Touch your inner self

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The evening has almost turned into night, darkening the campus of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Delhi. Besides a handful of students scattered around, majority of the crowd seems to have shifted to the NRCVEE Hall, to listen to Science of Spirituality.

A workshop on meditation and its many uses in the lives of higher education students, the speaker has the attention of country’s well-chosen learners. “Running after the equation of “happiness = pay package = success” has not just made you rats in a mad race, but also lose the real values of life. Now there’s only competition, jealousies, rivalries and discontentment in your life. And to come out of these, you must connect with the light of the soul within. Once you learn to harness this soul power you will benefit at all levels — intellectual, physical, emotional and spiritual,” says the speaker, a lady representative from the organisation of spiritual leader, H.H. Sant Rajinder Singh Ji Maharaj.
The workshop is the first ever introduction to the “science of spirituality” for Rahul Saluja, an M.Tech. student of IIT-Delhi, but he surely is taken aback. “First, I came face to face with a reality. I am stressed and before the workshop I wasn’t aware of it. The talk also led to the triggers that get me stress. Now, I am planning to get some time off my schedule daily to sit quietly and try to relieve me from the many pressures of life,” he says.
To career counsellor, Amrit Sujan, may not exactly be spirituality but values are doses every students must get to achieve a balance in life. “Scientifically, these help students of two kinds — those with not so strong concentration and those stressed. So, in a way, these help students live and study better.”
Nakkashi Gambhir started meditating while she was giving her 12th board examination. And the experience has made her an advocate of meditation. “I try to find a few minutes daily to be with myself and know where I am failing and areas I must work on. Though it has helped me to be calm at large I cannot recommend it to peers. They must realise it themselves,” says the engineering student from GGSIPU.
A few academicians are already taking a note of the mood, and so has the concept of All India Students’ Conference on Science and Spiritual Quest come into being. An annual affair, the conference brings together students, teachers and visionaries. While speaking at the forum last year, professor P.B. Sharma, VC, Delhi Technological University, said that such values help not just students but also education. “The modern education system has moved away from our age-old tradition of integrating knowledge with values, where a man of knowledge and capabilities was expected to practice his expertise with devotion and service. We need to rebuild our education to provide this vital connect,” he said.