ASU’s Art of Living Students’ Club hosted an intimate six-day workshop designed to combine breathing techniques and a variety of activities and discussions in an attempt to better “center” participating students.
A small group of students and Tempe residents enrolled in “Yoga, Empowerment and Service Plus” course offered by the student organization for $250. The group temporarily transformed a classroom in the Physical Sciences a wing to a place were participants could “experience their true nature.”
Jameelah Carver, courses instructor from the Art of Living Foundation, said she has been involved in the program for 12 years and sees a dramatic change in students’ attitudes every class she teaches.
Carver recalled one participant in an ASU course in particular whose outlook was changed as he progressed through the course.
“I think it was only the third day and one [student] said he was a completely different person. He got into a lot of trouble with his friends and he just felt like he was a new person,” Carver said. “Yesterday he was one way, now he just sees that he wants to change himself and his friends.”
These changes are brought about in students through the use of a breathing technique called “Sudarshan Kriya,” she said.
Carver said she was skeptical of the class’ focus on the breathing techniques when she first learned about the program after her mother took a course, but soon saw the positive effects manifested in her mother’s new outlook.
“I was like ‘You took a breathing class, Mom?’ What a waste of time, you know how to breathe,” Carver said. “But I saw after like three months, every single day my mom got more and more calm about things. She wasn’t impacted by the things I said to her, she stayed very centered and just very happy so I said, ‘OK now, what was that class?’”
Bharadwaj Sathya, an electrical engineering graduate student and president of the Art of Living Organization, said he wanted to bring this program to ASU after taking it several times in his home country of India.
The course also included discussions and exercises about issues facing college students, including drugs, sex, relationships, conflict resolution, family and stress.
“There’s just a lot more responsibilities when you get out into the workforce, and that brings more stress, so right around the college times you get people right before they hit that time and there’s still some vibrancy, there’s still enthusiasm,” Carver said. “Your enthusiasm is your whole life, if your enthusiasm is gone, how can you accomplish the things you want to?”
Teresa Miro, an intermediary art graduate student, said she took the course in an attempt to find relaxation within her stressful schedule.
The course solidified her connection to both herself and the other people in it, Miro said, and she became much more relaxed.
“I’m more connected to myself somehow, and also to the people I’ve met. The social games make you learn about yourself and others,” Mori said.
Hemali Jambusaria, a 25-year-old participant in the course, said she felt a similar experience and grew as a person in the six-day “journey.”
“As humans we are kind of judgmental, but you kind of see that the blood that’s flowing in you is the same blood that’s flowing in the other person, so it’s that ‘oneness,’ that feeling of unity also connecting with yourself,” Jambusaria said. “When you meditate and breathe, you kind of find answers from within and realize that some situations are out of your hands.”
That acceptance and release of control is something Carver said she aimed to communicate to her students.
“Often we run into problems because we’re not accepting what is happening,” she said. “If you’re not accepting, you don’t have a clear mind to make the right decision, because of all the resistance in your mind.”
Reach the reporter at michelle.parks@asu.edu
