EKATVA show piece: Flying Kites Dance and Drama

Uttarayan season in Gujarat is a very festive season. Here Muslims hand make kites that are flown by Hindus. All colors, shapes and sizes full of richness fill the sky and truly become a majestic sight of ‘Oneness’. In this spirit Mallika Didi, and her Darpana staff and musicians: Pappan Sir, Sonal Didi, Nisargbhai, Stanley bhai, Nayan bhai, Jigneshbhaii, and others have created a sequence on Uttaryan for the EKATVA show. It is going to be a really fun part of the show.

Connecting with Animals

The other day, baby Gaffar Khan interrupted our practice. His sister Satya was not around, but we all truly enjoy having Mallika Didi’s dogs in the Darpana grounds. Nature and animals are the same as God. And we are lucky when we get the chance to connect with them. 

Arising and Passing...

Today we did prayer at practice and then flowed into meditation. We’re at a good space now where if I don’t say anything then the kids know to just focus on breath in and out of the naustrils. For some reason today felt right to take the next step. As we were meditating I told the kids to now not only focus on their breath, but also be conscious of not moving any part of their body for the next few minutes – meaning no moving their legs up and down, no moving their hands, fingers, head, etc. I did let them know if they felt a dying urge to move something then they can go ahead and do so.

After meditation was done they shared their thoughts. Vicky shared his experience, saying that he was doing good, but then some type of itch came on his face. After trying to not move for over a minute, he finally had to give in because the itch felt too strong and he moved his hand up and scratched his face.

This led me to an example that Goenka Ji always gives during Vipassanna. That if there is an itch or sensation on our body, it will not remain with us for the rest of our lives or even for the rest of the day, if we don’t attend to it. So I was telling Vicky and the kids that next time an itch comes, to really try hard to fight it and don’t pay attention to it. Let it arise and pass. Just watch it. This is the journey of life and all that exists. Arising and passing. Impermanence. If we are able to watch it come and go, we can really take away most of the suffering we are all going through.

We then continued on a conversation of Buddha and his primary teachings of impermanence and equanimity and how important it is to understand this concept. I do hope to dig further into this topic through time with the kids, but for today we had a great introduction.

After this discussion, Bharat raised his hand and shared a story where he was once being bit by an ant. Instead of flicking it off and itching the bite, he just observed it and right at that instant, for some reason or another, the ant stopped biting. Also, he didn’t rub it or itch it, so the bite didn’t actually become worst. It was nice to see his connection with our discussion.  

I’m excited to see how and when we can extend this conversation on impermanence and balance in the future for the kids to digest.

Continue walking.

Love.

We Shall Overcome

Last week we taught the kids how to sing “We Shall Overcome” in English. We passed out sheets to all the kids with the full lyrics on them. It was a fun group activity practicing together. Obviously, lots of work ahead...

But suprising and beautiful was that today as I was walking with the Shankarbhuvan kids to find them a rickshaw, Dipmala says “Sir, I’ve got the We Shall Overcome song down”. I responded with, “You mean you have it memorized”? She said, “Yes, without the paper, I can sing it”. I was pleasantly surprised and filled with joy. She took the time to practice and memorize it on her own time.

What better thing to do, than to have them stand on the side of the road and sing it…

Dharmaji Finds 1000 Rupees

Dharmaji spread ripples of hope, inspiration, and trust. During practice yesterday there was a group of foreigners from America that came to the ashram and were sitting nearby where we were practicing. After practice when everyone had left, Dharmaji and I were sitting down talking and then all of a sudden he pointed across the way and said “Hey, there’s a 1000 rupee note over there”. Amazingly enough, there was: 1000 rupees quietly sitting on the seat cushion diagonally across from us.

Now, considering Dharmaji’s life situation, 1000 rupees is a very big deal. For a middle class person in America, its equivalent to finding about $2500. Dharmaji’s family doesn’t really have a stable house setting, but are owners of 3 donkeys. He goes to school, but then spends his free time, manning the donkeys, feeding them, cleaning them and taking them to different places where they transport dirt for various people. These people will pay them 25-50 rupees for their use of the donkeys.

Dharmaji’s life, financial situation and family environment is not conducive to the development of virtuous habits and values, but his reaction to finding so much money, sheds a lot of light on the depth of his heart and mind. His story is small, but real and powerful. It’s a true reflection of EKATVA and the journey we are all trying to walk on.

Vishal, shared with us today, at our circle of sharing, that Dharmaji told him yesterday “the feeling of telling someone else about the lost money and finding the right owners, felt so much better than if I had kept it…it made me really happy!”.

Just Beautiful. Thank you Dharmaji for feed our hearts and souls.

Remembering Ishwar Dada

Beautiful story shared by Nipunbhai:

Few days ago, one of the legends of Gandhian service passed away in India -- Ishwar Patel. When he went unconscious around 4AM on Dec 26th, doctors thought that was his last. But when his mourning family gathered around him in the morning, he remarkably opened his eyes and gave everyone a chance for a final goodbye. He smiled, looked at them with compassionate eyes, and spoke his final words: "Jai Jalaram." It was a phrase to salute the divine, that he had shared with his wife every day for the last 52 years of their marriage. Having served selflessly for over 60 years, building over 500,000 toilets for the poorest communities, Ishwar-kaka knew a thing or two about changing the world. Yet to his beloved son, Jayesh Patel, his parting advice was simple:

 

"Keep doing small things."

In lieu of practice today, we sat in the front courtyard of Ishwar Dada’s ESI, remembering him, understanding him and celebrating him. This is the same courtyard from which Manav Sadhna actually started 21 years ago. It all came full circle: from Ishwar Dada sprouted Manav Sadhna and from that sprouted a generation of kids, 21 years later, who are sitting in his courtyard understanding who this great man is and how they are children of his heart.

Here we decorated, with love in heart and mind, Ishwar Dada’s true home.

Then we had a heartfelt discussion with Sureshbhai, about Ishwar Dada and his life. Sureshbhai, has spent the past 3 months, 24 hours a day, with Ishwar Dada. He served Ishwar Dada through the last 3 months of Ishwar Dada’s health struggle. Sureshbhai had learned a lot from Ishwar Dada, and was more than glad to spend some time with the kids sharing his learnings from a very humble saint, Ishwar Dada.

And at the end of our gathering we did prayer for Ishwar Dada’s soul and spirit, on the very toilet samples he had used to teach and explain about sanitation to the thousands that have visited him over the past 30 years.

The Magic of EKATVA

The magic of this EKATVA experiment, is that our children are being exposed to beautiful, amazing parts of the world, daily. Things they would never have heard of or seen otherwise.

Today was practice at Darpana Performing arts academy. This means that 14 of us pile in a car and the other 5 kids who are coming from a different slum area, meet us directly at Darpana. Upon our arrival to Darpana, we have all our kids line up in a single file line. Get to a space of silence and quietly walk ourselves to the back room near the Nutrani stage, where we all practice. The kids do give their attention and ‘Namaste’ to the security guard. If Mallika Didi or any other teachers are passing by, they will stop, bow down and touch the teachers’ feet with respect and continue to the back room. Before entering the room, we all remove our shoes or slippers and place them in a perfect line to the side of the door.

This time around as we were taking our shoes off, we heard a beautiful sound coming from within the room. It was the sweet sounds of an opera singer practicing for an upcoming show. Her name is Camille and she’s part of the Les Autres Musictheatre in Amsterdamn.

She was kind enough to allow us to enter the room and begin preparation for our practice. After an explanation of the EKATVA project and a little background on our kids, along with some of our kids pleasantly requesting her to share her talents with us, she most lovingly shared a part of a song she will be singing for the upcoming December 22nd show at Nutrani, Orfeo in India.

Our children were truly amazed ! How can such a powerful and beautiful voice come out of a human body ? We were all filled with great joy. Thank you for sharing Camille. After Camille’s performance, the kids took turns doing their own versions of opera singing.

Truly a blessing to have our kids be exposed to the world in this way.

Love.