We have a week in India planned for October...right now we have the usual Golden Triangle itin booked with Starwoods in each place.

However, my wife was wondering whether it's possible to spend a night in an ashram. From doing a little googling, most of the ashram sites talk about spending weeks at one and having a deeply spiritual purpose for doing so. I can't honestly say we have a specific spiritual purpose, so there's a part of me that thinks we should just forget it...

But, I figured it anybody knows, it'd be Flyertalkers. Are there ashrams that are more open to tourists doing a short stay? Specifically, open to Westerners with no affiliation to Hindu or any Eastern religion...

check out 'vipassana'....

i did this a couple of years ago....while the typical time period to do this is about 2 weeks, i know a number of people who have just spent a night or 2 as well....

The ones you can find on google are typically tourist traps run by one scam artist or the other. A long beard and saffron robes, and a talent for bs seems to be the only job qualification.

You might try this place - http://www.sringeri.net - an ancient (recorded history going back several centuries) monastery, whose abbott, the sringeri shankaracharya, is sort of in the position of the archbishop of canterbury for the church of england, for a lot of hindus in south india.

If nothing else, the route is beautiful and green - sringeri is on a hill, with several nearby coffee / spice plantation resorts in the chickmagalur / shimoga area of karnataka, that you can unwind in after you've satisfied whatever religious kick drives you to try an ashram.

and yes, the place is open - to a limited extent (there are areas you can't go) - to non hindus.