Since my childhood, living in a rural area was a dream for me. I always wanted to have enough to be able to live in a village at a slower pace. Whenever I used to visit my village in Bihar, I loved the experience. I noticed that life there has fewer conveniences, but the peace and serenity always attracted me. I’m okay living without the fancies of metropolitan cities if I can live surrounded by lush greenery.
About seven months ago, I got a chance to live in the mountains, and since then I have been living here. If you ask me why I chose to live here, I’d say I don’t know exactly. I don’t think I can give you a logical reason for it because, before making this decision, I did not think logically. I think I just went with my gut feeling or something. And it’s actually going fine for me.
In my life, I have made many decisions without using much of my brain but instead trusting my whole body. Sometimes there is a feeling when the whole body feels at peace and at ease. And I know the body is liking it. It might be an extension of the gut feeling.
It can be understood in a way that fear works in our body. Fear isn’t experienced only in the brain; it’s a physical experience. Fear is felt in the whole body. Similarly, the feeling that something is good for me is also experienced in the whole body. So when I feel that, I know for sure that it’s a good direction for me.
I have been on the spiritual path for the last 10 years now. I’ve been working on myself. I think this is the best thing I can do in this whole life. I have tried different types of meditation techniques, listened to different spiritual gurus, read many books, and listened to people who shared their experiences but did not consider themselves as gurus.
One such person is Anand Diwedi. I listened to him in the beginning of 2024 on YouTube when he was considerably new on YouTube with less than 1000 subscribers. At this time, I was in Kerala in the final year of my post-graduation. It was the placement season there, and I was unsure whether I even wanted to take a full-time job or not. His experiences helped me navigate through this chaos in my mind. I had in mind to try to meet him in person around the end of December 2024, but it so happened that I got a chance to meet him earlier, in October 2024.
In October, I had a friend who was suffering internally. It was getting unbearable for him, and he wanted to speak his heart out. He thought it would be helpful if we went on a road trip together, just so he could express himself openly. So I suggested we should go and see Mr Anand. I asked him to take responsibility for organizing the meeting with him, thinking it would keep him engaged and not let his mind wander into unnecessary thoughts.
So it was around 27th of October, I think, when I came to APV. APV stands for Ashram Paryavaran Vidyalaya. It’s a unique school whose foundation is rooted in meditation and music. There is an APV community — a mindful community of the teachers who teach in the school. Here, the teachers do not return home after school; instead, they live here together in a community and pursue their inner journey.
So when I came here, all of these things felt like home to me. Without much logical thought, I asked them if I could be a part of this community, and after some internal discussions, they allowed me to be a teacher here. And now it’s been seven months that I have been living here with the community in the middle of the Himalayas.
So how is it going for me?
It’s going beautifully. I don’t know how quickly these seven months passed, but I know that I felt joyful every single day living here.
The life here is difficult as compared to city life, but all these difficulties feel worth it — just like a good workout. It always feels tough while you’re exercising, but when you finish it, you feel great.
I feel that I am a very energetic person, and when I don’t find a channel to express my energy by doing things I like, I feel terrible. That unused energy starts creating havoc in my mind and body.
I remember when I was in Kerala during my post-graduation or at home, I always had 1–2 sleepless nights a week, just because of overthinking at night. That overthinking was a result of excess energy that hadn’t gotten a chance to express itself. When I wasn’t physically or creatively engaged, that energy would manifest in overthinking, and it resulted in sleepless nights.
And for the last seven months, to my surprise, I haven’t had a single sleepless night here at APV. Before coming here, I used to think it was normal to have a sleepless night or two, because I saw people around me having the same. But now I can say that my sleep cycle has improved drastically. I hadn’t gotten this kind of restful sleep in my whole life.
Here I have very diverse things to do, and I love this diversity of tasks. Otherwise, I’d die of boredom if I were made to do just one kind of work all the time. And recently I started studying Ayurveda, where I came to know about my body type. There I learned that for my body, it’s very difficult to stick to a particular thing for a long time. And I am okay with it. I enjoy this, actually. People have often discouraged me for this, but this has really been working well in my life.
I’d like to note down some of the activities we do here on a daily basis. These activities include helping in the kitchen, where 12–15 people are fed daily, teaching students, creating fun and interesting study material and activities for the students to learn effectively, working in the fields, taking care of the school and community living area, practicing musical instruments and singing, creating artwork of various forms, going to the forest to collect firewood, meditating, going to the market (about 400 m down from where we live on the hill), going for mindful treks, and much more.
Sometimes it gets so demanding that the only way to do it is to lose yourself completely — to devote yourself fully and let the work take over you. Then you don’t think about tiredness or your capabilities. You go all in until the work is done, and here you break the mental barriers that previously defined what you could and couldn’t do. And with each of these barriers removed, your growth is unlocked.
So here I feel wonderful each day. I feel I grow each day. It’s much better to go to bed tired instead of going to bed with a lot of unused energy. So it’s going beautifully, and I’m grateful for it every day.