The Reasons Why People go to an Ashram

On a journey to reclaiming your life, there is a concept called the creative date. An hour for yourself, it is strictly no gizmo’s, no family, no friends. It is just you and yourself. Most of my patients are reluctant to go into this space.

The west deals with this by going to retreats. With focused goals to achieve. In the Indian context we the ashrams. I have always been quite intrigued about why people go to ashrams, and babaji’s. The sceptic in me said because they want to run away from the mundane. Maybe they feel more purposeful when they say,”oh! I am on a spiritual quest, which you ordinary mortals do not understand.”

During my trek to the Himalaya’s I decided to explore this, conversations with various people going to various ashrams, or returning from various ashrams had this to share. Of course I did debate about it with Paramahans Jnaneshwarji of Avadoot ashram at Kurukshetra.

Going to an ashram was basically like going to a retreat.

It helps to pull back, our energies that get fanned out and thinned in the daily grind of life. It helps us to focus on things we love, it allows us to recommit and re-energize ourselves.

From the structured blinkers of day- to- day the unstructured space of the ashram, allows for the flow of space, and reclaiming time. One person actually mentioned spacing time. The fluidity is enormous has there are no demands on your time.

The break from the mundane is like allowing us to breathe, we get breathe into our lives and that is being inspired, was the. Share of another person. Doing stuff that is not routine, triggers lateral thought, after all the mundane would only trigger mundane.

When in an ashram, we are there to serve, to listen to the guru, so mobiles tend to be off, we listen to the guru, we listen to the journeys of other adepts, and we learn how to listen somewhere we also learn to listen to the silence within us.

People share experiences of altered sleep pattern, vivid dreams; this is because the detox process is on. Ashram provides zone of no information upload, so people can unload and clean out. This clearing of mental cache, allows clearer thinking and allows for new perspective to emerge and guide us towards the change we seek.

Fear of things being stolen is huge thing in many people; the first thing that happens in an ashram is people do not lock doors. This allows us to overcome the fear of things being stolen; it also builds the sense of trust which is weakened over mundane.

The roles that society assigns to us, encroaches us, the masks we were masks our authentic self. Though at times we are aware of this we are so caught up in the web that we are not able to emerge out of it. A little time in the ashram allows us to connect with who we are.

One scientist who takes periodic weekends off to be in the ashram, says, she finds her roots and authentic tribe at the ashram, for people congregating there are all on similar quests. The ashram she says allows her to be who she is without apologies.

Here was one issue shared that somehow put me off, that when we go to the ashram for myspace-mytime, the spouse also gets her myspace-mytime. This gentleman did not seem to realize that his myspace-mytime meant overload of work for his wife.

We tend to let go of healthy rituals in the mundane life, time in an ashrams allows to bring this routine back. Once the routine is set in the ashram recreating back in the mundane world is not really difficult.

Sharing images of the Avadoot ashram at Kuruskhetra.  Where Renuka mata who has retired from the worldly life, oversees a charity clinic, her extensive experiences in the outside world makes people turn to her for more worldly issues.

Gargi Mata handles the library.

Paramahansa Gyaneshwarji is the spiritual guru of this ashram. He is an Ayurveda doctor who has taken to being a spiritual guru for adepts.

My own three days stay, I stayed at the ashram, and found my way to the ashram courtesy makemytrip route planner.