Spreading the goodness of yoga
Uncharacteristically, she is not there to meet us in her lovely home with minimalist furniture in Nugegoda on Tuesday. As she walks in slightly late, she is not flustered only sincerely apologetic.
There is a calmness about her even though she has been attempting to sort out numerous requests, some quite volatile, to attend a ‘Conference on Yoga’ that is scheduled for today.
Yoga it is which has set popular actress Anoja Weerasinghe of Trojan Women’s fame amidst many others, on the right course not just physically but also mentally and spiritually.
Anoja Weerasinghe: We should teach our children humanity, more than how to pass exams. Pic by Indika Handuwala
She gets transported into a different world as she harks back to the time spent at the ashram in Nethala, a remote and inconspicuous village at the foothills of the Himalayas. About 100-km above, the mighty Ganges had its origins from the glaciers and flowed past the ashram as a silvery stream.
| Anoja talks on ‘My yoga path’ Yoga in all its aspects will be the focus at the conference organized by Anoja today at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute, Colombo 7, from 9 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. The keynote speaker is Shri Nataraj, the Director of the Dhanwantari ashram. While Anoja will talk on ‘My yoga path’, Consultant Psychiatrists Dr. Neil Fernando & Dr. Kapila Ranasinghe will address ‘Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)’, ‘Depression’ and ‘Stress and Anger’; and Geetha Karandawala will speak on ‘Ayurveda and Yoga’ and Gen. Daya Ratnayake on ‘Rehabilitation and Reconcilitation through Yoga’ having worked with ex-combatants. Meanwhile, on September 28, a Yoga Asana class will be conducted by the ashram’s senior teacher, Shri Rajesh from 5.30 to 7.30 p.m. at the Institute of Personnel Management (IPM), Polhengoda. A Lecture on the ‘Five points of Yoga’ will be delivered by Shri Nataraj from 6 to 7.15 p.m. at the Indian Cultural Centre, Gregory’s Road, Colombo 7. For more information, please e-mail: abina@sltnet.lk |
Here Anoja underwent Advanced Pranayama Training but it was long before that that her life had ebbed to a very low, sending her into the depths of severe depression, estranging her from her loved ones and making her feel so worthless that she contemplated taking her own life.
Having suffered a severe knee injury about 15 years ago, due to strenuous Bharata Natyam and karate, she recalls how medicines and numerous visits to doctors did not seem to help.
A friend suggested, “Try yoga” and by chance on a visit to Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum), India, that friend had got on the wrong bus and been given a leaflet about the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Dhanwantari Ashram in Kerala.
“It was my destiny. It was meant for me and not her,” laughs Anoja who during New Year time in April when everyone takes a break, sought out yoga in 2007 at the ashram.
Later in early 2008, she and five others — three war-affected and two tsunami-affected whom she was helping through therapy – went back to the ashram for teacher-training. Finally, Anoja went once again for advanced training at the foothills of the Himalayas.
Most people are under the impression that yoga is only physical and concentrates on the body-aspect. Asana is usually the focus, says Anoja pointing out that oluwen hita ganna hadanawa, taking on acrobatic poses, but yoga is much bigger, dealing also with mental and spiritual aspects.
Yoga has helped her to come to terms with her depression brought about by the heavy load of troubles faced within the film industry, while accepting her role as the single-mother of her daughter and coming to grips with the fact that her late second husband, “a good man”, was not neglecting her but was juggling his own onerous workload.
Like the tragic role of Hecuba, the Trojan queen who has faced it all – the death of her husband, the loss of her children, the destruction of her land and a life of humiliation as a slave to the victors – in the popular Greek anti-war drama Trojan Women, Anoja has also experienced much sorrow, even losing her life’s precious work, documents, records, photographs et al, at the hands of goons who set her home in Moneragala ablaze in 2000.
Now while spreading the goodness of yoga, she also talks without fear or embarrassment but frankly of the stigma of mental illness and that “we are not alone”. Many celebrities like her grapple with this silent illness.
Yoga has taught her some simple lessons – “if I can’t connect with myself how can I connect with you, with my spouse, my children, my co-workers and even nature?”
Finding and managing the inner-self we have discarded is essential, says Anoja, talking of the mentally-ill with empathy. “The mentally-disturbed don’t see things clearly. What they see is clouded.”
Delving into Buddhist philosophy, which has close bonds with yoga, although yoga is a-religious, this actress who has left the fame of the silver screen for a higher purpose, stresses that quoting the Buddha is not enough, his philosophy needs to be followed.Prince Siddhartha was a yogi.
If an 18-year-old commits the crime of rape, we need to ask ourselves, where we as a society have gone wrong. We should not teach children to pass examinations, we should teach them ‘mannussakama’ (humanity), she says, adding that we need an attitudinal change.
Questioning how many in Parliament are guilty of abusing, sexually harassing or raping women and also murder, Anoja adds that the punishment then must start from there.