Saleel Pulekar

They have no idea what hit them on Sunday evening 26th August, the last day of the Divya Samaj Nirman course of the Art of Living at Amravati, in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra. Well, I know it was purely the Master's stroke of grace, but am still wondering in amazement about what I witnessed. Minute by minute, they were opening up, petal by petal, layer by layer. My one pointed focus was to offer the best to them and I offered myself fully into my sankalpa and my sankalpa was offered to my Guru and while totally immersed in the action, in the role that I was playing, I was also a 'Sakshi' to the phenomenon of the Guru's Grace taking over not only the hearts, minds, intellects and souls of all of them, but also the whole atmosphere. How does this work? May be, Kena Upanishad can answer this question or Yoga Vasistha. The grace did the job of a catalyst, and I was simply an instrument and a witness. The grace did the job of an amplifier, and I was simply an instrumen...

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 f...

More than 5000 years ago Lord Krishna, while giving the Bhagavad Geeta to Arjuna in the battlefield of Kurukshetra, showed his divine form - the Viraat Roop, to him. Today while watching the World Culture Festival event in the Olympia Stadium in Berlin, I felt so strongly that Guruji has shown his Viraat Roop, yet again. So many cultures were presented on one platform, so many communities, all came as one. One global family, Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam. When Guruji said not only individuals have to come together, even all the cultures of the world have to meet, I could feel his sincerity and earnestness. The meditation he conducted invoked so much peace, joy and unity, it was as if the whole world was celebrating inside me through his grace. When the various performances from all over the world, as far east as Japan and as far west as Argentina, happened, the homogeneousness of the entire human species as belonging to one source, one divinity could be felt so prominently. In today's worl...

Hearts are melting in the fire of Love, Minds are evolving in the sattva of Sadhana,   Egos are dissolving in the ocean of Grace,   Their consciousness is being awakened in the light of this Knowledge and Their Self is radiating the presence of the Guru. --Witnessing the Magic unfolding wonder after wonders, Aho Niranjano! Jai Gurudev!!! :-)

Om Keshavaya Namaha Om Madhavaya Namaha Om Narayanaya Namaha Om Govindaya Swaha A highly pious. serene and sacred experience which left @ 30 of us in total gratitude for the Master. 27 Aug 2009 was that auspicious day. The beautiful Radha Kunj Yagya place in the ashram in Bangalore witnessed 30 of us being initiated into Brahminhood. We now have official rights for chanting the Gayatri Mantra Japa Vandana, wearing the sacred thread and reading the Vedas (or Knowledge sheets as Rashmin puts it ) Well, the above pic may leave you completely confused about what must have been happenning when this pic was taken, bcoz no two expressions are alike! Looks like all of them are wondering, what was the purpose of this 3 hour long process? Traditonally, when a child had to start his education, the Upanayan ceremony would be performed. This ceremony used to be of paramount importance, next only to marriage, as it was his marriage with knowledge. His parents would initiate him and only then he coul...

Gurgaon, 29th Dec, 2008 A meditation conducted in Guruji's voice...which he recently conducted in Canada. It completely silenced my mind. And after that Meghal bhaiya played an audio of Guruji's talk. To be frank, I dont remember much from that talk, but at that moment every word was just getting assimilated and absorbed in my system! After that talk, Meghal bhaiya said one line, "All past lifetimes we have worried about ourself, can't we live this one life time for others?" That very moment I decided that this lifetime I am going to focus only on making a difference to others! ...well, who are 'OTHERS'? and WHO am I?....:-) ok lets not get into that now...bcos its 1.30 AM....am just thru after a long (however, seemed very short as we had a lovely time getting in touch after months!!!) conference chat on skype with my IIT Mumbai YES!+ student-friends...and have a group sadhana at 6 am followed by Guru Puja and Meditation on Rudram, in Preet Vihar. Well aft...

Hellooo.. everyone! So with that previous post (about Guruji in New York), I am back on the blog after a long hibernation. One month in the ashram in Bangalore was a 'knowledge-thirst' quenching and a 'satvik-soaking' experience. Though I was all set to be on the YES!+ Advance course from 18 June, I decided to pull out and be with Bawa and Dinesh in the organising of the upcoming first ever YES!+ TTC. Basically it was an excuse to spend time with them, having retained the freedom to talk (avoided the silence of advance course ;-) ). Though I didn't do much, just being with them and observing them steer, engineer, alter, enhance, fine tune, improvise, guide and finally conduct the TTC was a great learning. It was very gratifying to watch 111 young stalwarts emerge stronger and confident to take on the challenge of empowering the youth at large. Late night feedback and planning discussions, sudden changes, running noses (mine even had clots due to excessive sneezing a...