Meditation, Wellbeing, Potential

This event is open to all members of the university and also the public.

Dr. Prashant Kakode, an ENT surgeon from Cambridge, has for over three decades, been helping people across the globe to look deep within their own selves and set them on the path of spiritual enlightenment. Hailing from Goa in India, he has travelled to over 80 countries delivering lectures on Rajyoga, explaining the ancient spiritual wisdom of India, and teaching simple practical methods of achieving the highest levels of spiritual experience. He is an alumnus of Goa Medical College, and gave up his lucrative career in medical science to embark on a life-changing odyssey into the world of spirituality. He heads the Centre for Integral Health (CIH), Cambridge, UK, which is an organisation with worldwide commitments to health education and strategy, and he is the coordinator of the Brahma Kumaris Raj Yoga Centre in Cambridge, UK. He explains Rajyoga in these terms, "Rajyoga meditation is a philosophy of life that is made practical with the associated method of meditation. It helps one to attain both happiness and clarity of mind. The knowledge of Rajyoga challenges one's commonly accepted beliefs and takes him on a journey deep into the meaning of one's real identity and what one's highest purpose of life can be... Emotional stability is essential for improved concentration and clarity of mind and it leads one to a life where there is both, richness of the head and magnanimity of the heart. Eventually, such a process will make our world richer" (TOI 2015).

Neville Hodgkinson is a writer and journalist who worked for more than 20 years as medical and science correspondent of several national newspapers in the UK. He is also former social policy correspondent of The Times. He has a particular interest in building bridges between science and spirituality and has been a co-organiser of four international symposia on science and consciousness. His first book, Will To Be Well – the Real Alternative Medicine (Hutchinson, UK, 1984; Samuel Weiser, USA, 1986) was one of the first to describe the intimate links between health and happiness in terms of modern scientific findings. His interest in mind-body medicine, along with a life-changing vision in Westminster Abbey, led him to take up the practice of meditation and spiritual study in the early 1980s, and he has been a student for 38 years with the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University. Most recently he curated an exhibition about new understandings linking science and spirit, with accompanying book entitled Journey Into Inner Space, at the Inner Space shop and meditation centre in Broad Street, Oxford.

To provide a flavour of the speakers, these are clips from previous talks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl-azua_KuM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt158ehprp4