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REGIONAL YA RETREAT: April 14, 2007
Morning session
* It was a beautiful day, which set the perfect tone for our retreat-inspiring, uplifting and energizing. The morning session started with Veda chanting and bhajans.
* After a quick welcome by Aparna and Max, we started off the session with our first speaker, Vishnuvardhan Krishnamachari. Vishnu attended Swami's schools in both Puttaparthi and Brindavan for junior college (11th and 12th grade equivalent) and also for his undergraduate & postgraduate studies. Vishnu shared how life was living near Swami and following the strict discipline. The motto for the students was, each person lives for the other and all live for God, showing the wonderful compassion that Swami instills in His students. Each student yearns for darshan (to see God ), sparshan (to be able to touch the Lotus feet), and sambashan (to speak with God). An interesting experience that Vishnu shared with us was when he got a group interview with Swami and Swami manifested a Kohinoor diamond that belonged to a museum in London . When all the students in the interview room were looking at the diamond, one student took out his camera and was focusing the lens when Swami prompted him to take the picture. However, when the student flashed the camera, the diamond from Swami's hand disappeared and Swami said that He returned it to the museum before anyone found that it was missing. We then watched a few video clips about Swami made by the students.
* Dr. Samuel and Sharon Sandweiss were the next speakers who shared their personal experiences and talked about who is an Ideal Sai Youth?. During their talk, Dr. Samuel and Sharon Sandweiss shared some of their many wonderful moments with Swami and stressed the importance of each individual finding their own path to God. They said each person needs to look within themselves to discover what they feel is the Ideal for Swami and to work towards it. The "Ideal Sai Youth" should not be the projection of any one person, rather it should empower youth to find what they perceive to be "ideal". The Sandweiss's also talked about the Swami's teaching over the mastery of the mind. Swami has always stressed the importance of having mastery over the mind because the mind thinks the external illusionary world is real and therefore causes deviation from the spiritual path. The mind is very powerful and should be directed inward. This can be done by having sense control and ceiling on desires. Dr. Sandweiss also shared some personal stories between his family and Swami that were wonderful to hear and conveyed Swami's love for everyone. We also watched a slideshow with music from many different religions and a touching video of Jack Hislop talking about Swami in his last moments.
Afternoon session
* After Lunch, the YA boy and the YA girls split into separate groups for the study circle that was on unity of thought word, and deed. The girls had a nice interactive session where everyone split into three groups and analyzed a play written by Swami, which highlighted the importance of having unity of thought word and deed. The boys had a discussion facilitated by a power point presentation, in which everyone had a chance to discuss Swami's quotes and different stories regarding unity of thought word and deed. One point that came up regarded the difference between being deceitful and dishonest. It's bad to be deceitful but being dishonest is even worse.
* Afterwards, the San Diego YAs shared their experiences with Swami in their lives and they also hosted a game of charades that depicted Swami's quotes (ex: "Love All, Serve All"). One YA shared her experiences with Sai centers in Argentina and the others also shared their personal experiences with Swami. We also learned of a new service project that will be starting in San Diego involving teaching values to youth coming out of juvenile Hall.
* Finally, we watched a discourse Swami had given to foreign devotees in Kodaikanal, which was funny, inspiring and informative. An awesome way to close our program for the day.
Reminders:
* World Youth Conference
- July 26-28, 2007
- Register at www.saiconference. org
- For all information regarding the conference: www.saiyausa.net
- Please submit any articles (personal stories/service) for the souvenir booklet: Alvin Leo: tubby@upnaway. com Deadline: April 30, 2007
- Group trip: there may be a group trip for the young adults in California . If you are interested in traveling with a group e-mail Max (kuto@aol.com) with tentative travel dates
- Region 8 retreat (Cottontail Ranch) please register soon if you are planning to attend
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