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Isha Gramotsavam is a rural festival organized by Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev inspired Isha Foundation every year as part of their Rural Rejuvenation program. This year, Chennai played host to the big event on Sunday, September 23rd. I was lucky to be there and experience this unique event. The festival is marked by sports events, ‘rural olympics’ as it is called, there was also cultural events, rural food festival (some of the dishes really tasty ) stalls showcasing rural handicrafts, etc., … overall, it’s a beautiful celebration of the spirit of rural Tamilnadu. The day ended with Mahasatsang with Sadhguru and some soul stirring music. This is the first time I’m participating in an Isha event, and I thoroughly enjoyed the evening. For those who couldn’t make it to the show, the Gramotsavam website has photos and videos of the day (don’t miss the last two videos). And this page has links to articles and blog posts about the event.

There was also a function to kick start Isha Foundation’s massive tree planting project for this year, this novel initiative, called Project GreenHands aims at planting an estimated 25 million trees by the end of this year in the state. A record 8,52,587 saplings were planted as part of the project last year. Visit the Project GreenHands website for more information on why this is such a significant project.

Mita Bhan, a tarot reader, Reiki master and crystal enthusiast chats with IBNlive readers and answers queries on what tarot cards read for India. Now, I’m not the one who goes for astrology… I would rather let the future events unfold and see it for myself. But I completely agree with Mita when she answers to a question on ‘corruption in India’. I quote her.

Corruption is so deep rooted in our country that immediate solutions are honestly impossible. Its roots lie in fear, fear of loss, fear of poverty and a lack of trust in the system. Unless those fears are faced individually, unless and until people feel secure that their needs are being met and their future can be bright - in their own hands, it won’t happen so quickly.

Fear, feeling of insecurity, lack of trust… these are the major causes of all evils we see today. And most of us have these negative feelings inside our own minds. We feel so insecure, we want to get things done quickly and we don’t mind paying extra to get in front of the queue. Some of us may not directly act corrupt, but we indirectly contribute to the negative mass by letting the negative feelings like fear and mistrust linger in our minds. No matter whether you have a right to information or how many laws you write or how many vigilance commissions you set up, there is no remedy for corruption in India unless feelings of insecurity and fear are tackled on an individual basis. Widespread feeling of mistrust in the society has to be replaced with trust and faith. This may seem like a daunting task, but this also gives us hope. What is society? nothing but a group of individuals, and we as individuals, can do our bit improve the state of the society by letting positivity grow inside each of us.

It’s my personal experience that when you feel secure and trust people you deal with, they trust you back and there is an air of honesty and confidence in the dealings. I’m not saying that you should act like a scape goat let yourself be deceived, but I mean the way you approach people. Approach people with a feeling of security, let their inner consciousness know that you have faith in them. This way, we may be deceived occasionally, but it is better to have faith in everybody and be deceived occasionally than to mistrust everybody and be deceived almost constantly.

I wish, in advance, a happy independence day to any Indian reading this.