Are you compassionate or sympathising ?

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”- Dalai Lama



Compassion is the most beautiful of emotions in the world second to Love. It is in helping someone one that you find a greater joy. The joy of having made a difference however small. Reading an article by Shaheen Mistry (Founder - Akanksha Foundation) reminded me of how we have somehow lost sensitivity and the feeling of empathy. Most of us understand compassion of sympathizing with needy but it goes so much more beyond that.True compassion arises when you are sensitive to the pain and needs of others and can feel the same. We cannot be even close to Buddha who was an epitome of true compassion but we can at least nurture the same to build a better world.

We all have that spark, we are beings of love and have an abundance of compassion but somehow are yet to ignite it. I for a fact know that your heart yearns to help the little girl who tugs at your shirt on a street asking for alms to fill her food plate but u helplessly push her away not wanting people to notice you or rather wait for someone initiate the act of charity inspiring you to do that the next time.Do we need others to ignite that spark with us ? are we so bounded by what society thinks of us to put it before the need take our step towards helping someone.the very reason the world sees so less of  true compassion. We want to help an accident victim to get emergency help fearing legal intervention and wait for an individual to come forward to help the victim and then we aid the same.

My work colleague and a dear friend wakes up at 4.30 a.m in the morning to deliver milk packets which he fishes by 8.00 and travels about an hour to reach work and thus is back at 7.30 p.m to tender to household responsibilities.This is does to support his family. He is not that educated by our"defined standards" but his compassion has to be seen to be believed. recently he helped a poor blind man in his locality (He hardly knew him) to undergo an operation by supporting him with Rs 12000 and financially helps everyone who is in need of support without expectations.

Raghu Bhaiya - My inspiration and a friend for life from Moved by Love, Sabarmati Ashram. A polio stricken 15 year old began his journey of helping others by arranging chappals at a Gurudwara.Today with the help and support from Moved by Love and Gramshree, He runs a free voluntary tiffin service titled "Tyag nu Tiffin" ( Food by sacrifice) wherein he delivers lunch and dinner on his own  in  to about 16 old women(left to fend for themselves by their children) in the slums of Ahmedabad.

There have been times i have felt guilty of not helping someone in need when i really wanted to for i put my perceptions before the same. The next time is i see a kid yearning for good i will not hesitate to share my own :)

For it is in doing for others that we truly live !

It is when you give of Yourself that you truly Give - Moments in Reflections of a Wednesday Circle

“Meditation is the tongue of the soul and the language of our spirit”
Jeremy Taylor
Meditation is rightly called the food for the soul. It the moment when you
connect to your true self and are at peace with your heart. It is when you are
overwhelmed with love, compassion and gratitude. The moment when you are aware
of your breath, devoid of thoughts and one with the higher self. What happens
when 25 souls come to gether to connect with their true selves, The atmosphere
reverberates with peace, divinity and bliss. The ambience turns blissful and
the moment, divine.

I experienced a sense of gratitude that is beyond words to express. i go back to the moments as i write this and reflect on the compassion,peace and love that i felt when i was among them. A passage from The secret of Work by Swami Vivekananda was read out as a part of the sharing circle that reflected on our role as Traders in life,virtue,religion and love. The process of giving and taking. The desires and expectations that let us down. Insights on true giving
without a sense of expectaion, the virtue of detachment with the result and Acceptance were shared. A sense of whole hearted giving has to be inculcated to be able to experience true happiness and success and thus truly live. It is when you give of yourself that you truly giving without expecting anything in return. True giving is disconnected from recieving,from a result. it is whole hearted giving in the form of efforts,love,compassion,dedication and surrender.

They say if you change someone's life, you're a change maker and if you save someone's life, you're a Hero! Khushroo Poacha has been and continues to be a hero to millions of lives.

It was an absolute privilege and a humbling experience to hear Khushroo Poacha
share his life journey. Khushroo Poacha runs indianblooddonors.com (IBD), a site thatlets
blood donors and patients in need of blood connect with each other almost instantaneously.
He also does not accept cash donations The site has been live for almost ten years and with over 50,000 donors in its database, IBD is perhaps a classic example of what the Internet is
truly capable of. But more importantly, it is a reflection of a single human
being's desire to make a difference to this world.

It all started in the mid-'90s when Khushroo Poacha, an employee with
theIndian Railways in Nagpur saw a doctor being beaten up because he couldn't save
a patient's life. No one in the mob seemed to understand that it was the lack
of blood that caused the death."A few years later, I witnessed the death of a welder because he couldn't get blood. The two incidents really shook me up," Poacha says, "And that
was when I expressed to my wife my desire of doing something." Poacha, however, had
no clue about how he could make a difference until one day, sitting in a cyber
cafe with a 56 kbps connection, the idea came to him."I did not know head or toe of the Internet, let alone about domain names, but I knew this would be the tool that would make a difference," he says, explaining the dotcom extension to the site. Over the next few months, Poacha
liquidated practically all his savings,purchased a domain name and started up
indianblooddonors.com.

"During the time, there were no companies booking or hosting web domains in
India . I was paying USD 300 every three months to keep the site live and running. Meanwhile, I had spent almost Rs 40,000 in developing the site and had gone practically bankrupt," he says.
Poacha says he even went to a local newspaper to place an ad. "I needed visibility and that was the only way I thought I could reach out to the people. The day the ad appeared, I was expecting a flood of registrations," he recollects. "No one registered."


The silver lining to the dark cloud came when someone from the outskirts of his hometown Nagpur contacted him, expressing interest. "It was a saving grace,"Poacha says.
Meanwhile, the dotcom bubble had burst and Poacha was being told what a
fool he had been. And then there were household expenses to be taken care of too.
"There were many occasions when unpaid phone bills would be lying in the
house and there would be no money to pay them off," Poacha recollects,
adding that "things always have a way of sorting themselves out. And mysteriously
during such times, a cheque would make its way into the mailbox." Poacha admits that his wife was quite apprehensive about his endeavour."But she believed in me," he says, "And that has made all the difference."

Visibility, however, was still an issue. No publication was willing to write about him. No major hospital or blood bank was interested in taking his calls. And then the 2001 Gujarat Earthquake happened. As visuals of the devastation flashed before his eyes on television, Poacha realised yet again he had to do something.

Only this time he knew just what. "I called up Zee News and requested them to flash the site's name on the ticker and they agreed." Five minutes later, the ticker was live. Ten minutes later, the site crashed."I spoke to the people who were hosting the site (by now website hosting
had started off in India) and explained to them the situation. They immediately put me on a fresh server and over the next three days or so I received some 3,500 odd registrations," Poacha recollects.

Realising the difference he had made, the 42-year-old started working on getting visibility again.
Over the next few months, Poacha had contacted every major magazine and sure
enough, a few responded. "Outlook (magazine) wrote about me, then The Guardian followed he says.

Along the way, IBD had also gone mobile. All you had to do was type out a message and send it to a short code and you'd have a list of blood donors in your inbox.As luck would have it, the service became far too popular for Poacha's pocket. "By then I had stopped taking cash donations and had to discontinue it," he says.Interestingly, IBD is not yet registered as an NGO. "We function as individuals. We don't take donations and only accept bumper stickers (of IBD)
and postage stamps to send out those stickers and create awareness," he says, "I was asked to deliver a lecture at IIM during a social entrepreneurship seminar and was asked what my sustenance model was. I replied I didn't have one. And I have been doing this for the last ten years."

Today, the database of IBD is growing at the rate of 10-15 users every day and the requests have grown from 25 to 40 per day. Poacha says he eats, drinks and breathes IBD. "The zeal I had ten years ago has not diminished and the site continuously sees innovation." The latest, Poacha tells us, is the option of being an exclusive donor to one patient.

"During my journey, I realised there were some patients who required blood every month. So if you want, we can put you onto them so you can continue making
a sustained difference to one person's life." IBD is currently on an auto pilot mode and Poacha continues to keep his day job. He says, "Initially I would take the calls and personally
connect the donor with the patient's relative. But I know only three languages and I'd get
calls from all over India," he laughs.

Poacha recounts an incident that never left him: "A man from Chandigarh called me and told me he was desperately seeking A-ive blood for his 2-year-old. About five minutes after the call, he got the (difficult to find) blood group he needed. Soon after the surgery he called me up crying, thanking me for saving his child's life. For me, it was just another day at work. But his whole world was at stake that day. I can never forget that call."

Last year Poacha was invited to the Asian Social Entrepreneurs Summit 2008 in South Korea where venture capitalists argued that it wasn't possible to sustain an endeavour without money. He says, "I pointed out that Mother Teresa had no revenue model when she started the Missionaries of Charity. If you want to do good work, you simply do it."

He belives that a good heart and the will to make a difference is all that it takes to make a change. You dont have to be an organisation to be able toimpact lives. all you need is the heart to do so.

And when you want to do from your heart, the Universe is with you. Everything falls in place,problems disappear and new opportunities surface. It is beautiful and inspirational to know how things worked for him. His wife recollects how Khushroo becomes restless when he does not get a call.For all that adds meaning to is life and is areason for his being is being
able to help someone.

All that you need to make a difference is a heart to do so.To give of yourself with love,compassion and dedication. It was incredibly humbling to have been in
the presence of one such soul.

Prayer , Compassion and Meditation

The day begins at the break of Dawn. A group of 20 young women who are being trained at Safai Vidyalay to become Aanganwadi workers/teachers (They would be trained to provide outreach services to poor families in need of immunization, healthy food, clean water, clean toilets and a learning environment for infants, toddlers and pre schoolers). are about to leave for a daily ritual called "Prabhat Feri" (Prabhat meaning Dawn and Pheri meaning walk ) singing prayers and bhajans by Gandhiji and Vinoba bhave. i grabbed this incredible or rather blessed opportunity of joining them. The choir was led by Gopal Dada (an 86 year old inspiration who has been part of the freedom struggle and is presently volunteering at the Ashram). The serene atmosphere added to the divinity of the place . Bhajans of "Vaishnava jana to tene kahi ye peda parayi jaane re" and "Ishwara allah tero naam" filled the ambience and me with a sense of completeness and bliss.
( that comes in being in a place you've always longed for).Coming back there was a prayer session (comprising of oneness prayer and various other bhajans)

What added meaning to the day was a visit to a blind school at Gandhinagar with Caroline(lovingly called Karuna for her compassion and attachment with the blind kids and her dedication towards making a difference to their lives) and her mother Fredrich. It is heartening to see her compassion for the kids that rubs off on others whho come in contact with her. The day was spent interacting and connecting to the kids,encouraging them to come together to paint the school walls with what they love.The music class was an absolute delight,Music brings these kids alive. it fills me with an incredible sense of joy to see these kids dance their heart out.
The day ended with a blessed and magical Meditation and reflection sharing.
The Magic will be rubbed on in the next post :)

Love and Gratitude

You can do no great things but only small things with great love.

Love is the essence of life. A life a Sabarmati Ashram teaches you this. From the lady who serves you food, the volunteers who run projects in various communities,the administrative staff, the children at the ramdev pir tekra (slum belt) to the young girls and boys at the ashramshala.their hearts are brimming with love that is reflected in their eyes and the way they welcome you.they open their hearts to you. Shramdaan is a part of your daily life, it could be cleaning up the local compound or painting the terrace , from watering the plants to feeding the birds, each day offers you a new experience,teaches you the power of love, offers you an opportunity to be grateful for every moemt, every person you meet.Be rest assured of being touched by every individual you meet at the ashram who is an inspiration in disguise.

The community prayers are a critical part of beginning the day and sets a beautiful tone to the same.Prayer is an inevitable , powerful and the most beautiful part of your life at the Ashram.
Praying for one ness, for every new learning and experiencew, for the abundance of love, for every meal offers you a life filled with gratitude.

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and
more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It
can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.
Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision
for tomorrow.” - Melody Beattle.

Love and Gratitude are a way of life at the Ashram.

Blessed to be here!

In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart. Mahatma Gandhi

The day started with a beautiful prayer with a reflective sharing at Manav Sadhna (Sabarmati Ashram) . A beautiful culmination of purity, passion,service and compassion resonated in the ambiance. At Manav sadhna the spirit of service is defined by being than by doing, by truly being there you are giving yourself. The vibes reverberated during the prayer is incredibly powerful. The feeling is a overwhelming sense of gratitude. A gratitude for all that you have and possess and of what you are able to give. The prayers before every meal is a powerful exercise for expressing gratitude for the food that is keeping us healthy and alive. Here the language understood is the language of love and compassion that is reflected in the very eyes.

Pradeep bhai is is a differently able individual who is visually challenged who has been visiting the Ashram everyday for over a year. What takes you by surprise and touches you is his sense of direction and independence. he volunteers at Manav sadhana during the day, by helping in arranging footwear on the racks and other similar chores. He hoards a deep desire to study at a blind school.

An hour in his presence humbles u as an individual and I was blessed to know him.