Ashram cannot be a permanent abode for everyone, but it is a place where you can go for a short or long period of time in order to accelerate your spiritual spirit. Ashram is a place where an atmosphere is created. From ancient times, the ordinary man and the monarchs used to go to an ashram to live for some time. In ancient days, people used to go and live in the ashram the life of a sannyasin for the period of fifteen days to six months. When they lived the life of a sannyasin, they were trying to transform the very personality. It is not possible for everybody to take sannyasa. It is possible for everybody to enjoy and experience the life of a sannyasin for at least fifteen days.
During this period, they lived in the ashram in a very simple way. They had minimum possessions. They slept on the floor on a blanket, they did not keep any money, ornaments or valuables with them. They ate only one time a day. After that period of fifteen days or six months, they came back to their normal life of a householder, and they found that they could see the world from a better standpoint. They could also feel that they could face life in a better way. Peace of mind was greater and also their strength.
In the ashram people must practise selfless service. In olden days, the ashram had a lot of agriculture and cows, but now the ashrams are slightly different, but in any case, when you live in the ashram, you must give yourself selflessly. When you live in the ashram you also develop what we call detachment. Although you live with fifty or more people in the ashram and work with them, you realize at the end that you were not at all related to them.
Detachment is a very important qualification for a man who wants to attain peace of mind and spiritual progress. Detachment is not carelessness. Detachment also does not mean that you do not love anybody, and detachment also does not mean that you do not serve others. In the ashram you learn to love, serve, work and enjoy without any attachment.
It is very difficult for many people to understand as to how to love others without attachment. When you live in the ashram in an atmosphere of peace, tranquillity and friendliness, you know how to manage and live with people without involving yourself into too much complicated relationships.
When you live in an ashram, all the samskaras come up to the surface, in normal life it doesn’t happen because there are many ways to escape the reality. There are objects of sensual pleasure, there are so many friends, so your fears, your anxieties, your insecurities, your passions cannot be seen. When you live in the ashram as an ashramite or as a sannyasin, all the deep-rooted complexes which were so far being suppressed come up to the fore. This gives you definitely a chance to know what exactly you contain. Therefore, the life in an ashram is an opportunity to bring your deep-rooted personality to the forefront.
In the calm, quiet and unassuming atmosphere of ashram life you can also decide what you can be. Here it is not possible.
If you see an artist, you want to be an artist; if you see a sportsman, you want to be a sportsman; if you see a boxer, you want to be a boxer; if you see a cinema artist, you want to be a cinema artist; if you see a politician, you want to be a politician. You have no knowledge of your reality. In an ashram, your mind is like clean canvas and then you know what you have to paint on it. What you are capable of and what you can do. The central residing deity of an ashram is the guru.
September 1981, Zinal, Switzerland