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Great Beings Series: Great Spiritual Lovers
National Gallery of Victoria Event

On Sunday 18 November, the Great Hall at the National Gallery of Victoria reverberated to divine bhajan singing and music, as we held the second of our very popular Great Beings events.

Organised in conjunction with the exhibition, ‘Krishna: Love and Devotion’, the mood of divine love was perfect for a program titled, ‘Great Spiritual Lovers’. Isobel Crombie (the NGV’s Senior Curator of Photography) introduced the afternoon’s symposium saying that the gallery is a perfect place for such discussions as the essence of art is very close to that of mysticism. She then handed over proceedings to Swamiji who gave a wonderful, wise and very amusing account of romantic and divine love.

 Professor Constant Mews (Director of the Centre for Studies in Religion and Theology at Monash University) and his wife Maryna then gave an account of the 12^th century lovers Abelard and Heloise, punctuated with readings from their letters. Their highly entertaining presentation, which was rich in ideas concerning the erotic and divine, had an interesting link to the Indian bhakti movement which arose at the same historical period.

Following Constant and Maryna’s talk, a performance of a Krishna bhajan (devotional chant) perfectly set the scene for Ma Devi. Appropriately choosing the story of Krishna and the Gopi’s, Ma Devi presented a riveting account of this most romantic of tales. Krishna, a great avatar, took on the role of both lover and Guru to the cowherds, whose adventures were filled with passion, longing, separation and – eventually - profound insights into the nature of love.

The afternoon finished with a wonderful short concert of bhajans led by Manoj Hunkar on harmonium and our special guest from Adelaide, Jay Dagbar on tabala. They were joined by many of the fine musicians and singers from the ashram in a program of uplifting chants that gave people an experience of the divine love and devotion of the bh akti tradition. It was a fine end to another highly successful Great Beings event.