The ancient wisdom of Yoga and meditation could provide solutions for personal and social contemporary problems, yogi Dada Nabhanliilananda believes.

Dada has only recently been posted to Malta, where he will be working as an acharya (meditation teacher) for Ananda Marga – an international non-profit Yoga organisation, which has a well-established branch in Malta. TMID spoke to him about the lecture he is giving at the Malta-China Friendship Society in Valletta next Wednesday, entitled Close your eyes, Open your Mind.

“We need to rediscover how to live with ourselves, each other and the environment,” he explains. “The solution is within. I believe in this firmly and that is why I became a Yogi monk almost 24 years ago, to do my part in spreading the message.”

Human beings have to rediscover the balance between the external world and the internal world, he said. Western values tend to emphasise the material world excessively while eastern philosophy seems to neglect material needs, he said, the middle path is the viable solution.

“The hippy solution did not work. To declare that you love everyone is not enough, and you must cultivate the discipline to act on that ideology. Meditation helps you find the strength to do that, within you. I think it is evident enough from events that happen around the world everyday that there is a need for change. Well, I believe that change starts from within.”

Dada Nabhanliilananda is a spiritual teacher, a writer and a musician. He was born and raised in New Zealand, but has travelled extensively and has been invited to give lectures in five continents. He has been practicing and teaching Yoga since 1975. He studied in Ashrams in Nepal and India where in 1979 he was ordained monk. The lecture will take place at 7.30pm.