Good evening and a very warm welcome to all of you to this evening's edition of

Healing Our Minds. Healing Our Minds is a series aimed at bringing forth multidisciplinary and

multi-faith reflections on the human condition

so that we can together find better ways to engage with our struggles, our troubles,

our disappointments or dukha, as Buddhism refers to it.

Struggles and troubles come in all forms and sizes.

Tonight, my particular struggle is with my internet connection.

So my apologies if, you know, it lags or anything like that.

To find a solution for tonight, we're turning to the Vedanta.

And we're honored to have with us today, Swami Sarva Priyananda, who is the

minister and spiritual leader of the Vedanta Society of New York since January 2017. He was a

Nagral fellow at the Harvard Divinity School in 2019-20. Swami Ji has played a prominent role in organizing and participating in various interfaith

panels and seminars, including speaking at the World Parliament of Religions in Toronto in

2018 and at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

A compelling speaker, his abiding passions for the Upanishads and psychology have led to a collection of e-books, which are now available on Amazon Kindle.

With him in conversation will be Mr. Rajiv Mehruhtra, who is the honorary managing trustee of the Foundation for Universal Responsibility of of his holiness, the Dalai Lama.

A long-time student of his holiness, he is also an author and his books are available in more

than 50 languages and editions. Over to Rajiv. Thank you, Aparna. Pernam, Swamiji.

I am deeply blessed several times over to be here to, in my sort of, how I put this, as a seeker, you know, to learn from you.

I must, so I see a few personal words, you know,

celebrating the Ramakrishna Order and the Vedanta tradition

that you represent here with my own, you know, connect with it, I was deeply blessed and privileged

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