Yoga Chaitanya (Sacred Energy)

We bought just over 2 acres of beachfront land in Karnataka, India, in February 2001. It was flat, sandy, open agricultural land with green verdant peanut plants growing over most of it, and a few squash in a small area. There was one 'well', just a large hole in the ground really, with a bucket on a long pole to dip in to haul up water for watering. A small sacred mound where the local god lived, and a spring that filled after the rains, and a few old coconut trees along the sea front border. There was a section of the land, occupying about 20%, which was more rocky, and built up about 10 feet higher than the flat growing area. There was nothing going on here. We called this raised land the 'uppy bit'.
To one side of our land is government land. Dry, rocky, laterite ground sown with casurina trees (pines) on a hill that rises to a headland. The other side houses our neighbours under shady coconut trees in their local style one-storey houses. The few neighbours are farmers with small land holdings on which they grow a variety of crops from peanuts to rice.

The beach is a small bay held by the laterite headlands. Soft sand, clear, blue, safe waters fit for swimming, or fishing, as the locals prefer.
There is a small access road to the beach and surrounding land but no through road, and the lack of polluting, noisy vehicle engines encourage wildlife. Beautiful Brahminy kites nest in coconut tree tops, turquoise kingfishers perch on the electricity line, white wading birds with bright yellow feet scratch about for grubs. Lizards dart about the open plant beds. Shy peahens strut around the hill-sides, and foxes occasionally howl at night.
The bustling local town is a 20 minutes bus ride away and presently remains non touristy. I think we underestimated the amount of work and time needed to turn this haven into a yoga retreat centre. Without living there full time, and only visiting for a few weeks a year, it has been a struggle to even begin to develop the land in our minds desire.
We employ a family who live on the land in a small house, to nurse the greenery and keep the place going when we are in London. The first family we employed did no work whatsoever, but took the salary, so we got off to a very slow start! Our second employee, however, loves his job and his home, and does wonderful green-fingered gardening throughout the year. It is always a pleasant surprise on our visits to see more interesting plants, more blooming flowers and bigger, greener, healthier trees. We have bushes of white flowering Cape Jasmine, many varieties of Croton with its red, yellow and green spots, speckles and veined leaves. Chinese hibiscus with their beautiful red flowers, tall Indian Shot that look like gladioli or lilies, in red or yellow with orange spots, butterfly attracting Cherry Pie with clusters of small yellow, light pink and magenta flowers, banana yellow Buttercups – not the small field flowers of the west, but large golden yellow trumpet flowers of the Dogbane family and Bagflower with its small white drooping lantern shaped flowers that red flowers spill out from.

We have had to plant trees to create shade, to escape the hot midday sun, level and clear land to plant beds, dig drainage channels to inhibit water logging, re-construct a second well, (built by a friend in our absence, that was too small) to water the new plants and trees, make paths and walkways across the land, continually clear grass that grows voraciously each monsoon and reinforce boundary plants to keep neighbouring cattle from eating the flowers! Amongst the trees we have planted are Pomegranates, a while away from contributing to a fruit salad, Frangipani with its grey/green shiny bark and pink flowers. This tree is a symbol of eternal life and therefore often planted in temples or cemeteries, its strong, sweetly smelling flowers also used in offerings. Small scrubby lime trees, and large healthy Cashewnut trees. The mango trees flower, though fruits may not appear until the trees are more established. Small round potato looking Chickoo fruit on their baby trees, flourishing Almond trees with large leaves bigger than your hand, Sealing-wax palms and Travellers Palm. Betel Nut palms, Indian Rubber Fig trees that we have as small pot plants in the UK – ours are over 7 ft tall, and still growing. Our Papaya trees have a crown of huge cleft leaves and will hopefully give us fruit at the bottom of this leafy crown as they become more established.

In the beginning, we would camp under the banana trees in a mosquito net at night, until our house was finally built and ready to move into in January 2005, following a blessing ceremony from the local priest and a gathering of local friends and Raj’s family. A small open air shower room of a round pillar-box design followed behind the house a month later. We have still to construct toilets and rooms for guests, but the kitchen/restaurant is built and now needs interior furnishings and a veranda for communal sitting at meal times. The base foundation of the yoga studio (which will be open on 3 sides) has been built too, and we are continuing to ‘greenify’ what will become the communal, living areas. The centre will accommodate a maximum of 15 people to avoid upsetting the local infrastructure, and retaining the serene beauty of the place.
The building work only happens when Raj is there, so we still have a while to go before we can invite fellow yoga practitioners to come for yoga retreats, but at last it feels like we are getting there. Watch this space!

If you would like to read up on some of our experiences in India, there will be short essays available to read on this site soon.

27/04/06