Brazilian UFMG students spend 6 weeks at PRIV
Saturday, March 14, 2009 (06:42:05)

Posted by maheshvarananda

Front row: Wanderson Xavier (Umesh) and Ana Paula Taglianetti (Anándi)
Second row: Josué (Jayesh), Ana Terra Araújo, Prof. Louis Ricci (Liilamaya), Bárbara Martins, Mônica Vieira Costa
Third row: Amanda Franciele, Luanda do Carmo, Ana Paula Fonseca, Evandro Lemos (Anirvan), Alba Coura, Débora Nogueira Caetano
Top row: Guilherme Braga, Cyro Gomes, Elizabeth Avelino Rabelo (Betinha), Leonardo Balbino, Rodrigo Miranda Burgarelli, Solange dos Santos

An extraordinary educational experience took place for six weeks: 21 students from the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil came to live and study in the Prout Research Institute of Venezuela. Their professor of transpersonal psychology, Louis Ricci, led them to Venezuela for both personal growth and to study and contribute to Prout's vision for social change.

Each day began at 6:00am with an hour of yoga asanas, followed by an hour of kiirtan chanting, silent meditation and spiritual reading. Three nutritious vegetarian meals a day were served. After 30 minutes of systematic collective cleaning of the house and garden, there was a Prout class each morning. The topics included Biopsychology, Exploitation, Heroes and Sadvipras, Changing the World, Proutist Economic Development and The Global Economic Crisis and its Opportunities.

Various national experts spoke to the group, including authors Eva Golinger and Charlie Hardy, and cooperative experts Luis Delgado and Prof. Carlos Molina Camacho. The group visited museums and national parks, attended political marches and concerts, and traveled to see successful cooperatives in Barquisimeto (CECOSESOLA) and Barlovento. After some orientation about culture shock and how to avoid crime, the students gradually became expert in navigating around Caracas by metro and bus. Small research teams focused on communal councils, cooperatives, education, health care and the media. The students struggled to understand the Bolivarian Revolution that is taking place in Venezuela, respecting its successes and observing its failures.

Louis always emphasized the need to transcend the ego and to evolve consciousness. Group meetings struggled to reach consensus about responsibility to the collective and individual needs. Special programs of cooperative games, Theater of the Oppressed, the “Sarkar Game” and Transformative Dance enlivened everyone.

Some of the comments of the students reveal how profoundly they were affected by the experience:

This experience at the Prout Research Institute has been life-transforming at every level. The studies have certainly helped me to expand my body-mind-soul. Thank you very much for the incredible opportunity we are having here. - Ana Paula Taglianetti (Anándi)

So many experiences, so many feelings, so intense… I am discovering myself! Calming my heart, my vision! Discovering love inside me, being a little more able to love! Everything is so fast, like a revolution. Struggle between the mundane and the extraordinary! Overcoming my fear more and more. Courage to fight! Love for all beings! - Alba Coura

Many feelings, emotions and experiences have happened. And everything is contributing to my spiritual and personal growth. Since the first moment that I arrived, I was welcomed with so much love and warmth. The Dadas in their different ways have given me much joy, strength, energy and most of all, love, and this has touched me deeply. - Bárbara Martins

I came here worried how to reconcile my Christian beliefs with the knowledge from Ananda Marga. But what I’ve really seen and felt here was love. I learnt that in all human languages, the language that truly matters is the one that comes from the heart. We are love! - Evandro Lemos (“Anirvan”)

I’m proposing to myself to live in the most profound way every moment with each person. I’m feeling much joy, love for all and much peace. I’m trying to grow spiritually and to understand my body. My feelings to trust that I can help build a new world, of solidarity, where all share love. Today I believe that it is possible to plant seeds of love and watch them grow in the world - Ana Terra Araujo

The experiences I’m having in the Institute are very important to my development as a professional person. Living together cooperatively, spiritually and culturally and the caring by everyone of the Institute I can never forget. Here I feel stronger to work and to dedicate myself to humankind. - Débora Nogueira

The experience here in the Institute has been marvellous, better than I expected. I’ve had many internal conflicts, which have been essential for my growth, for developing my highest possibilities. - Amanda Franciele

I have been transforming every day, creating the certainty inside me that a new world is possible, when we want it. This wonderful internal and external experience is transforming each person here. It is all very deep, and I don't know how to express the gratitude that I feel in my heart. With very much love, we are growing each day in this place, confirming more and more that we are not alone, that we are all one, we are all special, and together we can walk to the light, we can be light in the world. - Roseane Pina dos Santos,

“I loved the wake up song you sang for us each morning. Now every morning I am doing yoga, the kaoshikii dance, kiirtan and meditation. My life changed a lot after the experience there. I am more sensitive to nature and also to people I don't know that I pass in the street, who eat at the same restaurant as me, who sit beside me on the bus. Even though I have many activities, I don't feel so stressed, over busy or anxious to see every moment. And I no longer arrive at the university begging for coffee -- yoga is much better! Thanks very much to help me to see the beauty in all of this!” - Cyro Augusto Gomes de Almeida