Venue: Chinmaya International Foundation, Cochin
Adi Sankara Nilayam
Period: 18th – 25th October 2011
An Overview of The Empowerment Programme
We started towards Cochin for our Empowerment programme on 18th October 2011.We reached the venue very late at around 10.30 pm and soon we all were provided our rooms. Being damn tired we all slept early that day.
Our days were scheduled to start at 5.30 am followed by a yoga which many of us found difficult to follow. But i and my friends found it soothing and tried following which really helped us keep ourselves fresh and tired less the whole day.
More soothing was Swamini Niranjanananda’s session every morning, which helped us to start the day with a new thought.
Soon after our breakfast we completed our registration and made ourselves ready for the inaugural session scheduled to be held at 9.30 by Mr. Venugopal C Govind, The Managing Partner, Varma and Varma. It was a very interesting session, importantly it helped me realise what exactly we will gain out of these sessions.
Consecutively we had the CIF Darshan where Mr sujith, The Manager,CIF Cochin; Spoke to us about the importance of the place, the serene beauty and the unseen Vibrancy of the place.
First we were taken to ‘melpazhoor mana’ the maternal home of shri adisankaracharya. A building in a nalukettu form. This was considered to be the house where shankaracharya took birth, there's a room which swami chinmayananda and a few other persons identified to be the room where sankaracharya took birth, which is now considered ideal for meditation.
This was the place which carried away myself and where i really felt the vibrancy. The silence spoke a lot. Whenever I spent time there my mind travelled through the corners of world. It made me realise a lot of things about life, love and humanity. The serene ambiance spoke it all.
There was a temple too which was just near to the mana , a kulappura with a small pond very near to the temple and a satsang hall just in front of it. The kulappura is now used as the office of CIF.
Right away we were also taken to the cif library and information centre.CIF is also a centre for research and therefore had an enormous collection of books on various subjects. I was really astonished to see the various manuscripts that were preserved there and they also showed the techniques that were used in writing those manuscripts. They are also working on maintaining a soft copy of these.
Our schedule also included a rest/library session from 1.45 to 3.00 which most among us used for rest and a few including me spent the time inside the illam, enjoying its silence and lost in thoughts. I just loved those moments I spent in the illam, It helped me think about myself and realising things around me.
Soon we were taken back to our schedule which seemed to be very hectic.
We had a series of sessions held by eminent personalities like:
1. Mr. Venugopal C Govind, Managing Partner, Varma and Varma.
2. Mr. C.K Suresh, ATMA
3. Mr. M.S.A Kumar, M.D. , AVT Spices
-Crisis and Leadership
4. Ms. Jyothi Mehta
-Holistic Approach towards Family Business management.
5. Mr. C.P. Philipose, Sevanam
-Entrepreneurship
6. Mr. M. Rajagopalan Nair, Chief General Manager, Circulation, Malayala Manorama
-Trends in Media Management.
7. Mr. Philip Kuruvila, Vice Chairman, Jayanthi spices
-Road To Success
8. Mr. S. R. Nair
-Workshop on Creativity in Business
9. Ms. Ramaa Bharadwaj, Director, Chinmaya Naada Bindu
-Movement Workshop
What I perceived:
Mr C.K. Suresh founder of ATMA (Attitude Training and Management Association) foundation carried out 7 sessions during the first and the second day of our empowerment programme and helped us realise that Life is a lifelong celebration, never take anything serious in life let us be sincere to ourselves and every moment.
During his first session on 19th October, he dealt about the 5point programme where he said,
“If you want to grow-
§ Be open to change
§ Keep growing-learn
§ Improve your skills
§ Learn from experiences
§ Be a team player”
During the next session of Mr. Suresh he spoke to us about personality. Where he actually helped us in identifying our inner potentials, self management strategies for success and induced us in taking initiatives and adapting to the changes for good.
He also reviewed a book ‘I Love You’ by Swami Chinmayananda where he also spoke about the various aspects of love and its limitations.
On our first day we also had a session by Mr. M.S.A. Kumar, M.D. AVT Spices about ‘Crisis and Leadership’.
The session invoked us in taking up leadership skills.
During our second day we had a session by Ms. Jyothi Mehta, an entrepreneur carrying out her family Business- “Ootty Gooddies”
Being passionate on dance, I was also carried away by the performance of Miss Ramaa Bharadhwaj and was able to identify the dancer in me. We were excited by the session of Mr. S. R Nair, with his energy and the different ways to be creative.
We were also taken for an Industrial visit to ‘Malayala Manorama’ as part of this programme. It gave us an idea about what all happens in an organisation specially a printing press and how.
An Overview:
It helped us a lot in improving our hidden skills and potentials. It also helped us in learning a lot of concepts which we can never gain trough our books. Time is very crucial element in our life. It was all about managing time efficiently and effectively.
It helped us in identifying our potentials and was also a platform for improving it too.
It was really helpful to all of us especially to those who made sincere efforts. I just loved those 7 days we were there.
