"Knowledge is learning something everyday. Wisdom is letting go of something every day"

There was a talk a few days back about what jnana yoga was. It is mostly philosophy and questioning who am I and what am I. What is the mind and what is the self? I read a few verses from the Gita and had some thoughts on it:

1. Nor at any time indeed was I not, nor thou, nor these rulers of men, not verily shall we ever cease to be hereafter.
This is most likely pointing to the immortality of the Soul or the imperishable nature of the Self. The soul exists in the past, present and future, which means that man continues to exist even after the death of the physical body.
(But the soul when it leaves the body is not a 'pure' soul. Does it leave the body with all the samskaras and the mind as well?. The most widely accepted Brahmanical description of this mechanism is strongly biological in tone. We are told that after severing its connection with the human body, the soul dwells for some twelve days in a transitional ghostly form (preta). Thereafter, freed from this limbo through ritual offerings (sraddha) by the son of the deceased, it travels upward to the "realm of the father" (pitr-loka),there to remain for an indeterminate period. )


There are two states for man -- the state in this world, and the state in the next; there is also a third state, the state intermediate between these two, which is like a dream. While in the intermediate state, and man experiences both the other states, that in this world and that in the next. When he dies, he lives only in the subtle body, on which are left the impressions of his past deeds. Probably while in the intermediate state, he foresees both the evils and the blessings that will yet come to him, as these are determined by his conduct, good or bad, upon the earth, and by the character in which this conduct has resulted. Thus it is that in the intermediate state he experiences the second state, or that of life in the world to come. This state is called heaven/hell I think.
In the intermediate state there are no real chariots, nor horses, nor roads; but by the light of the Self he creates chariots and horses and roads. There are no real blessings, nor joys, nor pleasures; but he creates blessings and joys and pleasures. There are no real ponds, nor lakes, nor rivers; but he creates ponds and lakes and rivers. He is the creator of all these out of the impression left by his past deeds.

If only there was a practical experience for all that is said here. No one seems to remember anything of this intermediate state! Wonder how many years before this truth is unfolded. Isnt He tired of these yugas and very few souls realizing their true nature and coming back to Him?. What a pass time for Him to put us in pre-determined illusions!

Why is it so difficult to detach from the mind? or identify with the Self?. In one of the verses of Gita:
2. That firm man whom, surely, these afflict not, O chief among men, to whom pleasure and pain are the same, is fit for attaining immortality.
Identification with the body is the cause for pleasure and pain! The more you are able to identify yourself with the immortal, all-pervading Self, the less one will be affected by pairs of opposites like pleasure and pain etc. The power of endurance I think develops will power. Calm endurance in pleasure or pain, heat or cold is the most necessary in the path to Self realization. Though I feel only endurance with no discrimination or intelligence is useless.

I think of the Self like ether. That which encompasses everything and yet contains nothing. It cannot be destroyed or broken and exists in living and non living objects as well. Even if the everything perishes, the Self that pervades cannot perish. It is always all full and self contained and immutable and inexhaustible. Why then do we look outward so much for love and appreciation? Why is the mind impeding and obstructing the view so much?. I sometimes feel the whole world's ego has manifested itself physically as gravity. If we had no ego and no qualities pulling us down like hatred anger jealousy etc, the physical weight of the body would be zero and we can fly!. They do say that once the bottom three chakras are open, one can fly! And the muladhara(materialism, social order, wealth, survival, family) svadhistana (blame, guilt, sex, power, control, expectations), and manipura chakra ( self-esteem, fear of rejection, criticism, ego ) are associated with those respective emotions. Imagine being free of those and nothing to weight you down. I already feel lighter just thinking of being free from those emotions!.

So what do you want to let go of this week or month? 

"You get there by realizing you are already there - Buddha"

Bhakti yoga seems to be a majority of the aspect here at the ashram. Worshipping of deity or an image , something that is external to you just doesnt resonate with me that well. I find it a little better when I constantly am aware of the qualities the deity signifies but it still difficult to do the ritual or 'method' associated with it. I feel in most of indian homes, the emphasis is on the method or ritual than than the real significance of the pooja and internalizing the qualities associated with the deity.

A lot of books on bhakti yoga say that it is the easiest path for salvation as it opens up the heart. It is for very emotional people as well as they can feel the emotion very well. But I also feel since they are so emotional, it is also very easy to sway them in any direction as there is no mind involved. So if a 'religious' leader coveys to them that banging your head every day in the morning will lead you to salvation. They will do it!. As mentioned in my previous posts about blindly following a 'guru'.

My idea of a pooja would be having a clean and pure mind and heart with the intention of being one with the super consciousness and with every other living and non living being on earth. It does not matter whether milk is offered or water is or a curry leaf is offered or a banana leaf and nor does the 'order' of things matter. Most of the time when we do poojas at home the whole focus is on what the priest is going to say next and where to find that thing and having zero sanskrit doesnt help either. if the verse reads 'something water namah' the mind only thinks of offering water to god or sprinkle some water on him/her. But what is the essence of it? Is it supposed to signify cleansing yourself when you sprinkle on him? What significance does any of the rituals have internally? If God is within us, then all those should be internalized with some quality right? But always the God is externalized and unreachable and separate from us.

I have this another theory that all that we see outside is on a microscopic level inside us too. So in effect what we see in the cells, with a nucleus, atom, protons and electrons are infact how our whole universe actually looks!. What if we are just some micro micro organisms inside an electron (earth) revolving around the nucleus (sun)? We can know so much about ourselves by just observing the nature. But in this generation 'observing' is an alien term!. I feel we are a part of a big big being, and the higher self has given us all the clues and tools but we still struggle to get the point. Everything is turned outward and the Self is inward. What if the whole universe was shown in the Self, when the mind is turned inward, like how Krishna shows his mom the whole universe in his mouth? 

Musing is amusing...

Mind is such a wonderful thing. It is like a person living within you who can be your best friend or worst enemy. Like it is said, when you love someone let them free and they will come back to you. So you have to love your mind and let it be free and it will come back to you. You need to treat it with compassion and love and not fight it. The problem is that the Self is identified with the mind and the mind is ever fluctuating and identifying with the external senses and circumstances. When infact the real Self is the atman or the soul. The 'I' should have been the soul which is constant and ever blissful but in the I got mis-identified with the mind. Not that the mind is all bad. It is infact very good and without the mind or intellect there is no Self. Mind is the tool for the Self to get salvation. Rama (the soul) cannot accomplish anything without Hanuman (the mind). The mind needs to be cared for and observed with compassion and needs to be appreciated when there are positive thoughts or when it is resonating with the vibrations of the soul. You need to be constantly aware that the reactions are taking place from the mind as it is so attached to the body and the senses and the external world so much. A response comes from deep within stillness while a reaction comes from the mind. All the 'feelings' and emotions at various levels are stored in the mind and it is funny that the mind has a natural tendency to repeat negative thoughts and go into a loop, but it finds it so difficult to latch onto positive thoughts. i never have a loop of positive thoughts!? It is a bit scary as well to feel the nothingness within and observe the mind full of emotions and thoughts and feelings. It feels pleasant and scary at the same time because one is always used to identifying with so many emotions , that if you dont identify with any of those, there is no 'I'. The 'I' needs to be identified with the soul which is pure joy and bliss and which exists in everyone and I can imagine it being the same in everyone and all of us being connected. It is the mind which shapes the personality and the thoughts of a any person good or bad. Even a 'bad' person has the same atman connected to us but it is too clouded by his vrittis and the layers of the mind are lot more foggy and he/she is not able to see clearly. One needs to see and hear from the soul. It is like once you tune into the frequency of the atman or soul, you have access to every soul in this world. All the souls operate on the same frequency and if you have been able to tap into the frequency of your own, you can have a conversation with all the souls irrespective of their minds. So it is possible that if a person acting with his mind is coming to harm you or others, you can tune into the soul frequency and raise his vibrations to that frequency so that his mind calms down and his senses too and he drops the weapon. It is true that all of us are 'connected' and all of us are branches of the same tree. I could meditate better today focussing on the soul/observer and watching the mind pay attention to the senses and the vibrations falling on the ears and the smell and taste and everything that the mind is able to latch on to. I felt a sense of calmness and 'high'. Knowing that the mind is my friend and I appreciate and am thankful to it for coming back to me. As a dog needs its master, the mind needs the soul. When we bow in front of an altar, I would like to think of bowing as the ego/mind physically being lower than the heart/soul. I would like to think of bowing as the mind bowing to its master and acknowledging the higher Self. Human mind is the only tool for salvation as it has the intellect or viveka and once it is on the same frequency as the soul it can do miracles for us. It can help us get rid of anger, hatred, jealousy, fear, anxiety because all these are the feelings of the mind which manifest in the physical body in some form. The atman which is mind;s best friend and companion can heal the mind and bathe the mind with joy and sattva and make it realize its true nature of being the soul's best devotee and friend. 

Day 7 - "Sometimes what you fear the most is what will set you free"

Regular day of satsang and meditation. The guy who speaks in the mornings today was hilarious. He had a flask and bowl and a water bottle next to him. And he was constantly changing water from one to the other and drinking every 2 minutes and laughing every one minute!. :|. All this while talking about some 'deep' topic which obviously is not registered in my mind! Emanuela and I went for a small hike to one of the temples after the class. We assumed that they wanted us in the kitchen from 8-10 the previous day and we ended up missing the yoga class. So it would be okay for us to skip today and go for a hike especially it was such nice sunny weather!.

She is really funny!. We spoke about a lot of things and things like blindly trusting the guru which came up a few times in the staff meetings. Everyone here seem to be following all the rituals pretty blindly and the energy of the whole place in general is more religious than spiritual. I dont know how and why this 'dont question your guru' ever came up in Indian systems. If the student voluntarily does not ask questions because there is something that fascinated him about the guru and he truly beleives the guru can lead him on the spiritual path, then it is a different thing. Guru as a word has to be more strictly used in a spiritual sense I feel and not the literal translation to the word teacher. Because of this blind notion of dont question your 'guru', the indian system teachings are still based on that and we end up becoming donkeys in the class just byhearting all the notes given and are taught to beleive that asking questions i wrong and just accept what is told to you. 

Picking a guru as well needs to be one's own choice after applying one's own head. But i realised every one has their own head which they think is right!A weak mind is always influenced by a strong personality. Note I did not say strong 'mind' because that denotes a positive quality and a strong personality does not always mean the same. Even Hitler or a few other leaders have a very strong personality which influenced so many people to follow their beliefs blindly. So how does one determine who is the right guru? in India this one swami guy has sooo many ashrams and is now booked under rape cases and when there was a brutal assault of a woman in India, he and his followers were talking about her chanting a mantra which would have prevented her from entering the bus (where the incident took place) and also stating that if she called the assaulters 'Brother, please save me and let me go' pleading with them, that they would have left the victim!. WTF are they talking about!! It really got me thinking then how can one ever decide who is the 'right' guru? Every person thinks they are right in their way of thinking. So if a person chooses  a 'guru' like mentioned above, it is their 'karma' to be led that way?. 

As for me, I still have not found my guru so I am still skeptical and not willing to blindly trust and follow any one person's teaching. Emanuela thought it would be confusing if one read multiple teachings and one should trust the guru (assuming one had the intelligence and discrimination to make out the difference between a real and a fake one). Though I partly agreed with her on the trust issue where I feel, if I were to ever be fascinated and feel the positive vibrations around someone's teachings our presence, I might follow intuitively what he/she says. Though it seems not possible in this age to find someone like that. I have read multiple teachings including sivananda, iyengar, sri sri ravi shankar, pattabhi jois, vivekananda and a few others. And not all of them resonate with me entirely!. I do like majority of their teachings though, but not enough that I would blindly follow or agree with everything they say. I would go with assimilating all of the different commentaries and choose what is best for you or even the teachings for the matter. At the end of the day the purpose of all this to realize one's inner true self and oneness with everyone and everything right? Also the vedic scriptures have not been written by one particular sage and are a compilation of verses by multiple sages and rishis. I really like Buddha's teachings too! Following one guru does not mean other is bad , nor if praying to one god mean that the other gods are bad. 

We had a decent brunch and did some karma yoga after that. We helped in the kitchen and had the vedanta class with Satyadev and Mai. I ran ten minutes late to the class as I was stuck in the kitchen helping with somethings. The class was waiting for me to talk about all the deities and their meanings. As I mentioned, it may become a little more easier to internalize the qualities associated with the god when you know what they stand for. Ganesha is supposed to be the remover of obstacles and that is probably why he has the head of an elephant, removing the obstacles with his trunk?. He rides on a mouse signifying that if one is egoless his/her weight will be that much lighter. It is the ego that holds us down and is our own prison. I explained a few other meanings of various gods with some of them being my own interpretations and some of them which I read somewhere. Lisa and Maria gave me a compliment that I bring a wealth of knowledge to the class. I wish there was someone teaching who knew more than me, as what I know is a grain of sand in the desert. 

I helped a little bit more in the house keeping and went for the evening yoga class and it was for time for dinner. There seems to be no time to contemplate on anything!. I sat with lisa and maria and nicholas. I was talking to Lisa about ayurveda and was telling them about the vata pitta and kapha and how Girish and I went for the ayurvedic treatment in India. So the doctor there had mentioned to me that psoriasis is a kapha imbalance mainly with vata and I was mentioning the same to them during which Bharata steps in and says 'NO it is vata pitta imbalance , I follow the charaka samhita'. geez. He just throws these sanskrit words at these poor americans! They are like oh oh whats thaat? LOL. Its funny and irritating at the same time.

There was a long long satsang today. OMG. There was a big pooja for some occasion and it was again so cute and amusing to see all the non indians chant all the mantras and do the rituals so religiously! They had a few idols in the front and everyone was going and pouring water and milk on them. They gave us a few flowers and rice as well. And it was more than 2hrs of chanting after which the pooja began and I think I almost fainted thinking of it. I finished throwing all the flowers and rice in a few minutes and sneaked away from the hall. Rituals by themselves however they are 'supposed 'to be , are very boring for me and have no significance unfortunately.

It was 10pm anyway and Mail also came after a few minutes. haha. She also sneaked out! She was surprised that an 'indian' sneaked out. I explained to her how the indian traditions have become so rigid that the whole essence of them is lost and all that remains is the method. Emanuela came after some time and she brought some prasad for me since she saw me missing. So sweet!. We spoke about karma and reincarnation. I remember reading about 3 different types of karma:
1. Sanchita karma - the unfinished mass of actions of past births, both good and bad, yet to be worked out and which appear in this birth in the form of desires -- in other words samskaras
2. Prarabdha karma - the result of karma already worked out in a previous life which appears in the present life in the form of fate
3. Agami karma - the karma we are continually making in our present actions and will be making in our future actions.
Interesting right? Atleast for me :). I told them about so many reincarnation stories in India. Em was mentioning that some really old tribes somewhere believe it is only this birth that we make something of and thats it. I personally resonate more with the rebirth till we are liberated from ego. Our mind and actions are way too vast for us to get done in just a lifetime!

Anyway loong day! I had a good restful sleep after the hectic days these days :).

Day 6 - "Om Purnamadah purnamidam purnat purnamudachyate purnasya purnamadaya purnameva vashishyate"

This verse captivated my interest from the first time i heard it. I dont know if it is because the way it was sung or  the tune or the words or the meaning.I just love the chant!. It used to give me a very 'complete' feeling whenever I sang it maybe more because of the repeat of the word 'Purnam'. I looked up more on the net and found so many commentaries on just this one verse!. It is supposed to encapsulate the whole essence of the vedanta!  

Om pUrNamadah pUrNamidam 
pUrNAt pUrNamudachyate 
pUrNasya pUrNamAdAya
pUrNamevAvashiShyate
Om shAntih, shAntih, shAntihi

[Completeness is that, completeness is this,
from completeness, completeness comes forth.
Completeness from completeness taken away,
completeness to completeness added,
completeness alone remains.
Peace, peace, peace!]

(Translation from Sw. Dayanandaji’s interpretation) 

Let the mountains, rivers, stars, and all the beings therefore remain as they are. What does it matter? If I am fullness,  the mountain cannot be outside me or other than me. Therefore, the mountain is me. Thus, the river is me, the star is me, everything is me. I am the fullness that pervades all of them. They are not parts of me or in me (Ref: bhagavad gIta – 9 th Chapter), because as fullness I can’t have parts or contents. They are all verily me! When I am ‘looking’ at them, I am ‘face to face’ with infinity – the reality that I am!

Thus the pUrNamadah verse has all vedAnta encapsulated in it!

The deluded and limited me is just an appearance like all the rest of the things in this perceived universe. They are just non-real (mithyA) superimpositions on the reality that I am. Take them away or bring them back – the fullness that I am remains unaltered and undiminished, whether the seeming me is awake, asleep or dead!

If only they taught the meaning of all this while chanting the mantras as well. No one does that. Maybe they wans us to figure it out on our own. But I don't think anyone of us would think so deeply on any verse. Am glad there exist commentaries out there and in our reach atleast to comprehend. 

There was the regular yoga meditation class and my concentration seems to have become a millimeter better. My roommate Mai and squinty have been taking the vedanta class. Mai is actually very humble and modest. I don't know how most vietnamese and chinese or japanese are like that. So adorable! :)
I did not see dope face whole day today. All she did was walk the dogs and do some knitting. I never saw her cleaning or helping in cooking or house keeping!. I think she ran away. LOL.

Me and Emanuela were helping Bharata in the kitchen today. Oh man does he have ego. He is a big round ball of ego. He doesnt respond to anything to ask him unless you ask him three times or so and you have to keep praising him else he snuffs at you. wtf. The energy in the kitchen was so tense it was actually stressful cooking with him. Ego ball made some falafel dough which I was supposed to make round balls of but I felt the batter was too loose to hold it. I told him that but he told me to just make the balls :|. We put them in the frying pan and all of them split!! He was like I dont know how that happened. This is so weird blah blah. And then some 25 balls he just threw in the dustbin because they were broken!! Ego ball has some much ego man. They were still eatable with a good taste. I could not believe he threw piping hot falafels in the bin :(. The next batch were also obviously broken but this he decided to serve scrambled. whatever.

The vedanta class today was on Dharma and some poses. Squinty obviously did not know what dharma was and he read out something from the book which no one understood. He then explained it as something you have to 'find' in your life!. Lisa one of the students was looking at me for an answer. And squinty was like Usha go ahead. First only righteousness and duty came to my mind which were not fitting well with what I wanted to say. I kept saying duty towards society or any relationship as a mother wife daughter sister husband father and to yourself. But duty sounds like pressure. It came to me after rambling that I wanted to use 'justice'. It feels like it is coming from a good place and not forced on you. Mai showed the physical aspect of the body and skeletal system and how the asanas help in the postures and was informative.

She later came to the room and told me that they are glad they have me in the class to answer all the questions. hehe. She is actually an architect and will mostly be settling in oakland with her boyfriend. She is so good at the poses , there are perfect. She said to Emnuela and me that she doesnt feel the stretch anymore and she doesnt know what to do about it. I found it so funny because she doesnt realize that she has actually mastered the asana and is now finally ready for yoga!. The body has calmed down and there is no strain in the poses and it is time to make the body and mind one and since she has conquered the physical body and made it calm she can mirror the body onto the mind and calm it as well. The whole point of yoga being to calm the mind and realize the eternal truth of AUM and Brahman. Asana is one of the steps of yoga.

There was a satsang meditation class in the night as usual from 8-9:30pm. The discussion after the satsang was about bhakti yoga. Shambu das read some paragraphs from sivananda's book which said that bhakti yoga is infact the easiest of the all yoga paths and should be followed. Turn all the emotions you have to devotion entirely to god. In my head, I was remembering a netflix documentary my husband and I saw which was called Religlilous or something like that and it showed the fanaticism that comes with turning all the love you have for people to only god. Like the 9/11 attacks or even the meaningless hindu muslim fights in India. The entire focus if the essence of the bhakti is lost, it produces crazy people. Firstly God has always been externalized to us , as something unreachable and something not within us and someone for which we always have to do things to please. So if you dont associate the idol or god you are praying to, with any qualities and see him as within you, then Bhakti yoga becomes purely religious and superficial and the focus becomes more on the image and the idol than what they signify unfortunately. So I brought it up and commented that only bhakti yoga as a path to salvation is of no use if it is not combined with atleast jnana yoga. You atleast need to know what and whom are you praying to and the depth of why one does it rather than blindly doing the worship , as with many households in India or other places. A lot of men in India I know pujas religiously day in and out but are the most egoistic pigs I know who are extremely rude to their wives and think they are 'done' and all their wrong doings are erased because of their ritual filled worship to the meaningless idol and chants. :|. Someone in the room also brought up a good question that why does it say that you need to turn all the love you have for your children or spouse to God? why cant we see God in all of them , isnt that the point? Shambu Das did not have an answer to it and just kept repeating that you have to turn devotion to God. I was expecting more of a agreeing response to her that it is true!. Since he didnt , I added that if anyone can see God in others, then they are definitely realized souls. But right now since we still donot see that all of us are the same and there is no difference (the ego creates the barrier) , there are a lot of emotions of attachments love hatred jealousy anger lust that come up when another human is involved. Also it is easier maybe to not have all these emotions with God because he wont react nor instigate these emotions in you:).  So we practice not feeling all these negative emotions with god and then apply them to people around us. Wouldnt that be better? Shambu das didnt seem very happy with my answer , he was still focusing on God. Whatever dude. These guys seem to be donkeys following the word of sivananda to the T without getting the head or tail of it :|.

I got back from the lecture and shared this article with Mai, about Krishna's birth. From the article:
"There is a deeper meaning to the story of Krishna’s birth too. Devaki symbolizes the body and Vasudev symbolizes the life force (prana). When prana rises in the body, joy (Krishna) is born. But the ego (Kamsa) tries to eliminate joy. Kamsa is Devaki’s brother which indicates that ego is born along with the body. Devaki’s and Vasudev’s imprisonment by Kamsa signifies that when the ego takes over, the body feels like a prison. When Krishna was born, the prison guards fell asleep. The guards here are the senses which protect the ego because they are turned outward when awake. Inner joy sprouts in us when the senses turn inwards."

Isn't that awesome?  It makes so much more sense now and resonates so well ! We discussed this for a while and went to sleep. Loong day!

Day 4 - Tamasoma jyothirgamaya ...from Darkness to Light...

I could sit still in the meditation class a little longer today thought my mind was not ofcourse :). I wish they gave more directions on how to meditate because if it were that easy to just 'sit and meditate' i would'nt be here! I really wanted to have a bath before the yoga class so I skipped the aarti and ran for a bath. I was a few minutes late for the karma yoga staff meeting and Kailas seemed a bit upset. Whats the deal with no bath and such a strict staff meeting?!

The yoga class was taken by mr.squinty who yelled at me yesterday. I am these days losing more and more respect for the yoga teachers. None of them seem to be calm or egoless or a true yoga teacher. They are just people who learnt to bend their bodies and are teaching us to exercise thats it. He was atleast not restless like yesterday and was trying to talk slowly. There was a vedanta class towards the end. OMG this guy doesnt know shit about anything. He was literally reading out from a book which was lying around. When students asked him the meaning of Om or kirtans or karma dharma he knew NOTHING. And he looked pretty upset that questions were being asked. I ended up answering all the questions. Most of the answers come naturally to me as if it is the most obvious thing. I have never read anything about them before. A student asked is it Om or AUM. I thought it was more likely AUM and the sound needs to come from our stomachs from the manipura chakra all the way to the third eye. It is  like a massage to all the chakras. Another student asked why is it called the sound of the universe. I said it could be because it is the frequency at which all the chakras within us vibrate and also the natural sound of everything in the space or plants or other beings. So it is the primal sound which resonates within us and connects all of us. I , you, plants , animals, rocks even are all the same. There is no difference. Q.3 was what are kirtans and why should we sing them?. I believe the language sanskrit was written such that the syllables match all the chakras. The pronunciation is such that all our chakras vibrate and get activated. Also the 'gods' whom we sing praises of should not be externalized. Rather if one understands the significance of each god and the quality he/she represents, it is easier to concentrate and pray for these qualities within you. For example hanuman the monkey god makes no sense for the world. But all our puranas were written in the form of stories and it is upto interpret then and get the meaning out. The monkey god represents the mind which is like a monkey. It is a horrible master but can be the best servant. Hanuman in the Ramayana is shown to be the most devoted servant of Lord Rama. He doesnt know what he is capable of and he needs to be told what he can do. When told by Lord Rama to fly over the seven seas to get Sita he thought it was impossible, but when give the direction he multiplies in size and flies to the Lanka. Similarly our mind is the worst master but can be an excellent servant to us. The capacity of the mind is limitless and we need to remind it what it is capable of. So when praying to Hanuman, our mind in effect, we can pray and feel blessed with strength and courage and will power. A tune obviously in some chants is very good and has a lasting effect on you such that it plays in your mind the whole day. I also always wondered why we have 300 crore gods! I feel maybe it was convenience? It is difficult to remember soo many qualities we need and pray to one god for ALL of them?. So I feel for every negative quality that could exist in us, there is a positive quality and we gave that quality a shape and form and pray to it.

Anyhow it was interesting and there was lot more trivial questions that squinty didnt know anything about.  I went out and asked Kailas for a meditation guide and he gave me some papers to read about it. Maybe if I kept repeating it it will sink in more to space the mind.

I had to help in the kitchen cleaning and bathroom cleaning. I was feeling eww at bathroom cleaning at first but it was not too bad. People here are more clean anyway they were not that dirty because they are cleaned everyday. The kitchen cleaning was pretty tedious but it got over soon with a lot of help. I am writing this blog after 2 days so I dont remember much of daybefore than the important parts.

I think we just had the satsang and we went to sleep :D. I was thinking about Krishna and his form and I liked to think that the sound of flute he plays which is supposed to be very divine is the sound of our soul. And that we are like the flute, instrument in god's hands and we should be hollow like the flute with no ego. Just saying not to have ego is so simple but it is so hard to follow as we identify with our mind and body so much and it is very hard for me as well at this point......

Day 3 - "If your compassion doesn't include yourself, it is incomplete - Buddha"

I had a sound sleep and could get up well in time for the 6am satsang and meditation class. My roommate Mai who is also the 'staff' makes sure I wake by turning ALL the lights on! 

There was a new guy teaching in the meditation hall today. All they say is get ready to meditate and lets meditate! If i could do that so easily why would I be in the ashram?!. Everyone shuts up and sits still for the 30min 'meditation' but i dont think anyone is meditating really. I was hoping for a more guided one. 

The chanting started around 6:30 and the teacher today had a bad voice and out of tune as well ! His voice being coarse took away the sweetness of the tunes and he started clapping vigorously through the song. So loud that no one could hear themselves nor the others!. At the end of the chants there is a small vedanta session. He kept giggling through the whole topic of re-incarnation and karma. I was already upset and had no focus on it anyway. geez. 

There was a yoga class at 8am and the staff meeting at 7:30 am. And the satsang ends at 7:30 too!. When are you supposed to have a bath??. I chose bath over the staff meeting and was drying my clothes when Kailas the head guy came looking for me asking me why I hadn't shown up for the staff meeting. I told him my concern that i have no time to shower and ideally as in all yogic practices shower is a very important aspect before one does pranayama or yoga. Keeping your physical body clean and breathing facilitates in pranayama too. The body can absorb more oxygen and so can your lungs and there is a feeling pure cleanliness as well. But my dear Kailas seemed to disagree and said 'No well you can have a bath anytime through the day. You dont want to get too comfortable having a bath!'. wth? 'Swami sivananda put together this schedule'. Clearly since having a shower has not been 'documented' it is not being followed. Poor swami must have thought of it as the most obvious thing because for Hindus/yogis having a shower is the first thing to be done in the morning after restroom formalities. Anyway.

So the karma yoga teacher named Satya dev apparently landed and Kailas wanted me to talk to him for the chores of the day. I had a book in my hand when I walked into the kitchen where he was doing something. I greeted him with a nice 'namaste' and he had a slight frown on his face for me being 'late'. Late for what?:|. Anyway so I put the book aside and I was waiting alongside another woman for the instructions. He started talking something with his face and eyes almost towards the other lady , so I did not bother listening. He suddenly was like 'Usha do you get it?!' I was like I didnt know you were talking to me! It was not like you can recognize a squint immediately!! He apparently was looking at me :|. i did not like the tone of his voice when he said 'You got to listen'. Seemed rude and impolite. 

He was showing me around the kitchen what to do and I made it a point to tell him that I dont like to spoken to rudely. (Karma yoga teacher really?!). Restless dork. 

While cleaning I saw some amazing halwa and mysore pak and ras malai in the walk in freezer!! I took a bit of each of them and they were sooo good!!. I could clean all day eating them!! 

Towards the end of the cleaning session a cook named Bharata asked if we wanted chai. And asked me if I wanted to make. Yeah ok was my response. He had a look on his face that said are you kidding me, you are not going to beg me to make some awesome chai for you because am the best here? I stood there to watch how he was going to make it. Hew threw some 3 cups of water and then 1 cup milk immediately then threw some tea powder from the packet no measure. There was some mixed spice packet which he emptied into that and kept looking at it. After a while he said 'yeah well no color lets add some more chai powder'. He added some random amount to that too till some color came to the mixture forcefully. (WTF are you doing dude. I hate chai spoilers).

I took that shit and came to my room and threw it away. Yuck. It smelled like biryani !. I sat on the hammock reading a book and came back to the room to get some water. Emanuela was sitting in the living room with her roommate and we started a conversation about doshas. As anyone who knows me knows, I cant stop talking about that stuff. I went on and on and found an awesome listener /talker in Emanuela. We seemed to hit it off instantly! We went to the library and started yapping and we sopke about astrology and signs and relationships and personalities. And turned out she is exactly like me!!! and has come to the ashram for the exact same reasons!! her boyfriend and my husband also share the exact same qualities!! (:O). We both seem to be vata type, restless, anxious, easily agitiated, hyper. And bf/husbands are kapha type , slow, compassionate, understanding, dont want to move much, lazy and love us a lot!. We went on and on and on for hours talking! 

It made me realize again that every single person irrespective of race color culture has the exact same issues!. We went for dinner and the food in the nights is much better than the food in the mornings. A guy called Shambu makes it and he also seems more humble and modest than that Bharat :|. 

Had a meditation which was difficult as usual to sit still and we called it a day after that. Had a good restful sleep :)

Day 2 - Karmanye Vadhikaraste, Ma phaleshu kada chana

Was my first thought after I got up from the wrecked sleep , the thought which I have extreme difficulty living up to. I could not get up for the satsang and meditation at 6am because of no sleep. I managed to drag myself out of the bed at 7:30 though have a bath and get to the yoga class at 8am. The teacher today was pretty good! Much better than yesterday. He was calm and patient and gentle I felt like doing yoga listening to him :). It was a good session and I felt very good after.

Brunch again was immediately after the yoga session at 10am. Whats up with that? There was way too much food for a brunch. How am I supposed to stay hungry till 6?? I obviously cant eat oatmeal and rice and dal and veggies together! whatever. 

The main guy Kailas met a few of us the new karma yogis together. We were 3 of us. One girl was from France and her name Emanuela. She seemed humble and decent. The other one whom I still dont know the name of seemed doped :|. She had two stone studs attached to her lips and seemed zonked and confused and apparently she is even new to yoga. How she landed in an 'ashram' is a mystery. So Kailas started with some basic rules like no alcohol tobacco and drugs. He said no marujiana and kept looking at the doped female to confirm she understood it. "No marujiana right?" , "Why you looking at me? I have never had marujana before". (Seriously dope face?). She then said that the pillow in her mom's room smelled of marujana and she had no idea how it got there. (LOL)

He asked all of us what the term ashram meant to us. Dope face said it is a place to 'hang out' ! LOL. hang out? really?! Emanuela said it was like a retreat. I think she meant spiritual retreat but it made me think how differently the same word can mean to someone. I thought the universal meaning of an ashram is a place for inward spiritual journey. Be with nature which mirrors your true self. For me the goal was to find a space within calm and secure where I can retreat to even when I come back to the city life. A space free to expectations and filled with love and compassion even if it is just a size of a dot. 

He then took us for a small tour around the area. There were some adorable cows and goats grazing. Dope face asked if they are going to spit on her if she went close. (?!) Male animals spit on female women if they got close was her fear. (.......) There was a small maze like thing made of stones on the ground a little further ahead. It resembled some japanese thing Kailas said. It reminded me of a chakravyuha. Upon asking him if it was that, he didnt seem to know what that meant or who Arjuna was (With all the satsangs and bhagavad gita books all over the place wearing an om shirt, the head of the ashram  didnt know who abhimanyu or arjuna were? :|:|). He assured me though that i wouldnt be lost like in the chakravyuha when i explained. LOL. 

I helped in cleaning of the boutique and the reception area and then got some free time to laze around. I went and sat in the hammock and let my mind free. I saw the cow from where I was sitting and it got me thinking about it. Why is cow revered for the hindus? Why is cow in krishna's every photo? There must be something deeper to it as all indian rituals do (just that we dont know and were never told the real significance of anything). Could it be because the cow just eats grass which is freely available everywhere but in turn gives us milk ghee cheese curd dung for manure and urine for ayurvedic remedies?. It seems to take minimum and give out maximum. Wouldnt it be good if all of us had the nature of a cow? Expect and take less and give more? Drinking cow milk is supposed to increase kapha in the body and give us more grounding and stability. As like most kapha individuals even the cow has a wider hip than the face/shoulder area. Kapha individuals also are able to give more love and seem to have more compassion for others. Cow is also called 'gomata' which is mother in hindi. I also read somewhere that in vaastu, the house should be bought such that it resembles a cow. A narrow entrance with a wide backyard. This will ensure you get the maximum out of the effort you put in, in any work. 

Anyway. I did not end up going for the yoga class in the evening as my body felt a little sore from 2 days of yoga for 2hrs each. There was a drupad raag workshop though which I attended and got out pretty fast. The teacher had a tambura and a nice tabla player along with her. It started off fine. But she got into these movements and saying a sound 'HEU' which seemed very weird to me. What the hell is heu?it would have been weird to do any movements with Om itself. I doubt i would do that even. She sang 'shri ganesha sharanam' only those three words for like 15minutes. She had a good voice but it was not helpful for me atleast. A girl in the crowd asked who ganesha was. Her response was he is the god of prosperity and wisdom. Thats it?! 

There was dinner at 6 and food was okay again. I have a feeling they guy cooking isnt really following any ayurvedic cooking. He is just not using onions and garlic. The sambar was decent though. There was an indian guy next to me talking about bikes and how he bought a honda and raving about it to another guy. It went on for 40minutes. What a conversation. 

There was satsang at 8pm and I was already very sleepy. The basic chants some of them have a good tune to them so were enjoyable. It amazes me how the non indians learn and pronounce an alien language. It comes so easily to indians which we again take for granted. The same drupad raag female was again going to perform and I could imagine falling asleep today! She had a nice orchestra with her this time though. There was one guy on a guitar looking thing which he was playing more like a sitar. It sounded incredible! That guy and the guy on the tabla kept my attention till 9:30 after which I could not stay awake anymore. I ran to my dorm and went to a happy sound sleep. (with some weird dreams towards the end).

Day 1 - Choti Saanson ki Lambi Yaatra ...

It took me almost 3 hrs from my home to get to the 'anonymous' ashram. The last mile being a gravel road I almost turned back thinking I might be on the wrong path!. A car appeared behind me (on the gravel road in the middle of nowhere) and the people inside were kind enough to let me follow them until the ashram while they went ahead to their home in the mountains!

A very serene place with blissful chimes were welcoming at the parking lot near the reception. I came in and was greeted by Shambu das. There was no mobile signal but they had wi-fi which allowed messaging and whatsapping :). 

I was shown my room which frankly was way more than I expected!. It was a room with natural sunlight windows and separate bed and only one roommate! 

The views were pretty relaxing and so peaceful! Definitely worth the gravel drive. 

A yoga class at 4:30. The teacher turned out to be my roommate, Mai !. Though she could do the asanas very well I found the pace of the class a bit fast. She seemed a bit restless . I liked the structure of the class though. They started of with almost 20minutes of pranayama and savasana after every series!. Every asana seemed to be counter posed which helped a lot as I did not feel sore or over worked even after a 2 hr class. 

They had dinner immediately after the yoga class which seemed a little odd. Arent we supposed to have atleast 30min break before or after yoga? There was a long line and it thankfully took me half an hr to get my servings. The food was good not amazing though. I still like the art of living food made by rati and vishwa. It was the most tastiest sattvic food I ever had! 

There was a small boutique where I bought a couple of pleasant yellow t-shirts and white pants. They feel so vibrant and pleasant at the same time! 

The satsang started at 8pm. It is amazing to see so many non indians so involved and reciting so many kirtans whole heartedly though their pronunciations may not be the best. I really liked some of the songs which had some catchy tunes to them! There were some slokas that I came across in their kirtan book which made me nostalgic as I had learnt them as a kid in my dance class. It made me think what we indians take so much for granted and were never made to realize the significance of, are the most revered and a way of life which whole world seems to be adopting!  The mudras which we were forced to learn (and I still dont remember) have so much deeper spiritual significance and each of them creates a circle of prana flow and increases the capacity of prana when meditated with. I wish i learnt more of the slokas as a kid but it was still nice to see a few of them that I remembered in the kirtan book. 

There was a small 10minute vedanta session at the end of the satsang. It was not as deep as I wanted it to be but it was good enough to ponder over like karma and its effects. 

There was a small 'apashruti' aarti at the end :)

They called it a day and I got to bed which was warm and cozy but I just could not sleep for some reason! Everytime I am conscious of falling asleep I just cant. I had a horrible sleep and night didnt seem to end nor did my mind.