Upload
others
View
2
Download
0
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Love Express 11th January 1
Love Express SSO Zone 6 Youth Wing Year 2, Issue 10: November – December 2008
Dear Sai Family,
Trust you all had a blissful time during these festivities;
a particular time of the year made for peaceful
reflection and the lovely company of the closest
souls, inspiring each other and starting the new year
softly and sweetly.
The first issue of this year will start with a short review of
2008, continued by a very motivating story on faith,
followed by the leadership reflections and more
details on the SSLTP and many more news from our
brothers and sisters in Sai.
Wishing you all a bright and blissful 2009, enjoy!
REVIEW 2008
Usually the end or the beginning of the
year is a good time to have a look
back and see what has been
achieved so far. What has the Zone 6
Youth done in 2008? For sure we did
many activities.
The year started on well, after many
months of patience, surrender and
prayers for inspiration, we finally
named our newsletter, Love Express,
making us travel all over the place in
an instant.
In Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, we
joined the adults on the 12th of January
to discuss together the past and future
service youth activities, practiced the
LASA songs in Madrid with the adults
and meet every Tuesday, as usual, in
Slovenia for study circles on the
following topics: self-inquiry and
positive thinking.
We organised a blood donation
service activity in different Swiss
regions, Zurich and Lugano, making us
realise the need of this seva in this
particular time of the year and
continued our seva activities helping
out Ana in Slovenia, the older lady, by
providing her with briquettes for the
winter season, and visiting and caring
for the elderly people in Tenerife.
On the 19th January we had a Youth
Meeting in Zagreb, Croatia, a beautiful
opportunity for a productive
Love Express 11th January 2
brainstorming on: LASA, the Youth
Retreat, the Zonal Ladies Retreat in
Greece, the presentation of the
exhibition during the WYC ´07, Sai
Vision, Sai Theather and the national
newsletter.
We had the opportunity for a better
understanding of the meaning of
“being ourselves” and the meaning of
“unity” through Ivan’s, Dr. Goldstein’s
and Alida´s inspiring speeches, during
the National Retreat held in Pescara,
Italy on the 16-17 February, and it was
also a special occasion to perform in
loving unity the LASA songs in front of a
mixed audience.
We started a workshop for March and
April, in Slovenia, on “Divine
Magnetism”, underlining the
importance of our thoughts and
feelings about ourselves and the world,
since they shape our destiny. And we
spoke about how to increase the unity
and the Sai activities, on the 15th of
March in Zurich, finding out each
others qualities. We celebrated
Shivaratri in Athens by an all night
bhajans session and performed a play
to teach the Human Values to the
poor children. The youth service for
the elders and the children on Tenerife
continued and another youth activity
has been started: caring for the elderly
ladies at the old age-home in Puerto
de la Cruz.
The Ladies and Boys Retreat took
place on mount Mosor, in Croatia, end
of March beginning of April, showering
us with special moments spent
together to unify the group for the
future activities. We had another Youth
Retreat, this time in Lenk, Switzerland,
25-27 April, focusing on “Unity in
Diversity” and we enjoyed the
company of a special guest, Phyllis
Krystal, which made those days
unforgettable.
End of April we rehearsed for the first
public performance of LASA in Croatia
and performed “The Story of Marty”,
an EHV project in Vrujci, Serbia, during
the Regional Retreat, 1-4 May, for
which we have been working very
hard to present this play and we
discussed the future steps for LASA and
other youth activities.
The first public performance of the
LASA project came to its splendour on
the 24th of May in Dubrovnik, Croatia;
people passing by could feel the
message of love coming out of our
hearts and stopped to sing along with
us.
On the 3rd of June we were blessed by
the visit of Arthur and Poppy Hillcoat to
Croatia, getting inspired on the true
understanding of life; and we did a
Ceiling on Desire Program in Slovenia
during the months of May and June,
giving everyone the change to
prepare a study circle: an amazing
opportunity for all of us.
We met again on the 7th of June, in
Faenza, Italy, this time for the Youth
Meeting, spending a great time
together in harmony and love, doing
study circles, presenting the LASA
Love Express 11th January 3
songs to the regional devotees and
cooking for 68 guests.
On the 22nd June we organised a Mini
Euro Cup on Canary Islands, with the
aim to unify the community and to
work on the vision of integrity. We
organised different workshops
together with our pre-youth group for
the children during the first hour to
prepare the event and a song for the
opening ceremony. We improved our
seva activities at the old age home
and carried out a Narayan Seva by
cooking and preparing many different
menus for homeless people.
“Natura Docet”, a holiday for
disabled youth and their families, took
place in Divignano, 13-20 July, giving
us the opportunity to work in the
kitchen and get to know the youth’s
awareness, touching our souls with
such strong feelings, making us realise
ourselves.
The Ladies Retreat in Sai Prema,
Markopoulo, Attica, Greece from the
6-13 of July, unified many countries
together for a joyful and blissful spiritual
holiday. We did study circles on
Swami’s NYC discourses and we spoke
about communication, oneness, truth,
spirituality with insights on the Ancient
Greek, and many more interesting
topics.
The World Education Conference on
the 20-22 July in Prashanti NIlayam has
been joined many of us, despite the
heat and the humidity, enjoying the
presence of Our Beloved Bhagawan
and the peaceful and loving
atmosphere of the place.
We received a better insight on
understanding and compassion,
thanks to Ivan’s inspiring article: “our
understanding and love should be
unconditional and independent from
circumstances”. A new section in our
newsletter, called “On LeaderShip”,
has been created as a preparation of
the “Sathya Sai Leadership Training
Program”, asking and discussing some
key definitions.
Other 2 Youth Meetings took place in
Zurich during the months of September
and October. We organised our teams
for LASA and the Seva Network project
and we started to practice the LASA
songs, feeling the love and bliss that
came out of our hearts.
We had a brainstorming on the LASA
project in Serbia, which was very
efficient since it gave us so many
ideas, we could perfom a few times on
different aspects of the project.
Sai Vision took place on Murter Island,
Croatia, 3-5 October, where we
improved our talents as song writers,
instrument players, vocalists and
singers and discussed the further steps
to take for the youth activities. The
time for Avila came on the 11-13
October, where we have been
inspired on practical surrounded,
eating habits, leadership and
discussed the Zonal projects. The 18-19
of October we met in Divignano
again, where the energy tripled thanks
to the bhajans, and we had
presentations on LASA, a study circles
on Isaac Tigret and we welcomed our
Love Express 11th January 4
guests from different voluntary
associations and we delighted them
by performing the LASA songs.
We had study circles on patience and
youth on the spiritual path in Slovenia,
where we continued our seva for Ana,
the older lady we are looking for and
we dedicated a whole day to help her
on the 18th October.
In November we added a new section
in Love Express called “Sharing
Grace”, where we can share our
personal experiences with Swami and
our brothers and sisters.
We did a great job all over the place,
sharing our joy and love with each
other and increasing our unity. Thank
you all for being so productive and
inspiring.
Saja Svilar
SHARING GRACE: CALL FOR HELP
Visiting numerous places of middle
and south part of the Adriatic coast
(on the Croatian side) I decided to
spend my holidays on a little island
close to Zadar. Actually the island is
not even that little, but there's
something special about it beside
intact nature; only 25 people are living.
One of those people is my friend,
nicknamed Breza, who gave up living
in capital city of Croatia only a year
ago for the calm and serene life on this
island called Sestrunj and all because
of love. Today together with her
husband and her beautiful son, she
runs a market which is a café bar,
being the only social happening on
the island, at the same time.
The place is simple and therefore
wonderful. It increases the senses of
smell and taste, hearing becomes
sharper, and emotions are glimmering.
One cloudy evening we decided to
go to „downtown“ for shopping at the
only local gathering place. As you
know, time passes slowly when you're
on vacation, and after quite some
time we were still there on the terrace
chatting and beside that, it was
lullaby-time for the baby.
All of a sudden: BOOM! Lightning strike!
But really close! I mean C-L-O-S-E!
Well, we were a little bit stressed but
we went on with our conversation.
Suddenly I turned out to the
neighboring bay and heard someone
shouting: “Is that fire?!!“
Lightning stroke the tree and the wood
was in flame, only around 70 meters
from my friends' house.
We alarmed everyone at once and in
a hip all were there, all of the 35
people present on the island at that
time, standing on our terrace. We
were discussing what we shall do.
Fire was spreading fast, but fortunately
with the north-west wind, out of the
way of our house. We were ready in
any case. If the wind starts to blow
from south/south-east, we would be in
the sea within 2 minutes!
Love Express 11th January 5
I started telling myself: “What now?!
What now?!“ My body was shaking,
but the head was surprisingly calm.
My brother–in-law! That's a solution. I
rang my brother-in-law (waking him
up): „Hey, you work in the air traffic
control! I have a question: Do the fire
fighting aircraft fly at night?“ Surprised,
he answered „ No, they don't see the
electric wires. Why do you ask?“
„Well,...there's a fire....pretty close to
us....what shall we do?!“ And he said:
„Why don't you call 911?“, and
completely carelessly and confidently
(which surprised me) said:“...talk to you
tomorrow...call me back to tell me
how it went....“.
I said to myself: „ Well it's a fire, for God
sake, not a date with my boyfriend!?!“.
It was pretty hot, people were in
panic, but what most astonished us,
was the little baby sleeping in the
house. Besides all the noise, screaming
and shouting, he was still sleeping.
In the meantime, a friend of mine was
talking to the fire brigade and they
said they will be here within 35 minutes.
„Jesus Christ“, I said to myself, „we
don't have that much time!“ I know!!!!
With my palms closed, looking at the
sky, I said loud and clear inwardly:
„Baba, please help, we need big,
heavy, lavish rain! “
In the meantime, people were already
putting on some appropriate clothes
and preparing fire fighting devices.
Some were shouting out of fear, some
were just walking around in panic, and
I was no more part of all these
emotions, but perfectly sure that all is
going to be alright.
Not a minute passed since my cry for
help to Baba and look! Hail started to
settle down, and shortly afterwards
big, heavy, lavish rain...and it was
raining and raining and raining and
raining until the fire was extinguished.
Some were shouting: “Miracle!
Miracle!“, some were jumping out of
joy and some started to kiss and hug
each other.
Very soon most of the people went
down to the market/café bar to
celebrate, telling stories of their brave
struggle with fire, while the rest of us
went for a well-deserved and needed,
and careless sleep.
The next morning, we found out that
people from the island nearby were
ready to come to help us with fire
fighting, but as they said, it
unexpectedly started to rain.
I phoned my brother-in-law and my
sister and they told me they were not
worried not even for a moment,
because something was telling them
not to panic and how it all will be just
fine.
And me? Well, I am just grateful to be
able to share my experience with you;
the story about our dear Baba always
watching and looking after us.
If we ask him for help with total
surrender, without any fear and with
deep faith and if we let go and let him
do, then there is nothing to be worried
about.
And one more thing I forgot to tell you!
The little baby in the house (who, by
the way, wakes up on every minor
rustle) was blissfully sleeping until the
morning.
Tanja Mihoci
Croatian Sai Sister
Love Express 11th January 6
ON LAEDER-SHIP
The question that has been made was:
“What do you understand by self-
leadership?” This is actually one of the
SSLTP topics.
Sherif, one of our brothers from Spain,
says: “How to lead oneself is a great
challenge. To be led means to put
faith in others. But to lead oneself
means to have faith in yourself. That is
much more difficult because it means
you always know what the leader
thinks and feels. And all doubts are
your doubts. You are asking and
answering. So the first step is to build
self-confidence. You can do that by
making promises to yourself and keep
them. The more you learn to trust
yourself the better leader you'll be for
yourself. People look for leadership
because they are looking for
somebody superior to themselves. So
you have to consider yourself a
superior person to put trust in yourself.
Integrity is the key. Unity of thought,
word and deed. Baba says first have
faith in yourself and then in God.”
The relevance of this question is due to
the importance of self-inquiry, which is
essential for everyone on the spiritual
path to improve. Asking yourself if you
did well from a wider point of view,
taking into consideration all the
aspects of life is a good exercise to
discover yourself. This will lead you to
self-awareness and self-realisation. This
is the main lack among humanity and
the reason why people refuse to take
responsibilities, they have many fears:
fear of change, fear of not being able
to cope with the new situation, fear of
being hurt, fear of loss and maybe
some more. “Why fear when I am
here?” Swami says. Just relax, life is a
game, enjoy it, play it, Swami will take
care about the rest.
Self-leadership is part of the greater
concept of “TO BE, which is the source
of leadership; to be a person of
character” as Sai Baba´s Mahavakya
on Leadership says, it is 80% of what a
good leader defines. I am sure you all
questioning yourself, finding your way
through life, realizing yourselves: you
are all leaders of yourself, so “never,
never, never, never give up” as
Winston Churchill once said.
SSLTP sounds familiar, right? Finally Sai
time has come to announce you the
modules dates and locations for the
pilot of the Zone 6 Sathya Sai
Leadership Training Program.
There will be 4 weekends in which we
will give an insight of leadership
through 8 modules (2 modules per
weekend). The modules contents are
still under construction and will be
announced in the coming newsletter.
Since Zone 6 is spread through 3 time
zones from Romania to Portugal we
wanted to give all the countries an
equal opportunity to participate. At
the same time, we wanted to achieve
synergy and oneness by having all the
youth together. We therefore reached
a compromise solution by which the
first and the last weekend would be
done together with all the participants,
while the middle 2 weekends would be
done in 2 locations separately for
groups A and B.
Love Express 11th January 7
1. WEEKEND ONE, 28 Feb. - 2 March,
Mother Sai, Divignano - Italy (for all
participants).
2. WEEKEND TWO GROUP A, 10-13
April, Mother Sai, Divignano - Italy (for
Region 62 and those from Region 61
that can travel again).
WEEKEND TWO GROUP B, Date to be
agreed, Croatia (for Croatian, Bosnian,
Serbian and other youth from Region
61).
3. WEEKEND THREE GROUP A,
October 30 - 2 November, Mother Sai,
Divignano - Italy (for Region 62 and
those from Region 61 that can travel
again).
WEEKEND THREE GROUP B, October
during Croatian National Conference
(For Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian and
other youth from Region 61).
4. WEEKEND FOUR, ALL TOGETHER,
Date to be announced, Mother Sai,
Divignano - Italy.
If, for example, it is easier and cheaper
to fly from Greece to Milan than from
Greece to Croatia, Greeks should go
to Milan meetings. The same applies to
other countries.
We are looking forward to seeing
diversity in Mother Sai unity in
Divignano, Italy.
The leadership committee
CROATIA
Dear Zone 6 Sai Youth,
Looks like so many projects are going
on in Croatia but when it comes to
sharing news for the Zonal newsletter
suddenly you are speechless and it
seems there is not that much to say.
Well, the reason lies in the fact that
youth are engaged in so many
different projects of other wings and
the priority of LASA is still a project that
goes on publicly from time to time,
but…
Yes there is a but…Youth of Zagreb
have been pretty active recently and
on their meetings after regular
"program" of Namasmarana,
discussion on Swami's discourses and
meditation on light, they were working
on new songs for the LASA project.
As we hope that you eagerly expect
to hear their new material as much as
we do, let me assure you that you'll be
up to date as soon as they decide to
give the world their smash-hits!
And is there any better way to share
new songs with a whole wide world
than public performance?
Looking back on the year that's behind
us regarding youth activities it comes
out by itself that one of the highlights
was a performance of LASA in
Dubrovnik on 24th of May and
accompanied a mini-retreat, we all
enjoyed those two days while we were
preparing our act.
As we are now a bit experienced and,
in football terms speaking, winning
combination is never to be changed,
we decided to give the world one
Love Express 11th January 8
more chance to experience all the joy
from giving love to one and all by
serving with a song on your lips.
And the performance is set out for the
1st of February, 2009 in Dubrovnik.
You may expect review in next issue.
As this time of the year make us
recollect memories to see what we
have done and what yet has to be
done, it is a perfect moment to take a
minute or two to think about our true
self.
As we do, it's good to have in mind a
quote from Star Wars: "There is no try,
just do!"
May all of you find yourself in 2009.
Aware of every moment of your lives
with inner calmness and acceptance
for whatever may come your way.
May you all be happy all the time and
may you share this happiness with all
that you meet on you way back to
Self. Blessed be.
Youth of Croatia.
SERBIA
This year the youth was very much
involved in the Swami's birthday
celebration. We prepared two skits.
One was about Swami's childhood,
and the second was a modern one. In
that way, both tradition and modern
culture were included. We also
participated in all other activities, like
singing, preparation of the video, etc.
We continued with the LASA
preparations. Once more we went
through our strengths and weaknesses
to see what would be possible to
perform. The weakest point is singing,
because there are only a few of us,
and without many instruments. That is
the reason why we feel
uncomfortable.
One of the ideas was to make only a
performance because this is what we
could do. That is why we worked
carefully to make a good concept of
performance with human values in it.
Indeed, we made an interesting
concept which we worked out into
details. Some suggestions about the
places for LASA performing were:
squares, mega –markets, as being part
of some festivals, etc. We would adapt
LASA depending on the place where
we are performing, and we would also
make some service activity at the end,
if it is possible.
Zvjezdana Bijelic
NYC Serbia
Love Express 11th January 9
SPAIN
The youth all over the island of Tenerife
joined together, transforming the
months of November and December
into non-stop activities. Akhanda
Bhajans began on the weekend of
the 9th of November. Considering it
had been a long time since the youth
actively participated in devotional
singing, the one and a half hour slot
given to our group this year was taken
full advantage off and all members
who were able to attend sang
wholeheartedly, charging the
atmosphere with lots of good
vibrations.
Following these celebrations, on the
23rd of November, as a symbol of our
admiration and love to Swami on the
day of His birthday, a seva was
organized by the Youth, whereby
around 50 devotees and non
devotees were involved in the
preparation and distribution of food for
people on the streets. Food items
were cooked in various houses and a
full meal including fruit, juice, a main
course and desert was packed into
bags which were then distributed
around the streets of Tenerife. Thanks
to the guidance of our Master and the
efforts of everyone involved, we
managed to feed approximately 116
people all over the island that day.
At the end of November, we had an
opportunity to work alongside the
council on an environmental project.
We were asked to cooperate in a tree
planting activity in the highlands of the
north of Tenerife. Several members of
the youth group and children from the
education wing woke up at early hours
of the morning on the 30th of
November and together we managed
to plant about 90 trees, increasing
green spaces in the island, which was
a clear need after a devastating fire
burnt down a lot of our tree cover
quite recently.
December followed and the need to
spread some Christmas spirit to those
surrounding us became apparent and
we were able to put this into action at
our yearly visit to the old age home in
Tenerife. People from all over the
island joined together, kids, parents
and even elders to sing lovely
Christmas carols and shower the
residents with affection and gifts which
were partly prepared by the children
of the education wing of the
Organization.
Lastly, and due to the success of our
previous food distribution service on
Love Express 11th January 10
Swami's Birthday, it was decided to
distribute food once again to people
with no shelter on the 25th of
December - Christmas day. The youth
group planned and organized this
activity involving a lot more people in
order to reach out to a larger crowd
on the street. 120 hungry mouths were
fed putting an extremely satisfactory
end to two months of full force
activities.
Youth of Tenerife
AGENDA
The agenda is thought to inform the Sai Youth about the future Sai activities of our
zone and t give the opportunity to whoever is interested to participate in any of the
following events a/o to visit the Sai family in any other country of our zone. Please
contact your National Youth Coordinator for further information.
24th January 2009: National Youth Meeting, Zurich – Switzerland (National Event)
1st February 2009: LASA Public Performance, Dubrovnik – Croatia (National Event)
28th February 2009: National Youth Retreat, Zurich – Switzerland (National Event)
28th February-2nd March 2009: SSLTP, Divignano – Italy (Zonal Event)
March 2009 – to be confirmed: National Youth Retreat – Croatia (National Event)
Prasanthi Nilayam, 24th December
In one's life, the years sixteen to thirty are the most precious.
This is the period when all of one's faculties and energies are
at their peak. Hence one should strive to make the best use
of this period. Noble qualities like self-confidence, sacrifice,
aspiration and courage must be acquired then.
If this time of one's life is wasted, there will only be failures in
later years. Bad thoughts and bad practices should be
eschewed altogether. During this crucial period, one should
try to understand the purpose of life and concentrate one's
efforts on achieving one's ideals. No spiritual effort is possible
when one has dissipated one's physical and mental abilities.
BABA
Love Express 11th January 11
Love Express ©
SSO Zone 6 – Youth Newsletter
Love Express is the only zonal youth
publication of the Zone 6 Sathya Sai
Organisation updated every two months.
These pages may be reproduced,
distributed, and transmitted in any form,
by any means, provided that: (1) no text
or photographs are altered; (2) the
copyright and website information are
included with every set of pages; (3) it is
not sold for a profit; (4) no fees are
charged for distribution.
Publisher: SSO Zone 6 Youth Wing
Editor: Saja Svilar
Zone 6 Youth Coordinator: Ivan Bavcevic
Zone 6 website: www.sathyasai-zone6.org
International website: www.sathyasai.org
We offer Love Express, at the Lotus
Feet of Our Beloved Bhagavan
With humility, love and gratitude.
May our hearts, hands and minds be
In harmony with your thoughts words
And deeds, always suffused with
Divine love and eternal bliss.
Jay Sai Ram.