Namaste Series: Eco Yoga Park

This week I had the privilege of experiencing a truly unique and spiritual experience at Eco Yoga Park, a type of yoga monastery just 1.5 hours outside of Buenos Aires. Originally, I had read about this place and was interested in visiting for the day during my last week in BA to get a break from the city and enjoy some quiet relaxation and yoga. What I discovered was an amazing community I hadn't known existed and one that I wish I would have been able to stay at for an extended period. Eco Yoga Park is an eco-village run by members of the Hare Krishna movement, a religious community based on the principles of the Bhagavad-gita scripture. It is a movement originally from India including the practice of bhakti yoga, spiritual chanting, prayer and a life dedicated to these beliefs including, but not limited to seeking unity, peace, consciousness and truth. As a yoga enthusiast and one that has a general interest in studying religions, I have been fascinated with learning more about the Hare Krishna community, life and principles.

view of the property

At Eco Yoga Park, travelers are able to come and volunteer on the property, and with an additional small fee, in return receive room and board and participate in the yoga classes, musical thereapy/chanting sessions and other activities; a type of work/volunteer exchange. The community  that Eco Yoga Park receives truly make it such a magical place. I met fascinating people from all over the world that were living at the park for as little as a few days and as long as a month, creating a true mecca for open-minded, curious and adventurous travelers.



working in the garden

During my day I was able to join the others for breakfast (all food is home-cooked and completely vegan on the premises and of course mostly everything comes from the on-site garden, could it get any better?) After breakfast, volunteers head back to work (the first working session is before breakfast beginning at sunrise) for a couple of hours before a yoga session mid-morning. I took a tour of the property. After our mid-morning hatha yoga class (taught on this day by a teacher from Minnesota who was visiting the property) we had some relaxation time before lunch. Later in the afternoon, we could participate in a mantra-therapy session led by the Swami (monk/priest) followed by a meditation session. In the evening we had a sit-down session with the Swami who answered any and all questions about the Hare Krishna way of life and his own personal path and engaged in discussion with the group about the various spiritual beliefs. It was both a unique, eye-opening and educational experience that is hard to put into words. The most impactful words of wisdom for me  he did share were about their reasons for leading a vegetarian lifestyle and how the treatment of all living beings is really at the core of their beliefs. In addition, his thoughts on how we can only control ourselves, our bodies, our actions and our beliefs and that in and of itself is one of the most challenging things we will deal with our entire life made quite an impact. I had only come to the park for the day, but since the discussion with Swami ended so late, I opted to stay the night and depart early the next day, which gave me an opportunity to enjoy another delicious vegan meal, get to know the other travelers more deeply and participate in garden work the next morning. There is nothing quite like connecting with the earth at sunrise in the middle of beautiful farmland in Argentina, I feel truly lucky I was able to experience it, if only for the short time. 

Inside the temple where we practiced yoga

What I also learned during my visit is that Eco Yoga Park is affiliated with a network of ecological farm/yoga monasteries across the continent called Eco Yoga Villages. There are many similar communities located all around Central and South America, in an effort (according to the website) to strive to establish a synthesis of the need of mother earth and the thirst for harmony in all of us. The goal was to take the yoga lifestyle as discovered in India and spread it across South America to estabish these ecological communities; a beautiful and peaceful concept in my opinion. My small taste of the community created such a thirst for more I might try and squeeze in a visit to the village in Chile on my way back to Santiago in May. Namaste.