My First Yes +

The first art of living course I was fully involved in organizing finished this sunday. Boy what a journey!

Thanks to Mr Vishal Merani I was in Guwahati for a period of two weeks. The course was supposed to begin on 27th April and the initial target for course was 108 and Saleel da was supposed to come and take the course. I reached Mumbai on the 19th of April and first thing I did was to call Pramod bhaiyan (bhaiyan is not a typo it is how Pramod bhaiyan prounces bhaiya so bear with me) to ask how many registrations did we have. We just had 2 registrations that were fully paid. Pramod bhaiyan had done a lot of running around and since exams were going on in IIT no one was helping him out. A strict order followed from Saleel da that Pramod bhaiyan would henceforth do nothing for the course. The whole onus now lay on the next generation volunteers - Ashish, Aditya, Arun, Dhanya, Hiren, Manju, Shivendra, Yashoj and Utsav.

Final Exams, Busy or tired looking volunteers, Lukewarm or acrid reactions from the students and still we all kept our spirits high. Ashish was the cornerstone of the course - he would not give up the dream for anything. Despite running a very hectic schedule his reaction to all my calls would be -"Bhaiya bas mein abhi karta hoon". He brought the most to the course in terms of getting the most registrations (all of who have loved the course-A testimony to his sincerity). I absolutely loved this attitude. Second person, who deserves special mention is Aditya. Ones true competition is ones own self. Aditya routinely would go down and out at the jives he would recieve from his friends about he being involvd with AOL but each time I would make a phone call he would be a rejuvenated person ready to take up the challenge again. His love for the Guru is simply remarkable. Each time I would speak to him his only reply would be - "Yaar mujhe in sab ke muh par muskurahat dekhni hai, chahe kuch bhi ho jaye". As much as I loved this attitude, I hope he really starts fighting harder and relying less on extraneous factors. End of Utsav's exam was nothing short of a celebration for me. He is a freshie and the last time I gave an intro talk in his wing 8 out of 15 ppl registered. With him around magic happens - after all he has been in touch with the Guru since he was in class 3. While all of us were grappling to get intro talks in Mtech wings he and Yashoj would come and arrange intro talks in Btech wings with all final year students around :). Dhanya and Manju were ever ready to arrange a talk despite there super busy schedules.

Sonam's visit on the 25th deserves a special mention. She came, she set every thing right, she conquered and the then she vanished. While she was around we actually opened up so many possibilities and started thinking of putting together a 40person course. I am sure if she were around for another day we would have had atleast a 35 person course.

Hetal di's phone calls were just the dosage we would seek every time things would not go right.

The icing on the cake however was certainly the arrival of Sachin to the scene. He came on the 26th and withing moments of his arrival organized a concert in H-10 (Girls Hostel) Mess. The concert can be best descibed as a dude with a guitar entering Girls Hostel premises (without permissions) and then starting to play to entice them to fall in love with the Guru. He was just the tonic we all needed. I can still hear all the mess workers requesting him to play a song for them. Unfortunately despite an amazing response no one registered but what the hell! It was quite a scene.

When it comes to organizing the course, getting everything from name tags to darries to hall - no one can beat Hiren and Shivendra. They are just infallible with Shivendra's eye for detail and Hirens negotiating skills :)

Now for me - it was an absolute humbling experience. For seven years I have been sitting on the other side wondering why people from Art of Living keep running around creating havoc in other peoples lives. Now I realize why. Hearing "Mere pass time nahin hai terese baat karne ke liye" from 2nd year IIT students was an eye opener. I'm sure Guruji plays a lot of games to check our resolve and to help us dive deeper into Love. :)

I recall Hiren calling me up to tell me that two sure shot registrations had backed out and whether it was worth having the course. By that time I had fallen into such a lovely trance where I realized nothing was in my hands all was just being done by the will of the Guru. My reply to him was simple - Even if we need to do a course for 5 people we will keep working.

For me, and many others who attended the course, felt that the course started, ended and went on with a special energy. Uppi di is the cutest teacher I have come across and I believe that all courses in IITs should be taken by her :) A 20 people group having a session with Bau is just inexplicable, so is everyone dancing in a YES!+ satsang as if it were an advanced course, so is a bunch of participants doing a nukkad natak in middle of Hiranandani to raise awareness to save electricity, so is the 50 odd charts this lot of 20 participants filled in 7 days, so is veterans like Sachin and Pramod Bhaiyan saying that they felt as if they had done their first long kriya when they did the kriya with these guys, so is my dear friend Soni (who is perhaps the only person who has completed the course despite being sent by me :( ) quitting smoking - strange are His ways. First He made us slog day and night without any result and then came out with such surprises.

I pray to Guruji to provide me the strength to carry on working for the Vashi YES!+ without sparing a single moment for the results.

Jai Guru Dev (Hail Knowledge and Masti)