The Yoga Themepark : Rishikesh
Rishikesh titles itself ‘The yoga capital of the world’. No more – no less. This seemed like the perfect place for me to come to get to know the magic world of yoga and get accustomed to travel the country of billions on my own. Rishikesh is different from everything else I have experienced in India so far. In many ways the town resembles a theme park, similar to Walt Disney World in Florida. The atmosphere is different, the menus are different, the people is different. Sure, the cows are still eating plastic wrapped cookies, and the sadhus bathe in the Ganga. I´m not saying this thempark is not in India. But the otherwise unavoidable crowds are nowhere to be seen. There are more pasta and hummus dishes to chose from than Indian curries. Here I feel that I can safely walk around after dark.
In Rishikesh there are Yoga Ashrams on every corner.
Between the yoga ashram there are yoga shops.
In the shops you can get yoga trousers, yoga mats, yoga meditation music, yoga books and curious yoga equipment of various sorts.
In this yoga town, this yoga theme park, I have learnt that yoga is not just yoga. Yoga is a lifestyle, yoga is a religion. Here, yoga is more than stretching, breathing, meditating. The philosophy of yoga is that the universe is all one big system and everything we do affects our physical body.
Our teachers preach for vegitarianism, or veganism, daily. We get lectures on materialism. And healing. And yesterday I decided to follow there advice and saw an Ayurvedic Doctor.
But Yoga is not as innocent as it seems for the uneducated eye, as myself. Yoga also means (I advice sensitive people to skip the rest of this paragraph) … pouring water up your nose every morning – drinking your own urine – drinking liters and liters of water before jumping up and down and through it up again … or getting it out from the other side – ect. ect. ect.
All of this is very appealing to me. I believe that this is what the modern world needs.The so called ‘developed contries’ can learn alot for the ancient Indian yoga and ayurveda science. Im not saying that I will do all of this on a daily bases. You can relax, I will not be offering you warm urin instead of the normal chai when you come over. But this is what I hoped to find in my jurney to India. This brings us closer to nature, closer to humanity.
There is no need for wealth, modern medicine should not be used for every aliment we have. Better yet, we should be able to live much healthier lifestyles than we do up in the wild wild west.
johanna_bjork
‘Earthlings’ is a documentary that tackles the terrible way humans treat other living beings.
Our teachers made us watch it in hope to convert us towards a vegan diet. Although I will not take meat out of my diet completely, this film did have affect on all of us. It is a very disturbing film but well worth seeing for those of you who want to be aware of the world we life in.
here is a link to the films homepage> http://www.earthlings.com/
en spennandi – ég hef eimitt lesið mikið um allskyns tegundir jóga – eimitt þar sem hvatt er til ýmiskonar gjörninga líkamanum þínum til yndisauka – ég hef heyrt um allt sem þú taldir upp nema uppköstin – enda ekki lesið allt í heimi :) ohhh ég hlakka til að heyra meira :)
mér finnst samt aðalatriðið í þessu öllu að þú getur fundið út hvað hentar þér best og orðið meðvitaðri um líkamann þinn um leið – ohh æði –
kisss
Vá þetta hljómar eins og yoga center eins og Aspen er skíða center!!
Já ég heyrði um að hella vatni upp nefið á þér í Oprah – á víst að work wonders, allt frá því að vinna gegn ofnæmis-einkennum og uppí að losa hor… smart I know!! Horfði meira að segja á svona neti pot í apóteki í usa – lagði samt ekki í að kaupa hann :s
Ertu ekki búin að versla þér allar tilheyrandi græjur?
Vá!!! Þetta hljómar alveg ótrúlega Jóhanna – alveg ótrúlega vel! Vona að þú takir eitthvað af þessari vitneskju með þér heim. Ég get annars ekki beðið eftir að byrja sjálf í yoga hérna heima í næstu viku :) Þarf að fara að koma mér í jafnvægi við algeiminn!
Hlakka til að heyra meira af Indlandsför.
Knús í hús