13~ Living in an Ashram. Part 1: Shiva, Chaos, and Destruction.

December 21st.

Before coming to India, I had planned to do a 10-day retreat at one of the most famous ashrams in Rishikesh, focused on Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. The Sutras are like the Bible of Yoga, to put it in our language. They are precepts from a very ancient text written in Sanskrit that lays out the foundations of yogic doctrine—a way to start where one should start: at the beginning.

Once I got here, after the mystical connections I had made and the monks I had met on the streets, I no longer wanted to join the retreat. They seemed more real to me than a school program in a grid. I liked the underground scene.

Bit by bit, I had found something resembling a "routine." During the day, I would visit the monk, and in the afternoons, I would write while sitting at Buddha Delight Cafe, looking at the green of the Ganga with my ginger, lemon, and honey tea—the strongest thing I could get here in Rishikesh.

The retreat had started the night before—the same night as the World Cup Final. I had already given up being in Argentina, but there was still some blood left in my veins, so the only real option was to start a day late, right after we became World Champions. I woke up at 5 am, still undecided about whether to go to the retreat or not.

At the introductory talk, there were only five people. Among those five, there was only one other foreign girl my age. She was Russian but, coincidentally, lived in Copenhagen, very close to my old house."Coincidence"... Denmark is a tiny country, and here we were, just five people in the retreat, and I happened to meet someone who was practically my neighbor, with whom I shared many things in common. I filed it away in my mental space for cosmic signs. When you're unsure about your decisions but start opening yourself up to energetic connections, these things matter—and in India, if you're paying attention, there's no shortage of them.

So, Gulnara was what tipped the scales for me.

On just two hours of sleep, I packed my things in fifteen minutes, called a motorbike taxi, and headed to the ashram.

At that hour, in the middle of the dusty little streets, the town seemed more beautiful. Of course, with the sun on your face and feeling the last breaths of freedom, everything becomes more special. The particular glow of something we are about to lose. Blessed humans.

I had never been to an ashram before, let alone in Asia.

An ashram is a place of spiritual teaching and practice, such as yoga, philosophy, or meditation, and it’s an ideal environment for those seeking to dive into these practices while living in community, austerity, and introspection. It was an open-air space with gardens and many water fountains lining a long corridor surrounded by blue-colored Hindu gods. At the end of the corridor, a phrase: "Welcome to your home in the Himalayas." In the background, like a postcard, the mountains.

I arrived just in time for the chanting class, which had already started. I crossed all the gardens, went through a street to another building where the ashram continued, with another garden full of monkeys.

I entered the hall quietly. The same five people from yesterday were sitting on the floor on cushions, in the dimness of a large hall. At the front, also sitting on a cushion, was a nun of about 70 years old, wearing an orange robe and a matching scarf over her head. Beside her, in the shadows, stood a sculpture of the dancing Shiva and a lit candle.

I apologized for arriving late and sat down. They handed me a photocopied booklet with words in Sanskrit, which is not Hindi—it’s similar but older and harder. I realized this because even the Indian men there struggled to repeat it.

The little nun began to sing, her voice rising and falling in pitch.

She asked us to repeat after her, and we all began to chant phonetically.

Chanting is the practice of reciting or singing mantras, sacred words, or, in this case, Sutras—fundamental precepts. The chants have many nuances, tones, and word accents in Sanskrit.

The words are a cluster of consonants that you can’t quite understand how they could be so tightly packed together with so few vowels in between. An impressive grouping. There are words with more than 20 letters, and over half of them are consonants. Truly incredible.

You don’t even know how it could possibly be read. It was like looking at Einstein's chalkboard when he was starting to write the theory of relativity.

As if that wasn’t challenging enough, each syllable also has a mark above, below, or other punctuation indicating how it should be sung: pitch up, pitch down, long tone, short tone, or simply silence.

Here are the first Sutras in Sanskrit and their pronunciation below:

flथ योगानुशासनम् 1- Atha yogānuśāsanam

योगश्चित्तवृत्तिनिरोधः 2- Yogah cittavṛttinirodhaḥ

तदा द्रष्टुः स्वरूपेऽवस्थानम् 3- Tadā draṣṭuḥ svarūpe’vasthānam

वृत्तिसारूप्यमितरत्र॥४॥ 4- Vṛttisārūpyam – itaratra

वृत्तयः पञ्चतय्यः क्लिष्टा अक्लिष्टा 5- Vṛttayaḥ pañcatayyaḥ kliṣṭā akliṣṭāḥ

I know, they don’t look like it, but they are words.

This was one of my "favorites":

Abhyāsavairāgyābhyām tannirodh |

It means "Practice of detachment."

I, still unsure about what I was doing there, looked at myself from the outside as if I could suspend myself in the air, physically paralyzed while my mind took over everything:

What is this? What am I doing here? Why would singing in a language I don’t understand help me find what I am looking for? What is the purpose of all this?

And the final conclusion:

There is no way I will ever be able to sing this in my entire life.

Apart from training my patience, I couldn’t see any practical purpose to this in real life. Elke, a German woman with blue eyes, sang beautifully. The rest of us were terrible, even the Indians. Managing the tones was complicated, and the pronunciation was even worse.

After a while of practicing, the nun asked us to sing individually. I heard myself and was surprised.

– Almost perfect! – I thought.

The nun looked at me with a pitying expression. I didn’t understand why.

– Is this your first time singing? Don’t worry, you’ll get better little by little, – she said in front of the group, with a kind smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. I felt humiliated.

The class lasted almost two hours. Two hours of repeating phrases in another language over and over while the little nun corrected us as if we were at university, as if we genuinely wanted to learn Sanskrit. At that moment, I couldn’t care less. I still didn’t fully understand why it was part of the program, and I was sure that, except for Elke, no one else cared either. But the nun took it very seriously.

I was still overwhelmed with emotions and a thousand doubts. I still carried that feeling of not wanting to be anywhere. Everything still hurt: not being in Argentina, lying to my mother, having made this decision, my future, and the anguish I had been carrying for a long time. I had a mission and many things to resolve. I wasn’t interested in making friends or playing Sanskrit karaoke unless someone told me it would bring me the peace of mind I was seeking – but, of course, they didn’t. They couldn’t.

I left the class and went straight to my room to drop off my bag. The room was depressing. It was painted an old yellow color and had almost no natural light. A portrait of an Indian man with a beard and tangled hair, which seemed to have been taken a hundred years ago, hung on one of the walls. He was the Ashram’s Guru. There were two single beds separated by barely half a meter. The bathroom smelled awful.

The private room was more expensive, but fortunately for me, the group had an odd number, so by default, I got to stay alone at the same price. Thank God! I couldn’t imagine going through everything I was experiencing in a crappy room and having to share it with someone else less than half a meter from my face.

The sheets were stained, there was a hair on the pillow that wasn’t mine, and there was no hot water even though it was the middle of winter. There wasn’t even a shower; just a tiny plastic bucket to pour water over yourself. The electricity went out every half hour. The only window faced an internal corridor, and the shutter to open it was broken.

I sat on the bed and looked at my face in the bathroom mirror.

– Shit, – I thought, – on top of everything, this is costing me a fortune... This can’t be real.

I still remember that feeling of being in shock and wanting to run away at the same time.

I called Kaare – my Danish colleague – almost in desperation. Lately, in those moments when I was truly desperate, I called him. He always found the right words to calm the beast. Without realizing it, he was becoming my danish Guru.

– Relax, you need to give it time. This is something completely new for you; it’s natural for it to feel strange and to want to run away. You’ve never sung in Sanskrit or lived in an Ashram. Did you think you’d get it right on the first try?

– Of course! – I wanted to answer, but it would have been too stupid.

– You’re trying to learn something new; you need to be kind to yourself. One must be kind to themselves when learning something new.

What he was saying was obvious, but I needed someone else, someone flesh and blood, to tell me that. To remind me I wasn’t in some Hollywood movie. Everything looks funnier and more entertaining in the movies, but it doesn’t feel that way when it’s your own life and you find yourself in a shitty hole with no way out.

– Remember to breathe. Take it step by step, day by day, with calm and patience. Give your body time to adjust; you can always leave later if you want.

If I stayed – with how expensive the retreat was – I wasn’t leaving until I transformed into Mother Teresa.

I told Kaare about my mother and the decision I had made not to tell her anything about being in India – not her, nor anyone else.

Who would go to Argentina to take care of her if she had a panic attack after hearing the news? I couldn’t take responsibility for that. I already had too much on my plate. There were too many things inside me that needed my energy, and I wasn’t leaving until I figured them out.

Paradoxically, I was beginning a spiritual path and seeking truths.

Should I tell the truth? At what cost?

Would the truth set us free? Would it bring peace to both of us?

Would telling her calm her down, or would it actually make her live a nightmare every day that I remained in India?

(...)

What is the right thing to do?

When I told my mother that I was thinking about going to India, she was terrified. She told me to do whatever I wanted, but that she didn't want to know about it.

Should I respect her decision or reaffirm my ego? Should I assert my independence, my years of maturity, and stop lying, or should I accept her choice?

It was extremely difficult for me to have a normal video call with her, pretending to be in Copenhagen, happy, with friends, still with my ex-partner, celebrating the World Cup during the Christmas and New Year season as if nothing was happening, while in reality, I was having a shitty time alone in an Ashram in India. But even harder than that would be having to carry an extra burden that wasn’t even mine.

I left Kaare speechless. This time, he didn't have an answer either. That gave me some comfort. After all, it wasn't that simple.

"Whatever you decide will be fine if it feels right," he said. " The answer will come to you."I hate when he says that and doesn't explain how, when, or where.

Right and wrong, good and bad. I was slowly beginning to understand that sometimes they are just perspectives and that, probably, it has more to do with what we are capable of handling at this moment and what we are not. With the prices we are willing to pay and the possibilities we have in the present. The ideal decision is not always feasible if we don't have the energy to sustain it, and I was beginning to realize that sometimes the ideal decision doesn’t even exist. There are only choices, possible paths, and consequences.

Everyone told me that what I was doing was crazy, but no one knows my mother better than I do, and no one was going to come and solve my problems if things got difficult. So, for the first time, I started listening to myself more than to anyone else. At the end of the day, no one knows better than I do what I need right now, and what I needed was as much peace as possible from the outside. I already had enough chaos inside to deal with.That was also part of my learning process.

I had my last therapy session with my psychologist in a hallway of the Ashram while watching a monkey hang from the fence. I was at a personal crossroads where I had to decide what I was going to trust now. My mind was deeply divided between reason and spirit, but I had already decided to come to India seeking other answers. My psychologist was in Argentina, sitting on a divan in her office in the city. I was here, wrapped in an Indian pashmina, talking about coincidences and energies while trying to escape a monkey that was attempting to steal my bag.

She had also supported me a lot in making this decision, which seemed like it would never become real, but it did. Now, she was watching me do it—here, sitting in an Ashram, dressed in Indian clothes, crying just like before but now in India, and feeling a little prouder of myself.

I had made a decision, a big one. I had taken the leap, and even though I was in the middle of a storm, I had moved a few steps beyond the hell I had been living in until now. I had left behind sleepless nights trying to salvage a relationship that had been destroying me for a long time, waiting for Joan to come home. Strange looks, bad energy, jealousy, and me there, watching it all without being able to do anything, like a statue, small and desolate. Today, I was somewhere else. My soul was cheering for me, finally feeling free, but my body was suffering, and my mind was still very afraid. But that was why I had come: to face my fears head-on. Because even though I was scared as hell, I was still a warrior.

The first few days were extremely difficult. Physically, I was there, but I was still living inside my mind.

Letting go is so hard... Believing yourself to be super powerful also gives you too much responsibility and a hefty dose of stress. And there I was, still trapped in that cycle. My energy was still awful, like when you’re in a place you don't want to be. I noticed it, and so did everyone else. I barely spoke to anyone. I walked around with my head down, my brow furrowed, and a constant worry weighing on me, only looking at what was right in front of me—in other words, only at myself.

Gulnara, the Russian-Danish girl, had told me the food was amazing. The amazing food was chapati with plain white rice and vegetables. A lot of vegetables, stewed, but vegetables nonetheless, and plenty of chapatis stacked on a tray. Each of us would go through the kitchen and serve ourselves a bit of everything from the compartments of a metal tray. Just like in prison movies, American high schools, and Ashrams. Of the three, the best option.

We ate in a small room, just the five of us, the monk with the big smile, and Indu, our yoga teacher.

"Mmmm... I love chapati!" Gulnara would say at every meal while the cooks came to pile more chapatis onto the tray.

I couldn't tell if she was serious or being sarcastic. Of course, she wasn't being sarcastic. We were in a retreat having lunch with monks; she couldn't be. It annoyed me how she kept worshiping a bit of water and flour in a circle shape.

"For God's sake, Gulnara, it's flour and water! You told me the food was amazing! What's wrong with you? Have you never been to Italy?" I wanted to scream it at her, loud and clear, but instead, I just limited myself to looking at her indifferently, as I did with everything else around me at that time.

I was becoming the difficult one in the group. I wasn’t worried; I was used to that.

After lunch, we had the Yoga Philosophy class, also in English and also with the same nun. I struggled a lot to understand. First, her English, and second, the complexity of what she was trying to say. The first day had already been a disaster. All I wanted was to go to my room and cry a little more, so that's what I did.

I grabbed my holy bracelet, a leather string with many little medals of the christian virgin that my dad had given me a long time ago. I always wear it when things get tough, and I sleep with it, thinking that tomorrow will be better—like a teddy bear. That’s what I used to do a few months before in Copenhagen, when anxiety and insomnia would greet me at night while I tried to calm everything down by letting cigarette smoke fill my lungs, only to make it worse. Although I'm not Christian, that bracelet gave me peace, not because I'm religious but because my dad gave it to me, and in him, I did believe. So, my nightly ritual was to hold my stones, my two giant quartz crystals, and place them on my chest as I fell asleep, begging for everything to settle tomorrow and for some damn miracle to make me want to be here.

I had set up my meditation altar with a small Ganesha statue, a Tibetan bowl I had bought, and some Bougainvillea flowers I found on the garden floor. Every night before bed, I took time to meditate as the monk had told me. I think that was when I became a believer.

I was alone and now even more alone, more isolated, and more with myself.

I kept pretending with my mother when she called me, telling me about the celebrations in Argentina, the family Christmas gatherings, and the country's economic problems, while I smiled and held back my anguish, making sure the tears only came after I pressed the off button on the phone. She wouldn’t understand anyway; she wouldn’t understand anything I had been going through these past few months. Not even I understood it.

I just wanted to disappear. If there had been a button to do it, I probably would have pressed it. Every call broke my heart a little more and brought more doubts, more guilt, and more desolation.

What am I doing?

What am I doing in this shitty room, in the middle of Christmas Eve, with a book in Sanskrit in my hands, feeling like Julia Roberts in "Eat, Pray, Love"?

I'm not her. What am I doing here?

And I spoke to God, to the universe, to Ganesha, and to whoever else might be listening.

Please, I need help, I need clarity, I need peace. I’m trying, I’m doing the best I can. Please, I need help.

And through tears and the truest kind of loneliness, the kind where no one but you can understand what you feel—or at least, that’s what you believe—I would sleep for a few hours, until the alarm rang again at 5 a.m. for a new day.