01/24/2020
The word "Ashram" means house of the teacher.
There is no official form or shape of an Ashram. Ours started out as a single house back in 1970.
We had to move in 1977. Why? One morning, in preparing for Sadhana, someone lit the candles on the altar without seating them firmly in the holders. One of them fell over and lit the curtains on fire.
So, about 3 am that morning, instead of "Wake up, time to meditate", we were jarred out of slumber with "FIRE!" Straight out of deep sleep to "FIRE!!"
We jumped up and ran around making sure everyone was awake and getting out of the house. The fire department came pretty quickly, but not soon enough. The house was not livable. (Hint: close all doors behind you as you leave. The smoke did more damage to our possessions than the fire.)
We were standing on the street as the sun came up. No house, not knowing where we would be that night.
Oh yeah, one more thing. It was opening day at our new Health Food store! We couldn't even stay around to clean up. We had to immediately go to open the doors of our brand new business without knowing where we would sleep that night.
We put Livtar Kaur on the case. She started calling everyone we knew, especially real estate agents.
You can say miracle or not, but one of the agents said they had a house that was empty. And, the owner wanted someone to house sit for about a month, FREE of charge.
After work, we had to go pack up everything we owned and move it all to the new house, then be ready the next morning to open up the store again. Then we had to find more permanent accommodations since we only had the house for 30 days. We did find a new house. The Gold House. That's another story.
It's working together that is the essence of Ashram. On all kinds of levels, in many and varied situations.
Were people grumpy or put out during all this? Oh hell yes, some of the time. But we kept up because we lived in a flow.
Now the ashram is where you can receive the distilled wisdom and experience of all the years, tears, trials, and exaltations. Classes are weekly (mostly), Sundays at 9 am. But always check here first because sometimes the day changes.
