The Ashram Within

From my Journal:

November 6, 2007:

"During the night, while turning over in bed, I heard, “Ashram” and thought, “What? Are you kidding me? I am now to go to India? I think not! Later I Googled and now I understand.”

That night, I grabbed the pen on my nightstand as I usually do and scribbled the word down so I wouldn’t forget. I always Google things I “get” if I need more clarification and this is what I found:

Ashram: hermitage, retreat or place of quiet and solitude, often in a forest, where a Hindu sage lives alone or with his disciples.

I hadn’t been to any “forests” lately, was not a “Hindu sage” at the time, and still am not. I do not “live alone” nor do I have “disciples.” (at least not the last time I checked) I could, however, identify with the first part of the definition.

The last four years or so had been a time of deep, deep healing. A very lonely journey as my closest relationships fell apart once I “found my voice” (or I should say, allowed myself to have one again), and began to live my life authentically. “Authentically” was feeling really good, but at the same time…really awful. I did go through a “hermit” stage, and I did “retreat” to my “place” (home) of "quiet and solitude." The solitude was the hardest part of the whole journey “back to Me.”

It didn’t take me long to realize what the message was in hearing just that one word, and it thrilled me! Weeks before I had read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. (loved it!) She shared her own journey back to Self, and at one point in her travels she was in an Ashram in India. She shared, in detail, how hard it was at times, as well as the beauty and peace she finally found within her own being.

I realized I, too had been in an Ashram! An Ashram of my own making! I didn’t have to go to India. I didn’t have to mediate for hours on end in an over-heated temple. I didn’t have to fast, though there was a period I could barely eat. I didn’t have to sing sacred chants for over an hour until I felt faint as Elizabeth describes of her own experience.

My “India” had been right here. The “temple” where I did most of my inner work was my very own bedroom, where I felt the most safe and for some odd reason, loved. The hours of meditation, were the many hours alone with just me, myself and I; day after day. My “sacred chants” the prayers I cried as I begged to see the Light at the end of what seemed like a never-ending tunnel. Yes! I had been in an Ashram-like setting right here and it was revealed to me because my time there was complete!

Within minutes of finding that definition on Google, I knew I had finally arrived Home. I understood why that word was “whispered” to me now. Not because I was to go to an Ashram, but instead because I had just returned from one. I was back. I had found Myself, and She was right here walking the path within me each and every painful step of the way.