Sep 22nd Seniors Program
This month, we had a great turn out of seniors, many thanks to Mr. Movva for spreading the word and coordinating the transportation rides. We had a number of new volunteers step up to fill the absence of our regular volunteers who have gone on vacation.
Our day began with Krishna Dilip Gupta-ji who came to the temple at 9:00am to start preparing the lunch for our seniors. He was assisted by his wife and three great volunteers; Preeti, Runalee and Jyoti. In the meantime Tikaram-ji helped me with setting the tables. Shanti, a senior and another new volunteer came early to help in setting up the center pieces. This time, we used home grown organic prune plums and homegrown rose flowers. Mrs. Shanti ( affectionately called Ponnima; Ponni's mother) made a colorful centerpiece out of the fruits and rose petalsnwith some almonds in between the fruits.
Nitya-ji and Santosh-ji our HTCC board and EC member respectively had in the meantime gone to the UW CCC campus and picked up 12 seniors from the busstop. We have Mr. Movva to thank for in taking up the transportation coordination from Redmond to UW CCC and coordinating with Nitya-ji. Sat-ji also drove three seniors from Redmond library.
The program started sharp at 11:00am with Raman-ji guiding the yoga session. Given the short one hour time slot, Raman-ji focussed on prAnAyAmA techniques and emphasized the importance of the different breathing techniques. We did simple joint exercises in between the prAnAyAmA.
A simple but neat asanA was setup by our priests Sudhir-ji and Vasudev-ji. SrinivasBhattar-ji had also kept the purnakumbh ready to receive our Swamiji. Aruna, a young volunteer made a flower garland and sent it along with her father-in-law for Swamiji. Swami Brahmayogananda came on time at 11:55am. He was received with purnakumbha by Nitya-ji. Swamiji went up the podium and was given a brief introduction to the moorthies by Nitya-ji. After Swamiji came down and had his seating, a brief introduction to Swamiji was given by Yamini and Ranga-ji. Swamiji then shared his thoughts with the group in Tamil which was translated in English by Ranga-ji. Swamiji's gist is as follows:
"To be in Seattle is itself punyam, after coming from Dallas it is so nice to see Seattle greenery. This is a seniors program, yet, if you drop the identification with the body, you are always young. An example; a 85 year young man went on to learn Chinese, when asked why He is learning Chinese atvthis age, he replied I am a student". Swamiji went on to say, as long as we keep an open mind to continue to learn, we keep our minds young. Swamji also said, as we age, we carry more mind load. He pointed to the moorthies and reminded us, when we have so many gods to take care of us, why carry this load, give it to Him/Her and relax. He also emphasized that by giving up past which is already gone by and a future which is not in our control, if we learn to relax in the present, that is where true joy and happiness lies. He said to do guided mediation in 30 minutes is like trying to capture Ganga in a small pitcher. He then went on to guide us through the chanting of a-u-m, starting with the "a" sound, he asked us to relax our lower part of the body from waist down, then with the u- sound, we relaxed our torso, finally with the m- sound we relaxed our face. At this point the body completely relaxed and let go, we were guided to recognize ourselves as a being who happened to have this body to experience the world. Swamiji then gently guided us out of the meditation with a shanti mantra. Each one of us then had the opportunity to take his blessings."
This was followed by a delicious lunch made by Krishna-ji. Since HTCc is going green, a conscious decision was made to remove the styrofoam products from the temple. We used biodegradable plates and cups to serve the lunch. We are still transitioning to a better way to serve prasAdam while being environmentally friendly. Thank you for being patient with our choice of biodegradable products while we put a proper system in place.
After prasAdam, we had an opportunity to take a group photo with Swamiji. Swamiji left after having lunch. The organic prune plums were distributed to the seniors. Finally, it was time to wrap up.
Thank you to all the volunteers who help run the seniors program at HTCC.
Nitya-ji and Santosh for driving seniors to and fro the temple, Mrs. And Mr. Krishna Gupta, Runalee, Jyoti, Preeti for making the seniors lunch, Raman-ji for his continued efforts to keep our seniors healthy with yoga and pranayama, to our priests for setting up the Asana and purnakumbh, Aruna for making the flower garland for Swamiji and Mr. Viswanathan for getting them to our premise, Tikaram-ji, Ponnima and Bharati for helping with setup and clean up of the tables, Ponnimma specially for helping clean up the kitchen after the program.
Enjoy the festival season and we will see you in October.
Happy Navarathri!