Conventional Ashrams
An ashram is a place where spiritual education and spiritual practice
are offered, where a large number of disciples live together in harmony and
everything that is necessary for the ashram being produced by cooperative
effort. Often these ashrams were deep in the jungles of India and they were
isolated communities. They were exclusive in the sense that those who were
willing to pass through their portals, never came out again. Only such people
entered them because it used to be the tradition that a disciple who entered
when he was young did not come out as the same person; he came out a transformed
individual, a rishi.
So this was the function of the ashrams. They had no luxury. They were rarely solid buildings. Mostly they were structures of bamboo and wood with thatched roofs, offering the minimum of security and protection from the climate. Thanks to our Master, we have a much better edifice than they ever had. And compared to those ashrams, our ashrams today are luxurious.
Many ancient saints have applauded the idea of an ashram as giving an opportunity to young aspirants to live in personal contact with their Guru, to serve the Guru and be served by him, creating an atmosphere of humility, of love, learning the real knowledge from the Master, how to live this life in such a way that the life hereafter is an assured one in that puissance of divine glory, which we call liberation, realisation, merger with the Infinite, stage by stage.
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