Paper Presentations

Every individual has her / his history and no matter how similar each story, each individual deals with it in her/his own way. So, what I have gained and grown with Process Work (PW) is my talk for the day.

It is termed a rendez-vous because no matter how low I have been Aastha and process friends have always put back the romance of life in life.

This paper is about the value of and some approaches to eco-centric process work – which has been so named since it is process work which includes our connect with Nature as the context we are embedded in.

Ambivalence is an integral part of human existence. We are continuously immersed in contrary feelings, thoughts and actions. At the emotive level, we often love and hate the same person/object; at the thought level we keep oscillating between contradictory ideas (I am strong, I am weak) and at the action level we keep shifting between I will- I will not.

This paper would be structured as follows: at first, I will articulate an overview of the intervention with high-level details of the program design and methodology across each phase. Next, I share the three themes that I focussed on while working with most groups and the way I approached them. Lastly, I recount the challenges I faced as a primary anchor as I ventured into uncharted territory.

We selected 60+ sutras that focus on the processes of perception, meaning making and self-reflectivity. After having a brief discussion on each, we embarked on a long-term process of decoding the meaning of these sutras in relationship to process work. This paper will take a few of these sutras to elaborate upon and show the parallels between the Yoga Sutra and Inner Work.

We stand at the threshold of a transition from the industrial age to an ecological age. The industrial age brought with it many conveniences, comforts and an entirely new way of life and living. These changes slowly permeated into the collective consciousness and redefined the notions of good life and of success and achievement.

This paper proposes a leadership model that is born out of extensive action research for over three decades, with hundreds of women’s groups including two five -year and several three - year long term programs and a few mixed group programs both in India and U.S.

‘Who am I’ is an existential question that humans continuously grapple with at different stages of life. The ultimate universal search for that one Truth, for harmony, for freedom from pain and sorrows, for absolute bliss takes different forms. To seek answers to questions such as Why am I the way I am, why is the world the way it is, some look for answers in the external, while some take the journey inward.

Learning is not knowing but many believe it otherwise. A myth, that is entrenched to our psyche. Greater is the knowledge, richer we are in our depth of wisdom holds no ground. My paper attempts to demystify related beliefs and offer postulates of my understanding, exploring insights on my trip to “learning to learn’.

Process Work is an interdisciplinary and interactive method of working with self and others in the relationship challenges of daily living. It offers attitudes and skills to facilitate transformation and growth and facilitates both individual and collective change processes.

To understand a discipline, you must know its history. Process Work is a discipline, in the way it follows a particular paradigm, it has boundaries and it is inculcated through learning and internship. There is an apparent absence of theory perplexing interns and new members. Many members after years of experience still look for a basis of process work in this or that framework. Some look at ancient Indian treatises on Yoga to discover a link...

In my journey of seeking truth…., I have experienced the need to support process work with self-enquiry. In a nutshell, process spaces and process work has facilitated in identifying my band of identities, meanings I have given to experiences and roles.

Process Work has acquired several ‘rupas’. All these have a great deal in common especially at the intent level and yet have distinctive features characterising their working. The traditions are distinct in terms of their axioms and methods. These constitute the tradition.

Sri Aurobindo theorises that in the future, human civilisations and cultures across the world will turn inwards for knowledge; ushering in the Subjective Age following the current Individualist Rational Age. This Subjective age will integrate the objective epistemologies of rational enquiry of our current times; with subjective epistemologies of the subliminal worlds and the inner being.