Insightful Conversations at BhāratShakti

Featuring conversations with authors, educators, artists, storytellers, thinkers, experts and others, on a wide range of topics concerning India’s past, present and future.

A Conversation on Art for Chittashuddhi, Purification of the Heart

Date: December 14, 2024 Venue: Sri Aurobindo Society As part of our year-long exploration on The Spirit and Forms of Indian Art, BhāratShakti team recently invited Ms. Jayashree Ashok and Ms. Cyntha Gonzales for a conversation on the topic – Art for Chittashuddhi, Purification of the Heart. The topic was inspired by Sri Aurobindo’s essay titled […]

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A Conversation on Exploring Human Psychology through NāṭyaŚāstra

Date: December 4, 2024 Venue: Online The greatest nations and the most cultured races have always considered art as a part of life and made it subservient to life. ~ The Mother, CWM, Vol. 3, p. 108 As part of our ongoing year-long exploration of the topic – “The Spirit and Forms of Art in

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Arts-based Learning: Insights from the Practice of Integral Education 

Dr. Beloo Mehra from BhāratShakti engaged in an interaction with Ms. Jayashree Ashok, Co-founder of Creative School, Bengaluru to explore the topic – “Art that Refines, Heals and Transforms: Insights from the Practice of Integral Education.”  The interactive session explored how in addition to facilitating the development of an aesthetic appreciation, a meaningfully and consciously

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Purpose Gives Focus; Concentration Gives the Ability

Date: September 21, 2023 In Conversation with Chirasree Mitra Narendra: What is the importance of Concentration and Focus for our effective functioning in the world? Chirasree: In today’s fast-paced world and considering the multiple demands that life makes from each of us, we are all under pressure to deliver. Regardless of our age or gender, we all

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Educating the Vital – Art Education for Inner Harmony

Date: October 21, 2022 In her essay on the Vital Education, the Mother writes: As a sign, perhaps, of the decline of civilisation and social decay, a growing vulgarity seems to have taken possession of human life, individual as well as collective, particularly in what concerns aesthetic life and the life of the senses. A

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Conscious Conception and Pregnancy: Listening to a Personal Journey

Date: September 21, 2022 Venue: Online Indian spiritual traditions were never cut-off from life. The attempt of our ancient Indian seers and thinkers was rather to raise all areas of life in the light of the spirit. This included concerns of family life, parenting and even conception, pregnancy and prenatal education. By Choice, not by

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Powada, a Story-telling Performance Art 

Date: August 15, 2022 In our Insightful Conversations series we speak with authors, artists, performers, educators, story-tellers and other creative individuals who are keeping alive, reviving and also giving new forms and expressions to the timeless spirit of Indian culture, history and civilisation. Explore the Series: Insightful Conversations For this special edition in Hindi, we speak

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Krīḍā- Making Indian Games Cool! A conversation with authors of ‘The Games India Plays’

Date: June 21, 2022 Venue: Online In 1949 when the Ashram journal “Bulletin d’Éducation Physique” was started by the Mother, Sri Aurobindo gave a message to the Journal and the Association —J.S.A.S.A. (Jeunesse Sportive de l’Ashram de Sri Aurobindo). In this message, Sri Aurobindo wrote about the wide-ranging significance and necessity of sports, games and

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Bringing Indian Culture in Schools: An Educationist’s Experience and Insights

Date: May 21, 2022 Venue: Online One of the greatest secrets revealed by the Indian spiritual knowledge is that only when a human being finds and lives from the inner self, can he or she most embrace the universal being and become one with it. Only when one becomes truly independent, self-possessed and self-ruler (swarāt, master

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The Timeless Tradition of Storytelling – An Art that Educates, Inspires and Elevates

Date: April 21, 2022 Venue: Online For this month’s Insightful Conversation, we speak with Ms. Deepa Kiran, an award-winning storyteller of international repute. She share with us some thoughts and perspectives on how storytelling can be a powerful means to entertain, educate, inspire and elevate. Ms. Kiran is the founder of Hyderabad-based Story Arts Foundation,

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Exploring Indian Culture and History through Curated Heritage Trails 

Date: March 21, 2022 Venue: Online It is often said that there are three main ways to know India. First, and the best way, is to aspire to realise the truth behind India’s profound and life-affirming spiritual thought. Second is to identify with the deeper truths behind India’s countless stories, particularly the stories told in itihāsa-s (Ramayana

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Reimagining Tales from Purāna-s and Itihāsa-s: A Writer’s Journey of Engaging with Epic Heroines

Date: February 21, 2022 Venue: Online Over the long march of time and despite all the ebbs and flows in India’s cultural landscape, one remarkable facet of the Indian literary mind – a mind that has immersed itself in the literature that expresses the eternal spirit of India – can never be missed. It keeps

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Antaryatra: An Artist’s Journey Within

Date: January 21, 2022 “All great artistic work proceeds from an act of intuition, not really an intellectual idea or a splendid imagination,—these are only mental translations,—but a direct intuition of some truth of life or being, some significant form of that truth, some development of it in the mind of man.”(Sri Aurobindo, CWSA, Vol. 20,

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Indian Approach to Psychology: An Educator’s Experience and Insights

Date: December 21, 2021 Venue: Online For this month’s insightful conversation, we focus on an educator’s experience of working with college students on Indian approach to psychology, or what she calls as Psychology of the Self. Dr. Aditi Kaul works at Auro University, Surat, which is inspired by the ideals and teachings of Sri Aurobindo

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Krishna’s Butter: Taking Wisdom of Bhagavad Gita to Children and Youth

Date: November 21, 2021 Venue: Online For our insightful conversations series, this month we bring a delightful and inspiring conversation with Dr. Bhawana Badhe and Mr. Sushrut Badhe on the topic: Krishna’s Butter – Taking Wisdom of Bhagavad Gita to Children and Youth. Moderated by Dr. Beloo Mehra, the conversation brings to light the inspiration

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A Creative Gurukul for a New Age

Date: October 21, 2021 Venue: Online “The aim of education is not to prepare a man to succeed in life and society, but to increase his perfectibility to its utmost.”  (The Mother, CWM, Vol. 12, p. 120) For this month’s Insightful Conversation section, we are happy to bring a deeply inspiring conversation on a topic close

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The Art of Heritage Photography – A Conversation with Madhu Jagdhish

Date: September 21, 2021 Venue: Online “Photography is an art when the photographer is an artist.”(The Mother, CWM, Vol. 12, p. 241) How do we make our youngsters interested in learning about the great rich cultural and artistic heritage of India? The first and obvious answer would be to have them visit those places which

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Indian History in Indian Education: Beyond Ideologies and Politics

Date: August 15, 2021 Venue: Online “The past must be a spring-board towards the future, not a chain preventing us from advancing…all depends on the attitude towards the past.”(The Mother, CWM, Vol. 12, p. 296) For the Insightful Conversations series, our topic this month is highly relevant for our present and future march as a

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Dharma, Shāstra and Future Society

Date: July 21, 2021 Venue: Online We invited Nithin Sridhar, author of several books on Hinduism and a commentator on various social-cultural-political issues of our times. ‘Īśopaniṣad: An English Commentary’ is his most recent book. Referring to the Upanishads as at once scripture, philosophy and seer-poetry, Sri Aurobindo once remarked that the Upanishads are the supreme work

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Yoga and Cultural Misappropriation

Date: June 21, 2021 Venue: Online Renaissance journal team invited Yogacharya Dr. Ananda Balayogi Bhavanani, Director of the Centre for Yoga Therapy Education and Research (CYTER), and Professor of Yoga Therapy at Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth University, Puducherry, for an interview on this topic, which is also the subject of his new e-book. Yogacharya Dr. Bhavanani shared

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