Meditation and Kriya Yoga Lectures in Kolkata

On Thursday we met Jaya and Dharmadas at their hotel to plan the weekend of the lectures. In the evening we called about a dozen people who had attended the previous lecture series in Kolkata and we invited them again to this weekend’s classes. In India, an email or written invitation is needed but not enough. It always needs to be followed up with a phone call to personally invite them again.

Friday evening was the free class for everyone about meditation and Kriya Yoga. It was held at the Kala Mandir, about 10 minutes from our hotel (including traffic). We arrived there around 2:30pm and started getting the conference hall ready for the 7pm discourse. Jaya arrived shortly after and also rolled up his sleeves to get the place ready. By God’s grace we had it ready (or as ready as it can get) before the lecture. We even had two power outages through the evening, one before the lecture and one almost at the very end. We had about 250 people in the hall. I had the honor of introducing Jaya and Dharmadas for the evening. They both gave a wonderful introduction to meditation, Kriya Yoga and our path in general. Many people stayed at the end to ask further questions. The book table was like a mob scene. Imagine ten hands holding books extended toward you at the same time from all directions with ten voices saying “I’d like to get these” all at the same time. It was quite an experience.

At the end of the evening we had to pack up all the books, CDs and other setup material (about 20 boxes) and take them to our hotels, because we didn’t have the same conference facility the next two days. We split the boxes amongst ourselves, including dear friends and volunteers from Kolkata, Mr. Chaudhuri and his son Prasenjit, who took a few of the boxes with them to their home. Our hotel was very helpful in storing our 11 boxes overnight at the bell desk.

Next morning (Sat, March 11), we took all the boxes again to the new conference room at the Academy of Fine Arts using one of the metered taxis. The metered taxis are a different story. We used the hotel’s cars for the first few days, who are very professional, very friendly, the cars are much nicer and I am sure they are more expensive than the metered taxis (we will find out about it when we get our hotel bill). When you get into a metered taxi, it’s quite different. They are all Ambassador brand cars, which seem to be from the 60’s. The drivers don’t speak English. It’s a constant battle to figure out what the right amount to pay is because no matter what you pay them they want 50 rupees more. The taxi who took us to the Academy of Fine Arts found the location but he realized he was on the opposite side of the divided street. Since we had quite a few boxes, he wanted to take us to the entrance. His choices were either to continue to drive another ½ mile or so and make a U turn to get to the front of the facility or to drive backwards the way we came (against the traffic) and forward again on the opposite side of the divided streeat (again against the traffic). Guess what his choice was? Yepp, he first backed up about 500 meters against the traffic flow and then changed four lanes to get to the other side of the street and drive again another 500 meters against the traffic flow. All this time I was thinking, this would be a good story to write about.

The challenges at the new facility seem to be never-ending but once again we managed to get the place ready for Saturday morning’s lecture. We had about 70 attendees for the beginner’s meditation class in the morning and in the afternoon we had 5 attendees for the advanced class. I was able to spend only a few minutes inside the classroom, because I had to monitor the book tables outside, but for the few times I was in the classroom, I was able to feel the keen interest from the attendees and also outpouring energy and enthusiasm from Jaya and Dharmadas.

Tomorrow (Sunday) we will finish up with the second half of both series at the same facility.