My Ashram Trip

Well, I had taken a 1 year break from Seva and other Art of Living activities only to concentrate on my final year in computer engineering. All that while and during the exams, especially, I had promised myself a relaxing and contended tour to the Bangalore Ashram. And so it happened.

Unlike my previous two visits, I have no one coming with me in the ashram and no one that I know is in the ashram. So, I was very much lonely throughout my tour. I was a little concerned, but I had this one knowledge well established in me that “Guruji is watching me and I am being taken care of”. I have nothing to worry because I have the divine accompanying me.

Well, as far as my travelling goes, it was quite optimized and cheap too. I didn’t spend much and travelled by bus which made it cheap and it took less time to reach the ashram than what I had expected. And similar while returning and nothing great happened, so I need not mention them.

And now, for my days in the ashram. I was in the ashram for 5 days. And those 5 days were the most relaxing and soothing days that I could ever had. While entering the ashrams, I made a few sankalpas like before leaving the ashram, I must have reduced some weight, I must get the best of all the courses, I must reduce my belly etc… (There are some that I cannot mention here)

I was a complete stranger though; I was not afraid because I knew that I am at home right now. I took it as my chance to make as many new friends as I can. Usually, when you are with your friend, you end up making no friends or just making friend of friends. But this time, it was different.

In my first day, I did my eternity process. It was completely AWESOME and there was nothing like it. Then, in the next 3 days, I did my Blessing Course. 165 people had come to do the course. Participants included a Pakistani, 2 Omanis, a Russian, over 60 south-Indians from Coimbatore, Hyderabad and Chennai and few from Delhi, UP, Bihar and Haryana. Guess what I was the only one representing Mumbai. And me and another friend chetan phatak from Nasik representing Maharashtra.

It is difficult and could be nerve-breaking to get into an already established group of friends and making friends with them. It took me 2 days, but I did make an impact. By the end of the course, I was not only popular among all, but I also made some new friends. Not just a few, many of them. Long lasting friends. Among them were Vijayshankar, Balagopal, Ram Unnamalai (I called her Annamalai), Sharada, Jyothi, Shreya, Vaibhav, Gurucharan, Divya, Chetan, Mohammad, Shreecharan Jha. Well, this is all the names that I can remember for now, but there were much more than these. There was also a foreigner Vaida who had come for her TTC. I had made lots of friends.

The course was Awesome and I had left the ashram with total contentment and gratitude for my guru. All my sankalpas were fulfilled as well. And I was blessed to bless others.

Loads of Love,

Ravi.

PS: the English scholars must invent new words, because I am falling short of words while describing my experiences. Everything here is AWESOME. The courses are awesome, I am awesome, my feelings are awesome, the ashram is awesome, the food is awesome, the climate and atmosphere there is awesome and everything is just awesome.