My god, I will protect you..
Since I came to the Ashram, beside the fact that I didn’t realize what it meant to stay at an Ashram, I had difficulties keeping up with their rhythm, I could not simply start the day with 2 hours meditation and mantra chanting at 6 am, then
jump straight to a 2 hours non-dynamic Yoga, then eat tasteless food, go to the lecture and workshops, 2 hours yoga again at 4 PM, followed by tasteless dinner, Karma yoga, then at 8 pm again meditation and mantras ending around 9:30 pm…
I have a reflexive reaction to anything in big doses, and that rhythm was a heavy dose…but of course, with my curiosity, I did attend some meditations and the Puja, during those sessions and the unexpected overflowing of religious rituals I was tentatively listening and looking around and absorbing everything around me, much better than watching such ceremonies in a documentary or a movie, however, I could clearly hear my mom’s voice calling out the warriors (i could hear them marching in the meditation hall), and my grandmother –from heaven- calling out the guardians she could find available to come and surround me and “my god” and protect him from potential leakage of “another faith” in the hall of meditation,
Old memories of different but similar ceremonies came back to me: dragged by “obligation”, my mom, grandma and aunt made sure my sisters and I attend the ceremony at my dad’s relative’s house in the heart of Damascus old town.
The wife of my dad’s cousin sitting in the middle chanting religious songs to the sound of traditional musical instruments and everyone chants after her… water, food and people were blessed.
I dreaded those ceremonies, it was in the name of obligation and being a young girl that I was dragged along, I always felt an outsider and the hardest part was when I had to take in the looks of the scrutinising guests wondering why am I not dressed like them and when will I do that and become like them (saved from hell).
Depending on my mood, if I was taken by shyness -which was more often the case- I would just take in those looks and turn my face in shyness towards the ground… But when my rebel was awake I would look back at them with a rude challenging bitter face.
That big house, my grandma, faces of those women, and the songs instantly came back to me in the Ashram, and I caught myself indulging in the corners of those long-missed ceremonies, I could still feel the taste of the delicious food, and was happily chanting the old songs…
By myself, in silence, in the Ashram
Declaration: sometimes I get mad at my rebellious and curious girl for taking me to places I have no idea why and how I end up there, and meeting with people from backgrounds I never imagined socialising with… but now I was thankful to them for refreshing my memory, connecting me to my roots and testing the seed of my faith planted by my grandma.
