8/27/2026

The most intriguing part by far for me was the chanting today. Saying, or I should say singing, in a foreign language with all these people I don’t know, but who are here for similar reasons, is a little eerie.

There’s a spider in the corner of my room. It’s a pretty big one, and typically it would be long dead by my hands at this point.

But since I’m here, I wanna respect the space, and I don’t think I can safely get it out of here without crushing it. Does it say anything about me or about my presence here? Probably not. It probably just says that I’m trying very hard to be a better person, but I may not understand what that really means. Or what would need to happen for that to become true.

It’s much more likely that I’m already a good person holding myself to impossible standards. On the other hand, I look at everybody living on this ashram. Most of them don’t have jobs. They’re simply volunteers, and they live on the property. And this is their life. This is so very different from mine.

They said something interesting today: that we use all the senses we were given constantly in this world to detect, at all times, whether we are safe. And those words were singing right into my ear because I had written about this long, long ago during COVID. I wrote two separate things. One piece was about our senses, starting from a dark place where you can’t feel anything because we don’t have any senses. Then I wrote about receiving each one, one by one, on a stage where we’re performing the same old sad tune by the end.

Then I wrote another piece in which fear had set up shop in the corner of my mind and decided that it was never going to leave. I wrote that I should invite the fear for tea and have a conversation. I should be reasonable. I should not let it govern my life.

Sadly, I was too deep in all those emotions at the time to even comprehend what my subconscious was trying to tell me in the form of poetry and prose. I mean, I knew. But I certainly could not execute against my own wishes, nor could I fathom what it could have meant to do so.

While I was chanting, I had this feeling of unfamiliarity. It was the most unfamiliar and, honestly, quite uncomfortable thing to do. They told us to feel the vibration in our bodies, but as I was chanting, all I could think was that this wasn’t my language, and this felt wrong, like I’m stealing something.

At the end of our yoga class, we lay down to meditate. Some people covered their eyes. I had a pillow under my knees and my head, and our instructor guided us through what was essentially progressive muscle relaxation. At the end of it all, there was meant to be complete silence, but one very obnoxious man was breathing very, very loudly when nobody else was. Simply huffing and puffing all over what would’ve otherwise been a dead-silent room, where you could hear the quietest insect fly to the window and land on it.

But this man disturbed the peace, and all I could think was how irritating it was. I ended up opening my eyes and even looking over to see what was happening. I couldn’t see who it was from the floor, though, but I know that there are only two men, and it wasn’t the one all the way to my right.

Eventually, this man fell asleep and started snoring so loudly that it shook the entire room. I wanted to scream. I wanted to bang my fist against the floor and yell, “Shut up.” The anger started to consume me, and every time I told myself, “This is what I am here for, to find the inner peace to let these types of things go,” he snored just a little bit louder and sent me to the depths of hell. Or at least that’s how it felt with the thoughts that crossed my mind. Thankfully, the instructor woke us up eventually. And we did some chanting there too. This was my first five o’clock class after getting here.

After this class, we moved to have dinner. I sat alone. I didn’t mind it at all. I picked the salad and the rice and some tomatoes and some other things I couldn’t possibly tell you what they were. But it was delicious, and I didn’t hate it at all.

After I was done, I grabbed some tea and headed outside into the courtyard, where I found two very dirty men talking. When I say dirty, I mean they literally looked like they had been rolling in dirt. However, the first words to come out of one of their mouths were that they had been orange-pilled. My first thought was, wow, I can never escape this. But then I asked if I could interject and ask them if they knew anything about my company. They said, “Of course.” And we laughed about how I couldn’t help but talk, even though I wanted to try to stay silent during this retreat.

This revealed to me that I am inherently a social person who wants to have conversations with people and understand them.

I told them my name was Ahka Rhash, and they accepted and remembered my name immediately. I was very impressed. They asked me if it was Sanskrit. I told them that it just came to me one day many, many years ago and that it was my spiritual name. And they nodded and accepted the statement without hesitation. This level of open-mindedness is not found everywhere, and I really appreciated that I was able to express this part of myself.

Later in the night, a van took us up to Kailash, which overlooked the temple. We all sat in chairs and on the floor, and we introduced ourselves. Normally, I would worry about what I would say, but our guide told us that we don’t know each other, but we’re all friends here. So I figured when the time came, I would say what needed to be said.

When my turn did come, I told them what my real name was, and then my spiritual name, and that it just came to me. I told them I don’t typically practice yoga, but I have found myself turning to it sporadically throughout my life. I said that I was from Georgia, and they all nodded in acknowledgment that they knew where it was. And most importantly, I ended by telling them that we moved here when I was eight and that I feel a very intense divide within myself that I hope to integrate. And this is just what came to me in that moment, and so I must trust what I said and lean in.

Ultimately, I believe the focus was that when we moved here, my whole life changed, and therefore, so did I. And in that process, I lost the most beautiful parts of my inner self that I hope to find again. Like the joy and the not-so-seriousness. The happiness. The silliness. The beauty before comparison set in. The family before I started paying attention to the nuances. The safety before the fear crept in.

Truth be told, I’m not sure the safety was ever there, but at least, for the most part, I felt safe in my own body. Over time, I lost this confidence. Over time, my friends betrayed me, and I betrayed them. Over time, we all made mistakes, and I had no outlet for my emotions. They all stirred inside. But they were uncomfortable, so then they got pushed and hidden deeper and deeper. Assumptions were made, then agreements with myself, now long forgotten, yet I continue to live with them.

The goal is to no longer.