Parmarth Niketan Ashram

Today was spiritual!

After our morning yoga journey and a 3 hour yoga theory class about Kriyas, we went on a little excursion.

Sattva organised a visit to an Ashram in Rishikesh.

Its called the Parmarth Niketan Ashram and is the biggest ashram in Rishikesh and is even said to be the biggest spiritual ground in India.

It was beautiful. We entered through a long pathway decorated by all kinds flowers.

Before entering we had to take off our shoes and luckily after being in India for a while, my germaphobia isn’t as bad anymore :) I’m not even bothered anymore by the hundreds of flies around me, sitting on my eyes, nose, arms, feet, basically everywhere they can find a place to sit. Maybe I’m just more Zen now haha

We were guided into a beautiful room with an open roof, marble floors and walls covered in green plants and colourful flowers. Kind of like a jungle in a courtyard. It was the Satsang room - a magical space. I did not expect to find something like this in an Ashram. The Satsang room, is a room open to the public, where one of the Yoga Masters gives question and answer sessions, sharing their wisdom and their knowledge about the cosmic intelligence (not going into detail, as that could be a whole other essay haha).

Before the master/ guru or however you want to call it walked in, some other students that stayed at the Ashram joined our group for the talk.

Suddenly, I couldn’t believe my eyes, Prince EA walked in. Prince EA is a spiritual and motivational speaker from America that is using the social networks and the internet to spread the word of love and being. I have been following him since 5 years. The first video I saw of him was back in school. He inspired me so much that I forwarded his videos to all my friends and family. I love the way he speaks and how easy he explains the more complicated yogi perspective to the world, especially to young people.

Back then I dreamed to one day organise a retreat or talk, where I would invite him to speak. And out of nowhere, he was suddenly sitting next to me. Me, coming from Berlin and him coming from the USA, both at an Ashram in Rishikesh. How bizarre!!! Right??Sometimes I just can’t believe how the universe makes things happen. How thoughts are turned into reality, even unexpectedly.

After the Satsang, we walked to the stairs down at the Ganges River and celebrated the Aarti. Its the same ceremony I went to see in Varanasi. But this time, I felt much more connected to it. I didn’t feel like I was just a tourist watching a local festival, it felt more united. The people were nicely dressed, wearing jewellery and nice dresses, mostly in the colours red and yellow. We all sat around the fire, that was lit to celebrate the existence of the Ganges River. We were sitting right in the middle, between all the local people, singing, clapping our hands, meditating, breathing and just appreciating our existence as one.

It was an incredible experience and for the first time I understood what people meant, when they were saying, Rishikesh is a magical place and that there is something spiritual in the air, that you don’t find anywhere else.

We passed around chandeliers with fire and people dropped flowers in the Ganges that slowly disappeared in the dark. It was an experience that I am extremely grateful for. It brought the people of India closer to me, through their open hearted and respectful attitude towards us. I felt extremely welcome and simply looking around, seeing all these people dancing, smiling, clapping, laughing, made me appreciate the situation even more.

After the ceremony ended, with a live singing performance of an Indian singer, we all followed the Guru back into the Ashram, where there were people waiting to take Photos and bow to him to touch his feet, which they do here as a sign of respect.

The ride back home felt forever. But sitting in the car, the driver told us an interesting, rather funny story. The road to our yoga academy is along a cliff and extremely narrow. For two cars to fit passed each other it takes a lot of effort. So the story he told us was that as soon as the sun goes down it’s not easy to find cabs that would take us down this road, because apparently at night elephants show up that act very aggressively towards cars and would apparently push the cars down the cliff. He said: I’ll give you a little tip: if you see an elephant, just jump out of the car and run haha. We stared laughing because the thought was just obscure. Where would these big animals just suddenly turn up from? On the right side of the road is the mountain wall and on the left an extremely steep cliff...

Well... try solving this mystery! :))

Enough about my experiences outside the academy for now. The next post is again going to be more about the knowledge and wisdom I’ve obtained :) So be prepared... ;P