CSE Kriya Yoga Congress - A Report

Bay Area, California Report

We attended some of the sessions of the Kriya Yoga Congress 2016 organized by the Center for Spiritual Enlightenment, San Jose, mainly the Friday Keynote and Saturday Banquet dinner.

Friday, March 11th

The event started and ended with Yogacharya Ellen O'Brian's Kirtan session. It was heart-filling and soul filling session with beautiful patterns emerging out of the concert, repeated by the entire audience and the hall seemed to have patterns of waves in which we all were floating. The chanting of Hey Prabhu, Gopala Jai jai, Jai Bolo Rama, Namah Shivaya, Namo Arunachala and so on were so beautiful on the lips of these passionate spiritual seekers who are not homegrown Sanskrit or Sanskrit based speakers, but instead a passionate adopted Sanskrit children.

After the initial bhajan was the moment of honoring of Yogashree N.V.Raghuram, the spiritual founder and chairman of Yoga Bharati. It was also the moment of remembering CSE leader's recent trip to VYASA, their love for India, and their love for Yoga Bharati. 

Sri N.V.Raghuram, popularly known as Raghuramji, then got on to the podium. His wisdom filled words filled the hearts of the audience with love and compassion through the message on Yoga. He connected the journey from outer to inner, from gross to subtle, from matter or materialism to Spirit or Spirituality. His talk flowed so beautifully that each of the members of the audience — around 500 members — was profoundly merged into sublimation by the end of his speech.

Sessions and Initiation - The attendees of CSE's Kriya Congress were busy the entire afternoon of Friday and Saturday with many talks and sessions including Kriya Yoga Initiation taken by hundreds of people from Rev. Roy Eugene Davis, the direct disciple of Paramahansa Yogananda.

Saturday, March 12th Banquet Dinner

The event started with a beautiful chanting of Raghuramji from Rig Veda and Ishavasyopanishad. After that, we had a small talk by Cynthia Coppel of Lotus Ayurveda and Shunya Pratichi Mathur of Vedika Global. They both gave a beautiful and crisp message in the honor of the dedicated yogi of CSE, Rev. Roy Eugene Davis. 

Then came a beautiful rendering of Hindustani classical instrumental concert. Not a single player was Indian and yet it was done as if they had learned music in India since childhood. The fretless sitar and the rendition of the Kirwani, Raag Mishra Mand and finally Raag Bhairavi. We were already full before the dinner began ! 

Then came the most sumptuous and satvic vegetarian dinner and the delightful conversation with wonderful people on our table. We met some of the most amazing and passionate people in the field of Yoga, Sanskrit, meditation, researchers in meditation, etc. 

Some of the CSE regulars who were in the school board member for Santa Clara school district, the Jain Community leader and the official of Santa Clara Correction facility gave an account of how they have used spirituality and meditation in the respective fields of their profession. The example of the high school kid whose GPA was 1.6 in Freshman year improved to 4.0 in Final year due to Meditation was a hugely inspiring story for all in the audience.

This was followed by Yogacharya giving a beautiful account of her Guru Roy Eugene Davis and his work. She said her inspiration was derived from his selfless and unswerving dedication for more than 70 years in the service of humanity and in spiritual sadhana. This moved the audience to the point of tears of joy. Everyone gave a standing ovation to the "Swami in the black Suit" as I would like to address him. Yogacharya then awarded the first edition (1947) of the book "Autobiography of Yogi" by Paramahansa Yogananda, a rare collection. Then was the time for thanking the volunteers. Rev. Sylvia Karuna Kunt was honored for her all-encompassing dedication to CSE's work. The list of Sylvia's work makes this report too large. Suffice it to say she took the heavyweight lifting of the Kriya Yoga Congress along with her heavyweight lifting of the center's operations, finance, human resources, facilities, mentoring the seminaries, and the list goes on.

We got to see all the volunteers of CSE starting with Rev.Sundari Jensen, another heavyweight lifter of CSE to many passionate volunteers — over 50 of them — who stood up to be honored and clapped.

Once upon a time, there was, nay, there IS — a humble group, dedicated souls, and a beautiful spiritual group emerging out of one spark of Punya Bhumi Bharat — Mother India as they say — the Jagadguru of the world ! I came out TODAY humbled and benumbed with sublime bliss!

Jai Paramahansa Yogananda! Jai Gurudev! Jai Bharat ke Sant !

- Yoga Bharati Volunteers
 

CSE Kriya Yoga Congress Report

Mar 11th 2013

Yoga Bharati, Bay Area members attended Kriya Yoga Congress organized by Center for Spiritual Enlightment (CSE) in Holiday Inn, San Jose on March 8-10th 2013. Center for Spiritual Enlightment is a San Jose based organization that carries the lineage of Babaji, Lahari Mahashaya, Sri.Yukteshwar and Paramahamsa Yogananda. Representatives of six organizations were invited as special guests for their banquet dinner. Among them were: Br Prabodh Chaitanya and Sri Rao of Chinmaya Mission, Swami Prasannatmananda of Vedanta Society, Berkeley, Tanvi and Mihir Meghani of Hindu American Foundation (HAF) and Ashwini and Anil Surpur from Yoga Bharati and Rev. Masao Tsuruta of Seicho No Ie, the Truth of Life movement who translated the books of Mr.Roy Eugene Davis into Japanese. Yoga Bharati offered greetings to CSE and to Mr. Roy Eugene Davis, Minister of Center for Spiritual Awareness, Pheonix and the direct disciple of Paramahamsa Yogananada on his 82nd Birthday.

The detailed report follows.

Yoga Bharati members attended sessions on all three days and also their Sunday Services where they celebrated Maha Shiva Ratri and sungs chantings on Shiva.

The Meditation workshop by Mr. Roy Eugene Davis on Friday started with a small silence meditation followed by Mr. Davis’s lecture on the fundamentals of meditation derived from Patanjali Yoga Sutras. He also talked about his experiences with his master Paramahamsa Yogananda and his method of teaching, his wisdom, etc. Mr. Davis being an avid meditator and the direct disciple of Paramahamsa Yogananada, has immense knowledge on vedantic concepts, especially Patanjali Yoga sutras and he gave a beautiful account of his own meditation experience covering his master Yogananada’s teachings. His session was full of humor and we enjoyed it.

Ayurveda – This was a session by Cythia Ambika Copple of Mount Madonna Center. She covered the basis of Ayurvedic concepts – Vata, Pitta and Kapha. She gave a practical session where she gave a questionnaire and asked the audience to answer them and discuss with their neighbors about their body type.

Phil Goldberg expounded on how Indian Spirituality influenced the west. Many of Yoga Bharati members have read his book American Veda, which is a compendium of all the wonderful yogis who visited from India, influencing the culture of America. In the evening session, Dr. Christopher Chapple talked eloquently about Patanjali Yoga Sutras covering many concepts of yoga. His amazing depth of knowledge on the subject was evident from his lecture.

On Saturday, we attended the devotional session by Swami Nirvanananda and the entire audience was enthralled by the wonderful chantings of OM Namah Shivaya, and other devotional chantings. This was followed by Meditaton workshop by Mr. Roy Euegne Davis who covered some more concepts and his lineage and the master’s wisdom.

Banquet dinner: This was a perfectly organized and flawlessly executed event and we were in the most joyous and ecstasy state – time and again in the program. The Banquet was well attended by 500 to 600 people from CSE and other orgs.

The program began with the chanting of OM and prayer followed by a salad appetizer. The beautiful poem read by Patricia (Kavita) sung the glory of the Vedantic wisdom of her master lineage – Babji, Lahari Mahashaya, Sri Yukteshwar, Paramahamsa Yogananda and the current successor – Mr. Roy Eugene Davis …

White Birds fly over the river Ganges, At Sunrise, dolphins ride the waters, Maharaj Babji appears on the illumined path…. Walks along the beach at the merging of the rivers…..calls for the holy sounds of OM to form the holy science of divine oneness; place the holy text on the spotless table of your mind…. the tinkling of the cowbells….the lotus blossom that stands honorable above the mud…one day the child of your heart will arrive…. Paramahamsa – the supreme white swan across the seas….Roy Eugene Davis – the boy rides across the magnetic fields of his country towards his master and steps into his place in the holy lineage….offer nourishment for all who want to enter the center of their spiritual awareness….. Remember the forgotten language of the original sound – the pure vibration of OM that contains all breath, the word that contains all words…. articulate the ancient and profound words – Do what you know you should do.

The band team of CSE sang wonderful songs that reflected the vedantic views, the advaita concepts, the song that were pure manifestations of love and bhakti – sung in acapella fashion, in the chorus, in a festive style and in the slow and easy flowing bhakti style. The audience was in a pure bliss and multiple standing ovations were given to the team.

This was followed by dinner and then a session of greetings by various friendly organizations. All the delegates gave wishes to CSE and their good work. They specially wished Roy Eugene Davis on his Birthday. Rev. O’Brian gifted a gold plated Shri Yantra to Mr.Davis. It was a beautiful piece of art that everyone got to see and enjoy.

Below is YB’s greeting message given on behalf of Yoga Bharati.

On behalf of Yoga Bharati and Sri N.V. Raghuram, Spiritual founder and Chairman of Yoga Bharati, Our special greetings on the mahasamadhi anniversaries of Paramahansa Yogananda, Sri Yukteswar and the 82nd birth anniversary of Mr.Roy Eugene Davis – the direct disciple of Paramahamsa Yogananda.

It is indeed a wonderful occasion to celebrate the message of yoga that has inspired millions of Americans, especially when we are also celebrating Swami Vivekananda’s 150th birth anniversary – the man who brought yoga to the west.

We commend Mr. Davis for his dedication to yoga for more than 50 years. Our special wishes to the Center for Spiritual Enlightenment and Center for Spiritual Awareness who have been tirelessly working to spread global health and peace through yoga.