Can We Co-create !

" ' Co-create' is an inspiring word and an adventurous idea it signifies ! The objective is 'Dharma- Yoga' another fabulous and promising idea !

Charles Savage,a management and economics professor from Munich,Germany and his yoga teacher C S R Prabhu,a known IT scientist from Hyderabad last year and this year came to Kurukshetra to verify our faith and trust in the words of the Bhagavadgita which was born here more than 5,000 years back.

The miseries of the world are due to our lack of awareness of the efficacy and supremacy of Dharma which is the Nature-God-ordained doctrine of life,which does not bind us,but rather sets us free from bondage and self-inflicted limitations.Yoga is alleviating human afflictions,physical and mental,to a great extent and is looked upon with reverence and reliability.There are many Yoga-s everywhere,in the scriptures and now in contemporary practice.But the Yoga of Dharma,Dharma-Yoga is the very pivot as viewed by CSR Prabhu,who has also worked on ancient aeronautics found in Samskrita.Our positive value-based response to the world happenings to create a better and joyously and blissfully livable world is for Prabhu 'Dharma- Yoga' !

Charles Savage 71 asks : 'Can we co-create such conditions that we may 'live lightly and lively according to our self-projected practical values of Dharma-Yoga' ? He calls such a life style as 'low-carbon' as we are not consumptive beyond our/nature's means.He wants to discuss the best in religions,but he mainly draws from the Gita,Veda and Upanishads.He compares Draupadi's predicament at Duryodhana's court as that the mother earth (Gaia in Greek) is faced with at the hands of her own children all over the globe.Prabhu added that all can re-discover this essential goodness and Dharma in their own religions.

On 25,26 & 27 February we had good interaction with the two at Shrikrishna Museum and Samskrita Shodha Parishad in the Sanskrit Department of Kurukshetra University.Now it has taken the form of a certain pro-active forum and foundation named Dharma-Yoga International having chapters at Hyderabad,Bangalore,Munich and Kurukshetra.

Kurukshetra came to be designated as Dharmakshetra by Lord Vishnu when the sage-king Kuru ploughed the land of Brahmavarta and sowed eight seeds which were part and parcel of his own corporeal body purified by sacrifices.The legandary eight seeds are : Tapas (penance),Satya (Truth),Kshamaa (Forgiving),Dayaa (Kindness),Shaucha (Purity),Daana (Charity),Yoga (Spiritual Mastery) and Brahmacarya (Control of Senses).These eight are symbolic of practical Dharma in life.In the great epic Vyasa is in utter pains seeing the unhappy turn of events and speaks out : 'Here throwing up my arms I proclaim in distress,but none does lend an ear to me.I emphasize that out of Dharma(Condut) alone Artha (Resources) and Kaama (Desired objects) emerge ! But why is that Dharma not being practiced ?'

Can Dharma-Yoga bring some peace to the ailing and dying spirit of humanity ? Only our sustained efforts and future can tell ! "

Samskrita in Mizoram !

" In my first ever visit to Chawngte in Mizoram as a Resource Person to deliver some ten lectures at the Min. of Culture NMm-sponsored National Workshop on Manuscriptology & Paleography at the end of January,I found that there is so far no scope and means or facility for study of Samskrita in this state.75% are Mizos now Christians and 20% are Chakma Buddhists and rest 5% are miscellaneous people.I understood that spread of Samskrita can bring down their sensitive group identities and consequent rivalries.The Chakmas consider themselves as the descendants of the Buddha.which has made them determined against conversion.The Mizos were mostly pagans beforehand, worshiping all kinds of natural forces and images including trees.But all of them very lovable people,greatly fond of their languages and scripts.The Chakma people want to preserve and practice their language and script in place of Bengali which they were made to do in the past.

During the period of about a week I stayed in the Chakma Autonomous District Council Guest House I felt the language they spoke closer to me than expected.On the last day at the Valedictory I was made a special guest on the dais and the continuous lectures of a number of other guests in Chakma language,even a few poems were recited,I was enjoying a feast and trying to relish it as best I could.One thing I noticed that I was understanding quite a lot,say up to 70% of what was being said.I thought if I told things in my mother tongue these people would understand as much of it ! When it came to my good turn,I took a sweet friendly revenge by starting to speak in Odia with of course their prior permission,switching over to Bangla and to Hindi too except concluding in English at the end.I emphasized how it is Samskrita that pervades all indian languages and that Chakma as a language could come to benefit from the rich treasure and culture of Samskrita which the Buddha had mastered at an early age although for different reasons he made up his mind to preach his ideas in Pali !

I met a good many zealots for Samskrita and I inspired them as to how to make a beginning.I wish by God's grace something would happen to the divine speech in that beautiful land, which some noted on our way back as bearing a striking similarity to Switzerland.SarasvatI shruti-mahatI mahIyatAm ! "