Making your home into an ashram environment
Meditationtime Forum Post
Date: Posted 3 years before Jun 27, 2016
MiBeloved 3 years ago
In a case where you lived at an ashram and experienced spiritual advancement, and where you left that environment and failed to carry that advancement with you from day to day, then it means that you should try your best to make your home like the ashram environment.
The purpose of an ashram usually is to maximize some type of defined spiritual focus. If the place is charged with that energy, if the routine of the place centers on that, then for sure the place will carry a special influence.
Therefore one may try one’s best to design one’s home life in the same way but of course one would require the cooperation of relatives, of family, of spouse and children.
In the case of the ashram, one just needs to be there and to comply with the rules of conduct and the scheduling but in the case of the home, one is burdened with the task to set this up and to make relatives comply.
Alfredo 3 years ago
Thank you Acharyaji!
This is good advice that I comply with, but without compelling the family into it as they do not share my views and I respect that and them also, meaning in my case it is that I have converted parts of the house to accommodate the atmosphere that you wrote about, and that's where I practice Yoga, do Puja, mantra, study, etc.
As for ashrams, I have lived for periods of time, as a visitor, in 3 ashrams in India. I only visit these 3 ashrams for stays if I go there and have no desire whatever to expand the list (although I have visited other ashrams for a day-visit only, like Ananda Mayi Ma's). There is a big difference between staying in an ashram as a visitor, and being a full-time resident, though. These 3 ashrams are: 1) "Divine Life Society" ashram in Rishikesh often known as Sivananda Ashram; 2) Ramana Asrama in Tiruvannamalai; 3) Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry.
Divine Life Society Ashram: This is a beautiful ashram and the visitor lives inside it. You have to apply to stay, I had no problem as a devotee of Sri Swami Krishnananda. The advantage here is the weather, especially in the winter is very good. There is a superb library and a good bookstore. Meditation in Sivananda samadhi and activities there are very enlightening, as the power of tanmatras are quite tangible. Sattvic food at the ashram is superb.
Ramana Asrama: As for spiritual development, this is perhaps one of the greatest ashrams in India. Very Vedic, as many Vedic traditions are better preserved in Southern India. The visitor also lives inside it, but they restrict people quite a bit. I first entered through the recommendations of Dr. David Frawley, who is a regular, and well-known, visitor, and who has worked in the translations of manuscripts from Sanskrit of the great Yogi Kavyakhanta Ganapati Muni (who named the Maharshi, Ramana), deposited in that ashram. The spiritual atmosphere of holiness is quite dense; besides, the ashram itself opens to Arunachala Hill, and one can, and should, do Pradakshina around the hill, and also climb it, and meditate in Virupaksha Cave and other holy places. But the greatest Pradakshina occurs around the samadhi of the Maharshi itself, and is going on by devotees from all over the world round the clock. A smaller location, Maharshi's mother samadhi temple, that open to the Maharshi's Samadhi, also affords great meditation if very early in the morning (if you are allergic to mosquitoes take insect repellent with you, I have been bitten hundreds of times on the feet in a 1-2 hours meditation). Sattvic food also superb, south Indian. Library very good too.
Sri Aurobindo Ashram: This is a very unorthodox ashram, they are no Swamis, but a similar category of inmates simply called "ashramites", very similar to Swamis in that they are supposed to follow ashram's rules, like celibacy and others. They do no have facilities to accommodate visitors but there are a number of "guest houses" administered by ashramites that accept devotees. I always stay in "The Mother's House" administered by German ashramite Regina, she does that with Teutonic thoroughness, this is a great and beautiful guest house right next to the Gulf of Bengal' shores.
When I mentioned that it is quite different staying in an ashram as a visitor, than living as an inmate, there is also a big difference between living in an ashram where the primary Guru is gone, and one where the primary Guru still exist. From the latter I have experienced through the years in Hariharananda's ashram in Miami, and when the primary Guru is still in residence, usually living in that ashram is like living in a pressure cooker.
