Hi All Namaskar A great spiritual master once said: "The only option for realization is the meditation of surrender. Resorting to any other means is falsehood and will not relieve you of the burden of the continuous cycle of actions and reactions. To the Supreme One, who is the central figure of all existence, of all ideas of the universe, one should offer only one's mind and soul. One should offer one's most favourite object the quintessence of one's existence." Also, essential to yoga and spirituality is the sense of service to humanity. It is service that assists greatly in surrender to the Divine Will. Below is an article of a recent visit to the Lotus Children's Centre in Mongolia. Didi Ananda. Kaomudi was in Mongolia for a short time assisting Didi Ananda Kalika. She wrote some inspirational pieces about Didi Ananda Kalika's work. AMURT is a relief team which operates in many third world countries. Mongolia is an extremely poor country and our relief centre enjoys the support of the Australian embassy and Rotary. It was featured on a 4 Corners program a couple of years. For more information on service projects, check out: http://www.amurt.net http://albaniansunrise.com/ http://lotuschild.org/ Dharma --- Albanian Sunrise School Another project at the grass roots level, serving those in need: http://www.albaniansunrise.com/ The Sunrise School in Bathore is a project of AMURT Albania. AMURT (Ananda Marga Universal Relief Team) is an international disaster relief and development organization that was founded in India in 1970. Originally working to help the victims of flood disasters on the Indian sub-continent, AMURT now has locally based teams in over 80 countries around the world. This network of teams is able to react swiftly to disaster emergencies as well as to carry out longer-term rehabilitation and development projects such as the Sunrise School in Bathore, Albania. AMURT was registered in Albania in 1995. During the Kosovo refugee crisis (April 1999) we provided food and other relief goods to refugees and their Albanian host families. Close to 7,000 people received supplies from us on a regular basis during the crisis. --- Lotus Children's Home - Mongolia http://lotuschild.org/ In 2002 ... The school / orphanage has advanced considerably since then. Didi burst in the door, with an excited twinkle in her large blue eyes. "I've just done something impulsively, on the spur of the moment. I don't know if I should have..." I hold my breath and wait. After a month and a half of working with Didi Ananda Kalika in the Lotus Children's Centre in Mongolia, I've come to know that anything surprising can occur in a moment and its best to be prepared for the unexpected. "I've brought home eight new children!" She exclaimed, with as much of a shock in her voice, as that force which struck my mind. "Eight more children? " I mused out loud. It was a bit difficult to grasp, given that the day before we were discussing how to fit in the 25 children who will soon return from the Summer Camp in the country side, now that the babies house is totally full with small infants, and the toddlers will need to move into the gers and small sheds which the older children and teenagers are occupying. (A ger is a traditional Mongolian round tent, make of felt with a fire inside.) So, suddenly another eight are to join the family. Didi smiles at me; " I just couldn't help myself, I took them out of emotion. Because they were hungry and crying to get into the car, I just couldn't leave them behind." That morning. Didi had gotten up early, as she had been invited to go into the countryside for the day, to visit a hospital, which housed mostly patients with mental disabilities. She was requested to see a three-year-old girl, whose parents had left her, but had no apparent disorders. The hospital staff was concerned that she needed to be moved to a more suitable environment for normal development. So Didi had left, with the idea that she may be returning with one new girl for the Lotus Centre. But upon arrival to the hospital, she found that there were rooms full of up to 20 children, who were suffering, as there was not enough money to feed them all. Some had slight physical disabilities, and some were also slow in their mental development, but many were able to talk to her, and to ask to be taken out. The staff in the hospital also were troubled for their charges. They also reported to Didi that the situation for these children was very difficult. There was not enough room for them all, and on saying so, a nurse led Didi out of the children's wards, and into the adult section, where younger children were forced to live amongst adults with mental disabilities. In that ward Didi met a woman who is slightly retarded. She was taking care of a two-year-old child that had been abandoned, but was otherwise normal in all respects of development. The woman asked Didi with great feeling, to please take this little girl, for if she grew up in the hospital, she would have no future at all. Didi agreed, and immediately, the staff began to also make requests on behalf of other children, explaining that they did not have enough resources to clothe or educate these children, and were at times concerned that they were not getting enough to eat, so that they could grow up healthily. Within a few moments, while Didi was explaining that she could perhaps manage five children, the nurses had the children already lined up, and were writing their names onto pieces of paper and stuffing these down their shirts. Didi was shocked, as she was expecting that the director would prepare five children for a future time, and that there would me more chance for her to prepare her staff back in the Lotus Centre. But no, it all happened so quickly, as the children themselves understood that there was a chance to go to another home, so many began to join the line, asking that Didi please take them. She couldn't refuse their appeals, and so, finally, eight were loaded into the jeep, sitting on the laps and between the seating to all fit in. Then the long journey home, during which time, Didi tried to reconcile her feelings, with concerns for her overworked staff, the space problems already apparent in the home, and the fact that some of these children were of special needs, and would require especially trained staff to help them. Despite all of that, she maintained that something felt right; for she was extending the resources she had, for the benefit of some of the most unfortunate people. These children have been completely discarded. There is a stigma in Mongolia, which is often attached to children who are seen as not normal, and this attitude was reflected in the names of two children Didi spoke to. "What's your name?" she asked two of the older boys. "Don't know" one replied "Don't care," Answered the other. Didi, finding these answers strange, reached into their shirts to see what the staff had written. Sure enough, there was printed "Don't know" and "Don't care" on the papers that bore their names. ... ... ... ... At the Lotus Children's Centre, we now have 58 Children, living between a babies home, that can house up to 15, two sheds, with one room and two rooms between them, and two family size gers, which usually house 5 - 8 people. (A ger is a traditional Mongolian round tent, make of felt with a fire inside.) The children often sleep two to a bed, or lie together in a long row, sharing their futons, sometimes 3 or 4 under one cover. There is such a need in Mongolia, still for these children to be in Didi's care, for if not, some would have to return to the streets, or be locked up in detention centre's if picked up by the police, or be fed into institutions like the hospital that Didi visited, which have insufficient resources to keep them. In the past weeks, Didi has been working on a design for a new building, a two floor home, where all the children can live comfortably together, with rooms enough for bedding, study, recreation and eating, for 60 children. The infants will continue to live separately in the baby home, with their own nurse and medical centre. While we sit in her office, a small room that's furnished like a family living room, two toddlers pry open the door. Totally nonplussed, as one plonks herself down in Didi's lap, she continues to talk house designs. Then she suddenly switches conversation and holds up the small girl for me to see. "Doesn't she look better now?" Didi remarks with all the pride of a mother. " You see how much fatter she is, since her fever stopped last week? " The previous week, Didi had been up most nights, nursing and fretting over this particular child, who had suddenly taken ill, and was deteriorating dangerously. No one could be more of a concerned parent, than I have seen with Didi, whenever any of her children becomes ill. She will sleep the night in the hospital, keep them in her own bed, stay up monitoring temperatures or drips for nights on end, to keep a small baby alive. Her actions are totally selfless. So is the plan for the new home. She talks of how to develop their minds, provide a library and study and computer areas for the eldest, and space enough that the smaller children can play happily indoors, during the long winter, so that their bodies have room to stretch and develop fully. As she talks about all the details of each room, I have to remind her that she also needs a room to live and work in. I think if not reminded she would just as likely end up curled together with a group of these tiny tots, snuggling under her arms. In the centre of this new building will be a space for the children's theatre, to enable them to sing and express themselves. There a number of children between the ages of 4 and 7, whose minds still remain in fantasy and magic, and love to act and sing and dress up like fairies. The older children also enjoy theatre, and now the Centre is looking to employ a trainer in circus and theatre skill, to develop the children's self confidence and abilities. For they have many songs to sing and stories to tell about their lives from before, and since they came to belong to this large yet unique family. These children know that they are also unique. It shows on the smiles on their faces, and as they grow older, in their expectations that life always gets better. Today, there was a meeting with the oldest teenagers, those between 15 and 18 years, who were discussing their futures. What studies they wanted to pursue and what jobs and careers they hoped to follow into. We talked about how much they have changed since entering the home 6 years ago, and how much Mongolia is changing, as capitalist systems take over from communism. And the children reminded me of how much the Lotus Children's Centre had also changed and grown in the past years. What had begun as a daily program for street children quickly grew into a home for destitute children, with all living together with Didi, and a few volunteers, in a small two-roomed house. During that time, the older children spent their time caring for their younger brothers and sisters. Until Didi helped them to go to the local schools, and eventually built a new kindergarten for the younger children of the home and locals. As the numbers swelled, Didi looked for more ways to house them, and built a new infant centre, where new born babies are looked after, by Mongolian staff and overseas volunteer nurses, who help with staff training. As more requests for help continued to arrive on the doorstep each day, Didi began to look for other ways to help the families who were too poor to keep their children. And so the soup kitchen started more than a year ago, to provide a hot lunch each day to local families who cannot afford to eat regularly. With the mothers and children being fed, it became possible in some cases for children to remain at home with their families, a situation that is far better than a child losing its parents. Didi also found that many people in the area could not clothe themselves sufficiently for the long winter, nor afford medicines that the hospitals had prescribed. There is a lot of illness amongst the underprivileged families, resulting in tragic deaths, especially of the children, who haven't the strength needed to fight for their lives in such harsh winter conditions of minus 30 Centigrade. Many of the houses have insufficient heating and cannot afford coal. So Didi also distributes medicine and clothes to people around the area, often making home visits to see people who cannot come to the centre themselves. Her work is glorious. She is continually saving and improving the lives of hundreds of people around her, each day. And, as I come to know her more, through the daily interactions and working together, I find that this life of total service is full of the unexpected. And that Didi Ananda Kalika is herself full of the most wonderful of surprises. ---- RabiŽa al-Adawiyya RabiŽa al-Adawiyya is an Islamic saint. She is believed to have lived from 717 to 801 AD in what is now Iraq. While a poor orphan she was captured by a slave trader who proceeded to sell her into slavery. As a slave she was kept busy with her household duties until night, but once night time released her from her chores she devoted herself to prayer, going without sleep to do so. One night her master caught sight of her absorbed in prayer; he was astonished to see a light miraculously appear over her head which illuminated the entire house. Terrified he went back to his room, where he sat in wonder till daybreak. At dawn he approached RabiŽa, told her what he had seen, and gave her her freedom. Once free she moved to the desert where she devoted herself to prayer. As her holiness became more widely known, numerous individuals beat a path to her door seeking her spiritual direction. Islam has embraced RabiŽa even though it typically frowns upon unmarried life and withdrawal from society as a path to God. Once she became renowned, she received numerous offers of marriage. In reply to the marriage proposal of the Amir of Basra, she said: I'm not interested, really, in "possessing all you own", Nor in "making you my slave", Nor in having my attention distracted from God even for a split second. O God! If I adore You out of fear of Hell, burn me in Hell! If I adore You out of desire for Paradise, Lock me out of Paradise. But if I adore You for Yourself alone, Do not deny to me Your eternal beauty. O God, You know that the only thing I want in this life Is to be obedient to Your command. Even the living sight of my eyes Is service at your court. The real work is in the Heart: Wake up your Heart! Because when the Heart is completely awake, Then it needs no Friend. Sufiyan: This is my prayer: let God be satisfied with me. Rabi'a: How dare you pray that -- when you are not satisfied with God? May God steal from you All that steals you from Him. Let me hide in You From everything that distracts me from You, From everything that comes in my way When I want to run to You. I swear that ever since the first day You brought me back to life, The day You became my Friend, I have not slept -- And even if You drive me from your door, I swear again that we will never be separated -- Because You are alive in my heart. I look everywhere for your love -- Then suddenly I am filled with it. O Captain of my Heart, Radiant Eye of Yearning in my breast ... --- PORTRAIT OF AN EMBRYONIC CEO "It is possible for conservatives to have consciences, although like truffles, they are highly prized because they are so hard to find, rare, and usually, deeply buried." - PORTRAIT OF AN EMBRYONIC CEO: Enron's Jeffrey Skilling at Harvard Business School by Michael Ryan --- If its dinner time soon, try this simple vegetarian dish ... Fried tofu and okra (by Ajita) Ingredients 1/2 teaspoon of minced ginger 1 teaspoon of butter (or ghee or oil) 1/8 teaspoon of hing (asafoetida) 1/2 teaspoon of turmeric 1/4 teaspoon of salt 1/4 cup of water 1/2 package of firm tofu 1/4 pound okra Methods Cut tofu into small pieces and deep fry till golden. Saute ginger and hing in a saucepan. Add okra, turmeric and water; stir for 5 minutes. Add fried tofu and salt; mix and serve.