"A New Beginning" seminar at Cesenatico, Italy
"A New Beginning" seminar at Cesenatico, Italy from January 20-22nd was a new beginning in many ways. Apart from being the first event in Italy for the year 2012, this was also the first time this seminar was organised outside of Verona, where all the OWA seminars were being held for the last two years.The seminar was led by the senior faculty member of One World academy, Ananda Giri ji, supported by Faculty members Krishnaraj and Yuktesh. Hotel New Bristol, Cesenatico, the venue for this event is a stone’s throw away from the famous Leonardo da Vinci harbor on the beautiful Adriatic Coast and served as an ideal setting for this inward journey.
The first day evening started with the 80 and more participants introducing themselves and sharing their intent for the program. While most of these participants were residents of Cessenatico & Rimini, the group also included participants from as far as Spain & Switzerland. Anandagiri ji highlighted the importance of Awareness for an extraordinary quality of life. The session on inquiring into the interconnectedness of life instilled a deep sense of gratitude and love in the participants. The first day concluded with One World Meditation & connecting with the universal intelligence.
On the second day, Ananda Giriji led people through a very thought-provoking discussion as to how our inner state of being is not defined by our external conditions. What made the session all the more lively was the array of questions posed by the participants in response to this teaching that seemed to challenge several years of conditioning. However, with Ananda Giriji’s answers, the participants grew aware of their blame game and how their own stories create their suffering.
After the lunch break Krishnaraj guided people through a deep process of healing relationship with parents. This guided inward journey helped the participants heal years of pent-up emotional hurts with their parents. It also helped them see how unhealed relationships were negatively affecting their inner state of being and forcing them to react habitually to challenges in life.
This was followed by Yuktesh’s session on breaking free of emotional addictions wherein participants became aware as to how they were being addicted to certain destructive emotions and trying to fulfill their emotional needs. Not only did this session make them intensely aware of the consequences of dwelling in destructive emotional states, but also helped them dissolve those disturbances & nurture auspicious states of love and joy. Yuktesh guided the participants through a deep spiritual process that culminated in awakening to the universal intelligence or the ‘presence’ in them. The day ended with sharing the gift of presence, which transported people into a deep space of gratitude, love and connectedness.
By the 3rd day morning, people’s passion & energy to learn and grow was visible; it was very palpable in their sharing of experiences that they had made profound shifts over the last two days. Anandagiri ji guided the participants through a very soul-stirring meditation practice of accepting & embracing oneself.
The evening concluded with sharing of divine presence. The participants learned to connect with the Presence and share blessings with fellow participants. The blessings were shared with 3 specific intentions of good health, loving relationships and growing in connectedness.
At the end of the seminar the participants were guided trough a rpocess of making a deep intent for continuous growth and for practising service and compassion. They were excited to learn about the OWA Spiritual Campus in India & the 7-day ‘Freedom in Living’ retreats that would be commencing in India from July 2012. Quite a few expressed their intent to attend the 7-day retreat with their families and tok down the details from the organisers.
This event stands testimony to how a group of happy individuals naturally go about sharing happiness with people around them. From the depths of our hearts, we thank Giorgia and her team in Cessenatico, whose passion to share their joy and learning made possible this event for many more!
