Stop 5 – Ananda Spa

So this stop is going to seem a bit far off the track of what you might expect…

After the unreasonable amount of work we put into the yoga festival and the month preceding, Thea, Sat Siri, and I were surprised with a trip to Ananda the day after the festival ended. Apparently this place is like the only 6 star hotel in the world; I don’t know anything about that but it was amazing. We were treated like royalty even though we were only there for the day. Usually you cannot just visit without staying as a guest at the hotel but someone pulled some strings and got us each massages, lunch, and a tour of the grounds. We sort of showed up with bright eyes like the homeless kid on the street taken in for Christmas dinner out of the snow. It was gorgeous, quiet, and luxurious.

Having come from grabbing apple pie in a bag for breaky, hopping a cab, and showing up with a few names scratched on paper in case no one knew who we were, we were accommodating by the head of the spa and the new general manager within minutes of arrival. Now that’s pretty good service considering someone had called in a favor and we were not brining them any profit that day. Certainly not after our free for all lunch which included multiple fresh juices, teas, salads, entrees, and desserts because we had to try them all!

We would have gotten to the ladies room sooner if we had known it had a hot tub, cold tub, lounge chairs with mountain views and music, and the therapeutic food bath/reflexology walk thing-a-ma-bobber: The roof was painted really pretty too ☺

I was most excited after the lunch, lounging, massage, and tour to then be able to take home my flip flops. I know it’s funny but I was so ecstatic because my near and dear Chaco sandals disappeared and the cheapo replacements on the street gave me blisters before I got to my room! This happened last year with my nice Teva flip flops. Having to take your shoes off nearly everywhere is sort of a hazard which begs the question of why there are not more shoe swaps at the door than actually occur? Anyways, the only way to move on when you loose something as crucial as your single most important pair of footwear is to think of the kid that has shoes for life now. I sure hope those Chacos last forever for whoever has them now but I know they won’t last as long as that person’s karma

Finally, I will leave you with a few shots to goggle over.

This peacock just begged for the picture.

Out in front of the palace that is Ananda

Cascading water encases the stairs on our way out….

 

Stop 4 -Easter Sunday

So Sat Siri has been helping out by teaching English and Kundalini yoga at this other orphanage up the river called Ramana’s (this is Ramana):

One day she was talking with Lalita, one of the fabulous chefs, and she mentioned going to church. CHURCH? We are in India, like the birthplace of Hinduism and Buddhism. We are in Rishikesh, like the holy city, the birthplace of yoga, the destination of pilgrims. We were not expecting a church anywhere nearby. Fortunately, this news came just in time to make Easter Sunday service.

We made our trek to Tapovan near Lakshman Jhula (bridge) which is up river from Swargashram near Ram Jhula where Parmarth is located.

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Here I am waiting for Lalita who took us to her church.

It was a lovely building, not the typical western church or hymns but we had the Eucharist and they had a baptism before the service AND I gave one of the readings! I think I was the best bet for delivering the English version of Romans Chapter 6 versus 1-14. There we a few other westerners and my reading was about the only part of the service we could understand save recognizing the rhythm of the Lord’s Prayer and recognizing the preparation for communion. Regardless of language barriers, sitting on the floor, no organ for music, it was a lovey service. Here you can get a look at the “vestry” and “alter.”

After church we had Easter lunch at Ramana’s delicious café were the food is grown, cooked, and served by her orphans. It’s the only place to get salad in town as it is all organic and safe – can’t beat this one stateside:

Being that I am in India and I am next to Ganga Ma , the divine mother, everyday…as I wrote so much last year, this place is where I feel my mother very strongly and have found much peace around her death. So it turned out that Easter was the day that I would remember her especially during a puja (special ritual) next to the Ganga. Last year I was joined by Jake and his mother to do the first puja for her and this year Sat Siri was with me. It is a beautiful ceremony which I cannot explain in detail but just know that it is a commemoration, a reminder, and of course a reconnection with the divine. So I put on a sari for the second time (first time was during the festival) and sat at sunset by the Ganga going through the puja as guided by the acharya (priest).

 

My life at Parmarth

I’m sure if you are reading this you are curious what life at the ashram is like. To be brief, it is very simple. I have a simple room and simple bathroom.

I have simple duties: be happy and helpful. Well, there’s more to how I fulfill those two duties but that’s for another time. If I am hungry, there is a kitchen providing me 3 warm fresh meals a day and street vendors for in between.

The best part of the street vendors are that they include carts of fresh fruit including PAPAYA! I LOVE papaya. It is so cheap and abundant here so I could nearly eat one a day by myself if I want to, and I do want to.

I have had the distinct joy of having 2 roommates during this stay. They have been absolute joys to share my room with and have taught me so much. I could take away all the other wonderful reasons to be here and want to just to have gotten all the time I have spent with these two goddesses. My first roomie was Thea. She was literally sent by God to save me from the truckload of work I had for the yoga festival. She is as detailed oriented and committed as Alka and I are which made for a perfect addition to our team. We have an amazing amount of common experiences in life which immediately drew us to each other from the first moment that we both noticed the “other white girl at aarti that knew all the words.”

Sadly she left after the yoga festival to return to the UK but then Sat Siri moved in. I have already given a little background on her in other posts. Basically she is my guru of grace and other important life lessons. You would not believe that based on some of our late night conversations or the amount of Nutella she can eat in one sitting: she is my perfect match. Here she is seated on the porch of our honeymoon villa at the Ananda Spa in the Himalayas. We plan on splitting this villa on our honeymoons so that it is affordable; trust me, there was plenty of space and we could just split the pool time if need be.

 

Stop 3.5 IYF cont…and more on Rishikesh

Set in the foothills of the Himalayas, Rishikesh is a divine land infused with the sadhanas (spiritual practices) of many saints, swamis, and sages over hundreds of years. There are still many babas who live their lives in caves on the side of the mountains or just down the street from me on the Ganga. In Paul Brunton’s book “A Search in Secret India,” he describes his collection of the definition of a ‘yogi’ which provides a little insight into what Rishikesh is:

“. . . I can hardly tell you, in a single definition, what constitutes a Yogi. No doubt, a dozen . . . men will define the word in a dozen different ways. For instance, there are thousands of wandering beggars who pass by this name. They swarm through the villages and attend the periodic religious fairs in droves. Many are only lazy tramps and others vicious ones, while most are totally illiterate men, unaware of the history and doctrines of the science of Yoga, under whose shelter they masquerade.”

Go, however, to some place like Rishikesh, over which the mighty Himalayas keep eternal guard. There you will find a totally different class of men. They live in humble huts or caves, eat little food and constantly pray to God. Religion is their breath; it occupies their minds day and night. They are mostly good men studying our sacred books and chanting prayers. Yet they, too, are called Yogis. But what have they in common with the beggars who prey on the ignorant masses? You see how elastic the term is! Between these two classes there are others who partake of the nature of both.”

Amidst all this energy and in the immediate presence of swamis such as Pujya Swamiji Chidananda Saraswati, visitors are often overcome with a sense of peace, light, and joy just living here. When you bring 500 people from all over the world to this little town in India you see all of them transformed within just a few days. Truly beautiful and amazing…

But they don’t all start that way. Some so-called ‘yogis’ certainly don’t act that way after 48 hrs of travel into a foreign country which is at the same time welcoming and startling. So that was the challenge of running registration for these people with very limited resources and many unexpected challenges. But of course it all ended up ok and those that were nearly crying across the desk from me when they arrived where hugging me with thanks by the end of the week. To make a long story short, most people from the west expect things to be a certain way in their life. When things don’t go their way (their room is not perfectly as they envisioned it, registration took more than 30 minutes, they have a roommate they hadn’t expected to have..) they tend to freak out. After some yoga they do a lot better…..

Anyways, the point is that I have never been so absolutely exhausted and yet pushed through. Not even with crew, not even with late and constant hospital visits for Mom, not even during my 80+ hour work week last fall. Running registration with the help of a few other amazing sevaks (volunteers) was the best example of yoga in my entire life. Somehow through it all, with only minor emotional breakdowns, I kept it going and with a smile the majority of the time. I was impressed with myself much less Thea and Sat Siri, my trusty gifts from God for the week…

 

Stop 3 – International Yoga Festival and “Yoga as Union”

This post is less of a ’stop’ as it lasted about a month for me and still lingers on. The International Yoga Festival (henceforth IYF) is held the first week of March (1-7) each year at Parmarth Niketan Ashram. My visit this year was appropriately timed so that I could assist with registration as I did last year. Little did I know that this year, having already showed my administrative and organizational strength last year, I would be not only handed a lot of freedom to run registration at my will but then delivered a huge pile of unexpected tasks the whole way through. Before I delve into that description too much, a little background on the festival.

The IYF started about 9 years ago with a small group of people from around the world gathering at Parmarth for a week of yoga together. It has grown from that original small group, maybe 20 people, to over 500 delegates this year. It provides a range of different styles of yoga asana (the yoga of movement that most Westerners are familiar with) as well as meditation, pranayama (yoga of breath control), yoga nidra (yoga of active relaxation), nada yoga (yoga of sound), satsangs with swamis and saints, lectures, and time to meet people from all over the world (33 countries to be exact). Swamiji has said the following about yoga which I could obviously not say any better than he:

 

Yoga is not a religion. It does not require you to believe in a certain God or to chant certain mantras. It is an ancient science which leads to health in the body, peace in the mind, joy in the heart and liberation of the soul.

 

These days people take yoga classes to learn all about the various techniques of hatha yoga, pranayama and meditation. But yoga is more than that. Yoga is a way of life, and its teachings should penetrate every aspect of your being from your actions to your speech to your thoughts.
A hatha yoga session has a beginning and an end. You start at 8:00 for instance, and you finish at 9:00. Your pranayama has a beginning and an end. You start at, say 6:00 and you finish at 7:00. Even meditation at least in the beginning has a fixed starting point and a fixed ending point. You sit in meditation for a certain number of minutes or hours each day.
Yes, yoga does encompass “asana” (the postures) and “pranayama” (the breathing exercises), but ultimately the word “Yoga” actually means Union. Union of what? Union of self to the Divine. That one –ness with the Divine is what we are striving for in our lives.
Lack of unity is the cause of all problems in the world, both on a personal level and on a global level. Personally we are not united with ourselves. We are constantly at war between our mind and our heart, our desires, our fears, our confusions. There is no balance, no harmony, no unity within ourselves. We are not united with God. We feel alone, we feel scared, we feel that everything is on our own shoulders. The divine union is not there.
In our families also, unity is not there. So frequently we are fighting with each other, manipulating each other, criticizing each other.
In our communities also unity is lacking. “I do Iyengar Yoga.” “I do Anasura Yoga.” “ I do Bikram Yoga.” “I do Kundalini Yoga.” “My type of yoga is better than your type of yoga.” Even though we are all practicing the art of Union, we are divided!!
And of course, in our world we are divided by nations, by religions, by color, et.
Yoga, therefore, in the fullest and most complete meaning is truly the panacea for al that which ails us, for all that which divides us, from the most basic personal level to the most complex global level.
But to find that union? How to become united?

The answer is Yoga, 8 Limbs of Yoga.

Well, I think that’s enough to digest for today. For now, here’s a picture of Swamiji whose divine words you have just read. More to come about Rishikesh in the next post.

 

Stop 2 – The Hug

 

Ok, so it was not just any hug but a hug from Amma, the Hugging Mother. This woman has been hugging for a few decades and counts over 4 million hugs given without reservation to anyone who asks. She is one of the “great gurus” of India that people know of instantly like Shri Shri Ravi Shankar, Swami RamDevji, and a few others. Pujya Swami Chidanand Saraswatiji from Parmarth is not on that celebrity scale which I really really appreciate because I can talk to him if I want to, see him daily, and not have to wait in a line for 8 hrs to be near him. More on him later…

This picture shows the thousands of people that gathered to have her Darshan (her blessing by way of a hug) in Jaipur. Somehow we were lucky enough to only be joined by maybe a thousand other people in Delhi so we only waited a few hours for our hugs instead of all night. This was a big surprise as you would think in Delhi, the capital of the country, there would be a hug crowd. Apparently there was the next night but we were back home in Rishikesh by then.

Her hugs are not from a wilting lily; she squeezes each person and gives them a message if they need to hear it. She always hugs you on her right side and has actually callused her face a bit from it! It is really something to watch her hug person after person; it kind of put me into a meditation or half sleep at midnight watching her hug person after person. She just grabs them in and holds tight for either a second or for some it lingers longer depending on what she needs to give them. This article from CNN sums it up relatively well for us Westerners trying to figure it out: Click here to read at least the first few paragraphs.

“I want to awaken motherhood in both men and women,” Amma says, referring to selfless love. “Motherhood is something that is fast disappearing from the world.”

Tell me about it..hehehe. We really all could benefit a lot from being more motherly, to each other and to ourselves. The world could certainly use a hug, a cup of milk, and a cookie (or in India, a roti and chai). Can you think of anything better for anyone’s ‘down days’ or just every day?