By Swami Satyananda Saraswati. The ashram culture is a very old tradition. We know about the ashrams in Bharat, ancient Greece, the Essene communities of Palestine. During the Atlantis civilisation we also have references to ashram life. Ashram is a place where people come from every walk of life and live for some time without having any involvement or attachment. There is no caste, colour or sex barrier. In the olden days, kings and ordinary farmers lived together in the ashrams. The ashram life was designed in such a way that everybody automatically participated in the functions, and there was so much co-operation, co-ordination and harmony. The ashram food is different to what we take in our ordinary day to day life. That helps the people to purify their physical bodies. All day in the ashram the aspirants are exposed to physical work, which is very important for spiritual evolution. Intellectual work is a barrier to spiritual life, but physical work relaxes tensions
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