There's been an excellent response to recent campus visits by Swami Atmeshananda, Associate Minister of the Vedanta Centre of Sydney (a branch of the Ramakrishna Mission).

CQUniversity sponsored the Swami's visits to Rockhampton and Gladstone campuses in early September.

The Swami meets participants in the Rockhampton event

More than 70 people gathered at Gladstone Campus for the Swami's evening talk on 'Spiritualising everyday life'. The following day, around 50 people heard him speak at Rockhampton Campus.

The Swami led the congregation in singing of hymns on universal peace and relaxing meditation.

In the talks, the message of harmony, both within oneself and outside in the world, was brought forth forcefully, citing incidents from the life and teachings of Sri Ramakrishna, Sri Sarada Devi and Swami Vivekananda.

The Swami explained how a saying of Sri Ramakrishna - 'Service to humanity is service to the Divine' - brings forth the message of the inherent divinity of all beings. He said the inherent divinity of the soul can be manifested by following one or more paths of Karma (selfless action), Bhakti (devotion), Raja (psychic control) and Jnana (discrimination between the real and the unreal).

Professor Gopinath Chattopadhyay welcomes the Swami to Gladstone

This event of social networking for peace and harmony was actively organised by Gopi Chattopadhyay, Kakoli Chattopadhyay and Kuldip Singh from Gladstone and Dhamodharan Raman, Ashwath Nanjappa, Priya Ravichandran and Nirmal Mandal from Rockhampton.

Visiting chaplain Shaji Joseph mentioned that the Vedanta sessions fit well with the motto of the 'Multi-Faith Chaplaincy Garden' at CQUniversity Rockhampton.

Excellent food was cooked by the organisers. The sponsorship from CQUniversity and Indian Association of Central Queensland played a great role in this event.

The enthusiastic Gladstone audience 
Networking in Rockhampton