International Festival of Yog, Culture, Spirituality

Every space carries its own feel. Every audience its own energy.

Making a film is like weaving a huge cloth, perhaps like a carpet. There are woven certain secrets. Through sounds, through pacing. Perhaps through a shot. To make you – the audience – smile, laugh, cry … Feel. Hours of Feeling. Sensing. The potential effect.

We have never had an audience like this. An audience that was so in sync with those subtle weaves. The spontaneous sighs, the laughs, the claps. All fell into place at the 4th International Festival of Yog, Culture and Spirituality. Folks numbering nearly 1500. From the word go, completely in sync. Receptive. Grahak. A joy for any experience-weaver!

Sharing a few moments, captured. Letting many, float free.

The filmmaker, Akanksha Joshi, being felicitated by Dr. Chinmay Pandya and his wife. Dr. Pandya is a neuropsychiatrist with nearly 8 years of experience of working with minds in the west. He quit as Consultant in West London Hospital Trust, London and joined Dev Sanskriti University’s leadership team as a Pro-Vice Chancellor. He is Chairperson of the world renowned International Festival of Yoga, Culture and Spirituality. A superb orator and a deeply motivated person, Dr. Chinmay is a direct disciple of Acharya Shriram Sharma, the founder of All World Gayatri Pariwar. He grew up under his wings at Shantikunj, a spiritual academy connecting nearly 100 million people globally.

Before stepping into the Mritunjay Auditorium people are invited to take off their shoes. Instinctively, that creates a sacred atmosphere. You know, you are headed someplace – in the heart and the mind – where the armour is off, you are relaxed. @ Dev Sanskriti Vishwavidyalay, Haridwar

Akanksha tells a story to set the context for Hindu Nectar

The presence of so many women, adds to the atmosphere of receptivity, grahakta.

When the heart is full, tears come. They don’t mean sorrow. They just mean, something firm, hard, blocked has … dissolved

True communication begins heart to heart. From there, we go only deeper. And deeper, still.

We don’t have photos with them, but there was a huge queue of kids waiting from the audi till the dining hall. Some did not understand english – the language the film is mostly in – but the ‘bhaav’, the ‘ras’ was communicated beyond text, beyond words.

Akanksha in conversation with Emy Blesio Founder and President of C.U.I.D.Y. Confederazione Ufficiale Italiana Di Yoga, of The World Community of Indian Culture & Traditional Disciplines and of Suryanagara-Ashram International Yoga School, Milan, Italy.