When I told the first person I met at Maitreyi Village that I was here because my brother had first visited years before, she exclaimed in her North Italian dialect, 'Che celestiale!' and I thought this summed it up perfectly. My visit here did feel celestial, pre-destined.

I've practiced Transcendental Meditation (TM) for about 8 years now. I didn't know it when I was coming here but the founders of this place are TM teachers and have worked in 'the movement', the TM movement, most of their lives. There was lots for me to learn here.

They set this up as a place where people could come and live the sattvic life, a life in perfect balance, for a while, in a serene environment in nature. So you can come here and experience the profound peacefulness, the pure energy of just being in this place, you don't have to learn or practice Transcendental Meditation. You don't have to do anything except join the delicious Ayurvedic communal meals.

If you choose to though, you can take part in Ayurvedic treatments and the pancha karma detox program, gentle morning yoga classes and prayer ceremonies. You can walk around the 25 acres of organic farm land set in the foothills of the Western Ghat mountains, borrow and read from the library, get your Vedic astrology chart read and, of course, learn and practice Transcendental Meditation.

I took part in all of this but I still had so much solitude, so many hours with nothing to do in them. In this freedom, I re-learnt to be truly alone and content in that space, do nothing productive with that time. The pleasure of just being, reading, writing, playing music, sitting with nowhere to be, nothing to produce, no phone to check, this I had truly forgotten how to do.

This place emanates a lightness so it's no wonder the people it attracts carry that same energy. Joy and laughter rang from the dining hall at mealtimes, I met people with so much love and love for life here.

I walked away after two weeks here remembering my true nature.

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