Step 9: Eat, Pray, Love

I don't know why that woman went traipsing all over the world when all she had to do to get it all was go to Rishikesh (though we have no complaints when it comes to watching Julia Roberts take us through the adventures of Eat, Pray, Love on the big screen). Dumplings and yoga and nature, oh my. What more could two digestively weak and clean-oxygen-deprived travellers ask for than a town in the foothills of the Himalayas, with as much Tibetan, Nepali, Indian, Israeli, and Italian influenced restaurants with safely cleaned fresh fruits and vegetables, oh and German baking (streusel anyone?) as you would ever need. Yoga courses all day every day, hiking trails and hippie shopping stalls. AND, the safe-to-swim part of the Ganges running through it all. We are in heaven, or wherever Yogis go to paradise (we'll tell you the answer hopefully in our next post after our 7-day silent yoga and meditation retreat that starts on Tuesday). Our bodies are stronger already, and sore for good reasons this time, and our stomachs are almost back to normal. We're going to have a hard time leaving this place when the time comes.

One week later (yes it takes us that long to write these blog posts...)

Phool Chatti Ashram life:
5:30 Wake-up bell
6:00 30-minute silent meditation, then chanting mantras
7:00 Neti pot nasal cleansing, then pranayama (breathing)
7:30 Hatha yoga asanas
9:00 Breakfast and chai
10:30 Karma yoga (cleaning the ashram)
11:00 Meditative walk
12:30 Lunch
1:30 Chai, then free time
3:00 lecture and discussion about yoga and Hinduism
4:00 Ashtanga Yoga asanas
6:00 Puja ceremony and chanting
7:30 Dinner and chai
8:30 Guided meditation
9:30 Bed time

We spent from meditation in the evening until after lunch in silence except to chant, and meals were vegetarian, prepared with food almost entirely from their organic garden and cows (for milk, curd, and paneer).

I have to say, going into this, although open minded, we were curious (skeptical) as to what we would actually take away from it in the end. Neither one of us practice much organized spirituality outside of holidays and home visits, and here we were signed up for a complete Hindu immersion program with strongly suggested full participation. I don't think either of us have fully processed the experience; it's not often that you get the opportunity to invest a week of your life to learning how to calm your noisy mind and to spend time with people who have devoted their lives to this practice in order to become closer to their truer selves, to other people, and to a higher power. We didn't  come away converting to Hinduism (apparently not an option anyway), nor are we able to contort our bodies into pretzel formation (although we can both touch our toes now...),  but we definitely are feeling healthy, stronger, and thoughtful. It's easy to let the business of life get in the way sometimes.

What made us more hip this week? Well we learned so much about yoga, but it turns out it is nothing like what we do in Canada... No people did not wear lululemon to hold intricate poses 2000 years ago. Yoga is more a lifestyle, which means we are further away from being hip yoga-types in the sense the Western world would understand. I suppose pulling out the ukelele on the last night at the bonfire was a pretty hip moment. We played a québécois favourite (ma degeneration) and heard songs from France, the US, the Ukraine. But we also moved further away from hipness, not only because we are planning on adopting pyjama type clothing as a day to day wardrobe, but because we've decided that blankets draped around your shoulders is the new sweater. Maybe all this meditation is letting us "let go" of hipness, or maybe it's just turning us into new age hippies. Either way we feel calm, collected, and content.