Tureya Ashram: How much does it cost, or how much should I donate?

I am planning to go to the Tureya ashram in Tamil Nadu on February 15th and I am a little worried about the cost. I was offered private sessions of yoga and meditation as well as a private room and three meals a day. All this sounds fabulous but I am student and should make sure I am not shooting beyond my limit. I asked the very kind person I was corresponding with at the ashram (in an indirect and polite way) how I could give back to the ashram and he hasn't answered my now three week old email. I don't want to insist and to kill the extreme generosity he has shown so if anyone in this forum can give me a ballpark notion of the amount I should expect to pay for a ten day stay I would be really grateful.
If you don't know about this ashram in particular, maybe you know about others. I know sometimes you can do work on the ashram instead or in addition to giving money and I would be happy to do that. Any and all answers will be highly appreciated. Thanks! Excellent forum!

Have a wonderful day.

Indian ashrams are notorious for not answering emails. The best thing to do is to telephone them and ask. Some ashrams ask for Seva,(service), some ask for a donation(often a "suggested"amount, some ask for both. It's best to just ask them.

I've been communicating with them for quite some time now as I am going there next year. I have written material from them, which course are you talking about? if it is the "individual guidance in Kriya Yoga...etc.", it says "varies upon length of stay and specific training." if it is the intro course in yoga, it's $300 for two weeks. if you are talking about the "volunteer work and community living", it's $500/month + 3 meals a day and boarding.

don't hesitate to send another email and ask point blank what the cost is. in my experience they are good about returning emails in a speedy manner.

hope this helps. I for one would love to hear about your experience with them!

hi there, i really wanted to got to tureya but first of all they said the price 450-600 rupee per day then they said it was 4 times as much as this!!! I emailed them saying this woiuld make it extrememly dificult for me to come and they haven't replied back, this was weeks ago, so now i am disullusioned with them! if you find somewhere good let me know, don't go to the yoga institute in mumbai unless you want constant basic philosophy bordering on indoctrination. god luck!

Thank you all for the helpful responses. It is disconcerting to know that this ashram is potentially really, really expensive! They won't answer my recent more insistent emails...
I think I am just going to go anyway and figure something out when I am there. Worse case scenario I am sure I will be able to talk to some people who might point me in another direction. I will keep you posted on costs once i get a chance to talk to them face to face.
I just can't believe it would be this expensive!

Good luck and thanks again for the messages. Any more answers or opinions out there?

Cheers!

hi marjorie,

it sounds like theres a few of us that havent heard back recently from them, but I wouldn't worry just yet. like another person that has posted here, ive been in touch with the ashram for some time now and they have been really helpful. all my reply emails from them have been 'personal' instead of a general email response that many places give. they even said to me that i could ask them anything to aid my spiritual journey in life even if i end up not going to stay there. the only issue i have, like yourself, is that compared to other places (even the sivananda ashrams that are renound for being quite expensive), the costs seem quite high. not for the yoga courses, but for staying at the ashram in general. i think its about 500 dollars per month to stay there, which seems quite a bit compared to many other places. however, they do have connections with a local volunteer charity so i think a lot of the money going into the ashram could possible be used towards this?

greetings..I know everyone has different experiences but i feel like i need to share mine.. i have been to tureya, and chose to go there by looking at their web-site,and a very good review on indiamike, which i believe was written by someone from the 'ashram' and the threat finally closed because of the spams they sent.. From their very professional web-site, and the course fees (which is really a lot of money in India standards), I expected to have experienced teachers, yoga studio, a small classroom, actual yoga and theory classes, and even a small temple. Although I committed for 2 months for yoga therapy program, I left the ashram after my first week and lost bunch of money and time.(we were 6 people and 4 of us left at the same time). I found the classes very inadequate, the yoga spaces unhealthy, and the teachers inexperienced. the schedule had nothing to do with what i was promised, and we ended up doing
more karma yoga than classes. they said they were observing us and we were not ready yet... There were only 3 people in the ashram(Swami, his assistant, and a woman doctor/teacher/cook etc. and I should say she was a great cook), and they all were very very friendly at first. At the end, we had lunch with Swami and his American assistant, and they did not mind eating pizza and drinking coffee while trying to convince us to go back to the ashram. We had really bad arguments when I tried to get the rest of my refund, and I felt really threatened (they even said they know someone from the FBI of India and they will not let me leave the country if i continue calling them) and humiliated by them. i had a really hard time and our conversations started to be really ugly and i finally gave up arguing with them and forget the money.. I felt like I was dealing with a mafia not someone from an ashram.. and i can go on and on..
As I wrote everyone's experience is different. I believe I was there for the right reasons, and I was really disappointed. Leaving the ashram lead me to more beautiful places and more serious ashrams and I am still trying to understand my lesson and the reasons that brought me there. I would not prefer to write a bad review about anything (and i still cannot help feeling bad about writing something negative about an ashram and I am still afraid they are going to do something against me, so i have waited to be back home before writing this) but before making my decision i asked people's opinion on indiamike and I thought I should share my experience too.. if you do not know someone who have been there and their web-site is your only criteria to decide, i would say think one more time.

I appreciate reading this as I had planned to go there, but now.....?

One can usually find lots of positive and negatives comments about certain swamis, ashrams, etc. on the internet, but this is the first time I have read anything bad about them.

this blog http://shaktispiritualscience.blogspot.com/#today
has the most information about Tureya that I have found thus far.....

Certain posts in this thread have been removed under the rules about first post recommendations. Any posts relating to them have also been deleted.

Here is the closed thread on Tureya:Yoga Psychology in Tureya Foundation???

It's full of fake recommendations. It annoyed the hell out of me at the time and I have not forgotten about it (clearly).

IM member jeffyd also had a bad experience there.

and I have sent an email to them quoting post #7 and telling them I'd like an explanation

I don't know anything about this ashram.

But I am not surprised at some of the reports.

I applaud cosmicjel's writing. too many times people are afraid to diss anything "spiritually" related, and the same is true in the yoga world. I can't tell you how many times someone has had a bad experience with who I call the "show biz yogis" because they will be looked down on or seen as being "disloyal." bullshit. call a spade a spade.

you can bet that if Tureya emails me back I am going to post their response.

Look forward to it ...

Sign of the times I 'spose. You'll remember my episode.
Other people who dissed this guy were afraid he would make them sick, and hurt their family.
They must have great powers of persuasion I'd say.
No-one else managed to "grab" me like him.


Just as an off topic thing. You can see how Lord of the Rings was written in India.

It's Saruman and Wormtongue all over again.

I am still waiting their reply (or defense) to my email to them, asking for an explanation.