 Russian Yoga Festival  |
Russian Yoga Festival
S.S. Sardar Singh Khalsa
Oslo, Norway
When we left for the Yoga Festival in Loches, France in mid-July, I still had no invitation letter from Moscow and no Russian visa, to attend the Russian Yoga Festival, which was to take place August 10-20th, 1996. At the time, I was under some pressure to finish a computer book in Norway, so I was leaving my trip to the Yoga Festival to Guru’s will.
On the phone, I talked with Amrit Kaur from Belgium, who also would be coming to Moscow. She spoke French and a little English, and as my French is limited to phrases like: "Where is the Gare du Nord?", I began to wonder how this would work out. As it turned out, we managed fine in person with a combination of English, French and gestures. The Russians even made a point of how we functioned like a unit.
Moscow airport was in the same location as it was four years ago, but little else seemed the same. Last time I had waved a cyrillic (the Russian script) Russian form at the customs booth, shrugged my shoulders, and was waved through without further ceremony by a young man in green fatigues. Customs forms were now in English as well as Russian, and long lines waited while visas were scrutinized by women officials checking ID numbers against a central database.
I was met by the smiling faces of Guru Jiwan Singh and Hari Devta Kaur. Hari Devta Kaur teaches electronics at a Moscow institute and was my guitar accompaniment during the yoga festival. Guru Jiwan Singh is a medical doctor who divides his time between medical practice, research, running a food supplement distribution business, and teaching yoga. Most yoga students came in contact with Guru Jiwan Singh through seminars he held at medical institutes throughout Russia, where he would talk about yoga's therapeutic value, especially in connection with neuropsychology. Before long, we were on Moscow’s ring road, six-laned and newly paved, with road signs according to European Union standard. New western-style factories and businesses were evident everywhere, and fruit and vegetable booths were a common sight along the roadside. We can get everything now, I was told, but you have to pay for it. The watermelon we picked up at a roadside booth cost about $2. Four years ago, the hotel we were staying in had cost $1 per day for room and board, while the price now was $45, with no lessening of the clientele.
After a little more than an hour, we had arrived at the camping hotel which has been the site of the Russian Yoga Festival the past five years. The grounds include a forest and a river with cold, clean water for swimming. Originally, the site housed a monastery, which is indicated by a few old structures that remain, and I felt the peacefulness of the area as soon as I stepped out of the car. Five or six smiling faces waved from a balcony as we approached the hotel, and a group of us, including Amrit Kaur and Guru Jiwan Singh, sat over dinner and planned the coming week.
There were about 80 people attending the festival, some from as far away as the Urals, which meant a 2-hour flight and a 36-hour train ride (as compared to my 3-hour flight from Oslo). The day started with Jap-ji and Sadhana, with two of us playing guitar and a third singing with us, often in beautiful harmonies. Participation was full and spirited, with the hall resounding with the meditations. After breakfast, our sadhana jatha practiced on the beach by the river, and many others would gather around to listen, sing along, request songs and take pictures. Morning classes focused on lifestyle themes like prosperity and child-raising. One day, we had a men’s and women’s course, another day public speaking, another day oracles. The oracles was an exercise modeled after the oracles day at the Yoga Festival in Loches, where people would bring their questions to an oracle and they would be answered through a variety of six mediums. Here in Russia, six oracles were placed at different spots on the perimeters of the site, one working with Peace Lagoon (Sikh songs translated to English), one (me) with numerology, one with a game called Leela, one with meditations, one with angel cards (with a key word like Beauty, Fortitude, Perseverance, etc.) and one with healing massage. Divided into six groups, people circulated to the different oracles in lines with eyes closed and hand on the shoulder of the person in front. During a pause, I watched the Peace Lagoon oracle sitting by the river, explaining a chosen passage in Russian to an attentive listener - a nice scene.
One morning, we met before sadhana for an ishnaan class, and nearly 50 splashing and giggling bathing suit-clad Russians enjoyed the invigorating bliss of our traditional morning dip. It was a memorable scene, the river covered with peaceful floating plants, yet the water cool and clean from the currents of many streams.
In the afternoons we did a vigorous set of yoga followed by the 31-minute intuition meditation done at the Loches Yoga Festival. In the evenings we had classes on numerology and the Sikh Gurus, as well as nutrition lectures by Guru Jiwan Singh, featuring recent research on neuropsychological benefits of supplements and yoga.
Many people expressed their gratitude for our yogic lifestyle, and many opened their hearts with their difficulties and concerns. I felt as though we were close like a family, and many others said the same. I left Moscow with souvenirs and memories of many dear faces, and with many vows for continued contact and help in contacting other 3HO teachers with expertise in fields such as numerology, Kundalini Yoga, child raising and teacher training.