Mohanji Global Initiatives February 2023

Overview of Mohanji Global Initiatives - February 2023

The graphic below shows a snapshot of our activities in February 2023

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Special Highlights

Mohanji’s Birthday Celebration

Mohanji’s birthday celebration was held in Puri on 23rd February, 2023. The 7 hours long festivities included various performances, dances, speeches from several dignitaries, book releases, including the launch of Devi Mohan’s book ‘Home for a Refugee’, and more. The programme could be followed via Youtube livestream.

Before the official programme, the day began with a special homa conducted for the benefit of the ancestral lineages of the participants and volunteers present at the retreat and many more who joined online from their homes all across the world.

As the homa was going, Mohanji was also invited as a special guest to attend a local Fruit Tree Plantation Drive in Puri. The project initiated and carried out by the Happiness Foundation, involves planting fruit trees all along the roadside pilgrimage route to the Shri Jagannath Temple.

Mohanji App Launch

One of the major highlights of Mohanji’s birthday celebration was the long awaited Mohanji App Launch which took place on 23rd February. This amazing app includes spiritual practice, meditation timer, mindfulness and many things inspired by Mohanji. It is now available for both Android and IOS.

ACT 4 Hunger

In the month of February 2023, the worldwide team for ACT for Hunger distributed 46987 meals and donated 53869 kg of food!

Programs & Retreats with Mohanji

Mohanji Foundation Global Summit

Global Summit gathering Mohanji Foundation representatives from all over the world was held from 10th to 17th February, 2023 in Puri.

On the 20th February 2023, Mohanji arrived in Puri, and our annual Mohanji Foundation #GlobalSummit continued for the first time in person after a three year hiatus.

Prior to the in person session, we have had eight days online. The day’s meeting was marked by multiple speeches by the Mohanji Foundation CEO, Madhusudan Rajagopolan, and also a number of other sharings by the members present.

The session concluded with an impassioned speech and question and answer session with Mohanji, who strongly urged all of those in attendance to make the most of their time on Earth by avoiding complacency, laziness and hypocrisy. Mohanji urged everybody to, if they so choose to walk a real spiritual path, to apply themselves fully to it in a sincere, creative and wholehearted way.

Divine Trails in Puri with Mohanji

The program Divine Trails with Mohanji was held from 22nd to 28th of February in Puri, Odisha, India. It is difficult to point out all the remarkable highlights of this programme, but here are a few.

The first day of the Divine Trails of Puri Retreat 2023, 22nd February, began in a somewhat unorthodox way – with a wedding. Two long-term followers of Mohanji had a traditional Hindu wedding ceremony in the local Tota Gopinatha temple. Mohanji then joined the group for the first time and gave an inspiring opening speech for the Retreat.

23rd February was reserved for the celebration of Mohanji’s birthday.

The first official pilgrimage day, 24th February began at a beautiful and holy site Narendra Pokhari where participants did a ritual for their ancestors.

The second location of the day was Chakra Tirtha Temple, a temple of simple unassuming facade that stands in the shadow of the grand Jagannath temple and yet carries an important historical and spiritual importance of its own.

The next stop was the Shankareshwar temple, dedicated to Lord Shiva, which was built where a Shiva Lingam was found buried under a spot where a calfless cow was dripping milk, as explained by the priest in the temple.

In the evening, the participants were divided into two groups – the Hindus, who are allowed to enter the Jagannatha Temple, and the non-Hindus, who got the privilege of a darshan of the Lord Jagannatha in the form of Patitapaban at the Lion’s Gate.

On the day three, the first visit of the morning was to the Tota Gopinath temple, a famous Hindu temple dedicated to Lord Krishna, who is worshipped here in his infant form.

They then went on to visit the Sri Yukteswar Giri Samadhi, a holy site that is the final resting place of the great spiritual leader and guru, Sri Yukteswar Giri, whose idol is placed inside the samadhi.

The last visit of the day was to the TotaPuri samadhi, which is dedicated to the memory of TotaPuri, a great saint and philosopher of the Advaita Vedanta tradition. After having darshan and visiting TotaPuri’s bedroom and the library of the ashram, the participants went to see the 500 year old banyan tree in the garden of the ashram.

On the fourth day of the Divine Trails oone part of the group started the morning early with a visit to Dhauli Shanti Stupa – a Buddhist temple on the hilltop, commemorating the place where King Ashoka experienced transformation and fully embraced the principle of Ahimsa (non-violence). The rest of the group stayed in the hotel to practise Mohanji’s Shri Jagganath meditation. Afterwards, this groups went to the Gaushalacow shelter where they encountered cows who had been rescued from various destinies. The group then proceeded to another cow shelter that is under protection and management of the Swami Prajnanananda Ashram.

After befriending the cows, both the group joined at the Ashram of Paramahamsa Hariharananda Giri Samadhi. The host in the Ashram organised the most delicious and blessed lunch for all the participants – the honour was mutual and gratitude was the main ingredient.

After the most serene experience of the day, the group went on to visit the Konark, dedicated to the Hindu God Surya- a 13th century Sun temple, declared a UNESCO’s World Heritage Site since 1984.

Mohanji Visits the Kalinga Institute

On February 28th, Mohanji visted the KISS – Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences, and the KIIT – Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology for a meeting with the founder of both organisations, Dr Achyuta Samanta, MP Loksabha.

The institute has provided residency for 30000 tribal children from age 5 to 25, and they presently have 40000 alumni tribal students along with 10000 tribal students currently in attendance within their satellite centres. The institute, which is founded upon the principles of love, selflessness and compassion, also has some Olympian alumni, including athlete Dutee Chand.

After being honoured alongside other delegates and dignitaries from various countries, Mohanji addressed more than 10000 students in the prayer hall and remarked how institutes such as this are a tremendous blessing for India.

This is because they provide a way for underprivileged children to start taking real, concrete steps in life, and thus eventually pave the way for allowing the country to start flourishing from the ground up. Dr Samantha has worked tirelessly to accomplish some fantastic humanitarian work over the past few years, and the visible results are a testament to his focus, clarity of purpose and selfless intention. It was an inspiring and enlivening meeting for all and we look forward to deepening our relationship with this wonderful organization.

Mohanji Attends the 9th Anniversary of the Shirdi Sai Temple in Palakkad

February 2023, started with Mohanji’s visit to the Shirdi Sai Temple in Palakkad to celebrate the 9th anniversary of this sacred place.

Over the course of three days, the temple was open to public who had the opportunity to offer their intentions through abhishek of Baba. The event was a grand celebration marked by poojas, dance, music and vedic performance.

The main events were presided by chief priest of Shirdi, Sulakhe Maharaj and Mohanji was an integral part of the ceremonies, participating in all the major aspects such as aarti, dhuni pooja, and final yagna pooja. He also held a unique Q&A discussion in Malayalam where he spoke about topics related to dharma.

Mohanji attended SASS meeting in Bangalore

On 11th Febrauary, Mohanji was invited to join the SASS (Sabarimala Ayyappa Seva Samajam) in Bangalore for their meeting to discuss plans for increasing seva activities throughout 8 states in India.

After listening to various suggestions from the group, Mohanji was invited on stage to give a short talk and answer the questions from the group.

Most of Mohanji’s talk focused on the importance of seva activities in the community. He also spoke about his earlier life and spiritual path, and the various platforms and activities that the Foundation is conduction in India and around the world.

To answer one of the questions from the audience – how to engage more youth in the activities – Mohanji shared that our activities should become inspirational and rather than preaching and convincing we should demonstrate what we believe in and aspire to lead by example.

It was a lively discussion and by the end of the event, many of the representatives across the states were inspired by the new initiatives and initial discussion that already pointed to good synergies between the organization and potential collaborations for the future such as The Fruit Tree Plantation Drive Activities in the state of Maharashtra.

Mahashivaratri Homa 2023 with Mohanji in Bangalore

A 12-hour special homa (sacred fire ceremony) happened on the auspicious and powerful occasion of Mahashivaratri (18th February 2023) performed by Mohanji followed by Mohanji Acharyas for abundance, grace, love, blessings and wellbeing.

Mohanji said that Mahashivaratri is a reminder of the Shiva within us. Shiva is a state, a state of beingness. Being Supreme Consciousness. Shiva is perpetual. There is no beginning or end to Shiva. Shiva is everything, or within everything is Shiva. We are one with the consciousness, and Shivaratri brings us the reminder of this consciousness. It is a very important day for understanding our true #potential and nature. The energy configuration of that day and time is conducive for that experience.

Participants from all over the world connected to this sacred event via Zoom. A coconut was offered in on behalf of people who registered for the event and their families to burn karmic baggage collected from the present life, past lives and lineage. The 12-hour homa started at 6:30pm IST on 18th February 2023 and continued till 6:00am IST on 19th February.

Though not planned, Mohanji made the homa extra special by initiating the homa and conducting it for the first two and a half hours. The electrifying effect of Mohanji’s presence could be felt by the 20-odd people who had the special grace to attend this event in person as well as the online participants.

Abhishekam (ritual bathing) was performed on Shiva lingams all night in parallel to compound the benefits of this auspicious occasion. Offerings were also made on behalf of all the Mohanji platforms and organisations and their dedicated volunteers as well as the entire Mohanji community.

Mohanji was a guest speaker at the Prabhodhanashtakam

Mohanji was be a guest speaker at the 𝗣𝗿𝗮𝗯𝗵𝗼𝗱𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗮𝘀𝗵𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗮𝗺 event happening on Saturday 18 February! Mohanji spoke on the topic: ❞𝗞𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗻𝗮, 𝗮 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘁𝗲 𝗮𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗮𝗿❞

This event was hosted by Guruvayurappan Temple of Brampton (GTOB), Canada and took place online.

Social service

ACT Croatia, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Macedonia, Serbia, South Africa, UK, USA and all others, continue to spread happiness and cheer by donating food, fruits, stationery packs, bedding, much-needed nappies and baby formula and clothes for the toddlers, underprivileged children, endangered families and sheltered dogs and cats.

Ammucare

In the auspicious month of Mohanji’s birth, Ammucare has organised food donations all across India.