Events Platfrom: Moksha

Stories transmit what sūtras alone cannot: philosophy embodied. The sages of India’s great wisdom traditions did not philosophize in the abstract. Their insights were forged in life — in bodies broken, abandoned, and cloistered. It is through their stories that we encounter exemplars of wisdom in the world. This talk explores three Indic sage stories (from The Stories Behind the Poses), each illuminating core Vedāntic concepts — ātman, avidyā, karma, and mokṣa — through narrative rather than doctrine. From Aṣṭāvakra’s deformed body in Janaka’s court, to Matsyendra’s twelve years in the belly of a fish, to Bharadvāja’s three lifetimes of incomplete learning, these tales show that wisdom is not information but transformation. Stories teach you when you least expect it, which is why they’re so effective.

A dipstick with college mates, friends, and relatives claimed that almost no one had read the Holy Gita. This was concerning. The Gita is an ancient treasure, filled with wisdom—an excellent guide to peace and happiness. It is a misconception that the Gita is meant for 70-year-olds in the last phase of their lives. It is a day-to-day guide for every human being to finding peace and solace in today’s challenging world.

This talk is an attempt to get the message of the Gita to a larger audience.

Many sincere practitioners face a familiar paradox: meditation sometimes unfolds effortlessly, yet at other times remains resistant despite discipline and experience. This challenge is not new. In the Bhagavad Gītā, Arjuna admits that the mind is “harder to control than the wind,” while modern thinkers such as Yuval Noah Harari have noted that analytical brilliance can hinder, rather than support, meditation.

Drawing on the Upaniṣhads and their commentarial tradition, this session explores why the mind naturally turns outward, how meditation differs from concentration, and why Vedānta understands meditation as an expression of inner readiness rather than an act of will. A simple Meditation States Monitor, generated using AI, will be used illustratively to support reflection and explore meditative states.

The world is at unrest and unease. As we may observe to begin with, there is no peace, purity and balance in the world order. The struggle for dominance over another is more acutely manifested. There is new struggle to protect oneself from the insecurity from the other.

If we observe the life of animals, the carnivorous animals have only one job to do, is to find the food, but for herbivorous animals there are two jobs to do – protect oneself from the carnivorous animals and find one’s food. But when it comes to the human beings, there are three jobs to do. First is to protect oneself from others, find whatever is necessary for living or survive and the most important is to protect oneself from oneself. But to protect oneself from oneself is a really task in the life, because from the childhood we have hurt ourselves knowingly or unknowingly. So, it is very important to learn to be calm and composed to handle or face any situation without being affected by internal or external desired or undesired situations. For which we need to have equilibrium of the mind.

In this talk, Swamini Sadvidyananda ji will explore ‘Samatvam’- the Hindu unique concept of equilibrium as enunciated in Bhagavad Gita.

This talk begins with a simple observation: highly capable people often struggle with meditation, while others find that the mind turns inward with relative ease—even after long breaks. Reflecting on this contrast led Sundar back to his early exposure to contemplative practice, and eventually to a contemporary analogy that occurred to him while charging his Tesla. The autonomous nature of Dhyāna, where attention begins to move inward on its own, struck him as closely resembling a self-driving system that no longer requires constant manual control. In the same moment, the idea of “lifetime charging” echoed Grace and the inner goal or direction implanted early on—forces that continue to support the inward movement long after they were first received.

Against this backdrop, the talk explores why meditation is universally difficult, drawing on the Katha Upaniṣad’s insight that the senses are factory-set to face outward. It then takes up a seldom-asked question—even among long-time practitioners: Can meditation be measured? This leads to Sundar’s original A-P-B Framework—Absorption, Peace, and Bliss—and its expression in the Meditation Monitor, developed through collaboration with AI tools such as ChatGPT and Claude. The session concludes with a striking fulfillment of the Tesla metaphor, grounded in Śaṅkarācārya’s commentary on the famous “two birds” mantra of the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad, where in two short sentences Śaṅkara draws the roadmap for the path of a Dhyāna Yogin.

In this talk, the Acharya will discuss how Devi is depicted as the ultimate principle in the Upanishads. Further he will will discuss the references to Devi worship in multiple Upanishads, especially in the Shakta Upanishads and key passages within the principal Upanishads such as the Kena, Mundaka, and Shvetashvatara Upanishads. The session will also highlight the importance of Devi Upasana in the pursuit of the Moksha Purushartha.