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Dec 15, 2022

"Like treasure hidden in the ground, like flavor in the fruit, like gold in the rock, and oil in the seed, the Absolute is hidden in the heart." --Akka Mahadevi

Balakrishnan Raghavan: Belonging to the World

When he was ten years old, Balakrishnan Raghavan was moved to tears listening to a centuries-old Tamil hymn about Lord Shiva, sung by musician M S Subbulakshmi. "I was wailing. Subbulakshmi's voice soaring high and low, calling out to that divine-beloved, the voice of the poet who lived hundreds of years before us, the fierceness of their devotion, the ultimate surrender of the devotee, the madness of love, the pathos of separation, and the anticipation of union; all of this is etched in my memory," he recalls. From that experience, Indian classical music became a fount of his practice. Raghavan is a lifelong student of the arts, whose outlook on life and living is steeped "at the intersection of kindness, spirituality, sensuality, music, flow, and poetry." The poems of the saints from the spiritual traditions of India have shaped "how I engage with, make sense of and access the world around me." He strongly believes in the power of the collective kindness of humanity across time and space.