My Learnings From Awakin Circles Posted by Kyari Shah, Jun 03 2020 The start of Awakin circles in Surat was very serendipitous. Around 5 years ago, my parents went to a circle where Nipun Uncle shared stories of Awakin Santa Clara and forthwith my mom decided that she wanted to start this space in Surat. When my parents returned home they shared that with us (two of my elder sisters and myself) and we were quite excited about it. However, that excitement didn’t last long for me. Being a teenager I was more interested in going out with friends, playing basketball and chilling. Sitting for meditation, reading spiritual passages and listening to older people seemed difficult and boring. *A confession: there were times when I used to plan my classes, meet-ups or pretend to be asleep especially on Thursdays so that I could miss the circle*. The good part was that none of my family members forced me to attend the circle. The ... Read Full Story

My Sixth Grader's Letter To Our Local Police Posted by Ariel Nessel, Jun 01 2020 My sixth grader wrote a letter to our local police department about George Floyd, race relations and police policies. It was dropped off today. Even though I have similar questions as he, when they come from a child they somehow seem immensely more poignant. Dear Ross Police Officers How are you? I hope you are handling this well. I am writing to ask you a few questions. Throughout the riots about George Floyd's death, I have been meaning to write to you about something. How do you protect against crime in our town without letting race be involved? How do you make Black Amercians feel welcome in a town where they are a minority? How do you not let any form of racism stop you from protecting fairly? I've been feeling like our town's lack of diversity means we have to be careful about making sure we are kind and welcome to all. I feel like there are corrupt and racist police officers out there. I hope I can make a difference by sending this letter. One last question, what can I do? Thank you for reading. Best, Jonah Jai Nessel

Maya's Response To "This I Believe" Posted by Seema Shah, May 28 2020 We were smiling wide to see this video that our teenage daughter, Maya, made for a "This I Believe" speech assignment, modeled after the NPR series where people share their unique beliefs on the radio show. It also made us remember some of the "kindness drives" she did with her siblings, inspired by so many of you across the ecosystem.

Reflections On KarunaVirus Semester! Posted by Fran Faraz, May 25 2020 At the college where I teach, we’re at the end of our spring 2020 semester and it seemed we had two endings this semester; one was the end of the March and spring break and a new one after spring break. When I heard the news that we’re going to a distant learning/teaching mode, two things were important to me: (a) learning the technology to deliver my courses and, (b) how do I keep students engaged and get them to the finish line powerfully. I reached out to my ServiceSpace family for guidance and I received plenty of heartfelt stories to be inspired. I heard from students about their disappointments, fears, challenges and thoughts of abandoning their education all together to support their recently laid-off families. This I could not be a witness. I don’t mind students going away to find themselves, to experience the world, but going away from a place of ... Read Full Story

12 Year-Old Sews Hundreds Of Masks And Feeds Strangers Posted by Amritha Mandagondi, May 23 2020 Children and magic almost always go hand in hand. In their pure magic lies their honesty, imagination and love. One day, on our journey with KarunaVirus, we received a message from the aunt of 12 year-old Laksha Shroff from Atlanta, Georgia. The message spoke about how the child’s spirit of service and love for communities has made her an everyday hero. Somewhere between homework, school and exams, she has been sewing masks along with her mother while her father and brother are distributing them. The money raised is donated to a local nonprofit by the name Tilman House Charity. Her day starts early and goes deep into the nights just so she can meet the demand and the deadlines. She named her project ‘Happily Ever After’ as she truly believes that the end to every story is always in bright light in spite of some absence of light along the way. We ... Read Full Story

HeART Circle London: "How Is Your Heart Doing?" Posted by Trupti Pandya, May 23 2020 Art offers sanctuary to everyone willing to open their Hearts as well as their Eyes Last Sunday, Vidhi and I were invited to do our first HeART circle with the London community through art. It was a family circle, so we had kids and adults coming together. With the uncertainty hovering around us, this was an opportunity to come together and ask how each one's heart was doing. Before the circle started, we could see the kids ready with their art material and ready to jump in the pool of paints. It was an opportunity for us to learn from the little teachers to shed inhibitions and bring authenticity. Trishna di started the circle with a minute of silence. They warmly welcomed Vidhi to lead us through a super fun icebreaker where we mentally painted different parts of our faces one by one with our favorite colors. This opened up the doors of ... Read Full Story

Quarantine Changed My Relationship With Cooking! Posted by Poonam Singh, May 18 2020 As a busy mom of three, I often felt I never had a enough time to cook for my family. We would have a pretty decent breakfast in the morning, like steal cut oats with berries, but then lunch came around and I usually just grazed all day sort of mindlessly, and then in the evening I would be SO TIRED that it was almost impossible to organize dinner. I was cooking to get through it and hopefully getting something reasonably healthy on the table. So as the quarantine started, I adjusted like the rest of us and started flowing with whatever was showing up. I did feel a lot of relief when my schedule slowed down and didn't have to run around as much, and something did open within me (and I recognize that this isn't the case for many). Something miraculous happened! I started to really enjoy cooking for the ... Read Full Story

A Small Detail, 20 Years Ago Posted by Jane Murray, May 18 2020 It has been such a privilege to learn from the many stories and insights that surface in our Laddership Circles each week. A profound image that a member of our circle shared yesterday: I was the receiver of a micro moment of kindness with major ripples in my early twenties… I was at a point in my life when I was extremely low and, while I don’t think I would have acted on it, thoughts of ending my life had started to creep in. It was a dark time and I didn’t see a way out of the darkness. I was working in the front office of a government office and barely holding it together. My boss came back from her lunch break and brought me a cookie with a big smile. It touched my heart on a day when any shred of kindness or love meant I was able to get through that day. I do not even remember if I ate the cookie, that wasn’t the point. It was like someone lit a candle in a super dark room and it was enough light that now 20 years later I still remember it so clearly. It made me reflect that we never, ever know what impact an act of kindness will have. The small details seems to be so vital to aliveness in every sense.

Song At Awakin: Door Of My Heart Posted by Mark Peters, May 17 2020 Couple Awakin Circles back, I mentioned a story from India. It featured a young woman from Austria, now living in Salt Lake City. The Wednesday after that, Jordyn actually joined our circle. At the tail end of that circle, the hosts discovered that she sings! And lo and behold, last week, she closed our circle with a song offering -- while I played on thumb-paino, that she had gifted me a long while back. Many asked for the recording, so here it is: Your browser does not support the audio element. It's a song by the great sage, Paramhansa Yogananda, titled 'Door of my Heart'. Door of my heart, open wide I keep for Thee. Wilt Thou come, wilt Thou come? Just for once, come to me? Will my days fly away without seeing Thee, my Lord? Night and day, night and day, I look for Thee night and day.

This Will Be A Good Marriage: Officiating A ZOOM Posted by Bonnie Rose, May 15 2020 I’ve done over 100 weddings in my career as a minister. Some stand out more than others – marrying my beloved nephews to their chosen spouses; Greg and Jen’s wedding where I dropped the rings and blurted an impure word during the holy exchange. One of the most memorable ceremonies was a ZOOM wedding during the pandemic. Prior to the event, Emma and James, did what most couples do – they booked the venues, selected the cake, the meal, and the music. They met with me to discuss the ceremony. Then the pandemic happened, and all plans eroded. It was a slow, uncertain crumbling, probably painful for them. With each new quarantine rule, wedding plans dwindled from a large event, to a small gathering, to possible cancelation. Emma called me to ask for advice. She and James wanted to get married and wanted everyone to be safe. They didn’t know what to do. ... Read Full Story

Gratitude & Ripple Of Karuna Virus! Posted by Nilam Chauhan, May 14 2020 Dearest Karuna Virus team! Everyday With Karuna News you make my day special, filled with love and hope. I’m sending you these flowers and love to brighten your day and bring smiles on your face :) Though the hugs and flowers are virtual I hope you will feel the warmth and the fragrance. These are pictures of the non-verbal cards for the elderly who are in real isolation, without much human touch. They have poor vision and minimum help. My heart just breaks. Your compassionate dedicated work inspires many like me to do a little and offer in our own ways to bring joy. Ripples of Karuna keep spreading. Stay blessed and keep spreading compassion

Matrutva & Maitri: Celebrating Motherhood & Friendship Posted by Trupti Pandya, May 11 2020 Every week a few friends of the Vadodara ecosystem come together to cultivate stillness, community, and service. What started as a one time call in the first week of lockdown, has now become a weekly offering of love by Jaimit and Krunal. It is an evolving online circle for us to engage, share, spread joy, and rise through collective consciousness. The anchors have been beautifully holding the space exploring a different theme every week, pouring their love in writing the invitation, and also creating heArt offerings for every circle! As 10th May was Mother’s Day, this week our circle was a tribute to Motherhood. With that Krunal and Jaimit invited us to a heartfelt circle to presence/celebrate/hold space for Mother's Day and reflect on the experiences of “માતૃત્વ” (motherhood) in our everyday life. Krunal wrote: “We experience motherhood in many forms. One of the forms in which it comes to us is ... Read Full Story

New Organ Of Perception: ServiceSpace And GAIA Posted by Antoinette Klatzky , May 10 2020 We're receiving a ton of raving feedback on ServiceSpace stories that were shared with our GAIA community on Friday. So many of us were moved to tears, and filled with renewed courage that love has the potential to triumph all. Thank you! Below is a video clip of some of Nipun's closing remarks:

Connectedness While Being Quarantined Posted by vaibhav pandya, May 10 2020 Connectedness while being Quarantined Kids-Parents Duo It has been a lock-down period in India since March. Children and parents alike have been confined to home. A time ... may be first ever in one’s life ... when parents and children are together at home 24/7 for more than a month ... you cannot go out to work or to play, you cannot dine out, you cannot pay a visit ... only you and your family - all the time. The family is locked in! Announcement of the 14-day kids-parents duo challenge What a beautiful opportunity to look in-side! kids-parents duo: a 14-day challenge emerged as an opportunity for parents and children to creatively work together, reflect together, serve together ... in the process to look inside to know each other more. We feel so happy to be able to become part of such an emergence. Kids-parents duo: a 14-day challenge Interested parents registered in ... Read Full Story

What Happened To The CEO Who Made 70K Minimum Salary? Posted by Afsha Randera, May 06 2020 Five years ago, you might remember Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price's move to take a 90% pay cut (from $1.1 million to 70K a year) so that the minimum annual salary in his company could be $70K. His story came up in our Laddership Circle this week, and when I read the article about it, I liked the concept in general, but it felt a little gimmicky. Was he doing this from a pure intention or was it because his company was in trouble and he wanted to cut costs and was doing this experiment as a publicity stunt to garner more customers' interests? I know this was 5 years ago, and I also remember he got a lot of negativity for it. So I researched it and found an article from two months ago: The Boss Who Put Everyone on 70K An excerpt: But Price did get a lot of flak. Along ... Read Full Story

A Day Of Compassion Posted by Kala Mehta, May 06 2020 [Diya, my 13-year-old, took a class in social psychology. The teacher asked her to spend 'a day in compassion' write an essay on her experience. Below is her essay.] A Day in Compassion, by Diya Mehta We stay at home. We wait. The time passing seems to pass us through. As we stay in our homes we wait for the virus to pass, for the sick to get healthy. All while inside the walls of our houses, we become angry and irritated at our families who are just there to look out for us. This is how it is in our family at least. I am doing the same, but for just one day, one day I was told to be compassionate. I was told to do something other than sit around in my house. And seeing as I had tried to do this before, and it did not work, I knew ... Read Full Story

A True Calling: Serving The Hungry Posted by Sudha Menon, May 05 2020 Magic and miracles often emerge from just listening to what our heart is saying to us. And when we learn to tune out the cacophony of sounds that often take over our everyday lives, our heart has a way of opening up our world, bringing into it laughter, joy and boundless love. That is what Y.S Pavithra, the founder of Bangalore-based social enterprise Vindhya E-Infomedia discovered over the course of the last month when she and a handful of volunteers from Vindhya ran a community kitchen to feed hundreds of those hit the hardest by the countrywide lockdown due to the Covid pandemic. Pavithra, whose innovative social enterprise, Vindhya, employs around 1,500 people with disability (PWD) first realised the magnitude of the suffering that migrant labor, daily wage workers and other under-privileged segments of the population were undergoing when Vindhya set up a call centre for the Karnataka government’s Hunger Helpline, ... Read Full Story

When The Wind Stopped: Landing At The Foot Of A Posted by Preeta Bansal, May 01 2020 What happens when a flowing stream comprised of space holders from multiple continents, each bearing their own questions, are transported to the foot of Mount Malloy, by the wind -- as guided by the skilled hand at the tiller of Pavithra, a wooden canoe? The answer is beautiful poetry! The PDF here is an assortment of the questions our group silently shared during the "Power of Questions" call, woven alongside John's unfolding wisdom: [download here] As shared in our follow-up note, who knew virtual could be so virtue-full? Truth be told we are still deliciously bewildered by it all -- John included :) This was an experimental call in many respects. And it went marvelously because all were patient, deeply present, and held space pristinely. Participants joined us from Austria, India, France, England, the Philippines, from the California Coast to NY Island and dozens of places in between. 11 of the group ... Read Full Story

Heart Weather Haikus Posted by Pavi Mehta, May 01 2020 During The Power of Questions circle we recently held with John, listeners spent a few minutes sharing their responses on a Google doc to the question: What is the weather in your heart at this moment? Later we discovered that with a little bit of rearranging, these state-of-the-heart check-ins create a patchwork quilt of poetry! :) Not a single additional word was added. It's confirmed. We are all poets together.

What Makes Volunteer-Run Organizations Work Posted by V.R. Ferose, Apr 30 2020 [Below is my article in Forbes: What makes a volunteer based organization successful? I have learnt most of this from all of you in ServiceSpace, so thank you for being a mentor and guide on this special journey.] Volunteers have become an integral part of the ongoing battle against the COVID-19 pandemic. In my hometown of Kerala, which had one of the most inspiring responses to the pandemic, more than 200,000 volunteers were at the front line. Quantifying the impact of volunteering is a herculean task. This begs the question: What makes a volunteer-based organization successful? Peter Drucker tried to convert volunteer efforts into the following monetary form: “If we put even minimum wage to the time spent by volunteers, it would be 12% of GNP compared to 2.5% we give in the money.” Perhaps that percentage should be even higher as we continue to see a surge in highly educated volunteers, ... Read Full Story