Finally!

So in case you were wondering, there is no internet at the ashram. Actually, there is, but they are doing some roadwork which has knocked it out indefinitely. So that plans for the blog have been seriously thwarted.

But today is my one free day off a week from classes. So here I am.

Where to begin? I think I could write for hours and not cover everything. Actually, I have been writing for hours, in my journal, since I haven't really had any other outlet. India is amazing... picture every movie you have ever seen of crazy rural india with traffic and noise and sounds and its exactly like that, from the minute you step off the airplane.

I flew in Trivandrum, on the west coast almost at the bottom of india, where I was easily able to identify several other course members in the airport and we shared a cab to the ashram which is about an hour up in the hills (only 32KM but everything takes a lot longer here).

Ashram life is not easy... much harder than I imagined. Or maybe I never really took the time to imagine what it was going to be like to do this for real. I would say the actual yoga is the easiest part. Its familiar and manageable, and even enjoyable. The things I am struggling with are the schedule, which is ridiculous - barely any downtime is scheduled into each day and all the classes and lectures run over, so you find yourself scrambling to try and run to the bathroom and get water in between things. And the food... we eat two meals a day, in silence, sitting on the floor. All of that would be fine except that literally 90% of our meals so far have consisted primarily of this bland green vegetable stew. At this point, just thinking about it is enough to make me feel nausceous. So I try to eat everything I can (after our morning and evening ceremonies that give you a little sweet thing, and then there is chai tea in the morning and then a fruit in the mid afternoon) that is not green stew, and hope that the snacks I brought will last me through the month. Matt is sending more, and others have offered, but so far I have received no mail so it seems things may take a long time to get here, if they ever do...
The best part of being here so far (besides being in India) are the other people in my course. They are fascinating, extremely international, very diverse. Some of the people I have met include Helen, a yoga teacher from Twickenham who accompanied me this morninig on a local bus to find the internet, Patrick, a belgian who lives in the Congo and runs the UN office to coordinator humanitarian aid there and whose family was evacuated to Rwanada two weeks before he left to come here, my roommate Migumi who is from Japan but is living in Eindhoven in the Netherlands at the moment, and so on and so on...
Otherwise, I am also struggling with how much religion is incorporated into the teachings and practice they are giving us... it really is a bit of a month long conversion. And its very much being presented as - this is the only way to go, and if you listen and reject this, you are making a grave mistake, which is interesting because until now I have found yoga to be very inclusive and welcomeing, and individually focused - do what's right for you, when its right for you... I am trying to view that part of the teachings as sort of an anthropological study - here is where yoga comes from, this is the mentality behind it, this is the thinking that created it, and even with the physical aspects, there is underlying physiology that they explain with the spiritual explanations... but I have to catch myself sometimes and remind myself not to be too negative... that when this is all over and I want to go right back to my exact same life I left behind, which I happen to love, I can, and that won't make me a bad or ignorant person.
So my day starts a 5:30 am when they bang a gong, literally right outside my window. I roll out of bed, put on my uniform (white cotton pants and a yellow t-shirt that i have to handwash periodically so I don't stink), throw some water on my face, thank god I cut all my hair off, and then go down to morning satsang, where we sit silently to meditate, cross legged on the floor, for half an hour (I pretend to mediatate and try not to move - still no breakthrough in that realm). When that ends (7:45 ish) we scramble to find a place in the hall for our yoga mat (with 180 people in the course we are on top of each other) and then after staking our claim we go slug down a cup of chai before our 8 am yoga class starts. The hall where everything happens is open on the sides to the air which is lovely some days, and very hot and sticky some days, but mostly the temperature has been warm and humid but manageable. It poured all day yesterday and sleeping last night was a real treat.
The morning yoga class is when they teach us how to teach, so Ted walks us through the different poses as if we were beginners. Then at 10 we go to breakfast...silently on the floor in the dining hall. Then a little break where Matt calls me at reception, and I hover anxiously waiting for them to call my name. at 10:45 I do my karma yoga (chores) which is to help in the boutique (sells essentials to desperate yoga students who left something crucial behind or just need to buy more toilet paper). 12:00 is a chanting class, which usually runs over until 1:30 and then we have our main lecture at 2 and a yoga class at 4:00. Those are usually pretty much back to back. Then dinner at 6, and then our biggest break of the evening when i shower and relax for a bit. Then evening satsang from 8-10 and I collapse into bed and start all over again.
Ok, have to run, helen is waiting for me. More next friday maybe? Don't know for sure, but Matt will have updates.
Miss you!