From City of Joy to Experiencing Ashram Life . . .

Leaving Goa and arriving in Kolkata is like finishing afternoon tea and biscuits with your elderly aunt and then finding yourself at an all-night dance party.

We arrived in the “City of Joy” in the early evening and caught a taxi to our hotel in the New Market area, where we were to join the rest of our party with whom we would shortly be heading into India’s interior for a week of ashram experience. The drive from the airport was an experience in itself, the streets heaving with people, vehicles and noise. So much noise. 

It was hot in Kolkata with the evenings the busiest time, throngs of local people wandering and taking in the market stalls. The mornings were quieter and cooler, and so we decided to head out early for a wander in the streets. Entering one of the local market buildings we were immediately befriended by a growing group of hangers on. If we visited a shop, everyone else came in too and entered into the spirit of selling and haggling. I think their job was to act as commission agents for the market shop-keepers. We bought a small buddha statue and a few other necessaries for our upcoming ashram visit – things like meditation cushions which turned to be a god-send, but more on that later . . .

​Two days after our arrival our group boarded the Janshadabdti Express at Howrah Junction, reputedly one of the world’s busiest train stations. Our coolies staggered manfully under our very western looking luggage and somehow got us all on the right carriage. It wasn’t flash but it was air-conditioned. India train travel is an experience in itself – we lazily passed through towns and villages with staff walking up and down the carriages every five minutes selling cups of tea, snacks and, curiously, nail clippers and inner soles for your shoes. One young albino man came through on all-fours sweeping the carriage and then came around for tips – amazingly he has been doing that same job since he was a child.

​Rikiapeeth Ashram is set in a small rural village, around twelve km from the temple town of Deoghar. Its beginnings are a story in itself. A swami called Satyananda arrived in the area in 1989 with the purpose of living a life of seclusion, but that changed two years later when he began a mission to look after the local people. It was an area with a dire state of poverty – no roads or basic infrastructure, no formal education for the children and people going hungry. The mandate for the Ashram is “serve, love, give” and today the local villagers have access to stuff like healthcare, education, farm implements and seeds. The area now has functioning roads, electricity and phone coverage. Its inspiring.

Jolanda and I were booked to study the Yoga chakras – led by Karma Karuna who runs the Anahata Retreat, situated in a beautiful mountain setting overlooking Golden Bay at the top of the South Island. If there is a better teacher around than Karma Karuna, then I have yet to meet them. She is an extraordinarily knowledgeable and humble person – having dedicated herself to a yogic lifestyle while raising a daughter and building a major yoga centre from scratch.

Our typical day started at 4:45 when we woke and got ready to walk from our accommodation to the main teaching hall. After 90 minutes of yoga asanas we enjoyed a simple breakfast (we took turns serving), sitting on a hard tile floor and maintaining a morning silence. Our next lesson started at 9:30 – each day being devoted to one of the chakras (sort of like energy points in the body).

After class we began our morning “seva” which is basically working for the good of the ashram and the community. I was on morning cleaning duties – sweeping out our accommodation. Our third class, yoga nidra and meditation, began shortly after lunch and then in the mid-afternoon we went to our second seva session of the day. Jolanda, with her physio training, helped out at the medical centre while I bagged rice – obviously my lack of any useful or practical skills making me an obvious candidate for this job.

The bags of rice were to form part of a large assortment of gifts to be given to thousands of local villagers at a ceremony in December. There is so much that the Ashram does for the local people. During our week we saw dozens of elderly men and women wearing identical pairs of dark glasses, having just been provided cataract operations. One of the philosophies of the Ashram is to avoid simply distributing “stuff” – there is a sense that if the villagers are helped to help themselves, their future will be more secure. One large group of elderly ladies were paid to sing at the health centre – they were all widowed and hence at an extreme financial disadvantage in Indian society.

It may seem churlish to be critical of an organisation that does so much good – but I did feel a sense that the villagers were sometimes treated more like children than partners in the community. Maybe unfair and if it’s a criticism, it’s a small one.

So how do I feel, after a week of ashram life ? Well I feel washed out, but at the same time refreshed. I found the first two days incredibly hard – in fact I ended up in bed, being overcome with the heat and the newness of the place. I learnt so much about what it really means to be a yogi – which is so much more than stretching on the mat. Having humility, living consciously, focusing on the breath, having compassion . . . 

“Shanti, shanti shanti – hari om” is an invocation we chanted daily, representing a hope for peace for ourselves, our community and the world. Sort of sums it up really.

We are now in the train on or way back to Kolkata where we will eventually connect with our flight to Singapore and then on to New Zealand. After six and a half months of travel covering Australia, Indonesia, Spain, Mallorca, Portugal, The Netherlands, England, Ireland, Wales and India – I feel ready to return. Although it will take me quite some time to digest what I have experienced on this journey.

Over and out . . .