Right-Brain creativity in Sadhana was a four-session online workshop spread over four consecutive days which was organised by NAMAH with Ms Lopa Mukherjee as the facilitator.
Each day’s session started with a profound meditation exercise in which the facilitator helped the participants navigate to their inner self and receive their own respective personal messages from the Divine that lies hidden within each of us. First day was mostly devoted to theoretical understanding of brain’s structure and collaborative functioning of both the hemispheres. Rest of the days focused on variety of practical exercises aimed at the development of right-brain which included many effective methods of silencing the mind. We also learnt of the impact of these exercises on preventing mental degeneration.
We were introduced to many of The Mother’s and Sri Aurobindo’s concepts, guidance and experience about Mind based on reading of relevant extracts from Sri Aurobindo’s “Synthesis of Yoga” and “Savitri” and a few relevant quotes from relevant volumes of “Complete Works of The Mother”. Workshop incrementally introduced us to many right-brain focused mental development practices in accordance with The Mother’s five phased program for mental education.
To provide experiential introduction to relevant topics, facilitator shared highly relevant video clips related to Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor’s “A Stroke of Insight” Ted Talk, “Crows” vignette from “Dreams” directed by Akira Kurosawa and Terry Pratchett's “Hogfather” episode in the “Discworld” series. Facilitator also shared a few beautiful verses from “Isha Upanishad” to effectively explain some of the concepts introduced in the workshop.
To end the workshop, she equipped us with a list of mental habits and creative verbal expression exercises which can be practiced regularly to facilitate right-brain development. For further self-study, she recommended a few book titles and movie titles. Workshop ended with an interactive Q&A with the participants where everyone engaged to get further in-depth clarifications and shared their respective insights. One of the participants kindly introduced and shared her personal experience of using another mental development tool called “Neurographic Art”.
