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| Reflections… | Volume: 1 Issue: 9 September-October 2008 |
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Spread over 25 acres of landscaped gardens, the architecture and interiors are a seamless confluence of traditional and the modern styles.
Extract from Guests’
comments:
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Gita means "song" and Bhagawad means "Divine". So the Bhagwad Gita is simply the song of the Divine. Probably the most famous of Indian scriptures, it is presented as a dialog between Lord Krishna and the great warrior prince, Arjuna, on the eve of the epic Mahabharata war. The Bhagavad Gita is considered to be the distilled essence of the highest knowledge of reality contained within the Upanishads, the wisdom portion of the sacred Indian scriptures. The Bhagavad-Gita is preserved in the Mahabharata, and is arguably the jewel in the crown. While the date of the Mahabharata war is debated among scholars, tradition says it occurred five thousand years ago and that the great sage Vyasa put the Gita and the rest of the Mahabharata into written form. The main focus of the Mahabharata involves courtly intrigue, all centering on an important political family of the time. This family consisted of the Kauravas and the Pandavas, two groups of feuding cousins. King Dhritarastra, the father of the Kauravas, was congenitally blind. Thus, the throne that would have been his was instead given to his younger brother Pandu, father of the Pandavas. Dhritarashtra resented Pandu for this and never quite got over this disappointment. After Pandu’s early death, Dhritarashtra received at his court Pandu’s five sons-Yudhisthira, Arjuna, Bhima, Nakula, and Sahadev and out of duty, raised them with his own children. Even when the Kauravas and the Pandavas were young boys, rivalry grew between them. The Kauravas were devious and the Pandavas virtuous. As they grew older, the Kauravas used their military might for selfish purposes while the Pandavas were greatly loved and spiritually-minded political leaders.
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Still, Dhritarastra naturally favoured his own boys, even though it was clear that the Pandavas were better equipped to rule the kingdom. Dhritarashtra’s blindness signifies ignorance and inability to see right from wrong due to attachments to his own kin. The sons of Pandu were eventually given territory of their own, where they erected a great city, Indaprastha (modern day Delhi). However, Duryodhana, the eldest son of Dhritarashtra and leader of the Kauravas, was jealous and plotted to take the territory of the Pandavas by dubious means. He “arranged” a game of dice in which the eldest son of Pandu, Yudhishthira, was sure to lose. The plot succeeded, Yudhisthira lost his kingdom, and the Pandavas were sent into exile for thirteen years. As true Kshatriyas (noble warriors) of their day, the Pandavas honoured their (a lbeit rigged) defeat and entered the forest for the allotted time of their prescribed exile. Their understanding was that they would regain their kingdom when the exile came to an end. However, after the thirteen years, Duryodhana still denied them the kingdom that was rightfully theirs. They then asked for five small villages, because, as Kshatriyas, it was their inclination and duty to rule. To be continued...
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Page 2
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Yoga - extraordinarily complete! Dr Carl Gustav Jung …Yoga is a perfect and appropriate method of fusing body and mind together so that they form a unity which is scarcely to be questioned. This unity creates a psychological disposition which makes possible intuitions that transcend consciousness. When a religious method recommends itself as scientific, it can be certain of its public in the West. Yoga fulfils this expectation. Quite apart from the charm of the new and the fascination of the halfunderstood, there is good cause for Yoga to have many adherents. It offers the possibility of controllable experience and thus satisfies the scientific need for facts; and, besides this, by reason of its breadth and depth, its venerable age, its doctrine and method, which include every phase of life, it promises undreamed -of possibilities. Every religious or philosophical practice means a psychological discipline, that is, a method of mental hygiene. The manifold, purely bodily procedures of Yoga also mean a physiological hygiene which is superior to ordinary gymnastics and breathing exercises inasmuch as it is not merely mechanistic and scientific, but also philosophical; in its training of the parts of the body, it unites them with the whole of the spirit, as is quite clear, for instance, in the pranayama exercises where prana is both th e breath and the universal dynamics of the cosmos. Yoga practice would be ineffectual without the concepts on which Yoga is based. It combines the bodily and the spiritual in an extraordinarily complete way. In the East, where these ideas and practices ha ve developed, and where for several thousand years an unbroken tradition has created the necessary spiritual foundations, Yoga is, as I can readily believe, the perfect and appropriate method of fusing body and mind together so that they form a unity which is scarcely to be questioned. This unity creates a psychological disposition which makes possible intuitions that transcend consciousness. |
Caring through Sharing!
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Silence is our true nature, the space between our thoughts where we experience unbounded joy. Through silence, it’s possible to experience a deep sense of belonging and understanding of self. And the more you understand yourself, the more you understand the world. Silence is not just absence of speech but also the quietening of mental activity. Periods of silence guide us on th e path of selfdiscovery and self analysis, revealing avenues of change required that we have not been able to identify or even realize in the bustle and noise of everyday life Besides the psychological, there are physical health benefits of being still, quieting the mind and eliminating noise. Silent retreats help guests suffering from insomnia, high blood pressure, stress, burn out and the consequences of the maladies of modern day life like irregular, unhealthy meals and lack of exercise. Shreyas introduces a 7 -night Mouna Retreat (‘Mouna’ means ‘time spent in silence’), to help guests to step back, introspect, calm the mind and possibly realign and reprioritize goals in life. For more details |
Page 3
 1. Namaskarasana |
 2. Hastha Uttanasana |
 3. Pada Hasthasana |
Surya Namaskar Surya Namaskar (translated as “Worship of the Sun“) is part of traditional ritual that is in vogue since Vedic times and is part of the first book of Taittriya Aranyaka of the Krishna Yajur Veda that is generally referred to as the Surya Namaskara Prasna. |
 4. Asvasanchalanasana |
 5. Adho Mukha Dandasana |
 6. Asthanga Namaskar |
Surya Namaskar is the ideal and holistic warm up before a regular
Yoga practice as it loosens the limbs, relaxes the nervous system
and enables a rhythm in our breathing pattern; it also activates and
fine tunes, cleans and prepares our various energy centers (read chakras) for advanced Yoga practices that lead to Dhyana, Meditation. |
 7. Urdha Mukha Svanasana |
 8. Adho Mukha Svanasana |
 9. Ashvasanchalanasana |
Thus Surya Namaskar can be adopted as either a standalone practice
or as an effective warm up towards a Yoga session
Here, Ramakant of Shreyas Yoga team demonstrates Sun Salutations for us. |
 10. Pada hasthasana |
 11. Hastha Uttanasana |
12. Namaskarasana |
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