Tattva

 

As the great Gujarati poet Narasinh Mehta said in Vaishnava Janato, “Par-dukhkhe upkaar kare toye, man abhimaan na aane re,” meaning, “He who is a Vaishnava (devotee of Ram and Krishna) does good to others, especially to those who are in misery; such a person does not let pride enter his mind.” Those who think and transform their thoughts into action for the betterment of society truly make this world a better place. However, this work should be approached as Seva; it is the action that is necessary and important, not the fruit of the action.

Being a Hindu, the principle of Seva has always been an integral part of my upbringing. My parents taught me to show the utmost respect toward others, be dedicated to the work ahead, and be a person of good thoughts and deeds. As universal as these principles are, not everyone my age seems to understand the importance of service. As dedicated as we are to our schoolwork in pursuit of the perfect job, car, house, etc., we tend to overshadow the main goal which is, in my opinion, the advancement of the human civilization, advancement in terms of leading proper, meaningful lives. What good is the technology we build today if it’s not built with the right intention or purpose? The result of what we create is only as good as the intention we create it with. This means that it is vital to do everything without attachment toward the result. Like Mahatma Gandhi said, “You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there’ll be any fruit. But that doesn’t mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result.” Unknowingly, this was how I discovered the level of impact I have personally made on many Bhutanese refugees.*

When I started two months ago, I was just a one-man army eager to help better some aspect of the refugees’ lives. As I visited them every weekend, every visit made me that much closer to them, gave me that much more reason and value for what I was doing. I began to realize that many of them, very capable of attaining a high level job with a sustainable income, had no idea which direction to take in terms of pursuing an education. Hard working, determined to make something out of their new lives, many of them approached me to help them enroll in a local college. Already seeing that this was what I should focus on and with the suggestion of Dr. Agrawal and Sreenath, I decided that instead of going home for spring break I was going to stay on campus to work with the Bhutanese youth. During my 10 day spring break, I alternated my meetings with the Bhutanese youth at West Park and Cleveland Heights in Cleveland, working with them one-on-one to try to understand their concerns and assess their academic situation. Project Vinaya Vidya was the title I gave the project, with “Education is necessary to turn knowledge into Power” as its subtitle. In addition, during these 10 days I spent time with many of them finding out their level of education, their academic interests, current position, and future goals. With this information I designed a college level resume for each one of them that they could use to provide straight-forward information to college counselors. In addition to educating them about the college application process, I also spent a few days sitting with the younger kids tutoring them in math, reading comprehension, and chemistry, motivating them to work hard and keep up their grades. Archimedes once said, “Give me a level long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.” Even though it might take one person to inspire and motivate the world, it takes a whole group of people with a common goal to use such inspiration and motivation to make a difference. 

At the end of my 10 day “Vistarakship,” an event was organized to promote two projects: Project Vinaya Vidya and Project Mitralaya. Project Vinaya Vidya started off with a Saraswati Pradana through which we prayed that nothing would stop this new generation of Bhutanese-Americans in their goals and endeavors. Then I gave a presentation that primarily focused on the American education system and what those who are in high school, and those who already have three-year degrees from back home need to do in order to enroll in college. In addition, we had the local Cuyahoga Community College counselors come in and give a presentation on their own programs, including placement tests, foreign student transcript evaluation, financial aid, career counseling programs, and primarily the education system. After this, Professor Sreenath of the EECS Department at Case Western gave a presentation about enrolling in vocational, associate degree and four year colleges. exhorting the youth to think five and 10 years into the future while acknowledging the immediate needs of survival. At the end of the event, I gathered all the Bhutanese youth I worked with over the spring break to meet the final goal of the entire project: enroll them into a local community college. I spent about two hours sitting with each of them and going over the application for the community college with the help of a few volunteers I gathered a few days earlier. I described to them the next steps we would be following after the initial enrollment. Currently, most of the youths’ transcripts are being evaluated; as soon as this is done we will be working on financial aid and going over the importance of FAFSA. Many of the students will be enrolling either late summer and/or early fall. 

Through this entire process, what has kept me motivated and focused on helping these students is the Bhagavad Gita. During the thirty minute ride to visiting the refugees, I read the Gita trying to understand why I do, what I do. When one considers work as divine service (“To serve Humanity is to Serve God”), one can do it anywhere, at any time. Doing Seva is uplifting yourself, your people and your world. It is a practice that feeds us spiritually and awakens us to the greater truth of our own being. Self-realization, Atma Jnana, is the knowledge of one’s self, knowing that one’s body is only his or her material existence but whatever he or she does, their soul endures and it is that soul that is atomic in its nature. Doing such Seva enriches, nourishes, and rejuvenates the inner-self, making one realize the importance of one’s work in every aspect of their life. 

Seeing the success of what I have accomplished in less than four weeks and the impact I have made without any expectations, I wanted to expand my service work beyond what I individually was doing. During the Vinaya Vidya event many of the volunteers present there have seen the power that philanthropy can do therefore; motivating them through such an event gave me a reason to start something big. With the advice of Dr. Sreenath and motivation of Dr. Agrawal, I created the Case Western Chapter of Hindu YUVA, Youth for Unity, Virtues, and Action. The goal of this student organization is to raise awareness through Hindu culture, principles, and values by promoting philanthropic work for the development of the Case community and the local Cleveland area. In addition to the main goal of spreading philanthropy, CWRU Hindu YUVA also promotes the importance of promoting Hindu culture among the general body in order to preserve the culture and traditions in terms of understanding the meaning behind Hindu slokas, mantras, philosophy, and so on. Such an establishment is important because as a new generation of Hindus born and brought up in the United States, we are responsible for continuing the culture, the ‘sampradayas,’ the values, and the principles given to us by our immigrant parents who want nothing but the conservation of our invaluable roots because your roots are what give you the identity of who you are. Various events are planned in the fall through which CWRU YUVA will work towards hosting more events like Vinaya Vidya in collaboration with local student organizations that want to spread philanthropy expanding the scope of doing Seva on a bigger scale. Personally, my quest to spread peace has just begun. As Swami Vivekananda would say, “You cannot help anyone, you can only serve.” Arise Awake and Stop not till the Goal is Reached!

*For more information about the Bhutanese Refugee Empowerment project, please visit www.sewausa.org.

 

Sai is an undergraduate student at Case Western Reserve University. He is majoring in mechanical and aerospace engineering with a minor in astronomy. He is also a varsity cross country and indoor and outdoor track runner for his university. He is the founder and president of CWRU Hindu YUVA.

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This entry was posted on Friday, May 1st, 2009 at 7:12 am and is filed under Reflections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.