Ananda Ashram

I am at Anada Ashram which is in the Kerala region in southern India on the west coast. Getting here was an l-o-n-g adventure. We spent 6 hours in a car that we' d hired, on typical crazy roads and then caught an overnight train to kahnangod where this Ashram is located. So we arrived quite hot and tired but immediately felt the sweetness of this place. 

It was founded by Papa Ramdas. He was born in 1884 and had a typical youth, went to school, got married, had 2 children. But he was also feeling an intense longing towards God and when he was 28 he took a vow of renunciation and left on a pilgrimage to temples and sacred sites and began years of intense practices including chanting and meditation and prayer. Part of taking the vow of renunciation in India is that the renunciation is legally dead to his old life. There's no turning back. He leaves everything behind and takes a new name. His new name was Ramdas.  

(I know. When I hear these stories I think, "Hey! What about his wife and kids?"  But in this culture, when one has an intense longing towards God such as he had, there's a culturally acceptable and legal way to answer that call. Of course, I don't know how his wife and kids felt about it. The gender equity concept is not exactly thriving here.

In fact it is pretty disturbing. But that's another blog post. 

Being here, immersed in the gentle holiness of this place and hearing his basic teachings (more on that in a moment), I am glad he followed his call.

Ramdas wandered as an itenerate monk for a time and at the end of this part of his life he set up an ashram. This ashram :-). Around this time, a young widow named Krishnabai who was in a severely difficult time of her life since her husbands death, met Ramdas and became his devotee. Later she became his teaching partner and became known as the "Mother" of the ashram. Ramdas was the Papa. (He is affectionately referred to as Papa Ramdas). He made Krishnabai his successor. She is honored as an avatar of the Divine Mother.

So! That's were I am.

But what do we DO here? 

Chanting is the main practice here: chanting the name of God. The teaching from Papa Ramdas is that chanting the name of God, ANY name that you love including names from Christianity, Islam, etc. is a sure way to connect you more closely to God.  And it wil also quiet your mind and allow you to move inward into states of prayer and meditation. There is chanting from early to late and the name they chant is "Shri Ram", a name of God which means "the Shining One, or the Radiant One". 

Another strong teaching here is that everything is God and that therefore there is nothing wrong with the world because it is all God, as it is. Everything and everyone. There only tends to be something wrong with our view of things. (A good reason to turn off the news, I'd say! )

Another strong teaching from Papa Ramdas - the third pillar besides chanting and meditation /prayer - is service. It goes like this: once you accept that everything and all beings are God, you do everything in your life as service to God. Even in the way I type on this computer I am encouraged to be grateful to it as a form of God. And that attitude of devotion and service to all things and beings extends to everything and every activity, from cleaning a toilet to dealing with annoying people, including myself. 

There are very simple Indian meals 3 times a day. And a talk at 3:30 each day. You can participate in chanting practice as much or as little as you want.  Nothing is mandatory. 

That's it for now....gotta go chant! 

Next stop Rajasthan. I'll type in from there. 

Thanks for reading!