It might sound like a strange thing to say, but there is a Yoga & Sacred Music Festival in southern Sweden that can change your life. Yoga Mela and Divinya – Center for Evolutionary Consciousness, where the festival takes place, have such a strong energy, such a peace, that your life can completely transform.
The program of the festival is top class – with daily concerts from the most famous sacred music artists. This year, Deva Premal & Miten, Mirabai Ceiba, Fanna-Fi-Allah are all coming, to name just a few.
Driving into Divinya, a picturesque landscape as if from a fairy tale, is like finally coming home. There is beauty everywhere, love in every detail and a profound silence. It was through spending time here that one chapter of my life closed and nothing has ever been the same again.
What is truly unique about Yoga Mela is that it all takes place where a spiritual community lives. Around 50 people from different countries and backgrounds who live in Divinya permanently have initiated the festival. It is a 100% non-profit event, organized with the help of volunteers and the dedication of the community, with the intention of creating a platform for a non-commercial spirituality.
At Yoga Mela, togetherness is the core of everything. Everybody was very active in co-creating the festival, helping with serving the food, cleaning and dish washing and no one behaved like a guest. I heard so many times participants say: “I feel so at home”. An incredible energy was created through so many people helping one another and sharing one vision. Throughout the festival, it was just amazing to witness the collective peace and innocent joy that was experienced. There was no sense of there being a big organization with a lot of structure, and it was beautiful to witness how everything seemed to naturally flow with very little instruction. Before Yoga Mela, it was unimaginable to me that there could be a place on Earth where people work and create together so joyfully and in such peace. The whole festival experience seemed to be an opportunity to go beyond yourself and really do something for a higher purpose. This is the intention of Yoga Mela – to bring people together to create a field of Peace & Unity and through that to contribute to a shift in human consciousness. It makes you wonder: How would life on Earth be if the whole humanity became one big family?
One unusual aspect which struck me was how no one began a conversation with the common questions, “Where are you from, what did you do?” and “Where are you going next?” At first, it felt quite strange, since this is how you usually interact with new people but actually, being approached without any reference to one’s social identity, the past or the future really helps you to be fully in the moment. It creates space to allow new experiences to enter. It was a beautiful opportunity to meet each other as the divine souls that we are, beyond stories, identifications and social roles. Everyone was given the chance to share the beauty and joy of just being together in this very moment – sometimes not even talking at all and entering into a beautiful silence together.
The daily Satsangs with the enlightened Master Guruji Sri Vast, play an immense role in creating a field of transformation towards individual and collective peace. Guruji Sri Vast is the spiritual inspiration of Divinya. When searching for a yoga festival to join, there were many things on my list: asanas, chanting, meditation, pranayama, but Satsang was not familiar to me, nor was being in the presence of a Master. Wonderfully, the daily Satsangs transformed the festival into a spiritual experience for me, full of profound insights and inspiration. Spirituality had been an interest for several years, but only through Yoga Mela did it become clear what spirituality truly means, and how self-transformation is possible. We were given daily Sadhanas (spiritual practices) to help us to come closer to ourselves and find peace and clarity inside. One day Guruji gave us the Sadhana of giving to others what you wish for yourself. “If you wish to be in peace, give peace to others. If you wish to feel love, give love to others.” Practicing this meant approaching people differently, not as strangers but as a reflection of myself.
Divinya and Yoga Mela have initiated a transformational journey for many. Here are people who, instead of blaming or fighting against this world, are authentically creating the world they want to live in, with love and joy. Here I understood that when your inner experience transforms, your perception of the world also slowly starts to change. Where before there was desperation now there is hope. We all truly have it in our own hands to create the world which we wish to see.
Yoga Mela is an inspiration for everyone wishing to get a new reference and experience of how life can be lived differently. Everyone can carry this warmth, this innocent joy and this love in their hearts and share it with more people, to expand it even further. It is a beautiful opportunity to rediscover yourself, to taste the meaning of life and to contribute to a shift in human consciousness. Thanks to the Yoga Mela festival at Divinya, today I know how I want to live.
by Shelley Halstead, from London
