Spiritual CONNECTION! what it means to ME :)

Just felt like connecting with you on some ingrained thoughts. Got writing to share my initial bit, more thoughts will be added as the journey moves  on.........

There is a spiritual connection based on religious beliefs and one that binds us humans into a weightlessness and warmth of breathing LIFE. By breathing life, I mean that the human spirit is so magical and uplifting in these individuals that they indirectly transform the minds and attitudes of others. It is but beautiful, how these fun spirits exist amongst family, friends, children, teachers, lovers and even strangers. Their weightlessness seems to affect everyone around them and release pain in one way or the other. Weightlessness to me, is just a transient state of being , where one lives a life of  honesty, gratitude and goodness in spirit.

With scientists proving that brain chemicals and  imbalanced hormones create havoc in humans and astrologers predicting that the planets have something to do with our personalities, we can go bizzerk, and  start  believing the worst about ourselves and our fate. In this confused state of mind, we are still  faced with a choice to save ourselves from the dilemma in the early stages, by exposing ourselves to a positive environment of support and easing out of expecting security and love from ones that cannot provide the same. Easing out of expectations from a loved one, does not mean that their love is not needed but it just means that their support does not exist genuinely and in-genuine support creates more pain. To some of us, who do not understand  the non -attachment teachings of spirituality where the connection stays in-spite of the detachment, this is just a simple example.

Being in my spiritual stage of life, all I can think of as my life's mission is to embrace the world and it's problems, soak them in, sit back with patience, uncover the honest truth and teach the unruly people how to live with sheer gratitude and respect. There are just some of us who believe living every minute of our lives existence in positive ways affecting the minds and hearts of others. To some, this can appear to be a waste of time and they can start questioning our ways and what we wish to gain from the experience. These are just people who do not connect in spirit, I would think. Volunteering does not appear to them as precious time that mothers who stay home do, to maintain a budget and raise their kids as good humans. If they did not respect a mother's role, what need have I to yearn their respect. It just got to be my absolute waste of time :)

Enchanting Butterfly!

Butterfly! Butterfly! I love your Life!  Beautiful are the words that come to mind when I watch you fly from flower to flower sapping the nectar and unconsciously giving back as you help pollinate for the germination of new life into our Future.

You are my love for Life! For in you I see myself transforming into a paradise of bountiful colors. As I free my spirit and get around just like you do, from place to place, soaking the problems that exist in man and nature, I seem to unconsciously pollinate new ideas for the welfare of  others and watch them unfold into new life for our Future.

MAKING A DIFFERENCE!

As a humanitarian, I am watchful of the ill effects of our actions as humans.. Polluting our environment and inventing new weapons have led to our suffering new ailments, violence, fear and utter greed. As many try to convince us that there awaits an impending doom because we live in the age of Kali Yuga. (Kali Yuga is the last of the four stages that the world goes through as part of the cycle of yugas described in the Indian scriptures), it gets to psyche my mind into a feeling of hopelessness and assuming the worst about our future. To me, looking forward to this impending doom is like giving up on on our personal power to change a situation and help alter life's circumstances. Why should we give up on ourselves, when we can help make a difference?

Looking into myself and and beginning to understand my perception of life, has revealed the answers to  taking on an active role in helping make a difference by living productively. It just required me to look past the negative and establish a more structured and disciplined outlook on the way forward. The steadfastness in purpose let me go about my personal journey with confidence and left behind a feeling of accomplishment that helped me understand the capabilities of my inner strength in effecting positive change . Also, tapping into my positive spirit drove me into exploring my freedom of choice and remain at ease to effect change with a strong strength of purpose.

When I genuinely make an effort to open my heart and mind for the welfare of others, it gets to free that fiery spirit of residing within myself. This has been an extraordinary personal journey, where I have never felt alone, as inside me resides a teacher and guide  that consistently leaves that fountain of love, wisdom and generosity, untapped.
 

"Unknowingly that extraordinary personal power resides in us, and tapping into that inner magic helps us make a DIFFERENCE!"

Jaago Re

Jaago Re, a social awareness campaign sponsored by Tata Tea, was initiated in 2008 to encourage voter registration. Since then the campaign has expanded to other issues including their current focus - corruption. Visit their website to register, look for volunteering opportunities, and take a pledge against bribing.

Also check out this funny yet sad satire on corruption in India -

MakeSense - linking people for social business

Makesense.org is two guys traveling around Asia, talking to social entrepreneurs, and having fun along the way (HT ThinkChangeIndia).

Their objective is simple - to share the stories and challenges of social businesses in order to promote and link these businesses to the larger community, similar to what we want to achieve at We Flap.

The web app is still in development, but you can pre-register here. In the meantime, check out their fun blog and videos.

Skills development for women farmers in India

Did you know that 70 percent of agricultural activities in India are carried out by women?

With mass migration of farming families to cities, drought, inconsistent monsoons, shrinking agricultural land banks, next generation food supply chains and processes, new farming techniques, etc., it should be obvious that engaging women farmers and equipping them with skills to cope with a changing agricultural landscape is an imperative.

In practice, that isn’t quite the case, according to an international research project conducted in by the London-based City and Guilds Centre for Skills Development. The report from the project finds that it is the men folk who receive better and most of the training. Women, on the other hand, continue to remain at the bottom of the training pyramid, confined to toiling in the fields. The report highlights the need for appropriate training for women to ensure that their productivity is not lowered.

The state of training women farmers in India is quite disconcerting. Research shows that giving women farmers the same inputs and education as men could increase yields by; despite this women continue to receive only a small proportion of the appropriate training compared to men.

Here is a very good documentary on the state of small scale farmers in India (29 mins)

Pirate fishing

Some trawlers dispose about 90% of their catch as bycatch which means that millions of fish, marine mammals, turtles and birds are caught every year and simply discarded back into the sea because they are not profitable.

I heard this disturbing fact at a presentation by Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) on pirate fishing. Pirate fishing, predominant in developing country waters, has serious environmental and social consequences.

Here is an informative 2 min video by EJF -

Illegal 'pirate' fishing from Environmental Justice Foundation on Vimeo.

Fans of what kids could do

Over the last 6 months, We Flap has been working with kids to develop a new program we are calling "Enrichment clusters". Soon, we will start to document our work in more detail and expand this program across various schools.

We learnt quickly that kids can be surprisingly thoughtful when they break complex issues down into the simplest of terms. Frequently, they generate creative ideas by just thinking of things in ways in which most of us cannot - simple because our adult brains have been conditioned not to think in those terms.

In the spirit of our work in fostering "childish thought", we thought it would be apt to share with you an example of why we are such fans of kids -

Giving this holiday season

Struggling with how to pick a charity this holiday season? Here is some help -

Mint presents data on charitable giving in the US and provides advice on how to give.

Tim Ogden from Philanthropy in Action discusses why Mint's advice is dead wrong , and presents his own take on the best and worst ways to pick a charity.

Online giving - keeping it honest

A recent New York Times article highlights an important challenge that online giving and lending sites face. How do you make your model appealing but maintain transparency and efficiency?

Kiva.org, the most popular online lending site, allows users to lend small amounts of money to microentrepreneurs in developing countries - at least that is how Kiva presented it. In reality, the funds that users donate go into a pool of money for microfinance institutions. Typically, these institutions lend money to the individual entrepreneurs before the loans are made on Kiva. A person-to-person model is appealing, but not efficient. If individual borrowers had to wait to get their money from a group of lenders, it's likely that many of them would end up waiting for weeks. So, it's understandable (and acceptable) that Kiva operates the way it does.

Kiva modified how they explain their model on their website due to the latest scrutiny. Whether this affects their popularity remains to be seen.