- Sunday, April 20, 2025
Eminent global presenters learned on the occasion from revered saints, spiritual masters, and yogacharyas on the theme of bridging the divide in an increasingly polarising world.
By: Shubham Ghosh
THE fifth day (March 12) of the ongoing International Yoga Festival (IYF) being held at Parmarth Niketan in Rishikesh in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand saw the participants taking part in a wide rich array of activities including yoga sessions, meditation practices, and engaging lectures. On the occasion, eminent global presenters had the privilege of learning from revered saints, spiritual masters, and yogacharyas on the theme of bridging the divide in an increasingly polarising world.
The enlightened plenary featured distinguished individuals including Pujya Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati, director of the IYF and member of the United Nations Advisory Council on Religion, as well as steering committees for the International Partnership for Religion and Sustainable Development (PaRD) and the Moral Imperative to End Extreme Poverty, a campaign by the United Nations and World Bank..
Also present was Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa, a disciple of Yogi Bhajan who established Yogi Bhajan’s inaugural yoga centre in the United States. Other notable speakers included Seane Corn, renowned for her advocacy of yoga and social change; Anand Merotra, co-founder of Sattva Yoga and the Sattva Yoga Academy; and Kia Miller, founder of Radiant Body Yoga. The session was hosted by Tommy Rosen, founder of Recovery 2.0, a global organisation that works to inspire and unite people to challenges of addiction through the practice of yoga and meditation.
The panel came together after Pujya Sadhviji posted a conscious call for unity on Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27), which was met with violence and vitriol online. It was an awakening moment for the spiritual leader who realised how divisive America in particular, and much of the western world, has become.
“Many people feel like they’ve woken up in a world they no longer understand,” host Rosen said. “Suddenly we’re living in a world of fear and incredible divisiveness, where people are more concerned with being right than unifying.”
“Sahan Shakti power, which is the power to tolerate, to sit with that which disturbs, is a fundamental teaching of yoga that seems to be disappearing in our communities,” Pujya Sadhviji said.
“It hasn’t been a quality in the west for some time, but lately it is getting much worse. My father was a divorce lawyer, so he saw a lot of dysfunction. The advice he would give to couples who wanted to get married was, ‘you can either be right or be married.’ It’s such a powerful teaching because wherever you look at husbands and wives, or in the way in which we are
married to each other in societies, and in one world, we’ve let go of the commitment to love each other. Instead, we care about being right. We are losing the ability to love people who are different from us,” she said.
“Spiritually and psychologically,” Pujya Sadhviji added, “this deeply troubles me because we are all seeing ourselves as the violated party. So we feel entitled and righteous. You have traumatized me, injured me, your very presence on earth has injured me. There is an ‘all-about-me-nesss’ that is a major block to our spiritual growth.”
“One of the biggest dangers of our time is that we are giving up our humanity, our nature, our fundamental existence to a fabricated universe,” Merotra said. “We are outsourcing our intelligence to AI. And this will only increase because the technologies play on the addictive tendencies of the human psyche. There are propaganda machines telling us who to demonize now. ‘You didn’t change your profile photo to a flag of Ukraine,’ you should be demonized. We need to bring in an awareness to our lives so that our value system isn’t being subjugated to social media. My guru taught me, ‘don’t try to be right, try to be wise.’ Learn. Listen.”
“One of the beautiful things about Indian culture is the deep sense of humility,” Merotra said. “The teachings of the tradition are to become no one. My father went to America and said it was a hyper ego culture. Everyone tries so hard to be somebody. We have this great teaching. The emptier the vessel the more sound it makes. It’s time to stop policing everybody else and surrender in humility from the heart. This is why I love this land so much. This is what India can teach the world.”
“There were two things given to me that I held very closely in my heart,” Corn said.
“We have a moral responsibility to the whole. None of us are free unless all beings are free. The second is ahimsa is not just ‘do no harm’. Passivity can cause harm to others. There was a part of me that didn’t want to turn towards pain or suffering. But my silence caused ahimsa. Silence can make you complicit,” he added.
“After five years of deep introspection, I have learned that everything I think is about someone else is about me. If I don’t take time to go inward with my own lived experience with deep consideration, all I can do is react and create more drama in the field,” Miller said.
“I don’t understand any of this,” Gurmukh joked. “You have 60 likes, or 6 million likes, or no likes and now you’re a nobody. Who cares who likes you? You don’t even know them! Yogi Bhajan taught his first class and you know what happened? No one showed up. And you know what he did? He taught it anyway. It’s really very simple. People want to love and to be loved.”
After the sacred Yagna and divine Ganga Aarti held on the day, internationally acclaimed artist Daphne Tse, who was present on the occasion, filled participants’ hearts with joy with her special blend of singer-songwriter songs with the Bhakti lineage of yoga. Tse, who has released five albums, including her newest album, SoulSongs, strummed her acoustic guitar while participants chanted and sang along to beautiful mantras.
The evening concluded with Nrityavali dance. Nrityavali is derived from the Indian words ‘Nritya’ (dance) and ‘Avali’ (series), a Legend. Founded by India’s ace performing artistes Bharat Bariya and Akshay Patel, Nrityavali is an emotive creation. The fifth day concluded with the artful choreography of the energetic troupe.
The participants were equally impressed by the activities at the IYF. “I love it here in Rishikesh at the Yoga Festival, there are so many different linages on offer which gives me so much choice to have many different experiences. The offerings are beautiful
and the ashram is an awesome place to be, there is great energy here!” said Robert Henry, who has come from Australia.
