Namaste

I feel I’m at one of those cross roads in my life. People keep expecting me to know what I want and where I’m going. If I’m honest with them I get very strange looks and often negative feedback. If I made a list of things I wanted to do with my life it would go something like this

-        To find peace, love and happiness in myself and spread this to others

-        To evolve and develop my spiritual side (this is in no set context or religion – perhaps drawing from many of them)

-        To help other people

-        To live a healthy and pure life (pure in the sense of free from negative inputs into my body, mind and soul – which extends to the food I eat, people I’m surrounded by, the things I own – or more likely don’t own, the thoughts that enter my head and the actions I take)

-        To have fun and enjoy my life

-        Not live in an environment that is obsessed with material possessions

-        Not to feel I have to live my life to please other or compromise who I am for the sake of others.

-        To make time to do the things that truly make me happy without my ego getting in the way. Among these things are yoga, meditation and surfing

I’ve been considering going and living in an ashram or a monastery in India, Nepal or Tibet next year but I had this idea awhile ago while I was meditating. I think it has the potential to offer an alternative lifestyle choice that will enable you to work towards “spiritual enlightenment” in a unique way.

Ok so here’s my idea – create an ashram in India on the coast that is dedicated to walking to path towards the spirit, the true self, an egoless state, the superconscience or whatever you want to call it that incorporates surfing on this journey.

So how would we go about this

(these are only ideas – still working these things out so feel free to comment, add ideas and share your thoughts)

-        Get around 5 to 15 people together who are interested – they could come from all over the world and would hopefully bring there own ideas and beliefs that could be shared.

-        This next part may seem a little “cultish” but please don’t judge until you have read my reasons behind it! Ok so each of these people give up everything they own – sell everything, cars, houses, investments, businesses, computers etc and all the money they have goes into the ashram. Obviously we would work out a way to do this so that you are not just giving us the money and you never see us again! But there are a few reasons I think this is important, the first is that it is hard to truly commit to something if to have large amounts of attachment else where. If you can say – “oh this isn’t really working out I’ve got a house to go back to” you are going to be more likely not to try as hard to make the spiritual journey. Second reason is not having any material possession frees your mind up to concentrate on calming your thoughts, you wont be worrying about how your car is for a crude  example. This means your meditation will be much more successful. Also to set up and sustain this type of thing we will obviously need capital. Once we get set up we can start making ourselves self sufficient – trading it the local markets etc. Would also be nice to do something for the local community – this could be in the way of setting up a school or something for kids without education, although this could be a little down the track. I also think that if everyone there had given everything they owned into the place we were living then we could create a amazing environment where we all had proved that this is where we what to be and we are willing to give everything we have to make it work.

-        Once we get enough people together who are keen and we have enough money to get started – start looking for land on the coast that has surf. Before we head over get a few places lined up that we believe will have potential and go check them out. Wait till we find a place that feels right and them get the land.

-        Then we would go about setting up the ashram – this would be some time in the future so a lot of these details will come with time.

What about teachings – open to ideas

-        I don’t think we would follow anyone religion, although I would not be adverse to this idea… I believe that all religions speak the same true and benefit comes from diving deeply into it. However, I would be more inclined to draw from a number of places for the spiritual knowledge we draw from. Yoga is Hindu so there would be elements of that, I practice vipassana meditation that draws from Buddhism and I have other influences that range from Taoism to science!

-        I was thinking Indian would be a good place as it’s a good centre point for a lot of these religions. We could invite Swamis etc to come teach for a couple of months and things like that.

Life on the ashram – again these are just ideas that I have

-        No drinking, smoking or anything like that. Just because it’s a negative influence or at minimum doesn’t aid in a spiritual journey.

-        Vegetarian food – nothing would be killed on the ashram.

-        4am wake up – yoga then meditation then surf! Breakfast, work on the ashram (karma yoga), more yoga and meditation and surfing, mantra yoga, Im sure there will be lots to do!

So that’s to basic idea – Go live in India – surf, meditate, do yoga, help kids in the area, live a peaceful, healthy life where we don’t harm other beings. It’s not something that requires a life commitment or anything like that, we could probably set aside money for peoples return flights if they needed to get home. I just think this could be something really worthwhile and fulfilling.

If we get people together who are keen we could set a date and we all save until that date so we have enough money to do it properly – there who be no minimum or maximum to give, the idea would be that you just gave everything you had. Minus maybe your surfboard, some clothes etc to help you when you arrive.

Please leave your comments and ideas. Also let me know if your interested!