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Cultural Rendezvous in Yoga
Yesterday we invited our African brothers and sisters to join us in our morning Hatha Yoga and meditation practice. This was something new to most of them. I began the class by leading them through a few rounds of Surya Namaskaram (sun salutations) to get them warmed up and stretched.
Then we dived into some Hatha Yoga asanas (poses) followed by some basic pranayama (breath control) which involved regulating the duration of the in breath and the out breath. After pranayama we began the guided meditation. We used the analogy that the mind is like a vast land with a variety of landscapes from mountains to rivers and oceans, to deserts to cities to jungles and more. And the same way we travel from one area of a land to another we can similarly travel through the mind as well.
Our guided meditation then took us first to the land called happiness. We visualized being happy and also filled our entire body with the feeling of happiness. We emphasized the importance of visualization and feeling in the practice of meditation. From the land of happiness we moved to the land of contentment and finally the land of love while practicing visualization and feeling for each of those areas. To conclude the meditation we returned our awareness to the room we were in and slowly opened our eyes to adjust ourselves to our surroundings.
We were very happy to have our African siblings join us for our morning spiritual practices and we are looking forward to their drum circle this afternoon which they have invited us to participate in.
One God, one world!
Starting our series of Hatha Yoga poses
After practicing various Hatha Yoga poses we did some pranayama (breath control) exercises followed by a guided meditation.
A Meeting of Cultures – Africa and India
Today Muni Natarajan and myself were invited to a sacred name giving ceremony that was being conducted on campus here at the West Virginia University by a group of African origin. So it seems that we were not the only ones that are teaching our younger generation about culture, tradition and reli...
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Hindu Spiritual Tools for Youth
The core of our study over the last week has been to find ways to incorporate Hindu spiritual tools into our daily lives to help solve the challenges that we face. We did this by having the youth share problems and then suggest solutions based on spiritual tools that they have learned. And someti...
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Clay Ganeshas
This afternoon a lot of the campers had fun making clay Ganeshas. At some point they manage to convince the two teachers, Muni and myself, to join them in this messy but creatively fun project. And we are very glad we did as we had lots of fun.
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Intricate Jain Temple Carvings
On day 17 of our month long series of photos on Rajasthan we share a close up photo taken of a wall on a Jain temple in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan. This section is intricately carved and so is most of the temple creating a spectacular religious edifice.
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Classes and Temples – Hindu Youth Camp
Today was filled with classes and a visit to two temples in Pittsburgh. We’ll share the day with you in the photos below.
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Living in the Great Thar Desert
I was about 30 kilometers west of Jaisalmer in the Great Thar Desert when the jeep I was in stopped at a small group of mud homes. In exploring them I came across this young girl who was sitting outside her home. She appeared to be resting, taking a break from her daily chores. Though…
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