March 8-10, Tuesday-Thursday

March 8-10, Tuesday - Thursday

The Sivananda Yoga Ashram

At this writing we've been at the ashram for two and a half days and will leave tomorrow to head back to Varkala. It has been an enjoyable and enlightening experience. The ashram was established in 1978 by Swami Vishnu-devananda (1927-1993) and is dedicated to the practice and dissemination of yoga as taught by his guru Swami Sivananda (1887-1963).

The Basic Ashram Schedule:

05:20 am Wake up bell

06:00 am Group meditation, chanting, talk

07:30 am Tea time

08:00 am Yoga Class

10:00 am Vegetarian meal

11:00 am Karma yoga (volunteer work)

12:30 pm Coaching Class (optional)

01:30 pm Tea time

02:00 pm Lecture

03:30 pm Yoga

06:00 pm Vegetarian meal

08:00 pm Group mediation, chanting, talk

10:30 pm Lights out

This pretty much sums up life at the ashram. There is a mixed group of people staying here. There is a large group going through yoga teacher training. They are easily identified by their white pants and yellow t-shirts. The rest are considered on a yoga vacation. That would be us. I'd say most are in their early twenties, with a few 30's and 40's and only a couple my age. Those not wearing white pants and t-shirts dress like a yogi or yogini with the girls wearing billowy brightly colored pants and the guys wearing below the knee yoga pants. Lots of hippie looking but very nice people. They are from all over the world.

The yoga classes are much different than those in SD. They practice pretty much that same routine in each class so you can learn 11 basic asanas or poses. It makes remembering a basic yoga routine or practice easy. In addition to the 11 asanas there are two types of breathing exercises practiced and lots of resting postures (savasana) interspersed between the 11 asanas. It's a good system but I'll be glad to get back to my mixture of classes at the studio.

The two dining experiences are well just that. They roll out these long narrow straw mats that form four long lines the entire length of the dining room. You walk in single file and sit on the straw mat on the floor in front of a plate of already served food. They request you eat in silence. You eat with your fingers unless you brought a spoon with you from home (which I did). You sit across from each other and get to watch people eating with their fingers. As you sit and eat there are people who walk between the mats with large pails and buckets of food for anyone who wants seconds or thirds. All the meals were vegetarian and all tasted pretty good. They tend to give four or five selections for the brunch meal and only two selections for dinner. After dinner you wash your large metal divided plate and metal cup.

They held a neti pot, nose flossing, and tongue scraping class in the courtyard the first day. For those who don't know what a neti pot is, it's a small pitcher like pot that holds about a cup of water (warm) to which you mix a bit of salt. You place the spout in one nostril and pour the water in until it comes out the other nostril. You then repeat the opposite nostril. So they had someone talk and another guy demo the neti pot. The nose flossing (not going there) demo was interesting. You use a small sterile piece of rubber the size of a catheter and push it into one nostril and hope it comes out the other nostril and not down your throat or into your brain. He actually got it to come out the other nostril so at this point you floss you nostrils like you would your teeth. I didn't see the tongue scraper demo but plan on using a toothbrush for that.

The morning and evening group meditation, chanting, and talks were interesting. They are held in a large open air room. Each is started with a half hour meditation, followed by a call and response type of singing or chanting, and then a talk from the director of the ashram or a presentation (evening only). I couldn't get comfortable enough to come close to doing any meditating. Sitting up on a rolled up yoga mat and a part of another yoga mat to cushion my feet and ankles from the concrete just didn't afford the padding I needed. Plus it was hot, hot, hot.

Then there is karma yoga, which is basically volunteering to assist with chores around the ashram. Heather and Jen volunteered for kitchen duty and I volunteered to roll out the large (5' and 40') straw mats which people sit on during the group meditation and chanting sessions. I also volunteered that last night to help clean the dining hall after dinner where I ended up mopping the floor with six or seven other people. It didn't take long.

There is a lion park across the lake from the ashram and many times during the day you can hear them mating. At least that's what Heather says is going on and I have to believe her given the roaring, and moaning and groaning and then the sighing at the end. Pretty crazy to be sitting in morning meditation and hear that sound in the background. The birds around the ashram were beautiful and unlike any birds I've seen before. There were birds everywhere and most of them were pretty large about the size of the big stellar jays in SD. There were of course the very large crows just like those in SD. The birds along with the lions made for a real jungle environment.

I started this last night at the ashram and am finishing it tonight as we are now back in Varkala. On the ride from the ashram to Varkala there were many things we saw along the road I could write about but I'll only mention two. The first were a group of six men trying to balance a very large chunk of rock (I guess it was a 12 inches thick, 18 inches long and a 15 inches wide) on the top of the head of this man. No doubt this boulder easily weighed 200 pounds and no doubt he was either barefoot or wearing sandals. Think of the worst road in Tijuana and he was going to walk down this road with a 200 pound rock balanced on his head. The other was this man herding his very large elephant down one of the national highways in India. This section of national highway was a two lane road with a yellow stripe down the middle.