The Ashram In India (Personal Edition)

I recently came back from my yoga teacher training in an ashram in the Indian Himalayas. Talking about it while drinking coffee with friends, one asked me:

“So, Carina, if I were to do something like this, I would expect some kind of enlightenment or ‘key takeaway’—something that made sense to me. Was it like this for you? Did you have some kind of enlightenment? Or did you just relax for two weeks?”

I think this is a very good question. Why would someone go to India to sit for several hours in silence, do yoga, and meditate? In general, what is the purpose of meditation at all?

Fair warning: Today's Deep Dive today is not (as usual) going into the research behind yoga, meditation, or consciousness. This Deep Dive will be purely about my personal experiences in the ashram. Because I felt that this would be of value to you.

So, if you are curious about:

• What yoga (actually) means in its traditional way (not what we believe in the West)
• How my mind tortured me because of silence and meditation
• What my moment of pure bliss was like, and
• Why I think you have every right to be afraid of meditation but also go for it

You can join me now. Let’s dive into The Ashram in India.

BTW: At the end, I have a short announcement and surprise for you 💜

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YOGA IS MEDITATION

Let's start with our Western image of Yoga. Ask yourself—what do you think of when you hear Yoga?

The beautiful women and men practicing almost impossible movements on Instagram? The studio that you visited once or twice in your neighborhood to relax after work? The short session that you plan to stretch your body, to relax?

Well, all of that is part of Yoga, but it's not Yoga. It's the "asana practice", which is one of the "8 limbs" on the way to a meditative state called “Samadhi”. In this Himalayan Tradition, Yoga is Samadhi (and the way to reach it). Samadhi is a Sanskrit word for the highest state of meditation. The state where you realize your very own self.

Now you might think—I already know myself. I know my strengths and my weaknesses, I know my peculiarities and the things I am fond of. What is there to realize?

Well, all of this is a part of your personality, a part of your mind. According to the Himalayan Yoga Tradition, your mind, together with your body, is part of you—but it is not your true self. According to this tradition, there is something behind body and mind, which is your SELF—also described as pure consciousness.

Now especially in times of AI, we are becoming more and more aware of this topic, and there are many ongoing discussions about what it actually is and how/if it can be measured scientifically.

If you take one second to think about it, what do you believe consciousness is? Is it your thoughts, your emotions? Your senses and feelings? Or is it something else? Something more subtle?

That is at least (partly) how the yogis describe it. They say consciousness lies behind body and mind.

And the funny thing about this thought experiment: If this hypothesis were true, you could not answer my questions. Because if consciousness is something that is BEHIND thoughts and constructs of the mind — we would not be able to construct it WITH the mind.

This is also what they say in the tradition: You can talk and think and write about it as much as you want but you have to experience and realize it yourself. The paradox is that it sounds so easy—realizing something—yet it is probably the most difficult challenge for humans on this earth.

But stepping down from this abstract philosophical level—what did I experience?

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YOU ARE A FAILURE - MY MIND'S INITIAL MANTRA

Yeah—remembering my first 3-4 days—Man, that was no fun.

“Eat, pray, love”, all of the spiritual teachers on social media, and especially me, myself—we were romanticizing this whole experience: being in India in an ashram, finding oneself.

Because if you go there to find yourself—you find EVERYTHING.

Everything that has been buried.

Everything that you regret.

Everything that brings you pain.

MY MIND
WAS LIKE:

‘Remember the time you did this? THAT was a very bad decision.’

‘Oh, and remember this one?
Well, you messed up there—badly.’

‘Ah, and also, here are 5 different ways how you are going to fail this year.’

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To me, it was kind of the “Best of Shame and Blame—in past and future.” Interestingly, nothing stuck with me for longer than a few hours. Every image, every feeling came once and got replaced by the next one. Maybe because I had the following mindset: Whatever comes up, I am ready for it, and I will let it go. Or maybe it was because my mind was too busy with compiling this "beautiful" collage, and did not want to focus too much on one thing only.

There was a moment, in the very beginning, when I looked at the calendar and thought—shit, you have to do this for a very long time now, and you feel like time currently is running backwards.

Yes, the photos and videos look very nice. Yes, the flowers were more colorful than I have ever seen. Yes, the ashram was a beautiful place. But (!!!) this place is built for you to “realize yourself” and you can only do that by working through the layers that are covering it.

The teachers there were unbelievably great. They gave us the right tools and methods to walk the walk:

• keeping a curious mindset and openness to whatever might happen
• observing and systematically relaxing ALL of your body parts
• starting an inner dialogue with your mind, with the goal of befriending your mind
• allowing yourself to truly dive into the stillness within

My favorite quote from one of the teachers:

'Sometimes what is right for us is not comfortable. Sometimes what is comfortable is not right for us. Yet, we are so addicted to comfortable things that we become comfortably miserable.'

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BODY MIND CONNECTION

A curious and open mindset? Got that. I guess that is why I ended up there. However, looking at the second tool from the list above, I had to realize I was holding SO much more tension within my body than I was aware of.

You’re probably familiar with the usuals: waking up with a clenched jaw, getting migraines because of tension in your forehead, neck or shoulders, lower back pain from too much sitting — you know, things one could explain due to stress or not moving enough. But what I experienced with daily systematic relaxations was very different.

Our bodies are used to creating muscle synergies, meaning moving more than one specific muscle at the same time. Makes sense, right? Here’s the catch: Our bodies also tend to create unnecessary muscle synergies, i.e. sitting in front of your laptop, reading a stressful email, wanting to respond too quickly and in the process, tightening your shoulders, clenching your jaw and maybe stopping to breathe into your belly because you’re holding tensions there as well.

This is not a “one-time thing”. We do this every day. Now, imagine how "well-trained" your body must be because of this.

For me—I did not even know of the tensions I was holding. I had completely lost the muscle-mind connection for certain parts, and therefore the ability to actively relax individual muscles. And when I tried to relax my neck and jaw it was like moving one of my tiny toes—IMPOSSIBLE.

The first time (after 4 days), I managed to relax my jaw, my facial muscles started to shake because they did not know how TO NOT HOLD tension. So, like an onion, I started peeling the different muscle layers and relaxing the tension I held there. Step by step, sometimes feeling immense rushes of release, until I had one experience where my body started feeling completely light. I don’t really know how to describe this feeling, but if I had to, I’d say this:

You know exactly where and how your body exists, but it feels like you are made out of tiny dust particles hovering in space. You feel like every movement will be as soft and light as a tiny feather that is being moved by air.

This may sound hard to grasp or even to believe, but what I can say is: Observing and relaxing your body can become a truly joyful experience.

This was basically the first thing we had to learn (btw. This is also what the asana practice is for): To release all the blockages in your body. So your body does not disturb you on your way into meditation.

However, the body wasn't my biggest problem. It was the mind.

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INNER DIALOGUE

Because of my interest and background in psychology, the concept of the inner dialogue was something I was already familiar with and also engaged in, for instance when I was journaling. But phew, I wasn’t aware of the extent of it.

When they introduced this concept, they used a funny metaphor for why we should learn about the inner dialogue and befriend our minds:

'Imagine you want to enter a country. And you know someone giving out visas. What are your chances of entering the country when they don’t like you because you are always rude, telling them to “shut up” the minute they start talking about things you don’t want to hear? Not that high, right? And now think about what your chances are if you are their friend or even just a neutral person to them?'

Maybe you see the point already: Our mind is deciding about whether we can “enter the country” (of ourselves). Or if it works against you.

Which is basically how I started the first days. Part of my mind was a very loud and annoying tiny (inner) child. If I asked it to be silent so that I could start my meditation, it started being exactly the opposite: Extremely childish, loud, and talking without ANY pause.

After the second or third day, it was slowly joined by a toxic parent who was becoming annoyed with the child and started screaming because it wanted the child to shut up.

So there I was with a stubborn child and a shouting parent having (not really) a conversation in my head. Sounds like I went crazy? Or familiar? You decide.

However, I remembered what the teachers said at the beginning: Be gentle and become a friend of your mind. So, I started doing that.

Instead of just badly wanting it to shut up, I started asking my mind questions like: Why are you doing that? What can I do to make you feel more calm? And suddenly, it became busy with answering my questions instead of fighting itself about silence. It started collaborating with me and every time I sat down to meditate, it was more and more willing to join me.

Having said that I realize, you never really stop thinking. But you stop being scattered and directed by your mind. You gently take over control. You start directing.

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COMPLETE STILLNESS

In the Ashram, they talked a lot about this: the inner stillness. And at the beginning, I thought—yeah, sounds nice, but to be honest, also kind of boring (?!) Why would I want to sit down and experience complete stillness, as like a life goal? I mean, when I am stressed, I get it, but in their descriptions, the books, and the teachings, it was hyped so much that I could not really understand why.

Until I experienced it. For me, it was only one single moment, and also a VERY short one. Just like I learned, I first relaxed my whole body, then I kindly asked my mind to meditate with me, I focused successfully on my very deep and smooth breath, and then I started focusing on my heart.

Everything got silent, and suddenly I started to feel this rise of immense bliss. It came out of silence and felt like pure joy, love—a kind of ecstasy. All of this just by sitting, focusing, and breathing. Of course, I got so excited at that moment—it immediately went away.

I realized that meditation is like being in the forest with a deer. If you want it to come closer, you need to become completely still and wait for it to move. What I did in that moment, and also in the first days after this experience, was basically to run after the deer, screaming, that I want to pet it.

With no chance of success obviously.

CONCLUSION

You might ask yourself what the takeaway is from all of this. Why is this of any importance to someone who does not want to live a monk life in an ashram in India waiting for moments of bliss in silent meditations?

What is the sense of meditation at all?

I believe that there is something beautiful within ourselves, but it's hidden from everyone who is afraid of silence.

If however, you are willing to try, you will walk and work through your different layers, it will lead you to:

• releasing tension and pain that you hold within your body
• becoming aware of the power your breath holds over your body-mind connection
• becoming gentler to yourself regarding your physical and mental limits
• shifting your perspective from “being stressed out by thoughts” towards finding calmness within yourself every time you want it

And the last point is to me, the biggest gift these two weeks gave me.

I was diagnosed with adult ADHD right before I came to India. I was used to being a daydreamer, chasing one idea after another, being stressed out by whirling storms of thoughts. I was used to being inside my mind and controlled by it. When I meditated, I was basically just sitting with my thoughts.

This is what meditation often is in the beginning for many people. But I learned that this is just the the first stage. I learned that I can get out of my head instead of following random thoughts without noticing, being controlled by my mind. I learned that there is stillness within me and that I can reach it whenever I want to.

So, if not for "realizing yourself", for reaching enlightenment, or for the single experience of a moment of bliss.

Start meditating for your everyday life. For the situations in which your mind tells you stories about all the bad things of your past and future. For all the situations in which you are anxious, or the times in which you’re angry at your partner, child, or parent. For all the situations in which you want to be yourself and not controlled by your thoughts and emotions.

Do it, for all of that.

With lots of love,

Carina 🌻

P.S. If there are any questions or anything you want to share, please don't hesitate to get back to me. I am here for you!