By Gaura-Shakti ISKCON Lancaster
As a bhakti-yoga practitioner who lives a two hour train and bus journey from my nearest ashram in Manchester, the practical reality I have to deal with is, that daily morning practice in association with other sadhakas in the real world is a rarity. I belong to a small WhatsApp group which enables us to use our mobiles to do some japa meditation with one another and in that way get some regular satsang. I can also tune in to one of the live sessions that are broadcast on Youtube to listen and watch Mangal Aarti whenever I want to. Modern technology has brought us these possibilities and I, as a lone devotee, attempting to deepen my relationship with Krishna, surrounded by a sea of distraction and a tumult of the material modes of nature in my daily life, try to fully take advantage of these modern aids whenever I can.
A couple of years ago I invested in a Meta Quest 2 Virtual Reality headset to explore the possibilities that this relatively new technology is offering to devotees. I’m still amazed by its capabilities! Over that period I have set up three sacred meta-spaces on an App called Spatial.
These sacred meta-spaces, which I have populated with images and videos, are linked together as portals, allowing me to easily jump between them for different purposes. One such portal is the Bhakti Yoga Gallery, which contains three rooms. Room One reminds me of the importance of the spiritual master, with images and videos of Srila Prabhupada and other devotees that have become important to me over the years. Room Two is dedicated to Lord Chaitanya and his life. Room Three is dedicated to showcasing Radha-Krishna deities in all their many forms. The second sacred meta-space is the Bhakti Kirtans Gallery, which is a much larger room with many corridors and in which I can practice mangal aarti and join in with kirtans that have been filmed in different locations. The third sacred meta-space is the Bhakti Teachings Arena, which is a large amphitheatre where I can sit and study the Shrimad Bhagavatam with videos of various gurus delivering their illuminations on this epic’s twelve cantos.
Now that all this sacred architecture has been constructed, the broader purpose of this project can be accomplished by sharing these Sacred Metaspaces with any Krishna-bhakti sadhaka who may wish to enhance their practice in this way. Virtual Reality technology offers us all a way to be in good sadhu-sangha, wherever we are, physically, in the world. Just like Narada Muni, we can all now travel in spiritual bodies, known as avatars in VR, and can chant Japa together or dance and sing together, read and discuss sacred books together, speak together, share our journeys together, no longer restricted by time or space. No longer do we need to travel on trains, planes and automobiles, over long distances that take hours out of our days. Personally my physical body is getting old and worn out, yet as an avatar I can appear youthful and can dance and move around with a forward-press of a control on my handset.
So I would like to share these possibilities with you in a free webinar. Many of you may have no idea what I’m talking about and I need to try and explain in a presentation just how you can take part in VR sessions. You don’t have to own a headset to use Spatial, since you can use your mobile phone, Tablet or PC. But you won’t get the full effect. Using a headset means that it feels like you are there with me, in three-dimensional meta-space. Using a mobile or any other 2D screen you are still in your own room, in your physical body, looking at a screen. We all know how to do that these days. On the tutorial webinars, for example, you will be staring at a screen, using Click Meetings, which is just like Zoom. You will see me on screen, sitting at my desk and I will see you, sitting at your desk. Using a headset and being in a Sacred Metaspace however, is an immersive experience, where our avatars can talk, walk, sing, chant, dance together in the same space and we can temporarily leave behind our physical bodies for a while.
To reserve a place on one of my webinars simply click on More Information about VR Webinars and you will be taken to my website where you can see a few examples of the Sacred Metaspaces and decide if you want to go further by going down to the bottom of that page and click on Book Here for Next Webinar.
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