Yoga Report

I had been doing some evening courses with the Scandinavian School of Yoga and I had been fed the western view on yoga. What struck me in India was the strong colours, the smell in the air and the poverty that was so obvious. In all this poverty people were smiling in a friendly way and yoga seemed to be so many different things. I felt like a little ant and I was scared by all the people who tried to get me to stop in the streets and with the lonely planet in my hand I wanted to get to my target and reach enlightenment. Like every swede I wanted the train to be on time and I wanted the toilets to be clean.
My plan was to get to yoga niketan ashram and stay there for a while. Once there the place reminded me more of a prison camp with guards by the entrance and strict discipline all the way through. This was what I thought yoga should be. I struggled with my body and I was wet like from a shower after each session. One day we had ants and a lot of small animals in the bathroom and a women came from the managers house with what looked like an old DDT spraycan . After a little while all the small insects were dead and we did not dare to enter the room that day. For a reason I cannot describe with logic I was not happy with this place and from some other yoga practitioners we heard about a place called sivananda yoga kutir and we decided to give it a try.
The guy who greeted us in an informal and relaxed way at sivananda yoga kutir was the swami and he had a friendly sparkle in his eyes. It felt more like visiting a friend than being in a ashram. We really enjoyed the daily asanas and the walks in the countryside. The singing in the evening were spontaneous and a boy from the village was singing as loud as he could and I felt encouraged to sing and started to like it more and more. I felt like I could be myself in this place and I was really tempted to stay longer when the day to depart to Sweden came closer.

meditation at yoga kutir

Sivananda Kutir, Himalayas

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