Namaste, Namaskaaram, Vanakkam

[Ms. Aikya Param]

OM!

My name is Aikya Param.  I am an American woman in her fifties.  Thanks to the devoted efforts of Chinmaya Mission members across the country, I studied between 1979 and 1982 at Sandeepany West in Piercy CA with Swami Dayananda Saraswati.  We studied Sanskrit and some Vedic chanting.  Our course material included simple texts like Tattwa Bodha (simple in Sanskrit, if not in concept for westerners) up to Bhagavad Giitaa, many of the ten principal upanishads up to Brahma Suutras.  All these we had at the least with AdishaN^karabhAshhyA.  Swamiji began very simply and as more Sanskrit was added, we were able to do more.  At a certain point, there was too much Sanskrit for visitors.  People traveled four hours or more to reach us and it was not right that they feel left out, so we instituted special weekends for guests.  All of us enjoyed sharing our ashram with visitors on these weekends.

I had many challenges during our course, including bad health and the illness and death of both parents.  I missed quite a bit of the course in fact.  However, at the start of the course, for some reason, even though I had little training in Sanskrit, I insisted on being in the most advanced course.  The teacher was not pleased with this and did his utmost to get me to give up and go to the other section, but I  got extra help and persevered.  I had to leave to care for my mother who was dying in New York.  After her funeral, when I returned, my advanced class training had got me to exactly where the other class stood. I never feel my Sanskrit knowledge is adequate.  In fact I have various learning disabilities which make me always seem stupid compared to others, but I keep on and manage. Sooner or later, it does take root in my mind.

I was given a certificate of completion after performing satisfactorily all the tasks we were required to do to prove we should get it.  These included giving a talk before the whole assembled ashram, teaching a verse (verse, word by word translation, running translation, bhAshyA and explanation from an upanishad (KathA) presented to the whole ashram, preparing to teach 6 verses (same sort of requirements) of Bhagavad GItA to a group of peers and teaching any one of them per on the spot assignment before peers and sometimes Swamiji himself, and writing a graduate paper about key verses in taiitirIya upanishad.h. 

After our course was over, I taught for eight years taking adults and children. I love teaching because I love to see the light in people's eyes when they 'get it".  At first I tried to teach with little or no Sanskrit, sort of a rebellion against ashram graduates chattering on in language no one else can understand. This was a good exercise for me in being able to express the great ideas in simple English.  After a while though, I realized that my students, without Sanskrit, were ever dependent on somebody else to crack the verses for them so I began sprinkling some Sanskrit here and there.  Pretty soon they started asking for Sanskrit lessons which I gave.  At another point I began looking at the thinking skills that we had gained from reading more advanced Sanskrit texts, the bhAshyas.  I tried to develop exercises in English to develop those skills so that people who didn't want to learn Sanskrit could still get the benefit of the more sophisticated thinking and, hopefully, greater clarity. 

Also. I developed some nice lessons for children-two children I taught-whose parents considered themselves Shaivite Hindus, although they were Americans.  I wrote a play in English poetry based on rAmAyANa.  At the request of some American devotees I translated some bhajans.  A friend has just reminded me that I wrote some songs in English.  Its her fault; she started it with a wonderful song to Saraswati which I loved.  I sang it and played it to people-her song, that is-and suddenly I wrote about a dozen songs in English.  My friend says she still loves one of them which was to Shiva, so I got the odd idea of seeing whether I could translate it into Sanskrit for mahAshivarAtrI!


There's more, of course. I wrote. I do art work, but all of you are very talented also.  Enough about me!
 I am thinking again of teaching.
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