DCE YES!+ Day 1

I bumped into a freelance journalist at the Siri Fort Auditorium when I had been there to attend a talk by H H Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. I invited her to write about YES!+ events. Here is her first cover story.

MY EXPERIMENT WITH SPIRITUALITY YES+ WORKSHOP
DELHI TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY
11TH-16TH OCT
Day 1
A very beautiful pandal with open roof, greenery all around and a pleasant weather . All this was very impressive to start with. As soon as I entered, the first thing that grabbed my attention was this big photograph of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar ji with a garland on it. Participants were gazing at his picture with an inquisitive mind. Batting my eyelids and wondering, I just went and sat at the back. 

Looking at the male female ratio of the workshop I really thought that may be it was because girls there were sensible enough not to go for all such things. Looking at different posters there I came across one which claimed that “ the all new most endangered species that is the stress free yes+ youth” which was funny and interesting.

Two men wearing kurta pyjama, smiling in a strange way, serenity on their face and a white teeka on forehead. The environment was all white and calm. In a very affable manner they introduced themselves Saleel Pulekar and Rohit Ranjan (another teacher with very attractive hair). 

The session started with getting familiar with everybody. Huh…looking at their expressions I could make out that whenever they came across anybody they wondered that ‘talking to you is definitely not on my priority list’ but since they were there to learn something new, they were all for it……… then some rules were introduced.






I was told that a little self knowledge goes a long way, on YES+ you get a lot. 




To begin with it is generally said that Listening is a skill as it requires a lot of practice…..but what a paradox it was looking at some participants sitting there as red flag listeners- the one who just shut there power of listening because they feel they know everything.














Then comes …. MIND - which actually just lingers either in the past or in the future. Saleel sir gave a very good example to make them understand that ‘quality of your life depends on your state of mind’…….it was very vivid.




Moving on…they were introduced to a new breathing technique and pranayam. For me breathing only meant one thing just inhaling horrible pollution inside and exhaling out anger and obviously with some involvement of oxygen and CO2

Next a process took place in which all of them had to discuss about the challenges they face in life, their dreams and aspirations. many of them floundered during the process but very enthusiastically they shared their wishes expecting them to be fulfilled as we all know that angels despite there casual silence do exist.……during this process It was as if I and a few of them had schizophrenia for a while. 




The knowledge session included a lot of things that have been heard or read somewhere before. .and Sitting with the future engineers of our country , interacting with them made me realize that they were doubting a lot things just because its not simply denial but some of us are a bit selective about the reality we accept…………………



I would summarise the day 1 of YES+ as - 'Yeh experience subtle tha'.