HT Bureau
GUWAHATI, June 4: The department of Yogic Science and Naturopathy of Mahapurusha Srimanta Sankaradeva Viswavidyalaya (MSSV), Guwahati Unit, in association with Indian Yoga Association (IYA), Assam State Chapter, organised a workshop on ‘Raja-Yoga Meditation’ on Friday.
The director of Health, Research and Education, MSSV, Dr AC Kataki chaired the event. BK Vandana Agarwal from Brahma Kumaris was present as a resource person for the workshop. From Indian Yoga Association, Prof BN Phukan, Subhabrata Mukherjee, Mousumi Borpuzary, Dr Hiren Sarkar graced the workshop with their presence. The program started at 9:30 am with the felicitation of the guests followed by lighting of lamps by Sister Vandana and other dignitaries.
The inaugural speech was delivered by Dr AC Kataki. He also touched upon topics such as prevention of non-communicable diseases by
aligning physical and mental health. For mental health, he outlined the importance of meditation.
The welcome speech was delivered by Mousumi Borpuzary, secretary IYA, who also explained the mission and vision of IYA. After that, Sister Vandana started the meditation session at 10:00 am. Before demonstrating Raja-Yoga meditation, she talked about healing of the mind for which one needs to have control over one’s own thoughts. Here she mentioned four types of thoughts created by mind, such as positive, negative, necessary and wasteful thoughts. She explained that by understanding each one of the thoughts which the mind creates, we can keep the beneficial thoughts and discard those which are useless or harmful.
The thought process before starting Raja-Yoga meditation should be to look inward, feel that ‘I am a powerful soul’ (go upward by this feeling), then go outward by connecting with the soul. During the guided meditation period practitioners were asked to focus on Ajna chakra.
After the meditation session, Prof BN Phukan, president, IYA mentioned that there are various ways to connect to the supreme and Raja-Yoga meditation is one of the tools. He referred to the Patanjali Yoga Sutra in this regard.
In the end, the vote of thanks was delivered by Dr Ujjwal Arun Maske, HoD, Yogic Science and Naturopathy, MSSV. He thanked all the dignitaries, teaching staff, students, participants and all who helped in fabricating the program and making the workshop successful. More than 100 participants participated in the workshop. The program ended at 11:30 am.
