This was a talk that I was meant to give at a gala full of very successful first generation Indian immigrants. I'm the next generation of Indian-Americans, and here are the words I had in my heart that I wanted to fully express here:

"To the community members in the room here today…

You are all so accomplished and have done so much for people back in India and here.

I’m inspired by your dedication to serve.

I’m inspired by your dream for collective action. I thank Bhupen Ji for his humility and grace in inviting the next generation to speak.

I have wondered where you are many times in my life--as a young activist and change leader, not wanting to do anything but serve, and wondering where are the elders in the Indian Community who just want to serve. Not get degrees or positions or reach this epitome of success first, but just to serve now. I'm grateful my parents gave me room to follow my path, but I looked around and wondered where others were, particularly of the previous generation.

When I learned about the work being done here, I felt humbled that this work has been going on for so long. And I felt inspired by it.

However, today, I have to say that I feel intimidated looking out in the audience.

Even though I admire so much of what you have done, I also feel disconnected from it.

As a member of the next generation, I need to speak my truth to all of you today.

Many of you have sacrificed so much to come to the states and give us these lives that we are living as the next generation.

You left your culture, your food, your identity, everything you knew.....Your connection to your family.

All of this for a dream.

For your children.

For this country.

I never for a second can really understand what it means to leave all of that.

And I have benefited from it all as an Indian-American.

And I feel grateful for your sacrifice and just how damn hard you have worked for us.

Yet, with all of our privilege and money and resources and wealth and high status positions, I’m worried we have lost some of our way and I want to tell you why.

I’m afraid we as an Indian community do not need to grasp for more power and status.

I’m afraid we do not need to get more attention.

Those are external forms of success--and we have attained that to a great degree. Maybe we are still a minority group in the USA, but I don’t feel grasping more power is what is needed now.

What I want to say to all of you is that we need to go back to what our beloved nana and nanis taught us.

My grandfather would bow down and touch my feet because I was a child and I was held in such reverence.

My grandmother who would feed me by their loving hands even after working all day and all night.

My grandparents who would share the small food they had with everyone they knew.

This is love.

This is truth.

The generous spirit to fight over who will pay the bill that I saw growing up that is now slowly dying.

The generous spirit to give completely from your heart, not as a formality but genuinely.

Humility. Deep, beautiful humility to just BOW into service.

We are losing some of these sacred old values, in our attainment of the new standards of success .

Yet, our world can't tolerate this new level of success. We are using too
much of the world's resources and too much of our own internal resources, which is dividing ourselves and each other.

It is painful to be alive right now.

I do not want to judge this life--I know it’s incredible to be efficient, to
have money, and to not have to worry.

But I miss the days when you went over to your neighbor to watch TV.

I miss those days when no one had a garbage can because there was no waste.

Does this life of attainment really have meaning for us? I wonder.

I have the privilege of hearing from the youth voices.

I get the privilege of working with young people--many are your
kids--many are young Indian Americans. They invite me into their lives.
And what I hear from them more than anything, regardless of whether they are upper class, middle class, or low income is that they want a life of meaning. They want to just BE. They are sick of being on a treadmill. Of moving so fast. Of living up to expectations. Once we they realize there is an option out, they want out. How painful for me to hear this from young people who should be feel the most freedom of all that being young feels like being in a prison . Some of them even so pained that they are taking their lives, and we live in Silicon Valley with the highest suicide rate for high school students in the entire country.

They feel the pain of the world, but what is amazing is that they are willing to speak up about it and they are willing to question it.

And I think we all feel that pain pretty deeply as adults. Whether that's because we feel alone or because we are afraid to see what other violent act is around the corner or simply because we are exhausted, we feel the pain and know there is serious stuff happening around us. It is is easy to blame the individual, but much harder to see the pattern. There are serious mental health issues and many of the older generation who feel very alone, or have heart and physical issues.

I don't think we adults have the courage to say that pain might be caused by us. It is easier to say it is the poor people over there, and not our lifestyle and everything we sacrificed to achieve. But maybe it is some part of us or some part of the illusion that was sold to us, and maybe the Indian Community needs to be apart of defining a new dream, beginning with the old values that we all still can remember. We can still remember what those values were like and that could be a tremendous contribution to this country and the future.

Our young people ache to connect with themselves deeply.

They also want to connect with others and live a true life that matters to
them.

I have sat with so many of them and looked at them in the eye and felt their pain to connect and the joy and love when they felt freedom. When they sit in our Soulforce Circles, they simply feel freedom, they tell us.

So if I had to channel the young people...I think they would say to you if
they could….

Stop controlling us.

Let us be.

Less activities, pressure, expectations to be overdeveloped humans.

Do not be afraid-we'll go to good colleges and get good jobs.

Trust us.

You have sacrificed so much giving us this life, now just trust us. We may break all the boundaries provided to us by previous generations and create new boundaries and new rules for how the way should work. We may not just want to be doctors, lawyers, or engineers. :)

And the youth would also say....

Take some time out for you. Slow down. You have done so much for us. It is now time for you to breathe.

You serve. You bow down. You go back to what your
grandparents taught you and do things that are truly authentic and matter to you in your lives and the communities around you. It doesn't need to be a big thing or big money--it is simply connecting with the intention to serve and looking around you.

Maybe we don't have to give up all the new, but in going back to the old, a lot will change.

And maybe the next generation will have strong livllihood and a life full of meaning, connection and service. Isn't that what we want? If so, we have to get out of the way so they can create some new rules.

When we go deeper and deeper in ourselves, we surface connection with ourselves. We surface connections with others. We surface love. And that is where they want to be and that is where we all need to be.

Love."

If you read this, thank you...and I would LOVE your thoughts and feedback.