Author Archives: Candidasa dasa, UK

Exam de-stress days
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Last Tuesday and Wednesday were the exam de-stress days at the Student Union. Amelia (the welfare officer) and me organized it. We had a punching bag, herbal tea, exam timetables, tips, tools and advice in the foyer and me in the basement giving 30 minute yoga and meditation sessions. At last that was the plan.

The first three hour no one came. Not a soul. I had wallpapered the University with posters the week before (and it??(TM)s a large University! The largest in the UK with 9,000 staff and 28,802 full-time-equivalent students and an income ?£490.5m). But no one showed up. Obviously Krishna was destroying a bit of my hulking ego.

So then, in the afternoon, one lady in her final year of pharmaceutical studies showed up and was eager to do some mantra mediation. We did some chanting and had a nice discussion. After her, three more ladies interested in yoga, then two guys for meditation and three more ladies for yoga. Over the two days, a total 16 people got a little taste of an alternative mode-of-goodness way of de-stressing and chanting vaisnava mantras. That makes me very happy.

The yoga teaching was interesting. By Atmananda??(TM)s mercy I was able to teach power yoga and slow-deep aerobic yoga mini sessions. The slow-deep aerobic yoga was especially effective. The students enthusiastically commented how super-relaxing it was. They were spellbound, asking question after question, intent on my every word.

I was surprised at their enthusiasm. After all, yoga, no matter how good, is still just yoga. Unlike chanting the Maha-Mantra, I don??(TM)t find it especially fantastic. On the other hand, if it works for helping the ??oelowest of the student community??, I??(TM)m not one to artificially renounce it.

Everyone that came, of course, also got a bit of prasadam: cookies from Hitesh??(TM)s skilled hands. Hitesh also took the pictures of the event.

In the end, the exam de-stress days were a great success. I enjoyed it, the student union official liked it, the students got a bit of a taste of KC and as my Guru Maharaja recently told me ??oeyou never know when the seeds will sprout??.