3 Ashrams, a Disco Temple and an Orphanage

Each and every day holds so many experiences it is impossible to put them all up. On my way home last Sunday night from writing the last blog the wedding next door was in full flight. I tried to get a picture of the wedding procession moving up the street towards the function area but none of them came out that well.

It was led by a mirrored chariot covered in large fog horns. Adjacent to this was a solitary musician playing one of those tiny little casio keyboards that you might have got for birthday when you were little and this was what was being amplified and played from the foghorns.

Immediately behind him was a brass section of about six men wearing neon yellow uniforms and behind that there was hundreds of people going bananas in anticipation of the mountains of free food they were about to receive at the wedding.

That's the best picture I could get of one of the trumpet players.

The wedding was really interesting. The groom arrives way before the bride and the second he is seated it's a free for all buffet-style. There's a mass exodus to the food stalls.

It is an open invitationed celebration we were told and nobody seemed bothered at all that we were there. I hung around for quite a while after the groom arrived and still no sign of the bride.

The amount of food was insane and the jewellery and clothes of the obviously more wealthy invitees were a site to behold.

Our week in the Ashram focused almost entirely on Kundalini Yoga. There's a brief description in the previous blog.

It's been an amazing experience on lots of different levels. Many people broke down during morning practices which is far from uncommon in Kundalini Yoga and many had very very strong emotional reactions throughout the week including myself.

We have Kirtan on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Kirtan is group chanting of Mantras accompanied by guitar, sitar, tabla, harmonium or whatever instruments you have at hand really. I really enjoy it and have some amazing memories of the Kirtans we have done already.

We were joined by a harmonium player (pictured right) and a sitar and tabla player on Tuesday night. Really good fun and the Sitar player was extremely patient teaching different Mantras.

Instead of Kirtan on Thursday evening we did a Chakra Toning practice which involved chanting different sounds at different ascending tones for the Root Chakra (Muladhara) through to the Crown Chakra (Sahasrara).

I really liked doing this as it was something completely new to me. The room looked gorgeous lit with a lot of candles and some people reacted very strongly to it and others felt nothing at all.



Yesterday (Saturday) was a massive day. We left the ashram to visit quite a few places including 3 ashrams and an orphanage opened in 1992. The first Ashram we visited was opened by a local Swami, who is now deceased, and his German wife who was his student for many years previous.

We were greeted by their daughter who continues to live the simple 'conscious' lifestyle of her parents. She spoke of being conscious of our acts and thoughts in everything we do. Very very sincere sweet girl and a beautiful place to visit. I'd love to go back there and spend some time.

We then travelled on to another Ashram which seemed more like a farm than anything else. The Swami there is very fond of cows and breeds a cow indigenous to India which is apparently quite rare with the cross-breeding over the centuries.

This was followed by a trip to a temple more for comic value than anything else. Vishva Ji calls it the Disco Temple. The entire place is covered in Mirrored glass. Entertaining for a pitstop.

























Our last main stop before home was an orphanage which was set up by the parents of a girl who works at Anand Prakash Ashram. We spent quite a lot of time here and the head mistress was very accommodating and we got a tour of the entire place.

There are about 150 children living in the orphanage quite a few affected by polio. Looking around as you travel through India it is not difficult to imagine how many children end up parentless and alone and if they're very very lucky in a place like this.

We arrived to a welcoming party of about 6 girls dressed up like Christmas decorations who performed a few dances for us which was very cute. It really makes you think about your situation and how we take so much for granted when you see these kids that have nothing and yet they are still so happy.

One girl in particular with polio looked to be about 10 years of age had to crawl around on her hands and knees to get about and all the time with a smile from ear to ear.

She's the third from the left.

One thing I will say for the world of Yoga is you do meet people with really big hearts all the time. A group of us helped Vishva Ji to put together a photo catalogue of assists and adjustments in various Asanas and during the break he told us of the Ashrams involvement with that orphanage and other projects around Rishikesh.

The Ashram and their World Conscious Yoga Family is definitely growing since I last visited but no matter how much it grows Vishva Ji will still only spend what he needs to on himself and already seems to be working, up and active from 3am to 9pm seven days per week.

Next week we begin Raja Yoga week. Exams tomorrow. More Practicums (Our teaching critiqued), Presentations and plenty more experience before we move into the final week.

Off to do an Ashtanga Class on the banks of the Ganga. Deadly:-)

Sunday in Rishikesh

Sunday is a great day to buzz around Rishikesh. Everyone and everything is out and about doing their thing.

Day 2 of silence and eating Khichuri with Ghee. I'm quite enjoying the silence but not the Khichuri. Had enough of it this stage and starving.

I met an English guy while I was waiting at Passport control in Delhi who was heading to somewhere near Dharamsala (where the Dalai Lama resides in exile) on a pilgrimage which he does every year and he had been fasting for the days leading up until.


Fasting is common in many religions and for good reason to remind ourselves how lucky we are to have a constant and abundant supply of food which we generally take for granted.

I mentioned in the last blog that we would be practicing a cleansing technique which involved drinking between 7-10 litres of salt water and repeating 5 basic Asanas until the salt water passed back out through the bowel the same colour it went in.

So 6am on Saturday morning we began and I finished before 8am. I actually enjoyed the experience. Something completely different. It is suggested that this Kriya should be practiced with the turn of the seasons.

This is all in preparation for beginning a week of Kundalini Yoga Practice. Traditionally the body must be cleansed for any chance of success within one's practice.

Which brings me to the Kriya (Cleansing Technique) we will begin tomorrow morning before 5.30am and will repeat each and every morning at that time.

This is called Basti Dhauti which means colon cleaning and is often referred to as a Yogic Enema. I'll post a picture of what we will use for this Kriya and leave it at that:-)

I'll let your imagination work it out.

I don't practice Kundalini at home and never have but the last time I was here two years ago Vishva Ji taught some classes which I attended.

Wiki says:

Kundalini is described as a sleeping, dormant potential force in the human organism.^[6] It is one of the components of an esoteric description of man's 'subtle body', which consists of nadis (energy channels), chakras (psychic centres), prana (subtle energy), and bindu (drops of essence).

Kundalini is described as being coiled up at the base of the spine, usually within muladhara chakra. The image given is that of a serpent coiled 3 and a half times around a smokey grey lingam. Each coil is said to represent one of the 3 gunas, with the half coil signifying transcendence.

Through meditation, and various esoteric practices, such as laya-yoga,^[7] and kriya yoga, the kundalini is awakened, and can rise up through the central nadi, called sushumna, that rises up inside or alongside the spine. The progress of kundalini through the different chakras leads to different levels of awakening and mystical experience, until the kundalini finally reaches the top of the head, Sahasrara chakra, producing an extremely profound mystical experience.

I was as sceptical as anyone could be towards the practice. My understanding of Kundalini being limited to say the least. We were not instructed as to how we might react physically or emotionally and if we were I would've been even more sceptical.

My reaction to the Kundalini classes was very very intense. It was a couple of hours afterwards when Vishva Ji described some of the things that might happen so that I might understand what had happened to me. I would not be able to believe it if somebody else was telling me it had happened to them. We'll see what next week has in store.

I had to get some pictures of the Sadhus/Babas/Holy Men today. They're everywhere in Rishikesh. It is normal to be strolling along through town and walk passed a few of them absolutely blasting 'Holy Smoke' into them.

So the lads chill out on the beaches by the Ganges all day every day blazing it up and not doing anything much else other than going in for a dip every now and then and sunbathing and they call it a religion. You have to love this place.


So apparently we're going to be kept up all night as it is a full moon and this is the most common night for Indian weddings. Since we arrived there has been diggers in clearing a site next to the Ashram which I thought, up until two days ago, was for an apartment block.

The area has been cleared, and it's probably half the size of a football pitch for a wedding which will go on for two days. As I was coming here I walked past the teams cooking for who knows how many people but they looked busy.

I'll leave you with a picture I took at the hairdressers the other day and a reminder that there is an album just added to the facebook page of rocking around Rishikesh today.

Om Santih, Santih, Santih.

Shankhaprakshalana

Namaste,

I will be adding pictures to the blog when I get a chance. So we are in preparation for the cleansing technique named in the title. This process starts by eating very easily digestible food two days prior.

The day before (today) we are eating nothing but fruit and tomorrow morning at 6am we will begin drinking salt water and practicing 5 Asanas until we begin to pass water through the bowel and continue the process until the water runs clear. As the digestive system is so sensitive afterwards we will eat nothing but Khichuri (Rice and Muung Daal) for the following two days and the entire process will be done in complete silence.

Sounds like fun??

Wait till you hear what we are doing before morning meditation every day next week.

This is an intensive detox before we begin an entire week of Kundalini Yoga.

So here goes. I'll be updating the blog straight after. I can imagine after two days of silence eating Khichuri I'm going to need to vent:-)

Delhi Belly

So it's one week since I've arrived in India to do the 500 hour Yoga Teacher Training course and it's been pretty wild from the get go. Not sure how much time I will have to blog but I'll whack this one up and see.

The reason I have time this afternoon is the class of 16 teachers from all over the world have been given some time to rest as 9 out of the 16 are down with sick tummies. Not me so far but we'll see. One of the first lectures we had opened with some introduction and rules of the Ashram. Here we were informed that they did not want us eating anything from outside the Ashram. Reason being that they wanted us to have a full experience of the Ayurvedic diet and secondarily so that we wouldn't get sick.

I could totally understand where they were coming from but knew I would find this impossible as their are 3 meals a day and I feel I need to eat more than that. Anyway this rule was removed a few days ago but the 9 people that got sick so far didn't all go out together to get something to eat last night. So it came from something they got in the Ashram. It can happen anywhere over here.

This country is absolutely bananas. It's bananas how cheap it is or, moreso, it's bananas how expensive it is back home, it's bananas how many people there are every single place you go, and every single time I leave the ashram it takes about 2 seconds to see something bananas.

Walking out of the Ashram yesterday a jeep came whizzing by me with a little girl's head out the back window and a steady stream of vomit projecting from her mouth, 20 feet further down the road I walk by 3 kids wearing nothing but t-shirts and the youngest is gathering muck and eating it. There's holy men of all varieties wearing all sorts of traditional dress rocking by you. You're passing cows, dogs and monkeys. You've to make sure you have no food visible when you're walking by the monkeys.

I was in this cafe last night which, to look at, you wouldn't go near and it does the best food I've had over here. As I'm eating a cow rocks into the restaurant trying to get at some of the food in the store. The owner shoos the cow out only for it to return 2 minutes later. The owner shoos the cow again and starts to hit it and it won't move. Eventually the owner just gives up so there I am eating my dinner in a restaurant surrounded by these holy men all staring at me as I eat and a cow is in the corner of the restaurant doing his thing. I was passing the same restaurant the night before and it's all open plan and the counter opens out onto the street and there's a mother coaxing her 3\4 year old son to have a dump literally right beside the counter. There is a taxi rank immediately across road where she could've taken him to go discreetly behind one of the cabs.

Anyway, these things happen constantly over here. You are constantly bombarded with smells, sounds, people, singing, shouting, barking, mooing, beeping and anything else that's in your immediate surroundings.

So the course.

The course has been amazing so far. We're at the end of week 1 and I have learned so much so far and there is 4 more weeks to go. It is so so nice to be in an environment learning with a big bunch of Yoga teachers with who knows how many years experience. There is teachers from or working in Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, all over Canada, Boston, Chicago, LA, England, Scotland and their shared experience is worth so much alone.

The Akhanda school of training is very experiential and leans heavily on the spiritual and philosophical. We are up at 5am meditating every morning and Yoga practice is from 6am to 8am followed by breakfast in silence and then lectures on technique, philosophy, history and anatomy through the day to 6pm. 6pm is dinner followed by Kiirtan or Satsang. Kiirtan is basially a singalong and Satsang is where we get together for more experiential practices which are really really tough at times but very rewarding.

For the most part it is very fun. The teachers have a wonderful sense of humour and there is a great atmosphere throughout the group. I was very happy when I found out we are only 16 as smaller class size it much better for many reasons.

Yesterday we practiced the cleansing techniques (Kriyas) which involved pouring warm salty water in one nostril as it flows out the other. Then holding warm salty water in our mouth and pushing it out both nostrils followed by shoving a string up your nose until it comes out your mouth and pulling it right through. Not something I'll be making a habit of (you're supposed to do it every morning like brushing your teeth) but fun to try and it definitely takes you out of your comfort zone.

There are more fun cleansing techniques to come so I'll put it up as we go along and when I have time.

There's only so much you can write about as there has been so so many individual experiences this last week. The one initial thing I observed was the lifestyles of my fellow students from places like Whistler, Canada. The stuff that people are into is such a difference to Dublin. One of the girl's boyfriend's Polak. An Aussie living in Whistler is living in the Ashram and he rocks down to the banks of the Ganges and goes boldering (Rockclimbing without safety gear on low climbs). There's snowboarding instructors, dancers, personal trainers, life coaches and of course a lot of full-time yoga teachers here. One of the girl's Peggy has just retired and will travel for a year around Asia with her husband Dave after we finish.

Every one is super motivated and dying to suck in as much as they possibly can in their time here. How lucky am I to be a part of it!