Bhagavad Gita Retreat 2025

[Sherry from Los Angeles is a seeker of Armenian-Lebanese origin who has been closely following Ashram’s Global Satsangs on YouTube. Having been greatly benefited from the discourses, she eagerly registered to participate in the Bhagavad Gita Retreat in Irvine (CA) this year and continued to be in close association with Poojya Swamiji, Nutan Swamiji and Ma right up to their departure back to Ashram from Los Angeles airport.]

yaṃ labdhvā cāparaṃ lābhaṃ manyate nādhikaṃ tataḥ yasmin sthito na duḥkhena guruṇāpi vicālyate (BG 6.22)

Going Within

A retreat conjures up images of mountains, forests, lakes, and serenity sought in isolation away from the cosmopolitan cacophony we live in – a physical, mental, emotional and psychological distancing from our surroundings and affairs. For it to be spiritual, it would have to draw us closer to our own heart and relationship with divinity, whilst we seek Knowledge from the Wise who live it.

Ashram Residents resonating the Gita and Guru

All the renunciates from Ashram gave us an opportunity to freely speak to them during the flow of events. Their openness and discretion allowed a participant who is entirely new to the setting to feel comfortable enough to ask or express anything. A sense of protection was felt. Here there were no waves crashing nor ripples on the waters of a lake, rather a palpable sense of devotion to the Supreme, and genuine love for one another.

With Poojya Swamiji, Nutan Swamiji and Ma, the balancing of personalities and topics created a very special atmosphere where each approached the delivery of knowledge in his or her own own unique manner. The vast expanse of Poojya Swamiji’s words of wisdom had us all in checkmate position. Nothing I have ever heard proclaimed by him can be questioned. This remains my final impression every single time I have heard him and my experience at the retreat was no different. Nutan Swamiji’s crystal clear, logical analysis was interspersed with witty notes from his own conclusive evidence and experience of the supreme Reality. Ma drew from personal development and inner awareness through association with Guru, while pulling out shlokas from the Bhagavad Gita as a mother would a lullaby to her children.

Poojya Swamiji

Prabhāta-raśmiḥ

The quiet tempo of the Retreat was marked each forenoon by Poojya Swamiji’s Prabhāta-raśmiḥ. Without any pretensions, he simply sat and dropped a morning morsel for reflection. The actual messages were enough for a whole retreat by themselves. I came across individuals who have known him for decades as struck as I was with a sentence or a word of the truth from him – as if they too were in his presence for the first time like me!

Samatva Buddhi Yoga (The Yoga of Equal Vision)

The crux of Swamiji’s evening discourses centred on implementing Bhagavad Gita in day-to-day life focusing on the application of Samatva Buddhi – an equanimous stance to whatever emerges in life. He presented it as the primary lens for a spiritual seeker to employ like a sieve, through which all perceptions, evaluations and reactions to the ebb and flow of life events must flow. As a seeker engaged in svādhyāya (self-study), practises meditation and interacts with the world, the buddhi must be fine-tuned using this method.

His messages were not only delivered over a course of a few evenings but also summed up on jñāna-prasāda as a take home summary of key points and gifted to each participant at the end of the Retreat during the final gesture of pranams to the Guru.

Poojya Swamiji’s discourses drew not only upon the relevant verses from Bhagavad Gita but Upanishads and other texts as well. The underlying requirement is not only to sublimate sukha-duḥkha responses to life, but to do so with a measure of forbearance, a resilience brought on by knowledge, and strengthened through interactive experience. Floating through life with a mind impervious to what emerges and then disappears, requires unswerving sadhana using the “functional notes” of consciousness.

The mind, the ego and the intelligence are interconnected tools for sadhana. Behind them lies that which animates them. That cannot be witnessed but contemplated upon, because it permeates the process and the tool used to sense it. From this starting point, anything that vibrates and moves and can be verified as experience is generated first by the mind, then transcended by transcending the mind itself. That is perhaps why it is said that the Wise remain unmoved.

Post-Retreat – Concluding Satsang for USA Jñāna Yajña 2025 (16 June)

For those who stayed an extra day, Swamiji’s post-Retreat evening message was profound, a wake-up call to carry the tradition and teachings over to the new generation. I valued this session immensely. Swamiji particularly addressed householders who carry the burden of families to consider their position in society from a broader timeline perspective and inheritance. He commanded each person to wake up to what had taken place – that in this Retreat was the practical transmission and perpetuation of the wisdom of sages and seers as well as the culture through which their insights and lives gifted Sanatana Dharma. Henceforth the householders should shoulder the responsibility – to duly preserve the wisdom, apply it, prove to themselves its validity and integrity, transmit its significant value in human evolution, and secure it for the future.

Nutan Swamiji:

Guṇa-traya-vibhāga Yoga for Inner Integration

Nutan Swamiji propounded a deeper look into the three modes of nature – Sattva, Rajas, Tamas. The notion of guṇas interacting with guṇas in the theatre of life and even our actions coming forth as a function of guṇas makes it imperative for us to ask: What is behind all this? Existence beyond the guṇas – can we situate ourselves there?

Nutan Swamiji pointed out that once we identify where the guṇas bind, there our work begins in the attempt to go behind the phenomenal world as it appears, to the substratum of existence that supports it. Nutan Swamiji’s example of contemplating on the moon and its reflections on water was hugely beneficial, and showed us how nature itself holds the secret to the insight of how things are.

Ma Gurupriyaji:

Living the Bhagavad Gita at Every Moment

The sessions with Ma Gurupriya were more personal in nature. Her exposition of verse BG 8.14 revealed that the same placidity required for transcending the guṇas can be reached if the mind is able to exclusively focus on the essence of divinity from the heart, rather than the conceptual or imaginative mind. Thus, the heart merges with what is, and the mind becomes that. Her endearing memories and experiences with Poojya Swamiji were enlightening, and brought on a human element to the lofty discourse. Ultimately, reading from her own spiritual diary, and even chanting to her children, she displayed the simplicity of effort and earnestness in the path to realize the Self with the tenderness of heart she carries. Of Ma’s many messages, one that stood out is the notion of starting with “Oh, Indweller, let good thoughts come to me….” An honest request and proposition to begin the journey invoking the Self.

Manual for Life

Throughout the program, repetitive chanting of the shlokas carried this rhythmic reminder of unity of purpose – to cement the teaching concretely in life through memorization in order to deftly manoeuver life’s twists and turns thus encapsulating life within those shlokas.

Swamiji’s long OM-karas reminded all to consider sending benediction to all beings in this world, and using the Gita to deliver the benediction through its adroit application which confers the mental agility and equal vision of a yogi. The imperative to expand the heart and mind in the benediction reconfirmed that we were among awakened souls.

After years of listening to our spiritual Masters on YouTube, to be physically present and observe their wholehearted delivery to the audience elevated the spirits. In the personal encounters we saw millennia of sages, as though looking into eternity through the emblem of Swamiji’s face. What has existed above and beyond time itself, was also looking at us. The repeated conversations we have with ourselves,all the pleadings, fortunes, tragedies, etc. , all of it and more fizzled into nothingness.

Expectations and the sessions that went beyond them

I anticipated one of two outcomes – a close-knit ethnic community event where the Guru is guiding his disciples (hence, I might be walking in very private quarters), or a mixed crowd of people in which case I could blend in unnoticed (my preference) and receive nourishment as I do from all discourses from Poojya Swamiji, Nutan Swamiji and Ma. Either way if I made it this time, I assumed it would not be a mirage but a true oasis and gift of Providence.

The closeness and the conversations with our own Indweller, did take place during the Global Bhagavad Gita Retreat. Nature has a way of inviting a dialogue within, and it too facilitates and participates in drawing out the insights revealed in the heart. Some elements interspersed within the formal program that were reminders to go within were the silent sitting in the mornings, and the introspection and chanting sessions.

Lasting Impressions

The impression left was that walking the spiritual path is not a myopic journey constrained within a timeframe of one’s life. It warrants not only efforts to change the paradigms adopted in our lives unaware of the conditioning of the mind that has taken place in our formative years, but also openness to test the paradigms we choose against the backdrop of the society we live in, the values we inculcate in children, the families we break bread with, and the turbulent times we experience.

The experiential application of the Bhagavad Gita as propagated by Poojya Swamiji, Nutan Swamiji and Ma carries the authority of their own lives. It is not enough to witness the consciousness that is embedded in the Gita or that pervades their lives, but to be present with the Gita in hand as the clock ticks.

The path itself is often spoken of as climbing the mountains of the Himalayas or the ladder of divine ascent, traversing the ocean of samsara or crossing the silence of a desert. But if it is only a personal journey frozen in time, it cannot deliver merits to society nor withstand time. However, if one is able to view his or her life within the context of history, living itself as a sadhana, interactions as a medium to gauge it, and meditation as the space to build momentum, then the teachings are invaluable and pertinent on all facets of existence and time. The Gita is for the ascetics and lone travellers as well as those who share a pillow with a loved one and raise children.

That there will be no turning back is self-evident now. That I no longer have to look elsewhere is further proof that stumbling upon the Song of the Lord had to be preceded by Him having heard my melody of cries, of its harmonious entry into my life and shaking of foundations of learning that is in course.

The royal path is subtle and requires a degree of inner stillness to withstand its colossal impact on the experiences of the mind itself. Let all of us seekers trek this inner path in full trust that there is nothing more superior. Nor is there any escape from the platform on which its merits must be tested, in the life we live and the people we interact with. And ultimately, the Self we re-encounter through it. Jai Guru.

When one’s Self alone is the Lord Supreme, why should anyone turn to another refuge?

– Swamiji