Hard Times are crowding the Yoga Ashrams

Fantasy: living in a commune is a hippiefest of tuning in and dropping out (Tugster).

Sara Eckel (NY Times, July 15, 2009)

Yoga retreats with chores attract the weary and unemployed.

Shortly after Steven Odnoha lost his job at Intel, he drove three days from Rio Rancho, N.M., to the Himalayan Institute in Honesdale, Pennsylvania. For months, Mr. Odnoha had been wondering how he could get the time off to join a yearlong meditation program at the nonprofit yoga retreat. His pink slip, in September 2007, provided the answer.

“I figured if I stayed for a year, the economy would be warming up by then, and I could head back and see what’s available for a semiconductor manufacturing technician,” said Mr. Odnoha, 40, as he picked wild thyme from a small garden outside the institute’s kitchen.

Obviously, the economy didn’t cooperate, but Mr. Odnoha doesn’t mind. Now he spends his days on the Himalayan Institute’s 400-acre wooded campus, practicing hatha yoga and meditation, studying spiritual texts, biking, walking, and preparing meals in the institute’s kitchen. In exchange for his cooking duties and an annual fee of $3,000, he gets a private room, three vegetarian meals a day, and unlimited access to the institute’s classes, seminars, and other events.

Reality: slice of heaven, lunch prep at the Himalayan Inst. in Honesdale, PA (NYT).

The Himalayan Institute is one of many retreats where cash-strapped spiritual seekers can participate in work-study programs in which they pay typically $300 to $900 a month in exchange for a few hours a day of service, like washing dishes, cleaning rooms or weeding gardens.

As the unemployment rate has risen and people have sought refuge from the harsh economy, these work-exchanges have become a hot commodity. The Himalayan Institute received twice as many applications for its summer work-study programs this year as last — its August session is full, with 22 people, compared with 11 last year — and so did two similar retreats, Tassajara Zen Mountain Center in Carmel Valley, California, and Satchidananda Ashram in Buckingham, Virginia (which is better known as "Yogaville").

The people who run these programs say there seems to be a link between the troubled job market and the rising popularity of yoga retreats. More>>