!<\/p>\n

\"Rishikesh

Rishikesh nestled beside the Ganges River<\/p><\/div>\n

My two weeks in various northern Indian ashrams was shortened by two days when it turned out I was severely allergic to the 125-year-old Phool Chatti Ashram located on the banks of the Ganges, 20 minutes from Rishikesh.\u00a0 Yoga every day left me sore and my mind puzzled; vegan food and no caffeine until 9 a.m. resulted in a pounding headache. Yet the location\u00a0 beside the fast-flowing holy water of the Ganges River was breathtaking and the air\u2014at least in the countryside\u2014was as pure as I hoped my soul would become.<\/p>\n

The ashram\u2019s once-splendid gardens were destroyed by floods 10 years ago and were being restored, but whole theme of the place\u2014like elsewhere in India\u2014was decay. But resilience and resourcefulness were evident everywhere.\u00a0 People by the roadside were ready to sell something or to repair it\u2014fresh sugar cane juice, patched car tires, fruits or dung patties for cooking fires.<\/p>\n

Phool Chatti Ashram is a typical ashram run for Westerners according to a strict set of rules which Indian ashrams do not observe. Silence is enforced from the 5:30 a.m. wake-up bell until 1 p.m.\u2014but by then I was so overcome with fatigue from chanting cross-legged, anemia from lack of meat, eggs and dairy, and nausea from mould and constant burning of incense in the yoga shala that I had little to say.<\/p>\n

Monkeys made daily raids, driving the two musky-smelling German shepherds guarding the place into a frenzy. Scorpions in the hallway and spiders the size of my hand hung from every tree.\u00a0 Cobra-and-skull motifs of Shiva the Destroyer completed the Haunted House theme.<\/p>\n<\/div>