Few Random Tidbits ...

After returning from a meditation retreat, Rohit wrote this epic post that covers a lot of insightful ground: Prisoner's Dilemma  It even features Preeta. :)

While I'm at it, a few tidbits from here and there ... 

Inspired by Nimo and Guri's intent, our climate challenge attracted 1400+ folks. On Week 1 call, Nimo hosted an inspiring bunch of kids from a zero-waste classroom!

Fun little piece on how our translations are facilitating many-to-many with 67 countries represented in the Climate Challenge: Many Languages of Love

Speaking of kids, a bunch of teens hosted Karma Kitchen Auroville and received a great reception from the community:

Moriz, who runs couple of cafe's in Europe operated by grannies, left India with a big statue of an Indian diety, and "hugged it entire flight back". Now, he's trying gift-economy pricing for the entire month (with the hope of permanent) -- and promises to be all over the news. They're in touch with various KK teams with questions like:

• With pay-it-forward model, what should be the ratio of permanent staff vs. volunteers? How do those mixed incentives co-exist?
• How do we communicate the concept clearly so maximal number of people understand the difference between free vs. gift?
• How do we train staff so they fully understand the concept and see supporting volunteer journey as a part of their work?
• What is the revenue model for supporting staff?
• Legally, how should we be structured? When people pay, is it a donation or a payment? 
• Is it more complicated to transition from transaction to gift, or better to just establish your as gift from the beginning?

Miyagi-san, having incubated 1800+ social enterprises across Japan, is a legend of sorts. At 2020 Gandhi 3.0 (photo below with Yuko), he felt a call to step up -- so he quit, after 30 years of working without a single day off. He's visiting us as a "pilgrimage", to uncover "Social Entrepreneurship 2.0". Translating for him will be one of our rockstar volunteers Kotaro, who went from working at Blackrock (trillion dollar fund) to chanting 13 hours/day for six straight months in the Himalayas!

Speaking of which, Bill Drayton's Ashoka community is now embracing inner transformation. After a recent dialogue, they are now hosting a public conversation with Casper (with his Nearness project) and I, have invited me to support their Soularize gathering this month, and even more broadly, asked us to help architect a broader collaborative network around "faith and service" -- which translates to volunteerism with the intent of inner transformation. :)

A coalition of organizations is also emerging around #heartivism. 

Awakin Talks' new team of dozen folks is helping build a unique field with dialogues between uncommon pairs -- Intelligence of the Heart and then Politics + Heart. Also excited about two upcoming spiritual teachers on Awakin Calls/Talks: Richie Davidson and Christopher Titmuss.  Audrey (no surprise there!) has been connecting link with Titmuss, who is considered a very senior meditator:

After three years traveling through more than 20 countries, he became a Theravada Buddhist monk in Thailand in June 1970. He spent six years in Thailand and India as a monk.  In 1973, Titmuss spent nine months in a cave in Wat Khao Tam on Koh Pha Ngan island in the Gulf of Siam. He spent various lengths of time with Ajahn Buddhadasa in Wat Suanmoke, Chai Ya. Between 1974 and 1976, he listening to/attended courses with/or stayed in the ashram of such teachers in India as Ananda Maya Ma, S.N.Goenka, Kirpal Singh, Krishnamurti, Mother Teresa, Anagarika Munindra, Sri Chinmayananda, Sri Dayananda, Sri Nisargadatta, and more. (Photo is of Tittmus meditating in 1973.)

I recently met with Victor, founder of "YouTube of China" (and his team), a sharp, well-read billionaire who meditates 2-3 hours every day without fail. At one point, he was moved to tears learning about our deliberate throughline from external service to collective design to evolving consciousness to becoming zero. "I'm in awe," he said. "And ask these guys, I hardly ever say that." He walks over to my side of the table to give me a hug. :)  Among other things, we are now seriously exploring BodhiGPT and GandhiGPT with an SSp design lens -- "An AI that helps you respond to your contextual situation with compassion, which could range from external service to inner meditation to collective community. But fundamentally, these tools have to be selfless enough that  they can ladder a journey from internet driven content to inner-net driven context (field of no-self)."

In London, Trishna is hosting a retreat soon -- with a guest list that includes Clare Ferell (founder of Extinction Rebellion), Jamie Bristow (who got the UK parliament to meditate and now is with Inner Development Goals), Mark Williamson (founder of Actions for Happiness), David Bonbright, Simon Hampel, and many others.

In the meantime, a May Awakin Circle has also emerged in Trishna's hometown of Bakersfield. :) CSU Fresno's Gandhi Center is explicitly designed by ServiceSpace values.

In Bombay, a Laughter Yoga Circle has emerged -- modeled after Awakin Circles. In California, "CF mom and Dad" have re-started local circles once a month -- last one was my first one, and it was profoundly elevating! Inner-net rocks. :)

In East Indian city of Siliguri, Sunita started a weekly Awakin Circle: 

In Austria, Matthias (who is likely to run for president) came out with a music album, whose five songs he wrote "during midnight hours of Gandhi 3.0".

In the US, Eric has been waxing poetic about Christianity 3.0. :) 

In Qatar, Huda Ibrahim is in the final throws of hosting the first KK in the country.

Shayna visited Surat last week, and like everyone else said, "I've never seen community building like this." Apart from the many *hundreds* of people engage with SSp activities every month ("Race to Embrace" school programs, Awakin Circles, Karma Kitchen, youth drives, guest speakers, retreats, and more), they keep innovating -- like an upcoming noble friendship circle (20 deep ties who meet regularly to help each other grow spiritually). What Parag has laddered here, and how he has done it, needs to be a total case study! "And why aren't there such communities in other spaces? Because of a shortage of ladders. :) Why don't we have enough ladders? Because it requires inner transformation to go from me to we, and we to us -- and that's hard. But is there a silver lining? Yeah, even micro-shifts in that direction regenerates virtuous circles. It's nature funded. :)"

I continue to do various speaking gigs, to engage with wide-ranging communities. Like a chat with Martine, a leader of one of the biggest hospitals in the country (who was a Catholic monk for 8 years, close to the Pope, but left due to systemic misalignment with his quest for God) who feels like a deep brother. With another Martin in Germany, :) I casually hopped on a call for his prominent Pioneers of Change summit -- of their 40 speakers, our conversation got top ratings from their 100K listeners; subsequently, we're doing a retreat in Southern Germany next month. :) 

Speaking of retreats, Meghna's hosting genius continues to be in demand globally (like Bettina hosting in Austria, Saionji's hosting in Japan, Hang-Mai and Giang hosting in Vietnam, Jin Wei and Jin Chuan in California). Last week, someone wrote in saying, "I'm in London, but my friend told me I have to join Moved by Love retreat -- how do I reserve a spot for December?" The retreat team in India has just revealed the summer/fall retreat schedule (City Anchors gathering, Business+T, Educating the Heart, Moved to Serve retreats), so we're expecting more ripples.  We are also hoping to create a vertical web portal, just for sharing our retreat information and insights, since that is being called forth by many.

In the virtual world, post our ever-transformative Laddership Pod last month, we are now thinking of doing a "Labor of Love" pod, given the number of people that want to try new experiments (from Rahul B's event ticketing to Kerri's co-creating with animals to Emily's bakery in Hawaii!). 

On that note, Marilyn frequently says to Pod volunteers, "I just sense that our pods activate a connection to a larger field. Can you feel it? I sure can." That shows up differently for different folks, but here's a recent one of an unending stream of gratitude from so many podmates: 

"I am touched by how close I can feel to people I have never met. People who live thousands of miles away from various backgrounds. I have been overjoyed to connect to people living different lives in other parts of the world and yet realizing we are much alike. It warms my heart to know there are a lot of people who care about the planet and are actively seeking to improve themselves. While my own friends feels like-minded, after watching the news I feel like insanity has gripped the planet. Perhaps not. Sometimes bad behavior gets all the attention. I hope we are not as broken as it sometimes appears. I used to think the only thing that could save us is an alien invasion...ha, we should be so lucky. Only we can make the necessary changes...this group is on it!"

We are getting tons of new members and volunteers daily. In our efforts to give people meaningful service opportunities in nuanced environments like ours,  we are launching virtual orientation calls -- starting this month.

Overall, the magic here resides in the activation of heart energy. And that's a group effort, which requires a lot of tender holding. A typical 21-day pod takes 2500 volunteer hours (and G3-like retreat takes 10K hours). That's a lot of heart energy, and a ton of laddership! If we are just doing a content-delivery play, our tech could facilitate this with 100 hours. From a "me" lens, the emergence can feel mysterious; from a more "we" lens, there's a lingering sense that something is *consistently* different here. :) And as the heart expands into the "us", the throughline from here to nowhere evokes unending gratitude. :) 

Sometimes numbers and stories can feel abstract. But I continue to be in daily awe of the journeys that we're collectively nurturing.  Here's a photo from a couple of days ago, of a subset of the Climate challenge volunteer crew, which is a subset of a larger field of love warriors holding up a vibe of goodness ...

Like Danjin's square, I send a heart to all of you across the ServiceSpace metta-verse! :)