My Stay at Sivananda Ashram at Rishikesh....

This time I stayed in Sivananda Ashram, thanks to a friend who introduced me to a great person Swami Yati Dharmananda. A great person only 33 years old and he became sanyasi at the age of 25 years. He hails from an affluent family from Orissa a State in India, and was a software professional working in Singapore before he felt the lacuna within himself. He came to this ashram and now his daily routine is many hours of meditation and then setting up a state of the art Media center where he makes VCD DVD and spiritual albums along with their own printing center. I asked him does he have any regrets which, although a very blunt question, elicited a very calm reply. He said, “No I don’t feel regret as I feel that the worldly relationship does not last long and full of breaks in belief and relationship”. Finding him in those surroundings does make me feel so and I find bliss in his face which belies the young age that he has. How one can find bliss away from his mother, brothers and worldly pleasures is not hard to believe as I continued living there for two days.

The spritual power....

The place is full of spiritual powers and the atmosphere makes one relate to God in much more easier way than one can find among the negativity that one has in urban surroundings. The holy Ganges that flows down the hill sends such powerful vibrations that one gets drenched in the flood of spiritual thought like being in a monsoon shower. The sounds of conch, chants and hymns being sung in the ashram rekindles the spirit and makes one conversant with ones own inner self. Meditating in my own room that was graciously provided by Swami Ji was full of instant awakening of my own muldhara and the heart charka as I felt a surge of joy flow through my spine up to my heart and I felt a joy which definitely is hard to achieve in normal atmosphere. I feel that is the reason I am drawn to this place and now I feel this place as my spiritual home.

Meditation at the Ashram....

The night time meditation at the banks of Ganges was kind of revisiting my own self. How one forgets to keep in touch with oneself in day to day routine of business and pressures of urban jungle. While the chilly winds from the Ganges kept me thinking of those sages who did not have had any clothes while meditating and even the founder of Siva Nanda Ashram who used to come early in the morning at 4 AM and stand in waist deep water to meditate for hours together.. There were people sleeping on the bank and the sound of their breath keep touching me in my meditation while I tried concentrating my mind to one thought of Ganges flowing out of Shiva’s Locks. Finally I lost all the consciousness of surrounding and find my self swirling in those locks submerged in the sift current of holy Ganges. And in one sudden gust I shot out of the locks along with the main current of Ganges and started falling like in a very deep fall. I hit the ground with a force along with the current and I felt the shock of the break and started gasping for breath… I don’t know how long that lasted but then slowly I regained myself and I could see my self blissfully floating in the Ganges from where I was sitting and meditating.

I slowly walked back to the top of the hill and after doing the prayers, I slept at 4AM in the morning like a log till 7AM, when swami Ji sent my driver to wake me up for us to Visit Neel Kanth Mahadev Temple 30 KMs away from our place.

Om Namah Shivaya

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