I have seldom been this happier or content before. It has taken me so many years to reach at this juncture, in the physical realm. All my epic imagination, all of it has been surpassed by the real feel of this place. Shivananda Yoga Vedanta Dhanwanthari Ashram, is totally my kind of a place.

To be very candid about my initial feelings, I was literally terrified by the idea of staying here for 3 months. The first day seemed pretty daunting, and whenever I told anyone I’d be here for three months (at least) seemed to smile at me reassuring/reminding myself about the same. I
kept wondering how I’d even survive the 3 days of stay that I had paid for?! But now, I am totally on the other side of that feeling and it is safe for me to consider this as my home away from home. Or probably I have found the real one now. Within myself. The home that I have been carrying around all this while.

I have been practicing Karma Yoga in the dining hall, and it is absolute bliss to serve people food. Today I got a chance to serve 4 Sanyasis who are paying a visit to the Ashram. Today is my fourth day at the Ashram (12th September, 2016), but it already feels like eternity. It feels as if I have always belonged here ajd I have finally found ny way back home. Or one of the most certain way to drive me home. Yet, as I said before, ‘home’ might not be a destination but the journey and the experience in totality.

The days between 9th to 12th ceased to exist, or lasted way longer than I could grasp. My sense of time and space has gone for a toss. I am measuring everything by the bells that are rung 10 minutes before any and every activity. Right from Satsang to Yoga class. Dining hall has its own
peculiar way of making the time known to all. Chanting is done on a mic, which is heard almost throughout the Ashram, and people gather for meals, which are served twice a day.

It has taken me four long days to finally get well acquainted with this wonderful place and finally draw out this diary and my favourite Lamy, fountain pen (Extra Fine). If you ask me how I am feeling here, I would say I am sort of devoid of feelings. The way one feels so deeply that one cannot differentiate between two similar blissful emotions, and it is altogether difficult to confine the feelings into mere words. Maybe I am feeling so many complex, or rather very simplified feelings that it is overwhelming to try to decipher them. I have a feeling that I would burst into tears during one of the Satsang. Satsangs are so powerful that they churn the feelings inside you, and you can literally feel your centre of chest vibrating and open to so much of goodness of positive vibes of higher frequencies. Higher are the vibes of the chanting that I attend daily at the Devi temple, where they recite Shree Lalita Sahasranama Stotra. It is probably the only one of its genre, where not a single name is repeated in the whole recital.

I guess I shouldn’t be doing injustice to the most liberating experience by confining it into words yet again. It just takes you far away in ultimate trance. I usually sit and meditate that time. The profound sound of a conch and bells ringing at a very high speed and intensity sets the whole atmosphere into different dimensions altogether. The way sun rises from the horizon, the doors of the sanctum sanctorum opens and the Devi emerges from within, basked in her ultimate glory. The whole temple is illuminated by different lamps and camphor burning bright. This scenario is way too much to take in at one go, and hence one is left thirsty to visit again the following day. During this chanting followed by the epic ringing of bells and conch, one is compelled to be in the current moment and enjoy that enthralling experience of paying a quick visit to the divinity.

I have never felt so thoughtlessness in day-to-day basis apart from during the meditation. The daily routine here is so strategically planned, as to not leave you alone with your old corrupt thoughts to mull over in your free time. Contemplationis welcome here, but I personally don’t find myself looking for any verbal answers to anything in particular. I am in love with my silence, but overall there is no such free time for any sort of negative workshops. Or at least I haven’t figured out any and don’t wish to. In fact there is no such time at your disposal. Somehow you always have some or the other activity to look forward to. One needs to be thoroughly negative to hunt for such a time, and I have a feeling that such people won’t really
find a way here.

Meanwhile, I have carved a niche for myself, a corner in the temple where I am sitting right now, scrawling on the pages of my diary. I hope I would be able to read it later. So yeah, I can also manage to have an illegible handwriting and it doesn’t seem to be rocket science. Jokes apart, the point I wish to make here is, I can feel my perfection desiring nature soften a bit, or better has started to dissolve. Who knows? This is indeed a huge thing to experience in mere four days. Other so-called compulsive behaviours are nowhere to be heard of. What more do I ask for? Fitness in all aspects could be expected as an outcome of this whole adventure.

It feels so surreal, and I am grateful to be here and now, experiencing what my soul had dreamt of, for years together.

Om Shanti.

Love and Peace,
Pournima.