As Christmas approaches us this year, I look forward to attending Crisis Over Christmas - an opportunity to serve London’s homeless this festive period. Here is an account written at the tail end of 2003 of my first and only experience of serving at a Crisis homeless shelter on 26th December 2003, alongside the Young Jains team…

photo credit: Clive Power

Wide-awake at 3am, I knew it was to be a deeply heart-warming day. One thing I can say about a morning shift with a 7:45am start on Boxing Day is that it’s an easy drive down the A5 - never seen Edgware Road so traffic-free!

On arrival at the warehouse in South East London, we headed to the registration desk, were given our name badges and directed over to the volunteers’ area. An entertaining briefing session was concluded with the volunteers dispersing into groups. A shout for 8 people to help out in the kitchen led me to my calling for the morning.

What did kitchen duty consist of for me? Topping, tailing and shredding parsnips for soup, peeling and chopping onions, washing and shredding lettuce, and waste disposal. If you’re reading this and you know my mum, don’t blab it - you KNOW I’ll be expected to do more in the kitchen at home. What was great about kitchen duty for me? We got trained by an ex-professional chef, were offered hot or cold drinks throughout, and had awesome conversations with some students, a physiotherapist from Edinburgh, and a London based paediatrician. As for chopping onions, it must be the first time I’ve cried so much in years - and about time too!

Around midday, I decided to explore other areas of the shelter. As I talked with several of the guests, I found that many of them really did want someone to share their thoughts with. There’s this one guy, we’ll call him Mr L, 6′6″, waiting for his turn in the clothes ticket queue, who had trouble finding shoes that would fit him. Empathising is when you put yourself in someone else’s shoes, and I knew right then how he must have been feeling. I myself have size 15 feet! In the few days that Mr L was at the shelter, he told me he’d transformed his appearance, and donned a groovy haircut. Crisis goes well beyond a simple meal - guests get advice, haircuts, spiritual healing, computer skills, art skills, an abundance of cakes, and much more.

Back in the volunteers’ area, a call came out for outdoor duty. At the front gate, my role was to filter through anyone who arrived. Guests line up to get searched for illegal possessions and guest transport vehicles drop off guests just outside the gate. Certain individuals are banned from Crisis for reasons of bad behaviour or drug dealing, and must not be allowed in. Some of the guests that filter through have an amazingly polite attitude about them, and you know their hearts are being touched when they receive food, shelter and love, without necessarily having to reciprocate.

Whilst on Front Gate Duty, a gentleman who we’ll name Mr G approached me. He’s a Big Issue vendor and was volunteering at Crisis. Mr G greeted me with such warmth, and was surprised to see a young Asian working with the homeless. In his years of selling Big Issue on the streets of London, not a single Asian person had bought a copy from him. When talking with others about this, I found that a common perception is that Asians are tight-fisted - plain and simple. To find out more about Big Issue, I checked out www.bigissue.com and learned that the Big Issue, a news and current affairs magazine, provides opportunities for people facing homelessness to help themselves. Some members of the public choose not to buy this magazine from vendors such as Mr G because they are concerned about how vendors spend their money. The Big Issue believes that all people must take responsibility for themselves, and homeless people have as much right to spend their earnings as they wish as anyone else.

As I was warming up with a hot coffee, a call was made for an internal job of sorting jackets. As we were placing the jackets into the various boxes, we realised just how quickly these jackets will disappear. Much of the clothing was of high quality, and gratefully received by the guests.

In between tasks, the idea was to head into the volunteers’ area, where there were opportunities to mingle with other volunteers, have some food and hot drinks, and wait for a request for the massive variety of jobs that were available to take on such as refereeing a football match. A request came for cigarette rollers - experienced or ready to learn. I was in the latter category and my first ever rolling attempt was impressive, if I may say so myself. The rolling team was challenged to fill up 4 cups worth of rolled cigarettes so that a large number of cigarettes could be distributed out to the guests in each of the 4 main zones. Although I had started rolling quite well, the quality of my cigarettes appeared to decrease fast. Others on the Young Jains team who had never done it before seemed to be naturals!

In the final hour of the shift, some volunteers were needed to clean the guest areas, including sweeping the carpeted floors. Guests sleep on the bare floor with just a blanket covering them, and it’s essential the floors are kept clean. It’s also nice to leave the areas in a better state than they were found for the next shift to take it to a greater level.

Wrapping up now… Following the Young Jains team photo shoot, a Crisis green badge (one of the volunteers who ran the shelter) thanked all “The Jains” for supporting Crisis this year and every year. Those who had no other commitments for the evening then made their way over to Yogi Jis for the traditional YJ post-event social.

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Crisis is a national charity that fights homelessness and empowers people to fulfil their potential and transform their lives.

During Christmas, Crisis provides Centres across London for homeless people, offering hot meals and a wide range of essential services.

Dates: 23rd - 30th December 2007
Times: daytime slot, evening slot, night slot
Location: London - specific location will be disclosed by Crisis nearer the time
Advanced Registration:
http://www.crisis.org.uk/page.builder/crisis_open_christmasnew.html
Group on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5468753268

Event details from the Crisis website…

If you are homeless or living in hostel accommodation, Christmas can be a lonely and depressing time. For the past 35 years, Crisis Open Christmas has helped to alleviate that loneliness, providing Christmas Centres across London from 23 – 30 December that not only offer vital companionship, hot meals and warmth, but a wide range of essential services that homeless people do not normally have access to.

In 2006 over 6500 volunteers gave up their time over the Christmas week to support our work. If you are interested in volunteering at the next COC you can do so in five ways.

General volunteer: This role gives you an opportunity to take part in a variety of tasks which ensure the safe and effective running of the Centre. Tasks such as welcoming guests and serving food, to washing hair and sorting bedding. We need about 85 per cent of volunteers to carry out this role.

Support volunteer: Join the team that makes the COC happen! From logistics and operational roles to driving vehicles, coordinating food deliveries to being a translator, we need key people to help deliver the event.

Services volunteer: Use your specialist skills to help deliver the variety of services we provide our guests – medical professionals, advice practitioners, hairdressers, massage therapists, chefs and many more

Learning & Skills: Help us inspire and entertain our guests. Learning and skills volunteers have a unique opportunity to engage with our guests on a very personal level. Learning and skills covers a wide range of activities.

Set up volunteers: Help get the Centres ready for our guests before the 23 Dec, and put them back to normal after the 30 Dec.

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Conscious hip hop artist Common, embraces the art form’s core principles: storytelling and presenting music with a message.

Here, Common presents “A Dream”, and gets us thinking about the dreams that we’re all working towards.

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A second equally powerful tune by Common is “The Light”…

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Los Angeles based Hip Hop group Karmacy communicate a dialogue between two brothers.

With a part gujarati conversation, they tell a story about how one brother wants to escape the boredom of Indian life to explore the girls and money of America and become a millionaire. The other brother asks him what’s the need?

How often are we running outside ourselves and to other parts of the world to seek fame, fortune, excitement, love, and acceptance?

On the other hand, why hold back from travelling and exploring?

When we decide to venture out into the wider world, what’s the incentive, and what’s the intention? What are we expecting from the experience and what are our motives behind our actions?

Drawn out from they lyrics of “Blood Brothers” by Karmacy, you’ll find that “nomatter where I go, my soul is in the same place”.

So often I hear about individuals and organisations who are passionate about CREATING change. It’s even mentioned in the tail end of a What’s Bubbling post about social entrepreneurship.

It seems that so many people involved in the non-profit / charity sector are deeply addicted to “saving the world”. According to the Born on the Mountaintop experience, “You have the Save the World addiction when you believe you must make a positive impact on the world before you can feel completely acceptable”.

The problem with this is that you can’t actually CREATE change. Change happens whether you like it or not. Change is meant to happen, and it will take place whether you are a part of it or not. It’s happening all the time. You have no real control over it, or over the consequences of your actions.

Any action you take, whether it’s through thought, speech, or physical expression, will be a catalyst for change to occur in the world around you. The vibrations you emit when you take that action will attract the various entities together to bring rise to a specific situation.

This resulting situation could be a new school for underprivileged kids in a rough neighbourhood, could eliminate poverty throughout the third world, could result in the destruction of an entire rainforest in South America, or could even land you a windfall by winning this week’s national lottery.

You simply cannot take credit when this situation arises, nor can you take the blame for it.

Normally, whenever you’re unhappy about something in the world, or worried about an event that you fear will take place, you start to enforce change. You think you have the power! Ha!! Really you don’t. The only thing you can ever do is take specific action, and let go of the desired outcome. Keep your eyes and ears open, look deep inside, and discover your intention behind a specific action that you’re taking. Is it coming from the dark side (a form of anger, frustration, stress, greed, a need to protect your ego, or a desire to deceive)? Or is it coming from a place of compassion?

Do you want to build that new school in the run-down neighbourhood because you’re really angry that the local government just doesn’t care about the welfare of it’s community? Do you want to build the school so that you can be recognised as a “local hero”? Do you have a vested interest in the land where you’re proposing to build the school?

Or is your intention for building the school coming from a place where you genuinely and wholeheartedly feel for the quality of education that the kids in that neighbourhood currently receive? Can you feel deep within you the hardship that each and every one of these children are going through right here, right now? What’s really driving you to build that school? What’s your intention? Does your action arise from the dark side, or does it arise from a place of compassion?

Whether you take action with a dark intent, or with a compassionate intent, it may result in the very same outcome arising for you - the construction of that brand new school for underpriviledged kids. Congratulations! However, this very same initial action, whether through thought, speech, or physical expression, will simultaneously be the catalyst for other situations to occur in the world around you.

The other simultaneous situations that occur are determined by the actual INTENT of your initial action. If you have a dark intention for that initial action, it’ll bring rise to other events that may not necessarily serve you in the way you’d hoped. It’ll certainly plant the seeds that bring rise to not-so-pleasant circumstances in the future. If you have a compassionate intention for that initial action, chances are high that it’ll bring rise to other events that positively serve you in the future.

Fine, you may WANT to change the world. Honestly, you can’t. All you can do is patiently and innocently observe the wonder of the world around you. Focus on the things that you already find beautiful and the things that function well. Pay attention to these things, appreciate them, raise their value. For those things that shock you or make you feel uneasy, then rather than succumbing to the dark side and making a lot of unnecessary noise about forcing others to change, let your actions come from a place of compassionate intent, and through that wonderous place, take inspired action.

Just as the caterpillar transforms into the magnificent butterfly, so too must you take only consistent inspired action and patiently welcome the changes that you’re destined to experience.

What will be the intention of YOUR actions today?

Right now, the sun is shining. Nothing special - it’s a gorgeous afternoon, and the light of the sun is penetrating through the large window and illuminating my whole bedroom. This morning the sun wasn’t shining. Nothing special - the clouds were hiding it, and it looked quite gloomy outside. Tonight the sun will stop shining. Nothing special - the Earth will have rotated so that we won’t be able to see the sun, and so we’ll be in darkness.

Interesting how the sun was still there, doing it’s job, radiating as it was meant to. The sun will continue doing it’s job, radiating as it’s meant to. The sun will continue shining. At times there will be clouds or the Earth covering it up, hiding it from our view, and although it will look like the sun has stopped shining, it’ll just be that our view of the sun has been obscured.

Our experience of the rest of the world is kind of like that. Everything that we could ever want, that we could ever hope to get, is permanently there. Everything that we hope never to get, to never be a victim of, is also permanently there. What happens is that our past actions cause certain things to be hidden from our present view.

Karmically speaking, our previously bound paap karma hides all the things that make us feel good, and reveals those very things that make us feel bad. In the same context, previously bound punya karma hides all the things that we could never want, and reveals the very things that make us feel better.

Of course all those bad things and those better things are just momentary. We want to remove all karma so that we can see our world as it is, completely unadulterated, being aware of all the good and all the not so good, without really reacting to it.

So the next time you’re looking for that perfect parking space, remember that it’s just there where you want it, even if it appears to be momentarily hidden. The next time you want to go on that playful date, remember that the right person is right in front of you, even if they appear to hidden from your life. The next time you want the sun to shine, remember that it will, although it may just be hiding behind the clouds.

If you think cafes are safe environments, you’re right. They’re amazing safe spaces in which you can feed off the buzz of energy that’s around you, take inspiration from all the other customers, and immerse yourself in creative work, and beautiful collaborative dialogue.

You can get very comfortable in such an environment, and when you’re so immersed in your work, without that awareness of what’s going on around you, thieves have a wonderful opportunity to operate.

This afternoon, I was sitting at Starbucks in Angel with a friend for a hot drink. As we were about to leave, he went to get his laptop bag and couldn’t find it. In it’s place was a scruffy empty black satchel, and on the table next to it a half opened sandwich.

The thief had stolen a sandwich (as none of the staff recognised that sandwich being paid for), sat at a potential hotspot where he / she wouldn’t be recognised, swiftly swapped bags (like you see in the films when they swap briefcases) and had taken the opportunity to run off with my friend’s bag, which contained his laptop and some important documents.

I don’t remember who sat in the seat behind my friend, and nobody I questioned in the cafe could remember what that person looked like. We were all so immersed in our own conversations, that weren’t aware of what else was going on.

This incident prompted me to take a look at additional security measures myself, and on the Microsoft, you’ll find an article about “How to protect your laptop from thieves”

I’m still going to keep going to cafes to immerse in creative work - it’s an environment in which I thrive in! Only now, my eyes and ears will be more open than they have ever been before.

Are you like how I’ve been first thing in the morning?  Before even having breakfast, do you just jump out of bed and load up your computer to check your email?  You think that in those few hours between when you closed your computer before you went to sleep, and when you turn on your computer in the morning when you wake up that there will be something SO IMPORTANT that it becomes your priority of the day?  Get real!

How about if you get to the office - what’s the first thing you do?  Load up your computer, check your telephone voicemails, and trawl through your emails?  What, like there’s something SO CRITICAL that you just HAVE to read it right away?  Get real!

If there’s something so dramatically urgent, the right person will find a way to track you down.

Check out this brilliant video where Gregory Mantell interviews Julie Morgenstern who suggests spending the first hour of your workday email-free.

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A brilliant supporting article on this topic can be found at Geek to Live.com

What is your Most Important Task (MIT) of the day, and how wonderful would it feel if you got it completed before you peeked at even one email?

Inspired by the layout of Monopoly, this Jain twist to the game gives all teams the chance to shine out with their knowledge and understanding of Jain Dharma, in a typically warm, supportive, and light-hearted Young Jains setting.

Facilitated by the creator of Jainopoly, Deepa M Shah used quizzes and party games to elicit the qualities required to playfully embrace the often challenging life we come across in our every waking moment.

My personal favourite game involved coming into a circle, catching a tennis ball from someone, and then whilst throwing it to someone else, shouting out a Jain word or phrase. Then, remembering who you threw the ball to, the next time a ball would come your way, throwing it to that same person, shouting out the same phrase as last time.

For me this really helped me build focus, awareness, attentiveness, vigilance, and persistence to keep going, even in moments when the ball dropped. Repeating that one phrase helped keep the main thing the main thing.

The lesson was: if the ball drops, and you go to pick it up, don’t forget to stay alert for the next ball coming your way, otherwise it’ll hit you on the head! It may be better to let the ball roll away rather than get knocked out by trying to do it all. Alternatively, let all the tennis balls come to you, pick up the one you dropped, and with all the tennis balls in your hand, continue the game by releasing each ball out to the group one at a time.

Recently I have found myself following my usual habit pattern of taking on loads of projects, and can sense myself collapsing soon by trying to meet all these expectations I’ve been overloading myself with. I have one of two options to relieve this pressure:

1. Release some of the projects into the world so that other people receive the opportunity to take them on, whilst I can focus on the projects that I need to be working on the most.
2. Continue to oversee all the projects, focusing only on what I’m uniquely qualified to do, and then delegate all the other tasks and sections of each project to other talented individuals who generate much greater value than what I could do on my own.

I do like the sound of the second option, and it gives me the opportunity to be involved in projects that really mean a lot to me, whilst offering the chance for others to get involved. As it is, I love collaborating with other creative individuals, so what a great way to stop hoarding and continue GIVING!

If you’re reading this and fancy working with me on one of the projects I’m currently immersed in, get in touch, and I’ll fill you in on what you can get involved with. It’ll be interesting to explore the special talents you can bring to the mix.

What a truly educational and fulfilling Wednesday evening!

In today’s class, Harshadbhai gave us the low-down on Mahavira and Early Jainism. He started the class by showing the Timeline of India and putting Jainism into temporal perspective.

Here are the key messages (fused with my prior knowledge and experience) that I took away from the class:

• Anekantvad: Every being has the right to have their own belief. This doesn’t mean that you have to accept EVERYTHING. Rather it indicates that you can respect other people’s views, and allow them to respect yours. Afterall, our view of the world is only limited by what we know to be true, and the biggest hurt is created when we do everything in our power to defend that view. What if, although your view may be different, it actually complements the view of the other person? What synergistic solution could you both create, rather than putting up the barriers?
• Ahimsa: Every being has the right to exist without fear of being killed or harmed in some way. However, Ahimsa doesn’t mean inaction. By all means, take action if you’re faced with an adverse situation and the need to protect yourself and others arises. Be pragmatic about it in a minimal-violent way. Wherever possible, do it in an absolutely non-violent way. It’s been said that sitting back and allowing injustice to take place is a cowardly act and is in itself an act of violence – although I’m still unsure of where I sit with this (i.e. if life’s about just observing situations that arise, with equanimity, without getting caught up in delight or anger towards it, then if you’re detached from witnessing an unjust act, is action really necessary?). Gandhi objected to wrong activity that he witnessed, and carried out that objection with minimal violence.
• Anarambha: Avoid starting anything unnecessary. As I understand it, parigraha (the desire to own) leads to arambha (the starting of an unnecessary act). Also, I wonder if this lines up with the Taoist principle of Wu Wei, which is non-doing / non-action. According to Wei Wu Wei, the philosophy of non-dual action, when wu-wei (non-action) is done, nothing is left undone. It’s about following the flow of nature, without trying, behaving completely naturally and in tune with the natural order of things. From a karmic viewpoint, it’s about letting karma come to fruition, without forcing specific situations to take place, and so by not fighting and controlling situations, you embrace what you experience fully, and bind no further karma – so long as you have no raag (attraction) or dwesh (aversion) to it. This philosophy kind of sheds a whole new light on the general message in society that “you MUST make plans and make them work to be successful in life!” What do you think? Should you force life down a certain path, or should you just be an observer of whatever comes up for you in life? How do YOU see the game being played?
• Samayik: This is not so much about the ritualistic 48 minutes sat down in complete isolation, in one spot, reading religious books, praying, worshipping, reciting rosary, or doing meditation. No way! It’s actually about coming closer to the true beautiful reality of our soul, whereby you express ZERO excitement (raag / attraction), and ZERO anger (dwesh / aversion) to any situation that you come to experience in your life. It’s just about equanimity, and practicing equanimity. It’s about observing yourself and the world around you, clearly responding to it, but not reacting to it. It’s about letting karma come to fruition, without binding more karma on top. So samayik as a ritual is INCREDIBLY helpful for us to come closer to our soul, because it keeps us focused on what reality is, penetrating through all the layers of distractions and delusions that hold us back from the truth.
• Aparigraha: Restraining the desire to accumulate more and more. When you want something enough, chances are that you’re going to do what it takes to get it. You might fight someone for it, you might kill for it, you might steal, you might tell a lie to get it, you might negatively influence someone to get it for you. You might even harm yourself to get it. All these things, in the name of accumulation, you’ll do, and as you do them, you bind more karma, that of course keeps you tied up in the cycle of birth and rebirth. Beyond non-accumulation is non-possession. What if you have something, and you hold onto it so tightly because you’re afraid of losing it. Grabbing hold of it, not letting it go, is a result of a deep fear of change that you have within you. You anticipate change, and fear it. You hold so tightly onto things, onto people, because you don’t want it to change, and you end up suffocating these very people. So Aparigraha is not just about restraining your desire for accumulation. Aparigraha is also about not being possessive about what you do have, and releasing it from your grip so that it can flow naturally. There’s a story about two little boys playing in the garden. They see a pair of incredible butterflies, and walk closer to them. The first boy reaches out and catches a butterfly in his hand. The second boy does the same. The first boy, not wanting to lose this butterfly clenches his fist so that the butterfly doesn’t escape. Oops, too late – he’s just crushed it. The physical shell of the butterfly is still there, but he’s squeezed the life out of it. He wanted to keep it forever and now it’s no more. The second boy, however, faces his palm upwards and opens his hand. The butterfly floats out and playfully returns to the palm of his hand within moments. Have you noticed that when you want something enough, but you don’t obsess over how to get it, that before you know it, the very thing you want comes flooding into your life? There’s a brief personal example of that at my post on Travelling Alone But Never Lonely.
• Ahimsa and the Environment: Wow, for me probably the biggest lesson of all! You know what, I’ll let Harshadbhai fill you in on this one. Read the full transcript of Dr Harshad Sanghrajka’s talk about ‘Ahimsa and the Environment’ given on Ahimsa Day at the House of Commons on 1st November 2006. In essence, if we gave enough importance to the elements of nature (earth, water, wind, fire, etc..) as we do to ourselves, then we’d understand that they are also life forms (types of Jiva). By us practicing ahimsa towards the elements, and have restraint in our activity with these life forms, then we wouldn’t be crying so much today about the state of the environment, pollution, and the ozone layer. Seriously, check out the link to his article – you’ll get it!

Following the class, a bunch of us went down for a social at a local place called Spice Rack on Honeypot Lane in Queensbury - the food there is terrific! We talked about our various professions, about yoga & meditation, about 6.30am walks, about the ‘Jain Jigsaw Puzzle’ and about what we each want to get from the classes.

Looking forward to week 3 of the Foundation in Jain Studies course…

“There are only two ways to live your life.  One is as though nothing is a miracle.  The other is as though everything is a miracle.

But without deeper reflection, one knows from daily life that one exists for other people; first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy.

A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labours of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.

A human being is part of a whole, called by us the ‘Universe’, a part limited in time and space.  He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.  The delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us.

Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

Only a life lived for others is worth living.”

- Albert Einstein

And on the topic of compassion, let me highlight the true meaning of compassion…  Com-passion: Com (with) - passion (strong feeling, enthusiasm); to be with another in strong feeling and with enthusiasm.

So we do not need to limit compassion as a response to suffering.  Compassion is life itself!  A quality which could be lived out in every situation, with anybody, instead of just with those who are in distress.

Thank you to Albert Einstein for your powerful words earlier, to Jay Litvin for this gem on compassion, and Kishor Bhimji Shah (editor of Oshwal News) for bringing the messages from both people to my attention.