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PURPOSE OF THE YOGA SAMMELAN
Swami Nischalananda Saraswati
It is a long time since I spoke in Hindi, so please forgive me for any mistakes. I have been thinking about the word sammelan. What happens at a sarmelan? Sam means 'together', melan mean 'meeting'. We are all here to get to know each other. We talk to others. We listen to others. We have our own little world here which is a spiritual world.
This sammelan gives us a spiritual glimpse into human life. Here we get an inspiration. We learn how to speak, how to behave, how to listen, how to convey words charged with love. We are people from various walks of life, from various countries, of various colors, followers of various religions. We sit together with mutual love. This is something extraordinary in today's world. But it should not be extraordinary, it should be natural, because we have all descended from a common root. This convention sets an example. We shall return home with inspiration and this inspiration has to be given to others as well, and we also have to teach them yoga.
There is another word that comes from the word sammelan and that is mela, which means 'fair'. This is a spiritual fair. This world is also a fair. From mela comes the word lila, 'play'. We are enacting a play here, just like we are enacting a role in the world. Why have we come to this convention? We have come to learn. Why have we come into this world? We have come to learn. Therefore, this convention is a representative body of the universe; this convention is a bindu, a focal point of the universe and also of this world. Just like there is a spark in our heart, so there is also a spark within the heart of the world.
What do we need to learn? Our karmas and the karmas of others have no difference, in fact, it is a joint ventur
xpression when we say this is our karma and that is his karma. It is not true. Our karma is the karma of all, it is a collective affair. We need to be taught constantly in this modern world the lesson of learning to respect others. Without this, the world is moving towards destruction. Why is it so?
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