Just like the earlier smile gathering; this smile gathering was again totally amazing and different. For me, this gathering brought a lot of gratitude. I feel so blessed for these amazing connections with all of you. I feel this gathering was all about making my hope and faith on this universe stronger and to feel these words of hope and faith from deep within my heart. Before the gathering while discussing the seed questions I felt like hope and faith are same. But our friend universe is awesome. After this gathering I felt hope is all about us – how positively we see a ray of light on every dark or bright day. And faith is all about trust and complete surrender to universe, to god or to whatever you have faith in.

Universe started the day with testing my faith in it. Darpan was busy handling an unexpected situation till 2.45pm and we had not yet completed our circle of volunteers and prepared the seed questions in hindi, when guests started coming. At that moment, one volunteer came and complained about Darpan to me, about the preparations not being complete and I got angry on Darpan. Now I feel it was a test of me. One year ago, I was a super angry person, but now I rarely get angry or disturbed but at that moment when I got angry, I feel like I failed. Then I asked myself if I have faith in universe? Soon my unstable mind became calm. We all sat in silence and for the first time in my life I felt very satisfied. First time I felt I had gained so much from falling. I was able to feel the magic of silence.

Inspired by moved by love family, 20 friends came together to share a space to deepen our hope and faith in universe. By holding faith in universe the volunteers were all ready to offer themselves and spread love. After 15 minutes of silence was the sharing circle. The seed question for sharing circle this time was - What does hope and faith means to you; share some stories of past that have helped you strengthen your faith in universe. As the circle went around lots of insights and stories about hope and faith in universe came up and till the end of circle everyone's faith in universe had become stronger.



We all had met just one day before "Gudi Padva". This day marks the end of one agricultural harvest and the beginning of a new one. Farmers sow new seeds on this day. And on this day Shri Brahma created the universe and the Satyayug began, it marks the commencement of the New Year. So before the beginning of the new year we all gathered to sow new seeds in us. We went around in a circle where everyone shared what seeds they hope to sow in their own self with full faith in universe. It was amazing to be part of everyone’s sharing. Faith in universe; to offer selflessly to everything; to live without complain and have faith in self. We concluded the circle of sharing with a wonderful video - "GIFT". Being rich is not about how much you have, it’s about how much you give. This line from the video best tugged to our hearts.

Then we went out to do random acts of kindness. We divided ourselves into two groups. One group went out and offered cold water to people on the streets in this hot summer. Some people accepted it and some not. One uncle came and he was offered water. He refused and started walking ahead. In no time he turns back and asked “why are you doing this”. Darpan replied; “because it’s Sunday.” For some time the uncle was so confused that we were really offering water only because it’s Sunday. He finally drank the water and left happily leaving loads of blessings behind. Someone shared that when we give water for 2 mins people think should we take or not but finally they accept it. So it made us think and was a great learning for all of us that kindness is just 2 minutes away if we try it on 1st minute :)

The second team went to old-age home but due to some reasons they had to change the plan. But everyone had faith in universe and some joined the water team and few of us stood with a gola wala (icecream) boy. We offered nimbu pani and gola for free to whoever was passing by and just broke in conversation with them. We came across one old uncle who sold agarbattis (incense sticks) made by handicap children anywhere and everywhere in mulund. He already had water offered by water team. They had tagged him with 50 Rs and smile card to pass on the agarbatti. He surprisingly shared how he lives his life with full faith in universe. He said however big the obstacle is, if you have faith in what you do, you can always pass it. He said the words spoken from the mouth of a real needy person who received your help were the biggest blessings. We got a wonderful opportunity of making nimbu pani and washing glasses.

An hour had passed away but none of us felt like going back. It was indeed a very powerful day and all of us were left inspired and full of energy.

Posted by Drishti Trivedi on May 11, 2014 | permalink