There is a pattern of life in the ashram which is completely different to the pattern of life you have in your environment or homes. Ashrams have to be different, and they have to provide, to create opportunities and facilities for the aspirants to live there more simply and to work harder, not softer, than they have ever experienced before.
The word ashram is a Sanskrit word. Shram means ‘effort, labour’. A person who is working hard is doing shram. This is the Sanskrit expression. Now, working hard on the physical plane in the kitchen, in the garden, building construction, cleaning, management, etc., is external or physical hard work. That is also shram and that is one aspect of ashram life. At the same time, there is another way or dimension of working hard and that is the inner dimension: spiritual labour. You are trying to tread upon the path and you have undertaken an uphill task for yourself. It is not flat, plain ground. You have to pass through mountains, fields, valleys and many difficult terrains. You have to face various areas of your personality and for that you also have to work hard. To concentrate is to do stupendous labour. That is also shram.
Meditation is inner labour. Working in the ashram in the form of kriya yoga is also shram. That is why I have chosen the word ashram rather than yoga association, yoga academy, yoga school or anything else, because I want to make it clear that you have come here and you will be coming here for shram. Yes, for shram, labour, and the harder you work, the better is the quality of relaxation. If you are a lazy person, the quality of relaxation will be very inferior. If you are labouring hard, physically, mentally and spiritually, if you are a hard worker on the external as well as on the internal plane, then the quality of relaxation will be superior. You must remember this. That is why we have created a network of ashrams all over the world.
Everyone should understand that they must spend some time every year in an ashram to express their physical, mental and intellectual energies and create things – bring forth vegetables, fruits, houses, roads, rooms. You have to create and that will give you a new idea after some time and that is going to be a discovery.
At this moment, many of you think that because you live with your family, you have to have attachments and you have to face the consequences of attachment and detachment, love and hate. You go through many ups and downs on the emotional plane in relation to your interactions with your family members and friends, and you find it very difficult to change the quality of your experiences. You want to change the quality of your experiences arising from your interactions, but you find it very difficult.
When events in the family and society go against you, you are shocked and unhappy. You don’t know how to manage it. You see, living in an ashram, working hard for the ashram, creating things, gives you another glimpse of your experiences with your people and friends, every now and then. After involving yourself with the ashram work mentally and physically, you will discover something. You will find a new idea, a new approach to the problems of relationships in daily life.
There is a beautiful story, and with this I close. There was a farmer whose wife died. He called the priest and requested him to chant sutra and mantra incantations for her well being in the other world. The priest began to pray. The farmer asked, “Are you praying for my wife?” The priest replied, “I’m praying for her as well as for all sentient and insentient beings.” The farmer exclaimed, “But I asked you to pray for her exclusively. Why are you praying for all?”
So the priest explained, “It is my dharma, my duty, to pray for all beings, sentient and insentient, living and dead, and your wife is one of them.” The farmer said, “But please make an exception. I do not want you to pray for the man who lives next to me because he is a rascal. If you pray for all beings, living and dead, then you are praying for him also, and I don’t want you to do that.”
This is how everybody lives life, but we have to be different, because the whole universe is embedded together, united by one thread and that thread is in you, in me and in everyone.
It is in order to experience this that we come to stay in the ashram for some time. And when we have caught a glimpse of that totality, then we are able to return to our homes with a new vision of life, which will help to guide us through even the most difficult situations.
An ashram is not just an external structure; there has to be a spirit in it. A temple without spirit, a church without spirit, an ashram without spirit or a body without spirit is nonsense. Spirit is symbolized by light, because we need it. In the darkness of night, when you want to go out you take a torch with you, and if you do not have a torch light, you will stumble.
In the same way there are various levels of man’s existence where he needs light, and everywhere there is darkness. We are not able to see within our own selves. Our minds, thoughts, emotions, ambitions, everything is moving in the realm of darkness. By chance we sometimes experience happiness, but it has come to us only by mistake; we do not deserve it. As human beings we are travelling within the spiritual darkness and therefore the essence of light has to be brought in. In the ashram also there has to be light, and the person who is looking after the ashram has to be a light, so that in the course of time he can fill the hearts of his pupils and disciples with inner awareness.
Light and inner awareness mean the same thing. When the inner awareness grows in the mind, intellect and heart of the disciple or pupil, then and only then has he been given the light. When this inner awareness grows within him, gradually inner happiness and understanding increase, and then things begin to change. That is why we inaugurate an ashram with the kindling of a light.
30 January 1984, Rocklyn Ashram, Australia, published in Teachings of Swami Satyananda Saraswati, Volume V