Why do I volunteer ?

I have been with the Art of Living for seven years; for the first six and a half years I was far from being a volunteer. I met Guruji for the first time, 4 months back and I told him Guruji course vourse to sab acchha hai but I dont believe in the miracle stories that people tell of you. And the irony is that...the last 4 months of my life have been nothing but miracles!

Guruji says, when your mind shifts from an attitude of "What about me ? What about my this ? What about my that ?" to "What can I do for you?"...it brings a certain quality to your conciousness. And you go deeper into your meditation. And then you connect to your SELF. And when you connect to your SELF, you connect to the whole universe. The whole universe is a one big organization and it realigns itself when needed, to make sure that you succeed.

Now, if someone had come and told me this 6 months back, I would have told him or her to shut up and stop the jargon. Doesn't it sound ridiculous ? It is ridiculous. But guess what ? Its true. And I live it every day. And it's not just me, so many people have so many stories to tell of that.

People ask me, working for an IT company and doing the Art of Living...how do you manage time ? I tell them, I dont. Things just fall in place, all the time!

All of us work, why do we work ? more often than not, to make money ? why do we need money ? to pay our bills. We work our ass off the whole day, so that we can pay our electricty bill, house rent, petrol bill, food bill, cell phone bill etc. I mean, I was not born to just go to office, drink coffee, eat, drink, talk, drive back, face the mad traffic, reach home, watch tv, go to sleep? Life is short. When I volunteer, end of the day it feels good to know that I have not spent the whole day working, just to pay my bills. It brings a little meaning to life.

When I get a person to the course, he or she benefits. The fee that they pay, benefits several other people. And in the process, I make a hundered friends. You know, my social circle is not just tinku and bunty.

And this whole process brings about tremendous personal growth!

All the time we do things, where we have something to gain. We work to get money, we perform to get recognition, we want to see someone happy...because seeing them happy makes us happy! When we do things without expecting anything in return, it brings a crazy kind of elation within us. We become stronger. Dinesh bhaiya explained this very beautifully once. He said, if you drop a stone in a glass of water, what happens ? some water splashes out and there are ripples. What happens when you drop the same stone in a sea ? it would hardly create ripples. Similarly, when the prana increases in us, little things cannot shake us, we become very strong.

And thats not it. When I organize a course, I develop people management skills, leadership skills, oratory skills, time management skills...well, its almost an MBA :-)

I am sharing this because I spent six and half years in ignorance. Sitting on a box of wealth and not knowing what lays beneath me. Maybe you should not wait that long.