What are Sanatana Values? Can the values we speak about through our Upanishads, through Bhagavad Gita , through our Itihasas, Ramayana and Mahabharata, really be applied to our daily lives. They can and they are was Acharya Vivekji’s declaration and at the end of the 3 days, I think we were all convinced.
A brief introduction of Vivek ji . He is the Spiritual guide of Chinmaya Mission Niagara .He is a highly motivated and very relatable spiritual teacher. At a young age, driven by a deep spiritual yearning, he moved to India and completed the 2year Vedanta course under Guruji. His dynamic talks reach audiences through a multiplicity of mediums. Over the last fifteen years, Vivekji’s unique blend of formal monastic training, with the hard-earned wisdom of life experience has made philosophy relevant and reachable across cultures and generations.
The talks were scheduled from 7 -8:30 for 3 days starting from 13th April and ending on 15th April . Bhiksha signups were sent out in advance and sadhakas were excited at this opportunity for one on one time with Vivek ji . On 13th April, Vivek ji first addressed teachers and the challenges that they face bringing traditional values to kids not growing up in India. The teachers gathered around motivated and eager .
After this at 7:00, the workshop started. He told us how he would take us from the Tactile(Day 1), to the Relative(Day 2) to the Absolute(Day 3) giving us a new Acronym ART.
The first 30 minutes was a lecture where he expounded on values from Vibhishana Ramayan . The next 30 mts was the practical demonstration where we tried to come up with a rough estimate on how and what activities do we spend time on which accounts for 168 hours in a week. It was called ’Minute to Mind Management’. What was eye opening was, that in spite of how busy we think our lives are, we actually found a lot of time that was being wasted. Now this was the time he insisted should be spent on activities which, as sadhakas would enrich our lives.
This was such an interactive exercise and so fulfilling that all of us were eagerly waiting for Day 2. For Day 2, which was the Relative level, Vivek ji picked Shloka 15 from Chapter 12 of the Bhagavad Gita. He gave us practical ways to interpret the Sanskrit shloka, where it was as simple as ‘Don’t Annoy the world and don’t be annoyed by the world’. Now the practical part of the exercise was ‘ Vedantic Death’. He asked us to prepare for our impending death in 3 months. Now we had to pick 8 things ,8 situations and 8 persons who we could not live without. With every month, we discarded one by one, things, situations and people. And at the end, with death closing in on us, having made our peace with the world, we discarded the last person we were attached to and faced death alone. It was a quiet hall, which was completely immersed in the enormity of life and yes, our death. And how meaningless everything becomes when faced with this great equalizer. We had a discussion again on how important it is to live by the values of being supportive and at the same time independent.
Day 3 of our workshop dawned and as much as we would have liked to continue, we were also grateful for this time we got with Vivekji . For this, Vivekji picked a verse from Kaivalya Upanishad where Brahma ji expounds on the 3 virtues of Faith, Steadfastness and Love which are needed in Spiritual life and in every venture we undertake. The practical demonstration was to draw the end of an arrow, to signify our strengths and weaknesses. We drew the head of the arrow and this signifies where we want to be, qualities which will get us there . Then we created a connection between the two ends of the arrow and that is the steps we are going to take to achieve our goals. It was a fitting and positive end to our wonderful workshop.
We are extremely grateful to Vivek ji for taking out time from his busy schedule to address and motivate our JChyks, our parents , teachers, sevaks and all the seekers. If you want to be a part of Meaningful Mornings or listen to any of Vivek ji’s podcasts, please check out the Chinmaya Niagara website.