GOODNESS, GENTLENESS AND NOBILITY
About Ashrams, in Short
Ashrams are isolated places usually surrounded by nature and silence which people who see themselves as anchorites, hermits or ascetics are drawn into. In Western society a pendant to the Indian Ashram would be a monastery.
These are places where hermits come. Hence people who feel that they should transform or completely eradicate their passions (usually the lowest), lust, fads and all that they have recognized as a reason for confusion and restlessness in their spirit and anxiety in their heart. In ashrams people live, study the Vedas (ancient Indian scriptures) and practice together with the masters of asceticism, meaning with those people who themselves have worked on everything they felt they lacked to accomplish and complete their existence and so they approached their higher self.
The secret to taming and restraining that dark side of the ego as well as to transforming human consciousness has been known to India thousands of years before Christ. That Indian science of the soul and higher consciousness is called Yoga. There are many different life paths, or different Yogas and the famous wisdom of the ancient Indian is practiced in the Ashrams. Namely, it is about goodness, gentleness, nobility.
Unlike in India where the tradition of going to the Ashram has been centuries old, since the word Yoga (but unfortunately not its real, true practice which the root in the science and practice of Tantra is) was transmitted to the West, going to Ashram has become very popular.