Adultery The Swamiji: The Ashram of the Sacred Angels

[shailu4ever]

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She poured it over her shoulders, feeling the dirt from the garden wash away, the weight of it vanishing, leaving her skin smooth and tingling. As the water poured over her skin, Ahalya felt a shift, her self-consciousness beginning to dissolve with every drop.
 
The warmth of the air, the cool touch of the water, the quiet sounds of the others around her, all of it seemed to welcome her into something more, something timeless.
 
The water glided over her limbs, slops, hills and valleys slipping into the spaces never seen by anyone, filling her body with something liquid and still. She closed her eyes.
 
She wasn’t alone in her vulnerability; they were all here, together, in this space, learning together.
 
Around her, the other women moved, their actions like a shared ritual, though no words had ever been spoken about it. There was no need. They all knew this quiet exchange, this sacred cleansing.
 
No shame. No rush. Just the soft press of water, the sensation of skin being washed clean, the body renewed in its simplest form.
 
As the last traces of garden dirt slipped from her skin, Ahalya felt something else leave with it, a weight she hadn’t even known was there.
 
When they finished, they were given new clothes, simple undyed cotton saree, a single length of cloth that felt cool against her skin. Meera moved around them, showing them how to wrap it, how to dbang it around their bodies with quiet precision.
 
The fabric fell to mid-calf, soft against her long legs, a simple shift from one form of being to another.
 
“This is daily wear,” Meera said, her fingers adjusting the cloth with practiced ease. “Simple. Practical. The same for everyone.”
 
Ahalya stood still, her breath quiet as she let the fabric settle around her. She realized with a small, almost imperceptible sigh that her kurtas, the ones she had so carefully packed, the ones that had marked her old identity, would not be needed here.
 
They were gone, without ceremony, without weight. Another surrender. Another quiet loss.
 
She adjusted the cloth around her shoulders, the simple fabric cool and light against her skin, and for the first time, she felt it, the soft weight of belonging. Not from what she wore, but from the absence of something else.
 
Meera’s eyes moved over them, approving, but with a quiet reserve. Her smile, when it came, was slow and knowing.
 
Ahalya did not yet understand what had happened in the garden or the bathhouse, or how the hours had passed in such a way that felt at once slow and inevitable. But the question lingered, faint as a whisper in her mind.
 
"What am I becoming?"
 
She stood there, wrapped in the simplicity of the moment, feeling as if the Ashram had already begun to strip away everything she had once been. Slowly. Gently. But steadily, and without hesitation.
 

And she was learning how to let go.

-- oOo --

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