Presenter Pointers #3: Punish Thy Prasangs

Every Sunday (or Saturday), Sabhaologists are on the field monitoring, observng, and analyzing presentations. This new series brings to light their observations and points of improvement in a bite-sized blog post.

As we bear witness to the Occupy Wall Street movement taking root across the nation, we can't help if history is repeating itself. After all, France in the late 1700s stood witness to a bloody new beginning in the wake of the French Revolution.

Enter the guillotine: a razor-sharp blade falling down in the blink of an eye to dish off the head of yet another.

Just the sight of one in action would make us cringe - a similar sensation we evoke with prasangs if they come straight from the paper. Think back to the last time you got excited about something be it a gift, a sports victory, or a pleasant surprise.

That's the feeling to imbue in the prasangs we narrate in our presentations. Just reading them off a sheet of paper kills the power vested in them, and with each faltering prasangs, we take one step back from the point we try to present to our audience.

Here's a rule of thumb: how well can we narrate the prasang without the syllabus? Try it out in front of a mirror, and prasang-varnan will reach a whole new level.

Prasangs are thus the life of our presentation. If not, it's to the guillotine and off with our het - to Maharaj and Swami that is. 

Presenter Pointers #2: First Learn, Then Teach

Every Sunday (or Saturday), Sabhaologists are on the field monitoring, observng, and analyzing presentations. This new series brings to light their observations and points of improvement in a bite-sized blog post.

First seek to understand then to be understood: the age-old adage on how to communicate.

Since presenting is nothing more than communicating to the audience a memorable message, we must ask ourselves, "What have we gained from this presentation?" We've noted earlier how important it is to guide our audience towards a goal. Thus, we must understand that goal before we can even begin to present!

Common sense, we think, but when we have a syllabus to guide our presentation, we often tune out our inquiry and curiosity. The syllabus is a great tool but like any tool it needs to be used correctly. Have you ever tried to drive in a nail with a screwdriver - we have it works but not well. The screwdriver is designed for screws. The syllabus in the same way is to help us understand. It is full of great information and ideas that we need to read with our curiosity filter open. We need to think about the different aspects of the topic and delve as deep as we can to understand the topic. For example, friendship, yesterday's topic in kishore/kishori sabha, may seem drab on the surface but can be analyzed in different ways:

• What did Maharaj teach us through His friendships?
• Are friendships always beneficial?
• In our life, do we have different types of friendships?

When we fail to learn from a presentation, we let an opportunity go - an opportunity to bring our audience closer to Maharaj and Swami. Sure, it may require a bit preparation, but that's why we need two weeks to research and refine our idea.

Thus, let's seek to understand the topic then to expect the topic to be understood by our audience.

Presenter Pointers #1: All Points, No Proof

Every Sunday (or Saturday), Sabhaologists are on the field monitoring, observng, and analyzing presentations. This new series brings to light their observations and points of improvement in a bite-sized blog post.


In kishore sabha last week, we heard a presentation on desh/kaal. The syllabus listed the eight factors of influence as mentioned by Shriji Maharaj in the Vachanamrut: place, time, action, company, mantra, scriptures, initiation, and meditation. The presenter figured simply listing them would do the job.

Reality check: The audience tuned him out as quickly as they heard him say, "Here's factor #1..."

What did he miss? He lacked stories/examples to breathe life into each of these eight factors. Point after point reduces a topic to technicality and leaves the audience behind in boredom.


Part of preparing entails finding these stories/examples. For instance, seeing others sneeze can affect our thoughts. In describing company, we can certainly pique someone's interest.

So let's remember, prasangs propel the points into our audience. Without 'em, our points go nowhere.

Understand before making it stick.

Last we weeks we were working with BST/KST kids on presentation skills. The discussion moved to and centered on how to make the concept of maya stick. We noticed first that we need to understand the concept ourselves. Many of the younger kids said all stuff was maya (somewhat true). We discussed if our phones were maya and they said yes. What if we lost our phones and it did not bother us at all - was the phone still maya? So the discussion went back and forth. The conclusion was that the attachment to stuff was really maya, stuff was just stuff. The key take away that everyone had was that we had to know our stuff before we made our stuff stick.

When we give presentations in sabha we are fortunate to have a syllabus. The most important thing that the syllabus does is give us concise knowledge. We need to read it and understand it so that we know our stuff on whatever the topic is.

Once we know our stuff, then we can try to make it stick (simple, unexpected, stories, emotions, credible and concrete). The syllabus might help with this part, but really it's on us to get that done. Once we have the knowledge and know our stuff, the syllabus has done its main job.

How can we make the concept of maya stick. Going back to the our phones, here is a great article that shows that the we love our phones. Literally love our phones. By imaging the brain (using fMRI) the researchers discovered that the same areas of the brain that signify love were lit up when people were shown pictures of their phone. Now that's maya.