Pranayama Workshop for LIving Routes

Living Routes is an initiative that  partners with the University of Massachusetts to run college level programmes based in Auroville and other “ecovillages” around the world. Living Routes organizes "Integral Sustainability at Auroville" program and I was lucky to have  been given an opportunity to conduct 3 sessions of Pranayama for a small group of young students from USA. A few years back, I did a short session on compassionate communication and there has been a lull for some time in my working with this wonderful organization.

 
The sessions were held in Windara Farm In Australian aboriginal, 'Windarra' means: 'A place to live where I can express my soul'.
Windarra Farm has been a cultivated land for around 12 years. and the TerraSoul Community started  in January 2011 . TerraSoul  is a  learning community. The  holistic approach embraces farming as the ground pillar - added arts, education, renewable energy, music, movement and healing with common living, common working, common facilities and common activities. The picturesque farm was an ideal place and the venue was just fanatastic - with the open space in communiion with the Universal Energy Field,  the singing of the birds and the lovely greenery around. It is the best place for a small group and the cushions and mats for first rate. 

What I enjoyed most in this workshop is the enthusiastic and  energetic participation of the entire group!. Many of them have been practicing Yoga for quite some time and very comfortable to sit in the cross legged posture. This makes the practice of the pranayama very enjoyable. It is a pleasure and privilege to share paranayama with a group like this. 

Recently, I have been doing the workshop as five ssessions or six sessions.  Though we intneded it to be five sessions, my travel  plans changed and we needed it to curtail it to 3 sessions. One way, this was perfect for me as it gave me an opportunity to try out the three session format, the format I am offering in Europe.  My sense is that it worked very well for this group but I will have the challenges of translation and it may be very difficult to get a group like this - which is it easy, fun and fabulous to work with. 

Let me be open to the possibility of having many more such groups  and  more opportunities to work with Living Routes. I would love that!

Wellbeing workshop

I normally do these workshops once a month and one of the things I enjoy most is to share the practices of Pranayama and well being that have been so beneficial to me in my life. However, I could not do a workshop in March due to the project commitments and related travel. I will be traveling to USA & Europe form mid April to Mid July and hence this workshop was very important to me. However, I missed to send the announcement in time for News and Notes!
Every time I do the workshop, I feel better and more energetic despite the extra demands on my time and energy for every session. On the days of tehw orkshop I get up around 4AM -4:30AM to do my practice before I go to the workshop at 6:45 AM.
Some people closely known to me joke that I am becoming a workshop junkie or workshop-holic!
Be as it may, I enjoy it and look forward to every workshop and every session and feel blessed to have this opportunity in my life.
Tash, who was in a Self Healing workshop conducted by me about 6 months ago and I am delighted that  she participated in this workshop and provided a lot of encouragement and inspiration to me.

Yoga Nidra Session

Arul Vazhi Education Center organizes events for people form Tamil Nadu to experience Auroville. These events are normally for two days or one day. Varadharajan and Syamala, who run Arul Vazhi, have not only been regular participants in workshops facilitated by me but also support, encourage me and help me in many ways. They gave me an opportunity to talk a bot about good health and conduct a Yoga Nidra Session.
The vent was held at Ilaingnarkal School and as the session was immediately after a good lunch, a few of the participants went into real Nidra (sleep). It is surprising to me that more than 90% of the people that I come across have never done this simple but very beneficial practice! I feel good in sharing it and am grateful for the opportunity.

Wellbeing workshop at Unity Pavilion

"Auroville wants to be the first realisation of human unity based on the teaching of Sri Aurobindo, where men of all countries would be at home. " Mother, January 1972
The unique aspect of this workshop is the space- Unity Pavilion. Auroville is planned to have four different zones radiating out from the Matrimandir at its centre, and the International Zone is one of them. In this zone all countries will be represented in a concrete and living way, providing a dynamic base for Auroville's work on realising an actual Human Unity.

The actual venue was  the Hall of Peace in Unity Pavilion. It is a large, vibrant space for holding programs, meetings and events and also  hosts the Asian Peace Table. It is one of six magnificent tables created by master woodworker George Nakashima for placement in chosen sites on each of the continents of the world. You can see it at the far end of the picture below.
What a privilege it is to hold an event in place like this, during the last week of February! This week is a festive week, full of celebrations, goodwill and some fabulous events.

It is also one of the workshops with the largest attendance in the last two years.  You can see the beauty of the place in the pictures but to actually experience the serenity, you need to be there.
It was joy and the gathering was fantastic. For me, this is an unforgettable event because of the space, the people and the opportunity fo sharing Ramayana!
I am grateful to Jaya and the team of Unity Pavilion for the opportunity given to me and Jerry and his team for the excellence in the maintenance. Their motto apears to be "Cleanliness is Godliness"
I look forward to more opportunities to offer workshops in this fabulous space. 

Workshop at Pondicherry University

It is difficult to write the blog for an event that I did not conduct in a way that I am happy about. In other words, it is difficult to write about failure. It has taken nearly two month of procrastination for me to get down to it and finally write this.
I met Dr. Vijayalakshmi in Auroville for the first event we organized under the aegis of Telugu Sankskritika Kendramu at Auroville. She started the Hindi Department in Pondicherry University and has been heading it for more than two decades. When she invited me to do a workshop for the students and staff of her department, I was more than happy. In fact, I was jumping with joy.
The students are post graduates and research scholars. The first hint of an issue came up when I got a mail in Hindi a few days before the workshop.  I have working knowledge of spoken Hindi but I struggle to read it. So, after some correspondence in English, I explained that I can respond to questions in Hindi but can conduct the workshop in English.
It was a small group of 15 people. We started well but I was really surprised that the students were not asking any questions. This is much different form my other experiences and I did my best to plod on. However, when we came to the exercise, I did not know how to go ahead when the participants are unwilling to try out. We had hardly any time also to actually do what I planned. The session before lunch started 40 minutes after the planned time.  We planned for 2 hours after lunch but stared 50 minutes late.   So, I decided to call it off and close 30 minutes earlier as I did not know how to accomplish any meaningful result in such short time with participants who did not write down an answer to a question for 30 minutes.
I felt disappointed and unhappy at the end of it all. Normally, I enjoy doing workshops so much and feel satisfied when people tell me either at the end of the workshop  (or sometimes later) how it made a difference to them. This was missing for me. I felt sad that I did not create value for the participants and failed in my commitment to provide it.
In the post-mortem, some of the professors  said that the lack of participation from  the students is an issue even in normal classes.  I was asked to come up with my suggestions. I feel confused about the real issues. Is it language? I don’t think so. In my experience, language was not a barrier and I had many participants in Auroville who did not speak English but their participation was mutually satisfying. Willingness to participate and the desire to take value could overcome language issues. I doubt whether the students are really interested in taking value.
What I can guess is that the prevalent culture here is passive / passive-aggressive modes of communication. Another aspect could be diffidence which comes in the way of taking the risk of participation. When these are coupled together, a group could get into an inert state by using language as an ‘acceptable excuse’. Assuming that  this is accurate, how to deal with it? Honestly, I don’t know.
My biggest loss from this event is that I did not accomplish the intention even with one participant. What I can learn from this experience is not to give up. I need to train myself to dynamically change the exercises or topic to elicit responses, without giving up. I give up giving up.
Going forward, I will avoid the pitfall of language issue combined with lack of interest. This could have some chance only if the time available is unlimited!

Fufill your dreams

This is an event with synchronicity writ large on it.
Where does it begin? I attended the get together of my Andhra University college of engineering batch (1968) at Vishakhpatnam on 17 November 2012.  I did a short event for my friends during this event. Sri B. Surya Chandra Rao is one of my old friends I lost touch with and reconnected again, thanks to this get together.Sri B. Surya Chandra Rao is making a huge difference in rural Andhra Pradesh by propagating alternate medicine, with special emphasis on Homeopathy. He is also a practitioner of Spirituality and he started a conversation based on this common thread. To cut a long story short, he sent me a mail on 25 January 2013 asking me whether I could do a workshop for an Engineering college near Rajahmundry. It turns out that  I was passing through Rajahmundry on 31st January to attend the 100th Birth Anniversary celebration of my father in our village. It appeared that 31st January does not suit the college and 1 Feb was suitable. However, I could not get suitable travel arrangements for 1 Feb. The only time that was possible on this trip was to do it some between 2:30PM to 5PM on my way back and it happened just so, thanks to Sri B. Surya Chandra Rao, the Principal and the Mnagmnet of BVC College of Engineering. That is synchronicity, isn't it?

I had to do several hours of preparation fr this talk. The first point was that, even though it is called a talk, I wanted the students to have an experiential and interactive event. Not easy when you expect more than 160 people ion the event. I settled down the title of "Fulfil your dreams" more as a title that would interest the students. Having selected that, I need to fulfill the expectations and be in integrity with the title of the talk. The issue was made a little more complex because I was  more used to PG students, with prominently urban percentage. The message I came up with was fairly simple but very interesting. You need clarity of your dream and you need to develop your inner resources to fulfill the dreams. The inner sources are your body(health), mind and spirit. My analogy was to compare it to the seed (dream or vision) , the soil, water and sun shine. I think it went very well and I really enjoyed it. Actually, this event is also fulfillment of my dream. 
A word about the college. The campus, buildings,  facilities and the seminar hall  - all of them pleasantly surprised me. The students were fabulous. I liked their participation and their cooperation - it is not easy to do a a great meditation session for 16o people in hall and it is the first time for most of them.
After the event, we had some fruits in the Principal's room. A refreshing change from the samosas and sandwiches that are normally served. Then, I had a brief but inspiring visit to the clinic of Sri B. Surya Chandra Rao and caught the train to Bangalore.
All in all, an unforgettable day for which I am gratful.

Pranayama for intenrational student group

The beginning of this workshop happened a couple of years ago when I met this wonderful young couple Bade and Satheesh. Bade is Turkish and Satheesh is Indian and their views , approach to education and openness struck me as extraordinary. They attained one of my pranayama workshops and we met a couple of times, though very briefly , after that. I was delighted to receive a mail form Bade in the end of December 2012. The mail was an invitation to share pranayam with a group of international students that they were bringing to Auroville for 4 day learning experience. We could work out the dates  that wee mutually convenient and I had the wonderful opportunity to conduct two sessions of pranayama for the group.

The constitution of the group is very interesting - eight students form Turkey, 4 form Delhi and 4 from the village of Ediyancahavadi, next to Auroville. Bade and Sateesh volunteered at Tamarai educational center when they were in Auroville and the connection with the youth of  Ediyanchavdi is rooted in this earlier work of theirs. The students form the village were not attending the paranayama sessions as they were not residing at the Mango Hill Resort. The report is a beautiful set of esthetically designed, eco-friendly structures, very close to Auroville. The space for the sessions was excellent and eminently sited to pranayama as you can see form the pictures. It was rather cold in the early mornings and even the Delhi-ites were warmly clad to ward off  the chill. The mornings were misty, with the sun streaming through the trees and mist and I enjoyed the drive to venue on both the days.

I enjoyed working with this group even more. They are a group of  teen aged youngsters, a bit upset to be shaken out of bed at an ungodly hour to attend sessions on something they could not even pronounce, let alone have a sens of. But the power of pranayama slowly but surely engulfed them and entered into their being. It was a joy for me to be part of this group and participate in this wonderful program. Some of them told me that they look forward to the next session.
We had a marvelous session for the small group on the next day and it was great to have breakfast with Bade, Sateesh, Ms. Aslan, the teacher in charge of the group from Turkey and Ms. Indira the teacher in charge of the group from Delhi.
I was very happy to receive the lovely gift of Sateesh's recent book "Leading without License' . 
This post must include something about the wonderful person, Mr. Mani.  He is a gentle person, whose professionalism and values command respect from anyone who interacts with him. An elderly but energetic, the proud owner-driver of an Indigo car he hires to earn his living. The unforgettable incident for me was that he was to pick me up at 6AM for 15 minute ride to the venue. He reported ta my place of residence at 5:30AM and his car was cloned that morning, he had bath and did his puja (prayers) for himself and the car! I was stunned to with the glimpse of the value system behind this incident and bowed my head in respect and admiration! I was fortunate to chat with him for few minutes and get to know him a little.
An unexpected bonus of the event - Ms. Aslan invited me to do a workshop for the teachers in her school in Turkey, when I will be in Europe during the summer. I never visited Turkey and look forward to my visit and the event.