I got an opportunity to attend a webinar on 22nd September 2021 organized by the Rotary Alumni Association under their 30 day basic education literacy program "Vidhyarthi". I received the invite from a friend and Guest speaker for the day Ms Padmini Janardhan, Teacher educator and corporate trainer. She spoke on the topic "Beyond Religion". The surprise packet was a second speaker Adi Sai Vijai Karan, all of fifteen years who spoke on "Surviving in the 21st century as a teenager".
As Padmini started speaking one could see that she was speaking about "vaishanavism". However, it was in line with the topic of the day with her focus being on humanism beyond the religion. vaishanavism is a Hindu denomination that worships and accepts Vishnu as the supreme manifestation of the divine. She started out by quoting the hymn " Vaishnava jana toh tene kahiye jay peedh paraayi jaan re.." Here the focus is on understanding the pain/suffering of others, empathizing with them and partaking in their feelings of joy.
The speaker then went on to speak of "Thiruppavai" and the remaining part of her talk was on this treatise. The Thiruppavai is a set of Tamil religious hymns composed by the female poet saint Andal.She is held to be the manifestation of Bhudevi and is the foster daughter of Periyalwar a saint who made major contribution to the philosophical and theological ideas of Vaishnavism.
Thiruppavai has 30 verses dedicated to Lord Krishna and is considered to be the essence of the vedas.The 10th Month of the Tamil month namely Margazhi is celebrated with a reading of verses from Thiruppavai. The entire winter festival month is observed as a penance and the 27th day is celebrated as 'Friendship day". The friendship is articulated in the 27th verse"Being together we enjoy"--- kūḍiyirundu kuḷirndu’. (like Satsang -meeting of the noble hearts in Hindi).
The celebrations then becomes alive with the body seen as the sacred abode of the Lord. The devotees are dressed in finery, ornaments and food is prepared with rice, milk and ghee which is shared with all. Here the devotee feels good in the inside and outside and extends it to others as well. The speaker then explained verse 15 which discusses the phenomenon of ego coming in the way of togetherness (verses 6 to 16 discusses togetherness). The onus/ responsibility is on oneself to take initiative and avoid ego clashes and take everyone along even those who have some grievances. "Let us sing the praises of the one who destroys evil and differences among those who are differing". Being together for benefit of everyone happens when you pay attention to the 'What' instead of the 'Who'.
Human beings engage in aggressive behaviour on account of fear and the desire for self sustenance meaning "I should not lose out on what I am presently enjoying". Such fears will not exist if you know that the universe is abundant and that there is sufficient for everyone's need (though not for their greed). In fact a prayer in Thiruppavai requests for sufficient rains for happy living (not excessive). This is further highlighted in the 23rd verse where the prayer is to receive sufficiently and consistently like the water that flows down from the slit in the lotus flower. There is no desire to satisfy greed.
'Beyond the religion', Vaishnavism as depicted in the Thiruppavai, calls for an ethos of sufficiency over the ethos of maximizing. Similarly the ethos of satsang is held bigger than individual benefit or gain. This then namely togetherness/ satsang is the essence of Vaishanavism. "May the entire world live in comfort and let us all be happy together" . The speaker signed off paying her obeisance to Kodai(saint) Andal whose Thiruppavai serves as guide for a good and appropriate life.
The second speaker of the day was fifteen year old Aadi Sai Vijai Karan. He is a winner of the Young Achiever's award 2021 for contributions made by 4US byUS, a non profit organization , founded by him . The organization connects accomplished mentors with children from underprivileged families so that they receive sound guidance for securing a good education. Aadi is also a published author having written the book "The World as I see it" which gives a teenager's perspective of the world.
On the day's topic of "Surviving in the 21st century as a teenager". Aadi said that there are umpteen number of activities in a teenager's life. So much so, it is a challenge to use time effectively. As for example the teenager may be discussing with friends about partying, frequently opening and closing fridge doors to spending one hour on Netflix and then panicking about the essay/math work that needs to be done to watching you tube, watching stand up comedy shows of Kenny Sebastian and so on. The speaker said that deadlines push you and are important for getting any work done. It would be a struggle to complete things in the absence of deadlines. He said that this aspect is discussed in detail in his book "The World as I see it".
The villain that comes in the way of rational thinking and being productive is the mysterious voice in the head that may tell you " Let's watch one more video before we start the assignment". Thirty minutes later you find that there are as many as six assignments pending and time is not enough. The voice in the head now says " There's always a tomorrow and the day after and the day after that". The youngster today wants to do something for which he can see immediate results (quick, easy and immediate), what is called as instant gratification. Therefore a you tube video is likely to be more attractive than other activities to satisfy your immediate need for entertainment. But then two hours later, you find yourself feeling incredibly guilty for having put off important work.
This brings us to the question as to whether mobile phones need to be policed by parents. The speaker answered the question in the negative. He said the trick is first acknowledge that instant gratification is real and then embrace it to convert it as an ally instead of seeing it as an enemy. In order to satisfy the needs for instant gratification one can split a goal into smaller milestones and as you reach each milestone you are happy and have a sense of accomplishment. This will also propel you to pursue the goal with more vigour. Aadi gave the example of his own book writing project. He had at first set small goals of writing one para, then two paras, one page, three pages and so on so that the initial achievement satisfied the needs of instant gratification and then he was able to set higher targets. Before, you know it, you have completed the book!
In the above strategy, the matter that is most important is to be crystal clear as what your goals are while setting. As for example " I am going to take notes everyday", " I will learn Python/Java/Korean language in the next three months". The goal setting should answer the question with clarity " What are we doing? and Why are we doing it?". Once this has been done, take action and consistently do it until the goal is achieved. The onus is on you; you need to keep motivating yourself.
With that, the proceedings for the day came to an end. It was for me an unexpected double Dhamaka of a webinar which was very informative and enlightening. I only had a cursory idea of the practice of Vaishanavism before attending the webinar. I got a lot of clarity from the first talk by Padmini on the 'humanism' aspect of religion with a focus on togetherness and growing together. The second talk cannot be seen as experience sharing by a teenager that would be relevant only to teenagers.On the contrary, these days all of us irrespective of age are bitten by the instant gratification bug and we would all do well to try out the tips suggested and see how the phenomena can be used to our advantage to get more work done, instead of fighting it.
Finally, I am so happy I chose to accept this invitation over other two engagements on 22nd September that had competed for the same time schedule. It was truly a very rewarding experience!
