Lot of things happened over the weekend. On Friday (May 13) was the birthday of Sri Sri Ravishankar (fondly known as Guruji), so we had a satsang at the Art of Living Center. The satsang had a few firsts, this was one of the few birthday satsang that started off with a Guru Pooja, we did a different meditation than we usually do during satsangs. As usual for any Art of Living activity we ended the session with a lots of food. After the birthday celebration I reached home and saw Guruji’s birthday message in 3 different languages Kannada, Hindi and English.
On Saturday we had organized a volunteering activity at Capital Area Food bank. 11 of us showed up and helped the food bank sort out the donated food (mostly cans and boxes, no fresh produce). There was a lot of learning from the food bank activity.
- To volunteer at the food bank, you need to be wearing closed toe shoes (no sandals allowed)
- Canned foods were kept even after 2 years of expiry date
- Peanut butter, Mayo and Tomato Sauce unless sealed inside the bottle with the aluminum foil, were not kept.
- Mayonnaise was kept if it was within 10 months or so of expiry
- If the can had a dent and it was expired, and the first 3 ingredients are tomato, those were thrown away
- Baby food were only kept if they had at a minimum of 3 months of shelf life
- All food came through donations and I was amazed to see people had donated things that were 5 or 6 years beyond expiry
- The 11 people who showed up had good fun, we plan to go back again in the near future to do it again
And on Sunday I went for my session of Meru Chikitsa, I have already written about it.
1 comment:
Thanks for Sharing this Manju. It sure was a very special experience at the Food Bank. When I go to buy food I NEVER pick things for my family and specially my kid with an expiry date less than an year and to see that we have the same life surviving in other beings around us with the same food which expired 2 yrs back and that too as a blessing - "Thanking God they did get something". Yet at times we carry the feeling what we get isn't the best.
How thanklessly we live our life's. Not appreciative of how much we have been given and blessed with; every single grain of food or breath of life and much more.
It was also so special to have that feeling that we are blessed and fortunate that we can be of any help to people around us and there is SO MUCH that we can do by just being there. Every little input counts.
We were there for around an hour and at the end they told us that we helped with SO MANY meals for SO MANY people and that gave me such a WONDERFUL wonderful feeling NOTHING ever could. Though what I did was NOT EVEN a drop in the ocean.
Also; I made a new friend that day; a 14years old lovely friend who was with me helping on my table. It was nice to see how lovingly those students after there school had come to the FoodBank just to helpout instead of sitting in front of the laptop and playing video games etc.
Can't stop sharing more. It sure was AN AMAZING AND VERY SPECIAL experience.
Love
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