We reached Siddhabari Ashram at the crack of dawn. As with busy 
rides with half sleepy passengers, the persistent question is always, "Are we there yet?". We 
were glad that this would be our last attempt to find an answer. Settling in a new area often involves getting assigned a room, a room mate and finding out the meal arrangements. Often though exploring the toilets jumps to top priority. No different here.
We had an opening session and were given booklets and an orange coat. They said wearing the 
coat was like a form of temporary sannyaas (renunciation, monk-hood) and you give it back when you leave the ashram. The sessions were fine, mostly talks by Swami Mitrananda. We watched a couple of movie clips too. From the Legend of Bagger Vance, we discussed why the main character, a former pro-golfer, had "lost his swing" and how to get it back. It involves having faith in oneself, practise and proper guidance when possible. There was another clip about being in the moment from the film, "Peaceful Warrior".
The food was simple and tasty. It happened to not have salt as apparently some of the residents at the ashram had vows to eat simple, bland food. They provided salt at the end of the table for those who had too, however. Unlike in my army camp where they had a huge machine to wash the dishes, you had to do it yourself here. The clothes, though, you could pay someone to do it. But once again, it was a premium service. It cost Rs 10 per piece.
Evening is aarti time. They have an aarti at the Samadhi area and at the Rama temple. They are
long, long aarati's. Then its bhajan time. We sung and danced and had fun. It was still lukewarm though, the real fun was to begin the next day.
Tuesday being a special day for Hanuman, they conducted a Vada-mala pooja. It's basically a normal pooja with a garland of vadas (medu vadas, really) as an offering. In the evening, we headed out for our treasure hunt. They gave us obscure, poetic clues which could be interpreted in a million ways, kind of like scriptures. Notably, there was a clue about having a "pure heart". Everyone, caught up with the Hindu mindset, guessed some kind of temple, school or ashram. It turned out to be "Sacred Heart", a missionary school. Eventually those clues brought us to an isolated Shiva temple up the hill.
The actual shivalinga was in a cave some distance away from the main temple. Since one of the clues required talking to a babaji at the temple, we all gathered around to listen. He looked like this but with shorter, blacker hair. He had proper jataa (dreadlocks) and he looked really angry when we surrounded him. One girl whipped out her phone to take a picture, that did it and he shouted at her. This other guy had taken out his orange coat and placed it crumpled down on his lap. This, Babaji thought was a mockery of the concept. Nonetheless he kept talking. The same guy began asking personal questions about the man and historical questions about the temple. Questions which he either did not give a damn about or didn't know the answers too. It reminded me of a verse by Kabir Das, "Jaata Na poocho Sadhu ki | Pooch lijiye Gyan", Do not ask a Sadhu about his Jati, ask about his knowledge. He still kept talking though and slowly the group left, I and a few boys lost interest in the game and decided to stay on and listen while the rest of the group went on to the cave to see the shivalinga.
His countenance changed and his voice became friendlier. He began asking us if we had any doubts and he gladly answered them. Aniket asked him why we felt the need to prove ourselves, so desperately, to others. The reply was that we didn't believe in ourselves and thus need others validation. When I heard that I laughed out loud because it was such a simple but genuine answer. He said so many things which just made us want to wait and listen more, time was running out and we needed to get back to the Ashram.Note: The last two pictures were snapped by my friend.
Facebookers: Check out the rest of the blog here
hi
sidbarri was fun
and so was treasure hunt..
we guys also had great fun in monestary..
p.s u r blogrolled
-deepshikha