The drive up to the Kripalu yoga center in Lenox, Mass., passes by some of the Berkshires’ loveliest properties: big, cream-colored manor houses, quaint country inns, and homes straight out of Norman Rockwell desk calendars, with red porches and mailboxes that poke out onto the road. Drive a little farther and looming in the distance is an overgrown brick structure that could pass for a 1960s insane asylum. Did Zelda Fitzgerald end her days in a place like this? Closer up, it appears that the vile orange monstrosity, set against snow-cloaked, rolling hills, is none other than the legendary yoga center itself.

So much for a sea of beautiful, flexible people doing handstands in the mist. Instead it’s just an architectural mishap set against snow-cloaked, rolling hills. “Well,” my kindly friend Vanessa said, “the views are nice.” My other friend, Kitty, nodded and said: “At least you don’t have to see it if you’re on the inside.”

We had come on the eve of the new year to get a daylong fix of yoga and to cleanse ourselves of our many sins. We had plenty of company: This was a place where paid professionals were on hand to teach visitors how to balance out their “air temperament” with grounding exercises or to use the “Aura Camera 6000” to photograph their “auric fields.” Some guests arrive with specific resolutions in mind, while many of the people checking into the compound around the new year feel it’s time for a one-stop detox from whatever trouble they’ve been up to since the previous January.

It’s hard to emerge from the sanctuary, where alcohol, cigarettes, red meat, white sugar, scented shampoo, and the making of disruptive noises after 9 p.m. are prohibited, without feeling at least a tad more virtuous. Kripalu was even a coffee-free haven until recently, when coffee was introduced to the “dining chapel.” There, residents are allowed to drink it, in specified sites.

Kripalu, founded in 1972, functioned for many years as an ashram centered on the guru-disciple relationship, meaning the gurus were superstars and their students trailed after them like baby ducklings. In 1995 the founder, Amrit Desai, was found to have taken the adulation of his disciples a bit too personally, or anyway improperly. The institution was overhauled and transformed into a secular, tourist-friendly yoga retreat, where people can pay for hot stone massages and enlist in such programs as “Bird Watching for Everyone.”

Ever since the conversion, Kripalu has witnessed a tide of late-December atoners. In their honor, the retreat has even started holding a chanting circle that is supposed to inspire year-end reflections. It goes straight through the night for several days before stopping on New Year’s Eve.

Kripalu’s yoga classes begin as early at 6 a.m. and the various activities last until quiet time, which is 9 p.m. Most visitors choose to stay overnight in rooms with bunk beds and chests of drawers, but another option is to buy a $50 day pass, which covers lunch and grants entry to all the programs between the 8:30 a.m. sharing circle and the last yoga class of the day.

Inside, the atmosphere isn’t nearly as inspirational as it is institutional. It feels clean but grubby, like a hospital in a decent neighborhood. When we arrived, nobody welcomed us or told us where to go, leaving us to wander the halls, where we passed knots of bearded pilgrims in billowy white outfits and long, beaded necklaces. Further down the hall, what I had thought to be a statue turned out to be two incredibly tall people locked in an hour-long embrace. Turning around, I nearly tripped over a barefoot couple splayed out on the floor, sipping malodorous herbal tea out of beige mugs.

At last we approached the welcome desk, where we were met with a chilly reception. Turned out we were 15 minutes late. It was likely we wouldn’t be allowed to enter the sharing circle. After a desperate attempt to talk our way into the sharing circle, the welcome desk lady hissed, “You can go up and try, but they don’t have to let you in this late.”

Indeed, the woman guarding the door to the sharing circle room told the latecomers that they couldn’t come in – it would “disrupt the intimacy.” Having no choice, I left my friends and snuck in a side door.

There were about 20 people, all in comfortable cross-legged in a circle, at the center of which a tiny candle flickered. Following a little inspirational meditation, the circle leader told us to share whatever was in our hearts. Her heart went first: She’d awakened feeling a little sick and found her mind racing with worried thoughts. “And I realized,” she said, “I’m drawn to the ug-ho. This year I want to focus on the now. I’m ready to renounce the ug-ho,” she said, craning her neck to lock eyes with every person in the circle. “Now let’s all take a deep breath.”

“Aaah,” the room let off a collective exhalation that had a post-coital quality to it.

And thus the pattern was set. “I’m going to focus on the moment and stop reading the newspaper during lunch.” Aaah. “I am going to stop gossiping so much and to concentrate on productive ways to spend my energy, like songwriting.” Aaah. “I’m just so scared of the new year. I’m not ready for it. I’m terrified.” Aaah.

Next was the Qi Gong workshop, which introduces participants to an ancient Eastern study of energy that’s a second or third cousin of tai chi. The leader, Ken, was a 50-something blond man with a voice for easy-listening radio. “All I can guarantee,” he said, “is you will experience what you will experience.”

The lesson that followed was an exercise in cupping your hands around an imaginary beach ball. “Feel the energy,” Ken kept reminding us. We were also continually encouraged to make the facial expression that Ken called “cheerful indifference.” We were eventually instructed to try out a move in which you swept the palm of one hand up and down the top and bottom of the other arm. “There you go,” Ken said. “Fluff your auras.” He made his “cheerful indifference” facial expression. When is the last time you had your aura fluffed?”

At noon it was time for “dance kinetics,” which promises to facilitate self-expression to uplifting music. In reality it was 50 or so grown-ups wriggling about on the floor while the instructor, a dramatic, curly-haired woman in head-to-toe black spandex, implored the room to “Feel the mud, love the mud. Feel the mud, love the mud.” The dancers followed her directions, some clinging to the ground, others writhing up toward the ceiling like famished snakes. It was actually quite a lot of fun, and sweaty.

Until about five years ago, yoga was still an arcane pursuit in this country, but today 15 million Americans are estimated to be regular practitioners. It’s only been a couple of months since I’ve come around to yoga, something I’d always assumed was off-limits for one as deeply wound up as myself. I straggled into my first class on a lark, and I didn’t quite know what to make of it, but I must have sensed something good was happening as I kept giving it one more chance. While there are moments when I find myself suppressing giggles – one of my instructors encourages me to pretend I’m a plant and to “drink in” my breath – I still find the practice’s grounding powers addictive. When I’m in a class, focusing on kicking up into a handstand or even willing my hands to touch my toes, the drivel that usually pollutes my mind retreats. When I leave, I feel peaceful, ready to take on any dreadful thing.

I suppose my friends and I were hoping that Kripalu could provide us with a mega-dose of calmness to take with us to 2005, but the classes were weird to the point of being jolting, and it didn’t help matters that when we went took a break in the sauna I got yelled at for forgetting to close the door by an angry naked lady – who in turn got yelled at by another naked lady.

At the end of the day at Kripalu, we finally got what we’d come for: a yoga class. The instructor, Michael, walked all over the room, leading the group via a headset strapped to his face. It was hard not to be reminded of Madonna on her Blonde Ambition tour, when she tried the rock-star-as-high-powered-executive look but ended up reminding everybody of the girl in the AT&T commercial. Michael’s session was called “hot vigorous” and it lived up to its name: The room was hot, and balancing all my weight on my bellybutton was nauseatingly demanding. When the class ended, several members stood up from their yoga mats to thank each other for “being an inspiration” and to hug.

On our way out, my friends and I stopped outside the temple where the 24-hour chant for the new year was taking place. A cluster of people in white sat on the stage, leading the chanting. The sun had already set and the only illumination came from the strings of blue lights that had been laced through the room. I was mesmerized. “It’s beautiful,” I said.

An annoyed-looking woman in all white galumphed over to us. “Excuse me,” she said, for we had apparently disturbed the chanting. “Can you take your conversation elsewhere?”

Flashing her an expression of cheerful indifference, we complied, taking our conversation back to New York City, where people’s auras seem to naturally be a little bit fluffier than they are at Kripalu, though it would take an Aura 6000 Camera to know for sure.