Finding an Ashram in India

The vast majority of "Spiritual Center" may rather be "Tourist Center." Never before in history have so many people traveled to India for the purpose of tourism and sight seeing. This of course encourages a new bread of businesses that are focused on making a profit off of this industry.

If you think about it, yoga is now a household concept and practice throughout the world which has sparked new interest in India because people are very familiar with the fact that India is the birth place of the Yogic and spiritual traditions. People in India also realize this fact.

Last year alone people in the US invested over 7 billion dollars in Yoga, an astonishing number for a system that was known only to a handful in the west less then 100 years ago.

Due to the dramatic investment in yoga, many companies and wise business men and women are using yoga as a way to make profit. They establish ashram and yoga schools with the intention of accumulating financial wealth, not spiritual wealth. But do not dismay, there are many ashrams that still teach the real essence of yoga and traditional spirituality!

In my opinion, web sites are not a good indication of the level and devotion to spirituality. While many of the companies online might be very driven towards developing a profitable business there are also many ashrams that post web sites in order to encourage spiritual teachings. They may also want to make themselves available to a larger community of individuals in need of spiritual wisdom.

How to identify a real ashram as opposed to a business? This is somewhat difficult, and I must issue a forewarning here: malas (neck beads), Saffron Dress, and a beard and long hair do not make an individual spiritual. Spirituality is measured on an internal level that you cannot see through any photo or video. Do not be misled by this fact.

Since spirituality it measured on an internal level, you may be able to evaluate an ashram based upon merit. Some ashrams will have a vast amount of money and invest only a parcel of the money to help the unimaginable amount of poverty that roams India. Other ashram centers will act as centers both for human welfare and spirituality, and distribute their money to help develop the local communities. Just because an ashram asks for money for programs and activities does not mean that they are businesses. They may be using this money to support both your stay at the ashram and others, especially neighboring lower-class communities. Again how do you know? You can ask, or try to see if they are working with established non-profit organizations in community development. But again, it will be difficult to measure online.

Besides the issues and conflicts mentioned, there is also one other misconception about spirituality that usually goes un-noticed by the vast majority: the true practice of yoga is not always about living in a cave or a hermit lifestyle. A true accomplished yogi is one who can live anywhere in the world without being disturbed or loosing their divine joy. While it is ideal to live in a secluded location for some time in order to develop the inner life of spirituality, eventually you must work towards living within society while also cultivating your inner spiritual life. For the most part, ashrams are a place for you to intensively study spirituality for some period of time after which you should return to your life and work to develop and evolve your new spiritual practices.

There are a few important facts about ashrams that are totally cut-off from society: 1) they do not exist, at least in the large numbers that might have been a few hundred years ago 2) unless you have a direct relationship to them, you probably will not be allowed into the ashram and 3) If you are coming from a western lifestyle, it will be very difficult to adjust to their arduous and regiment schedule and living accommodations.

Many books have glamorized the idea of renouncing everything and living in seclusion for the rest of life. They have also given the impression that you can only find enlightenment if you leave everything behind and live a hard and disciplined life until all is revealed to you. But again spirituality is not about how you live on the outside but how you live on the inside. Many great teachers, including Sivananda, Yogananda, the Dali Lama, and Vivekananda lived among the masses up until their death bed. They were accomplished yogis because they preserved the values of yoga while also sharing them with anyone who was interested in learning.

With all said and done, we must change and reform our perception of yoga and India before choosing a place to develop our spiritual practices. One of the oversights of what I have written is that what has worked for Indians living 100 years ago will not work for westerners who have been living a very different life from the moment they were born up until now. You can find enlightenment and you can find spiritual wisdom, but there is a new process to this event that you must consider when looking for spirituality. The human mind is very complex, and in order to cultivate it you must have a refined system that works through the individual towards the divine. Yoga works on an individual basis, and feed the soul through a gradual process of revelation. An ashram is an ideal place for spiritual practices, but you must make a valiant effort to find one that suites your needs.

While I am reluctant to suggest any ashrams, I feel as though I can give guidance to those who are truly interested in the spiritual traditions of India. One ashram that I know well is the Tureya Ashram in Southern India. They have a wonderful balance of spirituality and community service, and they have also developed a specific training program to help develop the spiritual life for people coming from modern lifestyles. If you have any additional questions, please continue the conversation within the post below.

Humanity, over the last decades, has made a significant shift in the way we exchange, receive, and transfer information. Today, for the first time in history, human-beings have the ability to interact and transact with people from around the globe in a matter of seconds. This is no doubt an astonishing accomplishment for humanity, but it has also enforced a number of interesting qualities in psychology of human beings. The first, that could be considered relevant in our search for spirituality in a digital world, is the infinite amount of resource available in a fraction of a second. Unlike the past where only a limited amount of information was available through books, television, radio, or conversation, the modern digital empire presents a nearly infinite amount of information on all topics in just about every language known to be in existence. The advantage of this is obvious; we can search any topic of interest without being limited to physical resources (outside of the computer and perhaps the amount of money we have to purchase things like online journals, etc.). The disadvantage is that we too often have too much information available which makes it difficult to focus on a particular topic or execute a decision of substantial commitment.

Another inevitable quality of the digitalized world is the substantial fact that anyone can contribute to its growth and expansion. Again the advantages of such an environment is that no one can limit, monopolize, or dogmatize an idea, leaving the components of subjectivity and objectivity open to the discretion of the consumer. However the disadvantage of the open-source component of internet media and information development is the lack of filtration on resources that are out-right invalid, dishonest, or directly harmful to others, with clear examples being that of child pornography, totalitarian hatred, and prompted racism.

When we enter the digital world to seek out information, knowledge, resources, or products, we are required to use a great deal of analysis and discrimination in order to find information we believe to be most relevant to what we seek, or information that appears to be closest to the truth. For every outstanding comment that promotes an ideology or entity there is one that negates it, and choosing which is right and which is wrong, or which is closer to the truth, is totally up to the consumer. However, do to shift in the brain structure and perception of human beings, we have become more prone to exploitation as our attention and focal awareness has been reduce through the introduction of electronic media. Research conducted in the University of California has shown that the amount of tv a child watched is directly related to his/her attention span; the more they watch, the less they have. For this reason, a significant spike in the amount of attention deficiency and ADD have developed, leaving more people with a lack of ability to concentrate and execute rational decisions based upon extended research and contemplation.

Replacing rational contemplation is a state of emotional reaction. College students throughout America where survived on the quality of their students, and many teacher reported that they have had to ‘dumb-down’ the information presented each consecutive year as students were less likely to read books and materials as well as pay close attention the lectures. Instead of collection information, students were more interested in key concepts and ‘punch-lines’ as opposed to detailed information. Because we do not take the time to take an in-depth analyses of the topic of interest, we must execute our decision based upon another form of judgment; emotions. Yet emotional responses are not often based upon information but rather a response to an event, stimulus, or our past impressions. The movie industry, for instance, has focused the content of films based upon our emotions and not upon what we can learn from the movie. We want to feel happy, sad, scared, or astonished, and when we leave the theaters we often do not remember the content of the movie but rather our overall emotional reaction that was stimulated by the plot. This is not a bad thing when we want to enjoy a night out, but it can interfere with our daily lives when we base our response to event or subject around our emotional reactions.

In yoga, we seek to balance our emotions, thoughts, and feels and gradually develop a state of concentration in which we can form a foundation for an inquiry into the deepest secrets of humanity and the universe. But if our mind is not focused, such inquiry cannot develop as our minds are not in a state capable of grasping the subtle details that are gradually revealed.

Although at the moment we are not talking specifically about self-realization, we are talking about the path which leads us towards it, the journey to a yoga ashram or spiritual center where we can learn the skills and techniques to envelop our spirituality. As we seek out a spiritual refuge, we must begin to practice the qualities of logic, contemplation, and inquiry as they are required in order for us to find a real place in which we can develop our spirituality and self-awareness.

From meeting and interacting with students interested in journeying to India for spiritual transformation, I have found that too many people are basing their inquiry off of emotional experiences, avoiding the critically important process of scrutinizing the details and developing a peripheral observation of the topic they are interested in. While yoga does encourage things like intuition and psychic abilities, these are typically not formed until much later in the practice when the student has undergone significant transformation through countless hours of self-study and inquiry. Many of the yogis who have developed such skills have done so by first laying the tracks of spirituality, one which are supported by many years of study, practice, and contemplation. If we have reached this point, than we have accomplished much in spirituality. However if we are just entering the path, we must still use our minds and contemplation in order to make significant decisions, otherwise we may fall victim to an emotional response, which can be fulfilling in the moment, but ultimately will not survive our long term goals and aspiration.

As we begin our quest for spirituality online, we should try to use the resources at hand to find useful and relevant information before we make a decision or commitment. Every topic, or in this case ashram, will have positive perspectives and negative ones; yet it is our duty to ourselves to choose those which will help us and those we do not find relevant.

For those of you who are seeking out an ashram online, here are some ideas of how you can expand you critical analysis of the place you wish to visit:

1. Ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask the place you are planning to visit about specific qualities of their ashram, beliefs, studies, and community. This is the easiest way to find out if they are right for you or not.
2. Try to find other 3^rd party reviews of the ashram. Just remember than when you go to the general public for information, people will generally promote things they love, or spend a significant amount of time negating something they hate. The people in between probably don’t have the time to post reviews. But it is important to keep in mind that everything is subjective, and what works well for one person will be intolerable for another. This is especially true in yoga where the practice is refined to fit specific individuals.
3. Request contact of students who have studied at the ashram in the past. Not every ashram has time to answer every question, and getting in contact with past students will give you an opportunity to see things from a 3^rd party who has lived at the ashram.
4. Seek out materials or resources from the ashram. Sites like www.tureyayoga.com or www.dlshq.org have free resources available for students interested in learning more about their system of yoga. This way you will know if the system is right for you.
5. Collect the information, and make a decision. You’re not going to know everything before you arrive. Though you may be uncertain, maybe because you’ve never been to India, or don’t know what it will be like to actually live at an ashram, eventually you will have to make a choice and follow through. Remember, it is easy the change to a new location if you need to. But it is important to give the new environment a chance because it will be very new to you.

So I challenge you, as the seeker and explorer of yoga, to find a place to stay after you have done some research. Take the time and effort, as in the Indian tradition we consider that our devotion to an ashram lasts a lifetime, and although this is net mandatory, we should be willing to give our time and energy to the practices and lessons for a longer period of time.

It is important to examine all the details you are given; some ashrams will be free, others will charge 4,000 USD a month; some will have beds, others you will sleep on the ground; some may have a population of 300 students while others only 4 or 5; some will strictly enforce devotion to a Hindu while other open to all religions. What is important is to select an ashram that encompasses the qualities you are looking for. It may not fit your exact profile, but its ideologies and practices should at least be in tandem with your goals and aspirations as an individual and as a student of yoga.