It was such a great delight to start off the Winter masti, with our “informal call that went viral” to dream up various possibilities to spread love in Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Baroda, Chennai, Auroville, Surat, Coimbatore, Hyderabad -- and even Bodhgaya! As we finalize the details, we’ll then open it up for broader communities to build bridges and see if a few other cities (like Bangalore, Indore and so on) can be included as well.
Awakin Circles are clearly offering an anchoring presence in many communities. A broader Awakin Talks platform, that Sachi, Rahul and Mumbai community initiated in Mumbai a few years ago, is now being replicated in four places -- with a wide range of inspired speakers from a Bollywood actress to a 16-year-old to Gandhi’s grandson. Each city is also taking on different themes with Baroda steering towards community building, Surat providing thought leadership in Education sector, and Bombay inviting inner transformation into professional (including traditional NGO) settings. Like Audrey’s Festival of Sharing in Berkeley, Baroda gang is exploring a Maitri Festival in a park. Coimbatore, with Ragu and Nisha’s leadership, is exploring a “Health + Transformation” retreat. In Auroville, Sheetal and Deven, are inviting deeper engagement with “multiple forms of capital”. In Bangalore, there is the India Inclusion Summit, that many (like Bhumika!) will be volunteering at. In various spaces, we’ll also interacting with the traditional business, government, and technology sectors.
The engagement in each community is contextual. For some cities like Delhi, such external visits energize the volunteers and bring distributed communities together. Some like Baroda have deep roots and wants to bring in more mobiosity; while some places have too much divergence and want to bring in a focus. In Pune, some people are missing Urban Ashram’s field and want to use this excuse to kickstart ways to bring people back together. In Hyderabad, Abid and gang, are creating a physical intentional community with a whole new set of design principles -- and keen to initiate a ‘Startup Service’ retreat to share the merits.
Overall, two months of “winter masti” will be anchored by few retreats in various locations:
More broadly, our practice of “serving without any pockets” is affording us a unique opportunity to create a space for “community of communities”. We saw this in spades when, last October, about 10 of us spoke to 1500 meditation teachers in Hyderabad -- the ripples continue to be unstoppable to this day. (See "cold coffee" photo below. :)) Just over the last couple days, I addressed Dada Vaswani’s youth group in New York; Vidhi, Neeti and Vinit moved a school crowd organized by Vijayam and Malathi; Shaheen and TFI leadership team Skyped with us around leading with values. Every week, so many events happen and because of an underlying mycelium web, there is fertile soil for seeds to blossom, bear fruit and generate even more seeds. It just keeps multiplying. Just this evening, I had a call with a business school founder in Japan. In comes, quite literally, on my screen -- Anil from Delhi! From Delhi to Tokyo to Berkeley, and some really powerful ripples after just an hour-long conversation. That's the speed of love. :)
Indeed, it all keeps multiplying.
Yet, the most glorious part of this emergence is actually our conscious intention to keep serving without any pockets -- to give away any of the benefit, whether material, emotional, spiritual or undefinable. To just serve to infinity, for no particular reason that the mind can latch onto.
Empty like a flute, may nature’s melody play effortlessly through our reeds.
With a bow of immeasurable gratitude ...
Awakin Circles are clearly offering an anchoring presence in many communities. A broader Awakin Talks platform, that Sachi, Rahul and Mumbai community initiated in Mumbai a few years ago, is now being replicated in four places -- with a wide range of inspired speakers from a Bollywood actress to a 16-year-old to Gandhi’s grandson. Each city is also taking on different themes with Baroda steering towards community building, Surat providing thought leadership in Education sector, and Bombay inviting inner transformation into professional (including traditional NGO) settings. Like Audrey’s Festival of Sharing in Berkeley, Baroda gang is exploring a Maitri Festival in a park. Coimbatore, with Ragu and Nisha’s leadership, is exploring a “Health + Transformation” retreat. In Auroville, Sheetal and Deven, are inviting deeper engagement with “multiple forms of capital”. In Bangalore, there is the India Inclusion Summit, that many (like Bhumika!) will be volunteering at. In various spaces, we’ll also interacting with the traditional business, government, and technology sectors.
The engagement in each community is contextual. For some cities like Delhi, such external visits energize the volunteers and bring distributed communities together. Some like Baroda have deep roots and wants to bring in more mobiosity; while some places have too much divergence and want to bring in a focus. In Pune, some people are missing Urban Ashram’s field and want to use this excuse to kickstart ways to bring people back together. In Hyderabad, Abid and gang, are creating a physical intentional community with a whole new set of design principles -- and keen to initiate a ‘Startup Service’ retreat to share the merits.
Overall, two months of “winter masti” will be anchored by few retreats in various locations:
- [Nov end] “Spirit of Service” retreat -- Ahmedabad, for all MBL’ers
- [Dec 7-8] “Leading with Inner Transformation” retreat + Awakin Talks -- Mumbai
- [Dec 14-15] “Leading with Masti” + Awakin Talks -- Baroda
- [Dec 21-22] “Awakin Hosts” retreat + Awakin Talks, KK -- Surat
- [Jan 15-19] Gandhi 3.0 -- Ahmedabad, for international ServiceSpace guests; but with two community nights open for MBL'ers
More broadly, our practice of “serving without any pockets” is affording us a unique opportunity to create a space for “community of communities”. We saw this in spades when, last October, about 10 of us spoke to 1500 meditation teachers in Hyderabad -- the ripples continue to be unstoppable to this day. (See "cold coffee" photo below. :)) Just over the last couple days, I addressed Dada Vaswani’s youth group in New York; Vidhi, Neeti and Vinit moved a school crowd organized by Vijayam and Malathi; Shaheen and TFI leadership team Skyped with us around leading with values. Every week, so many events happen and because of an underlying mycelium web, there is fertile soil for seeds to blossom, bear fruit and generate even more seeds. It just keeps multiplying. Just this evening, I had a call with a business school founder in Japan. In comes, quite literally, on my screen -- Anil from Delhi! From Delhi to Tokyo to Berkeley, and some really powerful ripples after just an hour-long conversation. That's the speed of love. :)
Indeed, it all keeps multiplying.
Yet, the most glorious part of this emergence is actually our conscious intention to keep serving without any pockets -- to give away any of the benefit, whether material, emotional, spiritual or undefinable. To just serve to infinity, for no particular reason that the mind can latch onto.
Empty like a flute, may nature’s melody play effortlessly through our reeds.
With a bow of immeasurable gratitude ...
Reflections
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