“Even after all this time, the Sun never says to the Earth,
"You owe me."
Look what happens with a love like that, it lights the whole sky.”
– Hafiz

About a month ago, a couple of us gave voice to a deep desire — of holding a one-day retreat in Houston. We didn’t know where to begin, where to host, whom to invite - to volunteer and to participate… except for a desire and a need to cultivate an intentional community. We put that intention out and just like that the whole universe conspired to make it happen.Michael (Venu’s Aikido teacher) offered his studio for the entire day to host the retreat. Audrey, Trishna, Birju, Amit, Jasky were more than forthcoming in sharing resources, suggesting ideas for flow, activities, videos, even food menu! Someone tagged us with diaries for the retreat, and from different corners came heArt offerings for tagging the participants!


It was the magical, invisible hand of grace in our lives that created this beautiful gathering on Saturday, when 21 people from diverse walks of life came together in a one-day retreat to explore the shift from transaction to trust in their lives. How can we cultivate this shift in ourselves and in our communities?

A few of the participants expressed a desire to volunteer as well and the evening before all the volunteers met at the center to decorate the ‘Maitri hall’ with center mandalas, arrange cushions topped with beautiful diaries (that were gifted during the Surat retreat!), set up video, and sprinkle the walls with heartfelt thoughts. Every corner felt like it was touched with love, that it was spoken to with love, to hold the space for tomorrow.

Opening Circle

Venu and Sikander welcomed everyone with a warm smile, a hug, and name tags with beautiful crotched hearts. Each one entered the retreat hall silently and sat down on a cushion, closing their eyes and joining in the opening silence.

After 30 mins the gong softly broke the silence and as I opened my eyes, my lips smiled in deep gratitude for this space as I took in everyone’s presence. I had this feeling that just sharing this silence was enough and the rest of the day was simply going to be a treat! Most of us were meeting each other for the first time and to meet each other in silence beyond our names, beyond our titles, and beyond labels was beautiful. One of the participants, John, had later shared that when he opened his eyes after the silence, he felt he was sitting with people he didn’t know but people who were not strangers.

I opened the circle with the old parable of 5 blind men and the elephant which is such a perfect analogy for the whole day as each one of with different perspectives on the same theme, come together.

The opening circle began with the seed question:

What does it mean for you to go from living a life based on transaction to one based on trust, and what may be holding you back?


As the talking stone passed from one person to the next, each one of us stepped within to offer our experiences, share vulnerabilities, joys and disappointments, fears and hopes.

Sikander shared how letting go of competition at work led to opening of new possibilities. When he worked not to get ahead of his colleagues but to together create something they all took joy in, it led to best performance by the entire team. Every one grew because no one was looking over their shoulders to protect his/her own interests. There was no insecurity which led to a completely different environment in the office.

Sifan shared about the many barriers she felt while moving from China to US as a medical student. How it troubled her when people looked at her with distrust only to realize that she was doing the same and that led to make the choice of not doubting anyone’s sincerity because she doesn’t want her own sincerity to be doubted. Chris also resonated similar thoughts of while there is every luxury in US, what we lack is the trust in relationships. Mintcho and Chris both reflected how trust is often a response — I am trusting to those who trust me but shouldn’t we just lead our lives with trust, the way we want to be treated and not the way we are treated.

Merlyn shared an encounter with a homeless person in a hospital who provided her an unexpected opportunity to serve. Alya found trust in universe through her illness and recovery. Venu shared how his mother’s treatment led him to see the healthcare system from other side than that of a doctor. The current transactional nature of the doctor-patient/ caregiver relationship left a void for the entire family of physicians and moved them to look at their own practices.

Saurabh and Sunita, two more doctors in the circle, shared the same concern of the present healthcare system and how there is a need for systemic changes for fostering trust based relationships.

Michael shared about the space itself — the dojo — which is a space of trust as every person practicing here is putting his/her utmost trust in their partner to not hurt them. Trust is both the strength and compassion on the mat as well as in the juvenile detention center where he works with children who have been failed by the system and need trusting relationships to come out of it.

Lauren raised her concerns of trusting her own body and herself before going outwards. Penny reflected on her journey from being a bully in her childhood to becoming a principal and how the journey needed her to come to trust herself and her surroundings. Susannah and Soussane both shared edges around being able to share their gifts and also support themselves financially.

40 years ago, Vijay embarked on a backpacking trip from India to East and Central Asia. For 10 months, he lived on the kindness of strangers and that experience led him to lead his life always with trust — whether it was running his business or opening up his home for strangers. So are transaction and trust really mutually exclusive?

D’Anna shared her experience of volunteering at a food bank and trying to shift all volunteers’ focus from number of how many meals they can pack to the people for whom this meal is being packed. What would this can of beans mean to Sally?

Saurabh and D’Anna also raised how systems and metrics that we set for ourselves can either facilitate or hinder development of trust.

After such a beautiful opening circle, I again went like… if this is the end of the retreat, we are good :-) and yet there was so much more to come!

Journeys in Trust

After a small break, we all came back to see/ listen to journeys in trust. Sikander started the session by sharing Karma Kitchen video and his own experience of volunteering with children at Karma Kitchen Bucharest. After the video, Venu and Michael led us deeper into living with trust. Venu shared how after volunteering at Karma Kitchen in Berkeley, he had asked himself if he can bring the same spirit, the same energy in healthcare? Can we have a Karma Clinic? And he sure did and since last 2.5 years has been working on a Priceless Pricing model! There have been risks, there have been setbacks, but there has been this deep connection to a community that goes beyond what you can imagine. Michael shared about his work with children and teaching Aikido. Most of the kids entrusted in his care are scared, terrified and he sees his own younger self in them as he was himself bullied. But he was lucky to find teachers who taught him to focus on the inside. And his journey as a martial arts teacher has focused on helping kids embrace their inherent nature. Be strong and be compassionate.

“It’s not about kicking and putting another kid down; but it is about reaching a space within yourself, where you can tell the other kids that we don’t have to be enemies.”


Lunch and Hands Offering

Everyone had so many questions and as we headed into lunch, these conversations continued. The lunch itself was a heart offering by many loving hands — from Indian lentil stews, to Bulgarian bean soups, to quinoa salads, to South American bean pudding. Everyone enjoyed in the deliciousness.

After lunch, everyone was invited to offer with their hands to the space. Organically people divided themselves between washing dishes, sweeping, cleaning, or sitting in silence.

Group Breakouts

Back in the retreat hall, Venu welcomed us back with reflections from the morning sessions. He shared 4 questions/ edges that resonated through everyone’s sharing. All of us divided ourselves into groups of 4 and each group took on one question for a deeper reflection and then gathered back to share with the whole circle.

These questions are not independent and as the group shares later reflected each flowed into another. As we pondered one question, more questions emerged. Some of the reflections were:

1. What do we perceive to be at risk in moving to trust?
Emotional and financial vulnerability seemed to be the main “risks” in moving towards trust. What exacerbates the risks? How can we manage them? How can we cultivate the willingness to take the emotional or financial loss?

Should the risks be keeping us from trusting? A lot of times the risks are overblown and it is our tendency to think the worst. When does our need to trust outweigh the risks?

2. What forms of capitals do I value besides financial?
This was the most creative group with everyone actually presenting the capital they value most with a drawing! From knowledge and wisdom, experiences (both positive & negative), material and memories, social and influence were the few that came out.

3. How can we practice, individually and collectively, the shift to trust?
This was my group so forgive me for my partiality! :p We started by defining trust as it stands for each one of us and then shared our individual and collective practices that help us strengthen our faith in showing up with trust in our interactions.

Individual practices: finding practices that give us joy and help us go deeper within like yoga, meditation, martial arts, journaling, conscious eating, self-reflection, practicing small acts of kindness.

Collaborative: Creating/ finding spaces where a community of like-minded people can come together like Awakin circles, or classes or support groups. Holding retreats like this to bring diverse perspectives together and bring out different possibilities.

4. Are transaction and trust mutually exclusive?
The first answer here was no but when the group went deeper, they found so many more questions. Even when are doing a purely monetary transaction, is there not a trust on the bill? It is easier to do transactions based on trust but can trust be consumed by transaction? Do we really need to create a dichotomy between transaction and trust?

I was reminded of the many more circles that I’ve been part of and every time how a genuine inquiry and sharing leads to a collective wisdom. Sometimes I question if I am being too idealistic or too innocent but circles like these are a confirmation that human nature is inherently beautiful and all we need to do in embrace it. We’ve all had glimpses of moments when we let go of transaction and stepped into the river of trust. We all came together with an intention to be present, be open-hearted, and bow to the emergence. What emerged was a day filled with so many beautiful shares, deep listening, and deep respect for each other.


We closed the circle with Nimo’s Being Kind video. As the video played, everyone was invited to “find a friend and give a hug”. Amidst the fears of Coronavirus, we did say that the hug can be an elbow bump or the leg shake but everyone beautifully came together in a big group hug, as if saying yes to this deeper need of coming together, and saying ‘yes’ to stepping into trust.

Sifan was moved to tears at the group hug and later reflected:
“back at home, we rarely hug and coming together in that last hug was extra special for me.”