Arsha Bodhini Group, Chennai recently conducted a three day programme on Vedanta at Jnanapravaha (Swami Dayananda Study Centre), Manjakkudi, Tamil Nadu.

Acarya Ranganji spoke on Manisha Pancakam while Smt. Suryapriya’s talk focused on Tripod of Vedanta – Guru-sastra-Ishvara. These sessions were interspersed by Bhagavad Gita verses chanting and Nirvana shatkam chanting.

The programmes started with a welcome address by Swami Ramesvarananda on behalf of the Jnanapravaha team. It was followed with Guru Puja at Jnanapravaha hall at the feet of Pujya Swamiji and also a vigraha of Lord Krishna. The Bhagavad Gita programme culminated with taking the Lord  Krishna vigraha  around in a procession from Jnanapravaha hall to Perumal Temple and after a small puja there, the vigraha was taken to Swamiji’s janmagrha and a small puja was conducted there and guruprasad – ‘Value of values’ books were distributed to the participants.

The classroom sessions were well attended by the group of students, around forty of them. The striking feature of the group was most of them were families. The teaching was along the lines of Arsha Vidya teaching by Pujya Swamiji and his Acarya disciples. The response from the students and their satsang questions were indicative of the shraddha of the students in the teaching and they had good takeaways in their own words.

The classroom-sessions concluded with a puja to Pujya Swamiji and a small felicitation programme with the group of participants and the Jnanapravaha team exchanging pleasantries and momentos. Sri.M.G.Srinivasan felicited the acaryas on behalf of SDET.

The group was well-hosted by the Jnanapravaha team members, volunteers, house-keeping staff and kitchen-staff. The group was happy with their stay and profusely appreciated our efforts in providing the right ambience, food, accommodation facilities, study material, etc for Vedanta study and would be happy to have further sessions in future.

The Jnanapravaha team also expressed appreciation of the retreat, disciplined participation by the members and their respect for Arsha vidya Acaryas and the great reverence they showed towards Pujya Swamiji and the special word of appreciation they had for Smt. Sheela Balaji for envisioning and putting together such a place for Vedanta Study, along the lines Pujya Swamiji would have wanted.

In all, it was a grand successful retreat.