People come to India for many reasons. Many feel lost and unable to find themselves in the country of their birth; surrounded by friends, family and familiar objects and possessions. So they do the logical thing and fly to the Indian subcontinent where they will stand out a bit more (and I assume will be easier to locate).
A lot of these people have read Eat Pray Love. This book convinces them that the secret to finding ones self is to drop everything and live in an ashram, living a deeply spiritual life, under the direction of a guru. A spiritual leader who helps find ones spiritual self. You rise with the sun, clean (the ashram and yourself), pray, meditate... and repeat.
The types of people that do the whole Ashram thing are easy to spot in the western world. All you need to do is get up at 5am in summer and you will find them serenely practicing their yoga, bathed in the first rays of the newborn sun. The rest of us may like the idea of watching the sunrise, and in a moment of panic may attempt a yoga, pilates or zumba class once at the gym (to us they are all the same) but we only do these things as a one off, so that we can rest assured we could do these them for longer if we really wanted.
What makes life hard for me is that I know that I will never find myself silouetted against the horizon in a distorted and semi-petrified lotus position. I enjoy my sleep, I am lazy and I am so unflexible that in my one and only pilates class I was given a large rubber band so that I could use the extra leverage so it would look like I was trying rather than just leaning slightly over to each side, while the rest of the class lay prostrate on the floor. This elastic band is the exercise equivalent of the fat-person seat belts on airplanes - by the time you get one, you are already too far gone to be redeemed. At that point I knew that pilates was not for me went to McDonalds and comforted myself with a Big Mac and a large strawberry shake...
What made me happy in India was the realization that most of the ashram seeking hippies do the equivalent. They go to India but get sick of it and end up at the beach.
Goa is a wonderful, laid back place filled all those hippies who figured out they weren't quite that hardcore. One person - who we shall call Ivory, signed up for four months in an ashram but came to Goa after nine days. Another person lasted two weeks before heading for the coast. As we sat at the Evershine Guesthouse in Goa, we discovered that this is actually a pretty common thing - and I admire them both for their lack of perseverance, their ability to say no - their ability to stand up and say "Dammit - this is stupid. I'm leaving".
You see, these young, flexible western women might not have found their spiritual selves, but they did find out that the ashram was a waste of time. When every one else dropped to their knees in reverence to the gods at a shrine. They chose to remain standing and wonder what the hell everyone was doing (please note that this is not a metaphor - this is a story that was actually told to us). A lot of you dear readers may be asking why I admire this lack of fortitude, and I will tell you.
At least they gave it a go. There are many people that have a dream, a long cherished vision that sits ideally on the shelf. They are like Martin Luther King junior, except they keep their dream to themselves, tucked safely away until it falls victim to the ages and vanishes in a puff of dust.
The girls we met went to the Ashram, hated it and went to Goa instead - but they still made the journey. While everyone else wonders what it would be like, they know. They will get back and teach yoga in the US or Australia, knowing that they skived off, because it was a waste of time. Whether they choose to tell anyone is up to them. While others dream, they made their dreams happen.
And that has made all the difference.
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