Ashram life began at 4am in the early morning ....with a cold bath. Then everyone went for  chandan which in those days was in the dhuni, the sacred fire place.

My first encounter with the dhuni was on my arrival  in the evening. I stood  at its entrance in my ‘normal’ western clothes trying to go in. But inside me there was a feeling that told me: this is something special and I didn’t go in.

In the morning I went back to the dhuni. A friend of mine had given me his lunghi, an Indian cloth for men, with which I could enter and take part in the early morning ceremony. After the fire, there was the aarati, the same that we had sung in the main temple the evening before.

After this there was a "meeting" called Satsang and HarGovind, the Baba of the Dhuni asked for angel cards. Somebody went up to his room to took them down. I got a nice one, but don't remember what it was exactly, but it was so nice that I decided to stay.

The other reasons that inspired me to stay were the cold early morning showers and the food ‘dhal’ which I hate. All my life I have got myself into situations that made me afraid or made me feel uncomfortable.  Since cold water and dhal were on the top of my hate list I decided to stay.

The breakfast was terrible, dry thick bread "toasted", which means that it was a little burnt over the fire but inside, it was totally dry. The chai was hot and far too sweet, buteverything was very cheap.

I got my first Indian dress, a brown lunghi, not very long "so that I don't step with my feet on it." I felt terrible in this dress. I also felt terrible because the moskitos in the room were very active and I had an upset stomach. In India there is no toilet paper and you always have to touch your arse and together with the problems you also feel like an arse.

Finally we left this room and got ourselves a place in an open house with a fire place and a little room behind the main dhuni. This place was called the “Kali Dhuni” and this is were we slept

The first night in this Kali Dhuni was wonderful, open house, no windows, no door, a fire place and it was very close to the river, so the sound was also wonderful. I woke up in the morning after a dream:

I dreamt that I was sleeping there and a tiger came to this Kutir. I salutated the tiger and the tiger lied down at my feet and we both went to sleep again, in the morning my friend woke up, saw us both sleeping there, cried and tiger killed him ... (in the dream of course)

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