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What I will be hosting, to be exact, is a series of retreats to be held at the Ashram this
spring. During each retreat, about a hundred devotees will come here from all over the world
for a period of a week to ten days, to deepen their meditation practices. My role is to take care
of these people during their stay here. For most of the retreat, the participants will be in si-
lence. For some of them, it will be the first time they’ve experienced silence as a devotional
practice, and it can be intense. However, I will be the one person in the Ashram they are al-
lowed to talk to if something is going wrong.
That’s right—my job officially requires me to be the speech-magnet.
I will listen to the problems of the retreat participants and then try to find solutions for
them. Maybe they’ll need to change roommates because of a snoring situation, or maybe
they’ll need to speak to the doctor because of India-related digestive trouble—I’ll try to solve
it. I’ll need to know everybody’s name, and where they are from. I’ll be walking around with a
clipboard, taking notes and following up. I’m Julie McCoy, your Yogic cruise director.
And, yes, the position does come with a beeper.
As the retreats begin, it is so quickly evident how much I am made for this job. I’m sitting
there at the Welcome Table with my Hello, My Name Is badge, and these people are arriving
from thirty different countries, and some of them are old-timers but many of them have never
been to India. It’s over 100 degrees already at 10:00 AM, and most of these people have
been flying all night in coach. Some of them walk into this Ashram looking like they just woke
up in the trunk of a car—like they have no idea at all what they’re doing here. Whatever desire
for transcendence drove them to apply for this spiritual retreat in the first place, they’ve long
ago forgotten it, probably somewhere around the time their luggage got lost in Kuala Lumpur.
They’re thirsty, but don’t know yet if they can drink the water. They’re hungry, but don’t know
what time lunch is, or where the cafeteria can be found. They’re dressed all wrong, wearing
synthetics and heavy boots in the tropical heat. They don’t know if there’s anyone here who
speaks Russian.
I can speak a teensy bit of Russian...