What is Seva Cafe?
“Seva Cafe” as the name suggests is an experiment with service(seva).
It is built around an idea of experiment in generosity. Imagine a restaurant where you eat your meal and pay for the person who is going to have meal after you.

This experiment was started 10 years ago in Ahmedabad where seva cafe is run on the pay-forward basis through out the year. We do it in our cities once in few months to experience joy, love and compassion of the receiver and the giver. This time it happened in urban ashram, Pune. Around 70 guests and 20 volunteers joined in this lovely experience of serving and receiving abundance of love, laughter, hugs and of course food.
I was blown away by the energy of the volunteer’s and the amount of efforts they had put in from the day before. It was because of these rockstar volunteer’s the serving started on time, inspite of the scorching heat...

Chennai has been flooded even on the day I am writing (4th Dec 2015).

A lot of people without their choice are welcoming water in their homes, but there are also who welcoming guests to stay over during this crisis. God bless those people who are coming out with shelter, food, recharge top-ups and in their spirits just to help the needful.

I am very overwhelmed with the stories I have been reading over the internet of people opening their houses, people doing recharges for people who are stuck in the floods.

People offering shelter

Ola offering boat ride in flooded areas

Even if we see stories of attacks in the reputed cities all over the world, this blog wants to share a story of love, compassion and help.

A human for a human makes this world a loving place! :)

P.S. -:
If you are not in Chennai, you can help by spreading this post.

• This page is a great source for those...

Yesterday I was speaking to a guy roughly 27 years old, a software developer by profession since 6 years. He and his friend joined infosys in 2009, that friend left his IT job in 2011 and joined as a volunteer in a non-profit.


To this scenario the guy I was speaking to said, “He is lucky that he got sorted so early in his life”. I kept thinking about this line. I believe that leaving a job and getting into non-profit is not always a right choice (his friend might have gotten into a right thing) but that does not always happen, you have an equally good chance of doing it wrong as you have of doing it right. Nothing in life comes with a guarantee and pre-decided future. Its you who make things happen.


Not always your daily job is a problem, a lot of times the problem lies in us and our habits. a lot of times we are bound by the shackles of our habits and in-discipline than our jobs.


I...

A little background of Awakin at Annapurna

Annapurna is a space in Pune close to urban ashram where we have started awakin’s just a week ago, the sunday that went by happened to be the second awakin. On sunday we are very much used to host Meals on wheels (MOW). MOW was started with a simple idea of cooking home made food and moving out on streets. We introduced an hour of silence 2 months ago and now we thought it would be good idea to start an Awakin along with already existing meals on wheels. We cook with an idea of ‘x’ people sitting in the circle + ‘x’ or 12 (whichever is greater) people we would meet on streets.

Awakin process at Annapurna

• 8:00 am - 10:00 am : Cooking in silence
• 10:00 am - 11:00 am : An hour of silence
• 11:00 am - 12:00 pm : Passage reading and sharing
• 12:00 pm onwards moving out with food on streets

Well, when I was sitting in silence this sunday in the...

The story goes long back. There was this boy who thought he had good heart and to seek validation he used to do things that would make people around like him. Naturally, when he started doing things for others he got validated.

He never knew that being selfless is a true sign of a good heart. Doing things for others and expecting them back is actually having a good heart for validation and it is not in its purest form. He didn’t know that purest form of good heart is not expecting anything in return. If the heart is purely good it won’t mind if a particular thing is not well received or sent back.

Luckily for him, he became part of a space where he could introspect. He then realised that heart is pure when the ego drops to zero. Somehow now he thinks, a lot of times his happy and not so happy emotions are nothing but a game of ego. Ego in being praised, ego in being called...

Love is what we need, for all I know love takes over everything and takes care of everything, it takes care of our sadness, happiness, fears, anger, rage and many more positive and negative emotions.

Let me explain why I say this, Just now I was thinking that how in last few days I am feeling guilty for judging people around me. It has been a long practise for me to not judge anyone. However, sometimes out of anger or frustration or rage I end up judging the other human being. I start analysing the other person and come to conclusion about that being. I might be or might not be right about the other being, but it doesn’t justify me judging someone else. People do everything with a context, everything done around us is contextual and its unfair on my part to not understand the context and conclude on someone else’s action. Its unfair because I might just hurt someone or I might tarnish...

Well, its a very different feeling that is growing in my heart right now, its a mixture of anger and sadness. I met an amazing human being today. She is the founder of kat-katha and works in brothels with sex workers and their kids. The stories she shared were very touching. I was moved by a few. I am thinking that why would a man for his own need of physical act would want to buy a woman’s body? I guess its the same as asking why do terrorists feel the need to kill other human. I somehow feel getting shot down by a terrorist is actually better, you are done in a shot but here you might be killed daily and that too numerous times.

Why would someone want to be sex worker? Well, you are not asked you are sort of thrown into it, its like a no option thing. A girl child of an age about 10.5 yrs was supposedly to be sold for 18 lakh rupees, are you kidding me? 10.5 year old girl!! And the...

I am trying to explore the power of silence lately. We are born with the default mouth and hence try to speak all the time. We speak so much in our lives that for some of us being silent or quiet for 30 mins a day is really challenging. I was one of those kind where I could not sit in silence for even 10 mins a day but somehow the events in my life are going in a direction where I am moving more towards more silence with every passing day.

The journey started around 2 years ago where I tried to sit in silence and meditate for around 20 mins at home, it wasn’t very successful. However when I look at it now, I think I have attracted silence in my life. I started sitting in silence for an hour every week at urban ashram and it started growing on me. Then Vipasana happened and I was in silence for 10 good days and since then I am trying to be in silence at-least for 40 mins every day!

...

This is one of the most important question one should ask themselves. This question breaks away all your explanations and defensiveness and lets you concentrate on the quality of the things you are working on. You won’t have any excuses any explanations for not delivering up to mark if you really know who you are doing things for!

I have realized that if I am doing it for the person who’s going to receive my service I will always give my 100% every single time. The reason being that I would never really know who the receiver is and how is he going to react towards my service. Because I don’t know how the receiver would react to my service I would always try to do things which would be less embarrassing for me. I would always try to do the right thing and avoid shortcuts in my work.

On the other hand if I am doing something for myself, I can give excuses and try to adjust with...

Have been going to this sacred place since about a year now and I can’t get enough of it. What a beautiful way of sharing space with people and building a community of love sharing people.

I have been visiting ‘The urban ashram’ since a year now and it is the reason for my happiness and my smiling face on all the Wednesday’s that I have visited there. The urban ashram offers you an unique experience of being with yourself even among being a lot of people. That hour of silence when every one has their eyes closed, you are truly with yourself and you explore more of you than judge and pass comments over others. The story sharing/ passage reading that follows the silence is yet another powerful concept where you can actually reflect on yourself and your actions and share what you feel from within. The passage reading without the silence I feel would not be as effective as it is...