Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT)

Before we introduce this week’s speaker – I want to inform you about our offering of Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT), a one of it’s kind program – developed at Stanford University. This 8-week course draws from many contemplative practices and is backed by science. It has helped thousands find purpose and happiness by relating to themselves, others, and the world around with greater understanding and kindness. To find out more information please visit our website (www.compassioncultivation.in).

Our 20th episode features, Shabnam Virmani.

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About Shabnam

Shabnam Virmani is a National Award winning documentary filmmaker, a soulful singer, an enigmatic storyteller and an inspirational writer.  Shabnam has been exploring the myriad possibilities and power of mystic poetry and its oral traditions. It was during the Gujarat riots of 2002 that she started to explore deeper questions of life in the words of the 15th century mystic poet Kabir. The same year, Shabnam was invited to be artist-in-residence at the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology in Bangalore. She founded the Kabir Project which brings together experiences to understand Kabir and other mystics. You can find more information about the Kabir project that Shabnam  on her website.  Visit her YouTube channel to listen to her soulful renditions of Kabir bhajans and other works.

In 1990, Shabnam co-founded the ‘Drishti Media, Arts and Human Rights collective‘ in Ahmedabad. As the co-founder of the Drishti Media Arts and Human Rights collective, she has directed several documentaries, including the national award winning, Kabira Khada Bazaar Mein (In the Market Stands Kabir).

Prior to founding Drishti Media, as a young reporter, Shabnam broke the story of Roop Kanwar’s sati in Rajasthan which became a landmark report, and the issue was later taken up by a powerful women’s movement. Shabnam has studied journalism at Times Research Foundation in Delhi and communication at Cornell University.

You can visit the transcription of this podcast by clicking the Transcription tab below.

Editing: Juan Pablo Velasquez Luna

Transcription: Gita Venkat and Madhusmita Misra

Welcome to Episode 29 of The Mindful Initiative. This episode was recorded during the pandemic. Our guest for the podcast is Krishna Das – a Grammy Award Nominee – Kirtan Singer. We are grateful that we could have him as our first guest for the video series. Since this is our first video podcast – so you can listen to it on YouTube.

I first heard Krishna Das live in 2015 during his annual Kirtan event in New York in a church on Thanksgiving night with Manaswini.

There were people from all faiths. The gathering had new mothers, to people in wheelchairs.

All seats were taken, people were standing on the balcony, and we were fortunate to get a spot on the floor right in front of him.

It was not only mesmerizing to hear him live but also to see so many sing, dance, and meditate, all at the same time.

There is no one else like Krishna Das – there is no one else who sings like him – there is no one whose music touches you like his.

During the podcast, Krishna Das I talked about what it means to practice and how to deal with death and his teacher Neem Karoli Baba.

I hope you enjoy listening to our conversation.

About Krishna Das:

Krishna Das began leading chanting in 1994 in NYC, and has been traveling all around the world ever since, developing his signature style, fusing traditional kirtan of the East with western harmonic and rhythmic sensibilities. The audiences have been ever growing, responding to his remarkably soulful voice, which touches the deepest chord in even the most casual listener. He’s taken the call-and-response chanting out of yoga centers and  into concert halls, is a Grammy-nominee and has become a worldwide icon. He continues to travel and to share online his chanting and stories of his guru Neem Karoli Baba. and the best- selling western chant artist of all time. Krishna Das has released over 15 albums, authored 2 books, has his own podcast and is the subject of the documentary – One Track Heart: The Story of Krishna Das. More information on https://www.KrishnaDas.com

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Welcome to Episode 28 of The Mindful Initiative Podcast with Swami Sarvapriyananda ji, the current resident Swami and head of Vedanta Society of New York (VSNY). He is a monk of the Ramakrishna Mission. I have been extremely blessed to meet many spiritual teachers on my life journey. Each person has helped me move along on my path forward – however, there are times when you meet someone who becomes a guiding force in your life – and Swami Sarvapriyananda ji is one of those teachers in my life. I am sure that I am not the only one who feels that way about Swami ji.

Fortune India mentions Sarvapriyananda as “one of the best-known lecturers of the Vedanta in the world today”. In this episode, I speak to Swami ji’s about the highest goal of life and the challenges one may face on the spiritual path. Swami ji’s profound wisdom is nourishment for any soul who is looking to overcome challenges in life. (For the transcription of the podcast, please click the link below).

Here is the link to the research paper titled, Why Pray to God who can Hear the Ant’s Anklets? Prayer, Freedom and Karma by Dr. Arindam Chakrabarti on Freewill mentioned by Swami ji in the podcast.

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About Swami Sarvapriyanada ji

Swami ji joined the Ramakrishna Order of monks as a novice brahmachari in 1994 and received sannyasa (monastic ordination) from Swami Ranganathananda in 2004. Swami ji is known for his lectures on the various texts of Advaita Vedanta. His speaking engagements have included discourses at the Rubin Museum in New York City, the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, and the Parliament of World’s Religions as one of the keynote speakers. He has been a Nagral Fellow for the year 2019-20 at Harvard Divinity School.

Swami Sarvapriyananda ji received his Masters in Business Administration from Xavier Institute of Management in Bhubaneswar. After joining the Ramakrishna Mission as a brahmachari, he served as the principal of the Shikshana Mandira Teacher’s Training College in Belur Math. He was also the first registrar of the Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University. Prior to joining the Vedanta Society of New York, Swami was the assistant minister of the Vedanta Society of Southern California for a year.

Thank You so much for being a dedicated listener of The Mindful Initiative Podcast. Before you read about the podcast, I would like to let you know that I will be offering Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT), an 8-week course developed at Stanford University from July 10th to Aug 28th. This course helps manage emotions, stress, and challenges in your life. If you are interested in knowing more about the course, please visit https://compassioncultivation.in.

In Episode 27 of The Mindful Initiative Podcast, I speak to James Wood, who is an author, and also a spiritual teacher. At the age of 33, after many years of study, James woke up to reality and has dedicated his life to the awakening of beings everywhere. James studied philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, and then transformational studies with Richard Moss. He has combined his education experience and awakening experience to express a modern integrated vehicle for others to use as a means of growth in consciousness. He is the author of Ten Paths of Freedom, Awakening Made Simple.

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In Episode 26, I speak to Dr. R Balasubramaniam (Dr. Balu).  Dr. Balu is a Grassroots Physician. His life has been inspired by the work and life of Swami Vivekananda. Like Swami Vivekananda, Dr. Balu has dedicated his life to upliftment and to the betterment of the underserved. His kindness, wisdom, and clarity of thought stand out for anyone who speaks to him but his sheer dedication and willingness to end human suffering is what separates him from his peers.

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Dr. Ramaswami Balasubramaniam (Balu) is a development scholar, author, public policy advocate, leadership trainer known for his pioneering development work with rural and tribal people in Saragur and Heggadadevana Kote Taluks of Mysuru in Karnataka, India. He founded the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement (SVYM), a development organization based in Saragur when he was 19. After spending 26 years in development work among rural and tribal people, he pursued academic degrees in leadership, organisational development and public policy. He was the Frank H T Rhodes Professor at Cornell University between 2012 to 2014, and continues to hold academic positions in Cornell and other universities

His books ‘Voices from the Grassroots’ and ‘i, the citizen’ are a compilation of narratives and reflections of a development expert and are now globally acclaimed. He is also the Founder and Chairman of Grassroots Research And Advocacy Movement (GRAAM) A public policy think tank based out of Mysuru. Inspired by the message of Swami Vivekananda, he sees his life’s mission as building a resurgent India by inspiring leadership in the youth of the country.

If you enjoy listening to our podcast, please share it with your friends and family.

Please click the Show Transcripts tab below on this page to read the transcript of this conversation.

We now have a social media presence. If you like our work, please follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Linkedin or Twitter for updates.

In the 25th Episode of The Mindful Initiative, we speak to my Veda Chanting Teacher, Shantala Sriramaiah. Shantala teaches Vedic Chanting to people worldwide through her online portal Veda Studies. According to Shantala, Vedic Chants create positive vibrations, and these vibrations can uplift us, especially during challenging times. These vibrations originate in our abdomen and travel through our lungs. In the current times, we can use some of the vibrations for uplifting our spirit, create an anchor that can hold us through these extremely trying times. This episode may introduce Vedic Chanting to you and for others, it may serve as a reminder for you to get back to your chanting or keep chanting.

Our 25th Episode marks the 3 year anniversary of The Mindful Initiative Podcast. With so many of our friends, family, children, brothers, sisters, uncles, and aunts suffering, it is difficult to even use the word celebrate. However, I would like to take this moment to acknowledge and Thank all our listeners, who have been listening to us, providing constant feedback so we can keep delivering top-quality content. Thank you to all our previous guests for sharing your lives with us, our advisors, our most ardent volunteer Gita Venkataramaiah, Pranjali, Naureen and our Editor Juan Pablo Velasquez Luna.

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About Shantala Sriramaiah

Shantala has been inspired by her mother Saroja, who taught chanting classes in their home for over 30 years, she is very grateful to the early exposure to Sanskrit chanting and Indian scriptures through her family tradition and school education. Born and raised in Bangalore, India, Shantala is an Engineer by qualification and enjoyed a 20-year career specializing in Learning & Development before making the change to Veda chanting classes to continue her family tradition. Her teaching draws from her previous experience, bringing structure, detail, and clear objectives and methodology to all the classes & courses. She has developed a unique system to accurately and completely transmit all the nuances of Vedic phonetics to help support students learn without error. She is a student of Sri M. S. Sreenivasan of The Challakere Brothers who has been guiding her Veda recitation practice and mentoring her teaching.

She lives in Brussels, Belgium with her husband and two small children.

We now have a social media presence. If you like our work, please follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Linkedin or Twitter for updates.

About Ron Lumsden:

I spoke to Ron for the 24th Episode of The Mindful Initiative Podcast. Ron is from the Moray Firth in the North of Scotland and currently lives in Bangkok, Thailand. He is an author, an artist, a Buddhist practitioner, Ron’s story is simple yet extraordinary. From teaching a group of Hearing Impaired Students in London, he went on to work in many countries across the globe. His story is our story. A cancer survivor – who managed his pain by facing it head-on – is something that we can all learn from. He is the author of the popular blog, Dhamma Footsteps, where he shares his writings and thoughts.

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Please click the Transcript tab for a transcript of the podcast.

Ron studied Art for four years In the Glasgow School of Art, (Diploma in Art) then one year in Jordanhill College of Education, Glasgow (Post Grad Cert in Education). I went to East London and taught Art in Secondary schools in the Inner London Education Authority for two years. After that, one year in Lady Spencer College, Oxford (CTD) – Cert. in the Education of Deaf and Partially Hearing Children). He went back to the Inner London Education Authority and taught for eight years in schools for the deaf and partially-hearing units attached to secondary schools.

In 1982, he traveled to India and started doing publications and artwork for Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) in Madras and Pondicherry, South India working with children’s health. After that, he was with an NGO in Bangkok Thailand, and support organizations working on the issue of child labor and children in hazardous situations. Around that time he met the Buddhist monks in Wat Pah Nanachat in Thailand who showed me the Theravadin Buddhist Path.

The work in Thailand continued for 10 years, he was teaching English in Japan for 3 years and continuing with publications for the NGOs. Meanwhile, the group he’d been working with in Bangkok was now supported by a UN network and I’d gotten married to a Thai along the way who became part of that network.

Since then my wife and I worked in Geneva, Switzerland for 9 years, Dhaka, Bangladesh for two years and Delhi, India for seven years. We are currently in Bangkok, Thailand. I am retired and spend my time in the study of Buddhism, a little writing and my blog https://dhammafootsteps.com/

We interviewed Dr. Anuradha Choudhry for the 23rd Episode of The Mindful Initiative Podcast. A Vedantic Scholar – Dr. Choudry is an Assistant Professor of Humanities and Social Science Department at IIT Kharagpur for Sanskrit, Indian Psychology, French and History of Science and Technology in Ancient India, where she explores the contributions of Indian thought in the fields of psychology, development, happiness studies, linguistics, and in other related socio-cultural dimensions. She’s a graduate from Sri Aurobindo International Center of Education for Pondicherry, where she did her higher education in Sanskrit and completed her Ph.D. in Vedic psychology.

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Please click the Transcript tab for a transcript of the podcast.

Following this, she was awarded the Erasmus Mundus scholarship of the EU for an M. Lit in Crossways European humanities. Due to her interest in many subjects, she also received a UN-related scholarship for a course on Human Rights at the Summer University of Human Rights Geneva. Before joining IIT Kharagpur she was a Fellow at Development Foundation in Bangalore, as well as an Adjunct Faculty at the VEDA Vigyan Shodha Samsthan in Bangalore. She also helped to establish the center of Indian Psychology at Jain University in Bangalore, where she organized and participated in conference and workshops to deliberate on an Alternative Paradigm for Psychology based on an Indic Worldview. Along with Dr. Vinay Chandra, she had edited a book called perspectives of Indian psychology and co-authored another on Happiness, Indian perspectives.  She’s a volunteer at Sanskrit Bharati, and she’s passionate student and teacher of spoken Sanskrit, and the transformative power of it sounds, and offers online courses available on the Swayam Platform, and on Yogaanytime.com. She also works with several yoga organizations like the European Union of Yoga, Irish Yoga Association, among many others. This is along with Dr. Vinay Chandra, to highlight the psychological dimensions of the yoga tradition. In a unique endeavor on 1/1/2011. In consonance, with her work, she initiated a worldwide movement of humanity unity called EKTA, which we will be talking about as we start speaking to her.

Happy New Year!

The Mindful Initiative is pleased to bring to its listeners this new episode as we begin new journeys in 2021!

Our guest for Episode 22 is Eddie Stern, who is a Yoga teacher, author, and lecturer from New York City. We interviewed Eddie online. This interview is very personal to me as Eddie is someone I have personally looked up to – like many practitioners in the Ashtanga Tradition. He is a role model not only for the way he carries the tradition of Yoga but also for the way he embodies the true essence of being a Yogi.

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About Eddie Stern:

Eddie has been practicing Yoga since 1987, and ran his school in SoHo from 1993-2019. In the late 1990’s and early 2000’s the school became a focal point for Ashtanga Yoga in New York with an eclectic mix of downtown artists and siritual seekers practicing and meditating next to well-known personalities such as Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow, Mike D, and Lou Reed, in what was also Manhattan’s first consecrated Ganesh Temple. Eddie has a passion for seeking out diversity in all aspects of his work and uses a multidisciplinary approach of combining technology, scientific research, and collaboration to help further understanding, education, and access to yoga. He continues to study philosophy, Sanskrit, ritual, science, and religion, as well as maintain a passion for the daily practice Yoga.

Eddie Stern’s Initiatives:

Yoga 365

Breathing App

One Simple Thing by Eddie Stern’s