Ritam - Being in Balance. A Podcast on Wellbeing
Mental wellbeing is an escalating global challenge having serious impact on the quality of life, productivity in workplace etc. Our approach to wellbeing fundamentally depends on our perspective of ourselves. Are we just human beings, not much different from animals or something more? Over thousands of years the Vedic spiritual seekers dived deep within themselves to explore the inner space and they repeatedly verified that we all, without exception, are in essence really spiritual beings having human experiences. Their discoveries form Vedanta philosophy - the 'science of human excellences" - which explain in detail and with much clarity how we have multidimensional physical, mental, emotional and ethical layers of personality covering the fundamental Pure and eternal spiritual being. Along with this, the Vedic seekers developed systematic Yoga techniques to purify our minds and "dis-cover" our true Self.
The Vedantic conception of ourselves and Yogic mind-management techniques offer an alternative approach to address the mental wellbeing challenges. Ramakrishna Vedanta Centre, Auckland has taken up a project to make available these Vedanta-Yoga teachings to empower individuals with the knowledge and skill-sets to better manage their minds, emotions, values etc. to live meaningful, peaceful and productive lives.
Ritam is the Vedic principle responsible for maintaining order, harmony and rhythm both in the macrocosm and the microcosm. Stress, tension, dis-ease etc arise when we lose this balance at different levels of our being and around us. We have limited capacity to influence change outside us but we can definitely integrate our mind to our inner Self to gain greater poise, balance and rhythm in life. Meditation is the art of turning the mind inwards and anchoring it to our eternal, omniscient, blissful and pure Self. The more we are integrated with our inner Self, the greater will be the influence we can cast around us. This is the spiritual way to freedom from the slavery to the eternal world and internal body, senses and mind.
Ritam - Being in Balance is our series of conversations with Swami Tadananda wherein we explore the Vedanta-Yoga teachings and practices to promote our wellbeing.
Ritam - Being in Balance. A Podcast on Wellbeing
27.Wellbeing -The Wellness Retreat Centre
Swami Tadananda unveils the transformative Vedanta Wellness Retreat Center project in New Zealand. Imagine a sanctuary sprawled across a serene 125-acre farm in Waikato, a place where meditation and Vedanta teachings are not just practices but a way of life. This episode gives you a glimpse into Swamiji's vision, where a global community can thrive, learning to manage their minds and emotions through meditation-based techniques. We also delve into the importance of fostering children's holistic development, beginning within the comforting embrace of their own homes.
Swamiji's passion reverberates as we delve into the significance of well-being in professional environments. From corporate cubicles to the corridors of healthcare institutions, stress and anxiety subtly erode productivity and mental health. The dialogue transitions to practical solutions, showcasing planned Vedanta retreats designed to equip individuals with self-care techniques through mindfulness and meditation, reducing dependence on medication. As we advance with this initiative, we invite you to join our expanding community at www.vedanta.nz, where numerous opportunities for spiritual growth await. Join us in pursuing a path toward a balanced and mindful existence.
www.vedanta.nz
Namaste to the listeners. My name is Sunil. I'm with Swami Ittadananda from the Ramakrishna Vedanta Center of Oakland, New Zealand. How are you, Swamiji?
Speaker 2:Very good, sunil, the weather is good, so today is nice and warm, this winter Warmer than usual, swamiji.
Speaker 1:If you go outside, it's still a bit cold. Yes, so you went to Fiji recently, Swamiji. What was the reason for your trip?
Speaker 2:Oh, we are out there to do a bit of fundraising, fundraising.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's interesting. What's?
Speaker 2:that for oh. So you know, we have been talking about this rhythm, the ideas, sharing this Vedanta knowledge through you, your podcast and all that. But we actually have a big project coming up, okay, and we are buying a piece of land, okay, for developing a wellness retreat center.
Speaker 1:An actual center, so this is a physical place. Yes yes, what's the reason for it?
Speaker 2:Well, see, most of the teachings are available in books, discourses, lectures and all that. But unless you practice them and get a good grounding, it doesn't translate into it's difficult to get moving. You know, yes, and ashramas and monasteries exist for that particular purpose. Yes, here we have a center, but devotees cannot come and spend time because we don't have facilities and accommodation. So at best they can come and spend two hours, have some discourses, classes and go back. We would like to give them an opportunity to spend some time in an ashram a weekend, a week, come for a retreat, come for some workshop and actually live the life of getting up in the morning at five o'clock meditating, having some classes, living in the company of like-minded people, evening meditation, go through that intense thing and discover for themselves.
Speaker 1:You know that's what it does for them, so it's a more of a wholesome experience than what we are getting at the moment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's an immersion into it. You dive into it, not on the jump into the swimming pool.
Speaker 1:Not dangle your feet in the water right okay, so it sounds like a very interesting project. What's the? How big is the?
Speaker 2:site? Well, it's a 125 acres farm in Waikato. Waikato is, if you go towards from Auckland, towards Hamilton, past Bombay Hills, pocaino, a place called Mercer, get off the motorway, cross the river and then, another half an hour, a place called Glenmurray and, after searching for more than a year, all on the outskirts of Auckland, we've identified this beautiful property which meets many boxes that we had to tick.
Speaker 1:Yes, so it's a big place and it's out of town, so it's excluded. It will give you the total ashram retreat time In time when we develop it.
Speaker 2:Okay, total ashram retreat type In time when we develop it. So it's 125 acres, of which 50 acres of established forest. The property is facing north sloping, there's a creek. At the bottom there's a four-bedroom house, there's a three-bedroom guest house, there's a big barn, nine meters by 30 meters or something. It has roads, electricity, water and all those things. Yes, and it's a good start. Yes, it's already got a base to start off from. It's got a base, okay, and we will then convert it into a Vedanta retreat center.
Speaker 1:And is it only for local New Zealand people, or are you expecting people from everywhere, whoever wants to?
Speaker 2:come Right Once we have the facilities accommodation and training facilities there. So it has got two purposes One is for sincere spiritual seekers our own devotees. One is for sincere spiritual seekers our own devotees, anyone anywhere wanting to have an experience with us by spending really high quality time in solitude. Objective is to be a training center, a training center through which we can share the knowledge and the skills of meditation-based mind management techniques. So when we say it's a sort of a training of trainers program, concept.
Speaker 2:Yes, okay, where we would like to design and deliver programs targeting four categories of people. The whole project is a response to the mental well-being crisis around the world.
Speaker 1:Right, okay.
Speaker 2:So we can talk about all these things, but we need something more intensive to share that knowledge and skills. So we understood that the spiritual solution is a proactive, preventative approach to whatever is already available in the society. Medical experts, governments have a very well established process for somebody who is having some mental health challenges. So first thing is your port of call to some counsellors, go and see your GP and they try to help you. Nowadays they can prescribe medications for more serious cases. They are psychiatrists, but more or less in that direction of treatment is there. We, from our Vedanta approach, are taking a proactive, preventative approach, knowing that in this very stressful world the possibility of having some major mental health challenge in life would be there. When some major challenges come our way, how do we prepare ourselves to be more resilient, to be stronger, so that when we get hit we are able to recover our balance and carry on with life? So the easiest and the best time is to start early, as kids, of course. So the parents are the first teachers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the parents right. So you have to start with the parents.
Speaker 2:And so parenting doesn't mean just giving food and accommodation and sending your children to school. We talked about the five dimensions of the personality the physical and the intellectual. What about the emotional? What about the moral? Ethical? What about the spiritual? Who's nurturing that? It has to start at home. But if the parents don't have the knowledge and skill, then what do they do? So they just do whatever they know. So the first part is first target people that would like to share that knowledge is Rhythm for Parents, a package of podcasts and online courses and training programs for parents to come and learn and, in a systematic way, teach their children. Start at home.
Speaker 1:The second one Rhythm for Teachers Teachers you mean in teachers that are in schools.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because children spend so much time with them. Yes, and there are issues about like ADHD, anxiety and all the children are going through. If that is not sorted out first, then all the training teaching becomes you know, doesn't become fruitful. So do the teachers have that skill, or do they simply notify the parents that your child is not able to focus and the parents then take the child to the GP and then medication starts? Is there something we can share with parent teachers so that they can teach the children how to have a greater control of the mind?
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, okay, so you're doing parents and then you're doing teachers. So that's the two, two sets of people that the kids spend the most time with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, while growing up, while growing up at home and at school. So I give the energy, just like rivers form in the mountain tops and then keep on collecting the water and reach the ocean. But that happens when the two embankments of the river work in unison, yes, and guide the water to the ocean. So these two embankments are parents at home, teachers at school or university or high school, wherever. If they are empowered with this Vedanta, knowledge and skill sets and we can add a little bit more to the parenting they're doing and the teaching that they're doing, they will do a better job at it and the children will be better supported and they'll come out stronger and more resilient. The third category, sunil, are people already out there working, grown-up people in workforce. One of the things I found talking to management's various organizations is that, because of all the stress and anxiety and worry and challenges that people have even though they turn up at work, their productivity level is not optimal. Sometimes, on average, people say they're 50%, and COVID and all those things has made it worse. Yes, so our third category of people that we'd like to support are organizations, so that they can have an in-house well-being program for their staff. They might choose to delegate somebody as a wellness officer and such a person will come to our center and we will give them the proper training so that they not only practice themselves but they have the additional tools so that they can teach others also in the workplace. And if you made a change of 10% improvement in productivity, that translates into significantly for the organization and for the good of the people.
Speaker 2:And the fourth category as you can see, we have given a lot of thought to all this the people in the health sector doctors, nurses, people to whom patients go needing help. And one of the two things we have heard from this community one that while they are interested now to take care of the mental health challenges of the patients, but they themselves are coming under tremendous stress and not knowing how to manage it. The reason is the medical sciences and the courses they have studied are more to do with the physical body. The GP is trained for that and now suddenly patients are coming. His own patients are coming and they're asking for mental health and they're expected to understand, treat them and give medication and sometimes it works, sometimes it does not work and you know they get. It affects them also and they come back to say that you know, we ourselves need help and give us some tools that are where we don't need to only give medication to anyone and everyone. Alright, yes, there's other ways, other ways to do it, and for them we are designing solutions so that they can give an alternative or side by side.
Speaker 2:Somebody comes with a very high level of anxiety. They need medication. Very nice, they have to give it. But the doctor says, okay, here are medications, but here's a meditation-based solution also. Why don't you practice it also? And so it's like empowering the patient to develop, become more resilient, so to say, and at some point they can go off the medication. Hopefully they can. And so these are the four categories. Now, if we want to really train people, it's not possible to do online through lectures, short courses and talks. This knowledge set is one part of it, but the real training comes by them practicing it, and with that view, we thought the way to implement this program would be to have a nice retreat center Vedanta retreats retreat center Vedanta retreats, and for that purpose, we have taken this initiative to purchase a farm, and so this particular property is 2.2 million dollars.
Speaker 1:We have raised about two-thirds of it right, so there's still more funding required funding required, funding required, and so we've been going around within New Zealand.
Speaker 2:Since it's a new project and we're a new center here, we do not know many people, so we're reaching out to people we know and since I was in Fiji for many years, I went there to get some help and they have been very, very supportive Our friends and people we know in Australia. They have come forward. We hope to get more support here in New Zealand, but once it is sort of running and people get to know what's happening, I'll get benefited. I'm sure there'll be a lot more support coming locally. It's a new project so we have to do some hard yards here.
Speaker 1:Early hard yards. Yes, sohanji, what other help would you need apart from funding?
Speaker 2:Well, any help of all types, because we'll need to renovate that place. Yeah, okay, then we'll have to do some buildings. So right immediately we'll look at some planners, architects, people who can help us put together proposals and get approvals from the council. Require people who, if funds to support us, it's fine, but there might be people who bring different types of expertise. Yes, you know, builders, engineers, architects, furn might be people who bring different types of expertise. Yes, you know, builders, engineers, architects, furnishing, electricians, plumbers all those types of people can come and contribute in their own way. We have had some interest of people coming wanting to do something in that area.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, Manju, would you need help designing the courses?
Speaker 2:We have started the process. About three, four weeks ago, we had a workshop here in which we invited participants from the medical field, from the education field, parents, and we shared our vision Vedanta knowledge. Most of them already know Vedanta. They meditators, regular meditators, so we thought let's use their expertise and experience and right now we have three teams of people who are now collaborating with us. So we had a weekend of very intensive discussions forming the team and giving a start, but they have all now gone on online.
Speaker 2:Yes, and we are meeting Monday mornings. We are meeting with the education team Tuesday, we are meeting the medical, wednesday we are meeting with the parents and we are designing a structure that will take the form of an online course and in a very systematic way, bit by bit, so it's easy to understand. It's simple, in bite sizes and with audios and videos and drawings and pictures. The knowledge part. It's present in a systematic way. We'll explain that through podcasts. So there'll be a series of podcasts that will come Rhythm for Parents, rhythm for Teachers, rhythm for Health, rhythm for Workplace and that will form a knowledge set that will be available through website, online courses, through apps, through podcasts, to anyone anywhere in the world, so to say, and people will consume it without even coming to us, without even knowing. That's the power of technology, yes, and we benefited by it, hopefully practicing on their own personally, but there might be some who might say I want to learn this properly.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:So that I can come and utilize in my classroom, in my school, in my workplace, and it's for those people who want to be properly trained. They are the ones who would be coming to the center and will have special programs. So seven to 10 days intensive living the life, practicing and getting things clarified in a proper way. And we also make sure that they have got all the proper understanding, right understanding, all the information so that they can teach with confidence and Teach it properly. And then we support them online, remotely and they might go to some far away place Like in Napier or Dunedin, could be a teacher from there.
Speaker 2:But that person is now spearheading a program, tests it out in his or her classroom, works it out in the school. It could be working with people in different communities in Marais if people want to have a program for their own people there. The way we teach Sunil is very universal, non-religious. It's to do with human beings, what we are and the deeper dimension of our being, that knowledge we share and skills, how to access that. But people can customize it according to their own culture, yes, ethos, values and all those things to support that in their own community, family or organization swamiji, would you need technical it people to help with the rollout?
Speaker 1:You said a lot of the programs will be online initially. Would you need a lot of help in that space as well?
Speaker 2:Yes, if there are people in the area of web designing, online course content designing, delivery, right Delivery as a platform will become more how to manage that. Yes, if there's anyone out there who wants to help, they can get in touch with us through our mail at vedantanz, or visit our website, vedantanz, and get in touch with us and we can then find what they have to offer and integrate them in our team. So there are already with us and we can then find what they have to offer and integrate them in our team. So there already are a few people there, but we need to expand that team.
Speaker 1:Yeah, excellent thank you, swamiji. Is there anything else you would like to?
Speaker 2:mention well this is a Sunil. This is a program growing and developing and we will share that through our website, vedantanc. So if they are interested listeners, they can visit the website and see and keep in touch with us. If they want to contribute, you know, and have something to offer, that would be very nice. You are welcome. And if they want to be recipient of some of those products down the line, then they can follow through the website, welcome, and if they want to be recipient of some of those products down the line.
Speaker 2:Then they can follow through the website and when these courses are taking shape, they can join the courses, and when these retreats will begin to happen, they can come and sign up for it and participate on these things excellent Swamiji.
Speaker 1:that was very good, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you, sunil. It's good that it's a very exciting time. Now We've become much busier, but we are excited that we will be taking a special program focused on mental well-being, but from a spiritual, meditation-based solution. There are a lot of things there in mindfulness and all those area, but this is taking it to another level from the Vedanta teachings that we have received. Thank you, swamiji. Most welcome, sunil.
