Eat, Pray, Love

sites.)
The students here are about equally divided between Indians and Westerners (and the
Westerners are about evenly divided between Americans and Europeans). Courses are
taught in both Hindi and English. On your application, you must write an essay, gather refer-
ences, and answer questions about your mental and physical health, about any possible his-
tory of drug or alcohol abuse and also about your financial stability. The Guru doesn’t want
people to use her Ashram as an escape from whatever bedlam they may have created in their
real lives; this will not benefit anyone. She also has a general policy that if your family and
loved ones for some reason deeply object to the idea of your following a Guru and living in an
Ashram, then you shouldn’t do it, it’s not worth it. Just stay home in your normal life and be a
good person. There’s no reason to make a big dramatic production over this.
The level of this woman’s practical sensibilities are always comforting to me.
To come here, then, you must demonstrate that you are also a sensible and practical hu-
man being. You must show that you can work because you’ll be expected to contribute to the
overall operation of the place with about five hours a day of seva, or “selfless service.” The
Ashram management also asks, if you have gone through a major emotional trauma in the
last six months (divorce; death in the family) that you please postpone your visit to another
time because chances are you won’t be able to concentrate on your studies, and, if you have
a meltdown of some sort, you’ll only bring distraction to your fellow students. I just made the
post-divorce cutoff myself. And when I think of the mental anguish I was going through right
after I left my marriage, I have no doubt that I would have been a great drain on everyone at
this Ashram had I come here at that moment. Far better to have rested first in Italy, gotten my
strength and health back, and then showed up. Because I will need that strength now.
They want you to come here strong because Ashram life is rigorous. Not just physically,
with days that begin at 3:00 AM and end at 9:00 PM, but also psychologically. You’re going to
be spending hours and hours a day in silent meditation and contemplation, with little distrac-
tion or relief from the apparatus of your own mind. You will be living in close quarters with
strangers, in rural India. There are bugs and snakes and rodents. The weather can be ex-
treme—sometimes torrents of rain for weeks on end, sometimes 100 degrees in the shade
before breakfast. Things can get deeply real around here, very fast.
My Guru always says that only one thing will happen when you come to the Ashram—that
you will discover who you really are. So if you’re hovering on the brink of madness already,
she’d really rather you didn’t come at all. Because, frankly, nobody wants to have to carry you
out of this place with a wooden spoon clenched between your teeth.
Eat, Pray, Love