Everyday spirituality
October 2016
When communication becomes yoga, relationships breathe a sigh of relief,” said Shubha Vilas Das, author of Open-eyed Meditations, while talking about the importance of yoga of communication in forming healthy relationships. Yoga of communication, he said, has three limbs – interaction, participation and non-intervention. “Yoga of interaction involves taking off the focus from oneself to the other while empathetically listening to him or her, while yoga of participation is cooperating with others by valuing their opinions since people happily participate in a relationship as long as they feel valued and wanted,” he added. Further, yoga of non-intervention implies accepting people as they are. Shubha Vilas, who is a motivational speaker, lifestyle coach, and storyteller, has authored the book series, Ramayana – The Game of Life. He was holding a reading session from his newly released book, moderated by Renuka Narayanan – commentator and columnist on religion and culture, in the presence of Namita Gokhale – the founder-director of Jaipur Literature Festival, at Oxford Bookstore, New Delhi, on August 17. The evening saw a lively and enlightening discussion on the issues of modern life and how best to deal with them. Renuka Narayanan explained how any situation in our modern life can be compared to incidents from Ramayana and Mahabharata. Shubha Vilas added that these ancient texts are not mere stories, and if assimilated well, they can guide a person in the journey of their life and provide them with permanent solutions. Talking on ‘discernment’, he said, “A simple mind accepts the unchangeable reality, whereas a complex mind dwells on it indefinitely creating immense negativity. While analysis upgrades us, over-analysis downgrades us – unless we can discover what we can learn from it.” Published by Fingerprint, an offshoot of Prakash Books, Open-eyed Meditations is a compilation of meditations and thought-sutras that aim to provide practical wisdom for everyday life. The author has distilled the wisdom of the ancient epics and married them beautifully to the struggles and travails of everyday life.