The Festival was held at the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre, 2 Clarendon Street, Southbank (corner of Clarendon St & Normanby Rd). It was a three day event that ran from June 5th to 8th June – 10:30 to 6:30. I was invited to attend the seminar by one of my good friend who has Vegan friendly food stall (www.mantralounge.com.au/). I am amazed to see the number of stalls and people visiting the festival. There must have been about 150 to 200 stalls, showcasing various items on Healthy, spiritual  and natural living, which included stall on Natural Foods, Various types of Massage, Gems, Crystals, Psychic reading, Healing through Angels, Horoscope, Tarot Cards reading etc.

It was an amazing experience to see so many people and products aimed at Natural and healthy living, nourishing our spiritual side of life etc. Reminds me of a quote “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” Of course, Lord Krishna in Bhagavad Gita emphatically, explains the same point, the nature and characteristics of a spirit soul in the second chapter that,

• We are spirit souls encaged in a material body
• The body is a dead matter and dying every moment but, what sustains it is the spirit soul that illuminates the whole body with Consciousness
• There is no death for the spirit soul. A spirit soul simply changes the bodies like we change our dress
• The spirit soul is immutable, it cannot be cut by any weapons, burnt or made wet by any liquid. The spirit Soul always existed, will continue to exist.
• Elsewhere the size of the spirit soul is mentioned (Svetasvatara Upanishad 5.9) to be the ten-thousandth part of the tip of the hair. If one takes the tip of the hair and divides it into hundred parts and then takes one of these divided parts and further divides it into hundred parts, then what remains is the size of the soul. Since the soul is so tiny, it is not possible to see the spirit soul with the naked eyes.
• So, the bottom line is that since, essentially we are all spiritual beings, no amount of matter i,e Money, riches, Comforts, Luxury living can make us happy. We are just like, fish out of water. Unless, we realise and nurture our core being of spirituality we can never be happy.

Finally, it was refreshing to see something different being promoted other than, the electronic goods like TV’s, Mobiles, Fast foods and Sweet drinks like chips and Cloths. Unfortunately, I could spend only few hours and next time, I plan to make it, at least a half day.