Asharum Amonines is in general seen as a Nâm Meditation Retreat Centre, however the Asharum also serves as a Nâm monastery. The women who stay at the monastery are inspired by Nâm as a way of living founded by Yoginâm.
Nâm is a message for this time. It is relevant for everybody because the way of living that it implies can solve a lot of anxieties, uncertainties and stress that people suffer from nowadays.
- Yoginâm, The Face of Nâm, from June 12, 2026
Because Nâm is a modern day way of living, the monastery is a modern day monastery. It can therefore not be compared with other monasteries, especially because there is no religion involved.
In this monastery Nâm as a way of living is explored. There is an orientation in Nâm Ethics of Loving Kindness, Involvement and Respect and a search for beauty and harmony.
Life is a Mystery to be lived as a Mystery
Nâm is a way of living that is rooted in a deep realisation. It is truly what you can call mystical or transcendental, but in a sense that is not hidden or secret. Nâm is open to everybody who is willing to take the first step. This step is activated by the basic assumption that we are fundamentally spiritual creatures living in an environment that is human.
Yoginâm, The Face of Nâm, from June 12, 2026
One can recognise a Mystery at the core of everything. This is not something that can be explained, rather something to acknowledge and embrace.
As a tool for remembrance we use the sound Abbah to be able to relate to this unknowable Mystery. The Mystery we are a part of, we are living this Mystery, it is Living itself.
Asharum means ‘a place for living in Asha’
We cannot know Abbah other than by the way Abbah expresses itself in living. Whenever we think about Abbah or witness aspects of Abbah in our lives it is called ‘Asha’. This indicates that what is unknowable cannot be witnessed other than by its expression. Asha is quite naturally entirely subjective.
Yoginâm, The Face of Nâm, from June 12, 2026
Asha’ is a word that exists in ancient languages of the Middle East and Persia. It means the will of the divine. This expresses the same as what Lao Tse mentioned as Dao. It is a kind of natural regularity.
Siweb - Dimensions of Experience….(p. 63) by Yoginâm
Asha is often poetically expressed as the face of Abbah. It is seen as ‘in Asha’ that we can search for and find guidance. It is also ‘in Asha’ where we can find the regularity of cause and consequence which transcends the regularity of cause and effect. Asha, when used as a direction, can become a very valuable teacher.
Nâm - a way of living
Nâm says, what matters is this moment of living.
What you live and how you live it.Yoginâm, The Face of Nâm, from June 12, 2026
Affirmation is at the foundation of what Nâm Living is about. It is a basic attitude in living, every moment of the day. Yoginâm uses the affirmation ‘What is, is What is, as What is’.
In Nâm there is the attitude of affirming without an inner image or concept that is being affirmed thereby. Affirmation is an attitude, not just a statement. It is a way of perceiving the world as representing a whole (Abbah), and expressing the same whole, that cannot be known because we are the very expression itself of that whole.
Yoginâm, The joy of affirmation, June 7, 2026
It is through living this attitude that Nâm becomes a way of living Nâm starts with an Attitude that is not the result of an indoctrination into a belief but of conclusions that everybody can draw for themselves when they are prepared with the appropriate vocabulary to understand human life as it emerges in the human perspective.
Nâm does not mean a concrete something. Nâm is a consolidation of an Attitude that embraces in an ultimate recognition. It is like saying ‘yes’ or like naming something.
- Yoginâm, What is Nâm, from October 14, 2023
What Nâm truly means and how to live this in daily life one can only discover for oneself.
If you would like to go into this deeper we recommend you to start with the beautiful little booklet “What is Nâm”.
Life is not something static, it is a happening, living is a verb!
Nâm does not tell you that you have to say: ‘Yes’. Nâm does not prescribe anything. It is a way with which you can come very close to the realisation of what human living entails.
- Yoginâm, What is Nâm, from October 14, 2023
Ethics are not the same as morals and dogmas.Exploring and living the Nâm Ethics naturally includes a purification of Heart, an ongoing refinement in transformation throughout living. For it is through ignorance and disturbing habitual programmes that we tend to hurt ourselves and others, lose our direction and get in trouble. When seeing life as Asha, with its regularity of cause and consequence, life can become a great teacher in discovering what living the Nâm Ethics really means.
What the Asharum and Nâm Living are not
It is not about accepting some ideas as truths and beliefs. It is about living itself, but not in a materialistic sense of this physical world, but in a realisation that this physical living has a deeper level, and that, and you may only find that out when you have opened your link with these deeper levels of your life, these other levels are much more decisive in how you live than people ordinarily assume.
Yoginâm, The Face of Nâm, from June 12, 2026
Nâm is not a religion
For a religion you need to believe in something, like a god.
Nâm does not relate to a god outside (or within) ourselves.
One cannot become a member of Nâm, nor are there secrets to become initiated in.
There are regularities, signs, a certain order in things, like the regularity of cause and consequence, but these things, once you know how to look, as subjective as they are, can be witnessed and experienced. Therefore Nâm is not something that needs to be believed, rather something one needs to open for in order to see.
Why the Asharum exist
As a Nâm retreat center and a Nâm monastery
From the perspective of the community , living in a community is a powerful tool to shape ourselves, purify our attitudes and behaviour and try to live a life in attunement in Nâm.
From the perspective that it is both a Nâm Retreat Center and a Nâm monastery, the Asharum can be a valuable place for a wide range of people to visit.
A place that offers you the opportunity to slow down, heal, find your direction, and restore your relationship with what you are in essence—your authentic self. A place to find your inner compass again, harmony, balance, and well-being in the broadest sense of the word, in a world that is in turmoil.
As well as a place where a way of life and a monastic rhythm can be shared—something also many people are looking for, especially in these times.
