rishikesh

How Sivananda Ashram, In Rishikesh, Changed My Life

It has been three years since the events that are described here took place. Three years since I was a student at Yoga Vedanta Forest Academy, in Sivananda Ashram Rishikesh, learning about a divine lifestyle and how not be affected by little miseries of life.

And yet, I never mentioned anything about the place here. I didn’t even mention much about it in my Rishikesh travel guide blog.

yoga vedanta forest academy

It is not that over the years I’ve lost touch with Sivananda Ashram or that I didn’t want to talk about it. I just never found a compelling reason.

But today, I just happened to have found one.

My Sivananda Ashram, Rishikesh Experience

This place, for me, is like a second home, a place that has nourished my roots and made me what I am today. And just like you don’t feel a need to write about your home, I never felt it important to write about Sivananda Ashram either.

But this time, as I visited Rishikesh to spend a few nights in the Ashram, I was accompanied by a sense of realization — a force, rather — which motivated me to write about it.

It all happened when a friend repeatedly shared his discontentment in life. “It feels as if I am stuck in a hamster wheel and there’s no way out,” he would repeat every time we meet.

Though, unlike others, he would still escape his life in New Delhi, almost every weekend, to trek and recharge his batteries in the Himalayas, the fact that it was a no permanent solution that I suggested to him a rather slow and more effective and lasting solution. I introduced him to the idea of divine living and made him visit Sivananda Ashram Rishikesh — just like I am introducing it to you now!

sivananda ashram rishikesh
How I Got Associated With Sivananda Ashram

When I finally quit my corporate career in 2015, I did so after hopelessly failing in life. I gave up my well-paying job in a media house in England, before moving to India, looking for a change. I thought, moving to India will make me happy. But it didn’t. About one year after my relocation, I switched to three different companies and a few different profiles. Wherever I would go, I would feel a little incomplete within, wanting something else but that. I would plan weekends with my friends only to return next Monday feeling a bit more unsatisfied.

(But now that I look back at it, I know that it wasn’t my lifestyle or the monotonous jobs that lacked something, it was me, or the ever-growing void in my head that felt unresting)

So after changing a few jobs in India, I couldn’t hold it any longer. In March 2015, I decided to leave everything behind and start travelling. I booked a one-way ticket to Bhutan with a rucksack and a few belongings. For the next 6 months, I travelled across parts of Bhutan, Nepal and Northeast India. But as time passed, I realized that I was only, once again, losing time with no purpose and direction. And this time, I was clearly, and more evidently, losing money too. While those 6 months of uninterrupted travelling were sure a highlight and I gained many great experiences, I had no clue about WHAT NEXT!

Six months later, in September 2015, I returned home, feeling more restless than ever. I was hoping for a spark of light when during a casual dinner discussions my father suggested me the two-month-long Yoga Vedanta course in Sivananda Ashram, Rishikesh.

If you do not know, Rishikesh is one of the best places to visit in India for learning Yoga and Meditation. You can call it the hub of spiritual tourism in India – a place that is more popular than all four Char Dham Yatra temples put together.

sivananda ashram
Yoga Vedanta Forest Academy

Since its inception in 1948, Sivananda Ashram has been running three batches, every year, wherein they train a selected 40 students from across India. The training is given irrespective of their religion and professional background. The only condition is, however, they should be men of Indian origin, aged between 20 and 65 years old.

For a period of two months, you stay in The Yoga Vedanta Forest Academy inside the Sivananda Ashram premise and follow a strict schedule, that starts as early as 4 in the morning.

Speaking of the routine, the students wake up at 4 in the morning, followed by a daily one-hour meditation class at 5 am. Throughout the day, the students are bound to attend various lectures learning about Indian scriptures like Bhagwat Gita and Upanishads. Other than that, they learn about Indian and Western philosophy and study what the many great philosophers like Aristotle and Adi Shankara once said and preached.

The aim of the course is not merely academic equipment of Yoga and Vedanta knowledge but a complete transformation of the way we think and perceive life. For a period of two months, the ashram life teaches about discipline and persistence, while integrating our personality in a way that we succeed.

Imagine it like a 20th-century gurukul where students learn about order and discipline — something more useful than any college degree today.

sivananda ashram
How Sivananda Ashram Changed Me

If anything, Sivananda Ashram — thanks to its daily meditation and lectures on how to live a more harmonious and divine life — instilled a sense of positive thinking in me.

If I look back to the original me I would describe myself as an ‘unperturbed directionless person’, while the new me is still ‘unperturbed’ but ‘fairly nonchalant’ at the same time, and that’s a good combination.

The daily routine of meditation and yoga that I continued after my two-month course has conditioned me in a way that negative thoughts are becoming a rarity. I mean if I think of the time when I started travel blogging in January 2016 with little to no idea about how to make money from travel blogging, I cannot imagine how I continued doing it for the initial 8 or 9 months with no income and no hope whatsoever. If it were not for the positive thinking and persistence (and the old me was dealing with it) I would have given up somewhere in the middle, and be right now sitting with a grumpy face in a 4*4 cubicle, working on someone else’s dreams.

So yea, over time, as I continued practising what I learned in the Ashram, I can feel a stronger and more positive change from within.

sivananda ashram dining hall
Some Factual Tips

  • The Yoga Vedanta Forest Academy runs three batches every year (March-April | May-June | September-October) with each course running for a duration of two months.
  • The course is free of cost (however, any donations are always welcome) with two months of free stay, food, lectures and everything else of daily need.
  • The food served in the Ashram is totally Sattvik, however, you will be amazed by the quality of food (that range from fruits to wholesome meals throughout the day) and the kind of accommodation (which may be minimalistic and simple but super-clean).
  • If you think of it as an opportunity to learn Yoga and get a degree to start your career in Yoga, please don’t enrol for the course. Because the aim of the course is rather instilling a divine and positive thought process in the lifestyle of the attendees. Enrol only if you are coming with a keen spiritual aspiration and a deep interest in the practice of Yoga-Vedanta. There are going to be daily lectures on Bhagwat Gita and philosophy and Upanishads for at least 5 hours every day and not everyone can handle it.
  • Smoking, use of intoxicants and drugs, and other dissipating habits are strictly forbidden. Students are expected to live an austere life in the Ashram and should be mentally prepared and physically sound to stand the rigour of the course. You will also be asked to do Karma Yoga which includes duties like weeding the gardens cleaning toilets to serving food in Dining Hall.
  • The total group size of a batch is 40 people that are carefully selected after reviewing their academic background and their thoughts on spirituality. Applicants are required to submit an application (which can be downloaded from YVFA’s website). It is possible that you may be requested to come for an interview before you’re shortlisted.
  • There are quite a few Sivananda Ashrams across India (with two of them in Rishikesh itself, I think) with names such as Sivananda Yogpeeth and Sivananda Dhanvantari Ashram. Please note that they all operate as independent identities and have no connection with the original Sivananda Ashram in Rishikesh. The Sivananda Ashram with Yoga Vedanta Forest Academy is the original Sivananda Ashram with Swami Sivanandaji’s Samadhi Shrine. So if you visit or have already visited any other Sivananda Ashram please make no connections!

rishikesh

sivananda ashram

sivananda ashram food

sivananda ashram

Got questions? Write them in the comments below.

You can also visit me in Manali where I run a homestay now and practice and teach Yoga and other learnings of Sivananda Ashram. It’s a 5-room property located inside of the forest. Guests can stay for a month (starting INR 10 thousand for a private room) and detox and practice divine living.

Check the following video of the property and contact me on Instagram for a booking…

Categories India

About

I am Dev, and I've been travelling full-time since 2016. I was a journalism student & started my corporate career as a documentary film-maker in England, before moving to India & becoming a full-time nomad. 25+countries. 50+ Brand Partnerships. And the adventure continues...

  1. Neeraj Nandan

    Helo Dev,
    hope you must be fine in Manali as you’ve written.
    My name is Neeraj Nandan Age-55years from Patna (Bihar) India.
    I have been a lawyer for 25long years but couldn’t do much from my profession & unfortunately due to accute differences in family I have been left totally alone in life at this age.
    Spirituality catches me high I read extensively about Swami Shivanand Ashram Rishikesh thought I haven’t been there ever, I wrote mails & also talked on phone calls to the Ashram.
    I think to live permanently in the Shivanand Ashram Rishikesh for the rest of my life doing seva over there & living in spiritual surrounding in good association.
    Am I on the write path or not, you are free to give your suggestions, I am too much upset & tensed from life.
    I want to live & do something good around Rishikesh, can you help me!!

    • Hi Neeraj ji, you can visit Sivananda Ashram once (they only give 2 or 3 day accommodation) and figure out how to enroll for the 2 month course. The course is the only way to get involved with the society. If you think tomorrow you go there and ask them to accommodate you forever that wont happen. They don’t accept people like that because of limited accommodation and opportunities. Hundreds and thousands of people would want to go do seva and stay there forever.

      I suggest, write to them for a 2 or 3 day stay. Figure out how to enroll for the course and then slowly try to get absorbed. Hari om. May ishwar be with you 🙂

  2. Moksh Mehndiratta

    Hi, I live in canada,
    i come to india in every winters can you pls guide me is there any way i can join this course in December or Jan.
    pls help

    thnx

  3. Vyankatesh Nerkar

    Hello Brother,
    I genuinely want to visit this place and to live my rest of life here like an ascetic, leaving this worldly life behind. Currently I am studying in standard 12th. I am obsessed with Swami Sivanand Maharaj.
    I wanted to talk with you about this matter in detailed.
    Please brother pin me your contact number
    From
    Maharashtra,India
    venkeynerkar02@gmail.com

  4. Ruby Peethambaran

    Hi Dev,

    Lovely article. Whenever I have considered a residential course, concerns over safety has always held me back. Since this ashram does not accept women disciples, wanted to check in if you are aware of any other ashrams that are good/safe and allows women to enrol.

    Thanks

    • Ashrams of swami shivananda in andhra/ tamilnadu etc allows women to live in ashram. You can contact them.
      And safe also.

  5. Gitanjali Sharma

    Hi Dev, inspirational post.I too left my job as a banker in 2015 to pursue other small real pleasures of life. I’ve been searching for a course on yoga and lifestyle when i bounced into this…Are ladies not taken as inmates? Want to know

    • Hi Gitanjali, as I mentioned in the article, only men (of Indian origin) are allowed in this course.

  6. siddharth Chakravarty

    Hi Buddy ,
    I am from 92nd batch of Yoga Vedanta Academy.Nothing has changed in the Ashram , still a lot like you flock there,I must say a great place to have strong roots. I too learnt a lot and still in process to get my Learning imparted in my Daily Routine.

    • Hello Siddharth ji, thanks for taking the time to write me from the ashram. I keep visiting ashram from time to time (particularly when a new batch starts). I hope you and the others make the most of your time in ashram. Hari om 🙂

    • Hello Siddharth & Dev,
      Can i connect with you people as i am thinking to join this course but still not sure. You guys can ping me your contact number at romit_tola@yahoo.co.in
      It would be a great help towards me.

  7. This is such a lifetime experience. Learning yoga and meditation in todays world is certainly very important

  8. Such an inspiring experience you have shared, Dev

  9. sunil Varun

    Hi Nice Post. Very inspiring.

  10. We all come across a confusing phase in our life where we think what to do next. I have had a similar Ashram experience here in Kerala that has totally changed my life and taught me how to stay positive no matter what happens. I can totally relate to what you wrote there… ‘when I started travel blogging in January 2016 with a little to no idea about how to make money from travel blogging, I cannot imagine how I continued doing it for the initial 8 or 9 months with no income and no hope whatsoever. If it were not for the positive thinking and persistence (and the old me were dealing with it) I would have given up somewhere in the middle’.

    More power to you brother.

  11. This is such an inspiring post Dev. I respect how blatantly you spoke abou it while helping others who are reading this post and are going your a similar confusing phase in life.

  12. Rajesh Popat

    I’m also a hardcore travel enthusiast wants to start my travel blog. After from cancer I lost my job in 2014 January. At present I’m not earning anything & wants to do something in travel industry.
    Please guide me to do something or assist you in your blog any how.

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