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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

Bhakti Yoga Society discusses the soul's search for peace, happiness

Region Filler

Each person’s hands held 108 wooden beads strung together with orange thread. Around them the sound of two cymbals and a drum pulsed along with steady chanting.

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare. Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare,” they chanted.

The chant, known as the mantra, was only part of the Bhakti Yoga Society’s Yoga for Peace event last Friday. The event involved a speaker and discussion, was followed by a vegetarian dinner and interspersed with music and chanting. Each component of the event was meant to help attendees better understand their souls.

BYS organizer Niladri Das said this chanting has a clear effect on the restless mind, which is ultimately the root of our suffering.

“As we chant the restless mind focuses on the syllables of the mantra,” he said. “As you keep practicing, there is a spiritual experience that gives us peace and happiness and then connects you to god.”

Theresa Matick, attendee of Yoga for Peace and IU junior, said she has seen the effect of this type of yoga on her own often restless mind.

“I suffer from insomnia, so this is the only thing that will put me to sleep and reduce my anxiety and stress,” she said. “It’s really helped with my one-pointed focus and just with calming my mind and soul and being at peace.”

Matick said she learned during the event that peace leads to happiness.

“Our basic nature is happiness, and the precursor to happiness is peace,” she said. “So through working for a higher power, it will bring you peace and lead you ultimately to happiness.”

Another requirement for attaining this happiness is finding a connection with god, speaker Anantarupa Das said.

“Once you fulfill your physical needs, your soul is still yearning to connect to god,” he said. “There is still that gap until self-actualization.”

Not only does one’s soul search for a connection to god to be happy, but it also seeks to form permanent relationships with others, Niladri Das said. The soul’s most intrinsic goal is to form relationships.

“The goal isn’t just to be peaceful ourselves,” he said. “That’s a starting point. The next stage is to have loving relationships with other people. Yoga is all about forming meaningful relationships.”

Yet another precursor of a peaceful and happy soul is a dedication to a higher purpose, Anantarupa Das said. While he said letting go of all your desires is impossible, you can channel your desires toward a higher purpose to find peace.

“Anything you do for a higher purpose is blessed and will give you peace,” he said. “Everything you do for yourself only will give you restlessness.”

He said the same principle applies to the well-being of a society as a whole.

“If you are selfish on an individual level, you cannot be at peace,” he said. “If the country is selfish at a collective level, we all cannot be at peace.”

Das said a lack of dedication to a higher purpose and a lack of spiritualism is causing a loss of empathy in the world. This loss of empathy, in turn, has destructive potential.

He said yoga can serve as a starting point for individuals to correct these problems.

“Through chanting, you connect to god,” Das said. “You won’t see a halo around your head, but you will feel at peace.”

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