Service Space Ahmedabad Family, Gandhi Ashram & Moved By Love Retreat

After having a wonderful time in the US, it is time to visit a very sacred place which became my first home now, Gandhi Ashram, Sabarmati. I reached Ahmedabad at a very odd time of morning 3 am and it was Devesh bhai who got up at 3:00 am and showed me my place. Next morning on 5th July, Diken welcomed me to Gandhi Ashram and I was deeply touched by the way he arranged everything for me. He made me feel at home. We had delicious breakfast at Nimo’s which was supposed to be a surprise :P Thanks to Nimo for making my day which began with Indo-American breakfast followed by morning 10 am prayer at Manav Sadhna :) Sarva Dharma Sambhav (All religions are same). That's what we believe in.

The same evening I and Diken visited Ekta, who is 23 yr old jolly person going through terminal cancer and has 6 months to live. I am happy that I could meet her and give her some comfort. We had a long conversation about Life and Death and it helped her in letting her emotions out. She said she likes to do the painting but her walls were empty. Then after a few days, she sent me pictures of her recent paintings. the activity chart I shared with her, she wrote it on her wall and said I will follow it very religiously and she would visit Gandhi Ashram too:) I learned this from you all only that even if we are able to bring the smile to one person in a day, we have made our day. Be selfish, Be generous. I got very emotional when she sent me pictures of her paintings. Wow.

Moved By Love retreat:
When I was coming to I was excited about 2 things. One is Moved By Love retreat and another is Vipassana from July 17th. I was happy that finally, the retreat day has come and we all were at ESI center (This place is heaven on earth). At the beginning of the circle my eyes were closed and when I opened it I could feel some strong positive vibrations coming from my left side. When I turned towards my left, I saw Jayesh bhai sitting next to me :) Wow..again what a beautiful way to start the first day of the retreat. I was truly blessed to share the seat with you at the retreat. You are a fatherly figure to me and for everyone Jayesh bhai. Now, I know I always have a place to go Home:)




Kishan bhaiya…Ram Ram Saa (Greetings :). When I first met you, I could immediately connect with you. Thank you for the amazing connections you gave me, your homemade Rabdi ice-cream with less sugar :P and hosting me lovingly in the healing space. Meghna di welcomed me into her home and her presence was very comforting that I just opened my heart to her and that was very helpful for me. You are my soul sister didi and without you and the beautiful retreat which you hold, I would not have planned to come to Sabarmati. I was humbled meeting Sachi at Swagyan, we became very good friends and I loved when she said “Aaja tu bhi yaha”. I will Sachi, soon I will come back to my home :)

I met very amazing people with unique inspirational stories at Gandhi Ashram. I am fortunate that I could be an infinite small part of their journey. This wonderful circle gave me an opportunity to share my beautiful and Life transforming experience with some of the most loving people. I am grateful for it all.



Our visit to Ahmedabad Seva Cafe, having the delicious meal prepared by the kind & loving people and listening to the songs, poems, shayaris sung by our artists. Wow…what a wonderful evening it was:)

Following day was full of surprises started with cleanliness activities, rag picking, plantation, Awakin circle and a very heart touching silent dinner. Dear volunteers, we bow down to you for all your efforts, planning, love, and care. After Awakin circle, there were diyas arranged in a line to show us the path for silent dinner. Oh, my dear God. I was in tears after experiencing the purity of the environment, the incense sticks and the way dinner was served by the volunteers with so much love and compassion. Then comes the moment where you get on the floor and dance after years like no one is watching. Thank you Gujjuu friends for teaching us Garba :P But wait…there is one more surprise left for the night. When I went to bed, I saw very beautiful gifts on the bed. Dear friends, thank you so much for the sweet surprises.






Last day of the retreat:
We got up at 5:30 am to do Prabhat pheri, yoga with nature, vegetable cutting for breakfast with bhajans. Sometimes we all need to take some time off and spend time with nature, different people doing new activities. It was a very new experience for me and I totally loved it. Sharing the circle with Jayesh bhai itself was a blessed moment. Then comes the time where we were asked to do a different activity of taking 3 steps and bow down and complete the circle in one hour. I understood the meaning of this only when I finished it. Wow. Whatever answers I was looking for, I got it all. If I have to describe that experience in one line then it would be “Humbleness” and “Follow your heart”, you will get all your answers. Exactly this is what happened to me. The path was very clear to me and I knew what I had to do. I was very humbled by this experience and without doing this activity I would not have realized what I realized in the end. It is an amazing experience :)

Below picture says "we all are one " All religions are one:) And in the second picture, there is world peace pillar, we all pray for world peace here.





Following evening Christopher (We call him Krishna) who is serving at Gandhi Ashram from last 10 years took us to a nearby temple where I did the prayer “Itni Shakti hame de na daata”. After prayer, a lady comes and tells me that Beta, I get my diary every day for months hoping that one day I would sing but never got courage. Today after seeing you coming first time and singing I got some courage :) she said, next time I will sing for sure:)

Ohh that was just the evening. Thanks to Kishan bhaiya that I could meet Pratyush and we had an amazing in-depth 2.5 hours long conversation on Life-Death, Service, and Love. I am blessed to know you Pratyush. It is just amazing to know that we all were strangers a few days back and now we share this spiritual connection with so much of Love and compassion!

I visited a very close family in Ahmedabad and gifted them little hearts. They were in tears and smiling :) Giving is such a joyful thing to do. When we give, we receive many times over. Dalai Lama has said, “BE SELFISH, BE GENEROUS”.



At the end of the retreat, I was in real “Moved By Love”. Thank you, everyone, for holding the space for us. Thank you so much for creating so many beautiful experiences for us. I bow down to your heart of gold!

The journey continued with Service Space family in Mumbai -> Pune -> Maher Ashram.....