Day 3 began with Kundalini Sadhana with Gurushabd Singh Khalsa, Sufi Love Meditation with Mert Güler, Vinyasa Living Your Authentic Self: How to Show Up in Self Love with Katie B. Happyy, Ganga Yoga with Ganga Nandini, Sunrise Nāda Yoga on the Ghaṭ with Anandra George, the second round of Yoga of the Mind / Markers for The Passion Test with Janet Attwood, Soul Sweat with Dana Flynn, Touch: A Universal Human Language with Dr. Eden Goldman Rasa Yoga: Chakra of Compassion – Backbends, Pranayama, and Chanting with Sianna Sherman, Magnetism & Radiance with Kia Miller, and The Homeopathics of Sound with Joseph Schmidlin. The Festival welcomed over 1400 participants from 73 countries.
Joining one of the morning sessions was the Hon’ble Ambassador of Georgia to India and Bangladesh Mr Archil Dzuliashvli who had come in for a two day visit to the Festival shared, “It is a great privilege for me to be come here to Parmarth Niketan, this is my second time and every time I come here I feel such a divine connection and peace. My friends, we may be coming from many different countries, different faiths, different traditions but what unites us is Mother Nature. Mother Nature unites us to do good deeds, live consciously and make this world a better place for all beings.”
Participants and presenters were in high spirits to take part in HH Pujya Mooji’s inspirational and motivational pre lunch satsang as part of the Festival’s Spiritual Lecture Series.
Mooji began by leading a meditation on finding the true self within, on the experience of total awareness, and expansive stillness. He emphasized that freedom is possible right now!
Sadhvi Bhagawati shared, “Parmarth Niketan’s aim is to create the awareness of global oneness– the true union amongst people from all over the world. This is why the presence of our Spiritual Leaders is a crucial component of the festival as they guide us to our inner awakening and enlightenment and give us the experience of the true union of one’s self to the Divine.”
Gurushabd Singh Khalso, co-founder of Golden Bridge Yoga along with his wife Gurmukh, shared: “There are many places that we travel on this planet teaching, and there is no place like Rishikesh at the foothills of the Himalayas, where the Ganga comes out of the mountains into the flats of India. It’s a place where yoga is alive. It is alive from so many centuries and millennia of people meditating and doing yoga here.”
Katie B. Happyy, international yoga instructor and certified conflict resolution mediator, said: “A lot of what I get out of the festival and continue to come back to is learning from a wide array of swamis, sages and people that are masters of their craft, something I would never get exposure to just in my own city, state or country. There is a teacher in everything, and every single thing I experience opens up a sensory part of me that I didn’t know was possible.”
Best-selling author and motivational speaker Janet Attwood, said, “The moment I stepped onto the grounds of Parmarth Niketan I felt that I was home. The sweetness, the love, the kindness, you could feel it in the air everywhere. All of the hundreds of hours of preparations that had gone on for how many weeks, no one knows, tomake sure that each and every one of us that attended this one of a kind life-changing festival felt like they were in one great big family.”
Kia Miller, world-renowned Yogini and filmmaker, stated that: “It feels important to me as a yoga student and teacher to come here to the source of the teachings, and to be in this unified field in an environment that is conducive to the exploration of what it means to be a conscious human being on this planet.”
The third day came to an end with Sacred Havan and Ganga Aarti on the Ganga Ghat, along with a tuneful Kirtan Family Hour where all participants chanted their hearts out in an open mic format together with family of international musicians at the intimate Sacred Sound Stage. Closing out the day was a spectacular display of Indian Classical Dance with Nrityavali Dance of Gujarat – a crowd favourite!
Highlights of the day-
- Indian Classical Dance Workshop with Nrityavali
- Detoxification in the Modern Toxic World discussion and demonstration by Dr. Alejandro Junger,
- Kirtan and Bhakti Workshop featuring the brilliant voices of the Kirtaniyas,
- Gumi’s Breath of Love: Indian Flute Raga Sound Healing
- Yoga for the Spine with Mohan Bhandari
- Spiritual Dream Boarding with Swamini Adityananda Saraswati
- Ways to Release Tension and Find Bliss with Tommy Rosen,
- OBSTACLE! Asmita in the Modern Context with Stewart Gilchrist,
- Yogrishi Vishvketu’s BEE Harmony – Hatha-Raja Yoga practice and Rāga & Tāla: An Introduction to North Indian Music with Waka
