News & Notes - August 2004

     Gurupoornima and the 6-day spiritual Retreat were held between July 2 and 8 in a very sublime, austere and inspiring atmosphere. More than eighty seekers participated from different parts of the country and abroad. The diversity in the age group – from 14 to 76 – of the participants was striking. Swamiji's expositions in the Bhagavadgeetaa, Kathopanishad and Satsang sessions were such that the concepts touched and appealed to participants of all ages. Swamiji discussed "Interactional Saadhana" on the basis of Bhagavadgeetaa and the last chapter of Kathopanishad.

Even though many of the participants were attending Retreat for the first time, all the devotees joyfully participated in different areas of service, making the various programmes well-organized while themselves feeling inspired and blessed in the process.

List of participants: Smt Meena Subramanian, Smt Raj Dagur, Smt Kavita Gupta, Smt Manju Jain, Smt Sudarsh Sardana, Sow Rima; Sri E Sreedharan, Sri Ashwani, Sri Lakshminarayanan, Sri Ramesh, Sri Vishu (Delhi). Smt Saroj Gautam, Smt Asha Singh, Smt Jeevan Jyoti, Sow Urvashi, Smt Anuja, Sow Anubhuti, Sow Ruchita; Sri Hari Om Gautam (Vasundhara, Ghaziabad). Smt Komalam, Smt Rajeswari Sahu, Smt Malati Singh; Sri RS Tiwari, Sri SR Sahu, Sri Raghavan, Sri Aniruddha Singh (Jamshedpur). Sri Salil Bhowmik, Sri Parthasarathy Biswas; Smt Manjir Bhowmik (Kolkata). Sri Prafulla Chandran & Smt Shailaja (Pune). Dr Damodaran (Malaysia). Smt Jaishree (Singapore). Smt Girija (Abu Dhabi). Smt Lakshmi (Mumbai). Sri Vaman Kamath & Smt Asha (Bangalore). Sri Balasubramanian, Sri Ramachandran, Sri Sangameswaran, Sri Srinivasan, Sri Ganesh, Sri Aswin; Smt Gayatri, Smt Geeta, Smt Gowri, Smt Devi (Chennai). Sri Sridhar (Coimbatore). Sri Ramaswamy (Madurai). Dr Ankur Arora (Manipal). Sri Narayanan, Sri Yogesh & Smt. Sumam (Kannur). Smt Savitri, Smt Rukmini Amma, Smt Lakshmi, Smt Indira, Smt Geetha, Smt Anitha, Smt Medini, Smt Sathy Achyutan, Smt Sathy Suresh, Sow Bindhya, Sow Dhanya; Sri Vijaykumar, Sri Prabhakaran, Sri Achyutan, Sri Madhavan, Sri UK Nair, Sri Harindranath, Sri Aravindan (Trichur).

The Retreat concluded on July 8 morning and the first distribution of Anna Vastra Daana Satra was held at the Ashram the same afternoon. 3000 recipients were gifted rice, dhoti or saree, and paayasam. Distribution from the other Centres are being held every week-end.

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