Shades of Being Alive

Its been about 9 months since we embarked on a journey to re-dream a function at Youth Alliance that we called Leadership Development Programs. The vision as it got named 8 months ago was - “To cultivate a multi-sectoral sense-making and influencing living network of young org leaders.” As I reflect back, the journey has been an adventure of mainly cultivating a team to nourish this intention, hold complex questions and experiment our way towards collective transformation. The central question we have been holding in my view is - 'How does collective transformation happen?' In this piece, I intend to intertwine my own reflections and the vision of this work as it is becoming visible to me. To begin with, let me start with the context of the group mind and how I see it affects the deeply personal and expansively systemic behaviours. 1. Group Mind I have come to understand that each individual is not a mere individual - having thoughts of her/his own, making her/his decision and

  The compartmentalisation of the human being.  On one side, each of us can access the entire universe through ourselves, on the other side, we are forced into a system which makes us part of a mega-machine extracting and violating the Earth. These opposing forces create burnout.

This survey  named " Will our children's education be affected?" provoked a certain line of thought on possibilities before educators in these interesting times.  What have schools been doing all this while for the last 200 years, if they haven’t equipped children to own their learning? With humility I felt, the survey seems to be assuming a premise already - the worldview of industrial schooling that we all inhabit in our society. And from there all questions flow. I have challenged that premise and offered different perspectives. We need to ask right back upto Lord Macaulay whose well thought out colonial principles of domination still form the bed-rock of schooling of our children today. Can us educators, interpret this pause as a way to contemplate how has the education pursuit of our world / country doing? Source: Google Can this be seen as an opportunity to enable children and adults around them to Learn local From local material,

More and more, its becoming visible to me- what’s the work for us. Perhaps, our life’s work. Over 8 years into Youth Alliance, it seems we are just beginning.  Humanity faces a civilisational crisis - that is made up with ecological crisis because we are consuming twice more than earth can regenerate; economic inequity because less and less people own more and more wealth in the world; political polarisation because nationalistic identity based division is rising world over and even spiritual crisis, because we feel more and more alienated from our own selves.  Or perhaps, as human beings we are in a stage of transition. From an industrial society to a life sustaining one. From a story of separation to a story of interconnectedness or interbeing.  From Google Last 8 years, in our work - we have created spaces for young people to get in touch with their own selves, with nature and with people whose realities is completely different from their own. Initially we said tha

8 days into 2020, I have been reflecting on the year gone by as much as I seed for the year that has come. Writing this reflection made it more accessible for me and revealed certain aspects of me that I am so fulfilled about for 2019. This in a way also gives a closure to 2019 and letting me open myself to embrace 2020. What shifted? Friendships - Somewhere in the middle of the year I intended to un-plan my life - learn to ride with emergence and give spaciousness to friendships and relationships. Through the last 6 months of 2019, I found myself unwinding in relationships - taking space and rushing through. I experienced warmth, joy of togetherness and a sadhana of discovering deeper together.  Primary Relationship - One key change that I notice is in my primary relationship. Several miles covered with parents getting involved. Feels its way more rooted - we are coming together in deeper ways to engage with life while creating space for each other too. I feel grateful

Recently I was part of a gathering called ‘Inner Dimensions of Climate Change’ with about 55 other people, healers, climate activists, community builders, practitioners from at least 30 countries. To my mind, its difficult to put them under any label - rather an intuitive sense brought us all together. It was the culmination of almost 4 years of work of Global Peace Initiative of Women and Dharma Drum Mountain Buddhist Association. Here’s what struck me: Making the spirit, conscious - For long, I have felt it and for long the spiritual has guided my being and actions - however it acted like a side eye. In the process of this gathering, I was exposed to spiritual fields of other beings and gently I sensed the spiritual to be the central core of my life. All my pursuits, I am beginning to see are to rise higher or go deeper into this spiritual journey. I am beginning to come to realise that while action of any form is very important, the spiritual / inner space from where it