Seven years of ARDG: interview with Satya Kaur

The co-founder looks back on how a family house became an ashram, why the association was created and where it should go next.

Satya Kaur founded Associação Ram Dass Guru with her husband Shiv Charan Singh in 2013. Since then she has been an essential part of its growth and of the consistency of its values. Seven years later, we invited her to sum up the most significant changes, as well as how her life is still entwined with ARDG and its main project, the Ashram Ram Dass Guru at Quinta do Rajo.

ARDG: How does a family house become an ashram?

Satya Kaur: It became an ashram spontaneously. About six weeks after we arrived, a friend visited us and brought a friend with her. The young man came here and said: “Look, to me this is an ashram, I feel like I’m in India. I would like to do seva here.” He was not connected to Kundalini Yoga, but he lived here and became the first sevadar. He stayed for a long time and his help in this pioneering phase was important. All of this was in September 2008.

ARDG: When was the Association created, and when did it become responsible for managing the Ashram?

SK: At the beginning everything was one, like the world. It was us, our home, the Ashram, the company: everything was ONE. We suddenly realised there was a lot of work and we couldn’t handle everything, financially and energetically. So at the beginning of 2013 ARDG was created, and shortly afterwards it officially took over the management of the Ashram.

ARDG: What was the purpose of creating the Association?

SK: As Sikhs we feel an obligation to donate 10% of what we receive. In Portugal, and in this area, we looked for institutions doing beautiful work with nature, animals and so on, to invest a certain amount every month. We didn’t find anything that really made a difference and had to do with us. So we created ARDG to invest these funds in actions that made sense to us. Initially, ARDG’s intention was to take the techniques of Kundalini Yoga, which we believe in as teachers and as individuals, to people who would normally not have access to these teachings, and whose lives would be transformed if they did. At the beginning the objectives were not so specific: there was an idea and a desire, but nothing exactly clear. Little by little everything materialised.

ARDG: After 7 years, how do you see ARDG?

SK: I think it has become a model of life: living in community, and proof that what we know, what we teach and what we propose is manifested and realised. Truth, justice and ecological principles are manifested day by day in the way the Ashram, its inhabitants and its visitors live and experience the space. And today the Ashram is not just the space or the building: it is a whole community that has grown and flourished around us.

ARDG: After being President of ARDG for 5 years, how would you describe your relationship with it now?

SK: Well, I’m here and ARDG has its headquarters there (you can see the Ashram from Satya’s house), and it will continue to be so at least for a while. I always consider that I will have a role of some influence, sometimes direct, sometimes indirect. My idea is more to take care of the direction ARDG takes and what it manifests, to make sure things stay true to the initial purpose. Times are changing a lot, and in my view that same purpose now has to include more urgent things, in this case environmental issues, which were not a priority at the beginning and need to be.

ARDG: How do you see the relationship between ARDG and the Ashram?

SK: The Ashram is something that has to be managed, and ARDG has taken over its management. Why not? There were other options, but this was the one that was there and was a priority. The Ashram and ARDG are linked, but ARDG must keep investing in other activities: those that already exist, which should not be abandoned, and going further, to those who will never find us so directly. At this moment it makes sense to have these two lines: the space, with its management and maintenance, and the investment in finding other communities that need these teachings.

ARDG: A suggestion for the future Board of Directors?

SK: I think ARDG should invest more in protecting nature and in how to live in a more balanced and deeper way with the environment, taking care of it. Not only saving resources, but also encouraging the people who pass through the Ashram to relate to nature in a more intimate and fearless way.