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Shantala Ashley Ramaya
Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us.
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Dr. Raj Balkaran
They see us. Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com Liberty Liberty, Liberty. Liberty Savings Ferry unwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates excludes Massachusetts.
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Commercial Voiceover / Podcast Intro Host
Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [01:38]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
Hello and welcome back to the new Books in Indian Religions podcast, a podcast channel here on the New Books Network. I'm your host, Dr. Raj Balkaran. More importantly, I have the pleasure of welcoming to the podcast today Shantala Shriramaya, who is a teacher and founder of the Veda Studies platform. We'll be diving into what is essentially a prayer prop, a prayer manual, a list of.
- [02:05]
Sanskrit prayers and hymns. We'll learn more about that. This podcast will also, of course, be cross posted to the Spiritual Practice and Mindfulness Channel as it is a little bit off of the beaten path for most of our monographs and chapters, but well within the world of all things indic and the glory of South Asia. So, Shantala, welcome to the podcast.
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Shantala Ashley Ramaya
Thank you very much, Dr. Raj. It's an honor to be here.
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Dr. Raj Balkaran
Yeah, the pleasure is all ours. We would love to hear a little bit about, you know, your journey. You founded this really, really fascinating. You know, we love publications, but also we cover almost all things online. Online developments in the field of Indian religions, Indian studies. And so I would love to hear something about your journey into launching this platform.
- [03:00]
Shantala Ashley Ramaya
So how long have you had? How long do you have?
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Dr. Raj Balkaran
I am a Skull of the Purana, so take as long as you like.
- [03:07]
Shantala Ashley Ramaya
So I actually never Imagined that I'd, you know, create such a platform or even be teaching, you know, recitation of Sanskrit hymns and Vedic chants. And I never imagined, even though I was born into a family that is, you know, the main dharma for us, our main sort of, you know, pravritti, our foremost occupation is to create spaces and share the knowledge of chanting and prayers. So my mother was also a teacher, and she taught in our living room, and she taught in all of these big cultural institutes in Bangalore, my hometown. And so I sort of grew up, you know, under her nose, going to her classes. I learned the entire Lalitha Sahasranama, Devi Mahatmyam, all of that. She was such a great devotee of the Devi, and she just lit up every year during Navaratri. It was her time, and she was invited everywhere to teach the Devi Mahatmyam, but also to do the Parayana, all of that. So she was, you know, it's all the stuff I learned from her. And so when she passed by then I was living in Europe, I was in Brussels, and I was in tech. I'm an engineer. So, like, literally no connection. And. But when she died, I sort of did this 180, and I said, I have to continue my family legacy in my own way. And so I quit my job in tech and just with no network, I didn't know anybody outside of my, you know, tech network at the time. And I said, okay, I'm going to start DJing chanting classes. I had no audience, and it was just this really deep longing. I could not explain it. And so I started with a tiny website and a small Facebook page and, you know, just with the yoga community locally and just started very, very small, just teaching little things. And I never thought it would grow into a big platform and that I'd have students, you know, in over 60 countries now. And so it's a very modest beginning, very difficult, because who wants to go to a chanting class that is traditional, without music, not entertaining. I was trying to teach people Sanskrit as part of, you know, the pronunciation utcharanam, all of the Swaramatra balam, that sort of rigor in the Sanskrit recitation. And so it was a really difficult sort of path. I chose, I think, to teach a very traditional form also because I didn't know any other form. So I was very. I grew up very immersed in very traditional form of recitation where our entire sort of focus was on maintaining the integrity of the Sanskrit texts. And so we did not sing the prayers, and we recited it following Chanda's prosody. And we followed, you know, and with Vedic chants, we follow all of the swaras, the mantra, Balam sama, Santanaha, all of those, you know, hundreds of little rules. And we also teach these rules. And so it's a very boring class for those who are looking for relaxation and bliss. And so that's how I started. I said, I'll just stick with what I do, what my family does and what my guru Parampara is offering. And so when my mother passed, my father, you know, took me to my guru and said that if I was going to teach, then I needed to be supervised and be guided. And so that's when I started studying with the Chalakhere brothers, my guru, Ms. srinivasan. And so he's been my guiding light in really just constantly telling me, just do what you do, and you know, you will. It's the only way to grow. It's the only way to offer what we do. And so here I am, you know, about 13, 14 years later. And now it's a bit of a platform now. We're still small, we're still modest, but we have, I think, a very rich community of serious learners for which I'm very, very grateful.
- [07:52]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
Yeah, there's so many, many fascinating vignettes that you've shared there. And there's so many parallels. I mean, it's so intriguing.
- [08:02]
I love the leaning into tradition. You've been blessed with being with access to lineal training. And I love the innovation. I love this beautiful synergy and I can quite relate to it, the synergy of the respect for the maintenance, the maintenance of rigor, at least in a traditional sense. For example, in terms of chanting mantras with swara chandlas, etc. But yet.
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While the topic and the pedagogy is quite traditional, the studentship is not. And I love this sort of.
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This alchemy of our sort of ancient Brahmanism meets the global village. Yes. And so, interestingly enough, there's a parallel to that in what we do at the Indian Wisdom School. Much of my training is traditional, but I draw mostly on scholarship, draw on various methods, literary theory. If we're looking.
- [09:04]
Excerpts from the, you know, the. The Puranas or the epics, etc, but. But the idea that there is globally, there are so many individuals who are very, very much interested in and even have an aptitude for these extraordinarily niche, traditional indic paradigms. I mean, it's astonishing, isn't it, Effy?
- [09:25]
Shantala Ashley Ramaya
It's beyond. It's Just mind bending for me to think about having students, you know, who are in Hawaii and who are in Japan and, you know, don't come from the tradition. I also have many, many Indian students, of course, but we have students everywhere. And it is astonishing that it's as if we're all coming back to something we've left off, right? And there's this coming together and everyone's so engaged and everyone wants to learn correctly. And we also have a teacher program and I can see the engagement. Everybody wants to teach and honor the tradition and just be passing on, be part of this, you know, this, this, this Nitya stream, as I call it, which is, you know, this perpetual stream of prayer that has always been. And people want to pass it on also in a correct way. And they put a lot of effort into it. There's a lot of practice going on which is very, it's very beautiful to witness. And I'm very grateful that somehow all of this has come together. And this, you know, what you spoke about this.
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There's something very old and there is this innovation as. And my good fortune would have it, as part of my tech background, my expertise was really developed in learning and development. So it's HR technology that I specialized in. And really my area of expertise was learning and development and the dissemination of training within large organizations. And so I really still did a lot of online dissemination of, you know, corporate sort of learning programs and measuring its success and measuring its effectiveness and things like that. And not that I use all of it, but I think that there's something that I took from there and applied to disseminating, you know, ancient chants and stotrams and Vedic mantras. And I also have a little methodology there because I wanted to find what's the fastest way to get somebody from not knowing Vedic mantras to being able to practice them without that whole acquiring a PhD and Vedic Sanskrit and spending years and years and years on that. And so I developed this methodology again, I think it's my engineering background where we're constantly sort of, you know, we have this eye on design and on, you know, just being efficient with operations, how to accelerate things through design. And we apply the same techniques in learning as well. And so that's what I tried to figure out always. And I try to get people, it's very learner focused. And so all of the courses are very learner focused. How can I get people to learn Rudram in the most efficient way? It's a very difficult, long chant, long learning process. How can I get anyone to learn it. That was my whole sort of design behind.
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Creating Veda studies.
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Dr. Raj Balkaran
Well, really, individuals like you and I ourselves are intersections of east and west in terms of training and temperament and heritage and vocation and location and all that. And so I think it's. It's unsurprising that we would draw on the best of both worlds. We would draw on the elements which have perfected and preserved these traditions and also draw on the elements which, which allow us to serve a broader audience. I mean, it's intriguing in that I had sort of zero. I had very pedagogical instinct and training over the years and I did, oh, all kinds of teaching. I really, I had no tech training or marketing sales, any of that stuff. I mean, for me it was just. I finished my PhD and it was sort of a stopgap. So I can continue to teach while I was trying to deal with the somewhat fraught academic job market, particularly in South Asian settings, perhaps. And really, I mean, a decade later, I. Online teaching apparently is what I meant to do in addition to in person teaching. And it's hilariously, actually, I was just coming back from this teeny, teeny tiny place in Italian speaking southern Switzerland.
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Doing a retreat there. And I was literally on the train in Lugano, which is this last teeny tiny place somewhat better known, but still teeny tiny Spanish tournament. I was on the train in Lugano, headed down to Milano Catale, the central station in Milan, for those listening. And of course, you could literally get on a train and cross a border without a hitch. You're on the same train. It's hilarious, unheard of in North America. And.
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One of our dear community members and someone who helps at the online school, Nikita, he's messaging me at this very time saying, yeah, I should have thought of this earlier, but, you know, I know this great Vedic teacher in Lugana. Maybe you should, maybe you can meet up with her. I'm like, that'd be fantastic. Except I just left Lugana 20 minutes ago. I'm on the train. And so there are all these little threads. But it's interesting. I mean, who would think that I'd go to southern Switzerland to teach, to do a teaching retreat on. In that case, it was the Devi, the Indian goddess. Whether it was chance or whether it was some of the narratives from the Devi Mahatmya, some of the philosophies and it, it's staggering to me that there are, there are people who are really interested in and ready for what we would think of as Advanced training, whether that's in a sort of emic, traditional paradigm or even in a graduate study level at the academy, they're very much interested in and have the aptitude for advanced training. And they're doing it just out of sheer interest. It is, though, I joke with them that this is the Kali Yuga, because all of the Indian people are doing a STEM and all of the foreigners are taking up the videos. So here we are.
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Shantala Ashley Ramaya
That is hilarious. Yeah, that is really funny. And I mean, indeed. You know, there's so many threads that seem to have brought us together. One, of course, shout out to Nikita for introducing us. And then since there's also been, you know, a message from my friend, just completely out of the blue with a picture of your book, you know, the stories behind the poses and asking if I. If I knew the author. And I was like, hey, guess what?
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And indeed, and I hope we'll see you back here in Lugano. It's this really obscure, small, tiny, teeny town, like you said. But we're going to have a whole lot of our community show up next year, and maybe you can time your travel and be here with us as well next year.
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Dr. Raj Balkaran
Yeah, I think that'd be fantastic. My intuition says that you and I will have chai in person, in the flesh, in Lugano at some point, and we'll probably collaborate on something. We will have a think, perhaps on what that could look like. But I think it's quite fruitful in that so many of the students at the Inuism school, they're very much interested in. In Vedic chanting. We do some chants at the outset, often in closing classes. I seem to have somewhat of a samskara, we can say, or a predilection for that. Yet I think you have by far much more of the formal training, so it'd be great to have students come out for something that you were doing. Or perhaps if I can make an appearance and contribute in some way and speak about some topic, I'm sure we'll have some. Some sort of collaboration. That sounds fantastic. And the idea about, you know, karmic theory stipulates, it's so fascinating that, you know, in many, in many traditions, in many, in various paramparas, while there's so much kriyamana, there's so much sort of free will that we have, one of the ideas is that the timing, like the, you know, birth to death, the Kalavi, like the timing is decided and the location is decided. And now we understand why, because how hard earth could we Ever meet if we were not tied to these obscure places in the middle of nowhere?
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Shantala Ashley Ramaya
Yes. And we needed someone in Montenegro to introduce us.
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Dr. Raj Balkaran
Yes, we need somebody. We needed somebody in Eastern Europe to introduce a man who lives in Toronto, who's in Switzerland, to another woman who now lives in southern Switzerland. And it's hilarious. And I was saying to Nikita, he had. He had tried to come out to one of my retreats last year in Los Angeles.
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There's this retreat I do call between the eclipses, when the ground has come. And so, blah, blah, blah. And for whatever reason, it didn't work out, he couldn't come. You know, immigration can be a little bit dodgy these days. And yet I literally met him in the flesh for the first time. Felt like. It feels like I live with him. Actually, it feels like he lives in the same house. But I met him in the flesh in the first time. Where? In Bharata, in India itself, in Uttar Pradesh, going to Shaktipitas. And I said. I said to him, you know what? Your karma is so good, I can't meet you anywhere but the motherland.
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This is ridiculous. Like, who do I meet in India for the first time? And so it's, It's. There are fascinating. There's a fascinating circuitry that governs those interested in such things and their connections to others, of course.
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So you did the whole tech thing or I'm a rebel. I didn't do stem. I did three arts degrees. Forgive me, Sham Yiton, but you did the whole tech thing. And then you were pulled in by something to say, well, let me apply my good organizational skills and pedagogical skills and plant the seed, plant this bija. And then clearly it's ripened this fascinating platform called Veda studies the betastudies.com and then at some point, I imagine, one imagines he felt the need for resources for students. And that's what we want to focus a little bit on today in terms of this Nithya Pratna. And there's sort of a companion called Nitya Dhyana. Do you want to say a little bit about the, The. The. The auspices, the genesis? Like how, how and why did these works come into being and sort of, what are they for?
- [20:09]
Commercial Voiceover / Podcast Intro Host
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Dr. Raj Balkaran
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- [21:51]
Shantala Ashley Ramaya
So, you know, it's really, it's a very long story, but I'm going to try to keep it a little bit short. When I was developing this platform, Veda studies and always my husband had been pushing me. Way before COVID my husband had been pushing me to go online because I was teaching at the time I lived in Belgium and I was teaching, I lived in a French speaking city and I was teaching in English. And you know, this is a whole mismatch of languages. And so I had a small audience of, you know, people who would speak English. And he kept telling me, you need to go online, you need to go online. And I'm talking about, you know, 2014, 2015. And so I was looking at these very old legacy LMS systems and things. But my one thing was that I am not going to go online until I figure out how I can create these texts in a good way. That was my main thing because back then creating texts with correct transliteration, but even Devanagari texts were at large. There's always different ways to represent the same Sanskrit word in English and the transliteration, even though it was standardized perhaps in the academic world, the practitioner world, and the availability of prayers with accurate texts with a Good font, readable font that was never so easily available. So it was always something that for me, I've put at the center of my teaching, it's at the center of my platform. And so having a workbook with a clear English transliterated text, having a clear Devanagari text, a prayerful translation. So not just a word by word, you know, translation that sort of keeps the meaning accurate, but really a translation that brings out the prayer value, as in, why am I saying this prayer that should be understood by the practitioner. So that's always been my focus. And then I also came up with this phonetic guide on, you know, how the anusvaras change, how the visargas change and that sort of thing, and how this dvtva happens in the chants, the doubling of the sanyuktaksharas, the dvitvanas. So this is a little bit technical in terms of the chanting rules, etc. So this is what I used to spend all of my time creating before I would launch, you know, a course. And so over the years, I now have so many texts that I felt the need to consolidated but also turn it into something beautiful that people would want to keep and cherish, keep in their altars, something worthy of, you know, being regarded as a prayer book. Because these prayers are so beautiful, I thought they needed to sort of be honed in something that looked and felt and was produced, you know, by people who sort of cherished all of these prayers as well. So a little team came together. You know, once the Sankalpa is out there, you know, how the universe conspires to. Conspires to manifest it. And so all these people came and I pitched it to an organization called Indica, because obviously there's me, I'm very. I'm just independent, right? There's just me. We say Veda Studies platform, but it's really just me and my husband running everything. And we don't have the resources or the knowledge to publish books and sort of get it into stores and things like that. And so I pitched it to an organization called Indica. They are an institute for indic knowledge systems and they support independent teachers like me. And so they loved the idea and soon a little team was formed and. And so the book designer, they're called Tacit Design and they sort of design. Their design is rooted in indic sensibilities. And so the team are very into creating things that use, you know, motifs that are very indic in nature. And then my friend, who's a brilliant shilpa Shastra artist. We wanted to bring the artist and myself, we're both from this, studied in this, immersed in this Gurusheshya parampara. We've both spent decades in this mentoring model. One on one mentoring. It's how we've gained our sort of expertise in what we do. And so I thought it would be a really good match to bring someone who has this, you know, very intricate.
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Drawings of deities. I mean, I call them engineering drawings because that's what they are. They are the, you know, oldest engineering drawings we have of deities. Very symmetrical and very beautiful. They're in the book. And so we spent a lot of time together, this team, sort of choosing the motifs, choosing his images. He made some for us as well. And the COVID the name, the whole thing, the layout, the font, the font size, the readability, how it plays things in the book. And so this is, I mean.
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It was a great, I mean it was such a wonderful, very uplifting project with a really amazing team. So very grateful for the experience.
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Dr. Raj Balkaran
Yeah, it's always lovely, even when we come across. Excuse me listeners. I've been getting over cold or two thanks to seven hours at Nyandi and a 16 hour flight from Delhi to Toronto, but here we are. I live. It's always lovely when we connect with those who are like minded, especially when those who are like minded are also here for overarchingly some yoga versus V Yoga and people who are here to. To bring us together in ways and then translate across east and west and old and new and.
- [28:25]
The publisher for the stories behind the book. As an academic, I never in a thousand years thought I'd write a book with pictures in it. I fantasize about in midlife. There are a couple of historical fantasy novels that I've been wanting to write for some time, but even then I don't visualize with pictures in them.
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This press came knocking on my door and said, hey, I did this course at a platform called Yogic Studies. One of the students in the course shared some of the stories I was teaching about yoga and Hindu mythology to her students. One of her students worked at this publishing house, pitched it to them. They emailed me to say we specialize in illustrated books for adults.
- [29:05]
They're not quite coffee table books, but they're sort of like if sort of a mythology book and a coffee table book had a beautiful baby, that would be the choice behind the poses. But the illustrations are gorgeous and the way the editor was so brilliant, the way in which she went about shortlisting Finalizing the illustrator she shortlisted, I think three or five of them. She said, I need five stories right away. Okay, fine, here are five stories right away. Five of 50. She shared the stories with the illustrators all and said, hey, we'll have a little competition. Whoever can bring these to life best will or in the contract. So it's, it's fascinating because the, the person, the extraordinarily talented artist doing this, she has her own style of art and she basically sort of came up with a frequency, if you will, for this book based on how she felt the stories felt. And so, you know, you have these really fascinating confluence of rivers that are obviously more than the sum of their parts. More than the sum of their parts. So that's fantastic. Also, I've said this comment so many times when we, we have a. We have a satsanga on the Bhagavad Gita. I call it Wisdom Wednesday. We have a Wisdom Wednesday Bhagavad Gita study. All are welcome. I think it's 7pm ish, 7pm Eastern time. And what I say is, however.
- [30:26]
Brilliant and sensible and informative, the Bhagavad Gita is that we have to understand this was never meant to, to be in isolation of tradition. This is a teaching tool for exposition within tradition. We always have to imagine that texts such as the yoga sutras, texts such as the Bhagavad Gita, they were composed to operate within the ecosystem of Parampara. That doesn't mean that we can't engage them in isolation. But, but, you know, they are, they, they function in a way that a work like yours is much more conscious of, you know, as a teaching tool, as a beautiful, visual, you know, erudite teaching tool. And when you open this up, you see the text. It's large enough that you can make out each word. There's space. Right. When you look at the fontas, when you look at the text, there's space around each syllable, each akshara. You could make it all the diacritics quite easily. You could make it all of the markings for the swaras quite easily. And there's a translation. And so it really is.
- [31:33]
It's delightful to behold, actually. It's a very pleasant, pleasant feel, pleasant read. Now, how would you envision someone using this? Would you say that? Yeah, let me phrase it this way. Who would you say is the ideal audience for this book?
- [31:50]
Shantala Ashley Ramaya
So when I created these books, they were mainly, I had my own student community as the main audience for the book. But really the Book is useful for any teacher or practitioner within the Indic knowledge systems and practices umbrella. So it could be a yoga student, a yoga teacher, someone who's in Jyotisha or is a Jyotishi teaching could be someone in Ayurveda, a therapist, a doctor, anyone within that range of a Vedanta teacher, anyone who is starting their classes with a prayer or ending with a prayer. Anyone who is utilizing our Sanskrit prayers as part of their work would be the ideal audience for this. And both of these books have a matching Spotify list and so in the same order as well. Not that you can just learn from Spotify. There is still, you know, you mentioned Parampara, all of these prayers, they need to be learned in a systematic way. There needs to be, you know, a little an instruction that comes with the prayer with the mantras. You can't just learn by listening to it on Spotify. But for those who've already learned, I've know, wanted to create something that was easy for them to be reading and also be listening at the same time. And as a practice tool also, it is a great tool. This book is a great tool for someone who's teaching the prayers. And so, you know, because I know that I went through a really. That was one of the most difficult parts of my job was creating the resources to teach, is to create the right text that I could give to students to teach them the chant. Because I know you get these books and they're really not good quality. Always there is something that needs to be fixed. So I used to spend so much time on these texts that when I started the teacher program, I didn't want, want my teachers coming out of this program to again go through that whole process of how do I create the texts and what do I distribute to students. And so I just wanted these beautiful resources available to teachers as well. So it's really multifold. I think anybody who has any interest in chanting prayers.
- [34:34]
Will find the book useful.
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Dr. Raj Balkaran
Now to extend the question in terms of the Veda Studies platform, who would you say that platform is for? Who might most benefit from that?
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Shantala Ashley Ramaya
It's amazing. I always thought it would be a platform for people within this IKS Indian knowledge systems, people who are in practitioners of that. But I have all kinds of people.
- [34:56]
So for example, I mean, of course the very obvious target, you know, audience on my platform, my student, my student community is made of yoga teachers, Ayurveda practitioners, many, many Jyotishis, people who are students of yoga or students of Jyotisha. Etc people who are following sort of an Indic, any type of Indic methodology in their life are learning from me. But that's what I thought. But we also have, I also have a student who is, we have surgeons, we have many people in the medical, you know, medical field. I've got someone who works in a hospital in Norway and is using the chants with trauma patients because it's a very effective tool for concentration and awareness without any reminder of anything they're familiar with. And so I have artists, I have people who are just householders who are, you know, grandparents. I have people who have retired and are using Veda Studies as their Banaprastha. And so we really have a really big, very wide range of people who use the Veda Studies platform. But a majority of them are within the IKs sort of realm of people who are in Indic sciences in some way. Many teachers as well.
- [36:37]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
Yeah, that's, that's, that's quite similar I would say in many regards to the Indian Wisdom School.
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We, I don't. So one of the things I do is I put on offer insights that are from Parampara but very rare. Is it that, well, I'll engage in that sort of level.
- [36:56]
It's sort of one part. It's sort of parampara infused.
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Academic kind of grounded knowledge about various texts and traditions. But it's really interesting, the more and more that I get to know students or the more I realize that they're super smart and super spiritual and many of them need permission to actually embrace their spirituality.
- [37:23]
Without having to let go of their intellect or their critical thinking, which is exactly the right kind of student as far as I'm concerned. But so many of them I was teaching continuing studies, I was teaching adult learners in western institutions since 2010. And so it's interesting. So I come over from the other way where I'm used to teaching comparative mythology in sort of comparative religion and coming at it from there and founding the school. It really surprised me the extent to which there are people of such a diverse background, training, interests, primarily in my case, you know, Western professionals of various stripes who have been lifelong endophiles or are really interested in Sanskrit or really interested in the Devi, are really interested in really indic thought, karmic, you know, karmic theory, et cetera. And so it really is fascinating that there are so many people interested in knowledge about Indic thought, but they're interested in separating the wheat from the chaff, they're interested in rigor, they're looking for they're not just looking for fast food. Right. They're looking for something cut above in their view. So I think it's, it's wonderful that there is the opportunity because for those who have not been born into a lineage or have had the good fortune of studying in something like a lineage, you know, what are their options? Certainly, I imagine there are limitations to online teaching of in classes, but also I imagine that there is a lot that is very much translatable to that medium.
- [39:01]
Shantala Ashley Ramaya
Absolutely. I mean, there's, in fact, you know, I want to make this observation about I come from this very, you know, it's a, it's a living tradition. It's a living parampara that continue, that continues. And of course, one of the greatest things about learning chanting is the emotion of everyone being in the same room and you know, the listening to. Listening to that together. And there's, it's, it's such an ecstatic experience of that. And so we do that when I offer my retreats and in persons. But I must say I want to make this observation that online learning is far more effective as a learning tool for Vedic chants than in person. And I'll tell you why. Because, you know, on zoom, we have to all be, you know, on mute. And we have to take turns in practicing with me. And so I get to hear every single person and we have this homework sort of rigor as well. When people have learned they need to turn in a homework and audio homework, I get to, I know every single student's practice in my classes, which is not something we can do in a fully immersive, you know, in person events which we use for the experience of it. So I think both are important. But if you really want to learn rudram, you have to learn it online with me because then I have checked every single verse, I've checked every single word, every single pada has been checked, every single swara has been signed off and people will learn it correctly. There's a lot more rigor that we can employ online and of course we can reach a wider audience. So that's another thing. And you spoke about how the most unlikely people, seemingly unlikely people, are ready for advanced material and are looking for rigor and rampur and all of that. And I want to say that another thing that is really special about all of the classes on our platform is that we have a large number of Indians also studying with me. We have a large number of Indians in India. We also have Indians who are outside of India and we have all These, you know, French, German. I mean we have all of these Europeans, us, all of the English speaking countries also studying and we're all in the same classes. It's the same material, exactly the same teaching for everyone. And, and I really think it's because Vedic chant in the way taught in my parampara, it's with that type of rigor. And it's because the teaching methodology is within the text that we pass on. So every student is having to also learn the rules of recitation that has not really been taught by everybody, not even in India. So we have this amazing audience that I think that people like that, they like that they can see it's the same teaching whether the student is Indian or not. The teaching is the same. And I think there's something special about that.
- [42:18]
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- [42:46]
Close your eyes, exhale, feel your body relax and let go of whatever you're carrying today. Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I. I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts. Oh my gosh, they're so fast. And breathe. Oh, sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw the discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry.
- [43:09]
Shantala Ashley Ramaya
Namaste.
- [43:11]
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- [43:14]
Shantala Ashley Ramaya
1-800-Contacts.
- [43:17]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
Well, 100% because it is at the intersection of tradition, innovation and also universalization. Universality. It's at that beautiful intersection of. This is something that is a vestige and a product of culture. Having said that, it's exceptionally in that much akin to sort of the rules of Sanskrit grammar. It has fail safes against slipping out of existence. There are these rigorous.
- [43:48]
The river has very, very rigorous banks. So it continues for flowing and it doesn't, you know, end up flowing out of existence. And so there's that piece and then there's the piece. I think for the first time within the last century, and certainly in this century, that we have something more akin to a democratization of access, something maybe not quite that, but we have a Little bit of a leveling of the playing field insofar as, I mean it excites me on so many levels because that's so much of what you do. I just, I see so much of my own life's work here where you're trying to convey something of the rigor and power and intrigue of indic thought to individuals who are interested from various countries all around the globe. And that pedagogy piece is so crucial. And I didn't actually realize how crucial it was. I've internalized it. I love teaching, I adore teaching various audiences, various levels. But it wasn't until I worked closely. One of my one on one clients who's a student is, is a pedagogy professor, a PhD at an American university. And it wasn't until she started taking courses at the online school at the Indian Wisdom School that she was consciously registering so much of what was being done unconsciously in terms of pedagogical strategy, in terms of coaching questions or storytelling, or in terms of, you know, and frame narratives, et cetera, et cetera. And then it dawned on me that of course there's something to be said about pedagogy and indic thought because.
- [45:27]
That is the piece that has allowed the faithful transmission of indic thought. And yet we are not daft enough to think that anything can ossify and remain the same without ever being shaped by time. And so it's this beautiful synergy of something that has been kept faithfully alive for a very, very long time, easily centuries, millennium, that is now, that is now being accessed by people from various schools. So, you know, I think you're brave enough to walk that fine line between innovation and degradation, in my view, doing it well, perhaps others may disagree, I have no idea. Perhaps there are those who may see people like you and I bastardizing, you know, perhaps there are others who would reg us as rendering more accessible. But I really love the creative tension of. Because we are in many ways the face of tradition in a certain sense. But tradition, no matter how rigorous the transmission, there is no survival adaptation on some level.
- [46:34]
Shantala Ashley Ramaya
Exactly. I mean this is exactly. I think that if these texts have to sustain and survive and be available for next gen, they need to be studied, they need to be learned, they need to be practiced. And so they need to be, you know, the more people are learning them, the more people are falling in love with them, the more these texts have a chance of making it for a couple millennia more. So that's the idea and I think it's so exciting to be a part of.
- [47:10]
That, part of the innovation that is allowing for, I don't know, the next few hundreds of years of how this will evolve and how people will teach it in the future, but to be a small part of making it available to.
- [47:28]
A few hundred others that would not have otherwise had access to it is very exciting indeed. And, yes, I think it does take a little bit of courage. And thank you for. Thank you for, you know, bringing that out, because it is. I mean, I feel like if I'd perhaps stayed in India, it might have been a little different. I feel like there's, you know, there's things that I, you know, perhaps had access to that enabled it. And, you know, just the people around me saying, go for it, go for it. You know, you've got this kind of thing. I had a lot of encouragement and of course, I had the backing of my teachers. That was another thing. So very, very traditional and very. Not something they would do themselves, but really blessed me to go ahead, which I think was a big source of courage for me. I mean, why should I fear teaching anyone if my teacher blesses me and the Vedas are saying, it is for everybody. The teaching is for everyone. Everyone who is seeking. Of course, we are not grabbing people off the street and saying, hey, you know, let me teach you some Veda. It's. If somebody is seeking, then we. It is our duty to make it available. That is. That is what the shastra says.
- [48:49]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
Yeah. That's a rich conversation that comes up a lot. Many students have.
- [48:55]
Had conversations elsewhere regarding issues of cultural appropriation. It doesn't so much come up in our community unless someone is asking for a perspective because they've heard X, Y, Z, and I liken it to something. We can all relate food, right? So we go to the buffet. We go to the Indian buffet. The food is made for what? Oh, are they going to sell it? Only if you have a certain skin color or religion or.
- [49:22]
The food is made for the enjoyment and the nourishment of those who are interested. Right. One might even be able to learn some recipes from the chef. That's different than presenting oneself as part of that chef's lineage. Part of that chef's line. That's different. There's lots of space between cultural appropriation or some kind of faux pretense of a lineage.
- [49:51]
The food is there to be consumed and enjoyed and to nourish individuals. And so I don't see. I mean, I'm sure various teachers will have various perspectives on this. You Know, I get asked all the time, you know, can I share this, can I teach this? I'm like, the stories behind the Boses wasn't written for, it was written for anybody who can read English and is interested in this. And you know, I imagine it would be in your best interest to not play dry for the sake of your karma and whatever, you know, maybe some litigious backlash from the press. But other than that, of course this knowledge is to be shared. What is, what is the purpose of the knowledge without it being shared? And so I do understand a traditional or even insular bent in a certain regard. Dogma is not something I really resonate with, nor sort of, you know, ideological exclusion, but, but sort of a more insular bent. I understand because that's whereby the knowledge has been preserved. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, we are not in the, in, in the business, pun intended, of having sort of half baked initiates around the globe. That's a different type of thing. We're sharing the knowledge and we're probably having some guidance on what we feel can be shared responsibly by some of our students, which I think is different. It's a very different thing than the degradation of Param Flower.
- [51:10]
Shantala Ashley Ramaya
Exactly. No, you, I mean that's, you articulate that so clearly and so beautifully.
- [51:17]
In fact, you know, it's not something I've thought of this, the degradation side because I'm so focused on the preservation and the respectful passing on of what I've learned. And this whole idea of having a teacher program is really to.
- [51:37]
You know, to help individuals who have communities or who feel this urge to become part of that, you know, that instrument that wants to preserve as well and share with others, to put some rigor around it and some checks and balances and to look at. It's not that it's not about, you know, certifying one to become a teacher. It's really about helping individuals understand where do I need to be with my practice before I will allow myself to teach? How can I start to listen to my own practice differently so that I can get to a place where I have no more unconscious errors in my recitation? And that every single time I have processed everything that I practice so clearly and so well, and it's been heard by others, my peers, my teacher, so many times that I've gone through this process and I've gotten to a place where I'm reciting something without error, without hesitation and I have repeatability. And then now if I've understood this now, okay, now I can think about how I can share that particular piece that I have, you know, sort of gone through the filter and made sure that I'm no longer, you know, passing on something incorrectly. That's the main sort of sentiment behind the teacher program. And so this, you know, that's for me, that is the checks and balance of any degradation not happening. But we don't do that with everyone, right? Because people who show up, they're all devotees, they all want to express their inner devotion to a particular deity or to just this divine intelligence around us. And so who am I then to say, hey, you can't learn this? Right? And so it's my duty then to teach this devotee how to use these sacred prayers for expressing their devotion. Because that's the purpose of the prayers. It's giving words, it's articulating this inner longing. One has to express adoration to the divine. And so it's my duty then to teach. And so I will teach everybody. I will teach all types of students at different levels of competence, different levels of understanding Sanskrit and so on. But it's in the teacher program where we focus on how can we, you know, this good strong riverbanks you were speaking about, I love that analogy you brought up. And that's where we're constructing this strong riverbank. And so that people pass on the teaching rigorously. That's the idea.
- [54:28]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
Beautiful. I feel like we've touched on a great number of salient features of, of, of the quote unquote book. But really more important than viewing this as a self standing book, that this prima facie book is an evolute of and a support of a tradition of knowledge transmission. I feel like we've touched on some of its salient features. Along with your greater work and journey, is there anything else you feel like you'd like to touch on today before we close? Anything at all and maybe even if there's an opportunity in future or something you'd like to share with the audience at all?
- [55:06]
Shantala Ashley Ramaya
Nothing. I just want to say that I never imagined I'd be somebody who would take so strongly to a prayer tradition. And you know, coming from tech and I, and I think that, you know, that's what for me the book represents that, that I think living a prayerful life can be very cool and that, you know, this is these, these prayers have existed, they're, they're timeless. Right? And so when we learn these prayers, we're connecting with something that is timeless and it allows us to divinize our daily life, you know, our otherwise mundane chores of waking up and taking a shower and stepping off the bed onto the ground. And in the Indic tradition, we have a prayer for every one of these activities. And so for me, I just want to leave our listeners with this little thought that the Nithya Prarthna really is about. You know, from the time you wake up until you go to bed, the entire day's activities can be divine. And there is something in the book for every occasion. So whether it's waking up, going to bed, or if it's a friend's birthday. So just wanted to leave listeners with that.
- [56:27]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
Well, thank you very much for putting on the podcast today.
- [56:29]
Shantala Ashley Ramaya
Thank you very much for having me.
- [56:31]
Dr. Raj Balkaran
For those listening, we have been speaking with Shantala Ashley Ramaya, who is the lead instructor and the founder of Veda studies. That's@vedastudies.com all of the information is in the podcast notes, including the link to this this beautiful book called Nitya Pratna. And I do think I will also include the link to her SoundCloud recordings which are quite beautiful and may well be source of education and inspiration for you on some level. Until next time, keep well, keep listening, keep reading and keep contemplating what happens when tradition meets innovation. Take care.