 Check, check, check one, one, one, check one, check two, two, two. Good evening. Namaste, Bonjour, Panakam. So, today is a very, very special day and it's special because we have an amazing, amazing group, Sunad. It is really, I just, I mean joyous is a very short word. They are so excited to have them come here all the way from Bangalore on a very short notice and they've really gone out of their way to come here and do the performance today as part of the 150th birthday celebrations. And I have been to their performance many a times, been associated with them in a personal capacity. But I am looking forward to this event because there is something very special added to that wasn't seen by me when I saw them. So, I'm going to be introducing you to Tara, who literally is the Tara of this group. I've been known her for years through my cousin who is part of this group. So, I'm going to hand over this mic to Tara and have Tara talk to you about what is Sunad all about, what is today's journey all about. And it's an inspiration. We have handed you two pieces of paper, gives you a sense of what is this group all about and the eclectic nature of this group. And through their performance, the wisdom that they kind of share with us for something for a very, very daily living. So, thank you for really coming here and making this evening a really beautiful one and to honor the presence of these beautiful people who have come all the way from different parts of Bangalore and maybe even outside of Karnataka. And purely from a space of generosity, not a question asked. So, thank you once again. Thank you, Sudha. So, I'd like to start by thanking Sudha particularly, who has actually managed to make us come. And all of you in this community who have welcomed us, it's a privilege to be performing here in Auroville and that also in the 150th birth anniversary of Sri Aurobindo, who, as you know, has written extensively on the Upanishads. So, our inspiration to work on the Upanishads has come from Sri M. who spoke here in Savitri Bhavan on the 14th of August. So, he came just before us. And he's the one who has inspired us to start this journey into the Upanishads. And he also is very fluent with all the writing of Sri Aurobindo. Our group, Sunad, is an eclectic group of what we call music lovers, music enthusiasts. And we come from all walks of life. There are teachers amongst us, software engineers, artists, journalists, schoolgoing kids, college students, dancers. We've got a wide variety of people who come together for the love of music. Every Saturday morning, we meet and we sing particularly Hindustani classical music. The music for the last few shows has been composed by the Padmasri, Gundecha, Bandhu in the Drupad style. So, some of you may be aware of the fact that Drupad is the most ancient genre of Hindustani classical music. We started Sunad exactly 20 years ago with a mission to bring classical music to people in a way that they would understand. And we started combining storytelling with classical music with a means of demystifying what was apparently a difficult esoteric art. From there we progressed our journey to our journey on actually working on the Upanishads. We started with the Kathopanishad and then we went on to the Ishavasya Upanishad. We combined with verses from Jalaluddin Rumi's Maznavi and it was called Isha Rumi Beyond Form. And the third Upanishad that we worked on was Mandukya Upanishad, the shortest of the principal Upanishads, which has only 12 shlokas. And that we combined with the poetry of saints across India and we called it Mandukya Santavani. And recently one of the people in our group, Sindhu, who has enthusiastically taken up the mission of converting our show and our research, Mandukya Santavani, into modules of learning, which we hope school children, college-going students as well as anybody who is interested would take up and the Shankar Mahadevan Academy has started worldwide distribution of these modules of learning of the Mandukya Santavani and we hope we can finally do it for all the Upanishads so that all the work that has gone into it is available in the form of capsules that are easily accessible. And the fourth Upanishad that we have worked on is what we will present for you today and we call it, as you can see, Kena Kon Keno Upanishad. So Kena is by whom and as you may know, every Upanishad is called by the first word of the Upanishad, the first Shloka. So Kena Ishitam is the first Shloka and therefore this is Kena Upanishad, Keno Upanishad. We will present this in the form of drama, music and dance. And this time as Sudha told you, the special thing is that we have Yaksagana. He plays the chende which is particularly played with Yaksagana and the choreography for this Yaksagana has been done by Keremane Sridhar Haigre who comes from the Ida Gunji, Mahagannapati Sabha of Keremane which is south, north-ish, south Karnataka. And we have on the Pakavaj Nyaneshwar Deshmukh who is a disciple of the Gundecha brothers and has studied in the Gurukul there. And he again represents a very special community of practitioners, the Varkari tradition in Maharashtra. They walk from Alandi to Pandrapur every year and he belongs to that lineage. So we have a fantastic mix of people. I'll introduce the rest of the people to you at the end. So please sit back and enjoy the show. Thank you. She was the acclaimed, she wondered, doubts have begun to creep into her mind. Sometimes there was no inspiration at all. She sang relying merely on the strength of her yas. Though her performances were always appreciated, she just did not feel fulfilled. In a few concerts her voice had given way. That is when she began to reflect. Were her glorious achievements temporary? Will this energy last? All her life she had taken it for granted that this sublime music came from her. Her voice, her sur, her yas. But of late she felt disconnected from it all. A deeper enquiry had begun. She felt impelled to find something more permanent, something beyond this constant change. She had entered a new phase of her life as she continued to perform for the audience. They told her this was the best concert ever but she looked confused. Questions were raising through her mind. Was that I who sang? Whom did they applaud? Deva Ta. Deva Ta. Deva Ta. Deva Ta. Over demons. The first thought, this wicks of the gods appears before them in the form of a divine spirit. A Yaksha. Brahma ko devtaon ke is ahankar ka abhaas hoa. Aur wo devon ke saamne saaka roop me prakat hoon. Deva Ta. Yaksha ne saamne ek tinka rakkar kahti se bhi vayu usse udha na payu. The god of fire. And then vayu, the god of wind, who approached the Yaksha and attempted to show off their strengths of gods. Indra. The Yaksha disappeared. The daughter of the Yaksha disappeared. Upanishads by praising the devas is highlighting the glory of Brahma Gyan and inviting us to walk the path. The hearing behind the hearing, right behind the sight, which is also the breathing behind the breathing. Freed completely from these, the wise become immortal as they depart from this world. Those who expounded it to us, killed by our senses, but by which our senses are expressed. That alone is Brahman. Not this that people hear worship. No, that alone is Brahman. Not this that people hear worship. Realize it yourself. Identification that you are the body subject to birth and death. To be the self is to go beyond death. That the realization of the Brahman has to be achieved here and now. So that we may, this body falls away. Miss it in this life. Great shall be Allah. Which summarizes the last verse of chapter 2. In the rare opportunity of being born human, don't waste it. Discover the truth here and now. There are several paths to this truth. Gyan Yoga, Raj Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Karm Yoga. We are giving you the lyrics of the song. Please do sing along with us. Would you be able to tell us why you can just tap it and leave it on? The reason I think I was more enthralled by her grace and I think she embodied the Guru Tathwa really in the way she expressed and the power that came out. For me, she just said of course the graceful yaksha. So I think that's the reason. Anything personally that made you relate to the Guru? The inner wisdom. And that wisdom is available all around if there is a surrender and it can come from any direction. So for me, I think that was what was embodied. And the fact that the flexibility of the body to be able to even demonstrate that. So to contain. Okay, okay. The flexibility of the body to demonstrate that inner wisdom. Very lovely. I related to Indra and through the self-realization which was presented like how he looked at the divine and then the realization was there. So that was something like coming to this place or a well and the experience that I had. So this is something which I too can relate to that I too had the realization of the divine. Wonderful. Beautiful. The space made you feel like that. Lovely. Lovely. And yes, here it's okay. Actually I can relate to each one of it. The fight between the gods and the asuras which happens every day, every moment. And we get involved in that. Then a Guru who tells us that there is something beyond this which you should realize. And then when you are in a journey then you actually realize there is this all fight which was happening and all the ego and everything which was there. So it didn't really meant anything. And then our path. So that's how I relate to Guru. Wonderful. Wonderful. There is a few words I want to say. Yes. The intensity of the flame of the act which you are doing is what I think is capable of igniting the light and the coldest hearts on the planet. Thank you very much. Thank you. And it is, I can see literally it's the God functioning, the supreme power functioning through each one of you bringing you together and enlightening all of us. Thank you so much. Yes, definitely. Yes. Oh, lovely. Yes. So many people tried but in vain. It was in vain. I listened to not be always proud of them. Oh, lovely. You've had a very small life so far. Yes. Lovely. Thank you so much for that. Thank you. That was lovely. Anybody else? We can take one more. Yes. Here. Here. Vinny. Vinny. Here. Here. Is it on? Okay. I mean it's not a joke but the thing is that what you have done is just marvelous. But I really wanted to also talk about somebody who was there but wasn't there also, the rumble. So we really talked about him. But around him, the whole active place, and that's what I really wanted to point that out because both of us actually studied Kena together and were fascinated by the thing. So really seeing it being performed is just a real feat. Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you. So the Kena... So the Brahman you were saying was there all the time? He's the main actor. Absolutely. He's the main actor. Is he the main actor? Have you had any experience, this main actor? Well, I would like to talk about it. Yeah. You wouldn't like it? Yes, I've had but I would like to talk about it. Okay. Thank you so much. Anyone would like to share their experience of someone? Of a Brahman-like moment or a Uma-like character who appeared in their life? Okay. We'll, I think, take it from there. Thank you so much. You've been wonderful. Now, what we're going to do is, we're going to go into a huddle. So give us a minute. We will go into a huddle and we will play back to you some of your stories, which we've just heard. I hope you will be able to identify with those stories. To the last six shlokas of the Keno Panish... Oh, sorry. We also have a poetess in our sutradhar. You gave your stories. She was writing poetry. So she's going to read it out to you. This struggle. It's a daily battle. A war so intense, it consumes, subsumes you, me, us. Deeper we get, mired in illusion. The maya of this untruth, the web is thick, the net wide and drowned in this am I. A guru is needed. A guru is present. Sense the presence. Surrender. Give up your inus. Submerge this small eye to the larger consciousness. A space sublime, a thought divine, out of the mouths of babes. We really do come to the last six shlokas of the Keno Panish. The Upanishad concludes by outlining the different ways of developing one's mind to prepare for Brahma Khan or self-knowledge. When you see a flash of lightning and you exclaim, ah, know that the light of the lightning is the supreme reality, Brahman. The same flash of light that makes you blink and you cry out, ah, that too is Brahman. That is the cosmic perspective. From a personal viewpoint, meditate upon this truth as that which powers your mind, your memory, your imagination. Combine the cosmic perspective with this personal viewpoint and you come to the truth. The universally worshipped Tadvanam, the innermost self of everyone, anyone who has experienced Tadvanam is loved by all. So that she can attain the supreme reality. Those who are established in the truth shall attain the supreme state, boundless, blissful. Truly they shall attain the supreme state, Pratidhishthati, Pratidhishthati. And I will just introduce our group to you. Our singers Lakshmi Suresh, Indra Shastri, Dhruv Sachi, Yakshagana, the There Girls, Vinita and Aruna Reddy, Vayu, Aarti Rao, Agni, Sushmita who also came on as the Shisha, Indra Parul Shastri. She is also our in-house dance director. She is an accomplished Bharat Natya dancer. Our Yaksha Sridhar Haigre, P. Uma and also the Guru Diksha. The Asura Deepankar Panth, our accompanists Nyaneshwar Deshmukh on the Pakhavaj, Amrit Dev on the Chandi and on the Tanpura, which is most crucial for us, was Roy Varghese. On sound we have Philip. The Yakshagana choreography was done by Keremane Sridhar Haigre of Ida Gunji, Maha Ganapati Sabha. Backstage, Sudha Suresh, single-handedly. Our Sutradhar Pratibha Panth, also our poetess Asana and movement for this show was choreographed by Priyadarshani Ghosh. This backdrop that you see and all the artwork on the pamphlets that you got has been done by Aarti and Roy. We got our theatre input from Sunil Shanbag. The music composition in the Drupal genre was by the Padmasri Gundecha brothers and the inspiration and guidance for this show is from Sri M. Our musician, sorry, I always managed to miss one thing. Musician Varsha Divte and her alter ego was Sindhu Sachi. This would be possible. None of us would be here. Again, I want to thank you all for your hospitality, for your wonderful presence here and for deeply enjoying our show. This is the biggest reward for us. So thank you so much again. Good night.