Guru Poornima 2014

Enlightening, rewarding and exciting. Three words that completely summarise our experience at Guru Poornima 2014 to celebrate our love towards Swami. As well as performing a role play, two youth members presented a speech updating the audience about the youth wing’s past events.

We put on a play so that the audience would have an insight on what we have achieved and to showcase our ambitions. The play involved a boy who explained youth wing activities to his mother using a variety of flashbacks.

The youth members participating at this auspicious event all met up at a specific location in order to carry out rehearsals for both the speech and the play which were written up by the youth members themselves. This was truly a new experience for all of us as it gave us a new sense of responsibility and team work. After weeks of planning, we were rewarded at Guru Poornima by an enthusiastic round of applause by the audience. We now look forward to participating at next year’s Guru Poornima. 

Mad Hatter's Tea Party

On 8th of July 2014, we derived pleasure in organising a Mad Hatter's tea party for all 65 children at Moorcroft Special School in Hillingdon. The tea party was eagerly set up by the youth members themselves and decorated according to a Mad Hatter's tea party, as depicted in the classic 'Alice in Wonderland'.

The tea party consisted of a plethora of activities in order to entertain the children. The day started off with a surprise visit from a youth member who had dressed up as the Mad Hatter to excite the children. The results were truly extraordinary as they cried out in delight whilst also tucking into sandwiches which were all home made by the youth members themselves and endless boxes of cakes, which were generously provided by Karen Woods, from Just Love Food Company, as they cater specifically for those with severe nut allergies. The children then had an enjoyable game of pass the parcel, followed by a hilarious game of musical statues in which saw youth members also join in.

Therefore, we are truly grateful to Moorcroft for giving us the opportunity to interact with the children which we believe has helped us immensely on our spiritual path to becoming karma yogis, bhakti yogis and jnana yogis. We have come to believe through our own spiritual realisation, at this tea party, that we are born each lifetime needing to "wake up" and once we do that our job is simply to grow as much as we can. This is because we received an outpouring of love from these children as we realised that they had so much to give and teach us. The event truly helped us achieve one of our motives: to help those marginalised in society.

At the end of the event, we received a letter of thanks from the Head teacher of Moorcroft which we all found truly rewarding. 

Below are some of the pictures taken from organising and hosting the event. If you would like to enlarge the pictures, simply click on the image.

 Group picture of the youth members who helped at the tea-party.

                         

Youth members setting up the tea-party.

The Mad Hatter giving out presents to the children.

The children enjoying the snacks provided  

Youth members serving the children home-made sandwiches and specially made cakes.

The presents being wrapped and prepared by all the youth members.

1st Birthday!

On the 29^th of December 2012, we had our very first youth meeting with only 10 youth members. After a year we have expanded the OSBM family to 35 youth members. It has been a milestone for the youth wing, as in this one year we have accomplished a host of charity events. As a result of our undertakings throughout the year, we decided to celebrate the youth wing's first birthday with a variety of homemade treats.

From mouth-watering Oreo balls to delectable samosas,there were a wide variety of dishes presented. One of our youth members also made a customised cake with the youth wing logo piped on. These were few of the photos taken on our first birthday:

To enlarge, please click on the image

To enlarge, please click on the image

Santa and his two elves

Over the next few years, we hope to increase in number by raising awareness through our many charitable endeavours and continue to celebrate the success of the youth wing.

The Ugly Face of Beauty

The Ugly Face of Beauty was a presentation given by Gobikha and Nilani. It has become apparent in our society that selflessness is often replaced by selfies! As a result, we looked at what defined external beauty, which is driven by ego. We then compared that to internal beauty, which is driven by compassion and selflessness. In a world where it has become an obsession to look “perfect”, we as the youth wing wanted to promote the importance of inner beauty rather than the façade which is demonstrated externally by the majority of people in our modern generation.

Real Life Barbie: To view video, please click on the image above

Barbie: To view the article, please click on the image above

Our presentation included an inspirational example, Mr Narayanan Krishnan, an altruistic man who is seen as more beautiful on the inside due to his selflessness. Krishnan provides food for those who are poor and destitute. By providing unconditional love his inner beauty shines through. Through Krishnan’s actions we are able to observe "the ultimate purpose of life" which is ‘to save people by giving’.

Narayanan Krishnan undertaking acts of seva to the community

Quote from Narayanan Krishnan
To view his video, please click on the image above

Guru Poornima 2013

To enlarge, please click on the image

Swami's Visit to the Youth Wing

On 13th July 2013 we were extremely fortunate to be surprised at our monthly meeting by our very own Swami! It came as a huge shock to us as we had been expecting a usual meeting. However, unknown to us, our youth wing coordinator, Ghaya Loveday, had very kindly spoken to the committee members to ask them if Swami could visit us for the first time at our meeting during his visit to London.

For many of the youth, this was their first meeting with Swami, hence it was a very special occasion and a new experience. Swami took the opportunity to deliver a beautiful satsang in Tamil, which was translated into English by Professor Ramnath.

He urged us to imbibe six divine qualities in our life:

1.      Be strong: to have positive and powerful thoughts
2.      Be strict: to display integrity and discipline in everything we do
3.      Be straight: to always be honest
4.      Be soft: to be kind-hearted towards others
5.      Be sweet: to ensure that our thoughts, words and deeds are compassionate
6.      Be beautiful: to execute whatever we pursue beautifully.

The essence of the speech was that each of us was born on earth to pursue our own individual dharma and that this must be done exquisitely. The youth are the torch-bearers of the future and we must help save the world through preserving righteousness and performing selfless service. He used a beautiful analogy, comparing us to doctors of the world, but instead of using stethoscopes and syringes as tools to help others, our tools are love and understanding.

The thought-provoking speech was then followed by dharshan during which each youth member had the opportunity to individually speak and receive blessing from Swami, who presented each of us with chocolates. Swami’s joy at seeing the youth was evident upon his face as he wore a heart warming smile when greeting each one of us in turn.

At the end of the meeting Swami shared with us his delight at the work the youth wing had done so far and encouraged us to continue with our seva. All in all it was a wonderful surprise for everyone and it is a day we will treasure. 

Swami with the youth wing at a monthly meeting

Uniform

We felt that a uniform was central to promoting our unity and discipline as a youth wing. As a result, our uniform was designed, sourced and ordered by our own members. We opted for two sets of uniforms: a green polo t-shirt and green and white traditional attire. The former was proposed for events in the community such as the tea parties that we have organised and our monthly meetings, with the latter being more appropriate for public programmes in the presence of Swami. 

During this process, we had to source the different materials from various retailers, ensuring that the same material could be ordered for new members in the future and that it was an affordable price for everyone. Our colour scheme was green and white. White is considered a colour depicting spiritual purity – a colour that helps to attract positive energy. Whereas green was chosen specifically by Swami because it represents budhi (knowledge). 

After the materials arrived a few weeks later, our thoughts turned to how we were going to transfer our logo onto our uniform. We selected embroidery as the neatest and more durable method. A company engineered a template using our logo. This means that this template can also be used to embroider new uniforms in future efficiently and accurately, hence shortening turnaround time and creating a professional and consistent look for all members. 

A youth member overlooking the production of our uniform.

Our logo being embroidered onto our polo shirt

The boys' Indian uniform

The girls' Indian uniform

Logo

From what started as a simple sketch to the logo that majestically sits on our uniform, the process of designing the logo entailed many technical and creative difficulties. This simple sketch paved a pathway leading to the professional-looking finished product which easily rivals the expertise and ability of a design team. The development of the logo involved the wide scale interaction and collaboration of many of the youth members as ideas bounced off one another. In addition, many of the youth had the opportunity to experience using technical and professional software programmes such as Photoshop as they attempted to put their creative stamp on their own interpretations of how the logo should look.

The logo is more than just a pretty, colourful visual aid but stands as a representation for the OSBM Youth Wing and its core beliefs. The peacock is Murugan's celestial vehicle and the fact he sits on it shows he has conquered pride and ego.   However, the peacock feather also symbolises pride, vanity and ego and so by lighting the feather into flames, the youth are annihilating the ego. As fire, which is capable of both destruction and purification and here results in the sparks of divine knowledge, which is jnana (wisdom).